She held up her hands like a conductor. “Now, let the bidding begin at one-hundred-thousand dollars. Who will bid one-hundred-thousand dollars?”
A flurry of hands shot up and the bidding quickly reached two-hundred-thousand dollars. I was about to put my hand up when I felt someone grab my wrist from behind.
“Not yet, cuz,” Tony said quietly, holding onto my wrist. “Wait until the old bat starts calling for final bids, then swoop in. Otherwise, you’re just running the price up.”
I glanced over my shoulder at him and nodded my head. The bids kept going higher. I watched Katrina as the amount grew. She glanced up at each bid, then glanced quickly back down.
Two-hundred-fifty-thousand…
Two-seventy-five…
Then, as quickly as it had begun, the bidding stopped. My heart clenched in my chest when Lois directed her fist to the Russian and said, “You, sir, have the highest bid at two-hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.” She swept the room with her right hand. “Do I hear three-hundred thousand? Three-hundred-thousand? I have two-seventy-five, do I hear three?”
“Fucking end it, old woman,” the Russian growled, stepping out of the crowd with his glass held high in the air like a champion gladiator. He turned to face the crowd with a threatening look on his face. “It is done, yes? Nobody will bid against Dimitri anymore. Clear?” He wasn’t asking if anyone else wanted to bid. He was telling them not to. He was declaring the auction to be over and himself as the winner.
Lois had a nervous look in her eye. I saw her glance at Tony, then she quickly looked away. Her first was cocked back, pointing in the air. When the first came down with one finger extended at the Russian, the bidding was over. Katrina was his.
“Now,” Tony said, releasing my hand.
“Three-hundred-thousand,” I said, nearly shouting the bid, thrusting my hand in the air like Braveheart leading his men into battle. Lois couldn’t help but smile briefly as her fist came down and fixed on my direction. “I have three-hundred-thousand from Mr. D’Angelo. Do I hear three-twenty-five?”
“You bid against me, cocksucker?” the Russian growled. His fat lawyer was trying to tell him something, but the Russian pushed him away and stood to face me. We were ten feet apart, facing each other down like old-timey Western gunslingers. The crowd took a step back as if they didn’t want to get caught in the hail of bullets. The Russian gave me his hardest look and upped the bid.
“Three-twenty-five,” he said.
“Four hundred,” I shot back without hesitation. My eyes were fixed on the Russian, but I thought I heard Katrina gasp at the amount.
“You motherfucker crazy cocksucker,” the Russian said. He put his hands on his hips and pulled back the leather jacket he was wearing. There was an empty holster clipped to his belt. I supposed guns weren’t allowed inside the auction for this very reason.
I glanced up at Katrina, who was staring at me with wide eyes filled with tears. Call it adrenaline, call it bravery, call it thinking with my cock and not my head, I stepped closer to the Russian until I was just out of his reach. We were the same height. He was broader at the shoulder than me, but thicker around the waist. He had ten years on me and I had twenty pounds of muscle on him. I wasn’t afraid of him, but I knew he wasn’t the kind of guy to fight fair. Still, I doubted he would start anything here.
“Gentleman, do I hear four-hundred-twenty-five?”
I gave him a stony look. “Well, comrade? Bid or fuck off.”
His shark-like eyes narrowed and he worked his jaw back and forth. What little brain he had was weighing his odds. Finally, he waved a hand at the old woman and spat on the floor.
He swept a hand between us. “This between us, this is not done.” He turned with his fat friend in tow and pushed his way out of the room. I saw him say something to Tony, who f
ollowed him out the door.
“Four-hundred going once,” she said. When I went to the podium to take Katrina’s hand, she closed the bid without further call. “Sold, for four-hundred thousand dollars to Mr. Nicky D’Angelo.”
Katrina took my hand and carefully stepped down. I took off my jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. I tugged the lapels tight across her breasts. The look of relief on her face made me smile.
“Come on,” I said, nodding toward the door. “Let’s get you upstairs. You look like you could use a hot bath and a cold drink.”
CHAPTER NINE: Katrina
Holy fucking shit…
Unless I was just imagining things, or having another one of my weird dreams, the hottest man I’d ever seen just paid four-hundred-thousand dollars for my virginity and a couple days of my time. That meant that my share was two-hundred-thousand dollars. Two hundred fucking thousand dollars! The best part was, I would have given my virginity to him for free on the first date if he had asked. He was that hot and I think he was that nice, though it was hard to judge how nice someone is when they’re bidding on the right to fuck you all weekend.
The big guy with the Russian accent scared the living shit out of me. He literally looked and talked and acted like every Russian mobster I had seen on TV. When I thought that he was going to be the one to win my cherry, I think my cherry started to dry up in fear. Then he stepped in and made all my fears go away.
As I watched him hand the man at the door a black American Express card and sign the receipt for $400,000, I let go the sigh of relief that I’d been holding for hours. The man gave him a copy of the receipt and a keycard that would let us into the suite we’d be sharing for the next two days.
“Thank you, Mr. D’Angelo, and congratulations,” the man said. He looked at me and smiled. “Your things are already in the room, miss. Have a good weekend.”