Seducing the Bachelor (The Bachelor Auction Returns Book 3)
Read Seducing the Bachelor (The Bachelor Auction Returns Book 3) Online
Authors: Sinclair Jayne
The Bachelor Auction Returns
Sinclair Jayne
Seducing the Bachelor
Copyright© 2016 Sinclair Jayne
Kindle Edition
The Tule Publishing Group, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-944925-41-3
C
olt Ewing peered
over the banister of the stairs leading down to the bar of the Grey’s Saloon that was bursting full of women. Under different circumstances, the sight would have been welcome, but not tonight.
Shit, this sucked
.
He tugged on the neck of his grey-blue Henley even though the three buttons were already open. A bachelor auction. Stupidest idea ever. No. The fact he’d agreed to be bachelor number three was stupider. Yeah, he was doing it for Coach D, the one positive male role model Colt had had in his life until the army, but he still wished he’d had the stones to say no. Didn’t help that three of his high school football teammates had ’nadded up to be auctioned off like a summer-fattened steer. In fact, his welcome back to Marietta had been a march across the Grizzlies’ football field, reminiscing about the senior homecoming game, which they’d lost for a variety of lame moves, to see Coach Downey and his wife Helen. Next thing he’d known, Coach and his wife, Helen, were thanking him for agreeing to participate in a bachelor auction.
Agreeing, my ass
.
“Stop staring.” Nick Palotay clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll scare the hell out of the ladies. And what’s up with your clothes? This is how you dress up?” Nick, one of the few friends Colt still kept in touch with from high school, shoved a beer into his hand. “Rowan’s gonna be pissed at you. When a woman tells you to dress up, that means a suit.”
He didn’t own one. Never would. Except his military dress uniform. He could have worn that had they told him the plan ahead of time, but then he wouldn’t have come. He tipped the bottle back and let the chilled liquid gold slide down his throat, which still did nothing to sooth his mood.
He’d hated every moment of his nine years in Marietta. Every damn second had been a gauntlet of tiptoeing around his alcoholic uncle with his quick, hard fists, and loneliness, boredom and a helpless, bottled resentment that had built and built until Colt had been convinced his head would pop off from the pressure. He’d counted the days until he could get off the ranch and after his last exam senior year, he’d met the army recruiter at the Main Street Diner for a cheeseburger and a coke, signed the final paper work, climbed in the recruiter’s car with a backpack full of clothes vowing never to return. But twelve years later, here he was.
Never say never
.
“Thanks.” He remembered to acknowledge the beer with a quick clink with Nick’s.
“Still killing it with the verbal skills.” Nick commented. “At this rate, you’ll need a six pack of these before you hit the stage.”
Colt never drank more than two beers in a day. Never. And that was a never he would keep because blood was blood. And he’d never be like his uncle. Sorry excuse for a man. Code Matthews, another bachelor, had also grown up with an uncle after his parents had died, but he and his uncle, Brand, had always been pretty tight and Colt had envied their relationship.
He turned back to his brooding assessment of the all-female crowd.
“Man up.” Nick advised. “We’re doing it for Troy.”
“Yeah.” Colt nodded.
No kid should die playing the sport he loved. Troy had been Coach Downey’s grandson, a star running back, sixteen-years-old, who’d been tackled yards from a touchdown and had never gotten up. A freak snow storm that night had made the roads impassable and, because the Marietta Hospital hadn’t yet had a helipad, the extra time for LifeFlight to arrive might have made the difference for Troy. So, wasn’t standing up on a stage for the first time in his life, feeling like an idiot, worth it to help Coach and his wife and another kid like Troy who had an unlucky tackle?
“Okay, boys.” Rowan rushed up the stairs, holding something tightly in her palm. “The moment of truth.” She held out her hand in a tight fist and Colt could see four straws sticking out of the top.
“So, do you feel lucky, punk?” He quoted one of his favorite old-time movie lines under his breath.
“Figures you’d quote Dirty Harry,” Code Matthews, a former army soldier who’d served two tours in Afghanistan, taunted. Then he added. “Well, do you?”
Colt nodded. “Pick.”
Code picked then swore. The straw was really, really short.
“I think the straws reflect dick size, right boys?” Gavin Clark, who’d always been quick with a joke and had often teased his close friend Code didn’t miss a beat.
“No idea.” Colt denied.
“Don’t want to know.” Nick added.
“Really all those steamy showers after practice and games?” Rowan laughed. “Bragging about this or that play? I figured you’d be slapping each other with towels, comparing conquests, and creating all other sorts of manly moments.”
“Too busy trying to peer into the girl’s locker room to compare our junk, perve,” Nick said to his little sister “And the showers were lukewarm at best, and why are we even talking about this, sis?”
Nick picked.
“Definitely dick size.” Colt looked at it.
Colt drew his straw and Gavin drew his. Colt was third. Good to not be first and maybe good not to be last. As much as it would suck to be up there, to be up there and not be bid on would really bite. He looked at the others and wondered if they were just as nervous only hiding it better. He’d been in battles, life and death shit, and he’d been solid. Maybe he definitely should re-up if this were an indication of how he handled life on the outside. He’d only been on leave two days, and he was seriously considering whining about having a bunch of women ogle him. Not like he hadn’t done his share. He’d just been subtle. From the growing din below, subtle wasn’t in the cards tonight.
Rowan left the storage room briefly and then returned. “Okay, boys, Coach is getting ready to start. Colt, where’s your blazer?”
He held out his arms in a ‘this is it’ gesture. Rowan looked horrified. He mentally kicked himself. Not that he’d known he was about to be auctioned off when Nick had contacted him and said that Coach needed to talk to them, but still, he’d had a day’s notice. He should have pulled something together.
“Wear your leather biker jacket. Be a tough guy. Chicks dig it.” Gavin suggested.
They generally did, but not the kind of women in Grey’s Saloon out to do a good deed; at least he didn’t think so. Colt shrugged into the worn leather.
“Let me see.” Rowan looked at him skeptically.
Now he really felt like an auction steer.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Now take it off and dangle it from your finger.”
“Great, stripper tips from my little sis. Mom will be proud.”
Colt flipped Nick off for her.
“Boys, behave.” Rowan ordered. “You are gentlemen for tonight.”
That was all he’d be able to manage. He just hoped his winning bidder wasn’t expecting upscale or he’d really be in for it.
Colt dangled his coat like the biggest idiot. Rowan walked a circle around him.
“You look ripped. That’s one advantage of the Henley shirt. Would you be comfortable taking it off?”
Colt dropped the jacket, shocked. No one had said this was a
Magic Mike
thing. He couldn’t dance.
“Do it and I’ll punch you,” Nick said.
“Welcome to try.”
Rowan rolled her eyes. “Probably too much. Widow Benedict is in the house.”
“I know, she’s my date,” Code said.
“That sounds like a blast.” Nick shot back.
“And Helen will probably think I’ve lost my mind, and since you’re all Army Ranger dude, you probably have tats crawling all over your skin like a high school bathroom wall.”
“You could be an inspirational speaker,” Colt said.
“Do you think so?”
And there the exchange ended because Colt was too socially inept to read sarcasm because most women didn’t want to talk to him much. They wanted something else. And he obliged. His tats turned on a certain type of woman but others would probably run. Rowan tilted her head, looked him up and down, and Colt felt undressed and not in the good way. No woman had ever looked at him so clinically before, except one army doc who’d had to stitch him up after a hand-to-hand combat training session when he hadn’t ducked fast enough.
Rowan bent at his feet and cuffed his Carhartt work pants a couple of times. She stood up and eyed the result. “That shows off the combat boots more so you got a bit more stylish, deliberate edge, and it makes your pants look even leaner on your thighs.”
“Jesus,” Nick muttered. “Looking at Colt’s thighs. I feel sick.”
“If your stint as an image consultant is finished,” Gavin said, “Coach is calling for you, Rowan.” He turned to Colt. “Make sure you shimmy your ass when you turn around up there with your biker leather all tossed over your shoulder like Justin Bieber.”
“Who’s that?” Colt deadpanned.
Gavin said something Rowan would not approve of.
“And lift up your shirt to wipe your mouth like you’re in a beer commercial or is it some girlie drink like ginger ale?” Code suggested.
“I never noticed you are kinda pretty, Colt,” Nick said. “Maybe you should go first.”
What the fuck? No good deed went unpunished, which was why he didn’t do them anymore. Should have taken a flight in the opposite direction, but he hadn’t known what the hell he was going to do with thirty days of freedom. The idea had freaked him out so Nick’s call couldn’t have come at a better time.
Colt leaned against the wall, picked up his beer, and gave Nick the stare, and even though Colt was thousands of miles away from his unit and his team and his weapon, Nick shut up. Finally.
Until he didn’t. As Code walked down the wide staircase to the bar below, Nick and Gavin gathered closer so they could hear the proceedings and do a bit of spying and even though Colt wished himself a thousand miles away, he too gravitated towards his high school buddies.
“Code’s offering up a weekend date,” Gavin said. “That sounds promising.”
“But that string tie looks dumb.” Nick commented. “Ties are like nooses, and I don’t think any man needs to taunt someone with a way to strangle them.”
“Make them work for it,” Gavin said. He turned to Colt. “What’s your date?”
Colt made a whatever gesture. His creative dearth dogged him his whole life. Rowan had asked him what he enjoyed doing and he’d drawn a blank. Then she’d smiled, thumbs busy typing out a description on her phone, and asked him what he was good at. He didn’t think “killing” was what she was looking for.
Nick looked down at a program his sister had brought up. “Lady’s Choice,” he said. “Good. Puts the ball in her court like you’re a metrosexual male as if she couldn’t tell from your cuffed pants, but it’s a bit open-ended.”