Jake tuned the man out. Mayor Price had a reputation for long-winded, boring-as-ass speeches, and tonight proved to be no exception. The man droned on for ten minutes before the auction finally got underway. The bachelorettes were being auctioned off first, and Jake rolled his eyes as Price introduced the first lucky female. Women being sold off for dates like cattle—he wondered if the autistic kids knew how their money was being raised.
“You know our first bachelorette from Sandra’s Cookies ’N Cakes,” Price began in a jovial tone. “Give a warm round of applause for Sandra Cohen.”
A plump brunette in unbelievably high heels and a dress with the lowest neckline Jake had ever seen stepped onto the stage from the wings. As she made her way down the runway, the mayor continued to spit out facts.
“Sandra is a Scorpio, enjoys sailing and hiking, and in her spare time, she bakes cookies for the annual Paradise Elementary School bake sale.”
Jake stifled a sigh, already bored as hell. He didn’t give a shit about Sandra Cohen and her love of sailing, nor did he care about the next woman who emerged from the curtains, a retired gardener older than his grandmother. To his amusement, someone in the crowd bid four hundred bucks on the granny, Price yelled sold and then the next bachelorette graced the stage.
A second later, an erection graced Jake’s crotch.
“Is that Bree?” Owen hissed, his head swiveling from the stage to his brother.
Since his entire mouth had turned into sawdust, Jake simply nodded. He couldn’t tear his eyes off the woman up on the stage. And not just any woman—his woman.
Shock spiraled through him. Fuck, even after twelve years, he still thought of Bree Lockhart as his.
What the hell was she doing up there? He hadn’t even known she was back in town.
“She looks fantastic,” Owen murmured.
Fantastic? Uh, try absolutely fucking incredible. The Bree he’d known in high school had been pretty, but this newer, older Bree was even more tantalizing. Tall and curvy, with an X-rated set of perky breasts and a taut ass that made his mouth water. Her straight black hair was shorter, dancing just above her shoulders and layered so that it framed her heart-shaped face. Her skin was as pale and smooth as ivory, her eyes were bluer than he remembered, and her mouth…man, she still had those pouty, fuck-me lips.
The memory of those lips wrapped around his cock flashed into his mind, and just like that, his dick strained against the zipper of his trousers like a bull frantic to burst out of a chute.
“I know you’re all familiar with Bree Lockhart,” Mayor Price announced. “Now, I’ll admit, the Price and Lockhart families haven’t always seen eye to eye, but we can both claim the honor of being this town’s founding families.”
Owen laughed under his breath. “And the honor of being this town’s biggest snobs,” he muttered.
“Bree works as a junior partner at Lockhart and Associates, a prestigious law firm in Denver,” Price continued. “She’s an avid skier, volunteers at a local soup kitchen, and prefers quiet evenings at home to crowded restaurants. But she’s willing to make an exception—the lucky man who wins a date with Bree will join her in the private dining room of Carlotta’s tonight. A romantic dinner for two!”
Looking uncomfortable, Bree stopped at the end of the runway and did a feeble little half-turn.
Jake frowned, wondering how she’d gotten roped into this. She seemed totally ill at ease up there. The way she walked, how she nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she turned back to the podium. Jake saw something very vulnerable in her smoky blue eyes, something fresh and appealing, something that made him want to march up on the stage and kiss that pink lip gloss off her luscious mouth.
He’d never been able to resist the prim good-girl thing she’d had going on. Especially when he’d discovered she was oh so bad beneath the surface.
“Didn’t you two used to…” Owen tactfully trailed off.
Jake met his brother’s curious gray eyes. “Yep,” he confirmed in a hoarse voice.
He and Bree used to do a lot of things. A lot of things. Even now, he couldn’t figure out what had spurred her to seduce him that night after the big game against Huntsville. A wide receiver for the Paradise Panthers, Jake had been coming down from the victory high after the team crushed their neighboring town in a rivalry game for the ages. Bree was on the cheerleading squad, but their paths had never crossed until that night.
The night she demanded he deflower her in the back of his pickup truck.
Which he’d done without a single protest.
“So c’mon, fellows, let’s show Bree just how much you like her!” Mayor Price said into his mic.
Right off the bat, a tall, brown-haired man in the front of the crowd bid two hundred dollars.
Jake frowned. Cheap bastard.
“Three hundred,” someone else piped up.
“Four.”
“Four-fifty.”