AllFreeNovel
Share Us
2
COLTEN
Ihate Thursday nights. Thursday nights are when I go to my second job. After all, a career as a math professor at a small college doesn’t pay enough to cover much beyond the basics.
“That should do it.” I hand over the laptop that belongs to the family and never leaves the office. They couldn’t risk me losing it somehow and exposing them.
Not that the family has such a sterling reputation. Quite the opposite. There isn’t a man, woman, or child in the tristate area who hasn’t heard of the Hale family. What they’re capable of. How they make their money.
I doubt anybody really knows exactly how many income streams the family maintains. For instance, I can’t imagine many people are aware of the auction house I’m forced to visit once a week. Some nights, they aren’t holding an event, and that always comes as a relief. I know the girls signing themselves over are legal adults capable of making their own decisions, but let’s face it. Rarely would a person go to these lengths if they weren’t in trouble.
Then again, what the hell do I know? Only a year ago, I would never have guessed a math professor with a clean record whose idea of an exciting night involves takeout and a few hours of video games—on the surface, anyway. The shit I admit to people—would end up doing bookkeeping work for a notorious crime family.
Naturally, one of the things that sold them on taking me as a bookkeeper is my clean record. Nothing more than a couple of speeding tickets, and even those were earned years ago. My professional record is squeaky clean, too. Not so much as a hint of disciplinary action. No unfortunate entanglements with my female students. Nothing… nothing I ever got caught for because I’m damn good at what I do.
It’s a job. That’s the only way I can think about it. A way to make ends meet and then some. Thanks to the generous compensation from Ace Hale, I have something that’s starting to look like a healthy retirement account. I don’t have to wake up in the middle of the night, dripping cold sweat, wondering what will happen in my old age. And I can afford my other more secret hobbies. Equipment. Membership fees.
So what if it means helping a bunch of evil bastards avoid what’s coming to them?
As always, one of the family’s guards pats me down after I leave the office. Just in case I decided to swipe something. I put up with it for the same reason I put up with everything else. It’s a job. Nothing personal. “Okay. Get moving.”
I bite back a sarcastic remark, choosing to nod rather than get my ass kicked for smarting off. I get the feeling that’s another thing they like about me. I don’t run my mouth. I wouldn’t say boo to a ghost. Does it irritate the fuck out of me, knowing they think I’m some sniveling little toad? More than it should. But unless I want to teach from a hospital bed when I’m eighty-eight, I have to take what they give me and leave it there.
As always, I pass the auction room on my way out of the building. Nick’s voice ringing out as he announces the girls and the amount they’re going for makes me want to gag, but I only balance the numbers. It’s none of my business.
Though let’s face it. At least when I go to a club to fuck a stranger, we’re both there because we want to be. Not because one of us is desperate enough to sell our body. Maybe I feel a little smug as I reflect on the difference between the men waiting to buy a virgin’s cherry and me.
Until I hear a name.
Emma York.
No. It can’t be the same Emma York. Not the Emma who sits in my classroom three times a week. Emma York, blond-haired, hazel-eyed, and the most tempting thing I’ve ever been up against. The only student who’s ever made me think twice about holding myself to a high professional standard.
Because every time our eyes meet, and I find her watching me with that intent, engaged gaze, it goes straight to my cock. She doesn’t sit there twirling her hair and texting her friends during class. She doesn’t sit in the back of the room with her hoodie pulled around her face so she can nap her way through the lecture, either. She’s fully present, soaking in every word. Drawing me in with every tiny smile, every time her eyes crinkle at the corners while she tries to understand what I’m explaining.
And she’s here. Being auctioned off with the other girls. Because she’s desperate enough to do so.
Nobody ever accompanies me out the door once I’ve turned over the laptop containing the family’s financial files. They trust me to keep my eyes to myself and get the hell out before I brush up against anything I shouldn’t witness.
But this? I can’t walk away from this. Not until I know for sure it’s not my Emma in there.
There’s a back door into the auction room where the family’s guys go in and out during the night. Sometimes, a guest gets a little rowdy when they lose out on a girl they’d set their sights on, so they need to be escorted out and reminded with fists they aren’t welcome to return.
I open one of those doors quietly, just far enough to give myself space to slip through. The series of high-backed leather chairs are arranged along the room’s four walls, and in each sits a man with more money than he knows what to do with. How else could they afford something like this? Tens of thousands of dollars change hands every time the family holds an auction. I should know.
It isn’t the men or their suits or the ultra-expensive alcohol they’re sipping that lodges my heart in my throat. It’s the blonde standing on the platform with all eyes on her.
At first, my brain refuses to accept the information my eyes send it. Yes, the girl is roughly her size and with the same gorgeous blond hair. Sometimes when she’s bent over her notes, her hair falls in a curtain across the side of her face. What I wouldn’t give to test its softness for myself.
But the girl on the platform is dressed sexier than I’ve ever seen Emma, in a cherry red dress that barely reaches the midpoint of her shapely thighs. Her tits are almost spilling out of the top, and when she tries to fold her arms over her waist, it presses them together until my mouth waters. But still, I can’t believe it’s her. I can’t make sense of it.
“We’ll start the bidding at ten thousand.”
“Ten thousand.” That comes from one of the men on the other side of the room, who’s almost drooling on himself as he stares at Emma’s ass. The desire to rip his eyes out is almost too much to resist.
“Ten thousand. Do I hear fifteen?”
This is fucking inhuman. No money has changed hands yet, but I feel like I need to take a shower simply by being in the room.
