Double Dare
“So?” I asked slowly. “Why does that matter?”
His eyes gleamed again.
“It matters because we’ve been watching, like I said,” he replied simply. “We’ve been watching you from day one, and we like what we see.”
Again, that answered nothing and I was totally exasperated.
“But how? What do you mean by watching? And what exactly are you looking for?” For now, I ignored the alpha’s use of “we.” There were more pressing things at the moment, like my freedom.
Mason threw me another smile.
“Using cameras of course,” he said, like it was completely obvious. “See that over there?” he asked, pointing to a small gray hemisphere attached to the wall. “These are all over every public building, in every hallway, every conference room, every classroom. So we watch whenever we want, it’s no big deal.”
Okay, this was a little creepy. I knew on some subconscious level that cameras were everywhere, but it was different hearing it out loud. Besides, who looks at the tape? Mostly it was just bored security guards yawning and occasionally throwing a glance at a bank of TVs, right?
But evidently not. This was some special ops thing, where the CEO of a company was looking at the tape himself, watching a young female come and go.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “I’ll bite. Your company owns the Union Art League, so you have videos of students. But why? Why me? What about me made you watch?”
Mason smiled again.
“Well for one, you are sexy,” he rumbled, blue eyes dark.
That one made me bite my tongue. I’ve never been pretty, much less sexy, in my life. It’s always been Katie, you need to lose weight, or Katie, you’d be so attractive if you just slimmed down a little. I hate how people always stick that “if” in. If I just lost ten pounds, if I just lost twenty pounds, if I became someone completely different and shot myself in the brain. So when Mason said I was pretty, I didn’t believe it for a moment.
“What else?” I asked, brushing off the compliment, handcuffed hands still in my lap. “You couldn’t have brought me here just to tell me that.”
The alpha shot me another knowing look.
“Well in fact, I did,” he said smoothly. “We like the way you look because your body indicates you’re fertile.”
At that, I had to gasp aloud. What the hell? This was the craziest conversation in the world, bar none. But I couldn’t resist.
“Why in the world do you think I’m fertile?” I asked slowly. “What do you know about female fertility? Why does it matter?”
Mason wasn’t perturbed at all.
“Well for one, our records indicate that you’re eighteen,” he said smoothly.
I nodded, confused.
“That’s true, but every other girl at the school is between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two,” I protested. “So I’m no different from any other female.”
Mason nodded, acknowledging my point.
“Yeah, but not every girl at Union has your proportions,” he continued smoothly. “We like your curves honey, they’re ripe and full.”
I gasped again, stunned. Yes, I have a womanly body for sure, I’m like Jessica Rabbit on drugs. My boobs go out to here, and my ass goes out to there, but guys don’t talk about my body thinking about babies. The comments I got were more along the lines of hubba, hubba, yo yo yo, let’s get down, typical frat boy stuff.
I threw him another stiff glance.
“So?” I asked, completely embarrassed to be talking about my body with a powerful alpha male. “So what?”
Mason looked away for a moment before turning back to gaze hungrily at my curves, that hot gaze running up and down, making me tingle
“Well, my best scientists say that women with bodies like yours have the best chance of bearing children. And your breasts honey, they look like they could suckle twins, they’d be so full of milk.”
By now my face was flaming and I could barely speak, chest tight, heart racing.
“But why?” I asked in a whisper. “Why does it matter?”
“It means that you’d be good fiancée material,” he answered smoothly. “You know, the baby-making type.”
The air whooshed out of my lungs, breasts heaving up and down even as my insides grew weak.
“You’re looking to have a baby?” I parroted in a whisper. “And I’m your baby mama?”
With a careless shrug, Mason threw me another glance.
“Sort of,” he acknowledged. “We need a fake fiancée, someone to convince the family that I’m serious about getting married. You know, that I’m a responsible family man, yadda yadda yadda. It sucks because I’ve been running Major Corp. successfully for twenty years, but that damned piece of paper was written way before that. So yeah, I need a fiancée.”
I gasped again.
“But why me?” I said in a low voice, barely able to control the tremor in my tone. “I don’t get it. What is all this about female fertility and ripeness?” The words were dry on my lips and I blushed just saying them.