Playing Dirty

PLAYING DIRTY Billionaire Playboys Book 1 TORY BAKER Contents 1. Parker 2. Nessa 3. Parker 4. Nessa 5. Parker 6. Nessa 7. Parker 8. Nessa 9. Parker 10. Nessa 11. Parker 12. Nessa 13. Parker 14. Nessa 15. Nessa 16. Parker 17. Nessa 18. Parker 19. Nessa 20. Parker 21. Nessa 22. Parker 23. Parker 24. Nessa 25. Parker Epilogue Epilogue About the Author Acknowledgments Also by Tory Baker Copyright © 2023 by Tory Baker All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Please respect the author and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials that would violate the author’s rights. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Created with Vellum “Write what should not be forgotten.” ― Isabel Allende ONE Parker “Who’s the girl?” I ask Ezra, my business partner and childhood best friend. We are standing inside The Met, drinks in hand, each of us wearing a suit worth too fucking much—thousands scratching five figures—and the kicker is I’m not usually one to put on a Brioni on a Saturday night, for a charity gala no less. I take a sip of the amber liquid in the crystal-cut tumbler, appreciating the burn as the bourbon travels down my throat while my eyes never leave the girl on stage. Girl isn’t the term I’d use to define her. The curves of her body leave little to the imagination in the dress she’s wearing, defining every slope of her body. She’s a woman to the core. “Nessa Taylor, which is odd because Millie is meant to be up on stage tonight, yet Nessa is in her place,” he responds, a question in his tone. I quirk my eyebrow. My gaze doesn’t meet Ezra’s, though. It’s currently locked on the beauty whose name I was just given. “And she is?” Forty-one years old, and here I am, asking about a woman whose background I could probably delve so deeply into I’d know the exact date she started her menstrual cycle with one quick phone call. Not that I feel the need to do that deep of a dive into Miss Taylor’s background. “Only daughter to Ed and Maria Taylor from Taylor and Associates Software.” I don’t respond. The company he speaks of has been around for nearly thirty years, rightful billionaires themselves, making headway when cell phones became smart phones long before their times, and judging by the smirk on Ezra’s face in my peripheral vision, I’d say he can tell I’m more than intrigued. “And where is Millie?” I soak in the vision on the podium, not moving from my position by the bar, knowing these damn events bore the fuck out of me, the only thing that will keep me occupied besides the beauty before me is the expensive bourbon. Who I now know is Nessa is a sight. Dark chocolate hair swept up in some kind of meticulous style, showing the slope of her neck, which is soft and delicate looking. Eyes that are such a vivid green I can see them from this far back, dark minky eyelashes surrounding them. A plush lower lip my body is begging to see what it’d feel like beneath mine, wanting to see what they’d look like wrapped around my cock. My gaze travels lower. The white fabric of her dress dips low, displaying a tantalizing set of tits that has me licking my lips. Her waist is narrow, hips flaring out, and a long shapely leg is peeking from the slit of her dress with every step she takes. “No idea. Millie said she’d be here, something about this being the only time you’d ever see her on any type of auction block, not wanting to feel like a cow being sold at a meat market.” His response shines a light on exactly what Millie is to him. Huh, it seems my best friend has a vice after all. There’s definitely more to the story that he’s not willing to talk about right now. That’s okay with me. There will come a time when Ezra lays it all out. Hopefully this time, it won’t be with his fist hitting the next available surface or my face. My friend has a wicked fucking left hook. I drop the subject, not willing to be his next poor and unsuspecting victim. “You better get your paddle ready. The bid is already at sixty thousand, Parker.” “I’ve got sixty thousand going once, going twice…” I’m knocked out of my thoughts of Nessa displaying her body on a podium much like she is now, with not a stitch of clothing on her body except for the heels. My imagination has run wild all while I almost missed my opportunity with the beauty in front of my eyes. “Fuck.” The word tumbles from my lips. My hand reaches inside the breast pocket of my suit jacket, finding the paddle, raising it as a ring man walks in front of me, his face lighting up. He knows we’re about to get into a bidding war, except I’m not going to let it get that far. “Sixty-one to number seven-five-seven.” He points towards me. The other gentleman bidding on Nessa is clearly older than even me, bald, sagging skin around his jaw, and a paunch stomach. “Sixty-five thousand,” the man old enough to be her grandfather volleys back. “One hundred thousand.” Silence seizes around us. Ezra’s face doesn’t give a hint of what he’s thinking, but I know he’s internally salivating for the moment when we’re alone to figure out what the fuck I’m