by EM BROWN
“What’s here?” he asked Vince, peering into the bags on the table.
“Tri-tip, pulled pork and turkey,” Vince answered. Finishing, he wiped his crumbs off the table, threw the wrapper and potato chip bag in the wastebasket, and went off to do whatever it was he did. Before leaving, he spared Kimani only a brief glance, less interested now that she was covered.
“What’s your preference?” Ben asked her.
“Um, turkey,” she answered. He was being nice to her, but at some point, he was probably going to want a blow job just like Jake. Could she bring herself to do it for the sake of a story?
“Chips or potato salad?”
She shook her head. She hoped Claire was getting something better to eat than pickles, but she rather doubted it. They ate in silence at first, but she had too many questions to keep quiet. She wanted to know him better, for the story and so she could prepare herself for what might come.
“Can I ask a question?” she ventured.
“I don’t have anything against you talking,” he replied.
“Why weren’t you at the Scarlet Auction last night?”
He propped his feet over the edge of the coffee table. “Why do you care?”
She shrugged her shoulders in feigned nonchalance. “Just making conversation. Jake only paid thirty thousand for me.”
“Yeah?”
He sounded disinterested. She found herself unexpectedly staring at his mouth when he brushed away a dab of mayonnaise. He had sensuous lips. Almost as full as a brother’s.
He turned the question on her. “What made you decide to do the Scarlet Auction? You that hard up for money?”
She was taken aback. Because Jake had shown no interest in learning about the women he had purchased, she had expected the same from Ben.
“Why do you care?” she threw back at him.
He stared at her, his eyes ever appraising. “Just making conversation.”
She was irritated and amused all at once. “Sure, the money’s good. Pretty damn good if you break it down to a per-hour wage.”
“You don’t have a problem prostituting yourself?”
She bristled. Was he trying to make a moral judgment? He was the one shelling out a ridiculous amount of money.
“If men don’t have a problem paying for sex, why should women have a problem selling it?” she returned.
“They shouldn’t. Your body, your choice.”
She was stunned. He made prostitution sound like a progressive value. He wadded up the sandwich wrapper and tossed it into the wastebasket like he was making a jump shot. From the soft flick of his wrist, she could tell he had some shooting skills.
“You play,” she commented.
“Do you?”
“In high school. I wasn’t good enough to play for Tara, however.”
“Very few people are.”
She couldn’t help but like that he knew a little about Stanford women’s basketball and the name of the coach. Most men knew next to nothing about women’s team sports. Having eaten half her sandwich, she wrapped the other half to save for Claire.
“You ever watch the team play?” she asked.
“I took my younger sister to a few games. She thought about playing for VanDerveer.”
“What position?”
“Small forward.”
“That’s the position I played—in high school. Did your sister go to Stanford?”
“UCLA.”
“She must be really good.”
“She is.”
Kimani looked down. This was surreal. She was having a conversation about basketball while half-naked in a remote cabin with a stranger who had paid two hundred thousand dollars for sex without batting an eye.
He paid to own you for a week, she reminded herself, and reasoned that she was getting chummy with him so that she could learn more for her story.
“You look like you could use a nap.”
Her gaze snapped up. Was “nap” a code word for some kind of kinky sex?
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing. I...”
“You look tired.”
Even if nap didn’t mean anything else, she wasn’t sure she wanted to go back down into that depressing basement.
“Go wash up and rest,” he said. “I’ve got calls to make.”
At her hesitation, he asked again, “What?”
“Wash up where?”
He gave her a puzzled look. “The bathroom.”
“I don’t think there’s a sink in the basement.”
He narrowed his eyes. “The basement? Show me.”
Taking the sandwich, she got off the sofa and headed toward the staircase that would lead to the room she shared with Claire. Ben followed behind. She opened the door to the room and went to put the sandwich in her handbag. Ben looked around the room with a frown.
“Come with me. You can use my room. Grab your stuff.”
She scooped up her bag and clothing.
“That’s it? You don’t have a suitcase or anything?”
“We came straight here from the auction.”
He let out a long breath but only motioned for her to follow him.
Ben’s room was the antithesis of the basement, with more floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the lake and sliding glass doors that led to the balcony, a leather settee and chaise before a fireplace, and a gorgeous mahogany, king-size, four-post bed. This was the opulence that Claire was expecting.
Ben opened his suitcase and pulled out a white t-shirt and sweats, which he tossed to her.
“You can have those for now,” he said. “The bathroom’s over there.”
Leaving the room, he closed the bedroom door behind him.
Alone, Kimani breathed in her first deep breath since arriving. The room was better than the basement. Ben was better than Jake. But she couldn’t relax completely. There was an edge to Ben, and a temper could easily lie behind his cool exterior. But so far, it seemed that things were looking up for her.
The bathroom was equally as luxurious as the bedroom with its granite counters, porcelain-tiled flooring, shower with stone tiles, and a Jacuzzi bathtub. Seeing her reflection in the mirror, Kimani was surprised at how bad she looked. There was a definite bruise on her cheek, and her hair couldn’t look worse.
Why had Ben paid two hundred thousand dollars for her? Because he hadn’t brought a sex partner of his own?
After taking one of the longest showers of her life, she pulled on his t-shirt.
“Oh my God,” she whispered at the softness of the fabric.
Passing by the bedroom door, she checked to see if it was locked. It opened. Unlike the basement door, she could lock this one from the inside. Should she lock it? Well, it would be safer if she was really going to take a nap. She didn’t want to let down her guard in a cabin full of strangers, but she needed rest if she was going to be on her toes.
After locking the door, she drew the blinds and crawled into the bed. When she closed her eyes, she kept seeing Ben. At some point, he was going to want sex. There wasn’t any other reason he would have paid a crapload of money for her. The question she had to decide was: how far was she willing to go for her story?
CHAPTER EIGHT
She had locked the bedroom door, so Ben couldn’t get in the room to change, but he didn’t let it bother him. It was probably better he had some distance from her. She had looked way too hot in his jacket, and his hands kept itching to slide under it and feel her up. Even with her stale makeup, she was pretty with those large brown eyes, thick lashes, and high cheekbones. But there was something else that drew him to her. Maybe it was the way her look shot daggers at Jake. Or maybe it was the defiant flare in her eyes.
Offering to buy her from Jake had not been in Ben’s plan. He had been prepared to suck it up and be the odd wheel with no date. But she—Slut #2, Montana, or whatever her name was—had changed everything.
He had to have her. Or, he didn’t want Jake to have
her. Ben was pretty sure Jake had given her the bruise.
But now that she was his, what was he going to do with her?
Supposedly, she had signed up for a week of sex with a stranger. The logical thing would be to have sex with her, but he could tell she wasn’t comfortable with her surroundings yet. And something was off. He couldn’t tell what or why.
Heading back downstairs, he found that Jake hadn’t yet returned, so he made the calls he needed to make, including one to his uncle Gordon Lee, who was in a tight race for mayor of Oakland. Just as Ben finished up his third call, he heard the voices of men and women. Vince must have opened the door because seconds later, Derek and Jason spilled into the room. They must have been drinking on the ride up because they appeared off balance. Two giggling women followed behind them.
“Cuz, you beat us,” said Jason.
“I took the jet,” Ben replied.
“Ohhh, you have a jet?” the woman of Southeast Asian descent asked, stumbling toward him. She was as thin as a reed—maybe thinner. “Like a corporate jet or a private jet?”
“Ben has both, I’m sure, probably more,” slurred Derek. “The Lees are one of the wealthiest families in China. What did Forbes peg you at? Twelve, thirteen billion?”
The eyes of the women lit up.
“That’s impressive,” said a redhead with a champagne glass in hand.
Jason wrapped an arm around his petite date. “Ben, this is Lisa. Pretty sweet find, hunh?”
The redhead introduced herself. “And I’m Ryan.”
Jake returned then with the blond, who looked a little worse, as if she had been crying. She looked embarrassed to be wearing her pink cocktail dress while Lisa was casually dressed in a sundress and Ryan was in tight cropped leggings and a halter.
“Hi, I remember you,” said Lisa to the blond. “You’re Claire. You got the highest bid at the auction last night. Congratulations.”
“There’s no Claire here. Her name’s Slut #1,” Jake corrected.
The women did a double take, then Ryan turned to Derek. “Do I get a nickname, too?”
“Sure, you can be Slut #2,” Derek replied.
Ryan giggled.
“That one’s taken already,” Jake informed
“Slut #3 it is.”
“And that would make me Slut #4?” Lisa asked.
“She can count.” Jake grinned at Jason.
“Of course she can. Asians are supposed to be good at math,” Derek joked.
“Just select Asians: Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Indian,” Jason said.
“Are you saying I’m not as smart because I’m Thai?” Lisa demanded.
Jason pulled her to him and kissed her neck. “Pretty much, babe.”
“I did hate math. It was so boring, but I got a passing grade because all the boys around me would do the work for me. I call that being smart.”
“Here, you’re graded on something much more fun than math.”
They touched foreheads, and Lisa giggled.
Ben turned to Claire. “There are sandwiches on the table.”
She glanced timidly at Jake, as if not daring to hope for the chance to eat. Ben decided he would have to beat the motherfucker up if he didn’t feed her.
Jake had walked over to the table. To Claire, he said, “Go over to your spot. Be good and you’ll get to eat.”
“I wanna change and touch up my makeup,” Ryan declared.
Jake sat down with his sandwich and propped his feet on the adjacent chair. “Derek can show you around.”
Jason, Derek, and their dates went upstairs with their bags. Ben walked over to Claire, who had situated herself in the sitting area before the fireplace.
“Something to drink?” he asked her.
She nodded.
“There’s water, tea—”
“You her fuckin’ waiter?” Jake sneered.
Going to the kitchen, Ben poured a glass of water and set it before Claire. She gave him a look of gratitude.
“You’re not trying to starve your slave?”
“Hey, you worry about your slut, I’ll worry about mine.”
“I’d want to make sure mine had enough stamina.”
“You gotta teach them their place first.”
Ben walked over to the table but stood before the windows. “Is that why you have them sleeping in the basement?”
“You got it. Where’s Slut #2?”
“Taking a nap in my room.”
Jake shook his head. “You’re starting off on the wrong foot. Better to be hard on them at the beginning, then they appreciate it when you’re kind. You start off wussy, they won’t learn proper submission.”
“You don’t have to be an asswipe about it.”
Jake bristled. “You got your way, I’ve got mine. Besides, women want this. They want a man to totally dominate them and tell them what to do. I’m just giving them what they want.”
“How come they didn’t come with anything?”
“No time to pack, but it’s not like they’re going to need clothes here.”
“They look tired.”
Jake slowed his chewing as he stared at Ben. “What’s it to you?”
“What do you know about these women?”
“All I need to know. The Scarlet Auction takes care of testing them for STDs, and the women fill out questionnaires about what they like and shit.”
“You get to see the questionnaires?”
“Yep. I only go for women that are game for just about anything. Your slut, for example, indicated she’s into hardcore BDSM.”
Ben felt his pulse quicken at the prospect, but he wasn’t ready to take anything Jake said at face value. “Do you have the questionnaire for Montana?”
“Who? Oh, you mean Slut #2. Nah, I left the printouts at the auction.”
Ben half suspected Jake hadn’t read any of it. “What do the women get to know about you?”
“Nothing. It’s an auction, not a matchmaking service.”
“What happens if they decide they don’t want to go through with something?”
Jake shrugged. “They can call it quits, but they won’t get their money then.”
Jake crumpled up his sandwich wrapper and tossed it at the wastebasket with a pretty good hook shot.
“Tyrell call you back?” Ben asked.
“Nope.”
“Try him again.”
“What’s your hurry?”
Ben wanted to finish his business with Jake sooner rather than later. He didn’t want to spend the whole week with the guy.
“My dad called asking for an update.”
“Fine,” Jake grumbled before pulling out his cell to make the call.
Ben only overheard the beginning of the conversation because he saw her at the top of the stairs. She was wearing his shirt and sweatpants and looking damn sexy in them. The sweatpants had drawstrings, and she had rolled up the bottoms, otherwise they would have been too long on her. Her full curls, no longer half straightened, were swept back in a hair tie, and she had removed her makeup. Their gazes met, and he was struck by how bright her eyes were.
Holding her half-eaten sandwich, she glanced over at Claire several times as she descended the stairs. He met her at the bottom. The bruise on her cheek had darkened in color, but the swelling had gone down.
“Thank you for the nap,” she said.
“Glad you got some rest,” he replied.
She stared at him with enough intensity, he almost shifted his weight. She was sizing him up again.
“Should I call you Ben or Master?” she asked.
“Ben for now. I’ll let you know when things change.”
She stiffened but gave a curt nod. She looked over at Claire. “Do you mind if I talk to her?”
“Go ahead.”
He was ready to change out of his suit but decided against leaving the two women alone with Jake. He watched Montana approach Claire and put a hand on her shoulder.
“You doing okay?” she a
sked Claire.
Claire nodded.
“You want a turkey sandwich?”
“Hey!” Jake snapped to Ben. “Your slut’s not allowed to talk to mine unless I say it’s okay.”
Ben put his hands on his hips. “She’s just giving her a sandwich.”
Jake glared at Montana. “Fine. I was going to let her eat anyway.”
“So what did Tyrell say?”
“China’s not his first choice, obviously, but he’s willing to hear some numbers.”
“Two and a half million for a two-year deal. One-point-one million if it’s going to be one year.”
“You can do better than that. Marbury made two mill on one year.”
“Marbury is a beloved celebrity in Beijing. Nobody’s heard of Tyrell.”
“Make it one-point-three million.”
Ben thought it over. “Set up an in-person meeting, and I’ll consider it.”
“What, you don’t trust me to deliver the message?”
“Just set up the meeting.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “I’m gonna go take a shower. Come on, Slut #1, you’re shaving that bush of yours. I don’t like my slaves hairy.”
Claire dutifully scurried after Jake. Ben looked over at Montana.
Finally, they were alone.
CHAPTER NINE
Kimani watched Ben move over to the bar. She still didn’t know what to make of him. He had a very serious demeanor but seemed nice enough. After all, he had let her nap and given her clothes, and he hadn’t made her give him a blow job—yet. But maybe anyone seemed nice next to Jake. And how good a guy could he be if he was willing to pay for sex? It wasn’t like a guy with his assets would have a hard time getting laid, which made the fact that he would pay for sex all the more disgusting.
“Red or white?” he asked as he perused the wine bottles.
“I don’t drink.”
He looked at her. “At all?”
“I mean, I’m not much of a drinker. I drink a little now and then.”
He selected a bottle of Buena Tierra Vineyard from the Russian River Valley. He popped the cork. “Half a glass won’t hurt you, and it might take the edge off your nerves.”
He could tell she was on edge? She accepted a glass from him, reminding herself that she had a role to play, and maybe if she drank, he would, too. He seemed guarded, and she had to loosen him up to get him to talk. While in his room, she had gone through his luggage, but all she’d found were clothing, toiletries, and a laptop and iPad, both password protected.
