Tearing her attention away, she caught Ursa watching her. She pushed a smile to her lips. “I didn’t think you liked short guys anyway,” she said over the rim of her glass to Marcie. “Don’t you hate it when a dude is eye level with your boobs?” She forced a shudder, attempting amusement.
Marcie looked far from pleased, blushing deeper than Vans had ever seen. “Your concern is touching, darlings. It’s over now. Can we just enjoy the remainder of our evening? Thank you for supporting my needs. You can all stop ganging up on me. I mean it.” She looked at them each in turn before gulping down the bubbly.
“Sorry, Marcie,” Travis said, and rubbed a hand along her shoulder, squeezing.
“Just find a seat.” Marcie shrugged out of his touch and turned away from them, grabbing another glass of sparkling wine as she moved toward the arranged chairs.
Ursa moved to join Marcie in solidarity, and Leo glanced questioningly at Travis before sweeping after the other pair. That left Vans with her empty glass and Travis. He slowly turned to her and it seemed as if he suddenly remembered her standing there—his lady friend, whom he was currently fucking, standing by watching him chase-ass on his ex-fuck-toy.
Fucking pathetic, Charles!
Feeling her eyes burn, she wanted to leave. She certainly couldn’t let him touch her. Insecurity had officially screamed into jealousy’s airspace and roared through her with blinding green jets.
To avoid him reaching for her, she turned and walked quickly away, following right on Leo’s heels, almost running into him as she dodged around him and settled next to Marcie. Cock-blocking her boyfriend’s attempt at…whatever the fuck he was doing.
She didn’t hear much of the opening statement. Blah blah, the guy Marcie was screwing was taking over the company. What the fuck ever! Vans needed another dozen drinks, and then to get home and pass out. Sort it all out later.
The guy in question stood up to be introduced. Vans didn’t see what the big deal was. Dressed in a stylish tux, Mano was short and older, though certainly not old. Travis’s age maybe. He had a goatee and long golden hair held back in a stupid holiday bow. Before retaking his seat, he turned and focused exclusively on Marcie, somehow finding her in the crowded room, and crooked a finger at her.
“Holy shit,” Vans whispered. “Marcie!”
Travis uttered a low growl like a dog when someone threatens its bone, and his body tightened.
“Don’t say anything,” Marcie warned and focused on flipping through the auction catalog.
Vans closed her eyes and tried to breathe through her nose. For a long while, she sat that way, forcing herself to remain calm and still, and let the whole night just pass by. No one said anything, not even her date.
It wasn’t until she heard Ursa’s stutter that she opened her eyes. The woman was bidding on something, but she’d missed what it was. She focused on the action when Leo took over the bidding after Ursa hesitated.
“Don’t worry, princess,” Leo said soothingly to his lady. “You want a pretty sword, you get a pretty sword.”
Vans made an amused sound, murmuring, “Spoiled, spoiled, spoiled.” She tried to get her mind around her friend wanting a weapon. What the hell had she missed?
“Two hundred sixty thousand dollars, going once. Do I hear two hundred seventy thousand?” A pause with no counters to Leo’s bid, and after a third call the auctioneer beamed and rapped the gavel. “Sold to the number two zero one.”
Ursa let out an unrestrained cry of joy and flung herself into Leo’s arms, almost knocking the big man out of his seat as she kissed him. She slid her hands up into his curls, mussing them as she climbed into his lap, never once breaking the kiss.
“Oh! Oh my! May you enjoy it in…ahem…good health. Oh dear. We will take a small pause to refresh our glasses, and the next item will be the tanzanite-and-diamond necklace.”
“Hell yeah, that’s a holiday miracle right there,” Vans teased them, leaning forward to get a better view of their making out. “Hey, Marcie, you ever have an auction at one of your parties?”
“Easy, brat, eyes up here,” Travis whispered against her neck, pulling her back toward him.
She resisted his pull, the warmth of his breath steaming over her anger-hot skin, and tightened as she jerked a look at him. His azure eyes held hers.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered low as Marcie got up to refresh her drink.
“Save it,” she hissed through her teeth. “You’re so hung up on her. I don’t understand what I’m doing here.”
“No!” he said, low and firm, trying to catch her hand, but she slid away from him. “I just don’t think she should waste her time with him.”
“What does it matter to you? Why do you care? Do you know how disrespected you made me feel? It’s obvious how much you want her still.”
“Jealous one. No. Of course that is not it.” Travis lowered his voice to a low croon against her bare shoulder. “I’m sorry I got so caught up in my shock that I didn’t properly attend to you. But I’m not chasing after her. Or anyone but you.”
“Sure doesn’t look that way to me. You’re not chasing me at all. You can’t stand seeing her with anyone, can you?” She saw him flinch and knew without a doubt that it was true.
She shook her head and clasped her hands together, knuckles white with the force of her grip.
He rumbled quietly and shrugged out of his jacket. “I don’t think that’s it.” The denial was so thick with stubbornness that she wished he would choke on it.
Silently, he spread the jacket across his lap and smoothed it over his thighs before trying again to catch her hands in his larger ones.
This time he caught her before she could jerk away from him, and his firm, comforting touch caressed along her fingers.
“Please, Travis. I—”
“Beatrix Engel, the CEO and his aunt, told me all about him, Vanderbilt. Mano is the reason the golden boy vanished. Beatrix believes he drove him away. He might have even harmed his cousin. At the very least, he was involved in his disappearance. He’s been involved in violent activities several times, but the charges for those crimes never stick to him. Witnesses suddenly change their stories, or they simply cannot be found. Guntram isn’t the first or only person he’s been involved with who has vanished. He is not a pretty boy in a suit. He is mixed up with dangerous people.
All I’ve ever been told was how he was no good, trouble, and dangerous. Travis’s words echoed through her mind.
“People have died. I have no idea what they are thinking, trying to polish him up to take over. Maybe it’s desperation because they have given up hope of Guntram ever coming home. It’s not going to be good. None of us should want our friend to end up with a sub-human thug. It looks bad, I get that. But if you knew what Beatrix has told me about him, you would do the same thing if it were Ursa or Leo or anyone.”
She didn’t want to believe him, but he was so earnest, as always. The heat slowly curled over her cheeks as she let out a low, grumbling sigh.
“Fuck,” she whispered as he brought her fingers up to his lips and kissed them, watching her. “Marcie would never want you anyway.” She wanted to cut him with some painful truth.
“You are out of your beautiful mind if you think I want to push you away because of this. Yes, I care for Marcie, but she’s like my sister. Nothing more. I certainly wouldn’t want my sister involved with that asshole.”
“I just… You got me so worked up during the drive, and I’ve been excited about the party, and the first thing you do is butt into Marcie’s romantic life. She doesn’t want you poking around. Maybe you should focus on your own love life.”
The way that Travis smiled at her made her regret her sharp tongue. He murmured against her fingertips. “I take it you have something in mind to keep me focused?” he asked.
The intensity of his eyes sucked the air from her lungs. He drew her closer without ever doing more than lavish feather soft caresses of his lips over her skin. “Mister C
onte, you think I’m so devious?”
“I know you are, Brat. Your naughty mind is one of the qualities I like best about you.”
And just like that, his sly, knowing smile banked the fire of her anger and transformed it back into the simmering hunger he’d started earlier in the day.
“I think I can come up with something fitting.” She slipped her hands out of his grasp and under the jacket on his lap. “This is going to require something from you though. Like…say…staying quiet while I give you a hand job during this auction.”
“You are such a wicked girl. I am not sure that an angry handy is what will get me off. And if I do come, what do you think I’ll do to you?” His eyes flashed as he smiled, the expression both handsome and cruel with promises of the most delicious torment.
“Still fun to touch you and see you bite your lower lip when I do something nice.” She found his belt and deftly unfastened it, silencing the metal from clicking with her palm before unbuttoning and then unzipping his fly.
He slowly drew in his breath, spreading his thighs wider in acceptance of her warm fingers stroking over the front of his exposed boxers and the cock under the fabric. She had wanted to take him in her hands and feel him since he’d come out of the shower. Only his insistence that they needed to go had stopped her. That and the doubt caused by his strange intensity.
She pushed the thoughts away and closed her eyes, focusing her attention on pleasuring Travis and his huge, wonderful cock. Drawing it from his boxers, she ran both hands over him under the shield of his jacket. He sighed out a low, pleased sound and shifted to push into the fist she tightened around him.
His cock head swelled under her fingers, the slick pre-cum making her stroking more fluid and smooth as she worked him faster, keeping the movements slow, not wanting anyone to discover what she was doing.
The bidding started again, but she didn’t stop her stroking, wanting so much to feel Travis shift again, trying to make his breath catch and feel the little signs that she drove him crazy. She couldn’t see a change through his fortress of control.
She squeezed and slid down over his balls, and not for the first time, she imagined running her tongue over them. She’d never been a big cock-sucking fan. That was before Travis. With him, she felt adventurous and wild. She let him do things to her she had never let anyone else suggest.
Their sex at home was fairly tame compared to the party. It was nice, normal sex with a little spice. The parties gave her something to anticipate. They were different—wild and unleashed. She could submit until she was a vast subby pool of need. Not just the normal puddle of desire she became when she got close to him.
As the bidding got out of hand, she heard Marcie curse beside her, but Vans wasn’t really paying attention to anything other than the cock filling her hands. She looked up dreamily just as Marcie got to her feet and excused herself for some fresh air. Apparently, someone had outbid her. Surprising, given Marcie’s wealth and determination.
“I could flip him off if you want,” Vans suggested halfheartedly, not sure who she was flipping off or if she even wanted to remove her hands to do so. So when Marcie just grumbled something in the negative, she happily concentrated on her dick stroking.
Travis turned his head and growled into her neck, “You are going to have to behave yourself, brat.” He nibbled at her ear, which did absolutely nothing to control her need to feel him arch under her.
“Please, Sir,” she whispered back, turning her head so her nose brushed along his.
The air crackled between them, the sexual energy so thick the crowd was sure to feel it and notice something going on under that jacket, despite the stillness of her fingers.
“In a little bit. There’s something I want to get you. You have to let me focus or…I will be very disappointed.” He kissed the tip of her nose and smiled.
Vans shifted, uncomfortable with that idea. She really wasn’t a fan of dusty old antiques. “Really?” she asked, crinkling up her nose.
“Yes, precious.” His hands covered hers under the jacket and he carefully smoothed her fingers off his cock. “Just humor me.”
She squinted at him as she let him draw her hands up and atop the jacket, and settled her fingers on his thigh while he reached for the catalog. She let out a long-suffering sigh as he flipped through the glossy pages and looked around for something to distract herself. Ursa was face-melted to Leo—no good trying to draw her into conversation. What the hell had Leo won for her? Some dusty old trinket?
Now Travis felt he had to get her some rusted bit of junk. Great.
The next items that came up were a set of ugly silver goblets, then a set of antique crystal, and on and on. Each time, she glanced over at Travis for a clue. Thankfully, he didn’t put his number up for the horrible antique chair or the hideous painting. She didn’t care who’d made it or when—it was fucking ugly. Luckily, she wouldn’t be looking at that old hag staring down her nose at her at Travis’s place.
She’d tuned out completely while watching the front of the room where Beatrix and her twin sister, what’s-her-name, were having some intense conversation involving much finger pointing and hand flourishes. It was just getting good when she felt Travis shift and lift his number into the air.
Shit!
She’d missed the whole explanation about the piece. The woman who carried the velvet pillow with the object wasn’t doing a very good job of displaying it, either. At least, not to Vans’s satisfaction. The woman had already moved beyond their section and headed toward the far end of the stage when Vans focused on what was going on with the auction. Well, she could see it wasn’t a chair, a painting, or a vase.
Trust Travis. He wouldn’t get her something horrible. Right? She glanced at him and tried to see the catalog, but he’d already rolled it up and tucked it away, and she had no idea which number item they were on now.
The whole crowd seemed in a fever for that thing, and paddles were going up all over the room as the auctioneer rattled up his numbers. “One hundred, now one hundred fifty, now two hundred…”
Hundred dollars? Hundred thousand dollars? She’d missed the starting number.
She glanced over at Ursa and Leo, who had come up for air. They were focused with interest on the piece. Ursa turned to her with a huge smile and a little thumbs-up at her. Oh man, what the fuck was he getting for her? Why the hell couldn’t she stay focused?
Stopping her internal ass kicking, she pulled her attention back to Travis. The bids were slowing but the price was nearing a million dollars. She reached for Travis’s arm as he lifted his number, but her fingers curled into a fist before actually grabbing him.
On one hand, she wanted to beg him not to buy whatever it was; on the other, she knew he wanted to focus on bidding. On the last hand, because somehow she had three, she had no idea what the thing was.
With her luck, he was buying her a tiara just to be a smart-ass.
She closed her eyes.
The auctioneer was persuading the crowd to go over the one-million-dollar price tag. “This is a one-of-a-kind piece,” he said, as he’d said about everything paraded across the stage. Everything was one of a kind. Special little snowflakes.
“Sold, for one million dollars to number five one nine.”
Travis took her hand and squeezed it, and she snapped her eyes open. He wore the expression again, the same expectant, breath-held emotion he’d displayed when he’d stepped out of the shower.
Did you see it? Do you like it?
Well, she’d certainly seen it this morning, but she’d thought that was his cock. Yes, she‘d seen it and, oh yeah, she’d liked it! It wasn’t what he’d meant though, and for the life of her, she didn’t know what he meant here either.
Like that morning, she smiled apologetically. The same disappointment played across his azure gaze. Perhaps not quite as much. His look seemed more amused and softer.
“Well, precious…” He fanned her with his numbered paddle as though he w
ere planning to warm her ass with it. “I see this is all very boring and dull for my girl. Shall we do something else?”
Simple as that. As though he’d not just blown that kind of money on something she hadn’t even noticed.
She felt horrible.
Next-level wretched.
She chewed on her lower lip, threw herself into his arms, and hugged him tightly. “Thank you,” she whispered into his ear, squeezing him as tightly as she could.
How could she explain how she’d just blown off his awesome display of affection? Whatever it was, the whole room seemed to want it, and now it was hers.
Whatever it was.
Ursa had almost mauled Leo for her rusty old knife.
“You are too good to me. You know that?” she whispered.
He growled into her hair and nuzzled her, letting out a breath of relief for her seeming approval of the item he’d won for her, returning the hug. Stroking along her back to her hips, he pulled her in closer. “Anything for you, Vanderbilt. You impossible, jealous, wonderful woman.” His voice was a low thrum through his chest, into hers, then settling into her bones.
“I thought this fancy party would be more exciting,” she admitted, not pulling away from him. “I’m…sorry I tuned out a little.”
“A little?” he teased her and bit her earlobe, making her struggle to keep back the moan of pleasure and pain.
She melted against his chest and gripped his shirt. Oh fuck, she loved when he did that. It made her want to climb his chest and ride him, begging him to destroy her and rebuild her into something stronger with his same laser focus.
His hand gripped her hips tighter and he almost pulled her into his lap. At last he released her ear. “I am tempted to let all these fine people see you splinter to little pieces while I hurt you,” he threatened, his voice breathless. “But I think we should probably go for a walk and cool off.”
Cool off was the last thing she wanted. Only in these moments did she feel completely focused, as though the storm of her other thoughts could be silenced and stilled. The worries went away into their little hiding spots, and there was only them against the world and everything else.
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