Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
I might not know who I am, but after waking up terrified and so, so alone, I know if I did have someone, I’d move hell and earth to find them if they up and disappeared.
The coldness inside me suspects the truth is far sadder. There was no one. I was alone in the world. Alone and scared all the time. Afraid of shadows. So why on earth was I in a dark alleyway at ten o’clock at night?
With the kind of staggering money Moira says I could make from the auction, I can really, truly start over. I’ll make my new life bright. Full of light and good things and friends who’d miss me if I disappeared suddenly.
I can start my new life… and hire a private investigator to find out who I was. People don’t just appear from nowhere out of thin air. While I’m busy starting a new life, I still need to figure out who I was.
Are we really anyone at all if we don’t have a past? Everyone I get to know tells me who they are by listing off who they’ve been. I can’t even explain why it’s so important to me. But I don’t feel… real. To myself, even.
There’s a whole person locked away inside me, and I need to know her. I don’t know how to go forward without knowing what was behind me.
And I need to know why I wake up screaming most nights, or I’ll always be looking over my shoulder. I need to know why.
So if I have to fuck a stranger for a chance at all the resources I could ever need to discover who I really am?
You bet your ass I’m going to take it.
Quinn looks at me skeptically from across the beautifully furnished dressing room suite. The whole club is insanely luxurious. There’s a sitting area with a couple of couches so elegant, I can’t imagine actually daring to sit on them. We’re in the open attached bathroom of the suite that’s almost as big as the kitchen back at the shelter. There’s both a shower and a bathtub. I dig my toes into the lush, soft carpet and nod.
“I’m ready to play,” I repeat.
“Okay,” Quinn says, shrugging. “There’s plenty of men out there happy to take you up on it. They’re all but slobbering to get a look at you. But just remember,” she leans over, and I gasp when she yanks a short, sharp knife out from within the top of her thigh-high boots. “We’re all just a room away if you need us.”
“Good lord, do you always keep that there?” Moira asks as she brushes past Quinn. “No, don’t answer that. Just put it away.” Quinn re-sheathes the knife but gives me a significant look.
“Domhn wouldn’t let anyone in who wouldn’t be respectful of the rules,” Moira says. Ah, the famous Domhnall, Moira’s brother, who I’ve not seen hide nor hair of. For as much as it sounds like he dominates Moira’s life and decisions, he’s been surprisingly absent this week. I expected to see him everywhere for as much as Moira talks about him.
“Show Quinn the outfit I picked!” Moira claps her hands excitedly. It makes her boobs bounce obscenely in her low-decolletage’d bandage dress.
I stand up carefully and unwind my robe. I’m wearing a sheer, white nightie with a collared neck that snaps at the back and has cutouts in all sorts of odd places. Moira had to help me get into it, I could barely figure the garment out. If you can call it clothing at all.
Two triangle silk cutouts completely expose my perky medium-sized breasts. My nipples harden from the cool air of the room. The rest of the gauzy, see-through fabric hangs artfully down my waist and hips, exposing my underwear. The crotchless panties are just as functionally useless as the rest of the garment. Well, I suppose it depends on the function one intends the nightie for…
I feel my cheeks heat at the thought. But then, I’ve tried to intensely avoid thinking about what actually happens tonight after the auction. I’ve been singularly focused on the prize.
“Now the shoes!” Moira rushes away towards one of the couches and picks up a shoe box, hurrying back towards me. She opens the box and presents the shoes. “Ta da!”
They’re gorgeous: white heels with lace overlay and gauzy straps that Moira sets to tying up my ankles after she waves me to sit back down on the chair in front of the mirror. They look like wedding shoes. I gulp a little and lift my legs to look. They’re beautiful and fit well. No pinching.
“We don’t even know if she can walk in high heels,” Quinn says.
“Let’s find out.” I grab on to the counter as I stand up, unsure. But it’s easy to find my center of balance, automatically leaning a little forward on my toes and clenching my calf muscles. Another clue. In my former life, I must have been comfortable in heels.