The SEAL's Highest Bidder

by Tawny Weber

  Lose yourself in Tawny Weber’s sexy novella, available for the first time in ebook.

  Title: Petty Officer Cameron Drake

  Mission: Seduction!

  Navy SEAL Cameron Drake agreed to come home for his high school reunion. Signing up for a bachelor auction was not part of the deal. Unless Hope Goodwin agreed to outbid all the other women in Diver’s Cove, Oregon, for a night with him.

  Hope had always had a thing for bad boy Cam. A fantasy fling with the sexy SEAL might just get him out of her system. But would her heart still be intact once this sizzling reunion was over?

  Originally published in 2015

  The SEAL’s Highest Bidder

  Tawny Weber

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Well, hello there,” greeted an appreciative masculine voice. “If it isn’t the Princess of Roosevelt High.”

  Yes! Hope Goodwin had been waiting for this moment since the Diver’s Cove Community Center Benefit was announced. It could even be said—although she’d deny it—that as community development liaison, she’d planned the entire benefit for the sole purpose of seeing one particular person. And she’d be happy to play his princess as long as he was the sexy prince she rode on while the sun set.

  Ready to share that flirty—and yes, carefully rehearsed—comeback, Hope turned so quickly that she almost fell out of her Valentino Rock-Stud t-straps. Her heart raced and her smile glittered as bright as the chandeliers overhead.

  Oh.

  She was glad her lipstick was matte. Gloss would have been too slick to keep her smile from falling away.

  “Hi.” A surreptitious glance at the name tag kept her going. “Marty. Um, how nice of you to join us for the benefit. I hope you’ve been well.”

  In a voice carefully modulated to carry to as many people as possible, former football quarterback Marty Edwards told her all the impressive things he’d done over the last ten years since he’d graduated high school and left the small town of Diver’s Cove, Oregon.

  While he got down to the details of his boasting, Hope surreptitiously searched the ballroom.

  Already close to three hundred people here already, the crowd was thick. But she was sure she’d have no trouble spotting the man she was looking for. Granted, she hadn’t set sight on Cameron Drake in real life in eight years, but she’d know him anywhere. She should. She’d slept with his picture under her pillow for two years in high school.

  He’d been the sexy bad boy from the wrong side of town. Intriguing at a distance, then after he’d helped her out when she’d been sixteen, he’d been more. He’d been real. Gruff and sweet and oh-so-tempting. The off-limits troublemaker who’d inspired fantasies hotter than Hope had known what to do with at that tender age.

  And before she’d been able to find out, he’d left town.

  Leaving Diver’s Cove filled with men no better than the braggart now boring her senseless.

  Hope eyed the former football player as he showed off photos of his cars.

  Perfect guys. The kind of guys her mother had been determined Hope would marry. Ones so upright, uptight and boring that Hope was afraid that one day all that blahness would simply engulf her, smothering any and all prospect of her ever having a fantasy again, let alone actually living one out.

  “So what do you say, Hope? Are we going to be king and queen of the benefit like we were back in the good ole days?” Marty asked, his nudge replacing any and all fantasies with horror.

  Leaving behind the feeling of being bound by velvet chains to the role she’d played all of her life. The perfect daughter. The biddable friend, the sweet do-gooder.

  It was enough to make a woman with naughty fantasies curl up and cry.

  “There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere.” Bonnie Potter, Hope’s best friend and the only person in Diver’s Cove who didn’t see her as a pampered princess, teetered over on five-inch heels. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but we need you up front. Benefit emergency. You know how it is.”

  Bonnie blew Marty a kiss before tucking her arm through Hope’s and tugging her away. As soon as they were out of hearing range, she giggled. “Oh, the expression on your face. You looked like you’d swallowed a frog.”

  “Who do you know that eats frogs for your point of comparison?” Hope wondered aloud, matching her steps to Bonnie’s shorter ones. Her heels were lower, but her legs longer so she towered over the blonde by a good three inches.

  “You know what I mean,” Bonnie said, dismissively. After glancing at the large group of people by the first ballroom entrance, she used her hold on Hope to pull her to the other set of ornate doors. “Bottom line, I rescued you from a snooze fest.”

  “I was checking the crowd and got caught,” Hope admitted. More to the point, she’d been distracted by her search.

  “I don’t think you have time penciled in on your schedule for crowd control.”

  “I gave myself a little wiggle room.” Hope’s lips twitched at the reference to her obsession with time management.

  That obsession had come in handy in planning this benefit.

  Given her other obsession—Cameron Drake—she’d carefully tied the weeklong event to class reunions for ten years’ worth of Roosevelt High graduating students. Having grown up the daughter of Diver’s Cove’s wealthiest residents, she knew how important appearances were. The fancier and classier the events, the more money people would pay to participate, and ultimately donate for the center. She’d arranged a golf tournament, a tour of the local winery plus a spa day so everyone could relax. She’d spent months perfecting the banquet and formal ball to be held on Saturday.

  She’d done it all despite an irritating co-chair and a nagging town council.

  Still arm in arm, Hope and Bonnie stepped through the ballroom doors to the wide veranda. Most of the guests were entering through the hotel entrance, but they could see a few wandering in from the gardens.

  But none of them were Cameron.

  “He’ll be here.” Bonnie squeezed her arm. “It’s not going to be like your seventeenth birthday party.”

  Hope tried not to groan. At least, not out loud.

  There was no way to prevent the mental groan for that horrible memory. She’d begged, wheedled and planned an elaborate excuse of a party for the sole purpose of having something to invite Cameron to. She’d insisted on barbeque because she’d heard it was his favorite, she’d chosen the DJ music from the playlist of songs she knew Cameron liked. And when her mother had put her foot down, demanding approval of the guest list or she wouldn’t pay for the party, Hope had emptied her savings account.

  Only to find out he’d left for Navy boot camp the day before she’d worked up the nerve to ask him to attend.

  “Maybe he’s here and I missed him,” she murmured, turning back toward the ballroom. Hope pressed her hand against her silk-covered stomach, trying to calm her dancing nerves. He’d RSVP’d that he’d attend. She’d checked to make sure he had a reservation here at the hotel. She’d even checked to make sure his flight had arrived on time.

  Not that she’d shirked her chair duties.

  The Goodwin Community Center was secure. Her mother had seen to that by donating the land and funds to build the center last summer. But she’d died three months later, before she could implement her vision of a place for families to gather, for children to play and teens to hang out after school. She’d seen the center as a place that included the entire community.

  The town council,
on the other hand, had an entirely different vision. An adults only type vision. But enough people on the council were still sympathetic to Hope’s loss, so they’d agreed to give her until the end of January to raise the funds to outfit, furnish and fund the center for a year.

  “It sucks that Pete March is such a stickler about the money,” Bonnie said as she waved to the newest arrivals.

  Hope could have funded the rest of the center’s requirements through her trust fund if not for the council treasurer’s claim that the Goodwin family had reached the limit of charitable donations for the year allowed by the town.

  So she’d paid for the benefit instead.

  “You are way too wound up.” Bonnie inclined her head toward the music and voices spilling out of the ballroom. “You’ve done everything you can. The benefit is off to a good start and your dream guy will be here when he gets here. You need to learn to let yourself enjoy life once in a while.”

  But that’s what she did, Hope wanted to say. She dreamed the big dreams. Then she planned and she prepared and she did everything she could to make them come true. But had she ever enjoyed herself?

  Her eyes widened.

  What if Cameron came back to Diver’s Cove and instead of seducing him, she hid behind her duties? What if they did spend time together and he realized that she was still too much the good girl for his tastes?

  Her fingers clenched together, strangling each other.

  Or worse, what if they did get together. What if they stripped each other naked before rolling their bodies in honey, and she worried too much about attracting bees to enjoy herself?

  “Let it go,” Bonnie advised as if reading her thoughts. “Remember, this event is actually about more than giving you a chance to ride Cameron Drake like a roller coaster.”

  But what if she rode him like one of those roller coasters that swirled and swooped and did it upside down? She didn’t have to look at Bonnie’s expression to see that was a no.

  “I know my priorities.”

  As if summoned to challenge that statement, the vision of her every lusting thought stepped through the garden. Tall, dark and handsome didn’t do justice to the sight of Cameron Drake.

  He was bigger, was all she could think. Broader, more muscular. Her gaze slid over the military cut of his dark hair, along the sharp angle of his cheekbones to rest on those shoulders. Easily wide enough to hold onto for any roller coaster riding, she noted before her eyes slid lower.

  Was he bigger everywhere? She had no actual frame of reference, but it stood to reason that he was. Her eyes met his again and all she could do was wonder how long it’d be before she found out.

  Cameron reached the doors, his eyes locked on hers.

  Then he smiled.

  That wickedly crooked smile that lit his dark eyes and promised so many naughty delights.

  “Hello, Hope.”

  She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Probably because she couldn’t breathe. Swallowing carefully, Hope pushed her trembling lips into a smile and held out her hand. Her knees shook as desire wrapped around her, gripping tighter than the hand holding hers.

  Cameron Drake. The hottest guy to graduate Roosevelt High and now a sexy SEAL. She’d crushed on him for as long as she could remember. She’d wanted him with a desperate need she barely understood. This time she was having him.

  “Cameron.” She gave him her most seductive smile. “Welcome home.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Petty Officer Cameron Drake took a long, slow look around the ballroom. Impressive. Pretty much everything glittered. The crystal chandeliers overhead, the mirrors on the walls, the fancy-assed guests milling around with their party smiles on.

  He’d grown up in an apartment less than a mile away but this was the first time he’d actually set foot on the Goodwin Country Club and Golf Course. It’d always been the fancy place on the hill. Close enough to see, yet totally out of reach.

  He shifted that long, slow look to the woman standing in front of him.

  Even more impressive.

  She wasn’t as flashy as the ballroom. Her hair was a gentle sweep of ebony, falling without curl or frill to her shoulders. Wide blue eyes were fringed with lashes that seemed long enough to touch her silken bangs.

  Unlike the country club, Cam had spent a lot of time wanting to get closer to this Goodwin. When he was seventeen, it’d been because she was off-limits. Yes, he readily acknowledged that he’d been that much of a jackass. When he was eighteen, it’d been because he’d realized how sweet she was. Pure, even, although that hadn’t been a word that bad-ass Cam Drake had let anyone hear him use. But that’s what Hope had been.

  Pure and sweet.

  And sexy as hell.

  “I’m grateful that you came back for the benefit,” Hope said softly, her voice as smooth as silk. “Did you see much of Diver’s Cove on your way into town? Has it changed since you left?”

  “Yes and no.” Cam shrugged. He’d barely paid attention, except to acknowledge that there were a few extra traffic lights slowing him down. All he’d been thinking about was getting here and seeing Hope. Crazy, sure. It wasn’t as if they’d been a couple. He hadn’t seen or talked to her in the eight years since he’d left. But he’d heard from her every few months.

  “Thank you, by the way.” At her confused frown, he explained. “The letters you wrote me. I appreciated them.”

  Hers had been the only letters he’d ever gotten. Nobody from Diver’s Cove had anything to say to him worth putting a stamp on. His old man sure as hell hadn’t cared if he was there or gone. But Hope had written.

  At first, he’d ignored the letters. All he’d wanted was to put Diver’s Cove and everything about it behind him. But Hope had simply continued to write until he hadn’t been able to resist writing back.

  “You’re a hero.” Her smile was just a little wicked, as if she knew how uncomfortable words like that made him. “The least I could do was write. Besides, I didn’t want you to forget about… the town.”

  “Not possible.” Cam’s smile took on a deeper edge as color washed over her cheeks. “I think about…the town all the time.”

  Definitely more than he should, given that he’d vowed when he left Diver’s Cove that he was done with the place and everyone in it.

  But he’d never been able to forget Hope.

  “Why don’t we go somewhere and get a drink?” He glanced around the crowded ballroom, his gaze sliding past the curious looks, ignoring the surprised stares. “Somewhere else.”

  Her expression torn, Hope waved, her slender hand encompassing the ballroom and the people.

  “I really can’t.” The regret in her words was echoed by her frown. “I’m hosting the benefit, so I’m supposed to stay here. You know, to greet people and mingle.”

  Sounded like torture to him.

  “So be bad,” he suggested in a low, husky tone. He stepped closer. As he breathed in the fresh sweetness of her perfume, he watched her pulse jump in her throat. And smiled. “If you don’t know how, I can teach you.”

  “You’ll teach me to be bad?” Those big, dark eyes lit and a smile of anticipation spread over that pretty face.

  It was all Cam could do not to lean down and taste her right then and there. He could see the nervousness in her eyes, mixed in with curiosity and desire.

  He didn’t consider himself an expert on the fairer sex—exactly—but Cam knew passion when he saw it. And in Hope was an untapped passion. One that would explode with the right touch. His touch. He just had to find the right spot.

  Her mouth?

  The delicate curve of her neck?

  Those lush breasts?

  Cam’s eyes lowered, his grin widening.

  He’d bet she had a lot of right spots, all of them waiting for his touch.

  His body stirred at the idea. Her lips parted, just a little, the lower fullness glistening as if asking when.

  Before he could decide if he was going to give the people a show or wa
it for privacy, an annoyingly familiar screech filled his ears.

  He and Hope cringed at the same time.

  “There you are. Cameron Drake, you naughty boy.”

  Damn.

  Hope’s expression closed, but not before he saw a flash of hurt in those expressive eyes.

  Cameron’s demeanor didn’t change. He didn’t stiffen, he didn’t frown. Hell, he didn’t even blink. He credited that to a foul talking Recruit Division Instructor with a penchant for sniffing out fear. And if ever there was a woman to inspire fear, it was Rae Burton. Aka, Man Eater.

  Cam’s refusal to return to Diver’s Cove hadn’t had anything to do with avoiding Rae. She hadn’t been that important. But as he turned to face the woman he’d dated for five minutes in high school and barely escaped with his privates intact, Cam had to admit that not seeing her had been a definite plus.

  “Rae.” He nodded at the curvy redhead.

  “Cam.” Before she could make good on the full-body dive he saw intended in her eyes, Cam hooked one hand around Hope’s waist and pulled her tight against his side. She made for a pretty small shield, but he was man enough to admit that when it came to redheaded barracudas, he’d take any shield he could get.

  It didn’t seem to be slowing Rae down, though. Completely ignoring Hope, she stepped closer and scraped her fingernails up and down Cam’s forearm. She probably thought it was sexy.

  Cam thought he’d better get a rabies shot.

  “I saw you on the RSVP list and I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve got a quiet corner all picked out for us. We’ll have a drink, catch up and talk about old times.”

  “Sorry. Can’t.” Feeling Hope stiffen even more next to him, Cam sighed. Damned manners. As much as he’d rather, he couldn’t ignore them if it’d upset Hope. “I’ve already committed the evening to helping Hope with the benefit. Good seeing you, though.”

  That must have satisfied Hope’s manner-meter, because she relaxed into his side, her body curving to his in a tempting invitation. Heat shot through his body, sharp and intense. Cam was scouting the exits and calculating the distance to his hotel room when Rae spoke again.