The Auction by Tiffany Reisz

11

He closed his eyes and leaned back against the trunk of the orange tree. All of his hopes for Anya…all of his dreams for them…he let them go. Because they were so low on his priority list compared to her safety that he couldn’t even begin to be sad yet. He knew he would be, tomorrow perhaps, and then every day of his life after. But she wouldn’t be giving her body to a stranger tonight, so he considered his idiotic plan a rousing success.

The crowd stood up and mingled amongst each other. Waiters came bearing wine and champagne. Kingsley strolled over to him and looked him up and down.

“Your suit,” Kingsley said.

“Yes?”

“It’s an improvement.”

Daniel laughed coldly. “Anya made it. Even paid for it herself.”

“Her way of serving you your own testicles on a platter.”

“Feels like it. I won her, Kingsley. And I lost her. Then I won her again. And I lost her again. I just keep losing. Know any florists still open? I’ll bring her lilies. Two million five hundred and sixty thousand dollars’ worth of lilies. Think that would work?”

“Poor Daniel.” Kingsley clicked his tongue like an obnoxious French hen. “I spent a weekend in Monte Carlo not that long ago. I saw a man who kept losing and losing and losing…but finally he stopped losing. Do you know why he finally stopped losing?”

Daniel shook his head.

Kingsley smiled. “He stopped the playing the game.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“Mine, always.”

Kingsley patted his cheek condescendingly and strolled off.

“It’s Mass-ah-CHEW-setts,” Daniel called after him.

“Don’t forget, you’re up next on the block,” Kingsley called back, while Daniel mentally served Kingsley his own testicles on a platter. He hated to admit the Frenchman might have a point. He hated to admit it…so he wouldn’t admit it. Not out loud, anyway.

Intermission ended and the auctioneer took the stage again. The crowd seemed even more excited about the second half of the auction than the first half. Daniel supposed seeing the Underground’s most infamous dominants on display like submissives usually were provided a bit of amusement along with the shock value. Kingsley’s paid doms cultivated an air of mystery and danger about them. Kingsley’s does were not summoned, not for any amount of money. They saw clients at their leisure only. One simply signed up on the waiting list and waited to be summoned. And paid through the nose for the privilege.

Daniel, of course, knew he had no such air of power or mystery. As dominants went he wasn’t particularly noteworthy, at least not in his own mind. If Daniel brought in ten grand on the auction block, he’d be surprised. Not that he cared. He just wanted it over with. He’d already decided to write a check to whomever bought a night with him, for the exact amount they’d paid. That way he’d keep his promise to Kingsley, the charity would get its money, and no one would lose out. Also, most importantly, he wouldn’t have to touch anyone who wasn’t Anya.

The auctioneer introduced him, and with a sigh Daniel stepped forward. Once up there he discovered he could barely see past the blazing candles that decorated the stage. He heard laughter and applause. A woman’s voice, gilded with a distinct Russian accent, proclaimed, “If anyone bids against me, they’re getting a flogging.” Someone set off another round of tittering by helpfully reminding her that in this crowd, that wasn’t much of a threat.

Bidding began at ten thousand dollars and quickly shot up to fifty. Fifty thousand dollars. For him? What madwoman in the crowd would pay fifty thousand dollars for one night with him? Had to be Irina. She had made it very clear she wanted to see him again after their one torrid afternoon together.

At eighty thousand dollars the bidding stalled. Well, that was about ten times as much as he’d expected anyone would bid for him. He should be flattered. Instead he felt nothing but empty, lonely.

“Any other bids?” the auctioneer called out. There was no answer. “Going once…going twice…”

“Two-million, five-hundred and sixty-thousand dollarz,” came a voice from the crowd.

Daniel’s ears perked up.

Dollarz?

With a z?

Anya.

And then Daniel heard the most beautiful word he’d ever heard in his entire life.

“Sold.”

* * *

He racedoff the stage and found Anya waiting for him under the orange tree.

“Anya? What are you—”

She held up her hand. “My turn to talk,” she said. “You hurt me more than anyone has ever hurt me in my entire life that night.”

Daniel started to speak and she clapped her hand over his mouth.

“My. Turn.”

Daniel nodded and let her go on.

“But I know now that I overreacted,” she said. “I do that sometimes. You said that you meant to say you wanted to take care of me, that you even want to take care of my brothers and sisters.”

She shook her head, and he saw tears gathering at the corners of those beautiful amber eyes.

Anya continued, “I think you are fou…crazy. But I’m fou, too, because I want all of that…and I want it with you.”

She paused and took a breath. She blinked and the tears raced down her face.

“I want to be yours,” she said. “I want to belong to you…sir.”

It took a few seconds for Daniel’s brain to catch up with his heart. And then a second or two more for his mouth to catch up with his brain.

“I only have one thing to say to you,” he said. “What are your orders, Mistress?”

He caressed her cheek and she smiled into his hand.

“Orders?” she asked.

“You bought me. You own me. At least tonight. Tomorrow and after, I’ll own you.”

“I have an order,” she said. “One order—make love to me.”

Daniel had never been so happy to follow an order in his life—but he was still the dominant here, even though he knew at this moment and forever, Anya now owned him, too.

He cleared his throat pointedly. “What was that?”

Anya grinned through her tears. “Please make love to me…sir.”

“Better. And yes, right now.”

He grabbed her wrist and dragged her bodily from the rooftop garden. He just needed a room, any room. Any room with a bed. Forget the bed, he’d take a floor, a desk, a wall.

Anya’s pulse raced wildly against his hand as he pulled her down the hall. Sounds of agony and ecstasy, sometimes separate, sometimes mixed, echoed out from behind many of the closed doors.

Only the room at the very end of the hall seemed to be free of ongoing orgies. Daniel pushed open the door and found a beautiful red-headed goddess lounging across the bed in one of Kingsley’s shirts.

“Out,” Daniel ordered.

“But—”

“Out. Now.”

The girl rolled off the bed, grabbed her clothes, and with a look of pure hatred at him and Anya, left them alone.

Daniel slammed the door behind her, locked it, and pushed Anya up against the wall with more force than was necessary.

“You’re not leaving this room a virgin.” Daniel spoke the words before pressing his lips to the side of her neck, just under her ear.

“Monsieur’s room?” Anya wrapped her arms around his shoulders and clung to him. He slipped a hand under her dress, hooked her leg around his waist, and gripped her thigh. “He won’t mind?”

“He’ll mind, especially since I kicked his date out. But Kingsley can kiss my ass. Don’t tell him I said that. He might take it literally.”

Anya started to laugh but he cut her off with a kiss to her lips so hungry he thought it might consume them both. As he kissed her, Daniel pressed his hips into hers and was gratified to feel her press back.

Daniel pulled her away from the wall and slid the straps of her dress off her shoulders and down her arms. Shoving the dress down her body, he hooked his thumbs into her white panties and brought them down to the floor as well. Now Anya stood in front of him naked but for her shoes and the halo of her hair.

She was exquisite. Her breasts were a perfect handful, her nipples dark pink and getting redder as he gazed on them. Her soft stomach quivered as she breathed nervously. She was shaved bare and his mouth watered at the thought of licking that smooth naked mound down to her clitoris, her labia and even inside of her.

“Nice shoes,” Daniel said.

“They’re Mary Janes. Very comfortable.”

“I’m sure they’ll feel quite comfortable on my back.”

At that Anya blushed, just as he’d wanted her to. He lifted her in his arms and laid her across Kingsley’s massive bed. Kingsley might have had a virgin in his bed before—Daniel would put nothing past that man—but he knew never before had a woman so beautiful graced these sheets. And she was his, all his.

Anya settled against the sheets of Kingsley’s rather infamous big red bed. Daniel pulled off his jacket and tossed it over the back of the chair. Anya rolled up to sitting as he started on the buttons of his vest.

“Let me,” she said. “Please, sir.”

Smiling, Daniel dropped his hands to his sides.

With shaking hands, Anya unbuttoned the vest and pushed it off his shoulders. She let it fall to the floor.

“The floor?’ Daniel raised an eyebrow at her. “This is my favorite suit, you know. It shouldn’t end up on the floor.”

“As I was making it,” she whispered as she started on the buttons of his shirt, “I couldn’t help but imagine it on the floor by the bed, sir. I wanted to hate you. I did hate you. But I only hated you, because I loved you.”

“If that’s how you hate me, then hate me for the rest of your life.”

Daniel caressed her naked back as she unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it out of his suit trousers. But she didn’t stop there. She opened his pants, slipped her hands inside, and wrapped her fingers around him.

“Bad idea,” he whispered in her ear.

Anya started to pull away but he grabbed both her wrists. “Just because it’s a bad idea doesn’t mean you’re allowed to stop.”

Laughing softly, Anya leaned her head against his chest. Daniel wrapped an arm around her as she kept exploring him with her fingers.

“Are you on birth control?” he whispered as he caressed her spine from the nape of her neck down to the base and up again. “Or do I need—”

“Please,” she said, looking up at him. “I’ve been on it for three months. And I want nothing between us, sir.”

“Me neither. Never again.”

Anya nodded, seemingly unable to speak. She looked down and watched herself touching him. At first her fingers moved tentatively, but she grew bolder with each stroke and his shuddering breaths that followed. He heard her mumble something.

“Louder and in English,” he ordered.

When Anya turned her face up to him, he saw she was blushing. “I said I can’t imagine how we’ll fit all of that inside me.”

Daniel cupped her chin and kissed her lips “Very carefully. Lay down.”

Obediently, Anya rolled onto her back. Her hands clenched nervously at the red sheets underneath her shivering body. He lifted her leg and pressed a kiss onto the sensitive skin of her ankle, right above the strap of her white Mary Jane.

With torturous slowness he kissed his way up the inside of her leg, lingering at her knee…then lingering even longer at the inside of her thigh. He felt her whole body stiffen as he kissed even higher. Gently, he bit her hips and the soft skin at the base of her stomach before dipping his head lower. Pressing her legs wide, he licked her bare labia and sucked lightly on her clitoris.

“Sir—” She gasped in shock, and he sensed she wanted to scoot away. With an iron grip he clamped both hands on her hips and held her in place.

Using his elbows, he pried her resisting thighs open even wider. Now he remembered why he’d avoided virgins in the past—the nervousness, the shyness, the fear of the unknown threatening to overshadow the moment’s pleasures. But with Anya he felt the privilege of being her first lover, of teaching her, training her. Once she learned how to give herself to him sexually, he’d teach her to submit to him in other ways—submit to pain, to darker pleasures, to every delicious sensation and temptation he could devise for her.

“Stop hiding from me,” he said, digging his fingers into her soft skin hard enough he knew she’d have finger shaped bruises on her thighs tomorrow. Good. The sooner she learned the consequences of trying to keep her body from him, the better. “Relax.”

Anya whimpered in the back of her throat and relaxed her legs.

“Better. Now behave. You might actually enjoy this.”

Once again Daniel brought his lips to Anya’s clitoris and gently sucked on it. As he made love to her with his mouth, he brought two fingers to her body and slowly started to work them into her tight vagina.

She stiffened as before but didn’t attempt to close her legs. Good girl. She could be taught. Slowly, he pushed into her, nearly groaning aloud as her wet warmth surrounded his fingers.

Carefully he spread his fingers apart inside her, hoping to open up her tight passage for him. But she tasted so good, so tart and sweet and womanly, that he almost forgot this act wasn’t the sole reason they’d stolen Kingsley’s room. Through the haze of his own desire Daniel heard Anya starting to enjoy his lips and tongue on her. She whimpered and gasped, then lifted her hips to push herself harder against his mouth.

Daniel took that and the wet heat inside her as a sign that she was as ready as she could be for him. He pulled away and covered her body with his own. Immediately Anya wrapped her legs around his naked back. The heels of her shoes cut into his skin, a delicious little agony.

He gathered her delicate wrists in one hand and pressed them over her head. The veil of contented submission had fallen across her eyes again. She looked calm, peaceful, almost drowsy with lust. He wanted her just like that when he entered her. A thousand things went through his mind that he wanted to say to her at that moment. But for her own sake he said nothing, merely let her relax into subspace, as he opened her up wide with his fingertips and started to push inside.

Anya’s half-closed eyes flew open wide and she let out a cry of obvious agony. With a groan of frustration Daniel pulled back and away from her.

“Non, sir. Please.” Anya rolled up and wrapped her arms around her knees looking nervous as a child. “I’m sorry. Please don’t stop.”

“Don’t apologize for being in pain. And a gun to my head wouldn’t stop me now.”

Daniel knelt down and pulled a silver case out from under Kingsley’s bed. The other cases called to him but he knew tonight was not the night to introduce Anya to the crop or the flogger. He snapped open the lid and found exactly what he wanted. Anya had confessed her need to be restrained during sex. But flat on her back underneath him, she would have no chance to control the pain of penetration.

Daniel stood up and Anya’s eyes went wide as she saw the handcuffs. He raised his chin, stared down at her, and spun the silver cuffs in his hand—a little trick that always raised Maggie’s heart rate. It seemed to have a similar effect on Anya.

“By the headboard,” he said. “Go.”

Anya crawled to the head of the bed. That body of hers…on her hands and knees, crawling. Soon he would teach her the beauty of crawling for him.

Daniel shed the rest of his clothes and crawled across the bed to meet her. He sat with his back to the headboard and gripped Anya by the waist. She laughed a little as he lifted her onto his lap.

“Right hand.”

Anya raised her arm and gave her hand to him. He kissed the pulse point on her wrist before slapping the cuffs on her. Before she could even think of protesting he hooked the handcuffs through the metal bar on Kingsley’s headboard, grabbed Anya’s left wrist and cuffed it, too. Now she sat on his thighs in front of him, handcuffed to the bed. He might be imprisoned by her arms at each side of his head but he knew of no prison he’d rather spend his whole life inside.

“Beautiful…the most beautiful Québécoise in the world,” he said, tracing the outline of her body with his hands. Groaning, Anya’s head fell back as Daniel took her by the waist. He raised her nipples to his lips and sucked lightly on them. Once more he pushed two fingers inside her. He opened his fingers wide while with his other hand he guided the tip to her wet entrance.

“I’m so ashamed,” she whispered as she arched her back pushing her breasts into his chest.

“Of what?”

“I’m in love…with a Canadian.”

“Imagine how I feel,” Daniel said as he kissed her chest, right over her heart. “I’m about to make love to Celine Dion.”

She laughed and he laughed and when they were done laughing, they kissed. And when they were done kissing, Daniel guided Anya to his cock and held her hips as she lowered herself onto him. Their eyes locked and he said nothing, did nothing but let her own courage and body weight bring her down onto him.

“Go as slow as you need to. Breathe.”

Nodding she closed her eyes and breathed through her nose in short bursts. She took an inch, stopped to breathe, took another inch, breathed again.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “It hurts much less this way. But it’s still…”

Daniel cupped her face and kissed her lips. “You’re doing fine, Anya.”

“I want…I want all of you. Please…help me, sir.”

Sliding his hands down her body, Daniel decided quicker might be better. He wrapped his fingers around her hips and held her steady. Once more he met her scared, wide amber eyes. Then he pushed up and into her, taking her virginity with one thrust.

Anya cried out and buried her head in the crook of his neck. Daniel wrapped his arms around her and held her close. For a torturous minute he did nothing but let her whimper and struggle and cry. Being so deep inside her without moving nearly killed him. But her pain muted his desire and allowed him to keep whispering words of comfort and love to her.

He slipped a hand between their bodies and rubbed her clitoris. At first she flinched from obvious pain. But he lightened his touch, caressed her even more gently, and when she whimpered again, he could tell it was from pleasure.

“Try moving,” he said as he increased the pressure on her.

Anya obediently began careful undulations of her hips. Daniel had to swallow a groan of pleasure. He didn’t want her hurting herself by trying to please him.

“Better?” he asked when the movements grew wider and her body seemed to relax.

“It feels…” she began and stopped. “It feels like you belong inside me.”

Daniel’s heart tightened in his chest. “That’s because I do.”

His fingers moved faster, making tight circles to match the circles of her swaying hips. Turning his head, he kissed the inside of her arm that encircled him and nibbled on the soft flesh at the inside of her elbows. He couldn’t resist one hard bite that would leave a bruise on her forearm. Someday soon he’d leave her body covered with welts and bruises.

Anya gasped and flinched and Daniel felt her inner muscles flutter around him. He kept circling her clitoris, kept holding back his own needs as Anya kept moving her hips on him, taking him deeper and deeper with every push against him.

“You have my permission to come whenever you can,” Daniel said, wanting to start training her to only orgasm when he allowed it. He’d wait a few weeks before bringing the rougher toys out. But discipline began tonight.

Daniel’s left hand ran all over her body while his right hand continued to tease her. When his hand brushed her neck Anya took a hard breath. He wrapped his fingers around her throat and held her neck lightly. It seemed to be exactly what she needed. Anya pulled hard against the handcuffs as she pumped her hips into him. What little restraint Daniel had left disappeared as she released a loud throaty cry. Both hands grabbed her soft bottom with bruising force as he pushed up hard and came inside her.

Together they breathed through the climax, half-panting, half-laughing at their loss of control.

Daniel kissed Anya’s lips, her forehead, her cheek, her neck. “Good girl,” he whispered. “Did you enjoy that?”

She nodded. “Again?”

Daniel brushed the hair off her forehead. “I’m thirty-eight. Give me minute. Or ten. I hope that was worth all two point five million dollars you paid for it.”

Anya blushed and giggled as she rested her chin on his shoulder. “Ask me again in ten minutes.”

With a fierce slap, Daniel brought his hand down hard on Anya’s bottom. “Respect your elders, young lady.”

She yelped in pain before dissolving into laughter. “It was worth every cent of your money, sir.”

“Better answer.”

Daniel ran his hands up and down her back as Anya nestled into him, her arms still cuffed to the headboard. Maybe he’d leave her there for a little while longer.

“I want you in my collar. I want to own you,” he said into her hair. “I want to love you, too.”

“Yes, I want that. Please.”

He felt something on his shoulder, something wet. Tears. Anya’s tears. “Good.”

“But under one condition,” she said, pulling back to face him.

Daniel gripped her chin and gave her a stern look. “And what is that condition?”

Anya returned the stern stare with one of her one, one fierce enough to rival even The Ouch.

“We burn the jeans.”