Auction Time: Bad Boy Bachelors of Orange County BK3 Read online

  Auction Time

  Bad Boy Bachelors of Orange County BK3

  Khardine Gray

  Contents

  Auction Time

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Auction Time

  Bad Boy Bachelors of Orange County

  Bk 3

  Khardine Gray

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  Copyright © 2019 by Khardine Gray

  Auction Time Book 3 of Bad Boy Bachelors of Orange County Copyright © 2019 by Khardine Gray

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design © 2019 by Net Hook and Line

  This work is copyrighted. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  The author asserts that all characters and situations depicted in this work of fiction are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations.

  It is intended for mature readers. All characters are 18+ years of age and all sexual acts are consensual.

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter 1

  Mia

  * * *

  ‘Today you must enjoy life.’- Madam Phoebe

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  Seriously, what the hell?

  It was either that I was hell-bent on falling into the same trap I’d found myself caught in eighteen months ago, or I was on a self-destruct mission to ruin my life when things were going good.

  Things were going well and my life was actually supposed to be very simple. No drama, no fuss.

  I lived by my horoscope sent to me every day by celeb psychic Madam Phoebe. And every article written in Cosmopolitan, which to me was the girl bible.

  Plain and simple.

  I was a Leo and like the lioness woman I was I allowed Madam Phoebe to guide me on my path to awesomeness, and Cosmo did the rest.

  Today, I was supposed to be enjoying life, and there was everything to enjoy too because I was on a date with a super gorgeous guy who was really into me.

  Allen reached across the table and smiled, bringing out the dimples in his cheeks. He took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  “You okay?” he asked. The club lights bounced off his dark blond spikes as he tilted his head to the side.

  “Peachy.”

  “I hope I’m not boring you.” He quirked a brow and brought out the dimples again.

  “You could never do that.”

  He brought my hand up to his lips and kissed my knuckles.

  The man was perfect. Ex-navy, so exactly my type with the body of a god, and he had that Carpe diem personality I couldn’t get enough of.

  Plus, I swore to God the man was a dead ringer for Channing Tatum. He actually was, and I loved, loved Channing Tatum. Who didn’t?

  I’d obsessed from day one, and here I was at The Glow on a date with a guy who could easily pass for him.

  I should have been ecstatic, yet here I sat taking note of the eyes that had watched me for the last hour.

  Eyes that gave me a smoldering stare filled with wild sexual heat that could reach me anywhere.

  Eyes that belonged to a guy I definitely, one hundred percent, should ignore. Just like the way I should have taken heed when those eyes had first landed on me.

  The eyes and the intense stare belonged to Centaurs linebacker Eric Declan.

  He didn’t need to be next to me for me to feel his gaze. He could have been anywhere and across a hundred feet away like he was, and I’d still feel it.

  Like now.

  Allen and I were sitting in a booth on the second floor of the club. Eric, however, was on the balcony of the top floor. That was two floors above us.

  First, I’d seen him standing at the metal railings, watching. Then at a table in the VIP section most players sat in. Like always, he made sure I saw him and knew he was watching me.

  He just hadn’t done it in a while. Awhile as in a little over a year. Then, suddenly, he’d resurfaced like a bad dream coming back to mess with me.

  Allen tapped my fingers and chuckled.

  “You are miles away, Miss Lady,” he noted.

  “It’s the crap at work,” I offered up, which was true and unfortunately was tied to my Eric situation.

  “Don’t worry about it, baby; it’s work. Brush it under the rug.” He gave me a wink and kissed my knuckles again.

  “I’m gonna try.”

  “You better. I’m loving the way your skin feels. Wish I didn’t have a two-a.m. flight.”

  He had a two-a.m. flight and chose to spend these hours with me at the place we met because I’d had a rotten day.

  “You are just perfect,” I told him, trying to focus. Yes. That was exactly what I needed to do. Focus on the gorgeous man before me, not the gorgeous man on the balcony who was still watching me.

  “Glad you think so.”

  We’d been dating now for two months. It was the longest I’d been with anyone in a while. He was the kind of guy I liked. He played it by ear and wasn’t into serious until he needed to be.

  He was also a good listener, although I’d told him a little white lie. I’d said I got some work I didn’t want to do.

  In truth, what happened was that I was told I’d be working on a project with the most loathsome creatures that had ever walked the face of the earth.

  Athletes…

  God knew how much I hated athletes.

  No one would think I held such a strong dislike because my father owned two of the best football teams in the country. The Gladiators and The Centaurs.

  It was what he’d bought when he made his first … Should I say billion?

  Dad was so rich I couldn’t keep up. He and my uncles, who’ joined together to set up Cartwright Enterprises.

  When I was sixteen I got a taste of what they were like when Larry Archer, the high school quarterback, decided it would be funny to tell everyone I had sex with the whole football team. All because I told him I didn’t want to go to the dance with him. That fucking asshole had ruined my whole year.

  Then there was Tim Seaman the wide receiver for the college team who allowed fame to go to his head when he was drafted to play for the Falcons. I caught him having a threesome with two groupies and his excuse was I should understand.

  Should have picked up on the trend after
him but no I went for Bob Jacobe. A basketball player. Different sport, same attitude. He seemed to believe it was okay to date me during term time while he was engaged to his high school sweetheart back in Iowa.

  Three guys was enough for me to for me to deduce that the whole lot of them were assholes. Athletes. It was the holier-than-thou attitude. Like they thought they were made better than everybody else because they were good at sports. Add to that the lack of tact, and Neanderthal behavior around women and it was a straight up no from me.

  I was twenty-seven years old, and I hated them just as much as I had so I didn’t know what possessed me to think Eric Declan would be any different. He taught me that athletes could liars and manipulators with honest faces.

  It was my mistake for dropping my guard and letting him in. One night, one mistake I wished I could take back because it had come full circle now to screw with me at work.

  I worked at my father’s marketing consultancy firm with my mother and sisters Abby and Vanessa.

  Boy, did I ever think the universe was out to get me when the news hit me today that The Centaurs wanted to do a fundraiser to raise money for the Newport Beach disaster.

  A hurricane hit last week and wrecked the place, leaving a number of people homeless. It was great that the team wanted to help like that, but I knew what it meant. The coach was the one who came to the office today, but in the past when we had any functions, it was the players who were the most popular and who did all the campaigns with us. That meant Eric included.

  Abby was the girl who’d gone for the jocks. Heck, she was married to one, albeit Gilly was the best guy we all knew, but he was a jock nonetheless. He also happened to be Eric’s best friend.

  I hadn’t really seen Eric in over a year. Not until Monday at the park when I was jogging. Then I saw him again at the supermarket. Then at Abby’s place with Gilly.

  It all felt like last year after my little mistake with him. He’d followed me around then too.

  “So,”—Allen beamed with a twinkle in his eyes—“you know I’m going to be in Japan for close to a month. Am I seriously not going to see you for a month?”

  I shrugged. I had known this part was coming. Allen ran an adventure excursion company. He’d arrange wild adventures for groups all over the world and made it happen. I couldn’t have found a better live-for-the-moment guy than him.

  While I knew I would miss him, I knew that was how we rolled. We weren’t serious. Just seeing each other in what I thought—or hoped—was exclusive.

  “It looks that way.”

  “What if you came to visit me?” He held my gaze.

  My lips parted and when I blinked several times, he chuckled.

  “Okay, that surprised look on your face tells me a lot.” He laughed. “Did I ask too soon? As in, we’ve been kind of together for the last two months and it’s probably too soon to ask you to hop on a plane and fly to Japan to see me?”

  “No…” I straightened. “I’m just surprised. But it’s not a bad surprise.”

  Damn it, I made the mistake of glancing to my left, and then I saw Eric back at the balcony. I glanced, and my attention stayed right there.

  Standing there in a white button-up shirt rolled up thick forearms with tattoos on those arms, he looked like the perfect specimen of a man.

  Tall at six feet six, dark jet-black spiky hair cut into a faux hawk, handsome with a face God took his time to chisel to perfection.

  That was him. Him and muscles on muscles looking at me with those striking blue eyes of his that always looked at me like he wanted me.

  It was the kind of look every woman I knew fantasized about. It helped too that the man looked like he’d just walked out of a dream. Not the good dreams, either, that were filled with promises. The dream he’d stepped out of was the kind that held hot sexual sins.

  I should know because that was what it had felt like when I was with him.

  That one time. That one night.

  That one instance where I lost my mind and had never felt the same since.

  The slight tap on my hand brought me back to reality, and I looked back to Allen, who was looking at me like he’d said something previously and was waiting for an answer.

  “How about that?” he asked.

  God, I was right. He’d been talking and I hadn’t heard him. “Tell me what you think.” That was my clever attempt to save myself. I’d always found that question saved me many times in instances like this.

  “I think it would be great if you came, but if you couldn’t, then no biggie. Would be good to see you though.” He nodded.

  Saved.

  “Then that’s what I’ll do.” I felt he deserved something from me. Something more than my lack of attention on him practically for the whole night.

  “I like that, Mia.”

  I had an idea, a good one that should help me focus on the man I needed to give my attention to.

  “I think we should dance now.”

  He nodded. “Dance and drink. Let me grab some drinks.”

  “And I’ll meet you on the floor,” I bubbled.

  He beamed and released my hands as he stood.

  He went over to the bar, and I made my descent down the steps to the dance floor. I purposefully avoided looking up at the balcony.

  The music enveloped me as I moved through the sea of people and found a good spot. It changed to a chilled sexy beat. A smooth mix of instrumentals to awesome club mixes I’d always loved, especially on some of my vacations to places like Ibiza and Thailand.

  Dancing would help me ignore Eric and hopefully, he’d go away.

  The music got louder and the beat more pronounced. I started swaying as it seeped into me, making me move the way it was intended.

  I’d never had a problem dancing by myself. Sure enough, it attracted a lot of attention, but then I always had attention.

  I was Mia Cartwright, the middle sister who most people classed as the wild one of the group. I had three sisters, and of them, Abby was the most similar to me. Wild and free. Fun and sassy. We were exactly that. Add our beauty to the mix, and it was a deadly combo.

  Me though… I loved taking control, taking charge and being in charge. I loved being the alpha female who did what she wanted to do.

  I ran my hands down my chest and on to my hips. That was when a large hand smoothed around me. Warm and sexy.

  A hard wall of a chest pressed against my back and swayed with me. One of the things I loved about Allen was that rhythm flowed through him.

  This was how we always danced together. Him behind me with me pressed up against him.

  We flowed together in a slow grind as his hand moved over the flat planes of my stomach, sending off a nest of butterflies. His… touch felt different tonight.

  Sexier and more possessive. When he pressed his head against mine, I savored it and got lost in him as his smooth breath caressed my cheek.

  Chemistry and attraction lulled me to temptation, amplifying our moves, turning the heat up, making my body come alive with passion as he touched me.

  I got so lost, and damn, it made me think of the last time I’d felt like this.

  With Eric.

  Even if I forgot everything else I’d ever go through in my life, I would never forget that night, and that was what bothered me. One night I couldn’t forget. Didn’t matter who I was with. One night and only one time. Just one memorable time that rocked my world, and it got to me big time that my body refused to wipe the memory of him clean from my system. I had every reason to forget, because after the man had dragged me into the locker room of the stadium, pinned me to the wall, and what I could only describe as devoured me, he’d walked away.

  All that emotion coursing through the both of us, and he’d walked away as if I were nothing. Just some conquest he’d made and tossed aside when he was finished.

  That was perhaps the worst experience I’d ever had in my life. It was enough for me to eradicate him from my mind, but even now, as I though
t about him, the craving within was still there.

  Those warm hands became more eager, and I was pretty certain we looked best reserved for the bedroom, not the dance floor with everyone watching. Although it would have been a tamer version of stuff the old me had gotten up to in the past.

  A kiss. I’d kiss Allen, and we’d get out of here.

  I turned my head as his hands crept up my neck.

  I looked up and froze with my heart caught in my throat when I realized in horror that the man holding and dancing with me was not Allen.

  It was Eric!

  Eric, who now had that devilish, sinful smirk on his face.

  Instantly, I backed out of his arms and frowned at him. It was too loud to say anything. The music was too loud to say anything that could be heard, and the roil of emotion that stirred within me left me speechless.

  He looked at me expectantly, like he was ready for the bitching I usually gave him, then he seemed surprised when I turned on my heel and walked away.

  I walked not even thinking about Allen.

  I didn’t know if he saw what happened. Chances were he didn’t. He didn’t seem to be the kind of man to keep his silence if he’d caught his date practically mating on the dance floor with another man.

  It wasn’t until I got outside of the club that those big, strong arms reached for my arm and pulled me back.

  “Mia, come on, wait.” He chuckled as if the whole thing was funny.

  I shook my arm free of his grasp and glared at him. Now that we were outside, in the change of scenery where I could shout at him, I figured I’d take the opportunity.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I barked. My hands flew to my hips.

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. I didn’t think there was anything wrong. We were just dancing.” He smiled at me and made Allen’s Channing Tatum smile look like nothing. Literally like nothing.