“Whoa,” comes his low voice, like I’m the animal. Like I need settling.
Too late I hear the soft keening sound I’m making. I fall silent. “I’m sorry.”
He drags me inside, setting me down on the wooden floor with a hollow clack of my sandals. My ankles turn, topsy turvy. He frowns down at the white leather straps of my sandals as if they don’t belong—and God, he’s right. They’re from another life. Another girl, one who’d never step foot in a place like this.
Gabriel’s voice cuts through the thick air. “Did I hurt you?”
I can still feel the imprint of his fingers on my arms, the solid muscles of his chest as he rammed into me. Hurt, yes. Pain like rays of sunlight through the cloudy numbness I’ve been living in.
“I’m fine.” A lie.
Bronze eyes narrow, taking in the slim line of my dress, the designer clutch. I’m too broke to even afford a knock-off—how’s that for irony? “I’m ready for you.”
I’m still falling. Catch me. But he isn’t my white knight. No one’s going to save me. “Ready?”
He makes a rough sound, maybe amusement. Maybe pleasure. “To take pictures.”
My breath stutters. “You’re going to take them?”
“There’s a photographer. He’s excellent. Damon would have been here as well to make sure he gets the right shots, to make sure you’re…cooperative. But he has another engagement.” His grin is almost feral. “I volunteered to stand in for him.”
Pride feels heavy in my throat. “You enjoy seeing me fall.”
Maybe I should have expected that, considering my father cheated him. But he already turned Daddy in to the authorities, his evidence the impetus for the indictment. I suppose for a man like him that wouldn’t be enough. Had he been the one to send men to attack my father?
Had he sent men to my house last night?
Gabriel’s voice is bland. “Maybe I just enjoy watching a beautiful woman.”
With his wealth and his devastating looks, he could have any woman he wants. But after what he did to my father, he would never have me.
Unless he buys your virginity at the auction, a small voice taunts me.
He wouldn’t do that, would he?
I glance back down the stairs as if I have a chance to escape. “The photographer’s already setting up? How did you know I would come?”
“Desperate times.”
The men of the Den control this city with wealth, influence. Power. “Familiar with desperate measures, are you?”
“They’re my bread and butter.”
“Drugs,” I say, accusatory. “Guns?”
“Sex,” he says, his voice mocking.
No, my hands aren’t clean. But I still feel out of my depth. I may have benefited from my father’s secret criminal deals, but I never knew about them. “Yes,” I whisper.
“So innocent,” he murmurs. “This is a whole new world for you, isn’t it?”
He doesn’t sound sympathetic. I’m a curiosity to him, something to bat around like a mouse between his claws. “You don’t have to make me cooperate. I’m going through with it.”
His smile is almost sad. “I know, little virgin. You don’t have a choice.”
With that he turns from me and leads the way down a hall.
Dread clenches my stomach, but he’s right. I don’t have a choice.
Part of me wonders why they wouldn’t take the pictures downstairs, with the beautiful crown molding and elaborate furniture. I find my answer as soon as I enter the small room. It might have been a bedroom for servants, two thin beds on either side, the ceiling slanted above us. The window is old enough to be made from warbled glass, lending a dreamy look to the light, almost as if we’re underwater.
There are white photographer screens placed around the room that only seem to amplify the effect. On one side a man fiddles with a large camera on a tripod. He looks up when we come in, his bushy eyebrows rising. “This is the subject?”
I swallow hard, thrown by the lack of hello. I’m already an object to be photographed for auction, a chair or a rug. Not a person anymore.
“She’ll take the dress off,” Gabriel says.
My breath catches. “Do I really need to do that? I thought the sundress might be…”
“Provocative?” Gabriel offers blandly. “Perverse? Yes, but some of the men on the invite list can be rather…obvious. They would prefer to see skin.”
“Right.” I swallow hard. “It’s just that I didn’t have any…any sexy lingerie. Just my regular stuff.”
“Your regular stuff?” Gabriel asks with a lift of his eyebrow. “Show me.”
Only then do I realize I’ll have to undress in front of two men, one I’ve just met. Only then do I realize that showing my regular underwear and bra is somehow more intimate than a matching lace set.
This is something I thought only my husband would ever see.
Shaking hands reach behind me to unzip the dress. The straps slide off my shoulders with the simple movement. I stand like that for a breathless, frozen moment, knowing there’s no going back.