by Jenny Penn
“What? No!” Dylan shoved back in his seat with a sullen pout. “No serious conversations. I can’t manage them. I just spent the entire day—”
“Fucking your way through a bunch of pretty girls,” Josh finished for him. “I get it.”
“You think so?”
“Yes, and I’m glad you’re having fun—”
“—but?”
Josh shot Dylan a hard look for that obnoxious interruption and very pointedly continued on. “But I’m not interested in any of these women. I already know who I want.”
“Let me take a guess.” Dylan cut back in with a dramatic flair. “Casey.”
Josh scowled, not caring for the laughter still coloring his brother’s tone. “As matter of fact—”
“I want her,” Dylan finished for him, making his own claim at the same time and giving Josh reason to both hope and dread just what his brother really meant by that.
“What about all the other women?”
“What other women?” Dylan blinked, looking honestly innocent, or at least as innocent as he could.
“What do you mean what other women? What about today?”
“Oh, now you want to talk about today?”
“No!” Josh snapped before forcing himself to take a deep breath and focus on regaining control of his emotions.
It took a lot of effort because Dylan knew just how to irritate the crap out of him. More than that, Dylan enjoyed irritating him. Josh wasn’t going to let him get away with it. Not this time. He said what he had to say and could offer Dylan only one final assurance.
“If you want Casey…then that’s between the two of you. That doesn’t change my plans.” Josh couldn’t be more blunt than that. “Now if you could focus—”
“Hold up,” Dylan called out, waving away Josh’s attempt to turn the conversation. “Did you just say that you don’t care if I fuck your girl?”
“Not as long as I get to fuck her too.” Now that really was as blunt as he could make it. “Now, if you could focus on the reason we’re here, I got news to report.”
“Ah, the mystery of the burnt barn.” Dylan sighed, his expression tightening into a look of grim acceptance. “Okay, hit me with it. What you got?”
“Not much,” Josh admitted grimly. “There isn’t much in the police report but the initial witness statements and the fire investigator’s report of arson.”
Josh picked up the stack of printouts he’d made and tossed them across the desk for Dylan to start leafing through as he went over what few details there were.
“Apparently the fire was started along the outside wall with gasoline being used as the fuel…and that’s about it.” Josh shrugged at Dylan as his brother glanced up at him with a clear expectation of more. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t look like the local sheriff or any of his deputies even bothered to interview more than the people at the scene.”
“Well, that’s odd.” Dylan scowled as he returned his attention to report in his hands. “Either the sheriff is completely incompetent or—”
“—he already knows who did it,” Josh cut in, picking up another couple sheets of paper he’d stapled together. “And I got a feeling this might have something to do with the matter.”
“What’s this?” Stretching forward to take the two-page incident report from Josh, Dylan’s scowl grew deeper as he scanned it. “A kid was picked up on a dirt bike with an empty gas can not two miles away? Well, that’s certainly suspicious.”
“So is the fact that most of the information is redacted.” That’s what bothered Josh the most, but it didn’t appear to faze Dylan, who simply shrugged.
“That’s par for the course when it comes to minors.”
“When it comes to releasing information about minors,” Josh corrected. “That report was…”
“Stolen?” Dylan supplied, his smile reappearing for a moment. “Don’t go too far out on that limb, baby brother. I’m not sure I have the connections to save you if you fall.”
“Don’t worry, I do,” Josh assured him dourly, irritated at Dylan’s insistence in treating him like the little kid brother when he was only twenty minutes behind Dylan.
It was a long-standing argument, one that he knew he would never win. Maybe it was because of that that Josh always bristled at the reminder.
“Aren’t you a big shot?” Dylan retorted as he tossed the report back on the desk. “You know so much, why don’t you tell me where to find this kid? I think I might like to have a few words with him.”
Josh held his hands up in defeat. “Sorry. That’s something you might need to ask the sheriff because I can’t find any paper trail left online between his office and the courts or child welfare services. Whatever happened to the kid, he didn’t get put into the system.”
“Or maybe he got hidden within it,” Dylan suggested. “You know when we get kids witnessing crimes that we fear might be retaliated against, child services will…lose the paperwork until we can assure the kid’s safety.”
“You think the kid is a witness, then?” That was possible, but it hadn’t been Josh’s first thought, and neither, apparently, was it Dylan’s.
“Nope, but I do think the Davis brothers have the kind of power in this community to wreck a kid’s life, even if they never lay a hand on him.”
That suggestion had Josh’s stomach turning. He wasn’t interested in helping anybody persecute a child. Then again, he had a hard time imagining Slade being so callous. “You think they would?”
“I think you don’t want to mess with their woman.” Dylan slapped his hands against the sides of his seat and shoved out of the chair. “I also think that Casey likes to have her nipples twisted, but if I don’t get back down to the fair in time for the auction, it’ll be somebody else tuning those knobs.”
Josh blinked, watching Dylan walk away as his mind tried to sort out that farewell. It couldn’t. It just kept coming up with one impossible conclusion. Casey was here…but that couldn’t be right.
Chapter 10
The butterflies in Casey’s stomach were having a kegger. They were in a full, drunken riot, making her quiver in her stilettos. The five-inch heels were hell to balance on, and having shaking knees didn’t help. Neither did standing at the end of a line of drop-dead gorgeous, naked women.
There were tall ones, short ones, round ones, thin ones, dark-skinned ones, pale as paper-white ones, along with every shade in between, and then there was her freckled ass. She’d go strutting down the catwalk last, after every other woman had been bought and all the men were broke.
She could hope only that someone had enough dough left to afford her. If not, then her fears of ending up going for an embarrassingly low price would come true. Casey would know if she ended up being cheap.
As she stood there watching one woman after another fetch impossibly sounding high prices, she’d silently been calculating the average closing bid, which was somewhere around thirteen thousand buckles, the currency of the club.
That wasn’t all Casey had taken note of. She’d also been keeping a mental track of who went for what and come to some conclusions. Fuller-figured women demanded a high price. So did the more outrageous and excited women. Frowners, on the other hand, went for a lot less.
The men seemed to favor tits, large asses, and big smiles. Three things Casey actually had, not to mention her custom-fitted teddy, which made her the true envy of all the other women, and yet still, by the time she was finally standing at the bottom of the steps leading up to the catwalk, Casey was all but ready to turn tail and run.
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t parade around a bonfire naked while men bid on the right to keep her as some kind of sex slave. What the hell was she thinking?
“Breathe.” Lana appeared at her side to offer Casey that bit of calm advice. “It’s going to be all right.”
That assurance brought a rueful smile to Casey’s lips as she felt the butterflies finally take a breath and give her a moment. “Do I look that scared?�
�
“Petrified and one second away from fleeing,” Lana admitted bluntly. “But that’s okay. Everybody is nervous for their first auction, which is just why I thought you might like to have company.”
Lana held up the leash in her hand in an offer that Casey was hard-pressed to resist. She really didn’t want to be up there alone.
“Fine.” Casey nodded her acceptance as the auctioneer closed the bidding on the blonde at eleven thousand, bringing back her worry that the men had gone broke.
She made a mention of that to Lana, earning a laugh from the other woman as she snapped the leash onto Casey’s collar. Lana assured her that the men had been holding out, waiting for her, but Casey was too nervous to believe her. It wasn’t until the crowd went wild as she crawled out onto the catwalk behind Lana that Casey finally relaxed and began to enjoy herself.
* * * *
“Oh my God,” Josh whispered, his mouth falling open as his eyes went wide.
Dylan would have laughed at his brother’s comical expression. Josh’s response to seeing Casey crawl out on all fours and dressed in a barely-there teddy was classic. He stared up at the catwalk, not seeming to be able to make sense out of what he was seeing. So he stuttered and repeated himself.
“Oh my God.”
“I told you so,” Dylan reminded him smugly as he smiled, watching the redhead wiggling her way down the stage. She really was a sexy, playful little pixie, and he was ready to play with her.
“Oh my God. That’s Casey!”
“I know!”
“She’s tattooed!”
“And you should see where they lead."
“I can see her tits!”
So could Dylan and every other man there, thanks to the lack of actual cups in the lace teddy that looked as if it was painted on. He could have believed it was, too, if not for the wires hidden in the corset that shoved her breasts up and out, making them look full and round.
The dark lines of the henna swirled around those sweet mounds, highlighting the pink, puckered nipples that looked like ripe berries begging to be sucked. That apparently wasn’t the only thing begging to be played with. As they reached the end of the stage, Casey reared back onto her knees before splitting her legs wide and showing off the glistening folds of her cunt.
The swollen lips of her pussy peeked through the slit in her crotchless teddy, leaving her open not only for the ogling but also for the teasing stroke of her own fingers. Like a sultry goddess intent on driving every man around her crazy, she reached down to run a finger through her folds before lifting her cream-coated tip to her lips and sucking it dry.
The crowd around Dylan went crazy as Josh’s knees gave out and he fell back into one of the plastic chairs arranged around the stage.
“Oh God,” he groaned.
“Look how wet she is,” Dylan pointed out, all but panting and drooling. “I’ll tell you what, our little firecracker not only likes to show off she also likes to get licked clean.”
“Please,” Josh begged, holding up a hand as he closed his eyes, blocking out the erotic sight before him, but Dylan wasn’t going to let him hide from the truth.
“Oh, stop whining,” Dylan snapped. “Our Casey is a pervert. A pervert. It’s a gift from God, and you’re supposed to say thank you.”
Actually, they were supposed to express their gratitude. Dylan was planning to do that on his knees…or maybe he’d put Casey on hers. The possibilities were endless, and just the thought of them all was enough to enflame the need boiling in his balls.
Dylan’s dick flushed and swelled so fast it damn near burst through his zipper. The hard, cold metal teeth bit into his sensitive length, but he barely felt the pinch. He was still stuck on the reality unfolding around him.
Captivated by the sight of Casey petting herself, Dylan smiled as he stared up at her in wonder. She was a sensual goddess, a wet dream begging to be fucked, and he was aching to give it to her. All the dreams, the hidden fantasies of dark, wicked acts that he’d harbored for so long flooded through Dylan along with the certainty that he’d just found the woman he would never tire of indulging in.
All he needed to do was buy her.
The auctioneer warned the audience that the Firecracker was wilder than most men could keep up with. The fast-talking man whipped through the litany of Casey’s many skills and virtues, assuring every man there she was willing to try just about anything once. Now the question was, would there be a man willing to take that challenge? With that bold taunt, he opened up the bidding.
“Bidding?” Josh shot out of his seat as if it had just dawned on him in that second that they were at an auction.
“Don’t worry,” Dylan shot over his shoulder with a smile. “I got eighteen thousand buckles, and these guys got to be running low. I’ll get—What?”
Dylan’s assurance cut off with a dramatic gasp as the bid jumped from two thousand to twenty in less than that many seconds. It didn’t stop there, either, but went skyrocketing toward the high fifties and then right on into the sixties.
“No. No!” Dylan shook his head. having trouble coping with the realization that he couldn’t afford Casey. “This isn’t right. They’re supposed to be broke!”
“Who the hell cares?” Josh snapped furiously. “Now where the hell do you get these buckles, and how much do they cost?”
“They don’t cost anything. You have to earn them.”
“Then what the hell are we supposed to do?”
“We’ll have to kidnap her,” Dylan declared as he fought to think rationally through the panic starting to rip through him.
“Kidnap?” Josh repeated, sounding as though he didn’t even understand the definition of that word. Dylan ignored him, focusing on his plan as he developed it on the spot.
“We’ll take her back to Atlanta.”
“Taking a hostage across state lines is a federal offense,” Josh stressed as if that mattered.
“Do I look like I care?” Dylan roared. “We’re going to kidnap her—”
“Can’t we just ask the Davis brothers to help out?” Josh interjected, irritating Dylan with his logical, reasonable response. It was time to panic, not negotiate.
“We’re going to kidnap her—”
“You just want to tie her up, don’t you?”
“Trust me, she likes to be tied up,” Dylan snapped. “She likes to be tied up, blindfolded, and put on display while some stranger whips her pussy and then eats her out, but before that stranger gets a chance, we’re going to kidnap her—”
“Eighty thousand!”
A new but familiar voice boomed through the crowd, cutting Dylan off and unleashing a wave of silence that rolled across the field until every eye had turned on Chase Davis. He strutted forward like Moses parting the sea. The crowd melted out of his way until he came face to face with Dylan.
Dylan didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what the hell had his old friend looking all sour-faced. More importantly, he didn’t care. Chase could get all huffy if he wanted to. Dylan wanted only Casey, and he wasn’t backing down.
“Eighty-five thousand.”
That drew both their attention to the man who’d dared to interrupt their silent glaring competition. Dylan recognized him instantly as the man who Lana had screwed over at the pussy eating competition earlier that day. He also remembered her warning about how the guys would react to Dylan hogging Casey’s time.
Apparently, she hadn’t been wrong. She’d just forgotten that Dylan had a friend with deep pockets. That didn’t unnerve the other guy. He stepped forward to confront Chase as Chase turned on him.
A sudden tension gripped the crowd as the two men slowly walked up on each other like gunslingers about ready to draw, but Dylan wasn’t concerned that Chase wouldn’t come out the winner. He was older, wiser, and, most importantly, a club owner. As for the other guy…
“Who the hell is that?” Josh asked in a whisper, not daring to break the silence that seemed to grip the crowd along
with the heavy weight of anticipation.
“I don’t know his name,” Dylan muttered back. “But I know he wants Casey.”
“Yeah? Well, he can’t have her.” Josh paused before finally coming around. “We’ll kidnap her first.”
Dylan snorted over a chuckle and shook his head as Chase upped the ante.
“A hundred thousand.”
“A hundred and ten thousand,” the younger man instantly countered before Chase doubled down on his challenge.
“Two hundred.”
“Three.”
“Five.”
“Why are you even here, man?” Clearly flustered, the other man glared up at Chase, who just smirked.
“You ain’t got five, do you?”
“You know I don’t.” Now officially the loser, the guy stepped back to pin Chase with a look of a puppy trying to play at being a pit bull. “But now you know I’ll get revenge.”
“First rule, puppy, don’t make promises,” Chase warned him with a cold smile. “Just take revenge. Lana?”
Dismissing the younger guy, Chase turned toward the stage to call out to the woman still holding Casey’s leash. He ordered his “gift” to be wrapped up and put in a cube before he turned to pin Dylan and Josh with a hard look.
“And you two, I think it’s time we had a talk.” Chase nodded up toward the gardens in the glow of the buildings beyond. “Let’s get a drink.”
* * * *
“I think I need a drink.” Of course, Casey already felt a little sick so maybe liquor wasn’t the right answer. There was another one she needed though. “Am I mistaken, or was I just bought by the club’s very owner?”
“His name is Chase,” Lana supplied. “Chase Davis, and he is one of the co-owners.”
“I see,” Casey answered carefully, knowing that she was supposed to ignorant when it came to the Davis brothers but fearing they’d already figured out that she wasn’t and that this could be a trap.
Even if it was, what was the worst thing they could do to her? Throw her out?