Page 15 of The Auction (The Black Ledger Billionaires #4)

Morale is low. Discipline is lower.

Yesterday was hell.

At some point between her cereal assault and my vow to keep my damn mouth shut until she gives in, we seemed to reach a mutual, unspoken agreement: if we’re going to be petty, we’re going to be extra about it.

She started the escalation.

Somewhere around noon, she changed into shorts that were—at best—three inches of fabric and attitude. Black, skin-tight, unapologetically short. Paired with a sports bra that was definitely more bra than sport.

Then she hit my gym.

My gym.

Just strutted in, put on her headphones, and climbed onto the treadmill like it was hers.

I watched from the security feed in my office for a full minute before I caved.

Went to my room. Dropped to the floor, doing as many push-ups and sit-ups as I could squeeze into five minutes.

Just enough to justify the sweat.

Then I splashed water on my chest, let it drip down my abs, and threw on a pair of hoochie-daddy shorts.

It wasn’t subtle.

I entered the gym like I was walking into a battlefield and chose my weapons carefully—specifically, the weights directly in front of her.

Started with squats. Deep, heavy, slow. Made a show of adjusting my stance. Of rolling my neck. Flexing just a little harder than necessary when I stood.

She held her ground until I transitioned to hip thrusts.

I adjusted my slutty little shorts a bit to get more of my V on display. Definitely saw that quick side-eye she tried to hide.

The bar and heavy weights across my pelvis. A deep dip down and thrust up. Flexing my stomach. The grunts. Mm, the grunts. Some of my best work.

I have to be honest; it was even giving me a semi.

And, that’s when she left.

No eye contact. No fuck you Jaxon.

Just powered down the treadmill, grabbed her water, and walked out like the room had caught fire.

In my opinion, that was a win.

But today… today she’s out for fucking blood.

I step out onto the back patio with a protein shake in hand, fully prepared to act like she’s invisible.

What I’m not prepared for is the bikini.

Correction: The whisper of fabric tied together with string and very questionable engineering. The kind of suit that doesn’t really say “I’m here to relax,” so much as “I dare you not to look.”

And damn it, I’m looking.

How could I not?

She’s stretched out on one of the loungers by the pool, sunglasses on, legs just barely spread like she doesn’t know exactly what she’s doing to me.

Like she doesn’t know that every inch of her is driving me absolutely fucking insane.

I take a slow sip of my shake and sit down at the patio table like her tits aren’t beaconing to me through that little white scrap of nothing she dares to call swimwear.

I didn’t come out here to engage.

I came out here to enjoy the new Sports Illustrated spread—front and center in their tech and finance feature.

“The Sex Tech King of Silicon Valley.”

Their words. Not mine.

But I didn’t exactly fight them on the phrasing.

The cover is glossy and indecent. Shirtless. Oiled up. One hand gripping the back of my neck, abs flexed, every tattoo on display.

And I make sure she sees it.

I position the magazine just right, pages open on the table, angled perfectly in her line of sight. I lean back in the chair, slowly flipping through the spread like I’m admiring the lighting. Like I’m not watching her watching me watch myself .

That’s when she starts to move.

It’s subtle at first. Just a shift of her shoulders, a tiny adjustment in her lounge chair that makes her breasts bounce behind the thin stretch of white bikini top. My eyes drop before I can stop them, catching the way the fabric doesn’t fully cover her, showing a bit of skin under her breast.

She bends her knees slightly, lets her legs sway.

Just a little but enough to catch the angle of her thighs and the barely-there triangle of white covering what I already know is untouched.

And fuck me—she knows exactly what she’s doing.

My dick throbs, already thick and hard beneath my swim trunks, straining against the thin material with every teasing shift of her hips.

I glance back down at the magazine, pretending to be interested in the words I haven’t read once.

I will not break.

Then she fucking flips over.

Hands and knees.

Ass in the air.

Back arched in a curve so perfect I could sketch it from memory.

She pretends she’s adjusting her towel—tugging at the corners, smoothing it down—but the performance is for me , and we both know it.

My spine locks.

She reaches for her phone and the motion makes her ass jiggle.

A soft, rhythmic bounce that nearly ends me.

I nearly choke on my own breath as she widens her knees just slightly, enough to shift the angle, enough to show me exactly what that little bikini bottom is hiding.

My cock jumps, painfully hard now, twitching in my trunks like it wants to punch through the fabric.

Holy Christ, she’s wet.

I can see it.

A faint, damp patch clings to the stretch of fabric between her thighs.

She’s turned on.

This is turning her on .

And fuck, I love it.

I want to bury my face between those legs, slide that little bikini to the side and taste how hot this little game has made her. Run my tongue over that soaked fabric, then tear it off with my teeth and lick her until she forgets her own name and sobbing mine.

My hand drops beneath the table. I squeeze the head of my cock through my trunks, trying to ease the pressure before I lose all sense of reason.

Pointless.

It only makes it worse.

Every nerve in my body is begging me to flip her over, drag that flimsy scrap of a bikini down, and tongue-fuck her until she’s trembling under me.

But then reality slaps me across the face like a goddamn brick.

Jonathan’s little sister.

I close my eyes for half a second and exhale through my nose, jaw tensing until it aches.

The memory punches back fast and brutal—Jonathan at the party six years ago, shoving me against the wall when he caught us coming in from the garden. His voice, low and threatening:

"She’s seventeen. You touch her, and I’ll end you."

I swallow the bitterness. The frustration. The throbbing need.

And I make a choice.

I stand up, toss the magazine onto the table, and dive headfirst into the pool like I’m escaping a fire.

The cold water hits my overheated skin with a jolt, but it’s not enough to cool me off. I push hard through the water, lap after lap, trying to outrun the image of her bent over and soaking wet.

When I finally climb out at the deep end, I grip the edge of the concrete and pull myself up in one smooth motion, letting the water roll off my body, every muscle flexed from restraint.

She’s still on her lounger, pretending not to watch.

So I take her towel—the one folded neatly on the table beside her—and shake the water from my hair like a dog, making sure it sprays just enough to mist across her thighs and stomach.

She flinches, just barely, but I catch it.

And as I walk past her, dripping and silent, I don’t look back.

Because this war is far from over but right now, I have to jack my dick off before I pull her bikini fabric to the side and run my finger up her wet cunt.

H er bedroom door is open.

I tell myself that’s not a signal.

She’s on her bed, propped up on one elbow, tablet resting on her thighs while some show plays—low volume, no subtitles. Her attention stay on me, but she fights to keep it hidden.

I pace the corridor just outside her room, phone pressed to my ear, pretending this is just a casual late-night call.

But I make sure she hears who I’m talking to.

“Hey, man. How’s London?”

It’s her brother on the other end of the line.

The one who doesn’t know I’m doing so much more than keeping an eye on his little sister. The one who would lose his goddamn mind if he saw the way I looked at her. Wanted her. Fought the urge to smell her sweet cunt her every damn minute of the day.

I lean against the opposite wall, letting my voice stay steady while stick my hand just under the waistband of my sweatpants.

My grey ones. My thin—grey—sweats.

There are two things I know for sure:

One—these pants are like kryptonite for women.

Two—I wear the ever-loving fuck out of them.

And right now they’re doing exactly what they were made for.

They're clinging in all the right places—just thin enough that you can make out the shape of my dick. Even the head of my cock, which is slightly hard.

Just enough to tease.

To tempt.

To let her wonder .

I see her shift on the bed, glancing over her tablet, her eyes narrowed right on my dick. She runs her tongue across her bottom lip, and I feel a drop of cum leak out.

Fuck. I want to pull my cock out right now. Slide my hand up and down my shaft while she watches me. Come hard and see if she’d crawl over here to me and lick up my mess.

“What’s that man?” I blink, having to get myself back to the conversation. “Yeah, Cass is being a good girl.”

I keep my eyes on her when I say those last two words.

Her eyes narrow and she slams her tablet shut, standing up.

Apparently she only owns the smallest goddamn clothes in existence.

She walks past me without a word, wearing silk pajama shorts that are barely shorts at all. Her ass is round and smooth, the fabric clinging like it’s one wrong breath from giving up entirely. Her top is paper-thin, camisole straps slipping just enough to reveal the curve of her shoulder.

No bra.

And her nipples are hard as fuck.

Visible. Distracting. Dangerous.

She’s never been this undressed around me.

Never looked so effortlessly, infuriatingly sexy.

I try not to look. I try .

Who the fuck am I kidding. I don’t try. I fucking look.

I watch the bounce of her hips, the delicate sway of her breasts. But there’s a mirror at the end of the hallway, and it betrays me.

Her eyes catch mine and she smirks. Just the corner of her mouth curving like she knows she’s killing me and enjoys every second of it.

And fuck, she’s beautiful.

I shift my stance, forcing myself to keep talking—to stay cool while I boil alive. “Three more weeks?”

“Sure, I can keep her in my sights for three more weeks. No problem, man.”

Do you mind if I fuck her senseless the entire time? I keep that question to myself.

She returns a moment later with a bowl of ice cream, stolen from my freezer like this is her apartment. Her kitchen. But it could be hers. I’d give her anything she wanted.

I step closer to her doorway, stretching my arm to grip the top trim as I lean, blocking the path back to her room just enough to make her hesitate.

She slips by, slow and casual, and her breasts brush right against my bare torso. That cami so fucking thin it feels like skin to skin. Soft warmth and the unmistakable friction of hard nipples dragging across my ribs.

I stop breathing.

My grip tightens on the doorframe, knuckles white.

She turns once she’s inside her room, still facing me. Her eyes hold mine like she’s waiting for something.

Like maybe she’s going to say what we’re both thinking.

Hang up the fucking phone and kiss me.

And if she did God help me, I’d do it so fucking fast.

And hard. With everything I’ve been holding back for years.

My gaze drops— just for a second —to her chest. Pebbled nipples pressing through that scrap of a cami like they’re waving goodnight.

Then right when I look back into those green eyes, she slams the fucking door.

Right in my goddamn face.

I jerk my head back just in time to avoid taking it to the nose.

And all I can do is stand there, hard as a fucking rock, wondering how long we can keep this game going before I kick this fucking door down and take what I paid for.