Undone, Volume 2 (27 page)

“What? Fly back?”
Worse and worse, what was she talking about? Lola had us on a
schedule. I didn’t have any shows at all over the next week, but
she had us booked with a variety of romantic sightings around San
Francisco plus a getaway in Napa. I cared less and less about how
Lola wanted things to play out, but I definitely had been looking
forward to more time with Ana. I had a grand piano in my living room
overlooking the bay. She wouldn’t have to wear clothes at all. It
would be perfect.

“I thought we had
plans.” I made a vague reference to our PR-firm designed itinerary.
Johnny looked pretty out of it and he was a good guy, anyway. We
could probably discuss the whole scheme openly in front of him right
now and he wouldn’t listen to a word of it. If he did, he wouldn’t
care. And if for some strange reason he did retain the information, I
knew he wouldn’t mention it to anyone. But in a party like this,
the walls had ears. And eyes. In fact, I could see Mandy over across
the room staring daggers at me.

“I thought maybe we
could catch up in New York. Later in the week.” Ana wouldn’t look
at me. Great, the woman I wanted to be rid of wouldn’t stop staring
and the one I wanted more of wouldn’t start meeting my gaze.

“Hey, Ana.” I
reached down to take her hand. She let me, but it hung limp in mine.
Except for the ring on her finger. Holy fuck, Lola had reeled in a
big fish. It was almost grotesque, bulging off of Ana’s long,
slender, piano-playing fingers. Her hands were so gorgeous all on
their own. It looked garish and silly to pop that big thing on her.
I’d known what Lola picked out wouldn’t be right.

“Let’s get out of
here,” I suggested, leaning down into her. I brought my hand to her
waist, but her body remained stiff. Not a trace of the heat that had
burned her up not long ago backstage. What had happened?

“Are you OK?” I
asked, taking a strand of her hair between my fingers. It felt stiff.
They’d styled her within an inch of her life tonight, prepping her
for the spotlights on the stage.

“Yeah, Ash, I’m
just done with all of this.” She gestured around. This wasn’t a
conversation I wanted to be having in a large, crowded hotel suite
with 500 of my bestest friends, including my vendetta-wielding
ex-girlfriend. When she said she was done with all of this, did she
mean this as in stupid drunk celebrities? Or this as in me? Because
technically I fit under the stupid drunk celebrity umbrella. I didn’t
have a college degree like her. I’d just done a bunch of shots
standing up on a bar. But I didn’t feel drunk. Standing next to her
but still feeling so much distance between us, I felt dead sober.

“Come on, let’s get
out of here,” I suggested again, and this time she looked up at me
as if she were about to agree.

That’s when Lola’s
claw wrapped around my shoulder. “Huge news, Ash. Huge. You’ve
got to come with me.”

“Can it wait?” I
looked at her with all the pleasure of finding a viper nesting in
your sink.

“No, it can’t wait!
He’s here!” She looked at me significantly, and I knew exactly
who she was talking about. What mattered most to Lola? Money, aka the
value of me, her key asset under contract. And what was the biggest
moneymaker I had on the near horizon? The Super Bowl.

Lola had filled me in
on the details. The main holdup on approving my playing the halftime
show was the owner of one of the teams. He was a born-again Christian
and didn’t want any Janet Jackson type wardrobe malfunctions. This
was a family event, he wanted family friendly entertainment and
apparently he wasn’t convinced that I could deliver. As if my track
record of sold out shows worldwide over the past several years didn’t
speak for itself.

At any rate, Lola had
told me that there was a chance this owner might stop by the party
tonight and say hello. I didn’t ask what a born-again family man
was doing out partying in Vegas without his family. In my world, I
was used to hypocrisy. The shocker was when you met someone who
really was exactly as they seemed. Like Ana.

“You have to come say
hello.” Lola tugged at my shirt.

“Ana, too.” I
threaded my fingers through her hand, not wanting to leave her.

Lola looked at her, but
shook her head, no. Leaning up into my ear, she stage-whispered so I
could hear through the din of the party. “No, Ash. She’s out of
the equation in a week. We don’t want to pull her in any more than
we have to.”

I did not like the math
in her equation. Nor did I like me and Lola on one side, Ana on the
other. But none of that could get solved right there and then.

“Ten minutes, tops,”
Lola assured me.

I looked at her,
knowing she wouldn’t rest until she had me saying my hello. “Two
minutes,” I negotiated.

“Five minutes,
absolute max,” she agreed.

I looked down at Ana
regretfully. “I’m sorry. I got to take care of this. I’ll be
right back.”

She nodded. The
resignation in her eyes didn’t make me happy.

“Come on.” Lola
tugged at me.

“Wait here for me?”
I hadn’t dropped Ana’s hand yet. She’d be fine here with
Johnny, and I’d be back before she knew it. But she wasn’t
meeting my eye anymore.

“Don’t leave
without me,” I said.

I had to let go. Lola
was pulling me away through the crowd. “Ash, he’s going to leave
without talking to you!”

“Two minutes!” I
yelled over my shoulder to Ana. “I’ll be right back.” Even as I
walked away, I knew I was making the wrong call.

Ana

I wasn’t a
superstitious person. I’d been raised by a superstitions mother,
reading signs in every cloud formation, seeing cause for concern in
the movement of black cats and tea leaves. It had left me pretty
level-headed, partially by necessity. Someone needed to calm my
mother down, and I was usually the one around to do it.

But more importantly, I
just didn’t believe in it. Take dreams, for instance. Dreams were
either so transparent they were silly—you dreamed of showing up for
a job interview naked because you were nervous you’d screw up your
job interview the next day. Or dreams were stuff and nonsense, with
aliens and candy bars and the president on the phone for you.

But as I stood there at
the party watching Ash get led away from me through the crowd, I felt
like something bad was about to happen. My mother would have
described it as the shiver running down your spine when someone
walked across your grave. That never made any sense to me. I didn’t
even have a grave yet. Yet, despite my non-believer status, all my
years of dismissing foreboding omens and portents of looming
disaster, I felt it. Something was about to happen and it wouldn’t
be good.

Right on cue, Connor
appeared at my side. More like rubbed against it.

“There she is,” he
leered, double-fisting a pair of drinks. “How’s my girl?”

“Oh, now I’m your
girl?” I had to ask. “I thought I was Yoko Ono?”

“Hey, now.” He gave
me what I’m sure was meant to be a friendly tap with his elbow. It
got me in the ribs and sloshed part of a drink down his shirt. But he
kept on with what he had to say. “Let’s let bygones be bygones.
You’re Ash’s girl. He’s my mate. We all need to get along
here.”

I sighed. I knew Ash
wanted me to wait for him, but this might be above and beyond what I
could take.

“Listen, I know I can
come off as kind of an ass sometimes,” Connor confessed.

“You think?” Kind
of an ass didn’t begin to describe it.

“I can be a real
dick,” he agreed. He had a bit of an Irish lilt to his voice, and
he gave me a rueful smile. OK, that worked a little bit. It wasn’t
in my nature to stay mad at people. Especially since this guy had to
have a good side. He was Ash’s best friend, after all.

“You can be a real
dick,” I agreed.

“Peace offering?”
He extended one of his drinks to me.

“I think I’m headed
out.” I shook my head.

“Come on. One drink.
It’s New Year’s Eve!”

I took it from him. He
was trying to be nice. And Ash had said he’d be back in two
minutes. That had to be about one minute from now.

“That’s my girl!
Here’s to a whole new year!” Connor clinked his glass with mine.

“What is this?” I
glanced at the drink. It seemed to be some kind of punch. It didn’t
taste bad, exactly, but I didn’t recognize the flavors.

Connor winked at me.
“Something special! Now tell me all about yourself, Ana. I hear you
live in New York City. How do you like that?”

It turned out Connor
could be quite charming and friendly when he wanted to be. He plied
me with questions about myself, seeming fascinated by my answers,
toasting me on what I’d said more than a few times.

“I’ll drink to
that!” seemed to be his favorite phrase, clinking my glass.

I was halfway through
before I really started feeling it. I guessed I shouldn’t have
started drinking so early. I’d had my first glass of champagne
hours ago, at that first party before the show. Then some girl had
given me a shot when I’d come into this party.

How much had I had to
drink, anyway? I rubbed my forehead. It was hard to remember.
Everything felt pretty fuzzy. I didn’t remember how I’d gotten to
this party in the first place. Who was I talking to again?

“Need a friend,” I
thought Connor was saying. That’s right, Connor, the guy in the
band. He seemed to realize how hard the alcohol was hitting me.

“You want to lie down?” he
asked. I managed to nod but even that took a lot of effort. He
wrapped his arm around my waist and I leaned on him for support. I
hoped the bed was nearby. I didn’t think I’d make it very far. He
was talking to me, saying something, but I couldn’t make out a word
he said before everything went black.

THE
END

Thank you so much for reading
Undone,
Volume 2
! I hope you enjoyed the wild ride! I’m thrilled
to share the story of Ash and Ana with you. I’ve got a lot planned
for the coming months.
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so you won’t miss a single juicy freebie, sale or
new release!

Keep reading for a
sneak peek at the final volume in the series,
available
here

It’s on, the
storm of the century, trapping Ana and Ash up in a mountain cabin.
The snowplows don’t need to worry about their road. They melt the
snow all on their own. But after the storm ends, can this “fake”
romance survive reality, the harshest test of all?

Ash

The world already hates
me for being a player. Now I’m a kidnapper, too.

I drove off with Ana
while she was drunk as a skunk after a New Year’s party in Vegas.
She didn’t exactly say she wanted to go away with me. In fact, when
we last spoke she seemed pretty interested in quitting me. Then she
passed out.

But that’s exactly
why I need to get her away from it all, the celebrities and parties
and cameras always flashing at us from all angles. I need to get her
up into the mountains where I have a private cabin. Very private.

It’s just my dumb
luck that we got snowed in. For days.

You remember show and
tell in school? I’m not so good at the tell. But the show? That’s
all me.

Now I have Ana all to
myself, shielded from prying eyes, in our own private world. I can
show her pleasure she’s never known before. She can let go of all
of her inhibitions. No one will ever know.

I have days on end to
show Ana exactly what she means to me, how I feel about her, and I
won’t stop until she believes me. Or she’s melted into a puddle
of orgasms. Or both. I’m starting to like the sound of both.

Ana

New Year’s Day I woke
up in a mountain cabin with Ash Black, nothing but the sound of the
wind and snow falling thick all around us. There’s nothing I’ve
been more afraid of than this. Just us, no distractions, no
paparazzi, no interfering agents or crazed fans. All that noise made
it easier to hide from the feelings building up inside of me. I’m
terrified of the way he makes me feel, the way I’m falling for him
so hard.

But now he has me
alone, snowed in, at his amazing mountain cabin. He’s all muscle
and sex. His voice alone makes me wet. One touch sends me reeling,
and he seems to sense and want to unlock all of my most secret
fantasies, the ones I haven’t even admitted to myself I want.

This romance is fake. I
keep telling myself that. I can’t really trust him. This is all
pretend.

But then he pulls me close, presses
a hand to the small of my back, kisses my throat and whispers low and
wicked in my ear, “Let yourself go.” How am I supposed to say no
to that?

NOTE:
Undone
is a three-volume hot adult romance. It’s the second story in the
Beg for It
series
about the dominant, alpha males in Ash’s family and the strong,
sexy women who make them finally meet their match.

Chapter
1

Ash

Good thing Connor had
been there at the party. Ana had passed out cold, but he’d been
there to catch her. Who knew what could have happened to her if he
hadn’t been there? By the time I arrived, she was already slung
over Connor’s shoulder and they were halfway out the door.

“Is she OK?” I
rushed over. What the hell? Ana hadn’t even seemed drunk when I’d
spoken with her last. Of course, I’d been away for a while. Two
minutes never meant two minutes, and Lola and the owner had
monopolized my time for far longer than I’d intended.

“There you are.”
Connor shifted her weight on his shoulder. For a little guy, he was
strong as hell. “Been looking for you. Your girl’s passed out.”