Olivia Brynn Collection Volume 1

by Brynn, Olivia

  When he laughed, she joined him. He watched each bite she took, pleased that she wasn’t self-conscious about eating a meal in front of him. He was sick of the women who ordered a dinner salad and poked it with her fork until the waiter cleared it. In fact, when the waiter came by after they’d ordered cheesecake, Bo noticed this time it was he who hadn’t eaten much. His focus was on the woman across the table, and her slender fingers that held her cutlery with a feminine grace.

  “I had no idea Madame Tussauds would be so much fun.” She leaned back in her chair and sipped her glass of wine. “Now I’m sorry I waited so long to go.”

  “You’ll have to learn how to relax and enjoy your vacations. No woman could have enough chores to fill a week.”

  She smiled over the rim of her glass. “There are other things I catch up on.”

  “Oh yeah?” A picture of her spread eagle on her bed pleasuring herself came to mind, and he smiled back. What kind of toys did a woman like Cate Roberts use to get herself off? He glanced again at her hands. So beautiful and delicate. His mouth watered at the memory of tasting her juices on them.

  He signed the bill, then took a deep breath.

  Professional, Bo. Don’t let your dick do your thinking. This can’t be all sex. Not with this woman. He was as determined as ever to see what could come of this. She didn’t do one night stands.

  With a smile, he offered her his hand. “Maybe we’ll save the celebrity footprints for tomorrow.”

  Her hand clenched around his. The familiarity of the gesture tugged at his heart. This woman, who was scared shitless of him yesterday, now clutched on to him as though they’d known each other for years. The grin on his face had to be the goofiest.

  “Tomorrow? What makes you think you’re invited to stay another night?”

  He glanced down at her, and to his relief, she wore a teasing grin.

  “I’ve got a whole wardrobe hanging in your room. I might just stay for the week.” He followed her into the elevator, where four women stopped talking as soon as they looked him up and down.

  Cate must have noticed the attention too. She silently stared at the panel of lighted numbers as the door closed.

  Bo ignored them. “We don’t have to look at footprints. We could always hit the beach, or even Disneyland.”

  The doors opened on the seventh floor, and the women walked out, but not without a couple of backward glances. When they were alone, Cate leaned against the railing and shook her head. “I bet you get that a lot.”

  “Get what?”

  She raised an eyebrow with a smirk. “You know what. That.” She gestured toward the elevator doors. “Women struck dumb by your physical perfection.”

  He let his gaze drift down to her toes before moving back up, past those long legs that he knew could hold on tight to his hips. Past hips that he knew fit his hands like they were made for him. Up her soft belly, over her perfect breasts. He lingered for a moment on the pulse fluttering above her collarbone, then met her eyes.

  “I prefer my women striking. But not dumb.”

  Ironically, she had nothing to say. Even when he shut the hotel room door behind them, she didn’t waste words. She dropped her key card and clutch on the floor, wrapped her arms around him, and pulled him down for a kiss.

  He groaned in approval, and reached down to her ass, lifting her high against him. She hooked her ankles around his back, and he carried her to the bed, setting her on her knees on the edge.

  Cate licked her lips, and reached for his shirt. “More than okay.”

  He pulled her in for another kiss. “Mmm, you taste like cheesecake.” He stripped off her shirt first, then his, and they both sighed with pleasure when their bare chests met.

  * * * * *

  “I think this is the best staycation I’ve ever had.” She lay between his legs, her head resting on his six pack, her arms wrapped around his waist. The remnants of their latest meal still littered the tray beside them, but she didn’t have the energy to put it out in the hall.

  “We still have to hit Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.” He threaded his fingers through her hair lazily.

  She sighed. “Maybe tomorrow. I don’t want to move.”

  His chuckle shook her head. “I have two shoots scheduled tomorrow.”

  Her heart slowed, and the blood drained to her toes.

  “Oh.” What else could she say? Would he be spending tomorrow night in the arms of a model half her age? And why shouldn’t he? Her stomach turned, knowing that her time with him was nearing an end. She closed her eyes against the pain, then the mortification. She knew going into this fling that there wouldn’t be any strings attached. Why should she feel any sort of betrayal?

  “You just went from relaxed to strung in three seconds.” He used two fingers under her chin to force her to look at him. “You know I’d love to spend the week here with you if I could.”

  She smiled stiffly. “Don’t worry. I’m not the type to cling. I know this can’t go on.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Think I’m trying to get rid of you?”

  “You can’t. It’s my hotel room.” She tried her best to sound flippant, and turned back to lay her cheek on his stomach.

  “Cate.”

  Here it comes. He even sounded serious. “Hm?”

  “You’re not going to push me away because you think I’m about to run, are you?”

  She swallowed. Was that what she was doing? She stared at the door until it blurred in her vision. “I won’t hold you down.”

  “You could hold me beside you. That would be enough.”

  “It’s a little early to be talking about relationships.”

  He laughed again. “Then it’s also too early to be talking about ending one. Look—” he slipped his hands under her arms and pulled her up level with him. “Maybe I jumped the gun yesterday. Getting you in bed with me before we even had a chance to get to know each other probably wasn’t the best idea. Now you think I’m a player who sleeps with every model he poses with.”

  She tried to look away, but he gripped her chin with surprising gentleness.

  “I don’t, Cate. I haven’t slept with a model in over five years. Most of them are too shallow and frivolous for my tastes. I like women who are real. Down to earth. Mature.”

  “You mean old.” The blood returned from her feet to flood her face with color.

  “No, I mean mature. I’m betting you were a mature nineteen-year-old. Maturity isn’t about age.”

  “You have no idea how old I am.”

  “I don’t care how old you are.”

  She couldn’t read his expression. It was almost like he was daring her to say anything more about her age.

  “I told you that before. Does my age bother you?”

  Of course it did. But not in the way he meant. “I just picture you with these younger prettier models, and I—”

  “Younger maybe, but none can compare to your beauty. The publisher is going to love you…oh that reminds me.” He extracted himself from her clutches, and crossed the room. The fact that he didn’t cover his nakedness only endeared him to her even more. She tried to take him all in, commit the vision to memory so that she’d have something to keep her warm at night.

  He unzipped his duffle bag, and pulled out a laptop. “Those pictures should be in my inbox right now. I can’t wait to see them.” He brought it back to bed, and pulled her into the cradle of his crossed legs. It took a minute to connect to the hotel’s wifi, but eventually he clicked on the email, and opened the slideshow.

  “Wow.” It had been a long time since Cate had any professional photos done. The quality shone through in the crisp pictures. There were a few in the first set that she could really see the fear in her face, but as soon as Bo started working his magic, she could see the difference in them both. “You’re good.” She curled her hands around his forearms as he continued clicking through the gallery.

  “Damn, Cate. I love them. You’re so beautiful. Look at how you
arched your back right there. See the gorgeous line of your body, how it draws the eye from your face to my hands on your hips? Perfect. I love that one.” He clicked onto another, where the red silk wrapped around her waist. “Your smile here…was that when I told you I wanted to drizzle honey on your pussy?”

  “I think that was when I said I’d like to taste you. See the faraway look in your eyes?”

  “Oh…God yes. How could I forget?” He clicked through a few more. “I had to work like hell to keep my hard-on from showing. You have any idea how hard it was—”

  “Of course I do. That’s why I had so much color on my cheeks.”

  He laughed, planted a kiss on her cheek and pulled her closer to his chest. “I don’t know, Cate. I’ve seen a lot of pictures of me in the arms of women, but for some reason, I don’t want to show these off.”

  “What do you mean?” She pointed to one on the screen for him to enlarge.

  He hooked his chin over her shoulder, and scrolled down the picture. “I mean…I hope Zoe’s publisher doesn’t like any of them. Then I could keep them for my private collection.”

  “You have a private collection?”

  “I do now.” He squeezed her, and sighed. “The problem with these pictures though, is they’re a prelude to something very intimate and private. I don’t want to share that with the world.”

  She hugged his arm against her stomach. “Are you sure you aren’t just too embarrassed to have your famous body next to a sagging old lady’s—ouch!” He pinched her. Right on the rib. “What was that for?”

  “Keep insulting my lover, and you’ll be black and blue.” He set the laptop aside with one arm, but kept her pinned to his chest with the other.

  Lover? She liked the sound of that. She melted a bit in his arms.

  “Now, in the industry, we don’t call hot mamas like you old ladies. We’d call you a MILF. Or a Cougar, which I prefer, since it has the pussycat connotation.”

  His pinching fingers soothed where he’d stung, then turned ticklish. She laughed and squirmed in his lap.

  “You’re beautiful, Cate. I find you very desirable, and that’s inside and out. I want to introduce you to my friends and make them jealous as hell. I want to show you off to the entire world. What do you think about that?”

  The goofy grin was back, but she didn’t even try to wipe it away. “I think we should start with Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.”

  Epilogue

  Cate stood by the marble fountain and watched as Bo laughed with a group of his friends. His ten year high school class reunion began the night before with a cocktail hour. She’d been to her own twenty year reunion four long years ago, and she felt like a dirty old lady for about five minutes. As usual, Bo sensed her reservations, and had led her through the groups of people, introducing her to them all, bragging about her job and her son, then dragging her aside to kiss her senseless and tell her how beautiful she was to him. By the time they’d left last night, she no longer felt like a dirty old lady, but Bo’s sexy date. Two of his classmates had even brought Zoe’s novel for him to autograph. When they recognized Cate, she blushed furiously, but signed her name below his.

  Although she was admittedly biased, she couldn’t help but compare him to the rest of his classmates and find them lacking. His suit jacket had to be tailored for him, since he was bulkier than most, and the custom fit looked damn good on him. His hair had been recently cut short for a photo shoot where he dressed as a Marine captain. While she missed the longer locks threading through her fingers, the photos of him in a crisp white military uniform were enough to fuel a hundred naughty fantasies.

  The same fantasies that made her want to march across the grass and drag him to the closest copse of trees.

  She sipped her wine, and tried to focus instead on the women who’d been watching Bo since they arrived. Three of them, Andrea, Kathy, and Christine, introduced as “The Three”, seemed to have disregarded Cate’s place as Bo’s date, and had tried everything in their power to draw him away.

  Cate smiled. A month ago she might have worried about cute women who were more Bo’s age luring him away with their perky young bodies and flawless skin. She’d forced herself to watch a dozen photo shoots before she was comfortable with the fact that his job required him to kiss and caress another woman. And make them like it.

  But he came home to her.

  Her smile broadened just as Bo mimed the winning basketball shot from their senior state match. She’d seen it before, so she didn’t have to hear the conversation.

  “Think they’ll ever get tired of replaying that damn game?”

  Cate looked over to the woman who appeared at her side. She seemed to hold the same enjoyment of the slo-mo replay scene before them. She racked her brain to remember the woman’s name. Jennifer? Joan?

  Genie. That’s it.

  “It must have been one hell of a game.” Cate shook her head as Bo swapped insults with a lanky redhead. “He keeps threatening to pull out the old video.”

  “Oh, God. Don’t let him do that. Then he’ll play the damn thing over and over. I know that’s what Rick does.” She nodded toward the hulking man who did some sort of celebration dance in the center. “I have to tell you,” Genie continued, her tone low. “You and Bo look so damn cute together. And the way he looks at you…when he thinks no one is watching?” She rolled her eyes. “It’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Cate ducked her head, and shot a smile at Bo. Surprisingly enough, he intercepted it and winked in return.

  “Now, you see?” Genie sighed. “You two are so adorable. When those rumors about him came out that he was gay, I just knew he wasn’t. I mean, that’s something that we would have known, growing up together, you know? Plus, he had all those girlfriends in high school.”

  “Is that right?” Cate tried to picture Bo with any one of the women present.

  “Oh, God. I didn’t mean—that was horrible of me to say. I just meant that I was sure he liked women.”

  “Don’t worry, Genie.” Cate laughed. “I’ve seen Bo with plenty of other women. It’s clear to me that he enjoys the fairer sex. With the job he does, I couldn’t possibly be jealous.”

  A roar erupted in the crowd of men, and they all turned and faced Cate and Genie. By the ribbing Bo was receiving, Cate could only imagine what was said. Bo faced her, grinning mischievously. He took a few steps toward her, and the catcalls grew louder.

  “Sorry.” He shrugged, looking anything but. “I lost a bet over there. Now I have to kiss the prettiest woman here.” He pulled her into his arms, and with a big show, one worthy of every bit of acting he’d done for the camera, he angled his head, and slowly kissed her.

  In seconds, she couldn’t even hear the whooping and whistles.

  The End

  FOR A PRICE

  By Olivia Brynn

  ISBN 978-1-4580-4330-6

  Copyright © 2009, Olivia Brynn.

  Published by Dark Mountain Books.

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Manufactured in the United States of America.

  Editor

  Deanna Pryce

  Cover Artist

  Michael Hart / Booknibbles.com

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  A Note from Olivia

  For a Price is a story inspired by true events. In early 2009, a woman made national headlines when she put her virginity on the auction block. After I read the news article, my mind swam with the potential love story. The article is linked on my website in the For a Price book page. After reading some of the de
tails, you might agree with the old adage that truth really is stranger than fiction. Although I don’t know if the real life virgin’s story had a happy ending, as a romance author I couldn’t imagine it any other way.

  I hope you enjoy For a Price, my first published novel.

  Chapter One

  “Is this some kind of joke?”

  The balding man’s complexion went from grey to splotchy red after he’d listened to Maureen’s proposal, and looked from one woman to the other.

  “No, Mr. Green, I’m not joking.” Maureen folded her hands in her lap. She’d prepared herself for this reaction. What she planned to do was off the wall, even for a place as open minded as Las Vegas, Nevada.

  “So you want to sell…uh…auction…” Lawrence Green, attorney at law, tugged his outdated suit vest over his rotund belly in an uncomfortable gesture.

  “Surely it’s a basic contract.” Maureen’s aunt Lottie waved a hand, speaking up for the first time during the meeting. “You’ve handled agreements such as this for me in the past.”

  Maureen was thankful for her aunt’s presence. Lottie had been in the business for almost twenty years. Her name was synonymous with her profession. One couldn’t think of Lottie Davis without being just a little in awe of her. Whether due to her business savvy or her controversial business itself, Lottie Davis was a local hero.

  “Well…yes, I have, but nothing quite like this.” He stood to pace the small area between his desk and the bookcase behind it, which was filled with thick law books.

  “All right, forget for one minute about the product I’m selling. Surely you can write up a quick legal document regarding a sale? I’m sure there are even internet auction sites that would be able to figure out the logistics.”