Seducing the Bachelor (The Bachelor Auction Returns Book 3) (3 page)

He came down one more step. Talon found it hard to breathe. He was potent. His scrutiny created more heat than a blowtorch. She could feel his energy mix with hers like some kind of heady pleasure inducing, inhibition generating cocktail.

“I would persuade her to choose differently.”

He could persuade anyone to do anything. Talon felt drawn even closer into his orbit, and she couldn’t decide where she wanted to look more, his intense, honey stare, his mouth that looked like it was about to plunder hers, or his chest that looked harder than the glacier-sheered rocks on Copper Mountain. Talon nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard Coach Downey calling out “going once, going twice.”

“You’re up.” She could barely breathe or command her body to do anything but lean into him and absorb all the intensity and heat and sexual pull.

It was like she was a different person. A woman for the first time in her life with needs and wants and desires that had nothing to do with responsibility and future goals that always seemed just out of reach. She turned to flee back down the stairs.

What had she been thinking that she could even come within orbit of that much testosterone? She was a newb at flirting and he was clearly a master. He caught her hand, and Talon felt almost that she could melt in a puddle at his feet.

“Aren’t you going to wish me good luck?” His voice was low in her ear.

She turned to look at him and felt all her air stick in her chest. “I don’t think luck’s going to have anything to do with it.” She sounded strangled as she pulled out of his hold, savoring the slide of his calloused, heated skin against hers.

Talon hurried down the stairs and back onto the saloon floor, where she took two more orders and entered them in on the computer just as bachelor number three—a man with eyes like a bird of prey’s and a body like…she didn’t even have words to describe that work of art. Definitely made her believe God had a master plan and played favorites—hit the stage. She was torn. She wanted to watch.
No, be real
. She wanted to stare and lust and fantasize that she could at least think about letting him buy her a drink, but she had to be responsible. Drive her life safe and solo; and that guy would be all about the ride and it would not be to the library or for groceries. His pores oozed sex. Even his name Colt was the brand of a gun. A young horse.

He was not a forever guy.

Not that she wanted a forever guy. She had one. She poked her head in the saloon business office to check on Parker, her son. “Hey, bud, what’s up?”

He was curled up under the desk on his sleeping bag reading from his stash of Magic Tree House books and munching on chicken fingers, fries, carrots, apples, and vanilla yogurt.

“Somebody scored an amazing meal.”

“Hey, mom.” He poked his nose out of his book, waved, and then went back to the adventures of Jack and Annie. He waved his fingers in a shooing motion.

Talon smiled affectionately and went back out onto the saloon’s floor. Coach Downey had just finished a story about bachelor number three’s running prowess in football. Probably came in handy now, she thought idly, with so many women chasing him. He stood on the stage looking a million miles away until his eyes locked with hers. Talon had been tired and had slumped against the wall not wanting to distract the bidders by circulating around the tables, but when his intense gaze hit hers, she felt like she’d just been jolted back to life by a live wire.

His eyes were molten gold and trained on her like he was a falcon and she, a field mouse. She tried to tell herself it was her just imagination that he was fixed on her, but her imagination was out of the barn and running wild and not about to stop or shut up. She could feel him. Feel him undressing her with his mind and, thank God, it was all in the realm of fantasy because she had the most boring white cotton panties on ever. That was all she owned and, still, they were soaked so she should stop looking at him now.

Only she didn’t. Even her nipples, dormant except when it was cold, woke up with a big hurrah and chafed against her tank under her western style shirt because she’d washed her bras this morning and she hadn’t had a dry one for tonight, and it wasn’t like anyone would have been looking at her she’d reasoned this afternoon, except now the smokin’ hot, about to combust her on the spot, man was looking. And looking hard.

“Sold!” Coach Downey’s voice rang out over the room and there were cheers and applause and then bachelor number three swaggered over to her and Talon felt her legs shake, which was ridiculous because she wasn’t in middle school, and she wasn’t meeting him later and he’d just become some other woman’s wet panty problem.

“See you in a bit.” He made a quick turn and loped over to another table.

C
olt swallowed hard
and headed toward the table that Coach D had pointed out. If ever there were a time for someone to slap him on the shoulder and say man up, now would be that time. He wanted to be anywhere else on the planet. He would have jumped up, hand raised high to be back in a shelled-out building in Iraq or Syria, sighting down ISIS targets instead of walking up to a table full of women, who were eyeing him speculatively. He wished he had the easy charm of Nick or Gavin when they chose, but he had nada.

He’d known Rowan had wanted him to play to the crowd. Helen had even given him a hug before Coach started talking him up and whispered to him to be himself. And so he’d stood there solid, predictable, and interesting as a block of wood, but when he’d spotted the sexy waitresses watching him across the floor, he’d turned his focus completely on her. He liked that she was tall and slim and natural-looking. Not usually his type only because her type didn’t hang out in bars where service men went, and her type didn’t usually agree to anything fast and furious within the first hour or two of meeting.

Instead, she’d seemed surprised by his sexual interest, and that made him curious. Why? Place like this, cowboys coming in and out, she must have guys hitting on her all the time. He wanted to touch her hair. See if it was as soft as it looked. See if the wildness of it hinted at a passionate interior. See if her blonde was natural. He definitely wanted to know that.

He walked to the table. Reminded himself that he was supposed to be charming and, without changing expression, he stopped. They’d all watched his approach and no one spoke up, claimed being the winning bidder so he had no idea who to address.

This is why I don’t date
.

This must be why cowboys wore hats so they could tip them. It gave them a prop. He imagined how fast the place would clear out if he had his usual prop.

“Evening, ladies.” He hoped that wasn’t a sexist term. “I’m Colt.”

“Yes, you are.” The woman he dimly remembered from high school fanned herself. “I definitely remember you.”

Everyone smiled so it was supposed to be funny, but for him, anything from the past wasn’t anything to smile about. The sooner he could get out of town the better, although the waitress was definitely worth another look or two.

“So,” he just needed to think of it as a mission.
Accept. Plan. Execute. Return
. “What can I do for you?”

*

Talon walked into
the kitchen on wobbly legs. She felt like she’d been sunburned by bachelor number three’s sexual charisma.

“Whew.” She used a clean rag to dab some cold water on her face. “That was like a close encounter with a supernova.”

The volunteer chef, Ryan, who’d been a bachelor last year when the town had raised money to help with the medical expenses for a little boy, Josh, who’d been injured while on a scout camping trip, laughed.

“Did you catch anyone on fire with your deadly sexual swagger and stare last year?” She demanded.

Ryan winked and pushed four to-go boxes toward her.

“I do that every day,” he said. “Better than burning my food. Dinner and dessert for you and Mister P. No need to stay long for cleanup. Last year the auction crowd cleaned out fast and the usual crowd sidled in so just the tabletops that you worked.”

Talon wasn’t going to argue with that. She’d started wearing gel inserts in her cowboy boots due to all the walking but some days that was not enough. She waved her thanks to Ryan and tucked her boxes into her tote in the office, noting that Parker was asleep. It would suck to wake him, but her days of carrying him were long gone. She blew at the stray curls that had escaped around her face and wondered who’d bought the bachelor. She would not be feeling so tired after winning that prize. Smiling, she returned to the main bar area to find the panty-soaker standing by the ordering station, arms crossed staring at her with an intensity that unnerved. He didn’t really think they were going to go somewhere tonight? She hadn’t said yes. But who would ever say no to that.

She walked toward him, no longer feeling her feet.

His eyes were the most interesting shade of brown, kind of a cross between gold and caramel, her favorite type of candy. No one had looked at her that intently before. Her heart kicked into high speed.

“Hi.” She could barely blow the word out through her mouth. “Need something?” She cringed at how suggestive the words sounded. She’d meant a drink or something to eat. Food. Not her. Oh, she had it bad.

He didn’t blink. “You.”

The thrill that shot through her blood was hot and wicked and entirely inappropriate. The room and everyone in it disappeared. She moistened her lip nervously, thinking she’d imagined his answer. “Excuse me?”

“Your friends bought me. They’ve left. I cleaned your tables. Let’s roll.”

Talon ran his words through her head to have them make sense. Then again. Still nothing. Him. Her. Bought. Her brain wasn’t working. Probably because he was well over six foot of solid muscle, cut features, square jaw, dark, straight brows, like crow’s wings, and dark chestnut hair with hints of red and gold and a widow’s peak that made her fingers tremble in longing to soothe through. And his hands. She didn’t want to even get started on noticing his hands, which she’d already done because they were large, rough, tanned with long, square-tipped fingers that she could imagine imprinting all over her body.

“I…I don’t roll.”

The look he gave her scorched and made her clit flame. “Tonight can be a first.”

He prowled towards her, and it was all Talon could do to not offer herself up like the most willing, excited sacrifice in the history of mankind. “You have the hottest mouth I’ve ever seen. I’ve been fantasizing about it all night.”

Her mouth dropped open at his boldness. She’d been thinking a lot about him, too, but she wasn’t going to broadcast it.

“You could use it to tell me what you want me to do for you.”

Talon had to tear her mesmerized stare from his mouth because she was not even close to imagining anything so tame as a date with him, and what the heck was wrong with her? He was a stranger and while his whole physicality and sexuality screamed “touch me now,” she had to hear “danger, back away.”

“I’m not going to have sex with you.” She blurted and then slapped her hand over her big mouth.

“My date is Lady’s Choice.” His deep voice rumbled through her body. “You don’t have to choose the best sex of your life—past, present, or future.”

“That’s a bold statement.” Talon was outraged, amused, and so turned on she didn’t know which one she should be feeling. “And if I were super-experienced and a casual person, I would put that statement to the test.”

He took a step closer so his mouth was inches away, and when she inhaled his lightly spicy cologne, or maybe it was just his skin, she felt dizzy. “I’d pass. Best. Sex. Ever.”

Talon was the one who was going to have to pass. Pass him up and the wave of loneliness and regret that swept through her was fierce and unwelcome. She’d fought hard to make something of herself and though she wasn’t done by a long shot, she was proud of what she’d accomplished so far. But being with him, flirting, teasing, was fun. And she hadn’t had fun in a long, long time.

“Is that why they bought you for me?” She asked in a small voice, suddenly embarrassed, thinking about the fact that her friends had to buy someone to do something fun with her. “So that you should show me a good time? Is that what they said?”

She didn’t know what they’d paid, her heart sank. But they’d wasted their money, and she couldn’t pay them back. Not for years.

His eyes narrowed and he was quiet for a while, clearly thinking it through. Talon trembled under his piercing stare, aware she’d given too much away, but not exactly sure what.

“The date is your choice,” he said. His voice was deep and quiet and seemed to reach into Talon’s body and wrap around her spine like melted chocolate. “Not theirs.”

*