The Pawn (Endgame #1)(21)

“It’s not my favorite part of the process, but the extra sensitivity you get will help you. And the men, they go crazy for it.”

I’m not sure I’ve made a man go crazy for anything. “What if no one bids on me?”

She laughs softly. “Do you really think that will happen?”

“No,” I admit, but it doesn’t have anything to do with confidence. I had been to enough charity auctions to know that rich old men would buy anything—broken furniture that was owned by the Queen of England, the golf ball that lost a crucial championship. “I know someone will buy me. I just don’t know whether it will be enough.”

There isn’t an insurance policy on something like this. If someone buys me for less than the balance of that real estate bill, I’ll lose the house. And I’ll still have to sleep with him.

“Stand up,” Candy says, her command so effortless—and so kind.

When I stand, the silk robe falls open. I gave up on modesty around the time she ripped hardened wax off my most private places, but it will be very different with a roomful of men.

She picks up a small pot of pale pink shimmer. She sweeps the brush into the powder, every move almost sensual. I’m already wearing blush, and I didn’t have to stand up to apply it.

Her gaze goes to my breasts, still partially hidden by the sides of the robe.

“Oh no,” I whisper.

Her expression turns sympathetic. “It might seem over-the-top, but those men are used to over-the-top. And those lights will wash you right out. This is the palest color that will work.”

Her hands are gentle as they push the silk aside. The cool air brushes over my nipples, turning them into hard points. I’m shocked—in part because I wasn’t sure the men would see my bare breasts during the auction. And in part because my body responds to her gaze almost with arousal.

As if I’m a work of art, she applies the brush to my nipples. She’s right that it’s not a drastic effect. They actually look kind of pretty like that, something I never imagined I could think.

“Men are very simple creatures,” she says without looking up from my breast. “They like to feel important, to feel smart. They like to feel strong.”

I wasn’t sure women were so different when she put it that way. Those things sounded great to me, especially after feeling so inordinately weak. “How do you make them feel that way?”

“Not by giving in. That would be too easy.”

The caress of the brush sends strange arcs of energy through my body—my chest, my sex. Even my lips seem to tingle. Every careful stroke echoes across my skin as if I’m hollow. As if there’s nothing inside me but air. “So I should fight him?”

She bites her lip, concentrating. Then she stands back, examining her work. My nipple looks perfectly pink, perfectly circular. Definitely more plump than before.

One nod, then she moves to the other side. I force myself to stand still, not to demand answers, not to beg for them. “Not fight, either. I like to think of it as a dance. He steps forward, you step back. Then you step forward, and he must step back. There’s a symmetry to it, a rhythm.”

I blink, feeling out of my depth. “Do you mean sex?”

“That has a rhythm, but I’m talking about something more. Any woman can fuck him, any woman can spread her legs. There’s nothing special with that.”

“I’m a virgin.” My voice comes out flat. I’m not bragging. What I so carefully protected has actually come to mean more to me than I would have expected—saving my family home. Saving my father.

I would have preferred a safe marriage. A safe life.

If I could magically change fate, I’d never want to know this desperation.

“They aren’t paying for your hymen,” she says. “They’re paying to teach you things. They’re paying so much money because the push will be greater—but so will the pull.”

The rhythm. I hear what she’s saying, but I’m missing it too. She’s trying to explain something to me, something important. And I know that she understands it—I know because she has a very dangerous man wrapped around her finger. I know because of the age-old wisdom in her blue eyes.

“I’m afraid,” I whisper.

She gives a half smile. “That’s part of the pull.”

And the greater the pull, the greater the push. “The more afraid I am, the more money I’m worth?”

“It’s not just fear that pulls them. Innocence and fragility and grace.”

I picture the old men, smoking cigars and drinking whiskey. “Everything they’re not.”

Her expression turns sly. “Don’t fight him, oppose him. Make him desperate for more.”

I’m staring at her, wondering if she’s taking her own advice—because I’m the one desperate for more. I want something concrete, some trick I can do with my hand or my tongue to make this work. Some universal safe word that will make sure I don’t get hurt. Instead she’s giving me philosophy.

And I’m so focused on it, so deep in it, that I don’t hear footsteps in the hallway.

Don’t hear the turn of the doorknob.

Then Gabriel Miller is standing in the room, his golden gaze on me. On the eyes that Candy made large and doe-like. On my pink nipples in hard little nubs. On the sensitive place between my legs, stripped bare of any covering.