Barely Yours

by Charlotte Eve

  Dance with the Billionaire and its the sequel, Let’s Dance Again, are both out now!

  Keep on reading for the first chapter of Dance with the Billionaire ...

  Chapter One

  “I’ll give you a thousand dollars for your panties.”

  Wait ... what?

  Tell me he didn’t just say that?

  I nervously scan the bar, crowded as usual on a Friday night. It’s not often that someone manages to catch me off guard, but right now this tray of drinks is gonna fall from my hand and come crashing to the floor around my feet if I don’t keep my shit together.

  I take a deep breath, steady myself on my heels, smile sweetly, then say, “I’m sorry sir, I didn’t quite catch that.”

  Pretend like it never happened. There’s no way he’ll say it again.

  But he looks up at me so confidently from his seat in the booth, his dark eyes glinting, a smile playing on his full lips, his thick black hair so glossy and shining in the dim light of the bar. And then he does say it again, even slower this time, never breaking eye contact, so fucking calm and confident:

  “I’ll give you a thousand dollars for your panties.”

  He’s not even alone. There are three other guys in the booth with him, all dressed just as expensively in their slick tailored suits. At first I think that he must be saying it for their amusement – making me the pawn in some sick little game of his own creation, just to get a cheap laugh. But I quickly realize that the other guys are busy laughing and joking amongst themselves, not even paying attention to what he’s saying.

  What the fuck?

  I mean, I’ve had enough sleazeballs come onto me in this place, but this is something else. Usually, they just grab my ass, ask me what I’m doing later, that kind of thing. They all act as if, just because I’m serving them drinks, that I’m their property. But nobody has actually offered to buy me before.

  And the weird thing is, just for a second, a part of me even considers it. I imagine myself stepping out of my panties and dropping them on the table, calling his bluff. I’m wearing plain black briefs that probably cost about $5 max.

  That’s a $995 profit.

  But then of course, I push the thought from my head. Because while I might be broke, I’m definitely not that broke.

  And the way he’s looking at me, the way he’s pinning me with his eyes, the smile growing wider as he waits for my reply, it becomes totally clear to me that this entitled rich-kid asshole has never heard the word ‘no’ in his entire life.

  He’s rich, he’s handsome, and he gets whatever he wants. But he’s about to learn that that doesn’t extend to me.

  “I’m afraid,” I say, my voice threatening to tremble at any moment and give away my nerves, “that I’m not that kind of girl, and this isn’t that kind of bar. But if you like, I could recommend you a pretty good strip club a few blocks from here?”

  He shakes his head, all the while keeping me locked with those fiercely dark eyes.

  “Tell me the truth,” he says, the deep growl of his voice cutting clear as a bell through the music and chattering crowds of the bar. And suddenly, it’s as if we’re the only two people in here. “They’re getting wet, aren’t they?”

  Fuck you, asshole, I think, feeling my heart beginning to pound and the anger boiling up inside me at the thought that this guy has gone through his whole life so spoiled, so full of himself.

  “Well gentlemen, if that will be all,” I say in my most professional tone, setting down their whiskey cocktails and turning to leave.

  But as I turn, I feel the warmth of his fingers against the bare skin of my arm, as he holds me in place and turns me back to face him.

  “If you ever change your mind,” he says, taking a business card from the breast pocket of his crisp white shirt and pressing it into my hand.

  I quickly glance down at it:

  Dylan Campbell

  Campbell Finance

  I yank myself free from his grip, then strut towards the safety of the bar, my heart hammering, wishing I could have thrown his fucking drink in his face – that spoiled prick.

  Even as I walk, I can feel his eyes on my ass, and I can sense that he’s stillowning me somehow with his eyes. It makes me so goddamn furious, I stop in my tracks, turn back, lock eyes with him once again and then, so thateveryone can see, I let his business card slip from my fingers and flutter straight to the floor.

  What kind of guy actually asks a girl if he can buy her panties, I think, my whole body still trembling in anger and frustration. And then has the nerve to ask her if they’re getting wet.

  But the thing that makes me angriest of all?

  He was right.

  They are wet.

  §

  “Now tell it to me straight, okay?” I say.

  “Oh, I ain’t gonna lie, girl,” Natalia replies with a grin. “If you suck, imma be the first to let you know about it.”

  Ouch. I know she means it. If you ever needed a friend to wake you up with the cold hard truth, then Nat’s the one. I’ve asked her to meet me here at The Rhythm Project, the community space where we first met. We got talking in the hip hop dance class. You see, Nat spends practically every spare hour she isn’t working hanging out here, even helping out with the little kids sometimes.

  It’s a cool space, but it definitely needs some TLC. There’s a steel bucket in one corner of the main studio catching raindrops from the leak that’s been here the last few months, and the long mirror that runs the length of the back wall got smashed by some kids who broke in one night, and they’ve still not quite saved up the spare cash to fix it yet.

  “Okay then. The truth,” I say.

  “Come on,” Nat says, putting her hands impatiently on her hips. “Stop stalling and show me!”

  I take a final deep breath, then nod for her to start the CD playing in the boom box. There’s a half-second of silence before the crash of the drums and the rumble of the bass explodes from the speakers. As the music fills the studio I begin to dance, feeling the rhythm pulse through my body like pure energy itself.

  I’ve always lived for this moment.

  Because when I’m dancing, it’s the only time I feel free; the only time I feel truly alive.

  I’ve put everything I’ve got into this dance and I hope it shows – after all, this is the only chance I’ve got of getting into the Eldridge School of Dance, the whole reason I came to New York in the first place. I don’t want to be serving sleazy assholes like that guy last night for the rest of my life.

  Concentrate, Julia. What the hell are you thinking about him for?

  Because even as I’m dancing, for some reason his jet-black eyes appear in my head for a second, almost causing me to stumble. Almost. But I’ve practiced this routine too hard to let anybody put me off.

  I’ve got a dream. I want to be onstage. I want to travel the world. I want to dance ...

  As I land my final spin, I shoot a glance at Nat, but her face is giving nothing away. She’s standing there, arms crossed, leaning back on one foot, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Her silver disco pants show off her muscular thighs, and on her top half, she’s wearing a tiny gold tank top. On any one else, this look would be too much, but on Nat, it just works.

  “Well?” I ask, once I’ve got my breath back.

  “You’re good,” she says, “you know that.”

  Even though her words are positive, I feel my heart sink a little. Because I know there’s something else coming.

  “But?” I ask, dreading the answer, whatever it is. After all, it’s too late to change my routine now. My audition is first thing tomorrow morning.

  “It’s just that it’s ... missing something,” Nat says, taking a pause as she tries to put her feelings into words. “It’s just missing some ... sex appeal. Yeah, that’s it! You know? Like when you’re fucking some hot guy and you really put your hips into it and ...”

  Hands on hips, she starts grinding her body, thrusting her
hips and arching her back, to show me exactly what she means.

  “It’s dancing, Nat! Not fucking!” I laugh.

  “Dancing is fucking, Jules,” she laughs back. “That’s what you’ve gotta do! You’ve got to fuck them at the audition, tomorrow. When they’re all sitting there, judging you with their paper and their pencils? You’ve gotta fuck them, baby!”

  And I laugh, while Nat seduces an imaginary audition panel. But behind my laughter, I feel awkward. Because I don’t really know what she’s talking about. I don’t know what it’s like when you’re fucking some hot guy.

  And though Nat’s my best friend, even she doesn’t know that I’m still a virgin.

  Nobody does.

  §

  I kick off my Adidas sneakers and drop my sports bag by the door, then walk through my tiny, run-down apartment towards the bathroom. At times like these, I wish I had a bath. I’d love nothing more right now than to soak in the tub for an hour or two, to rest up my aching body, and then get a nice early night before my audition tomorrow. But the best I’ll get from this place is a shower. And if I’m lucky, the water will be hot.

  I sigh. I just can’t get tomorrow’s audition out of my head.

  I need this.

  I’m twenty-one, which I know is still young ... But in the dance world, by now I should really be finishing up school, not auditioning for it. You see dance school is expensive, and money wasn’t something my family ever really had. I’ve always been told I had talent, but unless you get a lucky break, or your family’s got money, talent’s only gonna get you so far. That’s why tomorrow morning’s so important. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a ‘scholarship’ to a school like Eldridge until a few months ago, when Nat first told me about it. And since she did, I’ve been unable to think about anything else.

  As I’m getting undressed, I hear her words echoing in my head again:You’ve got to fuck them in the audition tomorrow ...

  I watch myself in the floor length mirror as I peel off my clothes. I grab an elastic and pull my shoulder-length hair up into a bun. My hair’s kind of unruly – wavy brown with honey blonde highlights, and bangs. It’s really difficult to control, so I hope it will look good at the audition tomorrow.

  Next I pull off my grey, off-the-shoulder sweater and white vest, uncovering my slender body beneath. Shooting another glance at myself in the mirror, I wish I had the time to work more on my tan, but between dancing and my job at the bar, I just never have the time. I pull off the rest of my clothes, then turn on the shower and climb into the tiny cubicle, sliding the door closed and relaxing a little as I feel the warm water begin to glide over my body.

  It’s not like I’m a total prude. I’ve done stuff with guys. Almost everything, in fact. I’ve just not gone all the way.

  As I begin to soap my body, my mind returns to him. Dylan Campbell, Campbell Finance. I mean, what kind of creep actually says something like that? But even as I’m shaking my head in disgust, another little part of me can’t seem to stop thinking about him. The problem is, he was fuckinggorgeous. Those eyes. That smile. The fullness of his lips. The sheer blackness of his hair. Hundreds of guys come through the bar every night, but a guy that good looking is rare.

  Before I know it, my hand has slipped between my legs, my fingertips grazing against my clit, feeling the almost painful ache inside me; an itch I just need to scratch.

  I gasp as I begin to toy with my pussy, my other hand cupping my left breast, my eyes closing, my head filling with images of him – of Dylan Campbell – again, his eyes locking onto mine, his mouth curling in a smile, as my fingers move faster and faster between my legs, my ass pressing back against the cold wet tiles of the shower stall as I come, hard and fast.

  But as soon as it’s over, I crash back to reality, and all I can feel is anger. Anger and disgust at how a creep like Dylan Campbell has somehow found his way inside my head.

  ALSO BY CHARLOTTE EVE

  THE TAMING BLAKE TRILOGY

  WHATEVER BLAKE WANTS, BLAKE GETS ...

  When aspiring interior designer Jessica Clark catches the eye of billionaire Blake Matthews, she finds herself thrust headlong into a world of glamor and riches: dining at New York’s finest restaurants, shopping at its most exclusive boutiques, a far cry from Jessica’s simple life back in Brooklyn.

  But there’s another side to Blake too, as Jessica soon discovers when he invites her to one of his private parties: a party where your deepest, darkest desires can finally come true. And as this secret world unfolds before Jessica’s very eyes, she finds herself falling further and further under the spell of this intense and complicated man ...

  Due to adult themes, these novels are only suitable for those aged 18+.

  All three novels & the Collected Trilogy out now! Book One is completely FREE!

  Keep on reading for the first chapter of Taming Blake ...

  CHAPTER ONE

  “You do know who Blake Matthews is, don’t you?” Marianne hissed, as the glass-walled elevator rocketed us up towards the private conference room on the thirty-first floor.

  I nodded.

  I’d heard enough about Blake Matthews over the last few weeks to write a whole book about him. Rich kid property developer. Blue blood. Educated at Dalton and Harvard, of course. Used his daddy's money and connections to get his start in the hotel business. Now runs a portfolio of chic, boutique hotels. Never saw anything he didn't want that he couldn't just buy.

  “Good,” Marianne nodded as she double-checked her reflection, plumping her dyed red curls, tugging at the oversized silk collar of her blouse, touching up her pillar-box red lipstick. “Then you’ll be aware just how much we need this client, Jessica. Because if we do a good job on his private apartment, then he’ll be sure to give us the contract to design his next hotel. Understand?"

  Again I nodded, wondering if the butterflies in my stomach were due to the view from the elevator — by now giving us a full panoramic display of downtown Manhattan — or the fact that this was the first time I’d been allowed out of the office with Marianne since I’d started as an assistant at her interior design agency last Fall.

  Up until now, my duties had mostly consisted of fetching her countless lattes and sushi boxes, sweet-talking suppliers into giving her free samples, and sitting at my desk buried under mountains of email enquiries. To be honest, I was still a little unsure about what my role actually was at this pitch meeting, and I was still worrying about this when Marianne continued, as if able to read my thoughts:

  “Now when we get in there, all I want you to do is take notes and look pretty, okay? Think you can manage that? Just leave the talking to me.”

  Take notes and look pretty?

  Who the hell does she think she is?

  “So, how do I look?” Marianne asked, turning to face me.

  How do I describe Marianne?

  She had the faded looks of an eighties prom queen, and she sure as hell wasn’t gonna grow old gracefully. She had killer pins (well I’d die for legs like that). She was always expertly balanced atop a pair of expensive stilettos, the kind I couldn’t even imagine walking in. She’d been a redhead when she was younger, something she wasn’t about to let go of in a hurry. So for now, she kept up the fiction with her weekly visits to the salon. Despite the fact that I always booked her appointments, she still made out like she was a natural redhead. Her hair was always matched with bright red lipstick; I never saw her without it.

  She always looked immaculate, I’ll give her that.

  But how exactly do you tell somebody: Marianne, you look great, but maybe it would be better if you let your stylist put some highlights into that color, it’s a bit brassy ... And your clothes? They’re always expensive designer labels, but a little bit ... how do I put this ... dated?

  Marianne favored the styles popular when she was young. She owned a seemingly endless array of silk Versace blouses in a variety of dazzling colors, but I swear she was the only woman in Manhattan still
rocking shoulder pads.

  I didn’t know that much about fashion, but I knew she could do better than this.

  She shot me a thin smile, her lips parting to reveal a huge white row of teeth, the front two of which were stained and smeared with her lipstick. I was about to tell her, then stopped myself, remembering her patronizing remarks.

  “Great,” I said quietly. “You look great.”

  §

  Blake Matthews was already waiting for us in the boardroom, lounging casually in a high-backed executive chair like he owned the place. Which, as I reminded myself, he did. The huge, slate-grey boardroom table was empty, save for Blake's feet, encased in brand-new Patrick Cox loafers. He looked like he was daring someone to tell him to take his feet off the table. But of course, nobody was going to do that.

  The moment we entered the room he stood, his face breaking out into a surprisingly bright smile, his perfect teeth flashing. His rumpled white cotton shirt was open two buttons, and tucked loosely into a pair of battered old Levis. This wasn’t quite the stuffy businessman I’d been expecting — he wouldn’t have looked so out of place strolling down the streets of Ocean Hill, Brooklyn, where I lived.

  He was in his early thirties, and despite the beat-up old jeans, there was definitely an air of money about him. He was surprisingly handsome, too – it knocked me back a little. I’d seen photos of him during my research of course, but there was something about his presence that I wasn’t expecting. He lit up the room, and from the way he acted, it was clear that he knew it.

  “Marianne, so good to see you again,” he said, his voice soft and warm with perhaps just a faint trace of an accent I couldn’t quite place.

  “Blake!” Marianne cooed in return, leaning in to plant two air kisses either side of his tanned, stubble-flecked cheeks. “And how are Alex and Linda? It’s been so long since I saw them last, do tell them I said hello, won’t you?”