In Too Deep (35 page)

“
Dance with me?” he said, his
mouth by the shell of her ear to counter the music volume. It also
presented the opportunity to take her lobe between his teeth for a
gentle nip.

She shivered, and pressed so
intimately together, the muscles in her bottom contracted as she
reacted to both his action and suggestion.

“
West…” Her voice was a hesitant
breath on his jaw as she turned toward him. “I don’t
dance.”

“
I won’t step on your toes this
time. Promise.”

A soft laugh tempted him to kiss
her right then and to hell with it. “You didn’t step on my toes
last time. You were too slick for that, even then.”

He captured her hand and feathered
a kiss on her knuckles. “Give me another chance, Pipe.”

Piper glanced over her other
shoulder at Mrs. Taylor and her cohorts, who pretended not to
watch, but did. Her gaze, hooded and unreadable, met his again. “I
could encourage your reputation as a lady’s man before the bidding
war starts.”

“
That’s right. You’ll be helping
Ben by dancing with me.”

Her lips curved. “One dance,
Westlake.”

Freeing her hand from his grasp,
Piper slipped it behind his neck and tugged his ear close to her
mouth. “And if your hand goes anywhere near my ass like it did the
last time we danced, I’ll nail your nuts to the wall with one of my
five-inch heeled sandals.”

“
Baby, I love it when you go all
‘cop’ on me.” He led her out onto the dance floor.

West got five dances with her in
the end, and would’ve kept her trapped flush against him for
another if she hadn’t mentioned the charity auction was about to
start.

“
There’ll be a catfight if you go
onstage like this,” she whispered, while rotating the cradle of her
hips against his erection.

Judging there was a low risk of
emasculation, he palmed her sweet bottom before whispering back,
“Just don’t tear your dress while you’re fighting them off me,
hmm?”

He pressed a chaste kiss to her
forehead. A chaste kiss, or else take advantage of the space
beneath the buffet to ravish her. Not much of a choice.

“
I’ll try to restrain myself once
women start throwing their panties,” she said.

West chuckled. “Good. And don’t
dance with anyone else while I’m gone, or you may have to arrest
me—you’re mine tonight.”

The look she cut him from those
gorgeous hazel eyes was a mix of indignation and
confusion.

It warmed him as he walked away.
Once again he’d caught her off her guard.

***

“
God, that woman’s scary.” Piper
leaned back in her chair and shuddered. “I almost feel sorry for
them.
Almost
.”

Sandwiched between Shaye and
Kezia, she watched Oban’s last two eligible bachelors herded onto
the stage by a voraciously smiling Mrs. Taylor. Possums caught in a
hunter’s spotlight with a .22 rifle couldn’t look more stunned than
Ben and West.

Shaye snickered. Kezia smiled into
her wine glass.

“
They love the attention, Piper,
don’t you worry.” Erin twisted a lock of blonde hair around her
finger from her seat across the table.

“
Well, Kip certainly did,” Shaye
said. “All those flexing muscles, and Mrs. T. copping a feel of his
biceps.”

“
She never lets an opportunity
pass her by, that’s for sure,” Erin said.

“
Shaye-girl, you paid two hundred
bucks to take Kip on a date you’ll end up cooking for. What a
sucker.” Tarryn, looking amazing in a burnt-orange dress that
showed off curves Piper would flip to the dark side for, grabbed
another handful of pretzels.

“
Hey! Holly paid three-fifty for
Ford and we all know how
that
date will turn out, since Ford
talks even less than Ben—and that’s saying something. She’s the
sucker. I’m planning to have a fun night out with a hot guy.” Shaye
glared at Tarryn, who shrugged amicably.

“
My date’s hot too and I could
listen to that sexy Irish brogue of his for hours—oh, wait, I
will
get to listen to that sexy brogue for hours.” Tarryn
raised her beer bottle.

“
Tarryn’s gonna play doctors with
Joe, oh yeah!” Erin snorted and nearly choked on her carrot
stick.

Tarryn pointed the neck of her
bottle at Erin. “Like you’re not intending to play good cop, bad
cop with the
I’m too sexy for my rugby shorts
Noah
Daniels?”

“
Bust-ed,” Erin said.

The interplay around their table
only captured half of Piper’s attention. Kezia, clutching her wine
glass and shifting frequent glances to the hall entrance, seemed
unusually quiet.

Piper nudged her with an elbow.
“You okay? You seem a little off, tonight.”

“
Not many men left to choose from,
Kez. It’s slim pickings now,” Tarryn said.

“
I’m fine. And I’m playing the
young widow card tonight, so no dates for me.” Kezia tossed back
her curls but her smile appeared forced, her usually lush mouth
thin and pinched closed.

“
Spoilsport,” Tarryn said, but
with no real heat. “So that leaves you, Piper. Make your play,
girl—and since one of those remaining hunks is your
brother…”

Shaye edged her chair closer and
leaned in. “I hear Bree’s gunning for West. So, are you going to
let your man hook up with one of those desperate hussies in front?”
She jabbed her thumb toward the tables set up by the stage where
Bree, Holly, and some other local woman sized up the
talent.

Piper started to say the whole
West isn’t my man thing
and then stopped.

The idea of Bree—who, okay, wasn’t
a total bitch—cozied up with West, made her want to snarl. And the
desire to snarl meant one thing.

Crap. West was so her
man.

If only for another two
weeks.

Mrs. Taylor grabbed West’s hand
and towed him to the front of the stage.

“
Now then, who here doesn’t
recognize this fine specimen of a man?” Mrs. Taylor said into the
microphone, and without a bat of her lavender eyelids, she smacked
West on the ass.

West jumped, his charming smile
slipping as a chorus of wolf-whistles and hoots of laughter echoed
around the hall. His wild gaze scanned the crowd, searching her
out. Piper raised her wineglass at him in a sympathetic
toast.

“
That’s right, ladies, this is
Ryan Westlake. Ryan’s our local hotelier, so he has a steady job
and he’s quite the catch of the day—” Mrs. Taylor paused to glare
at Ford, Joe, and Noah, the worst of the hecklers now they’d been
auctioned off. “Doesn’t he scrub up well? Six feet of pure feminine
fantasy up for auction tonight. Who’ll give me fifty
dollars?”

Bree’s paddle jumped into the
air.

Shaye giggled. “Feminine fantasy?
OMG.”

Piper’s gaze swept back to West,
all six feet of him. His black wool dinner jacket outlined broad
shoulders and skimmed down in a pleasing “v” to his hips. With his
jaw clean shaven and his blue eyes sparking fire now the hecklers
had pissed him off—well, hello sailor.

Piper squirmed on her
seat.

If she’d pegged the man as
dangerously good-looking in blue jeans and a tee shirt, then
wearing a formal suit with an honest-to-goodness bow
tie?

Lethal, baby.
Lethal.

And it appeared she wasn’t the
only one to notice.

Fifty dollars leaped to seventy by
a redheaded loopie on the other side of the hall, topped by Bree
again at a hundred, then another blonde at the front table. The
bids came thick and fast: one-twenty, one-fifty, two hundred,
two-fifty—

“
C’mon Piper, bid!” Shaye hissed
in her ear. “I’ll give you a hundred. Call it an early birthday
present.”

“
That redhead’s already thinking
dirty thoughts about stripping West out of that tux—look at the way
she’s leering at his butt,” said Erin. “I’ll spot you another
hundred.”

“
And a hundred from me. Stick your
paddle up, woman,” said Tarryn.

Shaye grabbed Piper’s arm and
forced it up, yelling, “Three hundred.”

Bree swiveled in her chair and
gave Piper a thumbs up sign—she’d stopped raising her paddle back
in the mid-hundreds.

The redhead wasn’t keen to let it
go. “Three-fifty.”

The other blonde shook her head
and laid her paddle on the table.

The crowded gave a collective
“Oooooh.”

“
We’ll see about that.” Kezia
yanked Piper’s paddle hand off her knee and into the sky. “Five
hundred,” she hollered.

West’s eyes bugged
open.

Mrs. Taylor chortled into the
microphone. “Dear oh dear...seems our Piper’s staking a claim,
ladies, unless anyone wants to pip her at the post?”

There were no takers.

“
Sold,” crowed Mrs. Taylor with a
wink in Piper’s direction.

Good Lord. The girls had bought
her a date with West for a whopping amount of cash. Warmed by their
show of solidarity and the thought of West wining and dining her in
his James Bond attire—and didn’t that amp her temperature up—Piper
accepted congratulatory hugs from around the table.

West exited the stage as Ben
reluctantly shuffled forward.

“
Our last auction is a teensy bit
different,” Mrs. Taylor said in the microphone, while Ben scowled
at West who’d joined the other men in front. “Seems our Ben has a
secret admirer who’s given me a private bid—a very
large
bid, in order to secure a special evening alone with this hunk.”
Mrs. Taylor paused, her gaze slicing through the crowd to ensure
she had their undivided attention.

She did. And still she eked out
every moment of drama until the crowd leaned forward in
anticipation.

“
The private bid is for two
thousand dollars. Anyone care to make a better offer?”

Stunned silence reigned for two
seconds before voices exploded in chaos.

Two-freaking-thousand?

Piper’s throat glued shut, thick
with emotion. Only one person could’ve afforded a bid like that.
While Shaye and the girls squealed with excitement, Piper turned to
the woman beside her.

Kezia tucked a curl behind her ear
and sighed. “Your brother’s a good man.”

“
He won’t accept your money, Kez,”
Piper whispered. “He’s too damn proud.”

“
He won’t know where it’s from
unless the secret bidder comes forward to claim her prize and I’ve
no intention of doing that.”

“
So why are you doing this for
him—for us? Why now?”

“
Because he helped me out tonight
and I owe him. I owe him and I don’t like that debt hanging over
me.”

Piper’s eyes narrowed.
“Really.”

“
I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.
Let’s not ruin the rest of the evening.”

“
He’ll figure out it’s you. Ben
might look like a big, mute lug, but he’s no dummy.”

“
I know, but he has no choice but
to accept it—time’s run out, hasn’t it?” Kezia said
gently.

Yep. Time had run out for
Ben.

And for her.

Thanks to the generous
contributions tonight, Ben’s debt would soon be paid, but the
hourglass had flipped—and the days she could legitimately stay in
Oban were trickling away. Ben’s cast was due to come off next week
and she’d received three when-are-you-getting-your-butt-back
e-mails from members of her squad.

Piper’s skin prickled. West
watched her from the front of the stage, his gaze speculative, his
mouth drawn in a terse line. Had he come to the same
conclusion?

She didn’t want to leave. She had
to leave.

The words hammered through her
brain with the same painful throb as her heartbeat.

Piper looked away first, for once
not caring at the show of weakness.

West hadn’t given any indication
he wanted her to stay. They’d kept their conversations light,
distracting each other with smoking-hot sex to avoid the one bald
fact carved in granite.

She was leaving.

Time had nearly run out for
them.

Chapter 17

“
If I fall out
and wreck Mum’s dress, you do realize she’ll skin you alive?” Piper
dropped her hand over the side of the dinghy and let the cool water
bubble over her fingertips.

“
So don’t lean out so far, and you
won’t fall, dummy.” West didn’t break the rhythm of his strokes as
he rowed them out to The Mollymawk.

“
Dummy?” Piper kicked West’s shin,
conveniently bare since his suit pants were rolled up to his knees.
“This was your idea, numbskull. I would’ve shagged you senseless
back at your place, without coming all the way out
here.”

West laughed, the sound spilling
out over the night’s stillness. She grinned back at him, loving the
way his teasing and the whispery breeze ruffling her hair soothed
her earlier nerves.