A Bid For Love
Page 1
A BID FOR LOVE
An erotic short story by
Michelle Houston
www.unleashedink.com
A Bid for Love © copyright 2008, 2013 by Michelle Houston
Love Slave © copyright 2009, 2013 by Michelle Houston
Cover art © 2013 Michelle Lee
Edited by Jenna Byrnes and D Musgrave
Published by Unleashed Ink via Smashwords
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A BID FOR LOVE
Erika couldn't take her eyes off the painting. The imagery was intoxicating. The way the shadows folded over the couple entwined in the bed, the leaves along the edge of the window that hinted at a forbidden tryst. The way the vines crept over the glass in strategic places kept it from being tawdry and gave it a dreamy quality.
She had been trying for almost two years to track down all of her grandmother's work, and finally she was about to bid on the last piece—what was probably the best work she had ever done. Her uncle, may he rot in Hell, had sold off the family legacy to pay his gambling debts. She and her mother had been doing all they could to find the paintings and purchase them. Some had slipped through their fingers, held in a private collection, but a few months ago they had come back into the market with the owner's death.
This last painting, created for a former lover of her grandmother's almost fifty years before, was being sold at auction by his estate. She had been hesitant to approach the aging gentleman about purchasing the painting, since it was one of the few that had been given, not sold away. All the others given away had been returned to her grandmother or her family upon the owner's death, save this one.
It was frustrating waiting on the bidding for the last piece to be auctioned off before her grandmother's painting was up on the block. Although most of the works being sold weren't by a well known artist, the quality of them was evident. Finally, the auctioneer banged his gavel and issued the final declaration "Sold!"
Flicking her gaze around the room, she tried to gauge who was interested in the next painting when the sight of a familiar gray suit caught her attention. Looking up the owner's body, her gaze met laughing blue eyes, lips curled in a mocking smile. Ryan Carstairs.
"This next painting is by Virginia Gleeson, a local artist, somewhat renowned as being an eccentric lady. She was married young, widowed after only three years, and chose to remain alone, while raising her two young children. She loved life, which is evident in the vibrancy of her works. She also had a passionate nature, which is captured by her subject material. Almost all of her later works are of couples forever locked in each other's embrace."
Erika knew the material of her grandmother's paintings quite well; she owned one of the very last paintings she'd completed. Her grandmother had surprised her with it on her birthday. Unfortunately, she was no longer with the man in it, and it only served to bring back bad memories of a time she would rather forget.
But she held on to it, and it held a place of honor on her wall, with a black sheet carefully draped over it. She hoped one day to be able to look at it without feeling her heart breaking for what had been.
"For this painting, we'll start the bidding at five hundred. Do I have five hundred?"
Erika waited a moment to see how the bidding would progress. She didn't want to jump in too early and start a bidding war with anyone, but after five bids, when the price reached seven-fifty Ryan jumped in, bumping it to a thousand.
Heart heavy, she looked at him and raised her paddle as the auctioneer asked if anyone would go eleven hundred. At that point the last holdout dropped out, and Erika waited, hoping Ryan would just let it go. There was no way he didn't know he was bidding on her grandmother's painting; he had helped her track down a few of the missing works. She suspected that was precisely why he was there, because of her grandmother's painting.
She recalled how quickly love had turned into something else, removing all affection and leaving only painful memories. Once they had been so in love they couldn't stand to be apart for more than a few hours. Now, he was raising his paddle with a derisive twist to his lips and a nod in her direction.
Meeting the challenge in his gaze, she raised the bid again.
As the price climbed, Erika felt her nerves stretch tight. Ryan had always had that effect on her, but not normally so unpleasantly. Anticipation of his return home from work would always leave her with damp palms, her breath coming just a little bit quicker. It was accentuated often by what she was wearing as she waited on him. Normally it was simple lingerie, or a leather bustier. But sometimes he would ask her to lie on the bed wearing a mask, her body completely nude, her limbs resting in the valley of padded cuffs, waiting for him to close them around her wrists and ankles.
Those were the days she longed for the most, the innocent seduction of submitting to his dominating ways, of feeling him stroke her body with a soft whip before the whistle of it sung through the air, and the crack of it landed against her tender skin.
It had been perfect.
When her grandmother had gifted her with the painting of the two of them laying together on a white canvas, no sheets or other decorations to detract from the passion of their embrace, she hadn't had the heart to let the aging woman know a key item was missing, specifically a collar around her neck.
Shaking her head at herself, Erika returned her gaze to the auctioneer as she countered Ryan's latest bid, taking the cost to eighteen-fifty. Knowing she could only go a few hundred higher tortured her. She was so close, but as the bids continued, and the price jumped to twenty-one hundred, she had to admit defeat. The auctioneer asked for twenty-two hundred, asked again, then looked at her and asked for twenty-one fifty. Raising her paddle, Erika accepted the bid, then held her breath as the bid was asked again for twenty-two hundred.
"We have twenty-two hundred from the gentleman in the back. Do I have twenty-three hundred? Anyone? Twenty-three hundred for this breathtaking Virginia Gleeson painting? No? twenty-two fifty? Anyone? Then sold for twenty-two hundred to the gentleman in the back. If you'll come up front, please.
"Our next painting …"
Erika tuned out the auctioneer as he started in about the details of the next artwork. Gathering her purse and folder, she stood and walked to the back of the room. A warm hand wrapped around her elbow and jerked her to a halt.
"We need to talk."
Looking into Ryan's gaze, Erika felt her heart tighten. She wanted to scream at him for buying her grandmother's painting, but the memory of how much she used to love him held her silent.
Bitterness swirled around her as she pulled away from him and opened the doors.
"If you want a chance at that painting, you'll hear me out."
Erika almost didn't stop, but knowing how heart broken her mother would be if she ever found out there was a last chance to get the painting back, forced her to stop. Her mother had taken the loss of her own mother just a few months earlier very hard. It had renewed her determination that they find and acquire all of her paintings.
"Meet me in the hallway in five minutes."
Nodding her head without looking back, Erika stepped into the opening between the heavy oak doors and allowed them to swing closed behind her. Pressing a palm against her chest, she could feel her heart racing. She managed to drop into one of the antique chairs that lined the hallway, her mind whirling with thoughts about what Ryan could want.
Devastatingly handsome, born into a wealthy family, Ryan still had a down-to-earth quality about him. Part of that was thanks to his father's determination that his son not grow up thinking the world owed him anything. Ryan had once confessed, their bodies still glistening with sweat and the juices of their shared passion, that he owed his old man for that. He appreciated everything he had.
Unfortunately, a few months later, Erika knew it had all been a lie. He hadn't appreciated her. Clenching her fingers, she could still feel the coldness wash over her body as she had held the newspaper article announcing Ryan's upcoming marriage to a socialite friend of the family. He had always laughed off their appearing together in public as her being a friend of the family.
He'd shrug and respond, "Her family and mine have been close friends for generations." Swearing she had nothing to worry about, he would inevitably seduce her into not thinking about anything anymore, except him.
But that day everything had changed. He had come to his house to find her packing. Anger had flared in his eyes as he watched her throwing her clothing into a pile in her suitcase. "You're not even going to give me a chance to explain?"
Erika closed her eyes as she remembered the pain that had threaded through her at his hurt tone. She was the one who had been injured, lied to, betrayed, strung along with pretty words and declarations of love, until she had bought into the fantasy that maybe they could have a life together. Unable to deal with the emotions overwhelming her, she had choked on her answer and settled for shaking her head as she slammed the lid closed.
As she forced the zipper to slide around the bulging case, his hands had grabbed her arms and spun her around. Before she could gain her balance he had gripped her forearms and pulled her against him, his lips smacking down on hers in a kiss unlike any he had ever pressed against her. He was like a man possessed as he demanded entrance into her mouth. Licking her lips, she had the phantom sensation that she could still taste her tears melded with the taste of his lips.
As suddenly as he had grabbed her, Ryan thrust her away from himself, and stabbed a hand into his hair. Shaken to the core, she had turned and grabbed her case, her heart screaming at him to try to explain, to demand she hear him out. Instead he opened the bedroom door and held it for her. "Go on then, get the hell out," he spit out, his light eyes flashing angrily at her.
Holding the case against her side, Erika had walked out as proudly as she could manage, blinded by her own tears.
"I see you waited on me." Drawn back to the present by his mocking words, Erika stood up and faced him head on.
"Why did you buy that painting? You could have had anything else in the auction, or in any other auction. Why that painting?"
Ryan took a step closer to her, and Erika could feel the heat coming off his body. Despite his business suit and his high-class haircut, she could feel the baser animal in him just beneath the surface.
It was what first attracted her to him, that barely leashed intensity, covered by a thin layer of gentility.
"How badly do you want the painting?"
Erika ground her teeth at his ignoring her question, but wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of repeating herself. Nor was she going to answer him. She wasn't about to hint at her desperation.
Her mother had promised her grandmother on her deathbed that she would track down all the rest of her paintings and keep them in the family, using the insurance money to foot the bill. While not wealthy in life, she had had the sense to get a sizable policy on herself early on, wanting to make sure her children were provided for if she passed on while they were younger. Habit had kept her paying the premiums.
The knowledge that her own son had sold her prized possessions had eaten at her in the last few months, destroying what was left of her once robust health. And now, with her own mother having taken a turn for the worse, Erika was determined she would have all of her grandmother's works around her, if it was the last thing she did. She wasn't about to let Ryan Carstairs stand in her way.
Putting her hands on her hips, she looked him right in the eyes and asked, "What are you asking for it?"
She knew whatever it was, she wasn't going to like it. Not judging by the smile on his lips. "I'll give it to you, free and clear—a gift."
Erika waited, knowing he wasn't done yet. Ryan was too shrewd a business man to just fork over two grand without some kind of condition.
"After you spend forty-eight hours with me."
Erika raised her gaze to his eyes, wanting to judge the seriousness of his words. Forty-eight hours in his company would seem a lifetime, but it might finally exercise him from her life once and for all.
"There are a few conditions however. First, it will be at my place. Second, you agree to submit to me completely for those forty-eight hours, at the end of which, you are free to walk away with the painting."
Erika could feel her eyes widening. If he actually expected what she thought he expected, he was out of his mind. After almost a year, he expected to drop back into her life and her bed, without a moment's pause? She knew his engagement had fallen through for him, but that didn't mean she wanted him back in her life.
Mentally stomping on the flickering desire to feel his touch again that ignited in the back of her mind, she shook her head, wanting to scream at him that she wasn't his plaything anymore.
But she couldn't. She had to do whatever she could to get the painting back, and two days as his sex slave wasn't anything she hadn't done before. She had spent an entire week at his place once, dressed in a gauzy gown that hid nothing. He had loved bending her over the furniture and slowly taking her from behind, lifting her onto the table and feasting on her pussy until she cried with the need to orgasm. His fingers had spent more time buried between her pussy lips, or his cock in her mouth, than any other man. It was a week in paradise, and one of her fondest memories of him.
Looking up at him, she could see the wheels turning in his mind. He knew, damn him. "Any other conditions?" She forced herself to sound calm.
His nostrils flared. Erika could see the pulse throbbing at the base of his neck. He knew he had her, now all he had to do was seal the deal.
"Yes, one more. You don't talk, unless I give you permission, but you have to listen to everything I say, every last word."
Feeling like she was about to step into the vortex of a tornado, Erika held out her hand for Ryan to shake. As his larger one clasped hers, the heat of his touch sent shivers of sexual awareness down her spine. Possessively he closed his fingers around hers.
Pulling her even closer, he leaned down and whispered a breath away from her lips, "I'll send a driver for you on Friday at eight. Don't pack anything except for personal hygiene products."
Erika pulled away before she could do something stupid like close the nanometer separating them and kiss him. Finding strength somewhere inside she hadn't known before, she walked away from him, and didn't look back.
* * *
Unfortunately, by Friday she had lost all the emotional strength she had gained and was a jumbled mess inside. At the time, surviving forty-eight hours with Ryan hadn't seemed like such a big deal, but now, with it nearing, she was anything but certain. He really was everything she wanted in a guy, with one exception—he was a cheating, lying, using bastard.
When they were out together, when they were relaxing, or just hanging out, he had always treated her like an equal, despite their economic differences. However, when it came to anything sexual, he was in charge and they both knew it.
She couldn't count the number of times she had looked at the painting of the two of them, staring at the look of joy on her face as she gazed up at him, so perfectly rendered by her grandmother's hand and imagination. While there was an oddness to knowing the beloved woman had imagined her and her lover together, it was something she had grown up around. Her grandmother saw beauty in love and its physical expression, and it was her strength and her sheer passion that had allowed Erika to so readily accept submitting to Ryan, to letting him dominate her.
Her hands shaking, she fought the urge to take another look at the painting, to torture herself with the innocence she used to have where Ryan was concerned. She wanted to call the whole thing off, wanted to deny him further power over her.
It was too late to back out however. She had already told her mother the painting, the last of the ones done for former lovers, was being delivered on Monday. Glancing out the window she saw a black limo pull up. The door opened and a driver stepped out, the lines of his uniform crisp and perfect. Erika had a feeling Ryan planned a driver knowing she wouldn't pitch a fit with a stranger. He probably figured that by the time she got to his house she would be resigned to her fate of a weekend spent as his sex slave. Even if she wasn't, by not being allowed to talk, she wouldn't be able to vent her frustration.
At the polite knock, Erika took a deep breath, grabbed her overnight bag, and opened the door. The ride was relatively short, although it could have been two hours for all she knew. Dreading the forty-eight hours to come, the respite before the storm would never be long enough. By the time the limo pulled into the circular drive in front of Ryan's house however, she had managed to calm her nerves.