“So...” He pulled off his glasses, then the T-shirt, his hands quick as he unbuckled, unzipped, then ditched his shorts, his body completely exposed. “So, I want to fuck you in the sunshine.”

He stepped closer, leaning over me, his cock pressing into my shoulder as I felt his fingers pull at the strings of my bikini bottom, the material falling away as he rolled my reluctant form over, my hands rising to cover myself, his touch gentle as they pushed my hands away, proof of his attraction growing thicker and stiffer before my eyes. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” He leaned over, crawling onto the cushion and on top of me.

“You say that to all of the girls,” I scoffed, running my hands down his chest, his cock bare as it bobbed between us.

“I’ve never said that to anyone.” He parted my legs, wrapping them around his waist, his eyes on mine when he cupped his hand over me, his thumb against my clit as he pressed his fingers inside, his other hand fisting his cock. I moaned, arching my back and pulling at his neck, wanting him closer, wanting him everywhere.

“Let me get a condom,” he whispered.

“Not yet,” I begged. I squeezed with my legs, ground against his hard cock, and watched his eyes darken with need, his hand moving faster, his fingers inside me quicker, the soft pant of his breath the most erotic thing I had ever heard. I ran my hand through his hair, and he bit my neck. I lost my breath in the start of an orgasm and finished with his groan in my hair. I felt his control break and loved that power belonging to me.

The first girl I’d ever saved was Marcia. She was a tiny brunette who was on heroin when Joel and Chris brought her in. I’d stood in the kitchen of a Bahamian rental and looked at the girl before me, her jaw working, her eyes dull and vacant, ribs showing, and felt my chest tighten. Wanted a Xanax. Wanted to walk out of that kitchen and never see another woman ever again. That life was not one I’d known. I knew butlers and Italian marble floors. I knew lobster in Tahiti and Miami Heat skyboxes with my name on the door. I hadn’t known what to do with a strung-out girl who had spent the last sliver of her life servicing the needs of animals.

I had chewed at my bottom lip as I leaned against the edge of the fridge and stared at the girl. “How much did you pay for her?”

“Three thousand.”

I’d closed my eyes at the sum. Wondered, in the moment before I opened them, how much her parents would have been willing to pay. Her boyfriend. Her husband. I would have paid a hundred million for Elyse. I’d wondered, as my gaze found the girl again, her teeth chattering in the quiet room, how much Elyse sold for, how much the man who’d killed her had paid for the right.

“Buy as many as you can.”

6 weeks before

My first visit to Fort Lauderdale began in the middle of a storm, Brett’s plane circling the perimeter of the city for ninety minutes before our gas levels forced us to touch down. I closed the window shades, gripped the armrests for dear life, and gave a sermon-worthy prayer in the four minutes it took us to descend.

When the wheels touched down, it was rough, the plane slamming onto the runway, my shoulders jerking forward as if I’d been yanked. I didn’t care. We had landed, I was alive, and I wanted to get off that freaking plane as fast as humanly possible.

When the door opened, he was there, wetness plastered to his face, rain pelting down, his arms gathering me into his soaked chest, his mouth desperate against my cheek, my neck, my mouth. “God, I was worried,” he ground out, stepping back and helping me down the steps, my magazine held over my head doing a piss-poor job of protecting me from the rain. When I hit the ground we ran, through the heavy rain, toward the hangar.

I was laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of it all, my blouse plastered to me from his wet embrace, our run through the rain pointless, the downpour one of the soak-your-bones variety. I hiccupped, a slight chill passing through me in the form of a shudder. Brett noticed, pressing a button on the side of the wall, the hangar door sliding shut. I looked around, the large, empty space big enough to hold my house. “Doesn’t the plane need to come in?”

“It can wait.” He pulled me closer, dragging us both down the side of the space until we reached the small kitchen. His hand was quick and efficient as he popped the front button on my jeans, my purse falling from my hand as he unzipped my pants and squatted, peeling the wet fabric down my legs, my feet lifting to help, his fingers tickling when they pulled off my sandals. “This is purely in concern for your health,” he murmured, opening the dryer and tossing in my jeans, the appliance door hanging open as he returned to me, his eyes traveling from my feet, up the length of my legs, lingering on the white triangle of my panties before he shook his head, a small smile crossing his lips. He stepped closer, his hands shaking a bit as he unbuttoned the front line of my blouse, his hot mouth along the line of my neck as the shirt was carefully removed.

“Nervous?” I teased, my own words shaking slightly as he ran a hand over my newly exposed cleavage.

He smiled, his eyes pulling from my chest to my face. “With you? Always.” He wrapped his palms around my waist and lifted, setting me onto the counter, his presence lost for a moment as he added my shirt to the dryer and then - my eyes glued to every movement - stripped himself, the actions quick and fumbled, a laugh coming from my mouth when his feet got tangled in the soggy jeans. By the time he slammed the dryer shut and started it, his glare only made me laugh harder, a hand over my mouth doing nothing to muffle the sound.