In one smooth, terrifyingly quick motion, he's across the seat, looming over me. He grips my jaw in one tight hand, pulls my face up toward his, his body crushed against mine. I'm only wearing a thin sundress, in anticipation of the California weather I thought I'd be enjoying when I landed tonight. Instead, I feel the hard press of his muscles through my too-flimsy dress. My nipples ache at the warm heat washing off of him, and I pray they don't harden. Don't give away what I'm feeling right now, which is a horrifyingly powerful wash of lust.
I remember his scent most of all, and now it washes over me again, all musk and heat.
"I am not ashamed of anything. Not my name, not who I am. Not my family, either, which is more than I can say for you." His gaze holds mine, piercing. That is, until I suck in a sharp breath. Then his eyes drop, taking in my lips, and my heart rate triples, a sharp, aching pound in my chest.
He could kiss me. We're so close now, breaths apart. I can feel his chest heaving against mine, his hot breath ghosting across my cheeks.
Why does he do this to me? Why is it hard to catch my breath? Why is my belly tightening and my clit aching like it's thickening in response to his proximity? Why do I feel more turned-on than I ever have in my life?
He releases my chin and pushes back across the seat, away from me. "My name is Farrow Lochlan," he says. "I am-was-a business associate of your father's."
Lochlan. The name rings a distant bell, though I can't quite place it. Someone I've heard Dad talk about behind his closed study door, or in murmurs with suited men as they shake hands and bid one another farewell in the hall.
I shake my head and slide across the seat, away from him. Press myself against the door and lean my head on the window. It's tinted, so I can't see anything outside, but I keep my eyes on it, waiting until my breathing is even and calm.
"Where are we going?" I say.
In the window, I watch his reflection unlatch a sideboard in the limo. Pull out two glasses, followed by a bottle of dark amber. He swirls the drink, then pours it, neat, a hefty pour into each glass.
"Here," he says, offering me one of the glasses. "Drink."
"I'm not thirsty," I respond, narrowing my eyes in the dark glass window. "I just want to know where you're taking me."
He takes my hand and lifts it. Uncurls my fingers with a tender, almost gentle touch. Then wraps them around the glass and folds it around, so I'm holding the glass in my lap now. When he releases me this time, my skin feels cold where his warm touch was a second earlier. "It will calm your nerves. Trust me."
"Why on earth should I trust you?" I snap, turning to face him once more. "You carried me out of my house, threw me in this limo, took me away from my life, my family. I have a plane to catch tonight; my first day on campus is tomorrow, and you won't even tell me where you're taking me."
Farrow laughs, hard. I clench my fist around the glass, afraid of what's amusing him. When his eyes catch mine again, they flash with dark humor. "Pamona. You will not be making your flight tonight. You will not be attending college, either."
"The hell I won't," I spit, my jaw clenched.
But he's not done. "The only thing you will be attending to is me. My wants. My needs." He reaches across to trail his fingers along my arm. From my wrist all the way up to my shoulder, where he casually brushes the strap of my sundress so that it falls down to my elbow. I startle so hard I spill my drink on myself. I grab my strap and pull it back onto my shoulder.
He watches me do it, smirking. "As I said, your father owes a debt. I look forward to you paying that debt back to me."
I can't help it. It's a physical reaction, automatic. I throw what's left of my drink in his face. He takes it without hardly a reaction, the smirk still on his mouth as he reaches for a napkin on the sideboard, and calmly wipes away the liquid dripping down his jaw.
"I am not a thing," I spit. "I am not property. You cannot just take me, much less for some imagined debt you think my father owes you."
"You have no idea what your father owes me," he replies, those icy blue eyes flashing dangerously. "Or what he'd be willing to sacrifice to repay it."
"I know my father wouldn't willingly put me in this position. I know he's going to stop at nothing to find me once he learns that you've taken me."
"Oh, will he?" Farrow's smirk widens with amusement. He pulls out his phone, and I wish I hadn't thrown my drink so soon. I'd rather douse his phone in it. At least then he might be somewhat fazed.
He pulls up something, and hands the phone to me. It takes a moment for the screen to resolve in the darkened limo, and another moment for me to understand what it is I'm looking at.
It's a website, but not one I've ever seen before. It looks like an auction site, except that the header is hot pink and emblazoned with scantily clad girls in sexy poses.
"I don't want to know what kind of porn you watch, but you-"
"Read it," he interrupts, his voice low and commanding.
I scowl at him, but thumb over the site, scrolling down. Then I freeze, eyes widening. Because I recognize the photo on this page.
It's me.
I'm in a sundress, not unlike the one I'm wearing now. It's my senior photo with my hair done up and a cute smile plastered on my face. Innocent, almost too innocent, placed on a site like this. It makes it look like I'm trying to pose this way. Like I'm playing it up, enjoying how angelic I appear.
Underneath, I skim through the details. My name and a description of my life. I'm a pampered rich girl, accustomed to the good things in life. I go to an all-girls' school upstate, where I enjoy painting and studying classical art. I have never partied, never drank alcohol, never even kissed a man, let alone touched one. I am the ultimate virgin.
My stomach churns. Who could have written this about me? And how do they know?
I mean, of course I haven't been with a man. How could I have? Dad never let me out of his sight long enough to strike up a flirtation, let alone get to know a guy enough that I wanted to kiss him.
In fact, the only guy who's ever even come close to touching me is sitting right next to me in this limo now, studying my expression with a smirk on his mouth as reality sinks in.
Only one person could have made this ad.
My father.
"I don't understand," I snap, shoving the phone back at Farrow.
Instead of accepting it, he points at a banner near the top. Auction complete, it reads. And beside that, another line. Winning bidder: Floch.
Then he settles in to the seat beside me, so I'm pinned between him and the window. His warm body blazes against mine, his arm on my skin, his hip touching mine.
I continue to scroll through the site, in a desperate bid to ignore the desire that starts to curl through me. I scroll up to the top of the site and read the banner. Virgins for Sale.
"Your father fucked over the wrong people for years," Farrow says. "Wrote bad checks. Skipped out of town at convenient times. Lied to investors. Robbed Peter to pay Paul, so to speak. He had no other choice."
"My father would never do this to me," I snap.
"Admittedly, I might have given him the idea," Farrow adds, his lip curling with a grin. "It was a few years ago. I pointed out that he does have two very attractive assets that he hadn't considered using. Innocent, sheltered virgins are something of a rarity in the world these days, after all."
I feel sick. I'm going to be sick. "My father did not keep us sheltered all our lives just for this."
"No, no, of course not. He wanted to protect you. Spare you the horrors of the world." Farrow brushes my shoulder again, trailing his fingers along my skin with the brazen possessiveness of a man who already knows he owns me. "But the idea was there. All it took was a few more years of stress. A few more years of investors laying on the pressure, and your father slowly realizing that if he didn't choose this, then both he and you would wind up in a far worse position."
"He agreed to sell my virginity?" I clench my fist around the phone. Fury grows as the truth settles in. "To pay off what, a few bad loans?"
"More than a few, my dear." Farrow's eyes sparkle with amusement. "It was this, or your father would have most likely wound up dead at the bottom of the Hudson River."
I throw his phone, as hard as I can. There's a moment of satisfaction as I hear it crack against the bar. Then he grabs my wrist and shoves me backwards. Pins me onto the seat beneath him, my arm over my head, trapped in his tight grip.
"That's quite enough of the throwing things, Miss Badiary," Farrow says, eyes narrowed. "You will learn to behave yourself."
"I most certainly will not," I growl. "I will not agree to this situation, and I will not be forced."