CHAPTER 9 – PENTHOUSE SHENANIGANS
HUNTER
Iwatch her step through the penthouse door, wrapped in a dark fur coat.
There’s an art to moments like this: the perfect timing of a slow reveal, the way a beautiful woman looks when she’s introduced to something new.
The elevator doors hush closed behind us, sealing us off from the world, and Daisy stares at the cathedral-high ceilings, the stretch of cream-and-steel living room, the slabs of glass that turn the city outside into a blue electric aquarium.
“Wow,” she whispers, blue eyes wide and innocent. Her voice is soft, weightless, and I can’t help thinking it belongs to a much younger girl. “Is this—did we just—are we at your apartment?”
“Penthouse,” I correct, but soft. “Downtown Minneapolis. Thirty-eighth floor. Welcome.”
Her smile is pure sunshine. “It’s so open.” She lifts both arms and twirls, slow, hair fanning out behind her in a golden spiral. The light hits her from three sides and she glows, a beacon of innocence in the middle of my shark-tank life.
I let Daisy look. She walks the main room—living area, dining platform, glass walls everywhere, all furniture so minimalist they aren’t much more than geometric shapes. She leans over the couch and gasps at the view: the city lit up and blinking, a sprawl of jewel tones against night sky.
“Wow,” she whispers again, pressing her palm to the window. “I feel like I’m floating.”
I come up behind her, close enough to catch the scent of her shampoo, a sweet vanilla scent mixed with a hint of female musk. “You’ll get used to it,” I say, but she’s not listening.
Daisy’s looking down, watching cars move through the city like bugs, her own reflection a faint white shadow on the glass.
After a while, she turns to me, hands behind her back, big blue eyes shining. “Why didn’t we stay at Sanctum?” she asks. “Don’t you keep a suite there long-term?”
There are a dozen reasons, but they’re hard for me to articulate. “You belong here, Daisy, in my home,” I reply, and the words taste almost holy on my tongue, as if by saying them I make it true. “I don’t know why, but you belong here, with me.”
She looks at me for a long time, searching for a joke, or a catch. But I mean it.
The silence gets heavy, so I shift gears. “You want a tour?”
“Yes, please!” She smiles sassily, and for a split second, I imagine her as she would have been at sixteen: full of bratty confidence, impossible to say no to.
I squash the thought. Daisy’s not my stepsister anymore.
She’s just Daisy: a beautiful, lush girl with a month of her life bought and paid for.
I lead her through the kitchen—high-gloss, navy blue, all Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances—and she runs a finger down the countertop, then opens the fridge, laughing at the rows of neatly stacked bottles. “Do you even cook?” she says.
“Not really,” I admit, “although I do have a housekeeper who cooks for me.” Then, I let her peek into the next room: a home office bigger than most condos, the desk littered with prototype electronics and 3-D printed junk from the Justify AI team.
She picks up a little model of a pouncing cat, looks at it, then at me. “Did you make this?” she asks.
“Kind of. It was a joke. My engineer’s obsessed with cats.”
She sets it down gently. “It’s cute. I like it.”
We move on, and she finds the wet bar, the climate-controlled wine cellar, and the two-story glass wall that leads to the most expensive mistake I’ve ever made: the indoor dunk pool.
She stops dead at the door, peering into the blue-lit cube. “Is that an actual swimming pool attached to the penthouse?”
“It’s a plunge pool, yes,” I say with a wry smile. “For exercise. Or for fun.” I can’t help adding, “It’s the only one like it in the city.”
She opens the glass door and walks in, toes on the smooth stone. The air’s humid despite the night air, and her eyes widen. “Can I try it?”
“Now?” I check my watch, but I have no plans.
She looks over her shoulder, that beautiful smile blooming again. “You bought me, didn’t you? You must have time if you want to make use of the month we have together.”
There’s a beat where the words hang there—raw, obvious, unfixable.
“Yes,” I say. “I bought you for a month, sweetheart. For twenty million dollars.”
She smiles sweetly again, pink lips curving. “I must be something special.”
“You are,” I say, and she smiles again, full of teasing and mirth.
Daisy puts a toe in the water, and giggles. “Oh my god, it’s warm!” She dips a little further, hips swaying, and then she does something unexpected. She drops the fur coat, and to my surprise, the woman’s completely nude beneath the jacket.
The woman smiles coyly at me.
“They didn’t give me time to put anything on after the auction, Hunter,” she whispers while cupping those giant breasts. “I had to grab my coat and go.”
I can’t speak. For a moment I watch her ass as if I’ve never seen an ass before, even though I could draw every dimple from memory. Her Double D’s sway, that slit still moistly pink from the events of earlier tonight.
Daisy looks back at me. “So do you want to?” she asks, voice throaty. “I think you do—” Her gaze flickers downward, at my crotch, then away.
I shake my head even if it’s costing every inch of my self-control not to throw her to the deck floor and enter her with a powerful thrust. “Nothing happens unless you want it. I mean that.” I set my jaw, try to sound like the kind of man who wouldn’t force a girl to do anything.
“You get a month here, with me. If you want more, you ask. If not, you just hang out. You’re not a prisoner, Daisy, and I won’t force you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. ”
She processes that, running her foot along the surface of the water. “I get it,” she says, and her voice is softer. “But is that how these auctions generally work?”
I shake my head.
“No,” I grind out. “Most girls stay at Sanctum. They never go to a man’s real home, nor do they have any choice about what happens to them physically.
Their virginities are likely claimed within the hour of an auction ending, if not sooner.
But you’re not every girl, Daisy. You’re special, and I don’t want to put you through the wringer. ”
My words are true, but I’m lying by omission because of course, Daisy is actually my sexy little stepsister Tara.
I’m taking advantage of her because our relationship would never fly in real life.
But given Tara’s amnesia, I’m not above being a complete asshole and keeping her to myself while she can’t remember anything. Obviously, I’m going to hell.
But Daisy merely leaves the pool and pads back to me, dripping from the knees down. Her nipples are hard and pink, her skin beaded with droplets, and she stops so close I can see each one. Her face is tilted up, open and vulnerable.
“You look like you want to say something,” she murmurs.
I almost laugh. I want to say everything.
Again, I want to confess that I know who she really is, that I’m the reason she’s standing here, nude and luscious, with a new name and a new life.
I want to admit that I’ve spent every hour since her accident trying to convince myself this is for her own good, that I’m protecting her from the world outside Sanctum. That I’m not, in fact, a monster.
But I don’t say any of it. Instead, I reach out and tuck a strand of golden hair behind her ear. My hand shakes, just a little, and I hope she doesn’t see.
“You’re very brave, Daisy,” I tell her.
She flushes, either from the compliment or from the way my eyes travel down her body, but she doesn’t move away.
“I’m not,” she whispers. “I just like being here. With you, Hunter.”
I nod, and the moment cracks. I’m too old for this. I’m thirty-five, with scars that could fill a novel, and she’s so young and innocent it hurts to look at her.
I clear my throat, step back. “We should get you dressed. There’s a closet upstairs, with clothes in your size. Take whatever you want.”
She hesitates, then says, “Can you show me?”
I almost refuse. But I want to see her walk, see the way she climbs the stairs, her curves framed by the glass railing. I want to watch her open the closet, pull dresses off the racks, laugh at the high heels lined up like soldiers.
I want to watch her choose.
We head up. The master bedroom is huge, all pale leather and soft rugs, and the walk-in closet is a city block long.
She gasps at the rows of new clothes, tags still attached, and runs a finger over a sky-blue dress.
“Did you buy these for me? But it must mean that you always planned to win the auction.”
“Yes,” I say, and it sounds bizarre, but it’s true.
She slips a dress off a hanger and holds it to her chest, looking in the mirror. She turns, catching my gaze. “I don’t think I want to put anything on right now,” she says, voice light as a dare.
My hands tremble, so I put them in my pockets. “That’s your choice.”
The innocent blonde hangs the dress back, then sits on the edge of the bed, legs crossed, breasts high and proud. She’s a queen, and she knows it.
For a minute, neither of us speaks.
Then she asks, “Why did you bid so high? Did you want me that badly?”
I think of the first time I met her, a gorgeous teenage blonde unaware of her own sexual appeal, when our parents were dating.
I think of how I found her on the streets, injured and confused, and immediately took advantage of the situation.
I think of how I swore to our parents I would never lay a hand on her, not even if she came to me begging.
But the real answer is: Yes, I want her that badly.
“Yes,” I say.
She smiles, not the least bit afraid. “Then you’ll get your money’s worth, Mr. McCarren.”
I want to kiss her. I want to fuck her until she can’t remember anyone but me. I want to make her forget her past, her real name, the childhood she lost and the secrets I’ve been keeping from her since the day I met her.
Instead, I stand there, silent, and watch her watch me.