Player - The Elite Part Three Read online

  Player

  The Elite Part Three

  By USA Today and Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author

  KB Winters

  Copyright © 2016 BookBoyfriends Publishing LLC

  Published By: BookBoyfriends Publishing LLC

  Copyright and Disclaimer

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination and have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright ©2016 BookBoyfriends Publishing LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of the trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Contents

  Player - The Elite Part Three

  Copyright and Disclaimer

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Free Book Offer!

  More From KB Winters

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to the brave men and women of our armed services who put their life on the line everyday to protect our freedom.

  Thank you for your service.

  ~ KB

  Chapter One

  It was the thrill of the hunt.

  I’d never been one to actually go hunting—at least not in the context the term was normally used. For me, hunting entailed chasing down rare, vintage planes from all over the world, and doing whatever it took to get them in my hands. There was nothing more satisfying than finding the right bird, the right time, and making sure when I walked away—it was the right price.

  A victory made even sweeter when it was a screamin’ hot deal.

  When I wasn’t hunting planes, I spent what little free time I had available hunting down a good time. Busty blondes, hell bent on proving they know how to have more fun. Rowdy brunettes, trying to keep up. Sassy redheads with fire in their veins. Tall, short, curvy, athletic, and even this one time, I got tangled up with a girl who could flat-out kick my ass. It didn't matter to me. As long as the girl was a good time, I had no complaints.

  I loved them all. At least for a night.

  That afternoon, it wasn't the thrill of a nice piece of ass that had my heart pumping and adrenaline dumping into my veins as I prepared for the ultimate chase. No, this time it was a machine. A Vietnam era McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom, to be precise. It was gleaming. In pristine condition. I’d never wanted a plane more.

  The only downside was that I wasn't the only one.

  I'd been to a lot of auctions over the past couple of years and I couldn't recall a single one that had pulled in more foot traffic. The warehouse where the event was being held was packed. It had been advertised all over town, and everyone wanted to come and see the Carl Edwards collection. Edwards was an eccentric, grandiose billionaire with the taste for the finer things in life. After hitting it big in a mid-90s tech boom, he’d spent the rest of his years globetrotting—collecting vintage planes, cars, and an assortment of very beautiful women—if the rumors were true. He’d recently passed away, and his final wish was for all of his stuff to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, and the funds raised at the auction, were to be evenly distributed between his top three charities.

  It was all very noble.

  Not that I cared much where the money went. All that mattered to me was that it was my money in exchange for my plane.

  Edwards name had drawn quite a crowd, collectors from all over the country poured into Los Angeles where the event was held. As I’d wandered through the crowd, I’d found it impossible to tell who were the serious buyers and who were just there to see Edwards’ huge collection of the coolest flying machines and vehicles on the planet.

  Luckily for me, the F-4 hadn’t appeared to be the main draw. Prior to the beginning of the auction, I'd been able to get an up close inspection of the plane, and found it to be even more perfect than the pictures I'd seen on the auction site. I knew when I saw that bird online she had to be mine. Now that I’d seen her up close and personal–I wasn’t leaving without her. It was the same fighter jet my dad had flown in Vietnam. I chuckled as I remembered back when my dad used to take me on base and let me sit in his plane. I’d run my fingers over the switches and lights on the instrument panel, dreaming of the day I’d fly my own plane. I’d go back to school and tell my classmates how I was gonna be a fighter pilot when I grew up. They told me I was crazy.

  Just like my dad.

  I had the perfect spot for her back at the museum. Front and center. As the auction continued, I stretched back in my seat, and casually glanced over the program in my hands. It was printed on some fancy ass paper, all glossy and shiny. Most of the auctions I’d attended didn’t even have a program. Let alone something so slick. I smirked, imagining some prissy, uppity event coordinator and her pack of designers, agonizing over every inch of the damn thing.

  I was definitely not in Kansas anymore.

  Most of the people in the room probably spent their days on the golf course, out for corporate lunches, and home—or out with their mistresses—by nine. I lived in sharp contrast to such a structured life. Most days, I spent coated in engine grease, tinkering out in the hangar, working to breathe life back into my current masterpiece.

  When I wasn’t busting my ass in the garage, I was up in the air, taking up groups of tourists to get an aerial tour of the California coastline. Even then, I was in my flight suit, which was a far cry from professional attire. Today was the first time in years that I’d actually dressed up. I was wearing my only pair of pants that weren’t dotted with holes and tears, stains from grease, paint, or some other solvent. I’d paired the slacks with a button up shirt, but opted to skip the tie. Although, as my eyes flashed around the room, I realized I was a little out of place from the rest of the corporate drone types.

  I returned my attention to the program in my hands, my impatience starting to get the best of me. My eyes landed on the F-4 and I scanned up from the listing to the current item on the block, in an attempt to figure out how much longer I’d have to wait until the beauty would be mine. There was a crapload of vintage cars that were being cycled through, and after they were all spoken for, the F-4 would be the first of the three planes that Carl Edwards had owned—good thing I only wanted one.

  I sighed, waiting for the next car to be brought up to the auction block. The showroom was really just a massive warehouse that had been decorated to the nines. I was fairly sure that when the space was not in use for events, it wouldn't look all that much different from my own warehouse back home, which was about as no-frills as it could get. Dull cement floors, off white ceiling tiles, and permanent grease stains. In contrast, whoever had planned the auction, had really gone all out to transform the typical warehouse into an expansive room that felt more like some fancy hotel ballroom. A plush green carpet had been laid down over the floor, each chair around the center stage was draped in heavy linen and embellis
hed with little gold ribbons tied around the back, a decorative touch that I could almost guarantee ninety-nine percent of the people in the room didn't give two shits about. Or, maybe it was just me.

  They’d even gone to the trouble of setting out two marble topped bars, one on either end of the room. When I’d shown my ticket at the door, I was given my bidding paddle and three paper tickets, each one could be traded in for a drink.

  I wasn’t about to become fancy, but there were definite perks to living the life for an afternoon.

  One other perk to the highbrow affair, was the absolutely staggering amounts of beautiful women in attendance. Usually, at a car or plane auction, there would be models who’d been paid to attend and show off the assets of the cars—a.k.a. their own assets—and flirt shamelessly with the potential buyers, in hopes that's the item would fetch a higher price on the auction block.

  This was different.

  These women were dressed to the nines, and though some were wearing fairly revealing attire, none of them looked like the typical car show models I was used to seeing. Nope, this was an entirely different caliber of women.

  High-class women—or hookers—it didn’t matter to me.

  They were a fun bunch—and I could fuck any one of them just as prim and proper as the next millionaire—but they usually didn’t want that. These women wanted a ride. A hot, take-no-prisoners, fuck. And I was just the man to do the job.

  I scoped the room as the auctioneer took the stage to start bidding on a pricey Jaguar. It appeared that most of the women were either spoken for—or paid for. I could get used to this.

  Some of the women were dangling off the arms of some rich looking geeks, smiling and networking with anyone they got close enough to talk to. It was kind of an odd scene. Half auction and half socialite event. Or maybe it was just an auction with a bunch of high class hookers. In any case—attached or not—I knew if I wanted to—I could take home just about any woman in the room.

  They didn’t call me Player for nothing.

  I smiled to myself, thinking about my old call sign from my days in the Navy. Sometimes, in the hustle of my new life as a business owner and entrepreneur, those days felt about a million miles away. If not for my best friend Jack, a.k.a. Boomer, McGuire, I had a feeling I’d wonder if those days had happened at all. I didn't regret leaving the Navy. It was both a duty and an honor to take over the Rosen Air Museum after my father's unexpected passing nearly two years ago. And I’d made the most of it. In that short span of time I'd grown the business from something that was more akin to an expensive hobby, into an extremely profitable business. My progress had opened more doors for me than I'd ever thought possible.

  But, there had been tradeoffs as well.

  Instead of spending my days flying ops overseas aboard an aircraft carrier—I worked sixty hours a week—, sometimes more, chasing down new planes to display at the museum and fixing up the ones I bagged. When I wasn’t coated in grease and cussing out stubborn, rusted bolts and finicky engines, I took tourists up for flight tours of the coast in any one of the old planes I'd rehabbed back to life, and managed nearly a dozen employees that made the day-to-day operations at the museum possible. I would’ve never thought Rosen Air Museum would be so big and profitable—and so much work.

  I loved it all, but when I slowed down, for a day like today, it caught up with me and I could feel the wear and tear of the long hours and hundred miles an hour lifestyle I’d thrown myself into. It was nice to have an afternoon off, and no obligations for the rest of the day. I’d driven almost four hours down to L.A. and was booked in a fancy hotel so I didn’t have to crank out another four hours on the road after I’d bought the plane.

  Which got me thinking about what I was going to do to celebrate my victory, when—not if—I won the F-4.

  I spotted a brunette across the room, and watched as she sipped the edge of a martini glass. She had a bored look on her face, and her body was posed in a way that told me she was looking for a distraction. Her long, tanned legs led to the hem of an insanely tight, short black dress that wrapped around her ass like a second skin. One elbow was propped back on the bar, thrusting her big tits up and out, an impressive amount of flesh spilling out the top of the equally tight top. Her long, dark hair fell halfway down her back in a sleek, shiny curtain, and I grinned, knowing just what I’d do with her. Even from across the room, my fingers itched to weave through her hair, tugging on it as she worked my cock between her hooker-red lips.

  I was ninety percent sure she was the one I wanted to take back to my hotel room, when her friend joined her, and my jaw damn near hit the floor. She was almost a carbon copy of the brunette, same curved body, perky tits, and long hair, but had blonde hair that was shorter, and curlier. The two women appeared to know each other and began chatting as they scoped out the room together. My entire body pulsed in time with my heartbeat as I conjured up images of taking them both back to my hotel room.

  The images that danced in my head were enough to make me lose all track of time.

  The words “McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II” snapped me back like an overstretched rubber band. The announcer was back on stage, and a giant, nearly true size, version of the plane was projected onto the wall behind him. My heart rate jacked up at the sight of it, even though I had just seen it less than an hour before. All thoughts, plans, and distractions involving the leggy pair of women at the bar, were immediately pushed from my mind and I locked in on my prey.

  The announcer stepped aside so the auctioneer could take his place to begin the bidding. He opened with a starting bid of $100,000 and I smiled, the taste of victory already on my lips.

  I waited, in an attempt to get a feel for the other buyers in the room. Four paddles immediately shot into the air, and my smile deepened. I knew it was going to be a tense battle.

  And it was.

  Chapter Two

  Within minutes, the paddles and big numbers were flying faster than most people could keep up with. The auctioneer was spitting out numbers and bidders, the price skyrocketing higher and higher. I raised my own paddle over and over, not backing down, even as the number climbed well into six figures. A dozen bids in and the field had cleared, leaving the battle down to me and one other buyer.

  From my seat, I had an easy vantage point of my competition. He was a well-dressed, arrogant looking son of a bitch in the second row. I didn’t recognize him from any of the other auctions I’d attended, which surprised me. I didn’t know—or care—why he wanted the F-4. As far as I knew, the seats in the first few rows had been reserved for only the most elite of the upper crust gathering. So, whoever he was, he obviously had the funds to keep the game going.

  I was glaring in his direction after my last bid, and watched as he raised his paddle, half a heartbeat later. When the auctioneer acknowledged his bid, the man turned in his seat and flashed a daring smile in my direction.

  His message clear—don't fuck with me.

  His expression only added more kindling to my fire. With an equally nasty smile, I held his gaze for one full beat before waving my paddle high and proud. A murmur of surprise rippled through the crowd, like it was some big drama, and I grinned all the more.

  The hunt was on, and I was closing in on the kill.

  The auctioneer spat out the next absurd number and only then did I see a hints of a falter before Mr. Douche in the Second Row raised his paddle. All eyes shifted to me, everyone in the crowd eagerly awaiting my response. In a move that was half frustration and halfcocked asshole, I stood from my seat, planted my legs wide, and shouted above the roar of whispers, "Nine seventy-five."

  My bid registered and I sat back down. With a smug sense of self-satisfaction, I crossed my arms and relaxed back in my chair, shooting one final dagger into my opponent from across the room.

  On stage, the auctioneer hesitated, stumbling for a moment before offering an opportunity to Mr. Douche in the Second Row to counter.

  After a lengthy stare
down, he shrugged, as if to say "no sweat off my back" and lay his paddle down in his lap.

  The auctioneer called my number as the winner, and after a generous smattering of applause, I got out of my seat and took my leave. I wasn't interested in any of the other items in the auction and was eager to sign the paperwork and arrange transportation for the F-4 back to the museum.

  My plane.

  * * * *

  Nearly an hour later, with the deal wrapped up, I headed out of the event, back to my truck in the parking lot. The sun was sinking, and I was eager to get out on the town and celebrate my victory. After the paperwork had been finished, I’d looked around for the blonde and brunette but they were nowhere to be seen. It was a disappointment, but I knew downtown L.A. had more hotties per block than any other city in the world. It wouldn’t take me long to find entertainment.

  As I walked across the lot, I was searching on my phone, debating which bar I wanted to hit up first. It had been awhile since I’d been in L.A., and I wasn’t sure which were the current hot spots. I glanced up from the screen to make sure I was headed in the right direction, and I heard my name called out from across the parking lot. I turned in the direction of the voice and saw Mr. Douche from the Second Row stalking towards me.

  I grinned at his approach. "Come to congratulate me?"

  "Not quite," he sneered.

  I shrugged. "Well, then I gotta say, I'm not all that interested. I have some celebrating to get to."

  "Listen, asshole, I don't know who you are, or who you think you are, and I don't care. But I'm Henry fucking O'Keefe and the plane is mine."

  I wanted to laugh at his pompous, puffed up, look-at-me-I'm-a-pretty-rich-boy, routine. I didn't give two shits who he was or who he thought he was. The plane was mine and I had paperwork to show for it. Paperwork, which I held up in front of him. "I gotta say man, it looks like my name’s on here, not yours. Why don't you take it like a man and move on with your life?" I sidestepped him, and shoved into his shoulder for added emphasis as I made my way over to my truck. I was reaching into my pocket for my keys when a hand grabbed at the back of my collar and pulled me down.