“Good. Then let’s go to your room. Lead the way.”
Mark’s body trembled as he slithered out from between the wall and me, and he hesitantly started walking down the hallway, throwing a cautious glance over his shoulder. Like the hungry man I was, I followed my cute little prey, eyes glued to the way his tight ass bounced in his barely there shorts.
2
Mark Fenson
My room,my room, where the fuck is my room? Wait a minute, why am I doing what this guy says? Fuck, I need to escape.
My heart hammered in the back of my throat as I glanced back again. Camden was a fairly innocuous name for what amounted to a kidnapper. It wasn’t fair that a creep who paid for sex looked fucking fantastic, with thick dark hair that was already fighting the product trying to keep it smoothed to one side, a sharp chin dusted with just the right amount of scruff, and so many muscles packed on his body not even a suit could hide them.
Werebadguys supposed to be hot?
He had his gaze fixed on my ass. If I wasn’t kind of flattered, I’d knock a point or two off his attractiveness for the ogling, but in the end it had my cheeks burning in a way I couldn’t quite qualify. I slapped my hand back there, for what little good it would do, since it wasn’t like I could hide anything much that way. My ass was not tiny.
He chuckled.
My face grew hotter until I thought it might be shining like the sun, and my stomach tingled, even though I was scared. Adrenaline tightened my muscles and had me overly aware of my exposed skin.
“You don’t want me to look?”
I walked faster along the hallway, past beautiful windows that belonged in a palace, not a brothel. I glanced outside into the starry night and my heart rate picked up pace. I needed to get out of here—get outthere. In the distance the shifting water of Lake Ontario sparkled like gray glass and spread away. The horizon seemed endless, and the mere fact I couldn’t get outside to listen to the soft rush of waves cranked up the volume on my stress.
“No,” I finally forced myself to say. “No, I don’t want you to look.” The carpet under my feet was soft and luxurious, and I caught his shiny shoes out of the corner of my eye. Being barefoot made me feel even more underdressed.
“You want me to touch instead?” Camden’s voice was almost a growl and had my groin tightening the way it might if he was flirting across a dinner table—only more potent. This was insane.
Guys likehimweren’t my type. At all. The men I dated were like me. They had steady jobs, went to the gym two days a week—and lied when you asked about it and said it was four—and they worked in an office downtown. They had shows they watched and knew all the actors’ names, and the more risqué ones might have favorite porn stars. After the third date and a few drinks, theymightask you to jerk off together.
Okay, maybe the men I dated were fucking boring, but they definitely didn’t spend thousands of dollars in their free time to screw strangers. We reached the end of the long, gaudy hallway with trashy gold curtains—okay, they were amazing, but to hell with this place—and I didn’t want to stop walking, so I hung a left instead of admitting I had no idea where I was going.
It wasn’t like I remembered how I’d gotten here earlier. I’d been so busy hating Darcy Winters that I hadn’t seen a single thing on my way to the wings of the stage where we’d waited before the auction. I walked fast enough that I almost felt like I was running, and I was certain the soles of my feet were going to get rug burn. There was a growl of sound behind me, very close to animalistic. I finally moved my hand away from my ass because I was feeling silly, and a second, more bestial noise from the man at my back had a thrill spiking in my abdomen.
I couldn’t tell if it was good or bad. I’d never felt this way.
We came to another intersection of hallways, and I went straight this time. I walked us around, not having a clue as to where I was going, and Camden seemed content to follow me for the moment. We went down a couple more corridors, and then I almost squeaked as the grand staircase—the one I’d ascended Thursday night and had never gone down again—came into view ahead. The ceiling opened up and swept away from us to dangling crystal-cut chandeliers, and I felt like naked royalty as I stuttered to a stop at the top of the stairs. Below, the shined-to-perfection marble floors, shot through with gold veins, glowed like a frosty sea. Plush red couches here and there broke up the area, and people milled around, talking with champagne flutes in their hands. A bored man in a Courtesan uniform leaned against the dark wood desk on the right while staring at his phone.
Body heat at my back gave me a shiver. Camden wasn’t touching me. He didn’t ask me what we were doing. Instead he buried his nose in the hair at the top of my head and inhaled deeply.
Like some sort of animal.
My stomach wobbled. It ached with hunger, and I felt… sort of floaty and bad, even though him snuffling in my hair gave me a nearly delightful shudder. I’d woken up on Friday morning with a hangover from hell and hadn’t been able to eat all day. This morning the nerves of knowing what was coming tonight had caught me, and again I couldn’t eat. He was acting like a wolf, but I barely felt human myself.
I stared down at two women holding hands, making their way to the front entrance.
The door.I rocketed forward, toward the first step of the staircase, my eyes fixed on my one and only chance at escape.
“What are you doing?” Camden asked, not too far behind me. I made a split-second decision and shot down the stairs as fast as I could. The marble of the steps was freezing on my bare feet, and Camden’s shoes were loud a short distance behind me.
“Mark, what are we doing?” Camden asked, but he didn’t sound upset—just the opposite. “Oh, do you know what I like?” He almost seemed delighted. “Madam Winters did say you were into fighting.”
Jesus Tap Dancing Christ, what the fuck does this guy want from me?Fear tangled itself in a knot in my chest and I choked on the air I was supposed to be breathing. Did he want to hurt me? I booked it faster.
Romeo, one of the prostitutes who worked here—apparently without duress—had come in to talk to me last night, and I’d tuned him out. I’d been taken aback because while he was a man of some sort of Asian background, who was definitely good-looking, he wasn’t so outstandingly attractive people should want to pay for him based on his face alone; however, he had been verycaptivating. His likeableness had infuriated me. I’d wanted to smile and laugh with the man in spite of the circumstances under which we’d met. It wasn’t fair.
In the midst of all of Romeo’s flirting, I thought he’d said something about no one being able to hurt us at the Courtesan, but then again, it wasn’t as if I was one of the people who were here of their own free will.
My leg muscles burned with the effort of fleeing as my feet smacked the cold floor. I skirted a couch and raced toward the front doors. My lungs were tight already. I dodged people. Someone shouted at me, but I didn’t stop. There was a deep laugh behind me. By the time I was nearly to the doors I was running flat out. Raised voices behind me sent my pulse skyrocketing, and I was pretty sure it was Camden who called, “Let him go!”
