All I knew was that I had wanted him - physically - on top of me, inside of me, all over me. And it wasn't romance, this was lust - pure lust. The man was a fetishist and a pervert after all, so how could I ever feel romantic towards him? It wasn't like he had offered me roses and hand crafted Belgian chocolates. How romantic could ten thousand dollars for a private strip show and the opportunity to pitch my invention be?
I didn’t care. I was beginning to admit that to myself. All I had felt was the raw, naked desire to fuck this guy. No strings, no emotional garbage. And as for his perversion? It wasn't just any perversion, it was a perversion for me and everything about me. Maybe that would make it okay, in a perverted sort of way.
But nothing would ever happen before my ideas had become a success. That was my rule, the standard I had set myself and nothing but nothing would ever change that.
"So what do you think Mother Superior?" Clarissa's voice broke the spell. "Would you blow that for ten thousand bucks?"
"I'd do it for ten bucks." Jean squeaked.
"Shut up Jean." I said. "You wouldn’t even send a flirty text message to the guy let alone blow him for cash." Jean looked hurt."Despite it obviously being your dirty little fantasy." I added. Now she looked really hurt.
"I'm sorry Jean. I didn’t mean--"
"I know what you meant." She said. "But don't concern yourself about my feelings. You've got a whole lot more to worry about than that if you think a flirty text message is your only problem ."
"I don’t understand… what are you talking about?"
I didn't understand but I had the sinking feeling it wouldn't be good news. This twenty-four hours was slowly turning into an extended nightmare.
"One word honey - viral." Clarissa said. "You are the hottest little item on the pervy millionaire circuit right now."
I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth.
"This isn't happening. This is not happening to me."
Clarissa put her arm around me and although I should have pushed her away I didn’t move. Any support, even from the person who had gotten me into this mess was better than none at that particular moment.
"This is happening." She assured me. "And this is good."
I could only guess what was on it. The memories were still fuzzy but they were clear enough for me to know that seeing the clip would make my stomach twist up inside me like a sack of rope in a Texas tornado. I would have to see it, I would have to know who else had seen it. There would be no advantage to burying my head in the ground about this.
"Who else has copies Clarissa? How many people did you send it to?"
"Calm down, it wasn't that many. I only sent it to guaranteed buyers - no time wasters and no-one indiscreet."
I gritted my teeth.
"How many?"
"Five. Exactly five in total."
"And then you deleted the sent messages from my phone?"
"Of course I did! I'm the broker here in case you forgot. We need to protect those images so they don’t get into the wrong hands. I couldn't risk leaving them on your phone with you as spanked on Dom Perignon as you were last night. What if you had sent that clip to your loser ex-boyfriend in a moment of weakness? Friends don’t let friends drink and text. Or sext for that matter."
The irony. There was no point in trying to be reasonable with her, not with logic like that.
"Tell me their names. All of them."
"No can do sweetie. If I did that I'd ruin my reputation for confidentiality. I only showed you Evan because he responded and included his name and picture. I also know him, and that guy doesn't care who knows about what he does with his dick or his money in his spare time."
"I have a right to know Clarissa. This isn’t a game anymore."
"Don’t get all UN human rights charter with me Vicky, we're talking about the sale of a second hand pair of underwear, not human trafficking. Don’t get your panties in a twist and I mean that literally as well as figuratively."
"If you don’t tell me exactly who you sent those pictures to then…" What could I threaten her with? "I'll move out. And I'll never speak to you again."
She glared at me. I glared back.
A beep came from her iPad and she broke off the staring match to swipe the message through.
"New offer. David Romanov. He's a billionaire girl. Did you hear that? I said--"
"I heard you."
"Good. He's offered to pay the entire ten thousand dollars. No questions asked. And he'll listen to your precious little pitch, whatever that's all about."
I pushed myself up from the chair and checked my watch. It was already ten after six and Vincent's car would pick me up at seven. I needed to eat and change - except, obviously, for my underwear - and I also needed to do one quick run through of my presentation. As heady as the thought was of all this potential money was, I already had an offer in the bag.
"I have to get ready. I need to go out again."
"You? Go out? Where are you going?" Clarissa sounded alarmed.
"None of your business. Send me a copy of everything you sent to those disgusting men. Everything. I need to know how bad this is. And send me a list of the guys or I'm moving out tomorrow."
Clarissa let out a long, exasperated sigh. Jean stayed out of the way, wisely avoiding trouble.
"Okay. I'll show you the list and of course I'll send you the pictures and video. But if you ever breathe a word of this to anyone you won’t have to move out. I'll throw you out myself. Do you understand?"
She held out her iPad for me and ordered Jean out of the room.
"You were too chicken to follow through Jean. Go on, scram while we big girls take a look at our buyers' list."
She knew better than to tangle with Clarissa and made herself scarce.
I sat down on the couch to look at the list. Only two of the responses had headshots attached. Evan was by far the most good-looking. I didn't recognize any of the other names and Vincent Medici wasn't among them.
"Are you sure this is the full list? You didn't send it to anyone else by accident?"
"By accident? Of course not. How would I send it..." She stopped in mid sentence. "You've already had an offer." She said.
I cringed. Clarissa may be crazy, but she's not stupid.
"I have to go. Send me the pictures, the video and the text."
"No way. You're not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on. Where are you going tonight? Are you handing those stinky drawers over to someone who bypassed me? That's strictly against the rules Victoria. I'm the go-between and all these guys know that."
"There are no rules Clarissa. Not anymore. Where I'm going tonight is none of your damn business."
"Don’t lie to me. You know you can't fool me. Who is it? Did he bid over ten thousand? I have a right to know. This whole thing was my idea, you can’t cut me out."
"Cut you out? Cut you out of what? We never discussed anything."
"We did discuss it - you can ask Jean - this is serious money we're talking about and I'm entitled to my finder's fee."
"Finder's fee? A finder's fee. Are you for real?"
We stood looking at each other. I could see a smile waiting to break out on Clarissa's perfect blonde face. It was all still a big joke to her. I honestly think she was incapable of seeing how bad this would be for me as a serious inventor. I didn’t recognize the names of the men she had contacted but I was pretty damn sure they would recognize me if we ever encountered each other in a board room.
"I don’t have time for this." I broke off from her. "I need to be somewhere else right now."
"And I need to know where."
"Then follow me."
"I will."
"Jesus Christ Clarissa, do you hate me that much? Why are you doing this to me?"
"I've just earned you ten grand honey, a little gratitude would be in order if you had any sense."
"What about my career? How will I be taken seriously if this ever gets out?"
"If you as
k me you're being taken more seriously right now than you have been in your whole life. I mean look at you - you have all this talent and you can barely make the rent from month to month. Why do think it is that you've never sold that big idea of yours?"
"You don’t even know what my big idea is but you think you understand why it hasn't sold up to now? Your arrogance is astounding Clarissa and your ignorance is profound."
"And your idea is so great and cutting edge that it has to be the world's best kept secret right? A secret that nobody wants to know Victoria. Nobody gives a damn. You are never going to be an inventor, if you had any talent don’t you think you would have been successful at it by now?"
Clarissa is an expert at pushing buttons, but I was working hard to stay calm. If she wanted me to lose control I had to do the opposite.
"And this damn work of yours that's so important that you can't even have sex because of it! Are you kidding me? You're throwing your best years away Victoria. Can’t you see I'm trying to help you here?"
She wouldn't let up on my self-imposed discipline. I should never have said anything to her.
"You wouldn't understand Clarissa. How could you? It's called sublimation. I use my sexual energy for something other than just chasing dick. I use that energy creatively in my inventive work."
"And what are you inventing? The world's greatest dildo?"
She was infuriating. I turned away from her and walked to my bedroom.
"Get away from me. I'm presenting my idea to someone who matters. His car is picking me up at seven and I need to get changed."
"Everything except for those panties."
"Of course not the panties, do you think I'm an idiot?"
It just slipped out.
"I fucking knew it." Clarissa screamed. "Tell me who it is. Whoever the sleazy little rat is, you tell him he needs to pay my finder's fee or his sordid little fetish will be all over the blogosphere before he gets his next erection."
The woman would drive a clinical psychotherapist to insanity.
"Okay," I said to keep her off my back, " I'll get him to call you." Somehow she and Vincent were connected, I didn't know how yet, but they deserved each other and if push came to shove they could fight it out between them. "Now leave me alone already, I need to prepare."
I slammed the door behind me and locked it.
"And send me those pictures." I shouted through the door.
"Give me a name." She shouted back.
Damn it.
"His name is…" Did I have to do it? I needed to see what he had on me, I needed to see those pictures before I met him again or I would be at a distinct disadvantage.
"His name is Vincent Medici." I said the name and then waited. There was an uncomfortable silence on the other side of the door.
"Did you hear me?"
"Yes I heard you. I'm sending you the pictures now."
"And the video."
"Everything."
My heart began to race. Maybe, in fact, I didn’t need to see all that before I did my pitch with the man who had ogled me on his phone the previous night. Maybe it was the last thing I needed to see before going to meet him.
My phone beeped. Then again. Then four more times. My stomach knotted up a little more with each one. I held it up before me but hesitated. I had been drunk, I had said a lot of things. I had acted out some things as well, all just for fun between the three of us - or so I had thought. What the hell was it going to look like taken out of context and messaged straight into a stranger's phone without any warning?
I tapped the last message and waited for the clip to play. My stomach jerked in sharply towards my spine as the picture of me rolled into action.
Chapter Seven
I figured I would have come to my senses by the time I got home but instead it only got worse. I wanted to believe that Victoria Price was telling me the truth about what had happened to her but how could I know for sure? I had known Clarissa long enough to know that she was capable of nearly anything to get what she wanted. It was well within the realms of possibility that she had used and manipulated Victoria in order to get to me.
Every rational part of my brain was telling me to step back from the brink. Convincing this clever little beauty to strip for me seemed like an early Christmas gift but in reality it was a bomb about to go off in my face.
Then again, wasn't that exactly why it was all so exciting?
I ordered a background check on Victoria as soon as Clarissa had said her piece and disappeared. Then I took care of some other business, procured the money in cash that I would need for later and headed to my mid-town office to wait for my Christmas gift to me to present itself.
At least I hoped it would present itself.
Now that I was locked into this, expecting it to really happen, I would have been furious if it didn't all come together, then again, what if it really did happen? What the hell would I do with her old panties anyway?
Nothing I could think of.
It was her I wanted. I wanted to see her to take them off for me and then put them into my hand in return for ten thousand dollars in cash. That would make them mine. I would have used my success and power to take from her an intimacy that was off limits to the rest of the world. I wanted her to know how much I valued that privilege and I wanted her to know it before I fucked her. I wanted her to appreciate exactly how intensely I wanted this experience with her and I wanted it to blow her mind as well, so much that her whole pretty little body would wrapped itself around my cock in gratitude and make me come harder than I had ever thought possible.
Fuck the panties. I wanted what was in the panties and I intended to have it before she could think it all through and mess it up with conditions, regrets, emotions and all that other bullshit that women attach to having sex.
When my driver let me know that he had collected the package my breathing became noticeably harder.
So this was really happening - it was game on.
This was a thing and the thing was about to go down.
I have never paid for sex in my life. I have never been to a lap dancing joint. Hell, I've never even been to Hooters and here I was waiting for a stranger in order to pay her ten thousand dollars to possess her used underwear.
Was this even legal? How could it be illegal? I probably should have consulted my legal team before doing this, but then again, what exactly would I have said to them?
My desk phone buzzed.
"Ms. Price here to see you Mr. Medici."
"Send her up."
I pushed back in the chair and adjusted my pants. This was going to take some will power. I had a projector and screen ready in my office for her presentation but I honestly didn’t expect it to get that far. Like her panties, I also didn’t give a fuck about her presentation. Even less of a fuck to be honest but she seemed pretty serious about it so I thought I'd better pay lip service to the idea even if it was a lame duck.
I waited.
It seemed to take forever for her to get to my office.
I looked around wondering where exactly we would fuck once it came to that. Against the window? On the floor? In one of the chairs? Or maybe just on the desk. I cleared away the few remaining items to prepare for that sweet scenario.
There was always the rooftop…
I had never done it there before and had always wondered what it would be like to fuck with the beautiful Manhattan skyline spread out before me in the open air. My penthouse had the same view but this would be different. This would be on top my business empire. Right up here on top of all those floors full of data and ideas and people working hard to make themselves and Medici Investments more successful than ever.
The door opened and she walked in.
Showtime.
"Please take a seat." I said.
"I'll stand. Where can I set up my laptop?" She looked nervous but I couldn't be sure if it was about our imminent transaction or about her presentation. Either way it would put a nice edge on
the sex we were by now, pretty much guaranteed to have.
"Right over there." I pointed to a desk and then watched her set to hooking things up.
I swear to you I've never seen anyone look so hot as at that moment.
Knowing why she was here and that she was still wearing those filthy panties for me was driving me wild. I couldn't wait to see how she would handle delivering them to me while I looked her in the eye.
"I've got the money." I said, testing her reaction. She bristled visibly but quickly composed herself. That composure would soon be fucked beyond recovery.
"The presentation first." She said.
The damn presentation.
"I hope this is worth my time." I said. "A lot of people pitch to me Victoria. Our agreement was that I would listen to your idea. I'll only bite if it really looks interesting."
"You'll bite? Is that what you generally do when you're interested in something?"
Fresh. I liked it even more.
"I'm sorry." She said. "I didn’t mean that. This whole situation has totally thrown me. I'll keep it professional from now on."
She turned her back to me and I swear to you that ass was crying out for me to touch, to hold and of course, to bite. Like it or not my cock was fighting against my pants again. Her hair, her legs, that sexy little business suit. Good God, there was only one way this could end.
"Whatever you say." I said. "For the next fifteen minutes you will have my full attention."
That was for damn sure - I couldn't take my eyes off her.
The overhead came on and we came quickly to the first slide. It was a picture of a bracelet or better put, a hi-tech wrist band. I have to admit it wasn’t what I had expected from her.
"I call it the Life Defender." She said. "But the name isn’t a deal breaker. It’s made of light-weight but virtually indestructible polymers and--"
WEAK Part One: A Thornhill Road Romance Page 6
