[His for a Week 01.0] Bought Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  HIS FOR A WEEK: BOUGHT

  First edition. April 13, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 EM BROWN.

  Written by EM BROWN.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  BOUGHT | His For A Week Book #1

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Excerpt | His For A Week: Ravaged

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  HIS FOR A WEEK: RAVAGED

  BOUGHT

  His For A Week Book #1

  CHAPTER ONE

  Is he fucking serious? Ben communicated via a stare to his cousin. But Jason Lee, having thrown down a few shots of scotch from a bottle of Macallan Rare Cask, was too intoxicated for nonverbal communication.

  “It’s the best, dude,” seconded Derek, who sat across the booth from Ben in the latest of many trendy restaurants to open up in San Francisco’s SOMA district.

  With a frown, Ben turned his gaze back to Jake Whitehurst, who sported a salacious grin as he swirled the scotch in his shot glass. Almost immediately, Ben hadn’t liked Jake. Something in the guy’s smug expression and the need to comment about the price of his Rolex watch ($12,000) and his shades from Cartier ($1,700) had left Ben less than impressed. Not that Ben begrudged the guy his haute couture when he himself had recently dropped two thousand for Louis Vuitton shades and gifted his mother a Tiffany bracelet that cost more than most mid-sized cars, but he never felt the need to brag about it.

  If it weren’t for the fact that Jake was Jason’s friend and former college roommate, and Ben’s father wanted Jake’s business connections, Ben would have called it a night. He had tried to be cordial most of the evening, but Jake’s most recent revelation pushed his tolerance to the brink.

  “You so hard up to get a date you have to buy one?” he asked Jake.

  “Getting a date the old-fashioned way is too much fucking work,” Jake scoffed.

  Ben was incredulous. Jake was a good-looking guy in his mid-twenties. And, thanks to the successful sports agency his dad had founded, the bastard was rich. That took a man further than even his looks. A man could be as ugly as a naked mole rat, but money made him pretty.

  “Women these days think they’re so special,” Jack continued. “But at the Scarlet Auction, you see what you like, you make a bid, an hour later, the girl’s yours.”

  Ben raised his brows. “Girl?”

  “You know what I mean. They’re not underage or anything. Just single, hot, and ready to get banged.”

  “But some of them look like they could be, you now, teens,” Derek chortled.

  “That’s gross,” Ben replied, referring to both the idea of going out with jailbait and the way Derek practically giggled.

  “Oh, come on, don’t tell me you don’t fantasize about banging a high school cheerleader, with their short little skirts and cute little pom-poms.”

  “I’ve been with high school cheerleaders—in high school. So no, I don’t fantasize about them anymore.”

  The other three broke into guffaws. Jason clapped Ben on the back and slurred, “’Cause you’re an old man now.” Jason lowered his voice conspiratorially. “He turned thirty last year.”

  “I turned thirty and I still fantasize about high school cheerleaders,” Derek said.

  Because you never got within ten feet of one, Ben couldn’t resist thinking.

  Jason patted Ben’s shoulder. “Just messin’ with you, cuz.” He looked across the table at Derek and Jake. “Honestly, there isn’t a chick this guy couldn’t get. Even in kindergarten, Ben was the man.”

  “Bet having the Lee family name didn’t hurt,” Jake said, unable to keep the envy out of his tone.

  “Hey, dude, you related to Bruce Lee?” Derek asked.

  An accomplished martial artist, Ben could have said he had that in common with the kung-fu legend, but there were no family ties that he was aware of. Instead, Ben replied, “Your last name’s Nixon. Does that mean you’re related to Richard Nixon?”

  “The Scarlet Auction only happens once a month. Bidding starts at midnight tonight,” Jake said. “We can all get dates for our week at the lake.”

  Ben’s jaw tightened at the thought of spending the next several days at Jake’s cabin, but Jason had assured him the best way to do business with Jake was to socialize with him.

  “I don’t need an auction to get a date,” Ben said.

  Jake shook his head. “I don’t want yours to be the odd girl out. Either get a girl at the Scarlet Auction or come stag.”

  “Don’t worry. They’re not ugly chicks,” Derek added. “The women who run the auction are very selective, so you’re guaranteed to walk away with a hot one, dude.”

  Ben stared at Derek and briefly wondered if a kick to the guy’s head would stop him from talking like a surfer out of an ’80s beach flick.

  Jason put an arm around Ben. “Come on, cuz. You don’t want to be the only one at the lake without female companionship.”

  “Yeah, ‘companionship,’” snickered Jake as he threw back a shot and motioned for the server to bring the tab.

  Ben made no reply at first. He didn’t want to “buy” a date at this Scarlet Auction. Hell, he couldn’t imagine bringing any woman, bought or otherwise, to hang out with these wankers for a week in a remote lakeside cabin.

  On the other hand, due to his rigorous traveling schedule on behalf of expanding the family’s real estate empire, he hadn’t had female companionship in more than three weeks. There was the waitress in Berlin and the singer in Phuket, but the sex had been vanilla and barely enough to keep his balls from going blue.

  As if reading his mind, Derek said, “And at the auction, you get girls who are into the kinky stuff.”

  Ben couldn’t help but perk up.

  “Yeah, ever since Fifty Shades of Grey, all girls are into that shit,” Jake said. “I don’t even bother with girls who aren’t.”

  “How does the Scarlet Auction work?” Ben asked.

  “You make a bid, you sign a contract, and the girl’s yours for a week. At the end of the week, you part ways. No strings, no emotional bullshit. It’s a business transaction. The girl walks away with a part of the proceeds, and everybody gets what they want.”

  “And this is legal?”

  “Sure. It’s gotta be. The whole thing’s consensual. No one’s getting forced to do anything. These girls want to sell their virginity.”

  Ben started. “They’re virgins?”

  “Not all of them, but if you want a virgin, you got to bid higher. I always bid high.” He clinked glasses with Derek.

  Ben lowered his eyelids to hide his emotions. “Why do you want to fuck around with virgins?”

  “Because it’s fun popping their cherries. Girls always remember their first time, and I live on in the memories of so many girls, I’ve lost
count.”

  Ben helped himself to another shot to wash away the revolting image of Jake pounding away at some poor young woman. He looked Jake square in the eyes. “Not man enough to take on a woman of more experience?”

  Though Ben’s tone and following smile could have been mistaken for a casual ribbing, Jake stiffened and frowned. He replied seriously, “Virgins are...cleaner. I like knowing that some other guy’s gunk hasn’t been inside her.”

  “But all the chicks at the Scarlet Auction have been tested, so you don’t have to worry about disease and shit,” Derek said. “You wouldn’t know that, just getting to know a chick by dating. The Scarlet Auction makes sex much more...efficient.”

  Jason leaned in closer. “So whaddya say, Ben? You gonna come with tonight?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  With trembling hands, Kimani Taylor adjusted her simple black cocktail dress with spaghetti straps as she waited behind the stage where the auction was to be held. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath.

  I can’t believe I’m doing this.

  But she had made it this far, though at various points, she had thought to back out. There were the legal documents she’d had to sign with four different attorneys watching; the invasive questionnaire asking when she had lost her virginity and how many sexual partners she’d had in her life; the physical exam; and finally an interview with a woman asking about her sexual habits and preferences, such as whether or not she engaged in any hardcore BDSM.

  “The more amenable you are, the more likely you will get bid on,” the woman had told her. “Should I put you down for hardcore?”

  “Sure, why not,” Kimani had replied, reminding herself that her answers didn’t ultimately matter. Her plan was to get bid on, get to know her “buyer” and the other participants of the Scarlet Auction, pull out before any sex actually happened, then write the scoop that would land her a job with the San Francisco Tribune.

  “It’s too risky for our paper to take on,” the Tribune’s editor, Sam Green, had told her. He had seemed very intrigued when she had first pitched the story but had since consulted the in-house attorney.

  “But as a freelancer, I can take it on,” Kimani had replied. “I’ll get the story and you can decide afterwards if it’s worth printing.”

  “We could use an exposé. Our paper hasn’t had anything like this before. If you can hit a homerun with your story, there’ll be a job here for you.”

  Kimani had hardly been able to contain her glee at such an opportunity. Newspapers across the country were downsizing, and competition for reporting positions were at an all time high with many seasoned journalists having a hard time landing a job. Given she was only a year out of journalism school, she needed an edge, a scoop worthy of being noticed.

  “No pressure, though,” Sam had added. “If there should be an opening here, I will definitely give you a call. You were my favorite student in class.”

  “There weren’t that many of us,” she had said, referring to the course on the intersection of journalism and public policy that Sam had taught as a guest lecturer.

  “Still, I could see you were talented. But going undercover can be dangerous. You know that, right? And you’ve never done anything like this before.”

  But Kimani didn’t feel as if she had much of a choice. And it wasn’t just about landing a job with a paper.

  “I am sooooo excited,” whispered a beautiful and petite blond standing next to her.

  Kimani couldn’t help but take in the young woman’s boobs, which were practically spilling out of her pink skin-tight dress, and wonder if they were real since they were so large compared to the petite frame they were attached to.

  “I’m sooooo ready to fall in love with a billionaire,” she said, blue eyes sparkling.

  Kimani cleared her throat, hardly able to believe her ears. “Does the Scarlet Auction have a matchmaking component?”

  “No, but in all the books I read, the girl and billionaire always fall in love.”

  Kimani studied the blond and decided she couldn’t be much older than eighteen or nineteen years old. Should she attempt to burst the young woman’s bubble and warn her that the bidders weren’t all going to be Prince Charming?

  No, she wasn’t here to offer her own opinions. She was here to understand how the Scarlet Auction worked and to make connections with the subjects, which had not gone as she had wanted. The women had been isolated from one another until now, just as they were about to head on stage for the bidding. She would have to follow up with the other participants afterwards. Hopefully one or more would be willing to go on record with their experiences.

  “They’re not all billionaires,” said a brunette behind them.

  “Close enough,” replied the blond. “The Scarlet Auction doesn’t just let any rich guy attend. He’s got to have a net worth of at least nine figures, so you’re not going to find ordinary millionaires.”

  “What’s wrong with ordinary millionaires?” asked a slim woman with olive skin and long black hair. “A million dollars is probably more than I’ll ever see in a lifetime.”

  There were just under two dozen women present, all between the ages of eighteen and thirty, beautiful and primped as if they were participating in a beauty pageant instead of an auction. Kimani herself had straightened her hair—which she usually didn’t like to do because it was more effort than she had time for—and then used a curling iron at the ends. She needed to get selected or there would be no story. So she had traded her glasses for contacts and tried to make herself as appealing to as many men as possible.

  “I heard a virgin at last month’s auction got a bid of one hundred thousand dollars!” another woman said.

  “That’s why I’ve been saving myself for this moment,” the blond said as she tugged at one of her long golden curls. “Virgins always get the higher bids.”

  “Did any of you get to finish reading the contract and nondisclosure agreement?” Kimani asked, recalling that she had been given only fifteen minutes to review over twenty pages of legalese in small type and dozens of footnotes.

  “If the auction is being held in California, why is arbitration held in Florida?” Kimani had asked after reading one of the clauses in the contract.

  “The parent company is located there,” an attorney had responded coldly.

  When the fifteen minutes were over and she had objected that she hadn’t finished reading, she had been told if she didn’t sign, she wouldn’t get to participate. So she had signed, telling herself that, NDA or no NDA, and no matter how many intimidating lawyers they shoved in her face, she had a right to report abuse and assault.

  “Why would I want to read a boring legal document?” the blond returned. “The lawyer covered all the important stuff.”

  “You’re not worried?”

  Kimani wanted to blurt out how her roommate, who had participated in the Scarlet Auction, had ended up covered in bruises.

  “Showtime,” announced an older woman. “Remember your stage assignments, ladies.”

  Kimani was assigned to stand stage left of the podium and noticed that the blond virgin was stage right. Kimani’s roommate, Marissa, had explained that the virgins always stand stage right.

  “Eww, these guys are so much older than I thought they would be,” the brunette whispered to Kimani.

  “Most billionaires are,” Kimani whispered back. She made sure the broach with the hidden spy camera was secured to her choker.

  “And not very attractive.”

  “The guy in the middle row is cute,” said another woman.

  Kimani scanned the crowd of mostly older white men and one lone woman in her forties to find the one dubbed “cute.” She gathered her fellow participant was referring to the guy with wavy brown hair flanked by a shorter man with a receding hairline and a tan-skinned Asian. They sat a little too far back for the camera in her broach to capture their faces well, but maybe with some technical wizardry, an image specialist could enlarge the fo
otage enough to be clear.

  “We will begin the bidding with item number one,” declared the woman at the podium.

  Item? Kimani shook her head. This was so much worse than Marissa had described.

  The people in the audience all had bid cards, which they held up when they wanted to meet the price announced by the auctioneer. The blond virgin was sold to the cute one for eighty-thousand dollars. The young woman looked ready to jump for joy.

  We’re being sold like livestock. Kimani shivered. What’s wrong with these people?

  The thin woman with long black hair was sold to the only Asian man in the audience, and the other friend of the cute one had purchased a redhead. Kimani was the last one to be bid on.

  At first, no one raised their card. Kimani flushed a little. The lack of bids couldn’t have been because of her appearance. She was young enough—twenty-five years old—and attractive, with her light mocha skin and naturally long eyelashes. She kept herself in shape through running every morning but still had curves in the right places. Maybe this crowd just wasn’t into her type.

  “Why don’t we start the bidding at five thousand,” said the auctioneer.

  The lone woman in the audience raised her card.

  “Ten thousand? Do I see ten thousand?” asked the auctioneer.

  A card went up from a man who had already purchased the brunette. Kimani perked up at the idea that she wouldn’t be alone.

  “Fifteen thousand?”

  The woman raised her card again.

  “Twenty thousand? How about twenty thousand for this exotic beauty?”

  Kimani stifled a gag. Just think of the job, she told herself. If written well, maybe the story would even be worthy of consideration for the Pulitzer.

  “All right,” Sam had relented when she declared she was doing the story one way or another. “I’ll support you in any way I can—unofficially, of course. Who knows, maybe you could be the next Alex Dolan or Nellie Bly.”

  “Thirty thousand.”

  Kimani started and saw that the cute one was holding up his card.