Auctioned

by Mia Ford

  Table of Contents

  Auctioned

  Katrina Donovan

  Nicky D’Angelo

  Katrina

  Nicky

  EXTENDED EPILOG: AUCTIONED

  JOIN MIA’s FAN CLUB

  More Steamy Romance by Mia Ford (Available exclusively on Amazon only)

  AUCTIONED

  MIA FORD

  Contents

  1. Auctioned

  Katrina Donovan

  Nicky D’Angelo

  Katrina

  Nicky

  Katrina

  Nicky

  Katrina

  Nicky

  Katrina

  Nicky

  Katrina

  Katrina

  Katrina

  Nicky

  Katrina

  Katrina

  Katrina

  Katrina

  2. EXTENDED EPILOG: AUCTIONED

  JOIN MIA’s FAN CLUB

  More Steamy Romance by Mia Ford (Available exclusively on Amazon only)

  Copyright © 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on life experiences and conclusions drawn from research, all names, characters, places and specific instances are products of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. No actual reference to any real person, living or dead, is intended or inferred.

  Created with Vellum

  My Dear Reader,

  First of all, I would like to thank you for choosing to download my book and read it. I am very grateful to you on board and will try to bring your reading experience to new heights.

  FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE, I have included a few bonus stories right after the main book.

  AFTER THE BONUS STORIES, I have included “Gloves Off” that has never been published before and is exclusive to this book.

  You can read all of these super steamy and explosive content via the Table Of Contents (TOC).

  Once you are finished reading, I would love to hear back from you! So, if you have any feedback, don’t forget to write back to me @ miafordpublishing@gmail.com

  I hope you enjoy my work and help me in my journey to become a leading author in romance. I look forward to your support!

  xoxo Mia.

  Mia Ford. Let Loose Your Inner Nymphos.

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  1

  Auctioned

  She’s broken and scared.

  She thinks it is easy to walk away.

  What she doesn’t know is how hard those curves are making me.

  The game is already over as she locks her seductive eyes with mine.

  It’s decided. I am buying her V-card today.

  The problem: Seems like I wanna spend more than one night with her.

  This is my first time participating into this kinda thing.

  There must be a reason they call it – THE V*RGIN AUCTION.

  I am really not the kind to get into relationships.

  Relationships are….let’s say complicated.

  I would rather have the girl at my mercy, begging for more and screaming my name tied on to my bed.

  And then I walk away – always.

  I never f*ck the same woman twice.

  But she seems to be different.

  Those s*xy eyes, tiny waist and breathtaking curves make me break all my rules.

  I want to own her pleasure – forever.

  But first I have to win her trust.

  They say relationship is not a bad thing after all, is it?

  Katrina Donovan

  I never thought that four little words could have such an impact on my life. I mean, if you had told me yesterday, or this morning even, that the plans I had so carefully laid out for my future would disappear on the turn of a card I would have said you were crazy. Then again, I was Tommy Donovan’s daughter, and Tommy Donovan quite possibly had the worst luck of any gambler east of the Mississippi.

  He and I lived in a tiny apartment above a seedy bar because he had gambled away everything we had owned after my mom died of cancer ten years ago. I remember coming home from school one day to find a rented moving van out front of our nice suburban home, and him stuffing our belongings into it at a harried pace, as if we had to leave as quickly as possible because of some evil that was headed our way.

  I stood there in my little school uniform with my books clutched to my chest, asking what was going on. He just told me to get in the truck and be quiet. To this day, I don’t know what exactly happened or why we had to leave so quickly, other than he had lost our home and most of our possessions playing cards. I thought his gambling days were over because we had nothing more to lose. I guess I was wrong.

  “They are gonna kill me,” my father said quietly, like he was talking to himself, or someone other than me.

  I glanced up from the other side of the folding card table we had wedged into one corner of our kitchenette and frowned at him. For a moment, I thought I’d imagined his voice because I was so lost in my own thoughts. We rarely talked anymore, even on Sunday, the one day when we sat down to eat together. My mother loved our Sunday family dinners and always refused to let anything interfere with them, even my father’s bad habits or addictions.

  “I don’t ask for much, Tommy Ray Donovan,” I recalled her saying, though I couldn’t recall the sound of her voice. She was Irish, and her voice had a lovely lilt that I hoped would be mine someday. “You don’t have to attend church, but you can at least sit down for an hour and eat with your family.”

  I never got her Irish lilt. My voice is husky and my tongue is sharp like everyone else’s in the neighborhood. Sunday dinner is not as big a deal as it once was. Now we just go through the motions to honor her memory, I suppose, though many Sundays my father is gone before I got out of bed and doesn’t return until time to open the bar for lunch on Monday.

  We had never been close, my father and me. I was a mama’s girl and he preferred the company of his gambling buddies to his family. Now, we simply shared a living space, not a home. We rarely talked because neither of us had much to say to the other. It was as if it had all been said and there was no need to say anymore. We were just biding our time until I could get into a good school and start pursuing my own dreams and leave my old life behind. Sometimes I wondered if I would ever see my father again after I went away to school. Sometimes I wondered if he would survive without me or simply drink himself to death without me around to mother hen him all the time. If that happened, I wondered if I would even care.

  I watched him for a moment without saying a word. His head was down. He seemed to be mumbling to himself. He was picking up the food on his plate with a fork. He hadn’t eaten a bite of the meatloaf I’d made, or the instant mashed potatoes that I’d slathered with butter and salt. Granted, I would never win an award for cooking, but we allowed ourselves the luxury of meat once a week and he usually devoured whatever I put in front of him like a starving man, then ask for more before I could take a bite. I knew something had to be seriously wrong if he was poking the meatloaf with his fork rather than shoveling it into his mouth.

  “Is there something wrong with the meatl
oaf?” I asked. I had allowed myself a small piece and thought it tasted fine, or as fine as my version of meatloaf could taste. I wasn’t much of a meat eater, which worked out well since we could rarely afford meat. Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t poverty-stricken or starving, but money was always tight, even though the bar did a good business most nights. I knew my dad pocketed a lot of the cash that came through the till and that was okay. It was his business and his life. I planned to be out of there soon anyway, with or without his help.

  I picked up the bottle of ketchup and held it out to him. “Do you need the ketchup?”

  “No,” he said quietly.

  “Then what is it?”

  “Did you hear what I said?” he asked, sounding irritated.

  “I guess not,” I said, setting my fork aside. I took a deep breath and held it as I put my hands in my lap and balled them into tight fists. I was getting the feeling I’d had that day I came home to catch him packing the moving truck. Something bad was coming our way again. I just knew it. I braced myself for the worst.

  “They’re gonna kill me,” he said quietly. He put down his fork and pressed his palms to the table, one on each side of his plate, as if he was trying to keep the table from floating in the air. He looked up with tears in his eyes. “They’re gonna kill me. And there’s nothing I can do.”

  I shook my head to make sure I was hearing right. I let my eyes go around his face for a moment. I guess I didn’t pay much attention to him anymore because it was as if I was staring at a stranger. I hadn’t noticed how old and worn out he had become. He was only fifty-seven but looked to be closer to a hundred. His once pleasant face was pudgy and red from the drinking. Little blue veins mapped the skin beneath his eyes and across his thickening nose. His skin had an ashen pallor, like a man who had not seen the sun for a very long time. He had put on weight and was losing his hair. And he had big tears in his eyes. That was the thing that caught me off guard and told me that something was wrong. I’d never seen my father cry. Not even when they were lowering my mom into the ground.

  “Who’s going to kill you?” I asked with a little disbelieving smile on my face. My father wasn’t a kidder, but I thought, surely, he can’t be serious. His expression told me he was. “Jesus, Daddy, what have you done?”

  He took a deep breath and let it shudder through his body. When he took his palms from the table they left a perfect outline of sweat on the surface. He rubbed his hands together and avoided looking me in the eye.

  “I have debts,” he said, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. “I owe people.”

  “What kind of debts?” I asked, already knowing the answer but wanting him to confess out loud. I laced my fingers together in my lap to keep my hands from shaking. “Daddy, what debts and what people?”

  He glanced up for a second, then quickly looked back down at the plate still in front of him. He looked like he was praying as he quietly said, “Gambling debts. And who the people are don’t matter other than they want their money by the end of the month or they’re gonna kill me.”

  I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was sad, but I wasn’t that shocked by what I was hearing. Honestly, I was more shocked that it hadn’t happened sooner.

  “How much do you owe, Dad?” I asked the question calmly, even though my insides felt as if they were being ripped to shreds. “Dad? Look at me and tell me how much you owe.”

  His eyes came up slowly as he blew a long breath through his round cheeks. He wiped the snot from his nose on his hand again and brushed a knuckle from the other hand under his eyes. “Seventy-five thousand dollars.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ, dad! How can you lose seventy-five-thousand dollars playing cards?” I barked at him without meaning to and he flinched at the tone of my voice, like a pup being scolded by its owner. My fists came up and settled on the table, ready to be thrust into the air or into his nose.

  “I lost it playing cards,” he said. “And betting on horses.”

  My mouth literally fell open and my head bobbed as if it had gotten too heavy for my neck. “Horses? Dad, what the fuck do you know about horses?”

  “Don’t use that language in this house,” he said, giving me a frown. “Your mother wouldn’t approve.”

  “My mother wouldn’t approve of you losing seventy-five-thousand dollars either!” I screamed. I was suddenly furious with him and I couldn’t help but pound my fists the table. “Oh, my god, dad, what the fuck were you thinking?”

  “I don’t guess I was thinking,” he said. He folded his arms over his chest and leaned back from the table as if he thought I was going to punch him and he needed to be out of arm’s reach. “I just got caught up at the track. I was ahead in one race, so I doubled down and won that one, then won another.” He looked at me, pleading for understanding with his eyes. “I swear, Katrina, it was like I could do no wrong. Like God was finally rewarding me after so many years of losing.”

  “I don’t think that’s quite how God works, dad,” I said, huffing at him. “Otherwise there would be slot machines in church. Then what happened?”

  He shrugged and looked away. “So, I doubled down again and, well, the horse didn’t win.”

  “Oh my god,” I said again, covering my eyes with my fingers and shaking my head. “These people that you owe the money to, who are they?”

  “People you don’t know and don’t need to know,” he said forcefully, as if he was warning me to stay away. “But they will kill me if they don’t get their money. I have no doubt of that in my mind.”

  I held out my hands to signal that I needed to catch my breath and process what he’d told me. I got up from the table and went to the coffee pot on the counter and filled two mismatched cups. I had bought a pecan pie for dessert, but I knew there was no need to slice it. You don’t tell your daughter that you’re going to be killed by hoodlums then ask for a slice of pie. At least not in this house.

  I didn’t bother putting anything in the coffee. We both drank it black to save money. I set a cup in front of him and sat back down with mine. I could feel my heart racing in my chest as I held the cup to my lips and blew a cooling breath over the surface. The mist settled beneath my eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Katrina,” he said, his voice hoarse and low. He took the cup between his hands and stared down into it, as if he thought it held the solution to his problem. “I’ve been a lousy father to you. And now, well, I don’t know what to do.”

  He glanced up at me with tears in his eyes and quickly looked away. If he expected me to feel sorry for him or to defend his fathering skills or was just fishing for compliments, he was shit out of luck. He had been a lousy father and I would never tell him otherwise. He blamed his heavy drinking on his grief and his incessant gambling on his desire to make a better life for us. It was all fucking bullshit and we both knew it. He was a degenerate drunk and a chronic gambler before he met my mother and resumed it quickly after she died. She kept him tempered during the marriage, but I think after a while she, like me, got tired of trying to keep him on the straight and narrow and just let him run free.

  He could blame his shortcomings on her death until the cows came home, but we both knew the truth even though we’d never spoken the words. Still, he was my father and the only family I had left. Even with his faults, and they were many, I knew he loved me in his own way and would never intentionally put me in danger, but this could affect us both in tragic ways. If these people were as ruthless as I thought, they would probably kill him, then come after me. Or at the very least force me to sign over ownership of the bar, the only asset the poor Donovan family had left.

  I hated him at that moment, but he was all that I had left, the last link to my mother, the one person who loved me completely and unconditionally. She said loving me was as easy and natural as breathing in the spring air. I won’t lie, after cancer took her I cried myself to sleep many nights, often wishing that it had been my father who had died rather than her. But life wasn’t built o
n wishes, she’d say.

  The best thing I could do to honor my mother was to set my own course and follow it. That’s why I had applied to MIT. I wanted to be a cancer researcher, even though I had no idea how I would cover the massive tuition even if I was accepted into the program at the ripe old age of twenty-one.

  I would apply for grants and loans to supplement the ten-thousand dollars I had managed to save working as a dishwasher, fry cook, and busboy in the bar since I was fourteen. Seven years of hard labor and that was all I had to show for it. Ten grand wouldn’t pay for one-quarter’s tuition at MIT, but it was a start… Then it hit me. That money, the money I had saved for my future, now might have to go toward saving my father’s life. Fuck.

  I finally broke the silence by asking the obvious question. “How are you going to pay them back?”

  He let his shoulders go up and down. “I don’t know.”

  “Is the bar worth anything?” I asked. “Can you get a loan on the building?” I knew the place wasn’t worth much. Tommy’s Bar & Grill, and the ramshackle building that housed it had been in his family for years. It was originally started by his grandfather, Tomas Donovan, then passed down to his dad, Thomas, and finally to him. It was all we owned and it wasn’t much. The bar occupied the entire bottom floor and we lived in the tiny eight-hundred-square-foot apartment upstairs. I had my own bedroom and he slept on the couch. There was a living room and kitchenette combination and one bathroom. That was it. And every day I expected the building to fall down around us.

  “The place is already mortgaged to the hilt,” he said, looking around the room and shaking his head. “The business account is low. The credit is maxed out. We operate week to week. All our savings are gone. There’s nothing I can sell that’s worth anywhere near what I owe.”