She drew a quick breath, clamping her lips shut. He suspected she was trying to hold in a moan. Excellent.

“You’re good and wet already, aren’t you Casey?”

She nodded, breathing hard.

“So wet I could get down on my knees, spread those legs wide open and worship your perfect body with my mouth?”

A small pant emanated from her lips—those lips that had sent him straight into oblivion earlier today. “Yes,” she murmured.

“So wet that you’d be calling my name in less than sixty seconds, right?”

“Yes.” Her chest rose and fell with each breath. “I want that so much.”

He licked a quick path along the shell of her ear. “You fucking love everything I do to you.”

“Everything, Nate” she said, her voice all hot and wanton. She turned to him, firing up every synapse in his nervous system with the look in her sapphire eyes—they were hazy with desire, and she gazed at him like a woman in heat. Lust rolled through his body, chased by pride. He loved turning her on. He loved being the one who could get her in this state. She was so patently aroused.

“And now, we have a new painting from a rising star in the European art world. Miller Valentina. I start the bidding at three thousand pounds. Do we have three thousand pounds?”

She swiveled around, snapped to attention and thrust the paddle in the air. Damn, she was even hotter with her focus on the prize.

“We have three thousand in the room,” the man at the podium intoned, pointing at Casey, as he scanned the crowd, then quickly nodded to the other side of the crowd. “3,250 in the room,” he said from his post.

Nate followed the auctioneer’s gesture. A man in a pinstriped suit near the back raised a paddle too. His shoulders tensed. Casey had a competitor. Nate tried to size up the guy from a distance. Slick gelled hair, a too-tight suit, and a goatee.

Casey raised her arm again. “That’s 3,500 in the room,” the man called out, as the price rose in increments.

She turned to Nate, speaking in a voice laced with pure determination. “I’m not letting this slip away. I want a Valentina,” she said, having shifted from lust-struck to single-minded in seconds.

“3,750,” the man at the front said.

Cheetah fast, Casey raised her paddle once more. Damn, she was hot going after something she wanted.

But the goateed-man wanted the painting too and signaled his intent.

“We have four thousand in the room.”

Casey’s arm went up again. Nate glanced at the guy in pinstripes. He matched her bid.

The pair of them went on like that for another few rounds, neither Casey nor her new nemesis backing down. Nate was tempted to jump in and offer some ridiculous price to guarantee the painting would be hers, but he knew that wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t come here to have a man swoop in and save the day with his wallet. She came here for the thrill of the chase, and for the prospect of winning the prize. She wanted to win it on her own terms. But there was no way he’d let this guy take what his woman wanted, so he figured he could help her along in another way.