The Highest Bidder (5 page)

Chapter Eight

HE WANTED TO STAY but could tell that she got scared after. They’d stayed locked there in an embrace, her perched on the counter, him secured in her arms. It had felt perfect and right and wonderful. But in the end she had promised to bid on him if no one did. And that was what made him feel some relief in his gut.

‘Now what are you going to do about the fact that you seem to be falling for her?’ he asked himself, moving slowly around his apartment. Touching the sofa where they had been, imagining he could feel her there. Her energy.

Casey was beautiful and brilliant and kind. The mere fact that she was certain he’d earn as many bids as all the other bachelors spoke of her good heart. It had never occurred to her that he would be “less than” in some of the bidders’ eyes because he basically lived a somewhat struggling but often artistic living. Sometimes he was flush; sometimes he ate noodles every night for dinner.

‘She wants an antique store. Second hand,’ he muttered.

He grabbed a beer from the fridge and tried to remind himself that she’d just lost her husband. Not much more than a year ago. And he had clearly been someone she loved very much. She probably wasn’t ready for him, no matter how nice she thought he was.

Someone knocked and he had a ridiculous romantic moment imagining it was her. But when he put an eye to the peephole he saw Annie’s smiling face.

‘So … how was … did you? Jesus, have you actually asked her out yet or are you two doing this magnets drawn to each other bullshit.’

‘Why hi, Annie. Come on in,’ he said, laughing as she barrelled past him.

She opened his fridge and grabbed a bottle of beer, twisting off the cap.

‘Would you like a beer?’ he asked, trying to keep a straight face.

‘Don’t hurt her,’ Annie said, plopping down on his sofa.

‘I wouldn’t.’

‘She’s all fragile and dented. She doesn’t think she is, but she is. But I see the way you look at her.’ She pointed the neck of her beer bottle at him and winked. ‘And, honey, I’ve seen her look at you. She’s got it bad. You make her feel …’ Annie rolled her hands around in the air searching for a word. Finally she shrugged. ‘Feel stuff, I guess. I haven’t seen that much colour in her cheeks since Brendan. Now don’t fuck it up.’

‘Christ, Annie. No pressure there!’ Nick drained his beer, remembering the taste of Casey. It was still on his skin. He could smell Casey and the scent of their coupling and it was making him insane.

She waved her bottle at him. ‘Cheers. You’ll do fine. Tomorrow’s the big auction and then you can get down to the business of courting her. And not just banging her in the coatroom.’ She winked at him.

Nick shook his head. ‘Just for the record, that was her idea.’

‘I’m sure it was, cowboy.’ Annie left quickly and he felt more confused than when she’d come.

Nick took a shower and did the only thing a man could do when the smell of a woman he was currently falling for was all over him. He stood in the hot spray, stroking his cock, replaying it all in his mind. The fragrant pink knot of her clitoris under his tongue. The petal pink of her outer lips that bled to rose red in the centre. The blushing wet invitation of her cunt. Christ, the way it felt to slide into her, inch by impatient inch, until he was buried in her, balls deep. And the way she kissed him.

Fuck, the way she kissed him.

He came with a long slow exhalation. Hoping he didn’t fuck this up. Hoping he could make her proud and hoping, more than anything, that she’d give him a real chance when all was said and done.

She was going to throw up. She was. It was almost a done deal. Casey nervously twirled a lock of her hair around her finger. She shuffled and reshuffled her papers over and over again with her notes. She was having a heart attack. She was not going to make it. The other groups of bachelors were going first and she was the grand finale.

‘You’re not going to throw up and you’re not having a heart attack.’ Annie waltzed up and handed her a coffee.

Casey couldn’t help but wonder how morning had come so fast. It seemed like mere minutes ago that she’d been doing very bad things in her kitchen with Nick.

‘Stop reading my mind.’

‘Has your new beau shown up yet?’

‘He’s not my beau,’ Casey sighed, sipping her coffee.

‘Fuck buddy?’ Annie asked, cocking her head.

‘Annie!’ Casey shook her head.

‘Well, you’re smitten, and won’t admit it, he’s already hopeless over you and you’re banging like bunnies, but you won’t claim him as your beau so …’

‘OK, so I’m attracted to him.’

‘Wow. Really? What a news flash.’ Annie laughed and then, ‘Oh look. Speak of the devil and he shall appear.’

He looked sexy as hell. His dark hair was still damp and his blue eyes were drawn right to her. Casey felt that lightning stab of attraction that always came with seeing him. ‘Hi,’ she mouthed.

He smiled at her and echoed her “hi”. Her mind was flooded with X-rated images of them at her counter. How they’d sipped their coffee after and he’d made her laugh by disinfecting the whole countertop. And then he’d explained how his business fluctuated. She’d asked him where the money had come from and Nick had copped to just wrapping up a heavy duty refurbishing for a local Catholic church.

The money was in her purse but she knew she wouldn’t need to use it. The women would eat him up.

‘Excuse me,’ she said to Annie and hurried into the coat room.

She couldn’t breathe. She wasn’t going to throw up or have a heart attack. She was going to faint. She leaned against the wall, shut her eyes and forced herself to breathe.

‘You OK?’

She jumped a little, clutching her heart. ‘No. I feel like … I’m being electrocuted. I just … why?’ she asked suddenly. She needed to know why this man – this handsome gorgeous sweet man – was not with someone. He had to be picky. And if he was, she was too broken and useless for the likes of him.

‘Why what?’ He leaned against her and pinned her to the wall. The kiss he laid on her was sexy and sweet and it made her want to lock the door and redo everything they’d done the night before.

‘Why are you not with someone?’ she asked, breathless.

Nick pulled back to look her in the eye. ‘No real reason. No big story. Nothing earth-shattering, or brilliant or tragic. No “movie of the week” reason,’ he said, pressing his thumb to her bottom lip before kissing her again. An almost chaste but entirely mind-melting kiss. ‘Just a long, long line of “meh” relationships that didn’t give me any reason to look forward to another.’

‘Oh,’ she gasped. He’d pressed against her fully and Casey could smell his soap and that shampoo in his hair. It smelled like sweet almonds.

‘Until you.’

‘Me?’

‘You. You’re … you. You are so … you. I just …’ He shook his head. ‘I sound like an idiot, but I just feel drawn to you, Casey. And being with you, being in you, just talking to you … it makes me nuts.’

Someone knocked. ‘We are almost ready to begin,’ one of the other organisers called loudly.

‘I imagine I can hear the frown and disapproval in her voice,’ Casey snickered.

‘I can hear it too. Now listen. Don’t leave me hanging. Bid on me and the money I gave you can go to this good cause of yours. No worries.’

‘You will not need me to,’ she said again. She felt suddenly frantic to make him understand. She grabbed Nick by the shoulders and held him tight. ‘You’re a good man. You’re funny and sexy and kind. You are completely hot and um … in bed, might I just say wow. And you’re …’ She shook her head, feeling impotent in the explanation department. ‘You are also very much you. And worth a ton of bids.’

Another brisk knock and they both shouted, ‘Coming!’

Then he kissed her once more, his tongue gently brutish on hers. Joking, he growled in her ear, ‘God, I really wish we were coming.’

‘Soon,’ she said. ‘Because I wish it too.’

Pulling her from the wall and embracing her from behind, he pressed his mouth to her ear and wrapped his arms around her tighter. When he cupped her breasts and said hotly, ‘Ooh, dirty talk,’ her nipples spiked.

Another knock.

‘I. Am. Coming!’ she yelled and he laughed. Casey smoothed her hair. ‘My God, what would my dead husband think?’

Nick went serious and said, ‘How do you feel?’

‘Nervous, excited … happy.’ She said the last so softly it was barely a word.

Nick tilted her chin up and looked at her. ‘I think that last one is the one he’d care about.’

‘And for the record,’ she said, kissing him quickly and hustling toward the locked door. ‘He’d like you. He’d think you’re a good man.’

She saw his throat work a little but then he smiled.

She took a deep breath. ‘No time for that. Come on. Chop-chop. We need to sell your fine ass.’

The serious look fled and he followed her out, shaking his head and laughing.

At the door, Casey smiled at a very pinched-looking matron, named Marian Monroe. She nodded and winked. ‘How goes it, Mad Marian?’

It was a secret name they all called Marian who had a bit of a dominatrix streak. They all wondered aloud, when she wasn’t around, exactly what it was going to take to prompt her to show up with a whip and nipple clamps.

Another low chuckle from Nick, and Casey kept marching. It was time to do this thing. She was excited to earn money for the charity but equally excited to get the event over with. It had been a ton of stress and she was very ready for some quiet days by a cosy fire in some comfy clothes and some real nice wine and a very, very handsome man.

‘Look, you’re daydreaming domestication,’ she muttered and took her place in line for the announcing. The room was now officially packed with women who could afford to do things like bid on handsome men to benefit ill people.

The fund raiser was underway and as was her way she was feeling calmer. Casey tended to freak out before the fact and find her Zen once the show was on.

She looked at Nick who winked and went to find Annie who had her purse. She wouldn’t need the money but based on the look on his face – how adorable was it that he was so nervous –he wouldn’t relax until he knew she had it.

The first presenter took the stage. Isabella Guy was the picture of calm refinement as she announced her half dozen bachelors.

None of them are half as hot as Nick …

Casey rolled her eyes at her own love-struck thoughts. She was so in over her head.

Chapter Nine

SHE DID OK UNTIL it was Nick’s turn. Then her tongue sort of tangled up on itself and her brain went blank and Casey heard herself say, ‘And this is Nick.’ Only she nearly drew his name out as if in mid-orgasm. Niii-ick. She heard Annie snicker and was pretty sure, even from a distance, she saw Nick blush.

Oh my God.

‘Nick is …’

What? Nick is what?

‘Tall.’

Annie actually burbled then, like some wild jungle bird and Casey had a fleeting wish for a shotgun.

‘And he is … um …’

Think!

‘Big.’

Annie literally whooped.

Big! Oh God, you said big. Now you know everyone is thinking … penis!

‘Not like that!’ she amended loudly into the microphone.

That was when Annie had to leave the room.

Oh fuck. Now they all think he has a small cock…

‘I mean, that, um … he’s fine in the … oh, God.’

Most of the women in the room were staring at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted a second head and it was spewing vulgarities in French or possibly shouting out orders in Swedish. The overall look of the room was annoyed confusion.

‘He’s got blue eyes and dark hair and … walk!’ she said to Nick who had frozen at the steps of the stage as if unsure of what to do.

It was a disaster.

But he gave her a small amused smile that lit her up from the inside and started to walk.

‘He’s a refurbisher,’ she said, having completely given up any hope of sounding in control of herself. ‘So he deals a lot with nostalgia,’ she said, remembering what he’d said. ‘And he is very good with fragile things,’ she added, her voice a little thick.

He stopped to look at her and she saw so much affection in that look her heart skittered sideways in her chest and actually stalled for a second.

‘Like hearts and feelings,’ she barrelled on, holding the microphone in a death grip.

His face softened and he started to come at her. She swallowed hard, shook her head, waved her finger as if to say, “walk”.

‘He’s a very good kisser and …’

Someone gasped and someone sighed and someone laughed. No one was bidding. Why? Why!

He looked concerned but not panicky. He was too busy listening to her.

‘And he’d never … ya know … there is no pity. He’s a genuine man,’ she said softly. And then, ‘One thousand dollars.’

It wouldn’t be his money, this would be her own. This would be for the charity that would help save lives and to honour Brendan and to celebrate maybe a new start.

‘Did I mention he’s a good kisser and a good … ?’

There was a pregnant pause in the entire room. She could feel it. Silence and attention crushing in on her like a silent, invisible weight. Nick had frozen in place on the runway and was watching her, eyes wide but full of humour, mouth a small “o” of surprise, huge handsome self in a holding pattern as she babbled.

‘Good at, um … other stuff. Two thousand. No, not two … I’m remembering last night …’ She realised she’d said it aloud and her cheeks flooded with heat, but fuck it. ‘So five thousand.’

In her peripheral vision she saw a woman start to lift her paddle and she turned, pointed and said, ‘Don’t even think about it, Angela.’

The woman promptly dropped her paddle and grinned. Casey said, ‘Sold! To me. For five thousand dollars. Where’s Annie?’

Annie poked her head in from the hallway and she said as calmly as she could manage into the microphone. ‘And now my friend Annie – whose fault this is, FYI – is going to wrap up this program for you because I’m taking my bachelor to go.’

She put the microphone down and walked out to grab Nick’s hand. But he grabbed her instead and bent her backwards, planting a movie-worthy kiss on her, right there.

‘Hurry. Hurry, take me home,’ she said. ‘I need you.’

‘Nicest thing a woman’s said to me in years,’ he whispered.

They didn’t make it home. Her car was parked all the way in the back of the hotel parking-lot under a cluster of trees. They fell into the back seat tangled together.

‘Thank God for tinted windows. Thank God for–’

He cut her off with a kiss, his body heavy over hers as he wrestled clumsily with her skirt.

‘Those buttons are fake,’ she squealed, laughing as she undid the back zipper herself.

‘Silly women’s clothes. Who needs fake buttons?’ he growled.

Casey shimmied and shook and contorted and finally, tangled but ready, they were partially bare. And she kissed him, holding his head in her hands, toying her tongue along his. The feel of his cock, pressed hard and warm to the split of her pussy lips was maddening. But she wanted to be tortured just a little.

Casey thrust her hips up gently, rubbing her sex to his erection until he made a noise like an animal and roughly pinned her hips. And then it was Nick rubbing his hard-on to her labia. Every so often the pressure and mild friction on her clit made her hiss.

‘I think I’m falling in love with you,’ he said, stilling. ‘When I saw you up there, so obviously sinking but so intent on … talking. And what you said about me–’

‘Shh,’ she pressed her finger to his lips. He kissed her finger and then sucked it into the soaking wet velvet of his mouth.

Her pussy clenched with arousal and butterflies buzzed in her stomach. She thrust her finger a bit deeper, barely able to make out his eyes in the shaded car. But he rocked against her, creating a fresh slide of fluid between her thighs.

She rotated her hips to let her legs fall open a bit. For him to feel her heat, her wetness – to tempt him.

And he sucked her finger again making her moan.

‘It’s how I feel. Do I have to hide it?’

‘No,’ she said, spreading them a bit more. ‘Just be gentle with me, my heart, I mean. Just be … patient.’

He nodded and then his hands were rough on her inner thighs, prying them wide. Before he grabbed himself and slid the head of his cock along her moist entrance, he pinched her inner thigh. Just hard enough to bring everything into sharp focus. Just hard enough to make her vision sparkle with light and make her forget her impending tears.

‘You seem to like a tiny hint of pain with your pleasure, did you know?’ He cocked his head, grinning.

‘Actually, no,’ she admitted, watching him. And as if in slow motion, he pinched her again. Not too hard, not too soft – just right. And a flood of her own juices graced the top of her thighs.

Nick groaned and said, ‘See, that’s what I mean.’

His fingers delved into her to test her and stretch her and tease. And then he shook his head and said to her earlobe, ‘Enough play. I need this. I need you.’

He slid into her, his big working-man hands pinning her hips to the leather seat. She was unable to move and it thrilled her through her chest and in her heart. She was entirely his – at his mercy. He fucked her slowly, watching her face like she held secrets. Casey tried to rise up to meet him, but he pushed her firmly down and moved into her as he wanted.

‘Don’t run from me,’ he said. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it.

‘I won’t.’

‘Show me.’

So she did. She wrapped her arms around him and when he released her hips, her legs looped around his waist. Nick slipped his hands beneath her hips and tilted her just so. He drove into her deep and when he was fully in her, stretching her in the most delicious way, Casey tilted her hips up a bit more and gasped when that extra zing of pleasure coursed through her.

The first slow spasm came over her and he bit her lip lightly as she whimpered. Nick didn’t pull free of her, he simply stayed sunken deep and rocked, his hips a slow motion roll from one side to the other, nudging that sweet bundle of nerve endings that had her grasping at him like a drowning woman.

‘I won’t run,’ she promised freely as the orgasm slammed her. Her hips shot up and she bit him so that he growled.

‘Don’t come, don’t come,’ she begged and pulled herself back so he was forced to pull out.

It was comical really, the clown car effect, and they were both laughing but in a needy rushed way as they switched. When Casey had him under her, she splayed her palms on his hard chest and, even through his nice fancy shirt, she could feel his heart pounding.

She sank down on him slowly, watching the feed of his cock into her body. Watching the way he bit his lip to keep control and his hands restlessly balled into fists on the leather seat. She put her hands over his hands and forced him to be still.

‘Let me,’ she said and pressed her breasts to him, kissing him. ‘And when we get home, I want to do this all again. Utterly naked. Not like horny teenagers.’

Nick chuckled, grabbed her wild mess of long hair and tugged her in for a kiss. His tongue stroked over hers and Casey could feel the urgency of his impending release on that kiss. ‘Admit it, though. Horny teenagerdom is fun?

She rotated her hips in a slow sensuous dance, feeling the grind of his pelvic bone to her clitoris. Feeling the friction of his cock in her most sensitive places. Feeling the power of her emotions and how much she cared for him already. It was overwhelming to her and even though she was supposed to be in charge, she let his hands go when the force of her release hit and he grabbed her hips to hold her tight. Driving up under her, he watched her face and when he came he just said, ‘Casey … Casey.’