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He took her hand gently and placed it over his bulging cock. “You give me this. And that’s pretty special,” he told her with a mischievous grin.
She couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing at his unexpected action. “Pervert,” she accused him.
“You gave me your writing, Ally. And you gave me your faith. You give me yourself, sweetheart. Next to that, pieces of jewelry mean very little. So take the gifts I desperately want to give you,” he said huskily. “I just want to make you happy.”
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him tenderly. “You already do.”
“I can see your breasts.” He nudged the fabric of the top aside. “Holy shit! Do I have to think about you being almost naked under that dress all night?” He reached down and slowly lifted the hem of the skirt, hissing as he saw the black stockings and skimpy black panties. He groaned and dropped the skirt. “I’ll never make it through this night.”
“Of course you will,” she answered, her body flushed with pleasure.
“Watch how you sit down. And don’t let anyone close enough to see down the top of that dress,” Travis ordered in a graveled voice.
“Does that include you?” she asked innocently.
“Hell, no,” he exploded. “I’ll be leering like a horny degenerate every damn chance I get.”
Ally chuckled softly and picked up her black clutch bag. “Showtime for you, billionaire bachelor stud.”
“You know what to do?” Travis asked for about the one hundredth time that day.
“Yes. That was a very kind thing you did for Jason,” she answered as Travis ushered her out the bedroom door and they descended the stairs hand in hand.
“I wish I would have kept my damn mouth shut,” he said grumpily.
Ally smiled, knowing he didn’t mean a word of what he’d just said. Travis referred to himself as an asshole, and maybe there were many who were afraid of his sometimes icy exterior. But she knew better. Travis Harrison had a huge heart. It was just unfortunate that most people didn’t see him the same way she did.
“Bid high and get it over with,” he demanded as he closed the outside door and locked it. “And for God’s sake, don’t get too close to anyone or bend over. I’ll have a heart attack.”
Ally shivered at the possessive note in his voice, his concern more about somebody seeing her undergarments than the discomfort he was about to experience.
“Would you like me to find a trench coat to wear?” she asked him jokingly.
As he opened the car door for her, his face lit up hopefully. “Would you?”
“I was kidding, Travis,” she said as she laughed delightedly.
“Damn!” he exclaimed unhappily. “I wasn’t.”
Ally snickered as Travis buckled her seat belt and closed the door, striding around to the driver’s side and getting in.
“Thank you for the beautiful gift, Travis.” She fingered the bracelet in the dim light, still overwhelmed by the things that Travis did for her that just seemed ordinary to him. “Tell me what I can do for you in return.”
“I don’t want anything,” he told her simply as he started the engine. “I just want you. But if you’d let me rip that dress off you and examine your sexy underwear later, I’d be a happy man.”
“Done,” she agreed readily, her body already heating just from the thought.
“Best gift ever,” he answered with so much excitement and enthusiasm that he sounded like a kid at Christmas.
Once they were on the road to the resort, Travis grasped her hand and placed it on his thigh, as though he just needed to feel her touch. Ally let out a happy sigh and relaxed back into the leather seat, thinking that maybe her introduction into Travis’s world wouldn’t be so very difficult after all.
When the bidding got close to six figures, Ally started having palpitations. Yes…it was Travis’s money she was bidding, but he’d already given so much to this charity, and was generously managing it along with Jason Sutherland and Kade.
The ballroom at the resort was magnificent, but everyone was currently crowded around the small stage in the corner, women practically shoving to get closer to the platform. Travis stood up there, looking calm with his hands in the pockets of his pants, but his eyes never left hers. He kept nodding subtly, encouraging her to go on.
Had he known the bidding would get this high? He’d ended up being the first man up, so Ally had no idea what kind of money this event was going to raise, or how much each “date” was going to bring in.
Bid high and get it over with.