Three Hearts Beat as One (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (6 page)

Still laughing, Lacey swiveled her head to view Devin Jonas. He stood in profile to them, talking to some ranching types, two of whom were pretty women in their thirties. A different aspect of Devin struck Lacey for the first time. Her gaydar wasn’t pinging. Never had, actually. She’d just assumed he was gay because he spent so much time with Chase and, well, had been known to kiss Chase. Now, gasping, she turned back to her friend, but Katrina was quicker on the draw.

“You’re thinking what I’m thinking. He’s not really gay. I know. This morning I was just remembering that two years ago he had a pretty serious relationship with a gal who lived in Rough and Ready. He’s been around forever, you know. He just must have gone to a different school than we did, and he’s a little older than us. He took over the ranch when his dad died when he was a teen.”

As much as Lacey liked dwelling on the picture of Devin Jonas sliding his tongue down a female abdomen—or any other abdomen, actually—the damned auctioneer was now blaring out, “Up next for your bidding pleasure in the annual Hell’s Delight Buy Yourself A Damned Valentine auction is Lacey Pearson.”
Oh, God. He used my married name.
The auctioneer shielded his eyes from the overhead lights as he looked at the audience like a ship’s captain. “Where are you, Lace? Where is my delightful morsel?”

Lacey groaned loudly. “Oh, God. Here we go.”

The usual drunken suspects whistled and catcalled as Lacey skipped up the four steps onto the stage. This part of the gala had never bothered her before, of course. She had always known that Ben would bid up to a thousand dollars on her, but he’d never had to go higher than three hundred and ten thanks to the bookstore guy.

This time, Lacey had to lean over and say into the auctioneer’s ear, “Lacey Dvorak.”

“What?”

“Lacey Dvorak. I divorced Ben Pearson.”

To her further mortification, the auctioneer strode to the front of the stage and shouted, “Gents! And you ladies from the Cultured Pearl motorcycle club, heh-heh! It’s
Miss
Lacey Dvorak now, much to poor old Ben’s chagrin, so shouldn’t this drive the numbers much higher?”

“Fifty bucks!” yelled the book shop guy.

A member of the Cultured Pearl bike club must’ve raised her paddle, for suddenly it was a hundred bucks. Then two hundred. Lacey felt like a goddamned sheep led to slaughter standing up there in the bright lights.
I’m never doing this again. Never. Ever. Never, ever.

True to his word, Cal brought the bidding up to four hundred. Now Lacey wasn’t feeling so horrible. This was higher than Ben had ever had to go. Thank God for stepbrothers. Then another Cultured Pearl member brought it up to five hundred and ten. Lacey knew—or hoped—that these women were just kidding and bidding for the sake of charity. She was very afraid of motorcycles.

“Five hundred ten, who’ll give me five hundred fifty, five hundred fifty, who’ll give me…” The auctioneer paused his rapid-fire chant to gasp, “Seven hundred?” He shaded his eyes and squinted at someone in the audience. “Why, is that Mr. Jonas of the Hardscrabble Ranch? Mr. Jonas, you are
too
generous! Donating a vacation and now bidding on this lovely miss to help us get streetlights.”

Holy mother.
The perhaps-not-terribly-gay Devin lounged, confident and relaxed as all hell, against a one of the Lion’s Club pillars. His lazy grin said he didn’t really care about Lacey and was just doing this for the stupid streetlights. The auctioneer assumed Devin was gay, the audience assumed he was gay, but they all cheered so loudly Lacey’s ears hurt. And she noticed she was smiling.

The drama escalated suddenly. Now Devin’s partner, that buff Chase Moran, was waving his paddle. The two men jokingly shoved each other, each in turn raising his paddle to rapidly bring the bid up to nine hundred. The leather-clad bidder must’ve had a bigger sense of humor, for she was practically beating the gay men with her paddle to outbid them.

“
Nine hundred!
Will you give me nine hundred fifty, do I hear nine hundred fifty—”

“
A thousand!
”

A collective gasp swept over the crowd. Ben Pearson was waving his paddle wildly as he was wont to do. Apparently he was drunk or something worse, and had been carried away with the excitement of the moment. He had always loved attention, and now he’d certainly gotten it.

“A thousand!” declared the auctioneer then resumed his prattle. “Do I hear a thousand and fifty…”

The tension only intensified from there. The biker woman dropped out—but not without throwing her paddle in disgust at Ben—and Chase Moran seemed content to leave the bidding to his partner.

Devin waved his paddle. Then Ben. Then Devin. Then Ben got up on his chair like the Statue of Liberty, and the bidding was up to a thousand three hundred.

Lacey had never known Ben was such a good actor—or cared that much about actual charity. Every time one man would raise the bid, the crowd would roar. Lacey even got into the spirit of things, pacing the stage like an auctioneer, raising her hands as though lifting up the crowd’s spirits. She laughed, she clapped—she genuinely was having a good time. She even stopped listening to the mindless droning patter of the auctioneer, it was so amusing to watch Devin, and then Ben, thrust their paddles into the air in a macho show of one-upmanship.

Devin was clearly having a good time, his friends and guys who must’ve been ranch hands or mates in his country and western band clapping him on the back and shaking him. Ben’s annoying party friends egged him on with seeming anger. They fist-pumped the air like an audience of British soccer fans. Ben was doing a very good job of appearing enraged by Devin’s taunting. It was entertaining to see Katrina and their girlfriends over on Devin’s side of the audience, smashed between the cowboys and guitarists or whoever they were. This was by far the most lively auction Lacey had seen in her years of attending this function.

“One thousand eight hundred!”

Ben’s face was red with pretend rage. He trembled with a clenched fist then bashed one of his moronic friends with the paddle before stalking off like a tin soldier, probably to the bar.

“
Sold
to the most generous Mr. Jonas of Hardscrabble Ranch for one thousand eight hundred! Sir, you are a paragon and a gentleman! I am confident that
Miss
Lacey Dvorak will give you your money’s worth under the lights of Jack London Street’s new lamps!” He held up Lacey’s fist now as the winning prizefighter, and she’d never been happier.

One thousand eight hundred!
Not even Lisa Groper, the former homecoming queen, had ever gone for more than one thousand five hundred, and her husband was the area’s biggest realtor.

Devin came forward to the stage and reached a hand up to Lacey as she descended the steps. Well, that was to be expected. He’d just given the merchants association a huge chunk of change. Women she’d barely spoken to before were clutching her arm, exhorting things like, “You go, Lacey!” and “Ride that cowboy for me, girl!” Women who weren’t even members of the Cultured Pearl whispered racy things in her ear.

“He goes to my gym. He can bench press two hundred pounds.”

“Maybe you can ride both those cowboys at once, Lacey. I think Chase Moran comes with the deal.”

“You can tell he’s got a big donkey’s cock, Lacey. Watch out!”

The association always poured doubly stiff drinks in the hour preceding the live auction.

Katrina stuck her face close to Lacey’s. “That was a
great
one, Lace! Ben is seriously pissed off!”

That didn’t make any sense. Why would Ben be seriously pissed off?

Lacey remained quiet as Devin escorted her through the crowded dining room. Oddly, Chase was nowhere to be seen. The drunk gal was correct—the two men
did
seem to be attached at the wrist and ankles. Maybe Chase was letting Devin have his day in the sun. Get his money’s worth, as it were. Even Ben’s idiotic cronies were hooting and howling at the top of their lungs, so Devin probably couldn’t have heard a thing she said, anyway.

An auction for a new girl started, and things quieted down a bit as Devin steered Lacey to the bar. Still, so many people congratulated them that Devin was only able to order Lacey a plastic cup of cheap white wine before steering her toward a back staircase.

“You don’t have to,” she started to protest. She didn’t want Devin to feel obligated to pretend to actually
like
her. He had more important things to do, like run a ranch, and fuck his partner, Chase. Thinking of either one of those things stimulated her, and her entire body buzzed with excited energy to be in his manly presence.

“No, no,” Devin protested back. “Come in here.”

Upstairs, he took her into what must have been the Lion’s president’s office. It was dark in there, of course, but they stood by a window with heavy brocade curtains drawn aside. Lacey was still flush from the excitement of the auction, so she’d chugged nearly half the wine before realizing it and putting it on the sill.

“Boy, does Ben Pearson hate to lose,” she giggled. “I never knew he was that good of an actor, so it must’ve been his sore losership showing through. I’m just glad he didn’t hit
you
with the paddle.”

“I’ve been paddled by worse,” Devin said ambiguously, grinning that seductive grin that never failed to make Lacey’s clit quiver.

“I really have to apologize for Ben’s behavior. You probably know he’s my ex-husband. You may have seen him bid on me in years past. Obviously, tonight he wasn’t planning to. He had another woman to waste his money on. I seriously had no idea he’d be so competitive that he’d drive the bidding up like this.”

Devin’s eyes glittered with sincerity. He’d taken off his cowboy hat at some point during the bidding, so now she was able to see his soft brunet hair standing out in messy spikes. “I don’t think it was a competitive nature that drove him to bid, Lacey. And no one’s
that
good of an actor, especially not a guy who owns a yogurt shop.”

Lacey frowned with confusion. “They why do you—”

Devin looked to the ceiling for assistance. “Because, Lacey. It’s a guy thing. He’s probably still in love with you.” He looked down at her as though he pitied her for not understanding guy things.

And she didn’t. If it wasn’t about money, or ego, then…Lacey shook her head. “Well, who gives a shit why Ben Pearson does anything.” She was being honest. She really didn’t give a shit, for the first time in years. “I’m just sorry that his idiotic behavior caused you to spend more money, but it’s all for a good cause. I hope you don’t think that earlier I was manipulating you into bidding by giving you that sob story about the Folsom prison inmates.”

Devin was sheer beauty when he laughed. Even, white teeth. Muscular throat. His denim shirt had the top few snaps undone, revealing hearty pecs with a delicious sprinkling of hair peppering the pit of his throat. Ben’s chest had been annoyingly smooth. Lacey enjoyed a softly hairy chest. “Look, I didn’t feel manipulated at all. I really
like
you, Lacey. You seem like a funny, witty, intelligent woman. And, as Chase keeps mentioning, you look like my fantasy girl, Kate Winslet.”

Lacey giggled even as she wondered.
Fantasy girl?
Katrina had mentioned that Devin had broken up with some Rough and Ready gal before he’d taken up with Chase. “I’ve heard that Kate Winslet comparison before. I just want you to know, your obligation to me can end here. You don’t need to feel sorry for me because I just had a bad breakup. I don’t
seriously
think some prison inmate is coming to get me. Okay, maybe some horny, pathetic bookstore owner.”

“Or that strong, brawny woman from the Cultured Pearl club.”

Lacey threw her head back and laughed fully. “Yes, her! She was new. She’s never bid on me in past years.”

“Maybe once she heard you were newly divorced.”

“Were you saving me from her? You’re such a Prince Charming.”

Devin was still laughing along with her, but his tone changed. “I wish I could say I bid on you to save you from the serial killer, or Saul Wakeman, the Peeping Tom bookstore owner.”

Lacey abruptly gasped. “Saul? A Peeping Tom?”

Devin ignored her. He even lifted a hand to her chin, rubbing his thumb along her jawbone. “I didn’t even bid on you to repay you for bidding on my ranch vacation. Lacey, I bid on you because I like you. It seemed to me a good way to show it, that’s all. I even outbid Chase, who bid on you because he likes you. And yes, because you look like Kate Winslet—you turn me on.” His thumb moved to rub her lower lip, which was somewhat agape at his words. “I know most people in town think I’m gay because of Chase. I know it looks that way, and I don’t really care. There’s nothing wrong with it, like you said. I have no reason to protest because I’m not ashamed of my relationship with Chase. We love each other. But we’ve always known there was room for a woman. The
right
woman. And I think I’ve found you.”

Lacey was having a difficult time understanding Devin. He loved Chase, yet they wanted to add a woman to their relationship? What, did they need a housekeeper? But a man didn’t rub the lip of a woman he wished to clean his kitchen floor. “I don’t understand, Devin. You want to break up with Chase and start dating women?”