Bought And Paid For (Part Two) Read online

  I smile at that bad girl in the mirror.

  Grayson sees me, and as our gazes meet again, there’s something in his eyes that confuses and arouses me. Maybe he’s just as bewildered as I am about what’s happening here, and when his eyes cloud over, I know it’s because he’s once again built up those protective walls that keep him distanced from me.

  “Harlow,” he says in a commanding voice. “You know what I want now, don’t you?”

  I nod against his leg.

  “Tell me,” he says.

  “My lips,” I whisper with the last bit of air left in my lungs. “You want my lips on you.”

  “Yes. I want that beautiful mouth on my cock. I want you to suck me before I fucking burst.”

  His words are tight, strained. I can feel how tense he is but, in the mirror, his muscles seem even tauter, rocked up with all the effort that it’s taking for him to hold back.

  I’m more frightened of what’s about to happen than ever, and I think he sees it. “Grayson, I’ve never...”

  “Never what, baby?”

  I swallow hard. “I’ve never...you know. Done anything like what you want me to do.”

  We both glance away from the mirror, our gazes connecting for real as he looks down at me on my knees before him. I see realization gathering in his gaze like a storm cloud.

  “Are you a...?”

  “Virgin?” I whisper. “Yes. My dossier said I was.”

  But we both know by now that he didn’t bother to read it.

  He seems overwhelmed for a moment, but then I see something else take over his gaze. Excitement.

  His mouth curls up in a ruthless smile. “Then I’ll teach you what you need to know.”

  A flood of relief — no, it’s my own excitement — consumes me like a red-hot spill of liquid. It fills me up, making my pussy feel even plumper, wetter.

  He leans against the wall and crooks his finger at me, inviting me to go to him. I crawl over, flushing more than ever before, and then wait for my instructions.

  He pushes down his shorts until his cock is revealed and — damn. He’s huge, hard, throbbing, and engorged. Drops of moisture glisten on his head, and saliva stings the corners of my mouth even as fear races around my veins.

  “First,” he says, “just touch me.”

  His voice is choked, revealing the extent of his aroused agony. Tentatively, I reach up and run my fingers over his stiff length.

  He leans back his head in obvious torment.

  If I can do that to him just with a touch, what will happen if I...

  Gathering courage, I take him into my palm. He sucks in a breath.

  “Now,” he grits, “all you have to do is run your tongue up and down me.”

  “Like a popsicle?” Oh, my God, that sounds so stupid. I’m a sexual moron.

  But he isn’t laughing at me. “Yes, Harlow baby. That’s exactly it.”

  His hungry words give me a sense of power, and when I lick him from the base of his cock to the tip, he groans deeply. Encouraged, I dart my tongue over his head, tasting him.

  Slightly sweet. Creamy.

  “Fuck,” he whispers. “Now swirl that tongue around me, baby.”

  I use my tongue on him again, at first experimentally. But as he keeps making those fervent, turned-on sounds, I get bolder. I swirl my tongue around him like he said, and when he spreads his fingers in my hair, I know I’m doing it right.

  “Keep going,” he growls. “Just like that...”

  I start to take to this as if I can do no wrong. I bring him all the way into my mouth, thinking about sucking the sweet juice from a popsicle, laving him, loving him. And when I catch a peek of myself going down on him in the mirror, my clit twists with a joyous thrill.

  “Now suck,” he grits out.

  I take him deeper, sliding my mouth up him while sucking, then going back down, whirling my tongue, reveling in how hot this is with our reflections in that mirror. His fingers grip my hair tighter and tighter as I keep going and going—

  When he finally comes, it’s with a blast in my mouth, but before I can even swallow, he withdraws, and his hot, wet seed gushes over my bare breasts, bathing me...

  Initiating me.

  It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced, pure lust pounding inside of me as he finally relaxes against the wall, looking down at me like I’m his queen and there’ll never be anyone else who can do what I just did for him.

  “Harlow,” he murmurs. “Show me how much you like feeling my cum all over you. Show me how hot it makes you feel...”

  I don’t break his stare. Thanks to his demand, I only get bolder, and I wonderingly rub his cum over my breasts, basking in the erotic slickness.

  Grayson’s gaze smolders, and I know that this arrangement has just taken a sharp turn into a place I wasn’t expecting.

  Grayson

  I can’t take Harlow off the elevator and into my suite fast enough. The sight of her on her knees while spreading my cum over her delicious tits was too much for me to take, and the minute the doors open, I carry her straight into the shower — but not to fuck her. Things aren’t going to go that far. Yet, once I turn on the rainforest waterfall showerheads, I have to fight my urges once again.

  I have to keep my head clear in order to keep my sanity.

  As she faces the marble wall, I wash her slender back with a bar of the oak moss soap that I have custom made for me. My hands inevitably wander over her waist, then up to her round, heavy breasts. As I cup and rub her slick tits, she falls forward to plant her forearms against the wall. Desire throttles me, yet somehow I stay in control.

  “I would have never guessed you were inexperienced,” I say casually.

  “Why?”

  “The clothing you wear — especially that crocheted top and short skirt you had on when you arrived.”

  “You think that, just because I was wearing a hippie chick outfit, I was easy?”

  Instead of answering, I squeeze her tits gently.

  She gives me one of those little mewls that always gets me going. “Well, at least now you know I haven’t been so easy in the past. I’m just a little innocent lamb who wandered in to the lair of the dragon.”

  Her joke makes me grimace a little. I don’t want to ruin her forever, but then again…I do.

  I slip my hands to her belly. I think about all her worn dresses and why she signed up to be a mail-order bride in the first place. Does she even have a nickel to her name?

  Before I can start thinking about my own past and how we might have more in common than just our sexual chemistry, I start to draw figure eights on her skin. She wriggles a little beneath my touch.

  “How experienced are you?” I ask. “Because a serious boyfriend would know how many exes his girlfriend has.”

  She’s silent for a moment as the water pounds down on us. Then she says, “I’ve had a few flings, if that’s what you would even call them. But never anything serious. Just some dates, some goodnight kisses, some fumbling on sofas in front of TVs. But my experiences don’t come anywhere close to...” She raises her face to the showerhead to bathe herself completely, as if she really needs to cool off. Then she bows her head again. “What we just did.”

  I’m still as stunned by the news of her virginity as I was when I first put two and two together to realize that Harlow is utterly inexperienced. A fucking virgin, for God’s sake. “It’s hard to imagine that a woman like you hasn’t been chased down by every cad in the country.”

  “There are reasons, but as you requested, I’ve kept them to myself.”

  Shit. I need to get serious about this mail-order arrangement. But I need to lay down more rules as well because there’s such a thing as knowing too much about someone — especially a fake girlfriend. I don’t want to encourage an atmosphere in which we have to talk about painful and humiliating pasts, because I have buried mine. “We can make this situation work without getting sappy and emotional and too detailed. But I should still know a
bout any big romances you’ve had.”

  I don’t think those were the words she wanted to hear, because she tenses up ever so slightly. To relax her, I slip my soapy hand between her thighs. As I rub her there, heat wavers between us, seeping into my skin.

  When she peers over her shoulder at me, I can see that she’s ready to sink into a puddle at my feet again, absolutely under my control. This is how it should be — pure sex. Pure lust.

  A girlfriend experience that I am enjoying more and more by the moment.

  She closes her eyes as I keep petting her pussy.

  “So you want to know how I remained a virgin?” she asks. “One big reason is that I’ve been too busy studying at school to get involved with anyone.”

  I have a feeling there’s more to her lack of intimate contact than that — especially since Rick hinted as much to me — but we need to respect my no-deep-details rule. “What are you studying?”

  “You can read the dossier for this stuff, can’t you?”

  “Fuck the dossier. I want to hear it from you right now.” Also, the dossier will tell me too damned much.

  I slide my hands to the small of her back, right above her plump, lovely ass, and begin to soap her up there with long, sensuous strokes. Her muscles loosen up.

  “I’m getting a degree in Business Economics,” she says. “You might not have been listening at dinner when Rick told me that my major was a big factor in choosing me from the mail-order site. He also liked the charity work I do on campus.”

  I concentrate on the major. “He does like to work with bean counters like you.”

  I think I just attempted a joke.

  As Harlow turns around, she’s faintly smiling. She takes the soap from me, and I watch her blush as she guides the bar over my body: my chest, my arms, my hips... She’s steaming me up, and the more I get steamed, the more my brain gets clouded. Before I know it, I’m speaking before I can think.

  “It would be a good idea if you stayed the night in my room tonight, Harlow.”

  Her hands go still on my stomach. The sound of rushing water is all I can hear, along with the clamor of my heartbeat going from sixty to six hundred as I wait for her to respond.

  Maybe I should explain this sudden request to her. Hell, it even surprised me, because I never have women stay here. My suite is my domain, and the only person who has ever spent the night in my bed is me. “Rick clearly thought there was a lack of intimacy between us, so we need to make people think that we spend time together, especially in the same bed.”

  She begins to soap my stomach up again. “Yes, of course. You’re right.”

  As her hands glide down to my belly, I hitch in a breath. My cock bobs with a pulse of sudden heat. Harlow pauses, then bites her lip and hands me the soap. Then, just like that, she exits the shower.

  What the hell?

  Through the steam-veiled glass, I can see her toweling off and then leaving the bathroom. I let out a long breath and finish cleaning off. So much lust has built up inside of me that I need to take some extra time to jerk myself off, because even if Harlow is in my bed tonight, I won’t be fucking her.

  A virgin.

  I don’t normally deal with those, and having one in my bed is going to be hell. But Harlow and I must learn to pretend to be a couple. Even if I have to cock-block all these clusterfuck feelings that seem to attack me whenever she is near, we are going to make this arrangement work. It will be a challenge, but I am always up for one of those.

  I will be damned if anyone gets the best of me.

  Harlow

  As I walk out of the bathroom, I hear Grayson still taking his shower.

  So...this is awkward. He asked me to stay in his bed tonight, and I don’t know how I feel about that. On one hand, I’m so wildly attracted to him that I’m nearly beside myself with elation. On the other far shakier hand, I can already feel myself getting in deeper than I ever intended.

  This was never supposed to be about feelings, only money. And the feelings that are swarming me frighten the hell out of me. I’ve never been as brazen as I was in that elevator or in the shower.

  With the thick, luxurious towel still around me, I use my fingers to comb out my hair. I wander around his bedroom — a place that’s just as decadent yet streamlined as Grayson is. It has a huge round bed on a platform, a steel fireplace, modern art, a marble tile floor, and gray shag rugs that all but invite me to bury myself in their extravagance. I repeat to myself that nothing will ever come of this arrangement. After all, Grayson would probably freak if he discovered that I have a jail-bound mom and a poorer-than-dirt bloodline. I’m not meant to be a billionaire’s girlfriend — I’m the daughter of a woman who had to kill her husband, and I know Dr. Vangelis plans to keep all that under wraps, but would Grayson end up judging me for it if he found out?

  I hear his shower turning off, and I adjust the towel around my body. I wander over to the French doors with their nighttime view of the river sparkling under the moonlight. My heart beats aimlessly as I wait for him.

  I see his reflection in the glass as he emerges from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He’s silent as he walks around the room, doing whatever Grayson Royal does after a shower.

  Finally, he speaks. “You can’t go around wearing that towel all night.”

  His deep voice runs through me like a torrent of shivers. In the window’s reflection, I see him saunter toward the bed and deposit something on it. I turn to see what it is — a white button-down shirt and a pair of black boxers.

  “Go ahead and put these on, and then get into bed, Harlow.”

  Thank God — clothes!

  At least I think that’s a good thing.

  Without looking at him, I obey. But as I put on the button-down, I turn my back to him, slipping the huge shirt on over the towel and fastening it. Then I wriggle out of the towel and slide the boxers up my body. Both articles of clothing swallow me up. I even have to hold the boxers in place.

  I catch a faint whiff of his scent on the material — the same woodsy, subtle, and all-man smell of his soap and skin. Trembling, I silently get into his bed, sighing at the feel of the lustrous, smooth sheets against me. I slide Grayson a glance as he stands next to the mattress. His hair is damp, and he still doesn’t have a shirt on, revealing every mouthwatering inch of brawn and muscle. Somewhere along the line, he put on a pair of dark sweatpants that ride low on his hips, and I have to pull my gaze away from his sexy, corrugated abs.

  Before I do something dumb like crawl over the mattress to feel him up, I fold my hands over my stomach and stare at the intricately crown-molded ceiling. My insane heartbeat taps out every passing second until he also gets into bed.

  There’s a space between us as wide as an ocean as the moonlit darkness encompasses us.

  So. Is this what we’re going to do all night? Stare at the ceiling and keep our thoughts to ourselves? Then again, that’s how Grayson rolls. But he said we could talk about things that weren’t super emotional, so shouldn’t we be doing that in order to catch up with each other as Dr. Vangelis wanted us to? I think when he told us he wanted us to be ready for “prime time” with Jake Foreman, he didn’t just mean we should be doing it by brushing up on blow jobs.

  Before I can venture to say anything, Grayson murmurs, “Until Jake Foreman summons us into his grand presence, we’ll need to be seen in public together. And I’m not talking about taking you with me to my usual places...”

  Nightclubs, yachts, and wild parties? Heck, as long as we don’t end up making a sex tape, I’m game. We need to be wholesome.

  “I understand,” I say. “We need to establish that we really are a couple to the public.”

  “And these so-called ‘dates’ will allow us to catch up with each other, just as Rick wants us to.”

  “Great.”

  Meanwhile here in Awkward Land, I’m wondering if Grayson is ever going to touch me again. Is he ever going to make me orgasm and cry out and bring out
a side of me that’s obviously been buried?

  Not the time to think about that, Harlow. Focus.

  Grayson is still on his side of the bed. “Yes, this should be a very efficient way of polishing our act. I’ll leave it to Jayne to plan an itinerary for us.”

  “Jayne does know best.”

  The moments tick by. Should I just go to sleep? But how can I go to sleep with him lying next to me all big and sexy and shirtless?

  “Have you ever been to Boston before?” he asks.

  Okay. So we’re making small talk again. At least, this time, I’m not naked in the shower with him.

  Then again, I kinda wish I were naked in the shower with him.

  A merciless fluttering tears through my body, but I calm myself down. “No. I haven’t really done a lot of traveling.” I can’t afford it — moneywise or time-wise.

  “I see.”

  More time ticks by.

  “All right then.” Grayson sighs heavily in the near darkness. “If you were going to tell Jayne what you would like to see in Boston, what would you say?”

  He almost sounds like he’s interested. Right. “I would love to see a baseball game. I’ve always been a fan of the sport. My younger brother and I would watch...” Oops. TMI. “Never mind.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Grayson run his hand through his hair. He pauses and then says, “I wouldn’t have guessed you were a baseball fan. Would you be able to bring yourself to root for the Red Sox?”

  “I think I could manage.”

  Tick-tock, tick-tock goes my inner neurotic clock.

  “Any other requests?” he asks.

  Grayson really is giving this a good-faith effort, so I’m going to do the same. “I would love to go on a historical tour or two.”

  “Noted.”

  This time there’s such a long, drawn-out pause that I think he’s already fallen asleep. But his breathing doesn’t sound smooth and even. It sounds just as shallow and aware as mine.

  With every breath he takes, the more the butterflies swirl around in my tummy because, here I am, lying in bed with Grayson Royal, the breaker of a thousand hearts, the playboy of a million parties, the man of countless women’s dreams. But I’m the one who has him here in the flesh.