Page 98 of Wild Eyes
Seeing it in practice isn’t as dehumanizing as I imagined. The guys all look happy and amused, cracking jokes to crowd-wide laughter. And they are all ages and all body types. Each man raises a couple hundred dollars, and I beat myself up for putting a kinky Hollywood spin on what is a charming little fundraiser for a worthy cause.
When West comes out, the hooting and hollering gets louder. Each decibel makes my stomach drop lower, carving out a pit just behind my ribs.
I press both my hands there and Rosie’s eyes follow the motion.
“You can bid, you know,” she whispers.
I scrunch my face and shake my head. I’m an interloper here, and I don’t need to be territorial over a man I barely know. He can go on a date with someone.
I’ll befine.
“We’ve got the town’s favorite eternal bachelor up now,” the announcer says. “Weston Belmont. He’s here for a good time, not a long time, ladies.”
West props his hands on his hips and drops his head, body shaking with laughter. He looks fucking edible. Brown leather lace-up boots, done up loosely so the tongue hangs down. Light wash jeans. Thick thighs. A plain white T-shirt. So simple, but on his tanned skin, it pops. He glows.
The older man nudges him. “He loves getting into trouble. You can often find him on the back of a horse. Buck as much as you want, he’ll stick the ride.”
“Good lord, man,” West chuckles as he scrubs a hand over his stubble, cheeks flushing pink above the neatly trimmed line of his beard.
My shoulders heave under a labored sigh. His gaze finds mine across the sea of people and we’re caught in each other’s eyes for a moment. West’s body tenses, and I’m pretty sure I can see all his muscles through his shirt.
My fingers burn with the memory of touching him freely.
I itch to do it now. March up there and show everyone how fucking blistering the heat between us is. They can take him on a date, but they’ll never havethat. I know because that kindof chemistry doesn’t come around every day. Or even every lifetime.
“Let’s start the bidding at one hundred dollars because I know y’all love to spend on this hometown boy.”
Hands fly up.
My heart drops. I turn my head away to stare at the lake, pretending I’m bored even though I am anything but unaffected.
Two hundred.
Three hundred.
Four hundred.
Then a voice I recognize has my head whipping to my right. “Five hundred,” Bree shouts with a smirk on her lips. The women around her pat her shoulder like she’s done something impressive and not just forced a guy who ended things to spend time with her. Which he will because he’s a man of his word.
I cringe.
Six hundred.
Seven hundred.
“Eight hundred,” she calls, shiny red nails glinting in the sun as her hand shoots up.
I seethe.
Nine hundred.
“A thousand,” she screams. Her hand does this swirl of a flourish, and the crowd goesawwas though there’s something adorable about her and West.
Based on the tight set of his jaw, there’s nothing adorable about this. His baby blues latch on to me and I glance down quickly to avoid showing him the insecurity I’m feeling.
“Seems like we have a new record, folks. Do I see eleven hundred?”
The man peers out over the crowd, and I stare at him. I refuse to look at West, though I swear I can feel his gaze on me.
