In Bed with the Bachelor (Bachelor Auction Book 5)
Megan Crane
Chapter One
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Jesse Grey was the most beautiful man Michaela Townsend had ever seen in real life.
So absurdly, dizzyingly, inarguably gorgeous that it didn’t matter that he was scowling at her—that he’d been scowling pretty much nonstop since he’d slouched out onto the makeshift bachelor auction stage in the Montana saloon, in this pretty little town where Michaela’s mom had grown up and where so many of her aunts and cousins still lived, supposedly to sell himself for a good cause.
She’d realized he was beautiful then, of course, through the din of the relatively polite applause of the assembled, primarily female, crowd who’d gathered for this event. It wasn’t something anyone was likely to miss on that rangy, six-foot-and-then-some frame of his. All that mussed-up, dirty-blonde hair, as if he couldn’t be bothered to tame it, so busy was he being growly and attractive, even in a situation like this charity auction where some of the other gentlemen had opted to spruce themselves up a little bit. The better to kick start the bidding, no doubt.
But not Jesse Grey, who looked as if he’d just swanned in from moving heavy things with those sculpted arms of his, or had, perhaps, spent his afternoon riding motorcycles hither and yon like the epitome of some testosterone-fueled fantasy man. Then there were those delicious, milk chocolate, melt-in-your-mouth eyes to consider—not that eyes could melt in someone’s mouth, Michaela chastised herself—and of course, that alarmingly fit body of his packed into jeans and a dark t-shirt, which she hadn’t actually realized could exist in the real world.
That body, she clarified to herself, not the battered, vintage concert t-shirt he wore like a second, expertly distressed skin. It was all… washboard abs and the suggestion of those crazy diagonals dug over his hips and that masculine hollow between his pectoral muscles—
“I’m so sorry,” Michaela said, blinking to clear her head, which was how she realized she’d been gaping at this man in the first place, there near the back wall of the bar in all the post-auction excitement. “I’m babbling. In my own head. I didn’t actually know that was possible.”
His scowl deepened. Improbably, it only made him sexier.
“I’ve never bought anybody before,” Michaela said brightly. That mouth of his flattened, which seemed to have a direct relationship to that odd tugging sensation, low in her belly. She charged on, not sure what was spurring her along—that strange, new sensation, or the sense of something like panic that went along with it. “Not that I bought you tonight, of course—my family did that! I’ve never attended a bachelor auction in my life! Even for charity! Although, I don’t know, maybe they’re all for charity or they’re just a Magic Mike strip club thing? My cousin Missy made it sound like she travels the world on a grand and rotating circuit of bachelor auctions wherever they might pop up, but maybe she meant she goes to Chippendale’s a lot? Anyway, it was all her idea. She and all my aunts and cousins and they only each gave a little but that’s why it added up so fast and—”
“Hey,” he said then. Really, it was more of an order. “Breathe.”
His voice was flat. Casually certain, as if he was used to instant obedience. And yet still a rough kind of velvet as it slid over her, like a caress—
An engaged woman should not have such thoughts, Michaela reprimanded herself, and then was instantly annoyed she’d had such a dramatic, conservative thought in the first place. Because her fiancé Terrence would more than understand. Terrence and Michaela were rational, reasonable adults who had long ago agreed that monogamy was silly and possessiveness was unattractive, and Michaela hated that she kept finding these little corners of ugly, outdated ideas inside her own head.
It was because this was her own pseudo-bridal shower, she thought then, and so what if her cousin Missy had somehow commandeered the initial shower idea involving baked goods and her aunt’s living room and turned it into a bachelor auction at a saloon? That didn’t excuse the weird, old-fashioned things that kept popping up inside of her at the strangest moments. More and more often, the closer they got to the wedding, if she was honest. She shoved that aside.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, trying to focus on Jesse Grey, supernaturally beautiful human, as if he was a mere mortal. Because he was. Of course he was, despite appearances. That was the point. “I’ve never been given a—uh—contractor? Local-boy-turned-tycoon? Whatever you are?—as a bridal shower gift before. I’m not sure about the appropriate way to handle this situation.”
She was still staring, wasn’t she? It was like the whole crowd around them had disappeared somehow into the chocolaty goodness of his gaze, more compelling than the most wicked, decadent dessert—
“I’m Michaela,” she said, sticking her hand out, in some parody of a normal person. A normal person who really, really wanted dessert. “Michaela Townsend.”
Jesse Grey, the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen outside of a Hollywood movie, shifted slightly, so he was no longer leaning there against the back wall of Grey’s Saloon. He looked down at her proffered hand as if it was spiked and potentially poisonous, and that seemed to take a very long time. But then, at last, he took it.
Mistake! Everything inside Michaela screamed, and she would have been annoyed with herself for that, too, but she was too busy being caught up in what was happening between them.