Keeping The Virgin (The Virgin Auctions, Book Four)

by Paige North

  Just as I’m about to beg for him to punish me already, he suddenly smacks my exposed bottom.

  The sting makes my pussy gush, and I bite my lip, holding back an aroused groan. But I’m not going to make a sound. I’m not giving in to him.

  My clit is pounding again, waiting for what comes next.

  Cage only rubs away the stinging heat on my skin. It’s as if he’s testing me to see how much I’ll take.

  But I want to feel my clit jerk with lust again. I want to get wetter.

  What’s wrong with me?

  “Did you learn your lesson yet?” he finally asks, his voice brittle.

  “No.” I wiggle, asking for more. “Fuck you, Cage.”

  “Fuck me for what?”

  I don’t know what else to say, and he smacks me again.

  Something rapturous blasts through me, and I come with such soaked brutality that everything disappears for a fierce moment. Then, as my head starts spinning again, I’m back, fisting his jacket in my hands, hauling in tight breaths. I want this so bad that I think I’m going to die, and my sight starts to clear, my body trembling as if it’s barely tied together by vibrating wires that are set to break yet again.

  Juices make me slick between my legs, and I involuntarily mewl, wanting him to give me another.

  Instead he slides his fingers between the folds of my beating pussy, as if wants to see how affected I am. He wants to see what a little monster he’s making me.

  “You’re drenched,” he says, taking his hand away. “You’re enjoying this.”

  “Yes.” I can’t lie.

  When he slowly reaches between my legs again and parts my lips, I cry out a little. He dips his finger into me, and I gasp and move my hips against him so he goes even deeper. I’m silently begging now, and when he pushes even farther inside, I squirm. I pull at his jacket as he pumps me, finger fucking me faster, faster, deeper, until he hits a spot inside of me that makes a violent shower of sparks light the darkness of my mind yet again.

  Spinning—my sight, my consciousness—I feel him moving me off his shoulder until he brings me down to my feet, my back against the wall. He has to hold me up with one arm because I can’t stand on my own. With his other hand, he deftly undoes his fly. All the while he looks down at me with those intense blue eyes, his dark brows making him seem so cruel, and I wonder if he sees the part of me that’s asking for more and more—the crazy want, the surprising need, this new addiction that I’ve just discovered with him.

  “You’re not getting off that easily,” he says.

  God, but I am.

  I know that’s not what he means, and fear mixes with stimulation, getting me higher pulse by pulse.

  Is he going to really fuck me now? Is this finally the when, how, and where…?

  Things are going so fast, and I want them to go faster. I reach down for his cock, but he’s ahead of me, cuffing my wrist with his fingers then pushing my arm over my head so that it’s plastered to the wall. He guides my other arm upward, too, and he binds both of my wrists with that one large, damningly experienced hand.

  “Should I give you my cock?” He reaches down behind me with his free hand, urging my hips forward, but not enough so that I’m against his dick. “Should I fuck you right here?”

  Before I can plead for him to take me, he coaxes his fingers down from my back and over my ass, then down under my dress and between my thighs. Like a born slut, I part my legs for him as he eases up to tease my drenched slit.

  As he strokes me, I moan. The sound of my juices…the erratic rhythm of our breathing... Oh, it’s all too much. But when he pushes his fingers up and into my pussy from the back, I sharply gasp, rising to my toes and arching toward him. At the same time, he lets go of my wrists above my head and reaches down to his cock.

  With excruciating laziness, he takes hold of himself and slips his bare tip through my folds, back and forth, teasing me some more. But he doesn’t enter me. His fingers are already inside my pussy, pumping in time to those slow strokes of his cock, getting me going harder, higher… God, he’s torturing me more and more, especially when he rubs his smooth, hard head against my clit.

  The electric contact intensifies the feverish buzz I already had going. My blood starts to bubble again as he slips and slides over me, circling the tiny button of pleasure that’s never felt anything like this. That, combined with the way he’s swirling his fingers inside of me from the back, brings me into the darkness again. It’s as if I’m in the middle of a growing eclipse as passion rolls over me and I gyrate, hungry for more. Always more…

  I approach a place that threatens to tear me apart…

  Pressure rising…

  Steam from our chemical attraction brewing…

  He pushes his fingers so far up into me that I buck forward, and I feel his cock hit the hand he’s using to bang me.

  So close. So fucking close…

  “Please…” I whisper.

  “Please what?”

  His gaze is fully dark now as he lets go of his rock-hard shaft, bracing that hand on my hip, picking up speed and guiding me in a relentless rhythm as he pumps his hips and slides his cock through my folds and finger fucks me at the same time. His tip keeps hitting far enough back so that I can still feel it nudging his fingers as they push in and out of me with increasingly wet, vigorous urgency. I’m sopping, ready for him, gripping his shoulders and desperately urging him on.

  “Please,” I whisper. “Fuck me!”

  “Do you deserve to be fucked?”

  I want to answer yes!, but his fingers are so far in me that they’re prodding my g-spot again. At the same time, his shaft is sliding against my clit, and the combination is pushing me and pushing me…

  An orgasm butts against me, threatening, not quite getting there, and I groan in frustrated delight. Then Cage hits both sweet spots again—clit and g-spot—and a flash of destructive light suddenly rips me apart.

  One flash…two…like fast lightning…

  I feel him come with hot spurts on my pussy and thighs as I finish my own intense orgasm. I cling to his suit jacket once again, my face pressed against his hard chest, his strong, tensed arms holding me up.

  Right away I realize that he didn’t climax into me. He held back, and it’s only when I look up to see the veins standing out on his neck that I know how forcefully he fought himself.

  He didn’t fuck me for some reason. Punishment?

  Or something else…?

  “You didn’t…” I start to say, barely getting out the words. I don’t have the strength. All I can do is keep holding onto him.

  But I can feel the coldness stealing up on him, just like always. He lightly props me against the wall, waits until I can prove that my legs can hold me up, then turns toward the dispenser to pull out some paper towels.

  I know he’s already left me.

  Without looking at me, he hands me the towels. He takes some for himself.

  As my body keeps whirring, I clean myself up as he does the same. He zips himself back up, getting himself together before I do, and tosses the towels away.

  I go to the sink and run my towels under the water, then reach under my dress to bathe off the juices he left on my thighs and pussy. I’m steeped with them.

  I catch him watching me, and the darkness is still there in his eyes, as if he’s holding himself back again from ravishing me. But there’s that something else in his gaze, too.

  I see pieces of him there, shards, as if his eyes are shattered mirrors that haven’t been fit back together yet.

  He doesn’t have to say it—he was very, very close to losing control completely with me, and he hates that. Maybe he even hates himself.

  There are demons in his gaze that I can’t even begin to guess at, and as much as I enjoyed this dark sexual dance, I can’t stand his obvious remorse.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, holding the towels, the water still running.

  He doesn’t answer.

  I ste
p back from the sink as he comes over. He washes his hands, then dries them off. He doesn’t look at me the entire time, which is odd for a man who can’t seem to stop watching me.

  Feeling vulnerable, I finish cleaning myself off, throw away my towels, and then tug at my dress, making sure I’m all the way covered. I see my red panties on the floor, the same color as the flush that’s still warming my skin. I pick them up and throw them away, making sure the discarded towels hide them.

  When I turn to Cage, he’s running his fingers through his hair. He straightens his suit. Then he finally turns to me.

  “This can’t continue,” he says coolly.

  As numbness steals over me, he opens the restroom door and walks out.

  Chapter 9

  I can hear the 50s music from the ice cream shop playing outside the door that just closed on me. I can still feel Cage’s hands on me from the intense, heart-stopping sexual encounter we just had.

  At the same time, I keep hearing what he told me in such a distant voice.

  This can’t continue.

  Without thinking, I open the door to the hallway. I see him entering the main section of the ice cream shop, his tall, intimidating body like a dark spot against the light of the bigger room.

  I go after him, but his strides are so long that I don’t catch up until we’re outside on the sidewalk.

  A mild, humid breeze blows, and I push down the hem of my dress. I don’t want my skirt blowing up to reveal that I don’t have my panties on underneath. Even worse, I’m about to blow up.

  “What do you mean, ‘this can’t continue’?” I shout.

  He comes to a tense halt near the street corner where the crosswalk signal is green. From the way he’s standing, I can tell he’s got a bitter set to his mouth, as if he knew I’d catch up to him and I wouldn’t let this go.

  Is the damned playboy so good at leaving women behind that he thought he could do it with me, too?

  I thread through the people on the sidewalk, forging a path toward Cage. “Why did you say that to me?”

  He turns around, and the mere sight of him hits me like I’ve collided head-on with my lust. That thick, devilish hair. The dark brows over a panty-dropping gaze. That massive hard body under the immaculate suit.

  This man was so, so close to screwing me, and I still ache for it to happen, no matter how he’s treating me.

  “Calm down, Karini,” he says, his voice carrying.

  A few people glance at him, their gazes lingering before they go about their New-York business. But I couldn’t care less if we’re putting on a show as I approach him and he casually moves toward the drug store on the corner then stands by the brick wall. He looks down at me with a condescending air, but I know there’s something else there. Heat that can’t quite be covered by the layer of ice he’s trying to put on.

  “You want me to calm down?” I ask.

  “Yes. I’ll pay you all the money I promised, but if you know what’s best for you, you’ll leave and get as far away from me as possible.”

  Is he serious?

  The sassy part of me wants to laugh. But the other part is hurt. I mean, what we just did… How intensely we did it…

  It didn’t mean a damned thing to him?

  Maybe I’m more emotional than I thought after our fierce encounter, because my need swarms me, my throat tight, tears blurring my vision.

  It has to be my post-orgasm hormones.

  As a rush of tears trickles down my cheek, I angrily swipe them away. Then I start to run. I don’t know where, but I don’t want him to see me this way.

  “Karini!” I hear him yell.

  But I don’t stop, not even when I hear footsteps behind me on the sidewalk and feel a hand on my shoulder. Suddenly I’m being whipped around, his fingers pressing into me as he looms over me. All I can see through my tears are his eyes. They’re clear right now, and as I realize that he feels like shit for talking to me like that, I stop trying to get away.

  I do, however, shrug his damned hands off of me.

  “Don’t do this,” he says.

  “Do what?”

  He clenches his jaw until a muscle ticks in his cheek. He seems to search for words.

  Cage Bryant, speechless.

  Then he finally runs his fingers through his hair again and mutters, “I don’t like to see you like this, so stop crying.”

  “Oh, yes, just as you command, sir. Right away, sir…”

  “Stop.”

  I glare at him, but my eyes are still glassy. Another tear wiggles down my face.

  “Jesus,” he says from between his teeth.

  He’s still not leaving, and that gives me some courage. “You said you don’t like to see me this way. What did you mean?”

  “In pain. That’s what I meant.”

  His blunt admission stuns me, and it’s not just because of what he said. It’s how he said it—as if he’s tormented in some way. But then he just stands there as if he still might tell me to get lost, and I back away from him, then start to take off again.

  He catches up in an instant, and when he pulls me to him this time, he envelopes me in a furious embrace, nearly lifting me from the ground in his passion.

  My face presses against his, cutting off my breath, and everything stops for me—time, the air around us, the traffic in the street.

  Even my heartbeat.

  For this blissful moment, with his fingers buried in my hair, with his other arm crushing me to him as he tries to control himself, I see a different Cage than ever before and…

  My mind fizzles out as he suddenly scoops me into an unrestrained kiss. No thoughts about him telling me to go away, no worries about how I’m falling for him too hard and too fast…there’s only a blank euphoria closing in on me. His kiss isn’t as commanding as it was yesterday when he first seduced me. It isn’t tender, either. It’s somewhere between desperate and demanding, and as I lose my balance, he catches me again, pressing tinier kisses to the corner of my lips, my cheek, my temple.

  Confused and dizzy, I only grasp at his jacket, because I don’t think I can stand up anymore.

  He holds me, then presses his lips against my head. “I want you to stay.”

  “But—”

  “You’re killing me, Karini. I don’t know what the hell to do with you. All I know is that you’re already in my blood, goddammit, and I don’t want you to be.”

  I hear that darkness in his voice, and I can imagine that it’s in his eyes. But the truth is that he’s already my addiction, too, and as he cradles me, I bury my face in the crook of his shoulder and neck. He smells so good, like skin and soap, and little by little, I become aware that we’re standing outside where cars are clogging the city street and people are walking by. They’re staring. Someone whistles from a passing bike.

  Reality filters in as I whisper, “You’re going to be recognized.” But I don’t want this moment to end. I don’t want anything to take this away from me.

  At my comment, the muscles of his back tense under my hands, and I know what he must be thinking—that New York expects him to be their gossip-column Romeo, and that’s the reason he could lose a business deal with Igor Vasiliev. Or maybe he’s thinking about how he constantly mows through all his women, and I’m just the next one in line.

  In the end, I have no idea what he’s thinking, and maybe I never will.

  But as he pulls away from me, I realize that, somehow, I’m the only woman he sees right now. For some reason, I’ve got him in the palm of my hand, and I have no idea how that even happened. It’s almost as if he’s falling for me as quickly as I’m falling for him.

  Hah. Me, a Jane. A plain girl no one would have any reason to notice in a crowd, nothing special. I’ve got to be delusional.

  Even so, at his possessive look, a sense of power steals over me, and I speak before I think. “I’m sick of you jerking me around, you know.”

  I expect a flash of anger, but he only keeps looking down at me. Then he str
okes my cheek. “I meant what I said. I want you to stay.”

  “Then why did you tell me this isn’t working out?”

  He drops his hand from my face but still keeps a hold of my shoulders. “I’m just under a great deal of stress, Karini. Do you understand?”

  I tilt my head, trying to read him, and I finally see why he could be so stressed out. “The possible deal with Igor Vasiliev,” I say.

  He smiles slightly, and even though the smile is barely there, it warms my heart that at least I understand this much about him.

  Maybe, after he takes me back to his home, I’ll get to understand so much more.

  He needs to go to work in his downtown office for the rest of the day, but after we return to his lavish duplex, he asks me what I’d like the personal chef to make for dinner. He can’t be here to eat it, he says, but he’s going to be back tonight, and I should expect him.

  “And when I get back,” he says at the door on his way out, “I want you to meet me in my room.”

  His meaning doesn’t register right away, but that’s only because he’s already swept me into his arms to kiss me again—soft, promising, and, yes, demanding. I’m not sure if he’ll be running hot or cold when he returns, but as he gives me a long, hot look then walks out the door, I realize that something big just happened between us.

  He said to meet him in his room.

  We’re going to be in his room.

  He’d told me before that he needs his space, but he’s actually letting me in tonight. Is it because I almost left him today and he’s the kind of man who refuses to get left?

  That has to be it, because surely he can’t be that attached to me in such a short time…

  But the very idea that he might be sends an innocent flutter through me. Could it be that I’m not the only one who’s starting to fall hard and fast here?

  Oh my god, is that really what I’m doing?

  I spend the rest of the day fantasizing about him, lingering over the steamed mussels with tomato and chorizo broth his personal chef serves to me on the balcony overlooking Central Park. I attempt to watch some TV, then read one of the many leather-covered novels in the massive library with streamlined bookshelves that reach the ceiling. Then, when Cage sends me a text saying that he’s going to be home in an hour, I finally step into my marble bathroom to prepare myself for the biggest night I’ve ever had.