Chapter 4
ALEX
I pulled them apart with more force than I needed, yanking Devin back until I could see the dazed, pleasure-drunk look on his face. Which only made me angrier.
It was just like him to ignore propriety and manners and good sense, to go ahead and try to ravish the girl before we’d even gotten her home. Some of us had more self-control than that. No matter how sinfully touchable our little auction item looked.
Part of me thrummed with rage just because I hadn’t been the one to get to her first. But that was stupid.
This was just an arrangement. I didn’t have any reason to feel attached to this girl. I’d given up on feeling attached to anyone a long time ago.
“We’re here,” I barked at my colleague. I looked over the young woman we’d won, not spending any time on admiring the plump wetness of her just-kissed lips or the pink coloring of her cheeks or the heaving of her breasts as she caught her breath.
She nearly cowered under my gaze, which was… interesting.
I knew I could be an intimidating man, and I didn’t hesitate to enjoy the surge of power I felt when I saw fear in a man’s eyes at the sight of me. But it was a different kind of thrill when those eyes were in the lovely face of this young woman we’d bought.
With some effort, I dragged my eyes to meet Devin’s. “Let’s get her inside before you deflower her in the goddamn limo.”
“Jealousy’s a bad look on you,” he wisecracked, and I ignored him as I turned on my heel and made my way toward my penthouse. I did take note when he said, “Come on, Frankie.”
The doorman of my building didn’t react to our special guest as Jon, Devin, and I made our way through an immaculate well-appointed building lobby and to the vast private elevator that would take us up several flights to my door.
Once I’d unlocked the door and its extensive security system, something tight in my chest loosened. The foyer of my home was gleaming, as per usual, and standing by an expensive console table was the tall redhead woman I’d trust with every detail of my life.
“Welcome home, Mr. Antonov,” my assistant, Darla, greeted me first. She gave the requisite greetings to my colleagues next. “Mr. Butera. Mr. Lay.”
“No need to stand on ceremony with me, baby,” Devin said as he came up to kiss her on the cheek. “Good to see you, Darling Darla.”
“Always charming,” came her sardonic reply, then she saw our girl, Frankie, and her catlike eyes seemed to glimmer. “And who do we have here, Alexei?”
“Our guest,” I answered coolly. “Have Jennings set the table for four, Darla.”
The woman was a true professional. She nodded tersely and went off to the penthouse’s kitchen to alert my chef it was time for dinner.
Frankie, to her credit, seemed to be taking this in stride. Jonathan pointed her to the powder room after she made an awkward, red-faced request, and that left me and my colleagues alone for the first time since before we even knew we were buying Frankie’s virginity tonight.
I leveled my gaze on each of the men in turn and ended up locking eyes with Jonathan.
“It may go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: we’re doing a job. Just like any other,” I said.
“Hardly,” Devin snorted, and Jonathan’s lips twitched amidst his well-trimmed salt-and-pepper beard.
“Are you trying to tell us not to catch feelings for our auction winnings?” Jonathan asked me, raising one dark brow.
“I’m telling you that even as we take our pleasure tonight,” a rumble, a synchronized low growl I could relate to on a primal level as a man even if I wasn’t as prone to showing it, greeted my words, “we have to keep our wits about us. The second we’re free to do so, we need to figure out what Anthony wants.
Why he put us up to this. Why he kept us in the dark. ”
I owed my life to Anthony Butera in a lot of ways, but that didn’t mean I trusted him in all things. I’d never been prone to trusting anyone without limits or conditions.
“We’ll have plenty of time to find that out after she’s been thoroughly fucked,” Jonathan said.
Just like that, the girl was back, standing in the corridor with an expression like a lost woodland creature. Instinct had me approaching her, placing a steadying hand at the small of her back, and leading her into the dining room.
The table was laid with well-made dishes, the room cloaked in delicious smells. A bottle of champagne sat in a bucket of ice, four flutes neatly arranged around it. As my colleagues settled into their seats, I uncorked the wine, watching as Frankie jumped at the cork’s pop.
I poured for each of us, handing Frankie her glass by its delicate stem, letting our fingers touch as the drink passed from my hand to hers. She pulled back, cheeks flushed again like she’d been out in the cold.
I could imagine that sweetness lending itself well to submission.
My own inner dominance flared to life at the thought, eager to get this meal over with so the night could truly begin.
I’d just as happily skip it entirely, but the girl…
well, she’d need her strength to hold her own with all three of us.
I watched Frankie as the four of us began eating in near-silence. She took careful bites of her food, made little effort to exist outside of her own head, the anxiety that made her tremble slightly until she willed it away.
It was a good opportunity to take in all her features. To truly look at her without the watchful eyes of the auction crowd watching me just as closely.
It was strange. She was so…remarkably unremarkable. Pretty, but in an almost unassuming way.
Dark hair, smooth skin, a soft mouth that didn’t immediately evoke sin, but I had enough of an imagination that I could see those lips around my cock.
Without the glitz of her auction outfit, which had been designed to make sure she fetched a high price, I could see how Frankie might have slipped under people’s radar before now. Especially with the shyness she carried like a shield. A sheer curtain.
She was young, of course. I’d noticed that right away. But now that she was closer, a different picture painted itself into clarity.
The longer I watched the methodical movements she made, the heaviness that was apparent in her slim shoulders, the contrast of the innocence in her doe eyes and the seriousness they held, the longer I was sure this was a girl who’d grown up fast.
A young woman with undue burdens that likely had led her to participate in the auction tonight in the first place.
“Before we do this,” Frankie’s soft but surprisingly steady voice broke through the silence, shocking me back to awareness. “I want to lay out some ground rules. For my own safety.”
I exchanged a look with each of my colleagues. We all wore similar expressions of surprised admiration.
None of us, it seemed, had expected our little auction item to have any kind of backbone. I leveled my gaze on her and gave a terse nod, signaling for her to go on.
“First, I get to stop if…if I need to.” She shifted in her seat, clearly uncomfortable, but stood her metaphorical ground. “I agreed to this, right? But agreeing to…to lose my virginity is one thing, and actually doing it is another. I…if I’m not ready, I get to say no, and we revisit it later.”
Christ, if she thought we had no concern for her consent in the moment, she must think we were even more monstrous than we were in reality.
Her instincts weren’t unhoned, to be fair, but my body prickled with some fiery annoyance anyway. I certainly wasn’t a man who’d ever wanted for female attention, and the idea of taking what I wanted with no regard for the woman I was taking it from…it disgusted me.
“You get to say no,” Jonathan agreed before I could. He liked to position himself as our de facto leader because of his status as the royal son, but we had an equal share of power in this circumstance. His eyes seemed to urge me to continue, leveling the playing field again.
“In fact, you should choose a safe word,” I declared.
Frankie blinked at me. “A…safe word?”
Fuck. She really was an innocent. The three of us would eat her alive, and the cruel bastard in me relished the thought of it. She’d sure taste sweet.
“It’s more powerful than a no,” I told her. “The second you say it, everything stops. Helps if you want to say no when you really mean yes, too.”
She looked puzzled but gave a careful nod.
“We could even stoplight it,” Devin cut in. “Yellow means slow down. Red’s stop. Green…” he smirked. “Well, that’s encouragement. Keep going, because you like it. Don’t stop.”
“Oh,” she breathed. “That…that works.”
The thought of getting a green light with Frankie had arousal heating my blood. My lower stomach tightened, my cock giving an insistent throb. Would she be shy in my bed?
Afraid to ask for what she wanted, even if she had proven herself assertive enough to say no?
Or would feeling the touch of a man—three men, each of us as experienced and skilled as any virgin could hope for their first sexual experience—unlock something needy and wanton in her? Would she show us how badly she wanted this?
Would she beg for it?
Would I be able to resist giving her everything her tight little body could want?
Frankie’s nod gave way to another question, and I was out of my head again, lust clouding my thoughts only on the periphery now.
It had been too fucking long since I’d wanted a woman like this, and though I knew the taboo of the auction was heightening the experience, I couldn’t shake an unsettled feeling. No one was allowed to have power over me.
Not Anthony Butera, not his son, and certainly not some young woman.
“Can I choose who…goes first?”
I almost groaned. Who would be her choice? Which of us intrigued her enough that she wanted to feel his shaft sinking into her tightness first?
“Would the order affect your willingness to keep going?” Jonathan asked shrewdly, one dark eyebrow raised.
“I…” Frankie bit her lip. “No. I…you’re all…”