Chapter 2
ELLIOT
I fucking hate these auctions.
I don’t get the sick fantasies of these rich assholes bidding on young women to be their sex puppets.
The amount of money they’re willing to shell out for one night of pleasure is more than most people around these parts make in a goddamn year.
I don’t care what protocols and safeguards are in place for the women who willingly sign up.
This whole damn thing is a disgusting flaunt of wealth and power.
“I owe you one, man,” Max says as a server offers us drinks from a tray.
“You owe me more than one, motherfucker.”
Max is like a brother to me. We served in Desert Storm together and have each taken a bullet for the other in one point of our lives. If it weren’t for that very fact, there’s no way in hell I’d be caught dead at this filthy place. But Max wasn’t getting in without my exclusive invitation.
“I’ll shovel horse shit for the rest of my life if it means she says yes,” Max says.
“If you get cold feet again, you’re on your own,” I grumble.
“No cold feet.” Max reaches into his pocket and pulls out a blue velvet box. “See, I got the ring right here. The minute I get her off that stage, I’m popping the question.”
I know more about their fucking drama than any sane man would care to know.
It’s not just that Max and Natalie have been together for years, and he’s been stubborn about the whole marriage thing.
It’s that she gave him an ultimatum, he called her bluff, and found out the hard way it wasn’t a fucking bluff.
Now I’m prepared to ante up a pretty penny for the man who’s like a brother to me to keep the love of his life from auctioning herself off to the highest bidder as some form of demented revenge.
I don’t quite understand these two, but damn if I don’t wish I had what they did some days.
A flash of Kayleigh Kingston’s face, cheeks rosy from the cold, flashes through my mind.
Those startling blue eyes nervously meeting my gaze on the snow-dusted front porch yesterday.
She was the last fucking person I expected to see on my property.
Her vanilla scent, the one that reminds me of Christmas cookies, has kept my dick half hard ever since.
Even if she did come around asking for money.
I still feel like a bastard for turning her away.
I have no doubt my sorry excuse for a son did something terrible to her.
Last I heard from my sources, he took off to Mexico.
Until Kayleigh showed up on my ranch, I assumed she went with him.
It was easier to believe that than to get tangled up in the mess, worrying about a woman I can never have.
Or so I thought.
Because when I spotted her in that tiny death trap of a car by herself, the first thing I felt was relief. She deserves better than Adam.
She deserves a man who’ll protect her at all costs, even from himself.
“You’ll be the best man, right?” Max asks.
“Get her to say yes first,” I groan.
“She’ll say yes.”
“Are you—” My gaze snags on the woman in a red sequin dress strutting across the stage, and I nearly fall over in shock.
At first, I’m certain my imagination’s playing tricks on me.
It certainly went haywire last night during those fitful hours of sleep, the mirage of Kayleigh Kingston naked and in tangled in my sheets stuck on a replay loop.
But this? I’m not imagining this.
What. The. Fuck.
“You okay?” Max asks, concern heavy in his question.
My heart pounds violently in my chest as my fists ball at my sides.
No, I’m not fucking okay. What the fuck is Kayleigh Kingston doing up on that stage, flaunting herself in that form fitting, Christmasy dress that leaves very little to the imagination?
The bidding goes wild as she flashes the audience her flirty smiles and cute little waves.
She knows her part, and she’s playing it well.
Too well.
It’s going to get her in fucking trouble—the kind of trouble she’s never faced before.
“You know her?” Max asks.
“Fuck me,” I grumble.
“You know her.” Not a question this time, a statement.
Regret assaults me.
Why the fuck didn’t I at least hear her out yesterday?
If I’d known she planned to sell herself off to some undeserving bastard at this rich boy sex auction, I’d have given her anything she wanted just to keep her away from this place.
Instead, I let my pride get the better of me, and I turned her away all because she called me out on being a shitty father.
I’m sick to my fucking stomach.
This is all my fault.
“Elliot?”
“This doesn’t concern you,” I say, raising my hand to toss in my bid.
A few heads turn from the audience, and I send them a warning glare not to fuck with me. I’m met with a few surprised expressions. I know some of these men, and they know damn well how I feel about this annual tradition.
“You just bid twenty-five grand,” Max says, his expression etched in concern. “Did you mean—”
Kayleigh’s gaze snags on mine from across the crowd, and her bright expression falls instantly.
It makes me feel like the biggest asshole that’s ever roamed this land.
Most days, I’d embrace that description.
I’d feel proud to be so feared. But today, with the woman who’s had a chokehold on my every fucking thought since the first day I met her months ago staring back at me from the stage in horror, I’m ashamed.
I can’t have her.
I know that much.
But I refuse to let these assholes get their grubby hands on my woman.
I can’t have her.
But I can protect her.
“One hundred grand,” I shout above the crowd, effectively silencing the bidding war. I’m done playing their fucking games, and I dare anyone to defy me. One stupid motherfucker considers it, but I stare him down until he lowers his paddle.
“What the fuck, Elliot?” Max asks, his voice hushed now that the room is pin-drop quiet.
“Going once,” the auctioneer calls.
Kayleigh scans the audience, her earlier flirty expression replaced with mild panic. Is she mildly horrified that I just offered six figures to have a night with her after slamming the door in her face yesterday? Probably.
“Elliot?” Max hisses.
“Going twice.”
“Just worry about Natalie,” I reply in a tone that leaves no room for further pressing. Because Max has known me for a long damn time, he relents.
“I certainly hope you know what you’re doing, boss,” he mutters.
Kayleigh stares back at me, a cocktail of emotions dancing wildly in those startling blue eyes—fear, anger, shock, and quite possibly relief. Or maybe I’m just trying to convince myself that I swooped in and saved the fucking day. She might see it very differently.
“Sold for one hundred thousand dollars!”
Either way, she’s mine now.