“The pleasure’s all mine,” he purred. “For now at least. Our date will be an entirely different story since I have the honor of getting your first one.”
“Our date!” I yelped. “I can’t believe you bid so much for such a simple thing, and my father didn’t put you up to it.” I’d gone into the evening worried that I’d embarrass my parents by gaining the lowest bid of the night, but the opposite had happened thanks to Vaughn. Although, the amount he’d paid was beyond my comprehension when he could have just as easily walked up to any other woman—ones who would have a clue how to handle a man like him—and accomplished the same thing without having to dip into his wallet. It was mind boggling.
“A date with you will be anything but simple,” he murmured. “But well worth the donation I’m making tonight. I couldn’t let some other man sweep you off your feet, now could I?”
“That’s hardly a concern,” I laughed awkwardly. “Considering my father arranged for someone else to win the date with me.”
“Well then I guess your father and his choice will have to suffer their disappointment while I have the pleasure of taking you out on a date.”
“I’m not sure how this whole thing works.” I waved my free hand towards the curtain, in the direction where the table we’d been headed towards was. “Or what kind of arrangements have been made for the date, except that it’s supposed to take place sometime this next week. My parents didn’t give me a lot of details beyond the timeframe.”
Oddly enough, he seemed pleased by my admission. “Don’t worry, beautiful. I’m sure our date will be perfect.”
“Okay.” I paused awkwardly, unsure what to say next. “Well, then. We should probably go see what they have planned for us.”
“I suppose I should let you rejoin the party since I’ve had you to myself longer than I planned,” he agreed. “Your parents are probably looking for you by now. You’d better go find them while I’ll take care of the details with the organizers.”
He was a complete stranger, but I was oddly reluctant to be separated from him. “How will you find me for our date?”
He lifted his hands to cup the sides of my face with both palms. “Trust me,” he whispered before his mouth crashed down on mine.
His lips were firm and hot, and he tasted like he’d been drinking hard liquor. Bold and spicy with a punch. Bourbon, maybe. I’d tried it with my friends a couple months ago and hadn’t enjoyed it. But the flavor was so improved when accompanied by a searing hot kiss from Vaughn Westbrook, I could easily find myself addicted.
He tilted my head further back and swiped his tongue along the seam of my lips, and I let out a startled gasp. Vaughn didn’t waste the opportunity, his tongue surged inside and tangled with mine. His thumbs stroked my jawline as he groaned before pulling away.
“I’ll find you.”
With that promise, while my head was reeling from his kiss, he stepped away. Pulling the curtain aside, he freed me from our private cocoon, only to walk away without looking back. I was so focused on staring at his spectacular backside that I didn’t sense my mother approaching until her fingers wrapped around my arm and she hissed in my ear, “We’re leaving.”
“But—”
“Be quiet,” she bit out. “Smile and act like nothing’s wrong.”
“It’s not an act if I’m not aware of anything actually being wrong, Mother.”
“Nothing wrong?” she sputtered. “You may have just destroyed an important business relationship for your father with your antics up there, garnering such a ridiculous bid when Mr. Bellamy had expected to win your date.”
My spine straightened, and I almost had to bite my tongue to keep myself from screaming at her as she led me towards the exit. “Really, mother. What was I supposed to do? All eyes were on me, due to your machinations. This is hardlymyfault.You’rethe one who signed me up to participate in the auction. I didn’t ask for any of this.”
Although, I certainly wasn’t going to complain about the outcome. I had a date with the delicious Vaughn Westbrook to look forward to. I wisely refrained from gloating about it to my mother, though.
3
VAUGHN
Aquarter of a million dollars and two days later, I was only hours away from taking Carissa on her first date. It bore repeating—her first damn date, as impossible as it sounded considering how gorgeous she was. So fucking pretty she made me feel things no other woman had before. It was more than an insane amount of lust, and it wasn’t just my protective instincts rearing up because of the situation with Bellamy. I’d been jealous of all the other men at the gala because of the inches of skin her dress revealed. It was why I’d pulled her behind the curtains, away from their gazes. And then I’d kissed her, and a deep sense of possessiveness took root inside me.
The jumble of feelings she evoked in me made her dangerous. Dangerous enough that I wasn’t willing to trust my instincts when it came to her, so I used the time I had away from her to run a background check on her. It was something I probably should have farmed out to an acquaintance of mine who was damn good at gathering intel, but I didn’t want anyone else to be privy to the intimate details of Carissa’s life.
My research into her confirmed my initial impression. She was an innocent woman who had no idea what was in storefor her if she fell into Bellamy’s hands. Digging into her past didn’t uncover a single bad thing. Not so much as a speeding ticket, which was damn good considering she didn’t even have a driver’s license. No sign of a boyfriend, ever. There wasn’t even any porn in her browser history.
Getting information on her had been more difficult than it should have been because she lived quiet. From what I’d managed to discover, she was sweet and a little bit shy. Well-liked by her classmates. A good student. And utterly dependent on her parents—which made her father’s connection to Bellamy particularly disturbing, considering he’d planned to allow the man to take his daughter out on the date I’d won. My background check on him hadn’t come back as clean as Carissa’s. On the surface, he appeared to be exactly what he seemed, but there were some irregularities in his financials which left me with more questions than answers.
I’d allowed my odd possessiveness to prevent me from asking for help in digging into Carissa’s life, but I had no qualms about reaching out for help with her protection and further intel on her father. The primary focus of my mission had quickly moved from putting Bellamy into the ground to keeping her safe. Killing him right away wasn’t an option because I hadn’t been able to confirm he was the head of the operation yet. If he wasn’t, then there was a possibility his death wouldn’t end the danger to Carissa, especially if her father was tied into this somehow. It wouldn’t give the dead girl the justice she deserved, either.
The bottom line was my mission had become two-pronged, and I needed help from someone I could trust. The list of people I could call upon for assistance was damn small because I didn’t make a habit out of depending on others. Gaige Taylor, who’d served as my flanker during my years as a sniper in the Army, was one of the few men I trusted implicitly. Gaige was the first person I’d call for help, but he was already on the hunt forinformation on Bellamy—which made him the logical choice to dig further into Carissa’s father’s possible connection, but not the right one to help keep her safe. Only one other name came to mind—Brecken Kane.
Brecken and I had crossed paths during a mission in Somalia. My team’s target lived outside a small town near the Djibouti border. There hadn’t been any indication that our intel was anything other than spot-on, but I’d had a bad feeling in my gut just about from the moment I’d laid my eyes on the operation order.
