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Valuable

Gwendolyn

H er jaw dropped, lips parting.

The man had said it so casually, as if he was just commenting on the weather.

His face looked no different, not a hint of embarrassment, remorse, or even lust. But Gwendolyn knew what she had heard, knew what he had said .

“That … that’s ridiculous,” she managed, taking a step away from him.

“Why—”

“I don’t think it is,” he said, shifting his weight.

“It’s actually quite the deal, when you think about it.”

In what world is it normal to exchange a doll for a kiss?

!

The offer sounded like something an elementary school kid thought of.

But this wasn’t as simple as exchanging a juice box for chocolate raisins during lunch.

Gwendolyn hadn’t been in elementary school in decades, and her brain was now being ridiculous too, comparing her situation to the made up one in her head.

“How so?” she asked, taking another step back.

“The world puts so much value in money. I’m offering to remove the pressure of it. You get your precious doll with no financial cost to yourself,” the man gestured at the doll with a flick of his wrist.

“That doesn’t sound like good business,” she retorted, eyeing his raised hand with suspicion.

“Why would you sell something at a financial loss to yourself? ”

“Why, indeed?” he flexed his fingers as he took a step toward her.

“I told you, I run things a little bit differently in my shop. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now.”

Noticed that you’re freaking me the fuck out, Gwendolyn thought defensively as she took another step back.

She hadn’t walked that far into the store, yet she felt as if the room had grown in size since he named his price.

The front door was miles away, the walls stretching into infinity.

Even the bright lights had dimmed slightly.

“You offer priceless items in exchange for exploiting your customers?” Gwendolyn spat in the most polite way.

“How very … American of you.”

The man’s face didn’t melt into hurt as she had expected.

No, he appeared entertained, and it set Gwendolyn’s temper ablaze.

The audacity of this rich asshole—

“When you remove the pesky capitalism from the equation—money in this case—is it really so bad? How can I exploit someone who has consented to the terms of our agreement?” he replied, stepping closer to her.

“And exploiting is such a harsh word. I’m not asking you for sex, Gwendolyn—”

A blush warmed her face, quick and violent in its intensity.

The anger bled into embarrassment, flustering her further.

“—I require explicit consent in regards to that matter. All I’m asking is for one easy request. All you have to do is kiss me in exchange for that doll. It’s up to you whether you accept it or not. The ball is entirely in your court.”

Gwendolyn hated how she squirmed under his simple stare.

His words buzzed in her ear, a tempting offer she was ashamed to admit appealed to her frugal nature.

He wasn’t wrong in that regard.

The doll had been a dream Gwendolyn never thought she’d come close to.

A dream that was only a kiss away from coming true …

but was it worth it?

Even if she could dismiss all the red flags, there was no guarantee the man would even give her the doll…

I want that doll , a determined part of herself demanded.

“You said it was a trial basis…” Gwendolyn swallowed hard.

“What would the terms be?”

“That is the question, isn’t it?” The man smiled, shifting out of her space.

“Hmm … ah, I know. In exchange for a kiss—in which you kiss me, let me make that perfectly clear—I’ll let you take that doll home for a week—”

“A week?!” she exclaimed, as that was hardly any time at all.

“—and before the week is out, I want you to bring it back to my shop, but different than how it looks now.”

Gwendolyn frowned, “Different?”

“You’re an artist, aren’t you?” he gestured toward her right hand.

“Though you don’t show it in more obvious ways, I did notice the small bump on your middle finger. You hold your tools tightly, with control, which indicates a certain amount of concentration.”

How on earth did he notice that ?

Gwendolyn’s finger brushed the mentioned bump before she could stop herself.

“I don’t believe for a second you want that doll simply to own it,” the man went on with a twirl of his cane, something he did with the same ease as his little card trick.

“No, you want it because you want to make her better. ”

Gwendolyn couldn’t deny it as she stared at the doll.

While it was extremely valuable as is, the artist in her couldn’t resist. There was so much potential in that doll because of the physical design.

Gwendolyn could paint, sculpt, and replace everything until there was nothing original left of Maddie Moxie, but that wasn’t the goal.

Gwendolyn wanted to create something that elevated her.

Something that not only captured Gwendolyn’s vision, but really challenged her capabilities.

The man must have seen her indecision as he stepped behind her.

She could see him partially out of the corner of her vision.

A shadow over her shoulder that leaned in close to her ear, hot breath raising goosebumps along her neck.

“Right now, she’s just a doll. But under your skilled hands? Oh , the potential! She could be anything you desire. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination … but that’ll never happen unless you say yes. ”

Gwendolyn bit her lip, eyes closing briefly to gather her wits.

She felt too hot. The air was hot like she was in a sauna, and all she wanted to do was rip her heavy cardigan off.

Her hands were clammy, the subtle ache of her knuckles burning.

And yet…

“How different does she have to be?” Gwendolyn asked.

“Oh, that entirely depends on you,” he hummed in her other ear.

“It can be as dramatic or as subtle as you like. My only conditions are that you bring the doll back to me before the week is over and that there is something noticeably different about it. If I like what you’ve done, then we can negotiate a more permanent arrangement.”

“More kissing?” she questioned with displeasure.

She might have been uncomfortable, but Gwendolyn refused to be given a bad deal.

If this was some weird sugar daddy thing—

“Oh, no. I’d rather not.”

His chuckle offended her so much that Gwendolyn turned to glare at him properly.

The man leaned onto his cane with both hands, exposing more of the black swirls near his wrists—the unknown tattoo dripping from his hands like freshly spilled ink.

“Don’t get me wrong, you’re perfectly lovely, if not a tad bit mild for my taste , ” he said in a way that bothered Gwendolyn more than the way his eyes trailed her form.

“But I try not to mix business and pleasure. It gets messy.”

“I—” Gwendolyn felt her fuse short circuit.

“Why would you want to start a business deal with a kiss if you—”

“I’m an eccentric antique dealer, I told you,” he said, dismissing her reason with a shrug of his shoulder.

“I get bored easily, so I like to keep things interesting. Now, like I said, my offer is on the table. Take it or leave it, the choice really is yours.”

The tension was enough to make her sick as Gwendolyn hurriedly tried to rationalize any of the man’s absurd requests.

If she could make sense of it all, she could see the very obvious, but unknown danger ahead.

If she were smart, she would leave him and the doll in this shop, and forget the entire experience.

Her mother had always called her stubborn.

Gwendolyn hated how right she was as she caught the man’s eye.

“Okay… ”

“Okay … what? ”

Gwendolyn felt her jaw tighten.

He really wanted her explicit consent, didn’t he?

“Yes,” she said through clenched teeth.

“You have a deal.”

“Excellent!” he exclaimed.

There was a shift in his features, a thin facial movement that Gwendolyn lost before she could fully absorb it.

His smile was sudden as he closed the distance quicker than Gwendolyn liked.

She felt her breath hitch as he was close enough for her to see the fine lines of his irritatingly handsome face.

A hint of black tea tickled her nose before it was flooded with the honeyed vanilla musk that lingered on him.

His free hand hovered along her neck, and her own braced against the front of his suit jacket in a matter of seconds.

“Wait!”

She was surprised when the man halted, eyebrow raised in question.

At least he understood that.

A shudder went through her as Gwendolyn scrambled to collect her nerves.

Was she really doing this?

It doesn’t matter. It’s a means to an end.

I want that doll and I’m not leaving without her.

“I…” Gwendolyn licked her lips and tried not to shake as the man followed the path of her tongue.

“Yes?”

“I … I don’t even know your name.”

He hummed, almost in gentle understanding, “Well, let’s fix that.”

When his fingers brushed her cheek, Gwendolyn felt that same stinging shock to her skin.

Her heart was struggling, like the shock had gone deep into the organ itself and had pierced something she couldn’t see.

The urge to bolt and forget was like a firework exploding in the distance that Gwendolyn forced herself to ignore.

The same fingers that shocked her trailed to the end of her chin, curling to lift her head up properly to look at him.

“Most of my clients know me as The Antiquarian….”

“But…” she trailed.

“Uh-uh,” he scolded as he let go of her chin.

“My kiss first, if you’d be so kind .”

There was finality to his request, a dare that Gwendolyn knew meant now or never.

“Keep your hands to yourself,” she ordered in a last-ditch effort to defy him.

“Of course,” he said with a self-satisfied smirk.

With the uneasy feeling still rolling through her, Gwendolyn gathered every ounce of her stubbornness and used it to close the distance between them.

She wasn’t sure how long she was supposed to kiss him, and Gwendolyn refused to look at him during the exchange.

Since he had never said anything about the length of time, Gwendolyn thought a quick peck would suffice.

She was genuinely surprised when her lips didn’t burn from another shock of static.

There wasn’t pain here, but the unforeseen gentleness of his mouth.

Gwendolyn applied the proper amount of pressure, doing her best to stay long enough to be satisfactory.

The last thing she wanted was to be tricked into kissing him again.

At least he isn’t kissing back, she thought.

That had been a mistake.

Without realizing it, Gwendolyn had parted her mouth to sigh in relief.

An unintended invitation as the man’s tongue swept past her lips and gathered in her mouth.

Gwendolyn let out a sound, muffled by the muscular organ that licked a hot trail up the center of her own tongue.

He may have been awful, but the horrible man knew how to kiss.

The thought frustrated Gwendolyn, then made her quiver as he continued to lick inside her mouth.

The sensation caused her eyes to flutter, and for a moment, Gwendolyn felt her insides twist. Not in the rare flare of arousal, but alarm.

Between her lashes, Gwendolyn could see a portion of the man’s face.

Blue and green—something glowing where the man’s eye should have been.

Gwendolyn wasn’t sure what she was seeing at first, vision too blurred from how close it was to her.

Her gut told her if she were to look away something very bad would happen, but that made even less sense than the strange orb.

It left her unguarded as pointed edges of sharp teeth nicked her bottom lip.

Gwendolyn flinched, her own teeth cutting the tongue that had been leisurely exploring her own.

The taste of iron bloomed, mixing between them.

Gwendolyn yanked herself back.

She didn’t whine so much as wince as the man’s tongue slithered from the cavern of her mouth, lapping across her injury on its way out.

“Ow,” she complained, reaching her fingers toward her bottom lip.

“You—”

“You can call me Ambrosius,” the man said before his tongue made a slow swipe in front of his teeth.

“Ambrose, if you’re pressed for time. And I believe your end of the bargain has been fulfilled. Let’s get you on your way, you’re a very busy woman, I’m sure.”

The doll in question was removed from the shelf.

Gwendolyn followed him toward a register that she didn’t remember seeing upon entering.

She was silent as he gift wrapped the doll and placed it within a paper bag.

Before Gwendolyn could voice half of her troubled thoughts—all of them concerning him—Ambrosius handed her the bag from across the counter.

“Congratulations, Ms. Gooch, you are now the temporary owner of Lot 145,” he said with a smile, as if he hadn’t just had his tongue down her throat.

“Oh, one more thing, before I forget. When it comes to items in this shop, there are a few rules. No refunds, no exchanges, no exceptions.”

His wording made her pause, but he didn’t give her time to process that bit of information either.

“I’ll see you before the week is out,” he nodded, a clear dismissal.

“Thank you? I…” Gwendolyn fumbled, before letting it go.

Whatever that had been, it didn’t matter now.

Gwendolyn had her doll, just like she wanted.

Better to cut and run, than stay for any more of his weird behavior.

She hurried toward the door and felt relief when the door handle was just within her reach.

“Oh, and Gwendolyn?”

She froze, turning just enough to catch his profile near the register.

“Yes?”

“Thank you so much for your…” his eyes trailed her form once again. “ Patronage .”