by Strong, Mimi
“Sold.” The auctioneer tapped his gavel.
I held up my paddle so the assistant could take down my number, and then I turned to Skye.
She was chewing on her thumbnail, and hiccuping.
“Still nervous?” I asked.
“I can’t pay for that,” she whispered between hiccups.
I took her hand and pulled it from her mouth. That explained why she kept her nails so short—she was a biter.
“I couldn’t let Duncan get it for less than market value. How about we keep it at your apartment, and when you get tired of it, we’ll sell it back to him for double?”
Her pale blue eyes wide, she said, “You’re crazy.”
I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I’ll see if we can get it delivered tonight, so we have something to sit on.”
“I’ll pay you back. And for the table.”
I waved my hand. “It’s nothing.”
She narrowed her eyes, and I could almost see her thoughts whirring. She thought I was a maintenance worker at the club. She didn’t know that with my bank account, I could furnish her entire apartment as easily as most people could buy a friend a cup of coffee.
I might have some explaining to do.
Regardless, it was a really great sofa.
Duncan put in a bid on the next lot, already moving on and not as irritated with me as he had been moments earlier.
Without even looking to see what the item up for bid was, I raised my paddle.
With amusement in his voice, the auctioneer called out, “And we have two twenty from the gentleman with the smart haircut. Two twenty! How about you, sir? Is this your friend? You’re not going to let him have this fine art deco piece, are you?”
I waved my paddle. “Two fifty!”
Everyone laughed and turned to look our way.
I got a poke in the ribs on one side from Skye, and on the other side from Duncan.
Some people standing along the side of the room raised their paddles, bidding the lot up in small increments.
Duncan leaned forward and waved to get Skye’s attention. She still had the hiccups, but was keeping them contained.
“Can’t you do something about him?” Duncan hissed at Skye.
She pulled her hand away from her mouth. “He’s got auction fever.”
I raised my paddle and bid three hundred. The art deco piece was an armoire, with carvings on the doors. A tall, thin man with white hair and a bushy mustache kept topping my bid at the last minute. I glared at him. He wasn’t getting my armoire.
Chapter 22
Skye
I’d never seen someone in the grips of auction fever before, but I knew Charlie had it bad.
Duncan finally took Charlie’s paddle away. No pleading or bargaining. He just took the paddle and sat on top of it.
Charlie turned to me, to take my paddle, still sitting unused on my lap. I hadn’t wanted a paddle, because I only had a few dollars, but the woman at the desk handed me one when we registered. Charlie had barely wrapped his fingers around the handle when Duncan confiscated that one as well.
“Leave some things for everyone else,” I hissed.
He settled back in his chair, arms crossed, and pretended to yawn and fall asleep, but I could see him watching through his eyelashes.
~
We left the building just after six o’clock.
Duncan seemed happy enough, the proud owner of a dozen pieces of furniture for his business.
I was very quiet as I limped my way back to the car, my arm over Charlie as my crutch.
How was I going to stop this? Charlie had bought an entire apartment’s worth of furniture, and asked for delivery that night. He’d hired an independent mover, referred to him by the auction house, and they were going to bring everything to my apartment. I didn’t even know if it would all fit. I certainly couldn’t comprehend the amount of money he’d spent on everything.
“Shotgun,” I said as we approached the car. “I call front seat.”
“Everyone knows what shotgun means,” Duncan grumbled. “You don’t have to rub it in.”
Charlie held open the door for me. “Dinner?”
Duncan said the name of a place I hadn’t heard of. Charlie mumbled about the place being overrated, but then Duncan announced that he was buying, and suddenly everyone was on board.
~
I’d never heard of the restaurant before because it wasn’t exactly in my price range. I knew it had to be expensive, because the waiter gave me a special ladies’ menu with no prices listed.
“I’ll have Chicken McNuggets,” I said, putting down the menu after a few minutes.
Charlie cracked up while Duncan looked horrified. “Give me that,” Duncan said, taking away my menu.
Duncan ordered for me, which was fine. We had some wine, and I don’t normally drink wine, but I said it was “actually good.”
For the rest of dinner, the two of them kept teasing me, saying that everything was “actually good.”
During the main course, Duncan started talking about his stepmom and hand jobs. A lot. Kinda loud.
“She’s ambidextrous,” Duncan said. “Plus my stepmom is pretty good with her feet. She’s got those hand-shaped feet, like a monkey.”
Charlie covered his face and refused to comment.
Maybe it was the wine, but I found the topic fascinating, and asked a number of questions. I couldn’t tell if Duncan was completely joking, or just half joking, but he did make me laugh, and that made me hate him a bit less.
We were at dinner for over two hours, which I found out is normal for fancy restaurants. I could have stayed longer and tried to make a bigger dent in the dessert trolley, but we had to get back to my place in time for the furniture delivery.
We drove Duncan to his house, in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city. Apparently, he lived in his own small version of the big house seen from the street, in a pool house at the back.
As we pulled away, I asked Charlie, “He just lets you drive his car? All the time? Is this normal?”
He didn’t answer my question, but said, “You two seem to be getting along better.”
I shrugged and looked out the side of the window, at the mansions we were driving past. “He was paying for dinner. I do have some manners.”
He chuckled. “Chicken McNuggets.”
“I like what I like.”
“I bet you do, mustard-tits.”
I gasped.
He glanced over at me, a sly smile on his face. “Thanks for letting me stay over again tonight. I saw a lot of condiments in your fridge that need sampling.”
“Maybe you’ll be the one with the blindfold. I’ll put marmalade on your dick.”
“We’ll see.”
~
The movers loaded the furniture into my apartment. One of my neighbors came out to give me a dirty look for getting a heavy delivery after dark, but I could tell he wasn’t going to call the landlord. We mostly had a live-and-let-live policy in our little building. The walls were too thin for holding grudges, plus I controlled the thermostat for the whole building in the winter.
“This makes me happy,” Charlie said as he walked through the apartment, admiring his new purchases.
“I’ll pay you back, or send everything back to you as soon as I can.”
“Look how great today worked out. You needed furniture. We went to an auction. Now you have furniture.”
“And debt. Some problem solver you are. Now I owe a bunch of money to some guy.”
“Some guy?” Charlie asked, pretending to be confused.
“This pervert I know.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I think he’s a sexual deviant.”
Charlie leapt over the low back of the tufted leather sofa and landed in a relaxed pose on the seat. He waggled his eyebrows, then frowned and sniffed his armpit.
“I’m wearing last night’s clothes,” he said.
“You should take a shower before you get your
man-stink all over my new couch.”
He stood and immediately took off all his clothes, right by the window, without closing the curtains.
“Join me,” he said, giving me a hypnotic stare combined with a come-hither hand gesture. “Let us enjoy the pleasures of your bubble-gum pink bathtub.”
I was pretty sure two adults wouldn’t fit together in my tub, but I followed him in anyway. He filled the tub with water and then examined all my bath products, adding a few drops of different soaps, then smelling the suds and doing a mad scientist laugh.
As soon as I slipped off my sundress and underwear, he stopped laughing.
His body reacted to mine.
I didn’t mean to stare, but his cock was inflating to mythical proportions, and I hadn’t even touched it. All I did was lean over to check the water temperature and it inflated like an emergency life raft behind me.
Charlie got into the water first, making room for me in front of him, between his legs.
I stepped in and sat down with my back against his chest, his hard cock pressed against my spine. He wrapped his arms around me, and I leaned back, my head against his shoulder.
“This is nice,” he murmured.
“Your arms look more hairy when they’re wet.”
He took a deep breath, raising me up with his chest.
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” he said.
We held each other like that for a while, relaxing, until the water was still warm, but not steaming.
The erection pressed against my back hadn’t let up much.
With some awkward splashing, I managed to get myself turned around, sitting on my knees and facing Charlie. His chest had never looked more manly than it was now, sticking out of a bubble-gum pink tub. I traced the square lines of his pectoral muscles, giggling as he flexed for me.
With both hands, I traced the lines of his abdominal muscles, which were as perfect as any male calendar model’s.
I swept my touch back up the length of his body, pushing water with my hands, admiring the sheen of his contours when wet.
“You’re making me self-conscious,” he said, breaking the spell.
I gazed up at his hazel eyes, half-lidded from the relaxing heat of the tub.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Who do you want me to be?”
“I don’t know. I guess that was a stupid question. It’s been a long day, and now I’m all mixed up.” I slipped my hand down to his crotch and took hold of him, wrapping my fingers around his shaft one at a time. “Oh, I think my second wind just kicked in. I’m not so tired anymore.”
“Uh-oh. Second wind.” He closed his eyes and rested his head back against the tile wall.
“Hello, big boy,” I said.
“And hello to you.”
I giggled. “I wasn’t talking to you, Charlie.”
I folded forward, moving toward his cock with my mouth open. We’d had sex at least three times, but I’d barely had him in my mouth, except for a few seconds by the pool the night we met.
I brought my lips close to the head, holding him upright, out of the water.
“Are you thinking about the night we met?” I asked. “By the pool?”
“Now I am. You were so fucking hot that night, in the pool. You were like lava inside.”
Smiling, I licked the perimeter, along the contours, before bobbing him in my mouth for a second.
“Tell me more about that night,” I said.
“I’d never seen anyone more beautiful than you, teaching me the waltz.”
I lowered my mouth around him, taking my time.
He continued, “And then you agreed to strip down to your underwear, and I was, like, who is this creature? This can’t be a human woman. She must be a goddess.”
I lifted up my head and pulled his cock out of my mouth with a popping sound. “Come on. Is that really what you thought?”
He gave me a long, thoughtful look. I raised my eyebrows, waiting.
Almost growling, his voice low, he said, “I’m going to pound that pink pussy of hers. That’s what I was thinking. I’m going to do or say anything it takes, to get me into that pussy. Mouth. Fingers. Tongue. Dick. My whole body.”
I was still holding his cock in my hand, and felt it pulse, invigorated with every dirty word he said. Down between my legs, my vaginal walls tingled.
“That’s what I thought,” I said.
“Anything it takes.”
This time, I sucked his cock into my mouth with vigor. He gasped, the muscles of his legs rippling as he tensed his body, rising up in the water like some mighty sea beast.
“Talk dirty,” I said around his flesh.
“Rub my dick on your sexy little dancer tits.”
“Like this?” Leaning forward, I used the tip to draw circles around my nipples, then slide up and down the crease of my small breasts.
“That feels so good, but now I want to come in your mouth.”
“Already? But what do I get?”
“You get me to last longer the second time, and I’ve got big plans. I’m going to haul you out of this little pink tub and fuck you on top of every single piece of furniture in this apartment.”
“Every piece?”
“Lick me,” he said. “Stop talking and start sucking.”
I rolled my eyes and pretended to be mildly annoyed, then I got to work. This time, I didn’t draw it out. I got a good grip with one hand, near the base, and sucked vigorously, not letting up. I remembered that time on the golf course, in the rain, when he’d gone down on me after coming. He’d spat on the wet grass, and I couldn’t believe how hot that was, or how hard he made me come. I slowed for a second with the blowjob, then doubled the speed. His body convulsed, his cock pulsed, and he shot in my mouth.
I pulled my face away and met his hazel eyes, barely open.
His fluid pooled on my tongue, hot and metallic.
I could have swallowed, but I was still thinking about the thunderstorm. I spat directly down, on his taut stomach.
He raised his eyebrows.
I spat again, my mouth now clear.
Now what?
He very slowly reached across his body and picked up the bar of soap from the edge of the tub.
“I’m going to have to wash your mouth out,” he said.
“My mouth is dirty.”
“Stick out your tongue.”
I glanced down at the splattered fluid on his beautiful, muscled stomach, running down into the warm tub water in rivers.
I stuck out my tongue, and he followed through on his threat, dabbing the soap at first and then rubbing it up and down my tongue.
He gave me a stern look the whole time, and my pussy tingled with excitement.
He pulled the soap away and let me rinse my mouth with handfuls of tub water, which I made a point of gathering far away from his stomach.
The soap didn’t taste great, but I didn’t care. I was enjoying this game, and excited about whatever came next.
He put the soap in my hand. “Wash your ass.”
“Beg pardon?”
“You said you wanted me to do anything I wanted. First, I’m going to fuck you on every piece of furniture out there. And then, I’m going to bend you over that leather sofa and claim your ass.”
“You’d definitely be planting a flag where no flag has ever been planted.”
“Good.”
I took the soap and gave myself a thorough cleaning as he watched.
After I was done washing, I pushed the button to pop up the drain for the tub. As the water swirled away, we turned on the shower to get rinsed off.
When we got out of the shower and dried ourselves, Charlie said, “You need new towels.”
I stuck my fingers through the holes at the edge of the faded pink towel I was using. “These ones are cozy. They’re mine.”
He slapped my buttock, grinning. “Go make me a cup of coffee using a paper towel as a filter. “We left dinner before I could get m
y after-dinner coffee.”
I was going to tell him to make it himself, but he was fishing a new razor out of my vanity, along with shaving cream. He hadn’t shaved that day, and had some stubble on his chin. It wasn’t bad enough to make my face sore, but a smooth cheek would be better.
Make him coffee? Sure.
Even though I wanted to sit in the room and watch him shave his gorgeous face, I hobbled out in my towel.
My knee was still sore, but the swelling had diminished, and I could already put more weight on the leg. The old injury seemed to get worse every time I hurt the joint. I could take the occasional hard landing, but I always seemed to wrench it the worst when I fell down.
In my bedroom, I ransacked the cardboard box I’d been keeping my underwear in ever since my dresser was stolen. I found a pair of blue lace panties I’d never worn, and pulled them on.
Biting my lower lip, I thought about Charlie’s promise to claim my ass. Fear commingled with excitement. I pulled out my bottle of lube and set it on the new dresser that now stood in the room, under the window. I closed the blinds, then rested my palms on the dresser, leaning forward and imagining it happening. Anal sex.
I got the hiccups.
Now hiccuping for the second time that day, I dug through my closet and found a baby blue camisole to pair with the panties. They didn’t match exactly.
The bathroom door cracked open. “I don’t hear anyone in the kitchen making coffee,” Charlie called out.
His words and his bossy tone made me so mad, but they also turned me on. What was happening to me? And him? He’d seemed like such a sweet guy when we’d met, but now he was turning into Mr. Alpha. And I couldn’t get enough.
I limped out to the living room and pulled all the curtains shut, then I made myself a cup of tea and him a cup of coffee.
He was taking his sweet time, so I put the first cup of coffee away, in a cupboard, and made a second cup. This time, I put in a layer of hot pepper sauce at the bottom.
By the time he came out of the bathroom, a threadbare towel slung around his hips, I could hardly control my excitement over the pepper sauce coffee.
Sipping my tea, leaning back against the counter, I watched as he raised the chipped mug to his mouth and took a sip.
