Unleashed: Volume 2 (Unleashed #2) (11 page)

I didn’t wait to
think, didn’t hesitate to wonder whether it was the right time or
right thing to do. I went to her and wrapped my arms around her and
kissed her like I’d never kissed anyone before in my life. Hands
wrapped around her like I couldn’t even believe she was real, I
crushed her to me and kissed her breathless, knotting my fists in her
hair, heart pounding in my chest. I kissed her mouth, deep, kissed
her face, her neck, her mouth again. She felt soft and luscious,
moaning and sighing, her body melted into mine.

Kissing had never felt
so good. I tasted her lips again with my own, taking my time now to
explore her with my tongue. Hot, sweet, delicious, my Kara. She
quivered and shook in my arms, kissing me back with passion, both of
us barely able to breathe. I brought my hands to the sides of her
head, looking down into her eyes like I’d discovered something
precious I never imagined I’d be lucky enough to find. I kissed her
again, unable to stop, never wanting to stop now that I’d started.

Rubbing my hands up and
down her arms, shoulders to elbows, I realized she was shaking.
“You’re cold.”

“No,” she
protested, though her teeth started chattering.

“I’ve got to get
you back so you can change into some dry clothes. You need to get
warm.”

“No!” she cried
out, wild and fearful. “Don’t take me back! I don’t want you to
stop!”

I picked her up and
crushed her to me, bringing my heat to her. She threw her arms around
my neck, holding me like I’d saved her life, kissing me back with
abandon and need.

“Kara,” I breathed
into her, kissing her again. I was drunk on her kisses, each one
making me crave more. I’d wanted this for so long. It almost didn’t
feel real to have her in my arms, at long last, in the midst of a
violent downpour yet sheltered under a weeping willow tree.

She shuddered in my
arms, then buried her face in my neck, kissing me there, trailing her
mouth along my skin as if she were desperate for my taste. With a
groan, I leaned her against the tree, cupping her ass in my hands.
She wrapped her legs around my waist and I kissed her, deep,
demanding, relentless, all thought and reason gone from my body. All
I was aware of was Kara, her hands threaded in my hair, pulling my
mouth down to her own. She kept saying my name over and over with
soft moans and pants like she couldn’t believe we were finally
together.

We’d been fighting
this for so long. Now that it all came crashing down around us, the
thunder and lightning up above, our own storm down below, I didn’t
think I could ever stop. It felt so good to let go, to reach out and
touch and kiss and feel. I’d fantasized to a point of absurdity,
but she still felt better than anything I’d imagined. Even with all
her clothes on and nothing but kisses she still about blew my mind.

Finally, her shudders
stopped me. I had to lay off and do what was best for her, even if
she didn’t want me to. She needed to get warm even if I had to pry
her off of me. After I pried myself off of her, first.

I untied our horses,
then pulled her up onto my horse with me. I told myself it was to
keep her warm as we rode through the cold, driving rain. It was
because I couldn’t bear to let her go. I needed her soft curves,
the feel of her breathing, her smell next to me for as long as I
could manage it.

We approached the barn.
People would be inside, I knew that. Maybe her father. This was the
last chance I’d have with her alone.

“Tonight,” I
whispered in her ear as we got closer. “Meet me in the barn.
Midnight.”

I rode us up to the
entrance and sure enough Bill, Harlan and a few other guys were there
seeking shelter, comparing notes on what they’d been able to take
care of where, figuring out what else had to be done next in the
storm. I brought her down off my horse. Harlan was on her in half a
second, angry she’d gone out in the storm. She slipped away from my
arms so quickly. As fast as she’d fallen into them, she was gone.
Harlan fairly ran her into the big house. I watched her head up that
hill, up and away from me, safe and sound, where she belonged.

§

“You shouldn’t have
come.”

I heard her soft
footfalls before I saw her. I was there waiting for her at midnight
in the barn. I shouldn’t have done it. Earlier that night I’d
paced around in my cabin like a maniac, trying to make myself head
out to the Silver Dollar Saloon. I couldn’t do it. She was driving
me crazy. I needed to meet her, at least to tell her to steer clear
of me. I wasn’t what she wanted, not really, and I definitely
wasn’t what she needed.

“Declan?” She
stepped closer, all sweetness with those big eyes and her silken hair
tumbling down her shoulders.

“I’m not a good
guy.” Breathing hard, I willed myself to stay away from her. I
wanted to hold her so badly, but instead I balled up my fists and
kept them at my sides. I wanted to say more, but my voice stuck in my
throat. Blood pumped fierce like lightning through my veins.

“Yes, you are,” she
insisted in her innocent, clear voice.

Why did she believe
that about me? She didn’t know me, had no idea what I’d seen and
done. I was a deadbeat, no family, kicked out of foster homes. I’d
broken into a store and stolen electronics. Hell, I’d stolen a car.
That’s what got me sent away. I wanted to confess it all, tell her
everything, make her see I was all wrong. But deep inside, part of me
wanted her to help make things right.

Standing before me,
tentative, shaking, she brought her hand to my cheek. My eyes closed.
Her touch was light but the sensation was so strong, her soft skin
against my rough jaw, whispery smooth. She brought her thumb to my
lower lip, stroking me as if she’d been dying to do it, as if she’d
been aching for my lips the way I had hers.

I couldn’t help it. I
was on her in a heartbeat, my mouth to hers, crushing her against me.
Her lips, so plump and sweet, parted for me. Her hands came up to
touch my chest, my shoulders, grabbing and clinging as if she never
wanted to let go. I drank her in like a man dying of thirst. She was
all I could think about, all I could feel. Somehow I led her over to
the bales of hay stacked in the corner and pulled her down on my lap.
She settled, sighing against me, our lips never parting.

We didn’t do more
than kiss. Crazy, I know. I’d never been a gentleman, not even with
the first girl I’d kissed. She’d been another foster kid, 15
years old when I was 12. She’d taken off her top and given me a
lesson on how to make the most out of second base.

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?