Untamed
Authors: Kate Allenton
Untamed
By Kate Allenton
Copyright 2013 Kate Allenton
Copyright © 201
3 Kate Allenton
All rights reserved.
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Dedication
This is dedicated
to the real Tara Clark, whose friendship I will always cherish.
I’m so grateful that I can call you my friend.
Acknowledgment
A Special Thanks goes to Ilse for being my last line of defense in catching my errors. I accept full responsibility for every extra comma I added :)
Joshua Samolewicz
for amazing work on my book covers, even when I’m being difficult and picky.
I’d
also like to thank all of my Readers and Facebook friends. It’s your emails and support that keeps me moving forward on my journey.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
“
Handcuffs,” Brody Connors shouted to Tara as he whipped around the gigantic cypress tree blocking his path. The tree was the last obstacle separating him from catching and claiming victory in the chase against the other commando.
“Handcuffs
,” Brody grunted again; his outstretched hand remained empty. “Focus, Tara.”
Wait, what?
She halted in her tracks. Her mind clouded, trying to make sense of why he would be asking for the same restraints he’d used on her last night. Granted, it had been in a dream, but she’d never admit it.
An image of all of their toys from last night flashed in her mind. A string of condoms appeared in her hand from thin air. She’d conjured the restraints with just a thought; unlike the handcuffs he’d yelled for her to materialize. Thankfully her version of handcuffs hadn’t materialized as well. Had the Leopard print cuffs appeared, she would have never lived it down.
Why the Phantom’s would need her gift hadn’t made sense when they’d demanded
nine months ago that she stay to help. Conjuring items out of thin air wasn’t as useful as, say, the seer’s gift of getting a glimpse at the future. If anything she could pull all kinds of things out of thin air but only if she concentrated and, even then, she’d need to be near someone who actually knew how to use the stuff. She was still trying to figure out why the seer demanded she be paired with the playboy.
She shook
the confusion from her mind and tightened her hand around the condoms. An angel she wasn’t. Sex-starved, most definitely. Her mind had held a permanent place in the gutter, complete with her name flashing in a bright neon sign since the first time she’d laid eyes on the flirt; and really…who could blame her?
He glan
ced over his shoulder and slowed to a stop, releasing a resigned sigh as he jogged over to where she stood. Her stomach clenched into tight knots as she held his gaze. The lines of his face softened in contrast to the hard, clenched desire she remembered vividly from her recurring dream.
“I know it’s hard to concentrate with all of this…”Brody gestured the length of his body. “…rock hard goodne
ss going on, but we’ve got to get you ready for battle.”
Her nose twitched
from the pollen, hanging and dripping from the surrounding trees, coating everything it touched. His eyes followed the movement and one side of his lips tilted up in a half smile. Damn allergies. She swiped at her watering eyes. Damn man.
His eyes sparkled with mischief
. The bastard winked. “You don’t have to cry, Tara. I would never deny you my body. All you have to do is ask for it.”
“You aren’t all that.” She
cleared her throat as he moved closer. Unable to stop her body’s reaction, her cheeks heated, contradicting her statement. The unwelcoming blush would ignite further teasing. She squeezed her fist closed, digging her nails into her palms, to stop herself from slapping the obnoxious playboy upside his head.
H
e turned her palm, kissing her clenched fingers before opening them. He lifted the string of condoms that she’d conjured, instead of the handcuffs he’d requested. Her face grew warmer, and not from the smoldering heat that blanketed the forest. She shrugged. Could have been worse. It could have been the leopard print cuffs.
And
with just a thought… those too appeared, in her other palm.
She
bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from teleporting away, just another one of her pathetic gifts. Through the years she’d figured out that embarrassment normally sent her body soaring through unknown voids, only to pop back on the radar somewhere that her mind considered safe terrain. Yet, she’d figured out how to master that gift. Tendrils of life essence, from people that Tara had come into contact with, would appear while on her journey…some red, some blue, some green. She didn’t know how she knew, but she seemed to always know, whose threads were whose. She’d grab on tight to the strings and pull herself back out of the abyss to somewhere safe and sound. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out how to make herself stop the teleportation. Pain was the only effective way she’d found to stop herself from disappearing out of the situations she’d rather not deal with. Why the hell her mind had wondered back to the sexy dream from the night before, when trying to conjure left her more annoyed than confused.
His
rich deep chuckle sent a quiver shaking down her spine when he plucked the cuffs from her other hand. “A woman after my own heart, but as much as I like where your thoughts were heading…this wasn’t quite the restraint I was looking for.”
Her entire body
heated from the inside out, slowly working up her chest.
Get it together, Clarkston
. Why she couldn’t keep her thoughts from straying into the forbidden territory only made her awkwardness around him ten times worse. His last demand had produced whipped cream and had, literally, been the icing on her tongue, especially when Brody squirted some first in her mouth and then filled his own. She threw her hands up in the air. “That’s it. I’m not cut out for this crap.”
She spun on her heel and trampled back through the bushes and trees
, toward the compound, leaving the unfinished assignment behind her. The daily drills and training sessions were useless. Under pressure, she wasn’t anywhere near ready to be helpful to anyone, out in the field, fighting for their life. She wasn’t a fighter like her friends and family; the princess warrior gene had skipped her at birth. Now if someone needed a pizza, or apparently condoms, she was the go-to girl.
Brody
appeared beside her seconds later and threw his arm around her shoulders. “I know what you need…”
“To get
the hell out of this town,” she grumbled beneath her breath as she stomped out of the thick brush, emerging into the open field. The slight breeze surrounding her, caressed her skin like an old lover and, was no longer blocked by the dense shrubs and she was away from the destructive pollen. Tara ran the back of her hand across her brow, wiping the sweat that dotted her skin from their practice. A nice hot bath, to erase her aches and pains from their long hours of practicing, was calling her name.
“Not likely
, darling. You need a good old-fashioned roll in the hay. The mind-blowing kind where you’re so worn out you’re left boneless and unable to think straight.”
A cold shower
to damper her raging hormones, she amended, since his words produced more sexy thoughts in her head. Her body tensed and her skin prickled. She clenched her eyes closed and pinched her arm to stave off the unwelcomed teleporting shimmer just below the surface of her skin; she wouldn’t be able to explain a sudden disappearance, not since she’d kept this gift a secret.
Tara
’s fake laugh trickled on the wind as she lifted her hand to brush back the long brown strands flying around her face. The light breeze did little to cool her skin from his embarrassing assessment. There was no way she would tell him that he’d hit the nail on the head. No, his ego was big enough already. “I’ll get right on that.”
She
rolled her neck to loosen the tight muscles that had formed from discussing her nonexistent sex life. “Maybe after Gracie’s party, I’ll go with Cathy to the bar and seduce me a young hot stud for some mind-blowing sex.”
Her best friend Cathy was in the same predicament, both of them lusting over men they shouldn’t. Sexy men. Intriguing men. Men with more secrets than total pairs of shoes Cathy and Tara had combined. And that total was no joke.
He tisked while wiggling his pointer finger in the air like a teacher correcting a small child. “You don’t have to leave the base for that, cupcake.”
He threw his arm casually around her shoulder
again as if they’d been best friends for years and not just partners for the last nine months. He made small circles with the pad of his thumb against her bare arm. Damn it, just what she didn’t need… more sensory details to overload her already overactive imagination. Her dreams would hitch to a whole new level.
“I’m
all the stud you’ll ever need. Why don’t you take me for a spin?”
She swallowed around the answer stuck in her throat and steeled her
body from jumping up into his arms, giving her brain time to start working again. “Thanks but I think I’ll pass.”
She rolled his arm off her shoulder and started in a light jog back to the base, putting some much-needed distance between herself and the sexy Phantom Protector. Fighting to keep her sanity reigned supreme in her quest to keep from giving in to Brody’s suggestion. There was no way in hell she was staying stuck in this town, not with him, not ever.
Tara plodded toward her room
. The muscles in her legs burned with each step from the previous ten hours of tramping through the woods. Extensive training they’d called it; a load of crap was more like it. She pushed the door open and froze. Her brows dipped as she glanced around the room in confusion. Something she couldn’t put her thumb on was out of place. Surely, after all of this time, she could remember the way to her room. She stepped out in the hall and glanced at the numbers on the door. She was in the right place. The flowers weren’t.
Sitting in the middle of her coffee table was a dozen red roses
. The color so vibrant it was contrasting with the dull beige surroundings she called the living room. She heard the creak from the bathroom door and turned to find her best friend, Gracie Connors, waddling into the room. Waddled was the appropriate term; pregnancy tended to do that to some women, especially one who was expecting twins. Yes, twins, as in more than one. Seemed DNA or the gods would get the last laugh after all. The underlying glow of her face radiated pure happiness, like every expecting mother’s would, offset only by the contrasting frown marring her lips.
“I know you love me
, but really…. The flowers are a bit much, don’t you think?” Tara winked as she covered her mouth and nose at the first tingle of her sneeze and managed to hold it in. “You know better than to tease my allergies, no matter how pretty the flowers are.”
“You’re a nerd. I’m just dropping the flowers off to you. You
only caught me because you know I can’t leave a room without having to use the bathroom.”
Tara had met
Gracie in college. Through the years, all three of them, Tara, Gracie, and Cathy had formed an immediate bond. When Tara had gotten the call nine months ago that Gracie was in trouble and working to bring down a notorious territory boss, they’d both come running to help. Little did Tara know that her life would be turned upside down and she’d be forbidden to leave. A fight was coming, and if Lydia, the resident fortuneteller was right, Tara was destined to be a part of the festivities.
It all turned out great for
Gracie however. She was now happily married since meeting the man of her dreams, Ridge Connors, also known as Brody’s twin. If anyone understood the lust riding Tara by just looking at the carbon copy, Gracie could relate.
Gracie placed one palm on her back. “
I just came to check in on you. Those were delivered to the gate before I got here.”
Tara steppe
d closer and sniffed the floral scent, ignoring the protest of her allergies. Fumbling through the greenery, she searched deep into the roses, trying to avoid the still intact thorns, for a card. Her shoulders sagged when she came up empty. “Who are they from?”
Gracie eased down in the recliner with one hand on the arm and the other supporting her back. “Beats me, I didn’t see a card either
.” Gracie glanced down at the little cuts on her fingers. “Not that I was looking.”
Unable to hold it in a second more
, after getting a good whiff of the flowers, Tara sneezed while lifting the vase to move them into her kitchen with the hopes that, across the room, their floral scent would be less potent. “Who dropped them off?”
Gracie shrugged. “
I’ve already asked the guard. He said he’d never seen the guy before, and it wasn’t a delivery driver from the local nursery.”
“It was probably a mistake.”
Tara shrugged and moved across the room and dropped to her knees next to Gracie’s chair. She rubbed her palms over the massive expanse of Gracie’s big belly. “How are my nephews?”
Gracie grinned
. “Getting big…I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, and I’m afraid they’re going to put me on bed rest.”
“
I don’t know why you haven’t called off the impromptu get-together you’re having at your house tonight. I’m sure everyone would understand.”
Her best friend waved her hand in the air. “
I’m having it catered, and Ridge is on clean-up duty. So I won’t even have to lift a finger.”
Tara
moved to the sofa and plopped down, crossing her ankles on the chipped coffee table. “I can stay and help clean up if you want me to.”
Gracie leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “
Nope, you and Cathy should go have fun at the bar afterward with everyone else. I think the after party plans are to go into town, shoot pool and have a few drinks at the bar. Has Brody been behaving himself, or do I need to get Ridge to kick his ass?”