Unleashed: Volume 1 (Unleashed #1) (7 page)

I saw some girls
milling around in the dimly-lit haze, their eyes on me like circling
sharks. Soon, one of them would work up the courage to come over to
me. I liked them easy, and filtering out the shy, reserved ones in
favor of the ones bold and horny enough to come to me worked that out
real nice. It also decreased the likelihood of some dumb shit of a
boyfriend entering the scene while I was over hitting on his girl. I
didn’t need to add any more drunken bar brawls to my name. I’d
fought and won my fair share, no need to prove myself on that score.
Now wasn’t the time to get in trouble. I didn’t need Johnny law
in this two-bit town circling my name on his list. Now was the time
to turn my shit around, get my plane in the air and fly straight up
and out.

I wanted someone free,
ripe and ready. The kind of girl who’d come up to me, serve herself
up on a platter. She’d probably say something stupid and touch my
tattoo, following the patterned band up my muscles.

I could tell Kara had
wanted to do that this afternoon. She had no idea what she really
wanted. It wasn’t me. She was pure, spun gold, all honey sweet and
good. I was dirt and grit and pain. I was the poster boy for dark,
tortured souls. Some girls liked exactly that. Others liked the
challenge of changing me, as if they could be the one to turn me
around. It would never happen.

“Hey. Are you from
around here? I don’t think I’ve seen you before.” A girl came
up next to me. She had jet-black hair, dark red lips and a short
denim skirt she let ride up as she sat down.

“Hey yourself.” I
gave her a slow smile, checking her out, and then took a long swig of
my beer. She smiled back and trailed a finger down her necklace as if
playing with her jewelry. Only her finger kept on going, tracing a
line down to her cleavage, then along the edge of her tank top. Right
where my tongue would be in a few minutes.

Later, in the parking
lot in my truck, she sucked my cock good. And she liked doing it,
dripping wet and moaning as she sucked while I twisted her nipples
and forced her head down on me so she’d take it deep. I could spot
the ones who liked it that way, who got off on it the way I did.

This one would be fun
to play with. She’d liked to be fucked good and hard against my
truck, like it raw and fast up against a bathroom wall. But as I
closed my eyes and she pumped me, sucking nice and tight, it was
Kara’s lips I pictured doing it. It was Kara’s hair I pictured
fisting, her mouth I felt going down on me. Kara taking me deep down
her throat, swallowing it all as I shot out a huge, hot load of come.

Now

Landing fist after
fist, I made the sweat pour off of me. I always worked out
full-throttle, but that afternoon I had hell’s fire licking at my
heels. I worked the bag, taut muscles rippling as each fierce punch
landed.

Why did I have so much
pent-up energy I could fuel a city grid? It didn’t make sense to be
so worked up. Kara was just a girl, like so many others. My fists
pounded the bag vicious, relentless.

That pout when I’d
asked her why I should bail her out, her plump lips that I wanted to
bite. Those tits straining against her thin white t-shirt. The image
was burned into my brain, how round, how perfect they looked, thrust
out as if mine for the taking. But they had never really been mine
for the taking.

I remembered how she’d
stood in front of my desk as my eyes had roamed the length of her
body. She’d stood still for me, letting me take her all in,
allowing my fantasies to play out over her curves and planes. When
I’d looked at her breasts, picturing exactly what I’d like to do,
teasing, sucking, licking, biting, her nipples had hardened. As if
she knew exactly what I was thinking and she liked it, wanted it,
maybe even needed it the way I did. So responsive, like she’d been
made for me.

I couldn’t think at
all after she’d left. I’d paced my office like a caged wild
animal, made it through a few calls, then cancelled everything that
afternoon and hit the gym. For my second workout of the day. I gave
my punches my full body weight, pounding the bag with a series of
furious hits.

I’d underestimated
the power of seeing Kara again. I’d told myself it wasn’t a big
deal. By the numbers, she was simply one of many girls I’d known. I
honestly figured by now she’d be married and maybe even pregnant
with some other guy’s kid. Not standing there looking hotter than
ever, defiant and strong yet also more vulnerable than I’d ever
seen her before. Needing me.

But I didn’t do
emotions. I was always in control, stone cold, in command. I was damn
good at it, too, in all aspects of my life, personal and
professional. My ruthlessness served me well in business. And in the
bedroom, it made things simple when you never let emotions interfere.
I was always clear with any sub: what we engaged in was pure, raw,
paint-peeling sex. And nothing else. It didn’t dampen any of their
enthusiasm. It even made some of them enjoy it more, abandoning all
of their inhibitions to walk on the wild side.

Panting, I paused to
take a swift chug from a gallon water jug. I wiped my forehead with a
towel, then stood with it dangling from my hand on my hip. Across the
room the new girl at the front desk was just about falling out of her
chair watching me. She was eye-candy, put up there near the entrance
in a short skirt and tight top to draw guys into the gym. It worked.
She was hot. I couldn’t remember her name. I gave her a nod and she
practically lit up like a Christmas tree.

I looked away. I wasn’t
interested. I moved over to the speedbag. I needed to keep at it,
make the sweat pour off of me, punch something senseless if I had any
hope of clearing my head.

Who ever thought I’d
be in this position now, Daddy Warbucks to Kara Brooks? The spoiled,
precious daughter of the ranch owner living high up on the hill. Out
the window of the spartan, one-room cabin where I’d spent my
summers, I could see it. To me, it had looked like a mansion.
Sometimes a light would twinkle down from her bedroom, letting me
know that the princess in her tower was still awake.

When I’d come to work
for her dad, I’d been a lean, rangy mutt. Aged out of foster care,
already with a criminal record, I’d been bouncing around between
odd jobs, drifting through life. Some days, I hadn’t always had
enough to eat.

Kara had seemed like a
luscious dream. Man, the way she used to look at me. I swore under my
breath. Blonde and blue-eyed, sweet and innocent, Kara saw moonbeams
in the air and rainbows in the sky. And when she looked at me, it was
all stars in her eyes.

Her dad hadn’t
exactly been thrilled about that. I moved back to the punching bag,
grunting and sweating with effort and deep-seeded frustration. She’d
been up on a pedestal that I couldn’t touch, tantalizing me. The
girl I couldn’t have. But now look how Harlan had failed. Here she
was, coming straight to the jaws of the wolf, looking for help.

Damn it. I punched
again, thinking of Harlan. I’d tried to warn him, six years ago.
That ranch was going belly-up. I’d known it way back then. I’d
tried to talk Harlan into the future, tried to get him to see the
potential in his ranch. The luxury tourism market was booming in
Montana. All those rich city slickers wanted to come out and buy
themselves a slice of real life and they didn’t mind paying through
the goddamn roof to do it. But Harlan hadn’t been interested. He’d
been too set in his ways.

And now Harlan was
dead. Drenched and panting, I finally rested my head against the
punching bag.

Why hadn’t I heard
about that? Why hadn’t Bill called me? I would have gone to
Harlan’s funeral. Of course, I hadn’t checked in once during all
the intervening six years. Why would Bill have called me? There was
no way for him to know that I still thought about the ranch and
Harlan. Or how often I still thought of Kara.

I took another long
slug of water and wiped the sweat from my brow with a towel. The
clock overhead read 5:30. I didn’t want to stop moving yet, though.

I jogged the blocks
back to my condo. People were getting out of work, heading into the
late June sunshine that still felt hot at quitting time. I wondered
where Kara was, somewhere nearby. I’d see her in a little over an
hour.

I got to the Stanyon
hotel and took the elevator up to the top floor. I owned the whole
building: restaurant, bar, hotel and the penthouse suite where I
stayed while I was in Montana. I didn’t spend much time there these
days. Scoping out new sites, checking in on investments, meeting with
partners took me all over the states. I hadn’t gone international
yet, but I was talking to a couple of people about expansions.
Constantly being on the move suited me well. I liked the feeling of
always pushing ahead, taking things to the next level. When life got
quiet, I got restless.

I stood by the picture
windows in my living room. The view was breathtaking, the city laid
out beneath me framed by the mountains beyond. But I didn’t see it
half as vividly as the woman I was meeting for dinner.

I was pretty sure that
she had no idea that I owned the property. I liked that. I wanted to
see her eyes widen when she found out. It would gratify the monster
inside me that wanted her to know how well I’d done. I wanted her
surrounded by my power, feeling it deep inside. I knew it was
childish, that I was a sick bastard, but I wanted her to feel just
how much the tables had turned.

Starting to pace, I
forced myself to think about the easy way out. Tonight, I could keep
things simple. I could meet Kara for a quick dinner, cut her a check,
and get her out of my life for good.

Of course I’d give
Kara the money. I didn’t know how much she needed, but I was sure
it wouldn’t be a problem. I’d done well over the past few years,
really well. I now owned and operated luxury wilderness lodges and
communities all over the western states. Lately I’d started
expanding into other high-end commercial real estate ventures like
the Stanyon. Money made more money and I was damn good at what I did.

Plus, if I didn’t
bail her out even my stone cold heart might have a moment of pause. I
might look back and feel some of that…what did people call it? I
think it was guilt. I didn’t want to mess with that. I would give
her the money she needed.

I could help her with
no strings attached, no need to pay me back. Then it would be back to
business as usual. I’d head to Bozeman for the weekend to check on
some of my properties. Monday morning I’d hop a flight to New York,
next week New Zealand and I wouldn’t look back. There’d be no
reason for us to ever see each other again.

The beast within me
roared for more.

I headed into the
master bath and cranked on the shower, hot. Steam started curling out
of the glass-enclosed chamber. I stripped down naked.

The problem was, it
wasn’t often that life served you up your fantasies. And this
wasn’t just any fantasy. This wasn’t the sexy substitute teacher
in high school I’d hoped wasn’t wearing panties. This was the one
who got away, the girl who’d kept me hard for months on end and
continued to torture me all the years since. I’d never gotten her
out of my system. Even now on a warm summer’s night, six years
slipped away and it was her soft, plump lips, her erect, needy
nipples and her sweet, juicy ass that starred in my most hardcore
erotic fantasies.

Stepping into the
shower, I lathered my skin, letting the hot water pound into my wired
muscles. That workout could have killed an ox, but I was still raring
to go. My cock stood up full, demanding and rock hard.

Who’d believe Kara
Brooks had come walking back into my life? The one woman I couldn’t
forget. It wasn’t as if I was hurting for company. I knew I could
pick up my phone and have a woman with me in the shower in twenty
minutes. I didn’t work to get women, they came to me, flocked was
more like it, with an almost boring predictability. It had always
been that way. Even back when I’d been a piss-poor kid in trouble
with the law, I’d still had that bad boy edge girls loved to run
their fingers along, even if it got them hurt. Now that I had money,
there wasn’t a woman I couldn’t get my hands on. Model, porn
star, married bored and rich, I’d tasted them all.

But Kara, she was my
ultimate fantasy. Back when I’d known her, I hadn’t even realized
what I fully wanted. Now I knew. I’d gotten more sophisticated over
the years. I didn’t just go to random bars anymore and pick them
out of a line up, though I was pretty good at that, finding the ones
whose eyes would glaze over with lust when they gave in to
submission.

Now I went to clubs
that catered specifically to men with my particular tastes. BDSM
clubs, where you could train someone new or acquire someone who
already knew the ropes. Literally. Billings even had one, small and
basic but it did the trick. And once I got to New York, I had my pick
of the darkest fantasies the world had to offer. I’d learned how to
wield power and wield it well, how to bring a woman to the brink
again and again, taking her further than she’d ever dreamed and
finally giving her the release she deeply craved.

Back when I’d known
Kara, I’d only known that I wanted her. Now I knew I wanted to
possess her, own her, dominate every inch of her and more.

And she’d come to me
needing me. Vulnerable. Asking for my help. Wanting to be put under
my control, actually asking to work for me. I had to bite back an
ironic laugh. She was an innocent. I could see it in her eyes. Years
had passed but she had no idea what she was messing with.

I reached down and took
my hard-on in my hand. Grasping my thick shaft, I began to stroke. I
could feel the need within me. She’d once had power over me. Now it
was time to have power over her. Complete power.