2. Talia

Talia glanced around the dorm room, her nerves grating with every breath. She wasn't quite sure what to expect when Quinn had welcomed her in. He worked in a sex club, after all. Somehow, the image she'd conjured in her mind had included explicit photos and expensive furnishings.

But no. Nothing in Quinn's dorm gave her any hint that he worked in a sex club. There was a stack of posters on the desk—identical to the one she'd used to find him—offering a wide range of tutoring sessions in the reading room she'd been in earlier. Next to those, she saw the familiar letterheaded paper of the scholarship team. The furnishings were minimal, and even the bedding looked like the cheapest money could buy.

The only hint of Quinn's personality lay on the shelf on the wall. Books like The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains and Rich Dad, Poor Dad weighed the shelf down. She eyed the Bitcoin book. Her dad had said one of his friends had got lucky with Bitcoin, but he didn't have anything good to say about the cryptocurrency as a whole.

Either the books left Quinn's shelf on a regular basis or he was particularly fastidious in his cleaning, because Talia couldn't see a single speck of dust.

Unlike my own bookshelf, she thought, her conscience giving her a surreptitious kick.

Quinn himself leant against his desk, his hands gripping its edge. "So what subject was it you needed tutoring in?"

"I, um," Talia stalled, twisting her hands together. "It's more of a referral I'm looking for, rather than tutoring."

Dark, windswept hair covered his forehead, until it met brows that seemed to be permanently frowning. Or at least Talia hoped they were permanently frowning—it was either that or he really didn't like her. "A referral to who?"

Deep breath, Talia.

"I've heard that you work at a club," she said tentatively, hoping he would fill in the gaps in her knowledge. When he didn't, she threw caution to the wind. "An adult club."

Eyes so dark they were nearly black glared back at her. "Who told you this?"

"People were talking about it in the library earlier today. I overheard." She'd never given much thought to sex before, but now it was potentially on the table it was all she could think of. Would her buyer have the same kind of untidy hair he did? Would they be good in bed? Was Quinn good in bed? Would her buyer be as handsome as him?

Stop it, she hissed at her thoughts.

Quinn pushed himself away from the desk, stepping around a neatly-stacked tower of dumbbells to sit on the bed. He leant forward, his elbows on his knees. "What's your name?"

"Talia. Natalia, but everyone calls me Talia." Except for Dad. He called her Nattie.

"Talia…?" Quinn slowly looked her up and down, his gaze tracking every curl in her hair.

"Llewellyn," she answered, trying not to squirm with discomfort.

"And how old are you, Talia Llewellyn?" Her name was a caress on the soft curve of his lips.

What did that have to do with anything? "Eighteen. I'll be nineteen later this month."

He paused, as if in thought. "What's your body count?"

Talia reared back, bewildered. "I've never…" She dropped her voice. "I've never killed anyone." Jesus, what kind of club did he work at?

A bright laugh lifted Quinn's expression, his eyes shining with the first smidgen of warmth she'd seen in the man. His grin was almost fond as he looked up at her. "I mean, how many people have you slept with?"

"Oh." A red tinge came to her cheeks. "My body count is the same for both meanings, I guess. None."

Quinn smirked up at her. "Good. I can work with that."

The duality of emotions that burst through her veins was almost shocking. The relief of being one step closer to paying her tuition fees and the utter panic of holy-shit-am-I-actually-really-doing-this.

He didn't give her a moment to process either. "But it'll need to be soon." He looked at the calendar on the wall. "When's your birthday?"

"That's fine," she nodded, trying not to seem desperate when her brain was screaming the sooner, the better. "The second of October. Sunday after next."

Quinn made an indistinct noise. "Are you doing this for the money or the thrill?"

Her eyes flicked between his. It hadn't escaped her notice that neither of them had explicitly stated what they were discussing. "And by this, you mean?"

"Selling your virginity to men who are willing to buy it," he supplied, his eyebrow cocking up. "I assume that's what you're wanting."

There was a pause before she nodded. "It's for the money," she replied quietly.

His expression wasn't unsympathetic. "Then, like I said, it'll need to be soon. You'll fetch the highest price as an eighteen-year-old virgin. That's the lowest they'll go."

Legally, she thought uncomfortably.

"They'll want to interview you first. Then there are several rounds of testing you'll need to undergo, and they'll need your medical records. You good with that?"

Talia nodded again, feeling slightly queasy. "I'm good."

Talia wasn't quite sure what she thought the adult club was going to be like. Some seedy, backdoor establishment off an alleyway in the worst part of town. But Lux was as luxurious as the name implied, sitting at the base of Central Park, blending in with the latticed concrete and limestone fa?ades of the skyscrapers around it.

It looked utterly, utterly ordinary when Quinn had first walked her through the front door, the doorman inclining his head as they passed.

Even now, on her third visit, there was no hint of the seediness she'd imagined.

Lux's manager sat on the other side of his desk, flicking through her medical records—and her test results. His dirty blond hair rested just above his shoulders. "HIV negative. Herpes negative. Chlamydia negative. Gonorrhoea negative. Syphilis negative. Hepatitis B and C both negative."

Over the manager's shoulder, Quinn leant against the wall, his arms folded over his chest, listening to every word.

Talia waited. She wasn't particularly worried about STDs, but it was nice to know.

She wasn't even worried about Quinn being there anymore. During her first meeting, they'd discussed what would happen if she went through with the deal. How she would be auctioned off wearing a transparent gown, in front of a room full of men. How the winner would be within their rights to do anything they wished to her. How her body would be their property for the night.

The first meeting had been the hardest, but Quinn had been there all the way, answering her questions, even taking her on a tour of Lux itself—including the stage she would eventually be sold on.

"I've also had a look through your medical records," the manager said, his blue eyes briefly glancing up at her. "You're infertile, is that correct?"

It was easy for him to throw it out there, just like that.

"Correct. Both of my fallopian tubes are blocked," she confirmed, somehow managing to talk over the lump in her throat.

Was that a hint of confusion in his eyes? "Right, right, right," he murmured. "But you have, uh, endo… uh—"

"Endometriosis," she finished for him. "That's the cause of the blockages in my fallopian tubes."

"We don't need the pregnancy termination agreement, in that case," the manager took out a scrap of paper from her file and moved on to the next item in the agenda. "And I can see you're allergic to bananas, so we'll remove any lubricants containing banana flavourings from the room as well."

Talia was too nervous to explain that they were likely made using artificial sweeteners rather than natural ones.

"So… money," he said, checking his watch with a bored expression.

Finally. She tried to conceal her excitement.

"The typical cut for auctions is fifty percent to the house, fifty percent to the girls."

She'd gone over this with Quinn. For someone who worked at a sex club, he was… unusually sweet. He was like every other college student who'd needed a bit of extra cash and answered an online job advert.

Only the ad ended up being for a private members club.

"What you need to do," he'd said in his dorm room before they came, coaching her on how to increase her cut of the auction, "is push that the men won't have to wear a condom. That's not something usually offered by the club, Talia. They'll put that in the auction listing sent to club members ahead of the night. And you're up for anything. Some girls prohibit certain acts ahead of time, but you're not prohibiting anything, and that makes you even more valuable. Fight your case. I'll help you every step of the way."

"I have done some research," she replied, smiling at the club manager. "I've looked through past auctions, and I've seen that girls who don't prohibit certain things make significantly more than those who do—same with girls who don't require condoms. The fact that I'm combining both of those things means that my auction is likely to draw in more bids."

The manager made a grim noise in the back of his throat.

"I'm happy to go fifty-fifty… on the condition that the client wears a condom and certain acts are prohibited." She shrugged nonchalantly. "The typical cut for a typical auction."

Giving Quinn an irritated look over his shoulder, the manager turned back to Talia. "Sixty percent to you, forty percent to the house in exchange for no condom use and no acts prohibited."

"For such a unique and valuable offering," Talia replied, parroting the words that Quinn had given her, "I would accept a similarly valuable percentage. I would be expecting a share in the region of eighty-five percent to myself, fifteen percent to the club."

The manager laughed, as she and Quinn had expected him to. Don't be put off, Quinn had told her. He goes through this routine every time, expecting girls not to know their worth—but we both know you're worth more. "Miss Llewellyn, you have to understand that you're not just put on stage at random. Every auction is a carefully curated event held on an optimum night of the week, at an optimum time."

She tilted her head slightly. "With the optimum item on sale. Eighty percent to myself, twenty percent to the club."

Tapping his fingers against her medical files, the manager gave an exaggerated exhale. "Seventy-five percent to you, twenty-five to the club."

Talia held out her hand. "Deal."

The manager didn't shake it for long, giving it one quick pump before standing. "We'll get the contracts over to you in the next twenty-four hours. If you can sign them and get them back to us as soon as possible, that'd be much appreciated."

"Do you have any idea of when my auction will be?"

He turned to glance at the calendar. "This Friday or Saturday, most likely. We'll formalise it before sending out the contracts. Once those are signed, you'll be unable to back out without formal legal consequences."

A start of fear shot down her spine. Legal consequences. Legal action. She'd heard those words more than she'd expected to this month. Either way, she stood firm. "Is there anything I'll need to bring with me?"

"An overnight bag would be a good start." He glanced her up and down with those intense blue eyes, his jaw ticking. "And your courage. Once you've signed those contracts, you'll be going up on that stage, whatever happens. If you need to cry, I'd advise you to do it beforehand."