by Dani Wyatt
My phone buzzes with my second alarm and a bolt of panic cuts through me. I turn toward Alice, my throat tight and my mouth dry.
I look toward the full-length mirror, the red, strapless formal dress I designed earlier this year suddenly looking out of place.
Homemade.
“Maybe this is a mistake.” My shoulders fall as I exhale, picking at an errant stitch on the ruched neckline, then tug at the fabric around my hips.
Alice is the perfect blend of curves and straightaways. Me, on the other hand, I’ve got twenty more pounds and six fewer inches to stretch it over. I know it’s just business, Martel Kozlov is helping me, and I guess in some way I’m not sure how I’m helping him.
I’ve never much loathed my looks or my body as I’ve gotten older, but for the most part I’m just at the ho-hum end of average I suppose, and a guy like Martel pushes the needle into the red on the sexy scale.
“Don’t let your father’s bullshit insecurities taint your evening.” Alice’s voice is cheerful. “You look fucking killer, and you’re going to own that high-society ballroom. Hold your head high, bid on that hunk of Russian man-meat like you da boss.”
“I envy your confidence.” I run a hand up my neck, trying to brush away the red blotches forming already.
“Listen, look at this dress.” She cocks her hip out and crosses her arms. “How the hell would I know how to make something like this? You look like you should be on the cover of Vogue. So, own it. Work it. Fake it ‘til you make it, girl. It’s all in here.” She steps over and taps me on the forehead. “And in here.” Her finger lowers to my sternum. “Now, get the hell out of here before I put on my best Cherrie Starr pink wig, acrylic stilettos, schoolgirl outfit and usher your ass into Meadowbrook Hall myself.”
We hug and say our goodbyes, and I scoot out the front door, not bothering with a goodbye to my dad, who is on the phone placing a bet as I scurry by the den door.
Meadowbrook Hall is like a dream.
From the moment I pull my 1998 mint-green Ford Taurus, with a taped-up broken taillight and flickering ‘Check Engine’ warning, in through the stone pillars and steel gates, I might as well be in the north pole. Lights are wrapped around every tree, with candy canes as tall as a man lining the driveway.
There’s a gingerbread house almost as big as the house where I live on the lawn to the left of the entry, and a full size Santa’s sleigh with life-like reindeer on the roof.
The hall itself was built as a home in the 1800s by the founder of Woods Steel and Manufacturing, and I remember taking field trips here in elementary school and feeling like kings and queens lived here. It’s been expanded to an event hall with an attached high-end hotel, two restaurants and a bar, and it’s the place that everyone wants to be for any special occasion or lifetime event.
It’s like Christmas personified as I slow my car past a sign indicating guest parking one way and valet the other.
As I try to decide which way to turn, I pull out my phone and the piece of paper with Martel’s number scrawled across it. Even his handwriting is sexy. Raw, messy, but deliberate at the same time. I type in his number and the message and hit send.
Me: I’m here. Parking. Will be inside in a minute or two.
I set my phone back down and my stomach does a somersault. Snow covers the pavement and I know my experience with five-inch heels is marginal at best, so considering the long walk from the parking lot to the entry, I turn toward the valet sign.
Tonight, I’m not going to be embarrassed about anything. Like Alice/Cherrie said, fake it ‘til you make it.
I pull up in front of a black-suited young man about my age, who races around to the driver’s side of the car just as the engine makes a loud clunking sound, followed by a little backfire, causing other guests lingering outside to turn and stare, but I hold my head high.
“Ma’am.” The valet opens my door and I step out. “Here’s your valet ticket. I hope you enjoy your evening.”
“Thank you.” He holds my hand for a long moment as I get my feet on the wet ground and pull my black shawl around my shoulders. “Hey,” I lean towards him on a low voice. “The locks don’t work, so don’t worry about locking it up.”
He nods with an understanding look, then adds, “You look beautiful, if you don’t mind me saying…”
“I mind.” A voice from behind me booms and I twist my head to see Martel standing there, shooting daggers at the poor valet driver.
“I’m sorry Mr. Kozlov.” The valet releases my hand, disappearing inside my car and slowly pulling away.
“You didn’t need to be rude to him.”
“He didn’t need to touch you. Or look at you like you were a possibility.”
Martel steals my breath away, even through my low hum of anger. My pulse speeds and warmth wraps around me even as the chill of the winter breeze spins snowflakes though the air.
“I decide who’s a possibility,” I counter as he stares me down, scratching his bearded cheeks with his knuckles, his eyes drifting down my body and back up. My body tingles like his gaze is a physical touch, and the hairs on the back of my neck raise.
“Sure. Keep thinking that,” he grunts, reaching for my hand. “Let’s go inside. It’s cold. I want to be sure to get things organized and you settled before the circus starts.”
As we walk inside, Martel glares at everyone, his hand slipping to the small of my back, guiding me next to him, and I have the strangest sense of being a prized possession.
I shouldn’t like it.
But I do.
I’ll need to keep reminding myself this is just business.
Because it’s feeling an awful lot like something else.
Chapter 5
Martel
This girl…I knew she was different from the moment I saw her at the Mauricio’s.
I knew she’d done something to me when I left the hotel last night at midnight, after making sure I got her full name from Irina before I left the shop. I then spent an hour on my laptop after getting back to my room from dinner with my mother and grandfather looking up anything and everything I could about her.
Including her address.
By 12:30 am I was sitting outside her house. The late model, mint-green sedan I’d seen parked at Mauricio’s told me I was in the right place. Impossible there were two cars that horrible in the world let alone in the same metro area. My dick was already hard when I pulled up, but my anger was rising that she lived in that neighborhood.
The house next to hers is burned out, and even at that time of night there were small groups of people standing on the corner or walking in the street. Graffiti covered the walls and windows of empty small businesses, while most of the windows in the houses were barred or boarded up.
Still, that anger didn’t stop my stalking ass from watching her with night vision binoculars I borrowed from my father’s hunting gear. He gets some sick thrill from killing exotic, and sometimes endangered, animals. I don’t get it. I think they should drop him in the middle of the savannah naked and see what hunts him sometimes. That would be sport.
When I raised the binoculars, I checked each window until I found her. She was in her bedroom, alone, thank Christ, because if I’d pulled up and there was some other dude in her room, there would have been bloodshed.
Instead, I positioned myself in the car at an angle so I could see inside. She was wearing a silk robe that brushed just under her round ass cheeks, showing off a skimpy fucking pair of panties as she went through her closet, then checked her phone as she laid on her bed.
There were twinkling lights and a little Christmas tree lit up inside her room, but through the other windows of the house I saw nothing that indicated any holiday cheer and a sadness clutched around my chest. I wondered what the rest of her life was like. If she had family that cared for her. Friends that checked on her.
I shook my head, realizing it didn’t matter. From now on, I’d be the one that cared for her. That checked on her. That
made sure she was treated the way she should be.
I fought the urge to jack off as long as I could. That is, until she lost the robe, standing there wearing just her panties and a matching little camisole thing, then walked over and locked the door of her bedroom.
Fuck, was she making sure she was safe?
Is she scared of something in her own house?
The rage swept through me like wildfire until I realized maybe it wasn’t that sort of fear that had her securing herself in her room.
It was privacy.
The binoculars gave everything a soft, green, otherworldly glow, but that didn’t stop me from seeing exactly what was about to happen. My dick ached and my balls pulsed as she climbed onto her bed, wiggled down her panties and grabbed a pillow.
Fuck, from there I was gone. I want this girl. Mind, body, spirit, but for that moment I knew I’d take what I could get, which was watching her as she curled up the pillow and climbed on top, straddling it.
Her hips began to flex…front to back, back to front…her arms locked and braced on the bed in front of her. She threw her head back, mouth open, and started rocking, faster, faster…her hips now moving in a little circle as I reached down and fought an angry battle with my pants, getting my cock released with one hand as I held the binoculars in place, unwilling to miss a single second of my own personal sex show.
Once I set my dick free, the head was already slick and dripping with pre-cum as I imagined this magnificent girl riding me. I was jealous of a fucking pillow, but for the moment, outside of breaking into her house and kidnapping her, which for a moment seemed perfectly acceptable… But no, I gathered some control and fisted my cock in hard, clutching it with brutal strokes as I watched through the window.
It didn’t take long before her head dropped, the frantic movements of her hips more intent, and then she dropped down onto the bedding, her little hands holding on as I grunted in my car, spurting a load of cum onto my hand, imagining I was delivering it straight into her sweet, hot pussy.
That was bad enough, me watching her, jacking off in my car outside her window.
Then, I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my handkerchief, wiped up my sticky release and got my still-hard cock back in my pants.
What I did next crossed the line from stalker to psycho. I walked to her car, pulled the handle and it opened. I made a mental note to be sure to tell her if she left her car unlocked again, I’d spank her sweet ass.
Then, I decorated her steering wheel with my cum. Wiping it in a full circle before I then rubbed it into the door handle of her car, and the buttons on her radio. Still, that wasn’t enough. I stuffed the handkerchief halfway into the lower heat vent below the dash, so when she turned her heat on my cum would be in the air around her.
Breathing it in.
All I can think of now, as I walk next to her, is that my cum is on her hands. And if her fingers have touched her hair, her face…fuck, maybe her lips…she could have tasted me already and she has no idea. My scent is in her lungs. I am already a part of her, and she doesn’t even know it yet.
As if I couldn’t be more off the charts for this girl, she gets out of her car wearing this red fucking dress that makes me want to show her off one second, and the next I want to hide her behind the stone walls of a castle, for my eyes only from this day forth.
There’s an insatiable need surging through me as I walk us into the venue. I see men glancing her way and I want to kill them all. The women look too. Some clearly admiring, and they get a pass. But the ones that are sneering down their noses at someone they don’t recognize, someone more beautiful than any of them, make me want to hurt them as well.
All my years of being alone and celibate now make sense. I don’t know how many years it’s been since I had a date but I wish it was longer. I wish all my firsts could be with her.
The filthy thoughts rushing through my mind as I lead her toward a back hallway have my needy cock standing tall and my blood running hot. I could push her up against the wall right here and make her mine.
If I had my way, I’d duct tape her mouth shut and throw her in the backseat of my truck and drive her home.
Not to her home on Pines Ave.
Nope, that’s no longer her home.
To my home, which in my crazed mind is from this moment forward going to be her home as well.
If I needed to, I’d tie her to the bed, spread her legs and feast on her silky, wet pussy until she understood she belongs to me now.
Jesus, I’m insane.
I don’t even know her birthday, her favorite color or how she likes her steak cooked, but I swear I can see forever whenever I look at her.
By the time we reach the end of the hall, I’ve got our lives planned out before I’ve even had the chance to kiss her.
She turns my way when there is nowhere else to go and give me a smile. “Your suit looks perfect.”
“You look incredible. That dress…” I clear my throat, my fists balling at my sides as she looks down at herself. “Should be illegal to look that good.”
“Wow.” She snorts a little giggle. “You use that line on all the girls you pay to bid on you at the bachelor auctions?”
“This will be my first and last auction. I’m only going through with it for my grandfather.”
She looks nervous, her tongue flicking onto her lower lip, and I wonder again if she’s tasting me there.
“Well, I’m sure you will bring top dollar…”
My heart is about to ram through my chest. “As long as you get the winning bid, that’s all that matters.”
“I’ll do my best, so how do I do the…” She shrugs, pulling her lips to the side then lowering her voice. “You know, the money. I’m sorry, I hate to ask…”
“No. Here.” I reach into my inside jacket pocket and hand her an envelope. “There’s ten grand in there, just as I promised. That’s for you. There’s also a debit card in there. There’s plenty of money in that account for whatever the bid will be. It’s a business account, so it will just run through like a credit card.”
Her eyes drop as she takes the envelope and puts it inside the little silver clutch purse she’s carrying. When she looks back up, her warm brown eyes sparkle and all I want to do is pull her into me and taste those cherry lips.
“Okay. Happy we could help each other out.”
The pulsing in my balls nearly doubles me over as she looks back down the hall to where the sound of the event is gaining momentum.
“Guess I should go get registered. Or whatever it’s called.” She turns and steps away, and my hand darts out to grab her bare arm.
“Wait.” I pull her into me, knowing she must feel my need. “You feel that?” I press my erection into her hip and listen to her shuttered gasp. “Just so you know. This isn’t just business. Not for me.”
Her eyes snap wide as I watch her face switch between shock and understanding. She makes no attempt to shrink back. In fact, she leans into me slightly and I know right now, I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make this girl mine.
“Maybe it is for me,” she retorts with a seductive smirk, shifting her hips against me, raising the question of whether her words or her body is telling the truth.
“You may be able to feel what you’re doing to me in that fucking sexy dress, but I bet under all those layers of red silk, there’s a wet pussy that would tell me I may be doing the same thing to you.”
She shrugs as I lean down and drag my lips up her neck. “Too bad you’ll never know.”
“Don’t be so sure.” I switch my lips for my teeth, listening to her breath hitch as I back her against the wall, drawing in her sweet, floral scent.
I clutch the back of her neck with one hand, the other gripping at the length of her dress, drawing it upward until I feel the silky-smooth skin of her thigh, and her head falls back against the wall on a little choked yelp.
I nudge her legs apart with my knee, my lips against her ear. “I’m abou
t to know…” I slide my hand up, feeling the softness of her inner thighs as the sounds of the crowd grow. I’ve got my back to the hall, making sure no one else can see what’s mine.
I’m out of my mind, but I give her a moment…
One.
Two.
Three.
“Oh my God…” Her words are a warm whisper against my cheek as I drag my knuckles against the strip of fabric between her legs, making her body jerk as one of her hands clutches at my upper arm.
“Not just wet. Soaked. You are naughty and nice. The perfect combination.” I trade my knuckles for the tips of my fingers, finding that valley of her outer lips and pressing harder, rubbing until her breath is shaking and I shift back to see her face pink and her eyes dazed.
I want to drag her out of here right now and put my mouth on the wetness that coats my fingers, but we do have business that awaits. Hopefully, just knowing she’s drenched for me will be enough to carry me through the evening until I can convince her of what’s going to come next.
I bring my lips to brush hers, dropping my hand from between her legs and pressing my fingers to her lips.
“Open.” She complies and I slip my fingers into her mouth, pulsing them in and out before exchanging their point position with my lips.
I drift my tongue into her mouth, tasting her there, and nearly spill my cum in my pants before pulling back, standing her upright and kissing her forehead.
“You ready?” I ask as her breaths come in short bursts.
“Yes. And no. But I’ve already taken your money, so a deal is a deal.” She blinks, her eyes alive and confident as she twists her lips into a grin.
“That’s my girl,” I finish, taking her hand and leading her down the hallway and into our future.
Chapter 6
Bria
I should be scared of Martel, but I’m not.
He’s pushy. Possessive.
I shouldn’t like how he makes me feel. But I do.
