Unleashed: Volume 3 (Unleashed #3) (15 page)

And then there was the
question of what had happened six years ago. After we’d spent those
long, intense nights together, my teenage infatuation taking deep
root in my heart, after he’d held me like he’d never let go. I’d
walked away from his cabin on cloud nine one night, then woken up the
next morning to a barren, grey apocalypse. I’d thought he was it,
my one and only true love, and after that night there was no denying
we were meant to be together forever. Instead I’d never heard from
him again.

Until now. So,
rationally, the question was a good one. What happened back then,
Declan? Why did you leave me?

But here’s the thing
about being in a bubble: it felt real nice. Protected, warm, not even
a gentle breeze to ruffle your hair-do. Lying there with Declan in
the sumptuous hotel bed, wrapped in his arms and our easy chatter, I
didn’t want to burst that bubble. I wanted to drift up and away
with it for as long as I could. At least until Sunday. So I let
myself enjoy it.

That afternoon he had
some work to do. I had a city filled with sidewalk cafes and museums
and shops selling anything and everything you could possibly imagine.
As I walked around, citified in my black jeans and a black T, my
heart felt light.

Maybe this would all
work out? Declan and I might have it all. We might make good on every
promise in every love song ever written, keep on after this week and
then forever in a fairytale happily ever after. It all felt too good
to be true, a country girl like me living out a fantasy week in this
amazing city. Declan had taken me to a Broadway show and restaurants
where we dined next to celebrities. Tonight we were headed to a
gallery opening—two words I’d never even had occasion to say
before, never mind attend—and then we had VIP access to a new
nightclub.

But maybe it wasn’t
too good to be true? Maybe it was just the beginning? Maybe we were
about to launch an entire future together, travel the world and get
married and have a whole bunch of beautiful babies while the fires of
our love burned ever-bright?

Funny thing about
pie-in-the-sky dreams, it was hard to make them last. I was mostly a
happy person. I found myself humming and singing to myself more times
than not. But in my experience, it made a lot more sense to feel
happy over the little things. The way a morning sky looked bright and
clear. A neighbor sharing some ripe apples. A catchy song coming on
the radio that you could sing real loud to when no one else could
hear. But when you let yourself go and started dreaming big, letting
your adrenaline flood you with that pumped-up feeling of
invincibility? Seemed to me that always hit a hard stop.

My balloon popped when
I got back to the hotel room. Declan was out, which I expected. He
had to meet up with some people and he’d texted me about it,
explaining he’d be back by six to take me to the gallery.

I’d seen it the
moment I’d stepped into the hotel room. On the countertop over by
the bar lay a thick cream envelope. It didn’t look like an ordinary
envelope. It was smallish and square, plus the paper was about five
times as thick as a regular banker’s envelope, practically
cardstock.

I picked it up and it
weighed down the palm of my hand. In calligraphy, black ink, the word
“Declan” swept across the front. No address, just his name. It
had the look of something professionally done, yet also looked
intimate, as if someone had penned it back in the 18th century.

It was open. I wasn’t
sure if it had ever been sealed. I didn’t see any evidence that it
had been ripped open. Perhaps it had been delivered directly to
Declan, or handed to him by the sender herself. Somehow I knew it was
from a woman.

I couldn’t help it, I
had to see what was inside. It wasn’t even a question of rational
thought, no decision led me to slip the card out of the envelope, it
simply happened.

Holding the thick cream square in my
fingers, first I noticed the embossed name along the top: Courtney
Piper Lord. My hand started shaking. Then I read the calligraphied
note:

Can’t wait to finish what we’ve
started.
Tomorrow night.
CP

I threw the card down
as if it had bitten me.

Finish what we’ve
started? What exactly had they started together? I know Declan had
mentioned they’d been working together on the charity party, how
helpful she’d been. But this wasn’t the sort of note you sent to
a business associate. I couldn’t see some investment partner guy
sending him this sort of a card.

No, this was seduction.
A lover’s note, eluding to hot nights in the past, promising more
to come.

Damn it. I should not
have picked that up. I would have been better off in ignorance,
happily getting ready for a night out on the town, showering and
dressing, full of anticipation. Blissful in my ignorance.

Now I felt furious and
disgusted, with Declan, sure, but most definitely with myself. Why
was I always such an idiot? Why did I insist on looking around me and
seeing Candyland when reality was anything but? Declan had never
promised me romance. He’d been straight and honest from the start.
He was a dom and I was his sub, paid for a week’s service.

It was all on me if I’d
gone and fallen for him again. If I lay on his chest and pictured
flowering meadows and marital vows, that was my own idiocy. If I
quivered with delight over the apple charm necklace he’d given me,
that was simply due to my own naiveté. I was sure he had his
personal assistant buy it for me, like he did for all the women in
his life.

I decided at least I
could take a shower. That much I could control.

As for the rest of it,
I just had to face facts. I was one of many. He’d never told me
otherwise. In fact, he’d put up hard limits around our
relationship, clear parameters defining our arrangement. Of course he
had other women in his life, others who meant far more than some kind
of a sex bargain. Apparently Courtney was one of them, maybe the most
significant of them all. And why wouldn’t she be? She fit in much
better than I did with his life now.

Anyone with 20/20
vision could have seen their intimacy from the brief encounter at the
restaurant, how she’d dragged her blood-red nails across his
shoulder. I was nothing to him—low-hanging fruit, a desperate farm
girl with no other options offering herself up to him for sex. Now
that I’d seen the kind of world he lived in, the high-rollers who
were his associates, I realized bailing out my ranch was play money
to him. It was the kind of change that fell out of his pocket on the
way to board his private jet.

I’d been living in a
big fat bubble, but that bubble had burst. I’d been walking around
dreaming about the kids we’d have one day, but this wasn’t
special to him. This was an easy fuck. To me, it meant everything.
And that’s why I had to leave, now.

Out of the shower, I
started packing. I didn’t have much. I wouldn’t take any of the
fancy stuff I’d bought with Declan’s money. Those were the
dress-up clothes of his week-long sex toy. I wasn’t that. I was
Kara Brooks and I needed to head home. Somewhere I had my old boots,
jeans and t-shirt, the ones I’d worn to our meeting only a week
ago. Could it have really been only one week? But, yes, Friday
morning I’d walked into his office in those boots and now I needed
to find them, put them on and walk back out of his life again. For my
own sanity.

“What are you doing?”
My heart skipped a beat at the sound of Declan’s voice. Hand up to
my chest, I clutched the towel around my naked body. I’d been so
intent on finding my old clothes, banging around in the bureau and
closet, that I hadn’t heard him come in.

“I’m looking for my
boots!” I knew I sounded overly upset but that was the least of my
problems. Why had he come back in the middle of this? A few minutes
more and I could have been gone, in a taxi to the airport.

“Why do you need your
boots?” He kept calm and cool, of course, looking outrageously sexy
in a dark fitted suit and deep red tie. He loosened it as he spoke.

“Declan…” I
crossed my arms in front of my chest. I hadn’t worked out what to
say to him. I didn’t think I’d have to. Finally, I choked out, “I
saw Courtney’s note.”

“What?” He didn’t
sound mad. He sounded like he didn’t know what I was talking about.

“The note, that
square thing!” I gestured out the door vaguely in the direction of
the countertop. “I saw her note. How she can’t wait to finish
what you’ve started.” My words came out hot, jealous, buzzing in
my ears like the stereotype of a spurned lover in a soap opera. I
hated playing that part, but I had no choice. I felt enraged,
wounded, venomous, the epitome of a woman scorned.

“You’ve been
reading my mail?” His voice kept low and controlled as he removed
his jacket and tie.

“It was out on the
counter. It wasn’t like I searched through your stuff and ripped it
open.”

“But you picked up
something addressed to me. Pulled out a private note, and read it.”

“Declan, that’s not
the point!” I felt shaken and upset, my breathing coming fast,
tears close to the surface.

“What is the point?”
He took a step toward me. I took a step back.

“It’s what she
said. It’s what’s between you two.”

“What is between us?”
He took another step toward me. I retreated again, coming up against
the wall.

“I don’t even want
to know.” I shook my head and looked away, trembling, hating myself
for still wanting him to reach out and reassure me.

He didn’t. “You
shouldn’t read things that don’t belong to you.”

I exhaled, frustrated.
“As if that’s the problem here.”

“That is the problem
here.” Now he stood right next to me and I could feel the heat
radiating from his powerful body. How he could make a suit look so
virile, so male, I didn’t know. Up until now I’d always preferred
the jeans and cowboy hat look. Now, though, I didn’t know, I didn’t
know anything anymore.

“You think Courtney’s
my woman?” He brought both hands, palm-down, against the wall on
either side of my head. Leaning down, he brushed close to my hair,
breathing deep, scenting me.

“You belong
together.” My voice came out breathy, my body already beginning to
respond to Declan’s nearness. My mind still clung to anger and my
sense of betrayal, but my body had other ideas. I brought a hand to
his chest in protest, then kept it there, spread against his
strength.

“Hmmm.” I could
feel his chest rumble under my palm and I shivered. He brought his
mouth down to my ear and kissed me, lightly, teasing, bringing his
lips down to my earlobe to suck and bite. “Is that right?”
Dipping down to my bare, exposed shoulder, he kissed and licked,
trailing his hot, wicked lips along my skin.

I tried to fight it,
but my entire body sang under his attentions. I was helpless, my own
worst enemy.

“Declan.” I forced
strength into my words, willed my hand against his solid, muscled
chest to push away. “I don’t…if you’re with her, I don’t—”

“There’s no one but
you,” he growled, possessive. So fast I didn’t know it was
happening, he grabbed my wrists and pulled them up over my head,
pinning them against the wall under his huge hands. Without my arms
at my sides, my towel fell to my feet, leaving me completely naked,
pink and exposed and panting under his heated gaze. I wriggled under
his grip, but he easily kept my wrists hard against the wall in one
hand, then brought the other down to my breast.

“You may not accept
it yet,” he said, lazily caressing my soft mound. “You might not
want it. But you’re mine.” As he said it, he brought his fingers
to my nipple and pinched. A sigh escaped my parted lips, my eyes
half-closed. “Your mind wants to fight it. But your body knows.”
His hand circled my other breast, drawing closer to my other nipple.
I arched into him. I craved his touch, the sensations he brought to
me, the intensity of the pain and pleasure washing my mind blank with
desire.

“Mine,” he hissed,
pinching my nipple hard between his large fingers. I gasped and heard
myself moan. Still pinning my wrists easily with one hand, his other
fingers started to travel down my body, dipping along my hips, along
my stomach, down to where I was starting to ache and throb.

“Now, Kara,” he
whispered into my ear. My eyes fully closed, I leaned into him,
loving his heat, his nearness, yearning for more. “A minute ago you
were pushing me away.” His fingers teased me, grazing my inner
thighs near my sex but not touching. I whimpered, wanting more,
yearning for him to plunge his fingers deep into me.

He withdrew his hand
and looked into my eyes. “Do you want to leave, Kara?”

I met his gaze, my eyes
wide with need, my anger melting into something else completely
different but with equal passion.

“Or do you want to
stay with me so I can do this?” He brought his finger right where I
needed, slipping it easily into my slick pussy, pushing right in and
up inside of me. I gasped as he began finger-fucking me, plunging
into my wetness, stroking my walls. “What do you want, Kara?” he
asked, shoving two fingers deep inside of me.

“You!” I called
out, bucking my hips into his thrusts, wanting him deeper, wanting it
harder.

“You want me?” he
asked, his voice gruff, harsh, commanding. He brought his fingers to
my clit and stroked, then pinched lightly.

“Yes!” I called
out, already feeling lost in the building need, the urgent pressure
and intensity of my pleasure.

“Then you’re going
to have to prove you trust me.” He withdrew both hands and stepped
away, leaving me shaking, quivering and naked against the wall.
Taking off his dress shirt to reveal his chiseled, tattooed chest, he
pointed at the carpet before him. “Kneel,” he ordered.