by Paige North
I exhale again. Don’t worry about the bed just yet, Nova. First you’ve got to make him like you enough to want to take you to it.
A draft of cool air runs over my back where my dress swoops down, and I freeze. My belly flips as the coolness turns warm, like hot breath over my exposed skin. My nipples tighten, and I fight the instinct to cross my arms over my chest as I close my eyes.
My date is in back of me, isn’t he?
After a heavy swallow, I slowly open my eyes and turn around.
Holy fuck is he hot.
My god, I’ve only seen pictures of him on gossip sites and in business magazine articles, but in the flesh he’s taller than I imagined, filling the entrance of the plane with his broad shoulders and chest. He’s wearing a black designer suit, and my mind goes wild imagining the hard muscles under the impeccable jacket, shirt, tie, and trousers. Then my gaze travels up to his face.
Dark green eyes assess me, as cool as emeralds in a starlet’s necklace. As my blood pumps, flushing my skin, I take in the rest of him: the tan on his skin that he probably got from the exotic trips to his private island in the Bahamas; his thick, short, dark hair; the dusting of rough whiskers around lips that I can’t look away from. He isn’t smiling. No, his expression doesn’t give anything away.
My mouth is dry, even as I go moist between my legs. I can feel my heartbeat there, throbbing, already anticipating what he has paid so dearly to do to me.
“Nova,” he says in a smooth, deep voice.
I’m not sure what to do—shake his hand? Curtsy? Strip immediately?
“It’s nice to meet you, Mister Star,” I manage.
My pulse pounds in my ears so it almost seems as if I’m in a dream, everything muffled.
He continues to inspect what he’s buying: a girl with black hair that comes to her shoulders, dark eyes, what my mom calls a “button nose,” and lips that I’ve always thought were too big in a heart-shaped face. I’ve been called “cute,” but never “beautiful.” As his gaze skims downward, over my breasts that strain to get out of the top of my dress, then over my curvy hips and legs, a melty sensation rushes my most sensitive parts.
I’m getting turned on and he hasn’t even touched me yet. But along with my excitement comes a strong wave of fear. What if he finds me ugly in person? What if he’s not attracted to me?
What if I turn him off by saying or doing the wrong thing?
Finally, he extends his hand, and I take it. His grip is warm and firm. Then his thumb runs over the top of mine, and I shiver. Before I lose my composure, I take my hand away.
How very smooth you are, Nova, I think. Come on, step up your game. A guy like this isn’t going to want to take a flailing idiot to bed.
Sure, he’s paying for my purity, but I’m sure he’ll expect some expertise to go along with it. That’s what I was thinking after I read a bunch of women’s magazine articles about sex and how to please a male after the Highest Bidder site informed me that I’d been purchased.
If Travis has noticed my agitation, he doesn’t show it. He’s still cool, sexier than sin as he motions toward the table in the center of the jet. Once there, he pulls out my chair, and as I sit down, he pushes it in, the perfect gentleman. But before he goes to his seat, I notice his gaze on my breasts, and my nipples get hard, straining against the fabric.
He doesn’t leer, he doesn’t grin—he only lifts an eyebrow as he sits.
A uniformed attendant appears, and she looks like she came from the pages of a Babes-and-Boobs catalogue. Travis is still aloof, leaning back in his chair.
“Champagne?” he asks me.
“I’d like that.”
As the attendant wiggles her way from the table and to the rear of the jet, I feel like a toad in her presence. Yes, that’s obviously what he wants and what he paid for—a wiggle in your walk and a flirty attitude.
I clear my throat and prop my elbows on the table, revealing some cleavage. His eyes stay on mine, but I think he sees my wares. He just isn’t responding like I’ve always thought a guy would. But this particular guy has been around the world, and not just in a jet. Maybe I suffer by comparison from all the ultra-gorgeous women he’s been with.
I blush from my first failed attempt at seduction. “We’re having cocktails before we take off?” I say, smiling my most come hither smile.
“I thought we’d have the entire meal on the ground so we can talk first,” he says, not seeming to take the bait.
Huh. I didn’t expect a bunch of talk.
The attendant brings out the champagne, and I know I should drink a bunch to kill my nerves. I start with a dainty sip, fully aware that he’s watching me like a hawk. A sexy, intense bird of prey.
It’s almost as if he’s trying to penetrate the act I’m putting on.
When he speaks, his voice is low, rich, with a scratch underneath it all that makes me shiver some more.
“Let me know if you want anything besides the champagne. There’s a fully stocked bar.”
“No, really, this is great.” Although if we could just get the deflowering part over with so I can stop being such a wreck…?
But I force myself to stick my chest out as I keep leaning on that table, hoping he’ll warm up to me. I can’t help tugging at the bottom of my dress under the table, too. It keeps inching up like it has a mind of its own.
Travis only sits back in his chair, his eyes narrowed as he tilts his head a bit. “I went over your application online before the bidding process began.”
Straight to business. “Scintillating reading, I’m sure.”
“It was enough for me to put the money up to win you in the auction.”
My breath hitches. Win me. Should I feel like an object, a precious doll that he can undress at his whim? But his blunt words have the opposite effect on me—instead of offending me, they heat me up, make me go a little wetter.
I don’t even know what might’ve caught his interest about me except for my virginity. There can’t be too many females my age who haven’t gotten some action, so that probably makes me a rarity in the wider scheme of things. Then again, most girls don’t have my overprotective, crappy father to keep the boys away with threats and intimidation.
“You intrigued me,” Travis finally says. “For one, you had straight As in high school, and you earned multiple college scholarship offers, yet you never went to college. There’s got to be a story there.”
Now probably wouldn’t be a good time to tell him that I stayed home because my father, whom I actually prefer to call by his name, Gary, wouldn’t let me go to college. I spin my story the best that I can.
“My family needed the money, so I found work instead.”
What I don’t say, is that Gary has always forced me to hand over paycheck after paycheck while he sits at home and does whatever he wants, like watching cop shows and war movies, fantasizing that he’s going to be a hero on the local police force or in the military one day. How he collects guns and knives and takes martial arts classes to buff up, building his ego so he can bully his wife and son into giving over their paychecks, too.
Travis is still watching me closely, and I shift in my seat. I forget all about my crummy home life because this man’s intensity has my clit beating wildly, and I’m aching under his scrutiny.
Sex it up, I think. He’ll want a playful kitten, not a block of ice. As I continue leaning on the table, I press down against my arms until my breasts are bulging.
“Anything else you’re curious about?” I ask, licking my lips slowly.
Ah, now he smiles, but it’s not warm at all. His eyes glitter with an edge. “I’m always curious about the women who end up on my private jets.” His gaze flicks to my dress again. “For one, I’d like to know what it would take to make you more comfortable.”
His very observant comment takes me aback.
“Don’t look so surprised, Nova,” he says. “I only want to know more about you. More than I was able to read on that site.”
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br /> Time for some flattery, so I lower my voice to a wicked purr. “And I’ve read about you online. How you worked for every dollar, started off in retail and then got to be manager of a jewelry store. How your career took off from there.” In his early twenties, Travis got a bank loan and some investors and opened his first business. Ever since then, he’s been a wild success and his company has grown exponentially. Now he’s one of the richest men in the world. “Everything I read is impressive.”
“You’re impressed. My life is now complete.”
I don’t shrink from his wry words. Instead, I turn up my sex-kitten heat. “I’m sure you haven’t even started to impress me.”
Heavy-handed much? I flush even harder. I’m so not good at this, but maybe if I squish up my breasts a bit higher as I lean on the table he’ll forget the conversation altogether.
But Travis is just as reserved as he’s been since I met him. He wipes his hand over his mouth, covering any expression he might’ve had, and I take a moment to appreciate his long fingers. I imagine them touching me, skimming over my neck, the tips of my breasts, my stomach, until they get to the spot between my legs where I’m pulsating so badly that I want to touch myself to make it go away.
Instead, I take another sip of champagne. The attendant appears with an appetizer, and only after I taste it do I realize that it’s bacon-wrapped dates with an orange sauce. God, it’s good.
He watches my mouth as I eat, and inspired by his apparent interest, I suck the sauce off one of my fingers, then another. I really have no idea what I’m doing.
He holds up a napkin. “You might find this useful.”
Okay. My skin beats with embarrassment as I use my own napkin to wipe my fingers, then dab at my face in case he’s staring at me because I’ve got food on it.
From there, the conversation grows even more stilted as the attendant moves on to another course: a chilled gazpacho soup with shrimp. Then she brings out seared scallops with caviar and fancy green bean and potato side dishes, then dessert.
By the time the caramel pear terrine is served, I’m practically wilting in my chair. I feel like this meal is more of an interview, because Travis has already asked me about the architecture degree I wanted so badly to get at college, my casual interests, my mom and fifteen-year-old brother. Then we get to Gary. I don’t mean to shut Travis down at that point, but I can’t help but clam up while the classical music playing on the digital TV channel takes over.
I’ve been picking at my food—my stomach is too upset for me to eat much more—but surely dinner is only a warm up. The best is yet to come, so to speak. I’ve read enough books and articles and watched enough TV on low volume in my room to know what happens between two people on a date for which I’ve sold my virginity.
Sure, Travis is discriminating and as cool as a chilled martini, but I’m ready and willing for him. I’m sick of waiting on pins and needles.
I want to know that he’s bringing me back to Manhattan and away from my shitty old life. It’s my only chance.
I stretch my arms over my head and once again try to sell my sensual side. “That was delicious.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed what you ate of it.”
So he noticed that I was eating hardly anything. I didn’t even drink much, which is strange, based on how much I needed something to relax.
“I…” Do I dare throw out another innuendo? “I’m ready to enjoy a lot of things. New things.”
His gaze drills into me, and I nearly shrink into my seat. I go liquid everywhere: in my bones, in my belly, between my thighs.
I throb for him. I’m ready for my buttons to be pushed.
Travis rises from his seat and allows his napkin to fall from his fingers to the table. I assume this can only mean one thing.
We’re about to move to the next phase of things. My heartbeat quickens.
But his expression is not so welcoming, nor are his words. “This isn’t going to work out, Nova.”
Chapter 2
Shock bolts through me as his words saturate my thick head.
Did he just say this isn’t going to work out?
I sit there and gape like a fool. “It’s not?”
He casually checks the fancy watch on his wrist then pulls his starched cuff back over it. He’s detached, the cool of his eyes already a million miles away. “No, I’m afraid it won’t.”
My mouth runs before I can stop it. “But you already bid on me. The agreement was made. I left home and came out here to get on this jet so I could spend the next two weeks with you.”
Travis must see the rejected confusion in my eyes, because his own gaze changes—it isn’t as hard anymore. But the next instant that changes, too, and he’s back to business. I’m not even sure he had a second thought about how I feel.
“There’s fine print in the contract we both agreed to, Nova. It states that either one of us can cancel within the first hour of meeting. All I have to do is pay a fee to get out of this arrangement.”
My surprise is starting to wear off. The site already takes a cut of the fee I was supposed to get—now it sounds like I’ll be paid even less. There goes the money I’d been counting on.
I wonder if Travis Star gets off on firing the rejects. I can’t believe I didn’t make it past the interview.
He looks me over again—my legs, the red dress that hugs my curves so that nothing is left to the imagination. Then his attention falls on the exit. He goes to the doorway and opens it, letting dusk spill in. He reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out a clip that contains a bunch of what looks to be one hundred dollar bills. After leafing off a few of them, he extends the money toward me.
“For your inconvenience,” he says.
At first I don’t move. Truthfully, a part of me is relieved that I won’t have to lose my virginity to a man who clearly doesn’t give a crap about me.
Yes, he’s the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen, and even after he rejected me my skin feels fevered around him, but maybe I can just go back to my old life now. What if no one even realized that I’d left? I’ll be a few hundred dollars richer and…
My hopes drop. Leaving here means I’ll have to go back home, to Gary, and that makes it the last place I want to be.
Gathering what I have left of my pride, I stand, tugging down my skirt. By now it’s a habit. Pushing down my sense of failure, I walk to Travis to accept his money, and as I do, my fingers accidentally brush his. A violent tingle rushes up my arm, zinging straight to my clit, and I bite my lip to chase the bittersweet ache away.
Then I get myself together and say through my teeth, “Thank you for dinner, Mr. Star.”
As I leave, I don’t look back, but as I look forward to the tarmac, to the flat Midwestern landscape ahead of me, my heart sinks to my stomach.
I really don’t want to go back home.
Frustration takes the place of the hollowness in my chest: anger at Gary and even at myself for making a mess of what could’ve been my family’s salvation tonight. There’s also a sense of irritation at Travis. What was it about me that turned him off so badly anyway?
On a wave of emotion, I turn back around and step inside the jet again. One of his eyebrows lifts, and something flickers in his gaze. A corner of his mouth tilts up, but he’s still more unreadable than the Sphinx.
“What did I do to make you dismiss me like this?” I ask. “What happened between the time you bid on me and now?”
“Nova,” he says levelly, “you really should go.”
“I just want to know. Why?” My voice is thick, and I hate that my desperation is so obvious. I hate that my feelings are bruised because some entitled one-percenter tossed me out of his jet without any explanation.
“You really want to know?” he asks.
“Please. Enlighten me.”
He looks at me in that discriminating way again, and my belly aches with lust. Damn him. Damn me and my repressed sexuality. He’s pushing those buttons I’ve never had pushed, an
d it’s so easy for him.
“Honestly,” he says, “I like my women to be more…innocent.”
In the silence that follows, I start to pull down the hem of my dress again, then stop myself. What’s he talking about? I am innocent. I had to sign an affidavit for the dating service stating that I’m a virgin and everything…
He continues. “That’s why I use the dating service, so they can match me to someone who’s not sexually experienced. Which you obviously are.”
Huh?
Then I think about how I was acting during dinner. And how I wore this stupid dress just to catch his eye.
He dismisses me again. “The bottom line is that you come on too strongly for my tastes. I was expecting someone a lot different than what I got. It’s not the end of the world. It happens.”
He’s talking about me, the apparent vixen who’s clearly cutting a swath through the land with my seductive powers. I laugh, and maybe it’s because my nerves have finally caught up with me. But when I laugh yet again, it’s because this situation is so ironic that there’s nothing to do but find it hilarious.
Expressionless, Travis watches me, loosely crossing his arms over his broad chest as I keep laughing.
“I…” I say, then wave a hand to fend off the laughter. “I thought that’s what you wanted—someone who knew what they were doing. That’s why I put on this ridiculous dress and…” I huff out a breath. “That’s why I was so forward. But the truth is, I’ve never even had a boyfriend.”
He merely surveys me, once again as if he’s stripping layer by layer off of me. I quiver inside as I look into his deep green gaze.
His low voice rolls over me. “So this isn’t the real you.”