Back In The Saddle: Bachelor Auction - Book 2

have to agree with you. This time, especially since you did make the shit holy.” He gave Thatcher a pointed look, then grinned again. “Who’s next?”
I looked to my brother. Even though he was an inch taller, he was still my little brother. Since he was the sole carrottop in the family for generations, I’d always teased him that he’d been adopted. The childhood teasing should have kept him up at night with doubt of his DNA, but everything rolled right off him. Even now he was the easygoing one.
“I’ll go,” I offered. No way in fuck was I going to stand back here all by myself. I’d feel like the last picked in middle school gym. If I was going to get back in the saddle, now was the fucking time.
The reverend nodded, then disappeared.
“Hope Miss Turnbuckle wins you,” he said.
I tilted my chin and narrowed my eyes. “Why’s that?”
“Then she won’t bid on me.”
I frowned, spun on my booted heel, and went out onstage when the minister introduced me. If anyone thought it strange a man of God was selling men to a crowd full of women, no one said. Especially not the crowd of over a hundred women.
I heard a few catcalls, some whistling.
“Ladies, it’s time to bid on the date with the chief of police!”
Clapping ensued and someone shouted, “Will he bring the handcuffs?”
I pasted a smile on my face and rolled my eyes. I hadn’t heard that one before… this week.
I was all for a little play in bed, but I was the aggressor. I was the one who put the cuffs on. Took charge and made a woman beg for release. And I didn’t mean from the cuffs.
“Shall we start at fifty dollars?”
I scanned the crowd, the exit points, my usual survey of the room since it was my job to ensure everyone was safe.
“Five hundred dollars!”
I didn’t even process what had been shouted until gasps and whispers spread across the room.
Reverend Abernathy chuckled. “I think I heard a lady say five hundred dollars?”
In the center of the room, a woman rose from one of the many round tables. “Five hundred dollars,” she called again. This time I didn’t take notice of anything but her.
Sarah O’Banyon. Petite, blonde. A hundred pounds soaking wet. Her blue eyes held mine. Her chin was raised in defiance.
I remembered every inch of this woman. The way her mouth turned up, the little dimple by her elbow, the small mole on the inside of her right thigh. The pale hair that framed her pink pussy.
I’d rarely seen her around town. Once in the grocery store, once on a call when her father had been down with the flu and needed someone to tow a car that had slid off the road. She was older now, not nineteen any longer. She’d filled out some, her breasts a little fuller, her hips a little wider.
Yet in the six years since I’d been with her last, in the back of my pickup under a starry sky, she’d never once looked me in the eye.
Until now.
Now she wouldn’t look away.
She’d bid a shit ton of money. Hadn’t even waited for the numbers to rise.
She knew what she wanted.
Me.
Yet I had no idea why. Why now?
Everyone else in the room knew it too. Anyone over the age of twenty most likely knew our history, and they had front-row seats for the latest bit of town gossip.
“Sold!” the reverend called, then laughed. When the clapping quieted down, he continued. “I don’t think, ladies, that I should keep a woman from what she wants.”
For once I was in complete agreement with the man of God. If Sarah O’Banyon wanted me, I was all fucking hers.
I didn’t even nod at the reverend. Alice could scold me for it later. I didn’t look away from Sarah, maybe afraid she’d disappear if I did, and hopped from the stage. Skirting around the tables, I made my way to stand in front of her. I took off my hat, dipped my chin so I could keep looking into those eyes as pale as mine.
“Is Reverend Abernathy right, baby girl? You want me?”
Her cheeks flushed, and she swallowed hard. “Yes.”
That one word. Fuck, that one word was a gateway to everything.
Yes, I want you to finally make me yours.
Yes, I want to be with you always.
Yes, I love you, Huckleberry Manning.
I’d heard all those yeses from her. Remembered every single one. That one word was the key to my heart. I had no idea why Sarah had bid on me now, why she was looking at me like she had all those years ago, but this time, if I let her in, all she’d find was that my heart was broken.
And yet I was eager for her. For this and whatever was going to happen next. As I took her hand and led her out of the auditorium, I knew I wasn’t going to be the same again. I wasn’t sure if that was going to save me or destroy me.
Either way, she was mine. This time I wasn’t fucking letting her go.

5
HUCK
An hour later
What the fuck? I stared at my closed bedroom door. Sarah had just gotten dressed, covered up that gorgeous womanly body, and left me. After she’d dropped a fucking bombshell. I glanced down at the paper on my chest, but I couldn’t read it. The handcuffs rattled as I yanked on them, but there was no give.
“Sarah!” I called, then snapped my mouth shut, grinding my molars together.
I still had her taste on my tongue, her sticky essence on my chin. I was aching to sink into her, my dick hard and throbbing against my lower belly. I’d almost busted a nut when her dress had slipped to the floor. Fuck, the sight of her in that pretty lingerie and soft, silky skin was something I’d always remember. The fact that she’d let me get beneath her dress meant