“As it is, I'm Elizabeth DeVille, super spy and resident poor girl, and watching him out of the corner of my eye will have to do. I nod at something my best friend Suri is saying to me, feeling like a shitty friend because I'm not really listening.”

“I'd gotten my first glimpse of Elizabeth DeVille. She'd had her hair in a pony-tail that stuck up off the side of her head, and she'd been wearing short red shorts and a light blue tank top with a whale on it. “You like whales?” I'd asked her when I finished with the car. Her face had gone all soft and pretty, making me feel more like one-hundred-and-three than the twenty-three I was, and she'd shrugged. “Yeah, but not a lot more than any other animal. I just like saving things.”

“Next I think about that night on my bed: her head pressed into my pillow, her hair spread out around her face. The memory of it makes me hard, but then I remember how it ended, with Libby seeing me with Priscilla. Impotent rage washes over me, but I'm still hard as a damn diamond. I shift my weight; that makes it worse. Libby's eyes are on mine, thankfully.”

“He ducks and pulls my panties down, and before I know it his mouth is covering me right where I'm throbbing. I'm coming off the mattress, tugging on his hair, and he is moaning like he loves it.”

“Instead I go to the vineyard and jerk off in my bed. When I'm finished, I call Marchant. I can't tell him about Priscilla's threats...”

“I'm selling my V-card,”

“I'm surprised you went to a brothel for sex,” I say after a few minutes. “Are you?” he smiles a little ruefully. “You could get it on your own.” “True. But I'm emotionally detached. Women don't like that.”