“You’re looking at me,” she fucking purrs. Her voice so fucking sexy. Just a little raspy. Christ, I want to hear that voice moan my name.
“Can you fucking blame me?”
She looks surprised by that, by my roughness. “My mother says swearing is a crutch for the simple minded.”
“Funny, my sister says the same thing. But fuck that. I’m a lot of fucking things, simple minded isn’t one of them, I assure you.”
She bites her lip, pinning it under her lower teeth so that the flesh flashes white.
“I agree. Fuck that.”
“Atta girl.”
She sweeps her hair over her shoulder. The long line of her collarbone is revealed, and then the tender place where the side of her breast is pinned in by the strapless top of the dress. That bothers me, seeing the dress dig into her perfect flesh. It would be so much better if it was my hands cupping her tits. Fingertips digging in, making her hiss.
She’d fucking love it. Don’t ask me how I know. I just know.
Precious little virgin getting off on a little pain. Heaven on fucking earth right here.
She turns another inch and I see the fucking number pinned on her, my anger turning into a ball of fire in my gut.
Number 11.
Like a piece of livestock.
I reach around and rip the number from the pin, wad it up and throw it over my shoulder.
“Hey!” She looks at the crumbled paper on the ground. “They said I have to wear that.”
“Well, I say you don’t.”
She considers that for a second, narrowing her eyes looking me up and down.
“You don’t act like the rest of the guys here,” she says, breaking my rage with the song of her voice.
“I’m not like the rest of the guys here.”
“One of the good ones,” she says. Teasing now. Sassy. “A hero?”
“Hardly.”
“What then?”
She smells like fucking heaven. Like flowers and honey. “I didn’t want to come here tonight.”
“Oh, no?” she says, glancing down at my bulge. “Could’ve fooled me. You look…” She bites her thumb for a second before finishing, “excited to be here.”
“Only because I saw you.”
“Is that so?” she quips with a perfect, Texas drip of sweet sarcasm.
I run my hand over my mouth on a sniff, noting the way her naturally long lashes curl to touch just under her eyebrows.
“Tell me your name.”
She purses her plump, glossy-pink lips then answers. “Stephanie.”
“Your real name.”
A slow shake of her head. “You want to know that? That’ll cost extra.”
“A touch of brat only makes you sexier.”
“I aim to please.”
Fuck. Young as she is, she’s also confident. Holds her chin high, shoulders back. Not entitled, not that. But certain. Comfortable in her skin. And it draws me even closer to her.
I inhale hard, trying to get my bearings.
I don’t know what the fuck is going on here. What is this feeling? This need? This desire? The urge to protect a girl I don’t even know. This burning craving to fuck a baby into her without even knowing her goddamned name.
Stephanie.
Number 11.
Fuck. That won’t do.
“Stop overthinking,” she says, like she’s reading my mind. Like she knows me already. She reaches up to my face and runs her fingertips down the stubble on my jaw. “Come into the ballroom. Buy me. Take me.”
And then she turns away, looking back for a split second over her shoulder, like a fucking siren calling me home.
A meaty hand lands on my shoulder, breaking the spell.
“So?” Lennon says. “What the fuck, Marshall? We just gonna stand here with our dicks in our hands or what?”
Snapped back to reality; the game has changed. There is no way I am letting that girl leave with anybody else.
I grab the pen from the table and write my middle name, Daniel, on the registration line.
“See something you like?” Victor asks.
I don’t say anything. But I know the answer.
There is no universe in which I don’t make her mine.
There is no reality in which she doesn’t belong to me.
Princess, it’s time to come home.
God be with any other motherfucker who raises his paddle on lot number 11.
CHAPTER 3
Lexie
I’m plucked, waxed and polished, totally virginized, and it’s almost my turn.
They’ve dressed each of us girls in these dresses with a first communion sacrament vibe, like I wore in church when I was seven years old. Only that was sweet, innocence, while these are all gauzy white, transparent fabric, showing off the thin white bra and panties that each of us are wearing. If they’re aiming for sacrilege, they’re hitting it pretty much dead center of the target.
The air is thick with lust and anticipation, so that everything feels electric.
And speaking of electricity…I peer out from behind the curtain and let my eyes fall on the guy who I talked to just before they rounded us up backstage like heifers in a pen. The absolute ogre of a guy, hulking and dark. Black hair, blacker eyes, rough beard like he’s forged from iron.