Unleashed #4 (17 page)

“You can scream,
Ana.” Ash licked at my collarbone, trailing fingers along my
outstretched arms. “You can yell at the top of your lungs. No one
will hear you.”

“Ash!” I cried out
as he sank down once again, capturing my erect, aroused nipple
between his teeth. He bit down just enough to make it burn so good.
He palmed my breast, feasting on me, sucking hard, then light, just a
whisper of a lick around my nipple as I panted and quivered. All the
rumors about this man were true, every single one of them. He was an
arrogant, rich playboy, a heartthrob and a heartbreaker, a
panty-melting bad boy who had dozens upon hundreds of women throwing
themselves at him night after night.

But he’d chosen me.
It was me he’d tied down to his bed, me he had nasty, dirty plans
for all night long. Me, alone with him, snowed in and at his mercy.

“You can scream when
you come, Ana,” he whispered, trailing his tongue down my stomach.
Slowly, so slowly. I moaned, wishing I could move, wishing I could
bring my sex up to him and make things happen faster. I’d never
felt so desperate, so crazed. Sex before Ash had always been blah,
mostly forgettable, slightly regrettable. It had never felt anything
like this rush of a roller coaster ride, this wild, heady plunge
straight into the unknown.

“It will be our
little secret,” he continued, down now at my hips. Large fingers
over my smooth skin, he worshipped my curves, feathering kisses down
the insides of my thighs. My ankles were bound at either side to the
bedpost. Suddenly shy at my complete and total exposure, I held my
breath. I couldn’t move. I had nowhere to go, no way to hide my
arousal. With his face down now at my pussy, he could see me dripping
for him, my swollen clit aching with need, throbbing and begging for
his attention.

“Here in this cabin,
you can let yourself go, Ana.” His words worked a dark, wicked
spell around me, relaxing and surrendering me into the intensity of
my pleasure. “Here, you can let me do all the things you’ve
always wanted. Everything you’ve fantasized about.” He brought
his fingers up, up my thighs, to finally, tormentingly, lightly graze
my slick slit.

I gasped at the
contact, so eager, so close. “That’s it, Ana,” he coaxed me
with his words and his fingers. “Show me how much you need it. It’s
just you and me here. No one will ever know. You can be my little
slut. You can scream and come and show me how much you want it, how
much you’ll beg for it. No one will ever know.”

“Yes,” I panted,
beyond reason, almost beyond words. “Yes, please.” His lips were
so close now, inches away from my sex. His tongue, so hot, so wicked,
so near I could almost feel it, could imagine how good it would feel
when he finally feasted on me.

“Ana,” he exhaled
in satisfaction, that gravelly voice that drove women wild caressing
me intimately. “So wet.” Reverently, he swept his fingers down my
slick sex, lightly sliding them along, exploring where I was spread
for him, aching and ready. “Surrender to me, Ana. The way you know
you want to.”

My head bucked back, my
throat bare. A raw groan escaped my parted lips.

“Now I’m going to
eat you, Ana. And you’re going to come for me, aren’t you?”

“Yes!” I panted,
wild with need.

“Then I’m going to
fuck you. I’m going to fuck you so hard you’re going to scream.
You’re going to come when I slide deep inside you. And as hard as I
slam into you, you’re going to beg for more. Aren’t you, Ana?”

“Please! Please!” I
couldn’t think anymore, couldn’t take any more teasing, coaxing,
building me up. I needed to explode. And then, finally, just when I
couldn’t take it anymore, he finally brought his mouth down, hot
and full, on my drenched, exposed pussy.

Chapter
1

Ash

Aw, fuck. My head hurt
like someone had cut it open with a broken bottle. Maybe someone had?
I brought my hand up, tentative. Nope, everything intact. Just my
skull in the grips of a massive, relentless hangover. Nothing new.
Then why did I feel like something new had happened?

With a groan, I shifted
my weight on the bed and swung my legs over the side. Slow and
steady, that’s how you won the race. Or moved your aching,
hard-partying body the morning after an epic night of tearing through
Vegas. Much like the night before and the night before that. People
expected nothing less from hotter-than-hell rock god Ash Black.
Trashed hotel rooms, run-ins with paparazzi, X-rated scenes with
starlets, I did it all while strutting around in leather pants and no
shirt, my world-famous muscles and tats on full display. I always
delivered.

But something else had
happened last night. My mouth tasted like soot and my head felt
stuffed with cotton balls, the scratchy, cheap kind. I couldn’t
remember. What was it?

Behind me, a feminine
grunt emerged beneath wrinkled sheets. Strands of dark hair splayed
across a pillow. Mandy Monroe, America’s sweetheart aka my
plaything at the moment, had blonde hair. Huh. I thought we’d been
hanging out last night.

Like a goddamned
chainsaw, my goddamned phone buzzed with an incoming call. All the
goddamned way across the hotel room. No way was I going to make it
that far.

Down on the floor
between my feet I spotted a tied-off used condom. So there was that.
Wasted as I got, I used protection on autopilot. The world already
had its hands full with just one Ash Black. No one needed any little
Ashes running around. My cock got out and played each and every
night, but procreation? Not going to happen.

The mystery woman next
to me snorted in her sleep. What was she doing still in my bed? I
liked my fun over and out—as in out of the room by the time I woke
up. I pulled the sheet down.

Ah, yes, I remembered
those tits, as big and gorgeous as only a plastic surgeon could shape
them. I remembered them bouncing up and down as she rode me last
night. I usually liked to dominate, play games of control, but last
night I’d been too wasted to do more than let her climb on and ride
me like a rodeo bull.

Tugging the sheet down
some more, I swatted her on the ass. “Up and out, Buttercup.”

Groaning, she opened
her eyes. Her mascara had smeared down like a Halloween costume of a
zombie prom queen. “You got to get going.” I pointed toward the
door. I didn’t even try to make up an excuse, something lame about
needing to take care of something. I didn’t ask for her phone
number as she fumbled around and found her skimpy dress, pulling it
on and zipping into her thigh-high boots. I was Ash Fucking Black. I
didn’t give out my digits.

“So, thanks,” she
mumbled. “If you ever want to, you know—”

“Yeah.” I gave her
my signature wink. Class dismissed. And what did she do when I was
such an asshole? She giggled and blushed, like they all did.

I could get away with
anything. And I took full advantage of it. I was 26 now, but I’d
been famous since I was 19 and my band charted its first number one
hit. People called us the harder-driving, U.S. version of Coldplay.
We had some Green Day in us, some Fun once you cranked them up. Some
compared us to the Sex Pistols or Guns ‘n’ Roses. Whatever you
called it or compared it to, we made music that made you jump up,
dance your ass off and bang your head against the wall. No ballads,
no whining, we made screw-the-consequences,
fuck-it-all-I’m-going-for-it RAWCK.

There were lots of
benefits to my status. Touring the world, VIP access to anything
anytime, but at the top of my list had to be the constant supply of
pussy. It wasn’t as if I’d been hard-up before I’d gotten
famous. My father was Richard Kavanaugh, billionaire real estate
mogul and investor. I’d learned early that being rich and handsome
opened up all kinds of doors and legs. But it was when I picked up a
guitar as a teenager that girls really started getting crazy. Waiting
for me naked in my bed. Texting me videos of them making out with
their girlfriends or playing with themselves as they thought of me.

By now, I’d gotten so
used to the whole sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll routine it was
almost boring. I was almost tired of it. Almost. Don’t get me
wrong. I wasn’t playing a tiny violin of pity for myself. I was
having the time of my life. Every night.

That was it, though.
With the exact same shit every different day, every now and then in
the midst of the wild and crazy carnival I’d have a whisper of a
doubt. I’d look around and think, is that all there is? Then I’d
do a show and get wasted and fuck groupies and nothing would matter
all over again.

I’d been the bad boy
for a long time now, my whole life really. I’d started off the
black sheep in my family, doing nothing right in my father’s eyes,
dark in my perfect older brother’s chip-off-the-old-block’s
shadow. Then as the rocker, I’d become the poster boy for
devil-may-care defiance. I’d spent years riding that long wave of
adolescent rebellion while I proudly held up my middle finger.

Sometimes I wondered
what it would feel like to stop. Get off the crazy train. Be still
and silent for even a moment.

When media darling
Mandy Monroe and I first got together a couple months ago, I’ll
admit it, I’d been curious about her. Everyone knew her story, the
daughter of a coal miner from West Virginia discovered on
American
Idol
. Seventeen years old and singing her heart out with
those big, brown eyes and long blonde hair, the world had fallen in
love with her. I’d wondered, maybe it would be different with her?
She’d certainly grown up outside the bubbles I’d lived in my
whole life. Maybe she’d be real?

I didn’t know what
kind of person Mandy had been at 17. But at 22, the Mandy I got to
know was as vicious and shrewd as they came, always angling for the
right PR shot, constantly scheming about how to stay on top of the
headlines. It hadn’t taken me long to realize her sugary image had
nothing to do with her sour reality. The only reason things had
dragged on as long as they had between us was we were never in the
same place at the same time. Until last night. We’d gone out to
dinner here in Vegas. Hadn’t we?

My phone buzzed again.
With a deep down-to-the-bones groan, I stumbled across the room to
retrieve it. I still didn’t get there in time to pick up. The
screen announced that I had 15 missed calls, 10 from my agent, four
from my PR firm, one from my older brother.

Uh-oh. My big brother
never called unless it was to give me shit. I’d done something to
screw up. What was it?

My phone rang again in
my hand. My agent. With a sigh, I picked up.

“Yeah?” My voice
creaked out, gravelly and hung-over.

If words came across
visually, his would be bright red and all caps. “WHAT THE FUCK?
YOU’VE FUCKED UP ROYALLY THIS TIME!”

“Goddamn it, Joel, do
you have to yell?” I rubbed my face with my hand. It was too early
for this shit. Wait, what time was it anyway?

“DON’T YOU TELL ME
TO QUIET DOWN! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING LAST NIGHT?”

“What are you talking
about?”

That made him pause.
“You don’t know yet, do you?”

Aw, shit. “What now?”
I’d clearly been up to something, but it wasn’t the first time
I’d gotten into hot water. That was why I employed a full team to
keep the Ash Black show on schedule.

“Watch it on YouTube.
It’s already got two million hits.”

“How do I—?”

“Type in your name.
It’ll come right up.”

I sat down on a chair.
I had a feeling it would be better to be sitting down when I saw
this. But, again, it wasn’t the first time I’d had footage of me
leaked doing something naughty. People might tsk and wag their
fingers, but they loved it. It was all part of my persona. Right?

My agent was correct, a
video popped right up under the title “A**hole Ash Black”. Only
35 seconds long, someone had caught it on their camera phone, a
perfect shot. Mandy Monroe and me in a fancy restaurant last night.
Tears streamed down her lovely face. I looked shitfaced, shadows
under my eyes, my black hair tufting out in crazy angles.

Listing slightly to the
left, I leered at her and asked, “What, are you gonna do? Cry?”

Her lower lip wobbled,
those famous big brown eyes brimming with tears. “Why, Ash? Why?”
she pleaded.

“You’re an idiot,”
I slurred. “And what’s worse, you’re boring.”

“But I thought…”
Her voice trembled. She brought her shaking hand to her heart. “I
thought you were the one.”

I burst out with an
evil villain’s laugh. Did I really laugh like that? More of a
cackle, really.

“I’m out of here,”
I declared, standing up and kicking over my chair like a twit. “Go
crying home to Mommy.” My sorry ass stumbled on out of the frame,
leaving Mandy alone at the table for two with silent tears of pain
traveling down her perfect face.

The girl deserved an
Oscar. It had been staged, all of it. I knew that the second I saw
it. I’d been in the media spotlight long enough to know, no one
held a camera phone that steady, at that perfect an angle, with the
sound quality so excellent at exactly the right moment without it
being a set up. It had all happened, that I knew as well, but she’d
arranged the whole thing right down to having someone seated nearby
to film it.

“Have you seen it?”
my agent asked. I’d forgotten he was still on the phone.

“Yeah.”

“This is a disaster.”

“It was a set up.”

“You and I know that,
but the rest of the world doesn’t. And don’t act like you didn’t
say all that shit. You know you did.”

Sure, I’d said all
that. I remembered now, all of it. Mandy and I had had a rip-snorting
fight earlier that evening. It had started out stupid, something
about how I’d said she looked pretty in a dress instead of amazing
or breathtaking or some over-the-top shit like a character out of a
Harlequin romance novel. It had escalated into a tantrum over how I
didn’t appreciate her enough. She’d thrown a glass vase against a
wall, screaming that a miserable, washed-up hack like me was lucky to
be with a bonafide superstar like her. No camera phone had caught
that, though.