Unleashed: Declan & Kara (Unleashed #1-4; Beg for It #1) (31 page)

But with Kara, I just
held her and kissed her for hours. She shook in my arms as I held her
close, worshipping her mouth, her cheeks, kissing her eyelids, her
ears, caressing her neck. We didn’t break apart until the sun
threatened to come up and break over the horizon. Even then, I’d
tell her to leave and we’d kiss some more. I’d tell her to leave
again and it still wouldn’t happen because neither of us truly
wanted it to. The minute she finally did leave my arms, walking up
the hill in the ghostly pale light of new dawn, I ached for her all
over again.

She came to me the next
night, too. I headed out to the barn, quiet and stealthy, knowing I
shouldn’t but unable to stop myself. She met me soon after and we
were in each other’s arms again without even a word of greeting. We
couldn’t waste time on things like that. Why say hello when we
could wrap our arms around each other and taste, breathing into each
other and using our tongues and lips to express it all.

I tried hard to keep
things slow and sweet. I feathered light kisses along her cheekbones,
down her neck, on her soft pink lips. The sounds she made were like
nothing I’d ever heard. I wanted to record them and listen to
nothing else, especially her breathing when it picked up and got
jagged, ragged and needy. Then her soft sighs of pleasure, sweet and
content. Or her moans, when I’d lick her slow and deliberate at the
hollow of her neck, feeling her pulse under my tongue, teasing and
sucking on her. And then, when I’d devour her, when I’d kiss her
deep and own her, claim her tongue and mouth, her mewling, desperate
cries for more. I could listen to that soundtrack forever.

When we got too heated
up, I’d slow things down. That’s why I had us meet in the barn,
not in my cabin. I knew in my cabin things would get out of hand real
fast. In the barn, I’d place her head on my heaving chest and we’d
lie there on a blanket in the hay. Sometimes she’d protest a bit,
start working her fingers up and under my shirt. I’d catch her
wrists and bring them to my mouth, licking and sucking and tasting
her pulse. She’d start to snake a leg up and over my own, bringing
her hips up against mine, and I’d bring a hand down on her thigh,
pushing it back. Keeping her still.

I didn’t fully
understand why I was doing it. It wasn’t like me at all. Hell, that
was the understatement of the year. I’d never gone slow, never
spent time just kissing. I never stayed long with the same girl. I’d
never been much of a repeat customer. And that was with girls who put
out, went far and fast.

I’d never done this
kind of thing, kissing with our clothes on, murmuring to each other
in the darkness, her listening to my heartbeat as she lay on my
chest, my hand softly stroking the silk of her hair. So tame, but I
wasn’t getting tired of her, not in the least. I felt like we were
just getting started. I wanted it to last as long as it could. Which
wouldn’t be long, I knew that. The bridge we’d built between our
two worlds could crumble in an instant. But I didn’t want to think
about that. I wanted to enjoy it while it lasted, however short that
might be.

And I wanted to treat
her right. Kara was a beautiful, sweet young girl, inside and out.
That was the truth. I’d never been with a girl like her. And
goddamn it but it made me want to be a better man.

I’d never say that
sort of shit out loud. It was the kind of pussy crap you heard guys
say in romantic movies, the kinds that were nothing like real life.
But that’s what was going on in my head. That’s how far gone I
was.

I still had the animal
within me. I was still a beast. I wanted to rip off all of her
clothes and drive my cock into her deep, fucking her hard against the
wall, the tractor, the hay, any surface I could possibly get my hands
on, fucking her relentless and driving into her like an animal again
and again. But I held back.

In those moments, when
we’d calm ourselves down and sit together in the barn nestled in
the hay, sometimes we’d just lie quiet, intertwining our fingers.
Listening to each other breathe, I’d trace the edge of her
fingernails. She’d examine the faint outline of old scars on my
hands.

On the third night,
Kara brought me a piece of obsidian rock she’d found. A couple
hundred miles west there were huge obsidian mines, and every now and
then a shard would work its way over to the ranch.

“For you,” she
said, pressing the cool, smooth black rock into my palm.

“Why’s that?” I
asked, after we’d gotten in a fair share of kissing.

“It’s cool and
black. Like your heart.” She giggled, cracking herself up, like she
was making the funniest joke in the world.

“Is that so?” I had
to smile, watching her.

“Well, isn’t that
what you want me to think?”

“It’s true.” I
looked at her, feeling suddenly sad though I didn’t know why. This
girl was so innocent. Only three years younger than me, there was so
much she didn’t know about the world and I didn’t want her to
find out.

I didn’t want her to
know about mothers who got addicted to crystal meth and left their
sons. About fathers who didn’t even care enough to stick around for
the pregnancy, let alone to greet their newborns. About grown-ups who
took in foster kids just for the cash and then didn’t give them
enough food. About sadistic guards in juvenile detention centers and
the brutal pecking order established on the inside, survival of the
strongest and sickest.

I didn’t want Kara to
know about any of it. She was too good for it. And too good for me. I
knew that as well. We were having our moment, our time in the barn,
but it was nearing September and I’d be gone soon. She and I both
knew it, though we never talked about it.

I knew it was for the
best for her anyway. She belonged with someone like Bruce, though
thankfully she wasn’t with that particular dipshit anymore. He was
off in college and they’d officially broken up. The way she told me
she didn’t sound upset about it, more relieved I’d say. He didn’t
deserve her.

But she did deserve
more than me, I knew that, too. I had nothing to offer her, not a
penny to my name. She deserved the whole package and I was
empty-handed. So, I’d do the right thing.

OK, the 100% right
thing would have been leaving without any stolen nights. But I’d
never been the 100% right thing kind of guy. I’d have to settle for
90%. A few nights kissing this golden princess in a barn, and then
I’d leave.

Only sometimes it got
hard to remind myself of that. Later that night she fell asleep in my
arms and I let her, the sound of her breathing mixing with the
crickets in the night air. I couldn’t help but wonder. What if?
What if she wanted to take a chance on me? Crazier things had
happened. It wasn’t like she was a little kid. She was about to
turn 19. I was almost 22. I had my next gig lined up, working back at
that ranch turning over into wilderness tourism. I’d been promoted
to manager of buildings and grounds. I planned to learn everything I
could and then see where I could take it. There was a chance Kara
might want to come along with me for the ride. What if I could come
home to her every night?

But I couldn’t ask
that of her. It was too much risk for too little reward. Plus, what
exactly did I have in mind? Was I going to bend down on one knee and
offer her a ring from a Cracker Jack box? I could just imagine how
the conversation with Harlan would go. Hey, so, I’d like to get
with your daughter. What ‘dya say?

No, Harlan was right to
want something more for her. He’d been wrong about Bruce, that guy
was a dumbass, but there’d be some man out there. Some strong and
solid type I’d want to sock in the jaw, but he’d be her rock. He
wouldn’t wake up with nightmares, panting and sweaty, the past
threatening to strangle him in the dark. He’d take Kara home for
the holidays with his family, decorate the Christmas tree, teach
their boy how to hit a baseball and all that shit. My gut twisted,
sick at the thought of her with someone else, no matter that it was
some imaginary guy.

But that didn’t
matter. Sometimes in life you simply couldn’t have what you most
wanted. Sometimes you just had to be a man and suck it up. Most of
the time, it seemed to me.

§

On the fourth night she
brought me an apple pie.

“For you.” Shy and
sweet, she brought it out from behind her back.

“Kara.” I shook my
head. She was a freaking Betty Crocker. The kind you wanted to take,
hard, over the kitchen counter.

I was leaving in a
couple of weeks. It was weighing on the both of us, I knew. I thought
about it all the time.

“Declan.” The way
she breathed out my name, like she couldn’t get enough of saying
it. She drove me wild. Fingers twined in her hair, apple pie
forgotten on a bale of hay, we kissed and touched and licked and
loved each other for some time. I was finding it harder and harder to
slow things down.

She was making it hard.
It was one thing to put the brakes on myself and tell myself to cool
it. But she was heating up, getting more and more bold. She writhed
against me, bringing her hands down to my hips to hold me close. She
snuck a few fingers along the front of my jeans and under my shirt,
touching my lower stomach, light, curious, killing me.

Kissing my throat, her
tongue worked its way along, licking me, showing me how much she
wanted. Pressing the full length of her body against mine, she
whispered in my ear, “I want to go down to your cabin.”

“No, Kara.” I
grasped her wrists in my hands. Ignoring how good it felt to trap her
like that, instead I brought her hands down to my chest. There, we
rested, our heartbeats steadying into one, relentless, restless
rhythm. We never cooled down so much as brought the boiling down to a
simmer.

My shirt had ridden up
slightly, exposing a patch of skin along my abs. It wasn’t that
noticeable anymore, but the scar I’d gotten years ago looked pale
in the moonlight. She brought a finger down to it, tracing its
length.

“How did you get it?”
she murmured.

I shrugged. It wasn’t
for her to know the details, how I’d been jumped at 13 for nothing
more than the twenty-dollar bill I had in my pocket. My foster mother
had sent me to buy her a couple of packs of cigarettes. Even after
I’d been robbed and knifed in the gut, I still made it to the
store. I stole the packs for her, not wanting to get in trouble
returning back empty-handed. I’d nearly kept my injury a secret,
too, until I’d passed out with a loud-enough thump on the bathroom
floor it had caught the attention of my foster mother. Ten stitches
in the ER. The following week she’d called the social worker and
sent me back because I was too much trouble.

“Kids being kids,”
was the version I told Kara with a kiss to her soft hair.

She shuddered against
me. “I have a feeling the kids you grew up with were nothing like
the ones I did.”

I nodded in agreement.

“Did it happen in
juvie?” she whispered. My hand froze in her hair. What did she want
to know about and why? “I’m not trying to pry,” she added,
hands against my chest, her face up to look into mine. “I’d never
try to make you tell me things you don’t want to.”

“How did you know I
spent time locked up?”

“Um.” She looked
down, getting uncomfortable. “My friend, Mandy.”

“Warning you off of
me?” I guessed. I was right, I could tell, by the way she still
wouldn’t meet my gaze. “She’s right, you know.”

“No,” Kara
protested, looking at me with those adoring eyes.

“Yes, she is.
Whatever she told you, I’ve done worse. I’ve lied and cheated and
stolen from people.”

“I’m sure you had
to, Declan.” So eager to soothe me, to make everything better. Some
things couldn’t be washed away. Kara didn’t know that yet.

“No one has to steal,
Kara.” I brushed the hair away from her face, amazed by the trust
in her eyes. “I’m not a good man.”

“Yes, you are,
Declan. I don’t care about the past. I know you. And you are…”
She left off, her eyes glistening, her emotions brimming up. “I see
how hard you work. How much you take care of here. How you are with
me.” Her voice wavered and I wrapped my arms around her, bringing
her mouth down to my own. I held her there on the blanket in the hay,
showing her with my lips, my tongue, my hands everything I felt and
wouldn’t say.

The more we clung to
each other, the more the fever inside me burned. I’d thought it
couldn’t get worse, the fire I felt for Kara. Typically, about the
time I tasted a girl I started losing interest. With Kara, each taste
made me crave her more. The past few nights together were almost
worse torture than before, so close but still not having her, not the
way I wanted.

Kara ground against me.
Her thighs parted, her skirt riding up, nothing but a thin slip of
panties covering her sex as she pressed against me, full into my
steel length. I had to force us apart. I was going to lose it. She
didn’t know what she was doing to me.

I couldn’t think
straight. She was like a drug and I was so high off of her. I just
watched her lazily as she sat up and pulled her shirt clean off of
her head. She kneeled there in the moonlight, three a.m. in the barn,
in nothing but a short skirt and a bra. She was breathing fast, her
ribcage moving in and out with her pale, soft skin. Her breasts stood
out, two perfect globes round and lush and beckoning me. And then she
took off her bra.

I groaned, watching her
in the moonlight. Her breasts jiggled, set free from their
entrapment. Her nipples stood out large and dark pink against the
strawberry cream of her breasts.

“Declan, I want…”
she began, shy. I lay there, my hands by my sides, unmoving in shock.
“I need you to touch me.”

Christ, there was
nothing I could do to resist that. I crushed her against me, then
brought her down where I could explore and touch, taste and pleasure
at my leisure. So soft, I’d never felt anything so pliant, so
giving and warm. I could bury myself in her breasts forever. My mouth
left a trail, licking between them, around them, my fingers up to
caress and knead, gentle and worshipping. Her breathing came faster
and faster, her hands up at my shoulders grabbing me, digging her
fingers into my skin, making fists against my muscles.