As Cage shuts the door behind me, I gaze at my surroundings: marble tile floors, a grand iron staircase that sweeps up past arched stained-glass windows, a sprawling iron chandelier hanging from a high ceiling with dark brown, beige, and blue paneling. I feel as if I’ve stepped into the house of one of those great banking families from medieval Italy that we studied in one of my college classes—dark, powerful, brooding bosses who ruled entire civilizations.

And they were mostly all cruel, nasty people who treated everyone around them like disposable trash. Of course, they were living in medieval Italy so they at least had an excuse for being ignorant and cruel.

The man in front of me has no such reason. He’s just doing it because he can.

I wait for Cage to make that phone call so I can just get out of here and to the airport, but I think he’s still lingering in back of me by the door, checking me out again. As I imagine his gaze on me, prickles rain down the nape of my neck under my hair, then shimmer down my spine. It all culminates in a disturbing full-body shiver that I can barely contain.

“So you’re with the Highest Bidder,” he finally says.

His sexy voice only adds to my reluctant arousal. “You say that as if you’re familiar with the site.”

“I run in certain circles, so I hear rumors every once in a while. This is the first time I’ve become acquainted with it, so to speak.”

God, he thinks he’s really the shit. So above it all.

“Right,” I say. “You never pay for sex, so you’d never take part in an auction for someone like me. You must be fascinated by this new discovery that landed on your doorstep today.”

“Maybe I am.”

The way he says it… It’s not cutting. It almost sounds like he’s relishing the words, imagining things about me behind my back that involve taking off my sweet little dress and exploring every throbbing inch of me.

But he couldn’t be doing that. Five minutes ago he couldn’t get me out of his sight quickly enough.

I pick at the hem of my dress, fidgety. “Listen, I hate to impose, but after you use your phone to arrange a ride, can I also call my travel site and see what their soonest departing flight back to Colorado Springs is?”

My subtle hint to have him just hurry up already and get on that phone seems to entertain him, because I think I hear him laugh quietly, then say, “You came half a country away for this job?”

I only nod. When he doesn’t say anything else, I risk a slow look behind me.

He’s leaning a strong shoulder against the front door, his chest still unbearably bare and rippling. One hand grips both ends of the towel around his neck, and the other holds my dead phone. But most obviously of all, he’s gazing at a spot where the hem of my dress meets the back of my upper thighs, almost as if he is thinking about easing up the fabric, exposing the curve of my bottom for a naughty peek.

I angrily tug down my hem and face forward, my heart punching at my chest. My clit echoes every beat, wet and wild.

He laughs again. I think he enjoyed getting caught.

I don’t understand what kind of game he’s playing, because surely he hasn’t changed his mind about not paying for sex—or even accepting the gift his client arranged for a night with a virgin.

I think I hear him moving away from the door now, and I keep staring straight ahead.

“Clearly you’ve never worked for the Highest Bidder before.” His voice is closer now. “The message in that envelope says you’re a virgin.”

I don’t say anything. If I try, the words might get caught in my throat.

“Tell me, Karini Lively.” He’s even closer now, his voice combing down my skin. “Why did you auction off your virginity?”

His prying is testing me, and when I finally find my voice, I sound as annoyed as he was earlier.

“My reasons for signing up with the Highest Bidder are none of your business—especially since you told me you’re not going to make use of my services.”

I feel him walking past me before I actually see him. My skin heats up, almost as if every one of my cells is tracking him as he moves in front of me. I look down at the floor while he circles me, obviously re-inspecting this gift he’s already refused.

The ache between my legs is agonizing now, sharp and juiced. Damn him for making me feel like this.

“My client,” he says, “should’ve known that I don’t have a thing for virgins, yet he sent one.”

“His mistake,” I say.

Cage halts on the other side of me, and I can sense something tense and predatory about him. As the lining of my belly trembles, I finally break down and bring my gaze up to meet his.

I suck in a harsh breath at the look in his eyes—a spark of something dark and exciting that my backtalk has kindled in him, something frustrated, something crazy that tells me that, in spite of everything he said at the door, he wants me to keep this game going.

Whatever it is feels like it’s threatening to flare into a fire. I can already feel the heat scorching me from the inside out, ready to burst.

Slowly, he moves to a marble table, and when he puts down my phone, he does it with such deliberation that I tense up.

He lazily pulls the towel from around his neck and sets that down next to the phone. The full sight of his torso—chiseled and smooth and beautiful—drills me with more lust.

“On second thought,” he says, “I’m not so sure I want to let you off that easily.”

What does that mean?

But I think I know and, god, despite everything, I hope I’m right. I want him to be the one who makes me cross that line from virgin to experienced woman. I want to feel every one of his muscles under my palms, exploring what a man really is. I want him inside of me, even though I’m afraid it might hurt this first time.

But a man of the world like this will know how to make me feel pleasure…

Then I remember how he treated me at his doorway, and my guard goes up, even as everything else in me melts for him to touch me.

But he doesn’t. Not yet. He merely prowls toward me again, his muscles rolling under his tanned skin with every cocky step. As he slips behind me, I don’t turn to face him. Even so, I know he’s standing right in back of me now.

My throat works as I gulp. The sound seems to fill the room along with my heavy breathing.

“Will you be honest about something with me?” he says.

I quake at his nearness and close my eyes, still trying to resist. “What?”

I expect to hear the rest of his question but, instead, I gasp as I feel him gently lifting the sides of my skirt. My pussy gushes at the slow sensation of the light fabric sliding up my thighs, then my hips.

He speaks as if nothing is happening. “Why did you wait so long to give it up, Karini?” he asks.

In this piercingly erotic moment, I could tell him that I wasn’t ready for sex, that there was always something indefinable missing, even though I’d been intimately touched before. But as Cage hooks his thumbs under the sides of my panties, I’m speechless. And when he pulls up on the fabric so that a sweet pressure nestles against my pussy, I bite back a moan.

He releases the pressure, then pulls at my panties again, teasing me, moving them back and forth so that he’s teasing my most sensitive spot. Instinctively, I grip his hands, both urging him on and bracing myself. My legs lose strength, and I fall back against his hard chest, moving every time he wickedly plays with me.

“Maybe,” he says in a ragged voice that rumbles through him and into me, “I like virgins more than I thought.”

As he gives a stronger pull on my panties, I begin to cry out, but before there’s any sound, he reaches around and buries one hand in my hair, bringing my mouth to his in a ravishing crush.

My world ignites—sparks of every color, my skin sizzling, my body torched by a desire I never thought I’d feel. But I do.

God, I feel.

With something like a ravenous growl, he deepens the kiss, tightening his fingers in my hair, going at me with an intense greed that makes me feel as if he’s never tasted anything like me before, as if I’m an instant addiction. I grapple at him, out of control, slippery between my legs and aching for him to play with me some more.

My passion seems to push him to his raw limits as he lets out a feral sound, scoops me up, and lifts me, taking me somewhere until I feel something cool and smooth underneath my bottom.

I hear something crash to the floor, and it’s only when I think it might be my phone that I realize I’m on a table, slouched against the wall and panting for him.

Hungrily he nips at my bottom lip, and I wince, but not because of pain—purely from pleasure and need. And he seems to know that because he sucks off of me, leaving me breathing even harder.

I feel like I’m strung together by a chain of heartbeats, and most of them are palpitating between my legs, begging, pleading.

As he watches me, his blue eyes seem to see everything inside of me—how much I want him, how much I want this—and I have to look away from him before he sees too much.

Secrets and all.

“Look at me,” he commands in a whisper.

I can’t.

But then he slides his hand down my face, between my breasts, and over my stomach and belly, leaving more shivers behind. When he dips his fingers into the front of my panties, I groan. My legs part for him, my hips arch as he separates my folds, then slowly strokes my pussy.

So good…oh, god…

I hear how wet I am, how excited, and I find myself doing what he wanted me to do in the first place. I look into his eyes from beneath my heavy lids.

He seems to like what he sees, because he smiles, just a lift of one sensual corner of his mouth, but it’s enough to send a shock through me.

“Shit,” he says. “You were born to be fucked, baby...”

He bites off his words, keeps stroking me, and my temperature keeps rising. I’m still looking into his eyes, unable to tear myself away.

“How close have you been to having a cock inside of you?” he asks.

I can only let out a soft sound of delight with every drenched caress, but when he slips a finger up and into me, I cry out.

“Have you ever been this close?” he asks.

Still slumped against the wall, I shake my head. I want him to start working me again, so I gyrate once, feeling his finger buried inside me.

More, please.

His smile is ravenous now. “Good. That’s good, Karini. And this will be even better.”

He adjusts my hips, lifting them so that I can see the sheer red panties I bought just for this night, the slight patch of my light brown hair under them, his fingers between my legs. The hot sight makes something brutal fan out inside of me, its edges sharp and insistent, pushing to be released.

Then he eases another finger into me, and this time when I cry out, the sound is tighter.

But the discomfort slips away as he begins to massage my clit with his other thumb, swirling his fingers, pushing in, out, sending me into an oncoming tizzy.

I grip the edge of the table with my hands, and I still can’t tear my gaze away from his as he pumps into me, out of me, so slowly and expertly that I want to scream. He circles me with his thumb, priming me until my cream is so wet and thick that it bathes my thighs.

“Fuck,” he says. “My little gift…”

Everything inside of me begins to swell, the whirring fan blades swishing faster and faster, beating, keeping up with the increasing pace of his arousing fingers. As I look into his eyes, the blue of them darkens, pulsing with my own heartbeat. Then they start to go black, the color seeping into me, pounding at me unbearably, swallowing me up little by little until, with one big rush, everything pulses and I—

Something tears me apart like blades flying off in a million directions, and I let out a sound that’s somewhere between a yes! and a more! Then…

Then my head and body start to piece themselves back together again, and I’m gasping for air, slumped on the table as Cage removes his fingers from me, then pulls up my panties and pulls down my dress.

Even in my glowingly buzzed state, his gesture surprises me, because a man who can talk that dirty to me isn’t the kind of man who cares about making anyone comfortable.

He only proves that as he steps away from me, rubbing his fingers together as if enjoying the slick feel of my wetness on his skin. Or maybe he’s only reveling in the taste he got of the gift he’s about to toss back outside.

Just when I think he’s about to turn away from me and leave me hanging, he looks back with a dark, cocky grin.

“Fuck the drive to the airport,” he says. “I’m going to take you up on that gift after all.”