by Opal Carew
Lucky her.
Cailin’s head shot up, and she blinked. “I hate it.” She looked over her shoulder at her family, who had no doubt quieted to hear her words. Werewolves, after all, had exceptional hearing. “We can talk about it later.”
Lexi nodded then watched the young woman, who looked so sure of herself but clearly wasn’t, walk toward the pile of pups and start to play.
“I’m glad she talks to you when she won’t talk to anyone else,” a voice said from behind her, and she froze.
Hell, he was freaking quiet when he wanted to be.
North slid to her side but didn’t look at her. Not that she was looking at him—oh no, she couldn’t do that and breathe nowadays—but she could see him out of the corner of her eye.
Lexi swallowed hard and tried to regain the cool, collected composure she used when she had no earthly idea what else to do.
“She doesn’t talk to the rest of you?” She found that hard to believe, considering Cailin had wonderful parents, six big brothers, a brother-in-law, and five sisters-in-law.
North shrugged. She felt the touch of his overheated skin against her arm, and she held back a shiver.
She would not show the man how he affected her.
Ever.
“She’s so much younger than the rest of us. Yes, she’s the same age as a few of my brothers’ mates, but it’s different. They’re family now but still new. Cailin’s never felt comfortable about showing who she is to outsiders, and it’s even worse really within the family. She’s great with that façade of hers—the bitchy, twenty-something power attitude—but she doesn’t break down with us. Not since she was a little girl.”
Lexi’s heart ached for Cailin and even more so for the man she felt a connection to, despite all the reasons she shouldn’t. It wasn’t as though Cailin was any different than the rest of them, but she was so much younger than her brothers, and there were things the woman might not even want to share.
“I’ll do what I can. I like her.” Lexi had no idea why she’d said that first part. She couldn’t even take care of her own crap, let alone another person’s. Okay, she could take care of Parker and Logan, but they were…hers.
North moved so he blocked her view of the pups again, and she sucked in a breath.
Gods, he was beautiful. Tanned skin created by genetics and touched by the sun covered a hard body that she’d seen naked only because of his shifts, not for anything more. And damn, she wanted to have that be for something more. He had those Jamenson jade-green eyes, framed by light lashes, that Lexi knew she could fall into if she didn’t watch herself. Unlike most of his brothers, he and his twin Maddox had inherited their mother’s hair, a dark blond, unruly mass that looked damn good on him.
She really needed to stop looking at him that way.
“Thank you for taking care of my sister,” he whispered, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.
She didn’t dare breathe. She knew once she caught a whiff of that spicy scent, latent or not, her wolf—or what she thought of as her wolf—would want to hunt.
That wouldn’t be happening.
Ever.
His fingers lingered on her cheek, and her body shuddered.
Traitor.
She pulled back, the loss of his touch like a deep abyss she knew she’d never be able to cross.
“I need to go.”
She didn’t even bother to lie. Not this time. She turned tail and ran back to her home. No, not her home, the place where her family slept.
Her name carried across the wind as North called her back, but she ignored it.
Ignored him.
She kicked the door closed, then turned, bracing her back against it. Her legs gave out, and she slid to the floor, the sobs wracking through her body as memories flooded and attacked her.
The darkness of his eyes tearing into her.
The feel of those callous fingers digging into her when she screamed.
She shut her eyes against the nightmares and banged her fists against her temples.
“Get out! Stop!” she screamed into the empty room, tears rolling down her cheeks.
She had to get it under control. The others couldn’t know what had happened, or her baby boy’s life would be forfeit.
It was a dangerous game living with the Redwoods as it was. It would be even more dangerous to get close to the one man who could break her.
Even though her body told her, just as his was no doubt doing to him, that they could be mates, she knew that would never happen.
The wolf in her dreams begged for the man—at least that was what she thought since she couldn’t actually hear her wolf—she could feel the man’s touch on her cheek and knew it was useless to dream.
To hope.
There would be no future with North Jamenson.
She was already mated.
You can find more from Hidden Destiny on Carrie Ann’s website.
www.CarrieAnnRyan.com
Did you enjoy this selection? Why not try another romance from Fated Desires?
From Heather Long’s The Martini Sisterhood
Shaken
The Martini Sisterhood—five women bonded by the ties of friendship, supporting each other through challenges of surviving love, and loss. For these women, life can change on a whimsical dare and a magic eight ball…
She’s good at sorting out professional messes…
Accountant Zip Crenshaw spends so much time on spreadsheets that’s she’s forgotten what it’s like to be between the sheets. During her weekly cocktail hour with the girls, they consult a Magic Eight Ball about her crush on bartender Tony. When the toy advises her to go for it, Zip dares to color outside the lines and go after the man who heats her dreams…
He’s in the middle of a personal trial…
Tony Giordano enjoys Friday nights above all others, because it’s the one night a week he’s sure to see the sexy accountant and her friends. Having long since resigned Zip to the look, but don’t touch category, he’s blown away by her invitation. Tony’s always been a planner but with his custody battle looming, he’s not prepared for the effect she has on him…
One night leaves them both shaken…
What began as a whimsical dare quickly turns passionate, but is an unquenchable desire—and a Magic Eight Ball’s advice—enough for these two planners to risk happily ever after on?
UNFETTERED
ABOUT THE BOOK
You never forget your first love
Mechanic Ronnie Lang is tired of being "one of the guys". Chasing the fantasy of finding a dominant male to help her explore her sexuality she applies to Overwatch, a private Kink club where her eyes are opened to a world that’s more than she ever imagined, and the man she’s never forgotten.
Published by Sasha White
White Hot Books Edition
Copyright © 2014 Sasha White
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
I owe a huge debt of thanks to several people for helping this story come to be.
First off, to the readers and fans who have stuck with me for the past five years. I know you’ve been waiting for something new for a while. Your emails and comments have done so much to help me get back to writing and I can only hope this story will be enough of a thank you … until the next one comes out.
Emily Ryan-Davis, and Portia Da Costa. Without this box set, and this deadline, this story might’ve stayed in my head fo
rever. Thank you so much for helping me get past my own self to put the words on the page. You helped more than you could ever know.
Erin Suitor and Laurie Kapkowski. You two ladies saved my ass, and kept me going. I sincerely hope you each understand how much I love you for never losing faith.
Reanna Hatcher, thank you for Kalina. You will be seeing more of her. :)
Misty Bennett. I don’t know if you understand how much your enthusiasm means to me. Thank you for cheering me on, and for bringing me baked treats because even when my ass really doesn’t need them, my muse really loves them.
Last, but absolutely not least, Jordan Summers and Charlene Teglia. You ladies have been there for me in ways no one else ever has. You’ve given me friendship and support, cheered me on, and kicked me in the butt when I needed it. I can never thank you enough, I can only do my best to return the favor. Love you ladies. Truly.
UNFETTERED
an Overwatch novella
by
Sasha White
Prologue
I want a man who wants ME. Someone who I can tell my deepest desires to, and feel no shame or embarrassment.
I want a man who can look past the boyish body, and the grease beneath my nails to see the woman I am. I need a man who will see me as the sexual creature I am, and not just as ‘one of the guys’, or the girl mechanic with the magic touch. He’ll see me, want me, and will take pride in knowing I am his - that I’ll do anything for him.
Ronnie stared down at the words she’d just written and sucked in a deep breath. It was one thing to have those thoughts when lying in bed alone at night, and another to see them in stark black and white. Knowing that others were going to read them made her feel very raw - exposed in a way she’d never really anticipated.
“Get used to it,” she muttered to herself before taking a sip from the glass of Don Julio in front of her. It was the good stuff, a treat to herself on her thirty-fourth birthday. Too bad she had nobody to share it with.
Which brought her right back to the application forms in front of her.
She’d laid it all out. The fantasy man she’d been dreaming of for as long as she could remember, even though she didn’t really believe it was possible to find him. That was okay though, she was ready to settle for just the sexual one. Since she was giving up on the romantic fantasy, maybe she should scratch out the last line of her answer.
With a glance around her empty apartment, and a nod to the bottle of tequila in front of her, Ronnie decided to leave it as it was. Mason Hardin, the guy who’d sent her the applications and information on Overwatch, had said to be as honest and to-the-point as she could be when she filled out the submission forms, so she’d listen to him. And the truth was, no matter how cynical she’d become in her mind, deep in her heart she still held the same dream every woman did-that there was a Mr.Perfect-for-her out there somewhere.
Men never saw her as anything more than the female mechanic with the magic touch. She was great with engines, could make any of them purr like a kitten or roar like a lion. But with men? Not so great. This was Los Angeles, were super-models and actresses walked the streets and the average woman was a D cup. Men looked at her plain features, straight body, and the grease under her fingernails... and she disappeared as a woman.
To them, she was just one of the guys, another mechanic in the shop. She was barely a female in their minds let alone an attractive one, and she was tired of it. She wanted to be seen as a woman. A strong, sexy and desirable woman who inspired lust and all sorts of dirty thoughts in a man. And she wanted to follow through on those dirty thoughts.
It might be wrong to admit it, but she dreamed of being a man’s sexual play thing. Of being touched, teased and used - ultimately she wanted a man who would love that about her, one who would cherish the gift she’d make of herself in the bedroom, but she was thinking that was an impossible dream. Getting into Overwatch would help her figure that out, and filling out this questionnaire was the first step to getting there.
If approved, this would get her enrolled into a program geared specifically to training her as a sexual submissive at a real club with people who knew what they were doing. Without a partner she could trust to explore with, it was the only safe way to figure out if the men she was meeting were truly the problem, or if her dream was simply unrealistic. Only it involved making herself completely vulnerable to men and women she’d never met, and really knew nothing about.
She sighed.
Entering Overwatch was either the smartest thing she’d ever done or the dumbest.
Chapter One
Ian Johnson stared down at the hand-written words on the application in front of him. It was a bold answer, an honest answer. The way the letters started to slant and wobble toward the end made it clear that the author’s emotions had leaked into her words. Someone who was so open and honest in their needs would be a joy to initiate into the world of BDSM, which was why there was already a debate at the table over who would be this one’s trainer — and why his heart was suddenly pounding against his ribs.
“She’s delightful,” Eden said.
Simon was practically drooling. “She has no experience?”
“She’s not a virgin, she’s had lovers, even some playtime,” Adam said as he leaned forward and braced his arms on the table. “She’s got enough experience to know that she wasn’t getting what she needed from them so she placed an ad online, and met some wannabe’s.”
Ian’s gut clenched and he tamped down the rush of anxiety that hit at that bit of news. Eden groaned and Simon cursed beneath his breath as he reached for another beer. The four of them were seated in deep cushioned chairs around a low table in the middle of the closed club, a bucket of beer on ice in the middle of the table. Only select Dom’s and Domme’s at the club participated in the core training program for Overwatch, and they all took turns. This round was Simon Sharp, Eden Morgan, and himself. All of them agreed that the damn internet made it too easy for the curious to find trouble.
It was dangerous, especially for the submissive who didn’t know how to protect themselves. Ian knew the need to protect submissives, and provide them a safe place to explore and meet good Dom’s was why Adam had opened Overwatch, and he took their safety seriously. He was obsessive about it.
As the owner of the club, Adam vetted all the applications for membership, and decided who would be accepted, and who wouldn’t. The man was strict as hell on any tops that wanted in, but Ian had yet to see a submissive be rejected. Those with little or no actual experience were required to go through the training program, which ran four or five times a year, and not every one of them made it through the process, for various reasons, but it was always their choice to walk away. They weren’t turned away.
Since Adam limited the number of trainee’s for each class to ten or twelve, he liked to give the trainers a heads up on who would be in the class beforehand.
As one of those trainers, Ian wasn’t quite sure what to do about the application in front of him.
Damn it. There really was only one thing he could do. “I know her,” he said.
Conversation stopped and Adam’s eyes snapped to his. “How well?”
“Well enough.”
Adam nodded. “How do you want to handle it?”
Ian bit back the urge to shout Hell no, to the table. No way was he going to let his childhood friends little cousin join a kink club.
It was unusual for one of the trainers to know an applicant in their day-to-day life, but it happened. When it did, Adam let that trainer have the final say on how to handle the applicant. He could step back and get one of the others to take his place with this class or he could ask Adam to deny her application. Neither option felt right, so what was he going to do?
Simon and Eden remained silent while Ian considered his options.
Denying her was a knee-jerk reaction. He had no real reason to do it, other than thinking what would Dave say if he said yes. What he should be consideri
ng is what would Ronnie do if he said no? Adam said she’d placed an ad online. God only knows what sort of men she met through it, but they couldn’t match the Doms of Overwatch.
Would she place another ad if she didn’t get into the club? Where would she go to get her needs met? If she truly was submissive, then she needed what they could offer her. What he could offer her.
Decision made, he lifted his gaze from the table and looked at the others in the booth. “Accept her.”
Ian’s work kept him busy and left him little time for a social life, and he liked it that way. Romance and emotional entanglements were not his thing, and most of the time, being a sexual dominant helped him steer clear of them. He’d head to Overwatch when he wanted, play a little, and leave. He didn’t have a permanent sub, and he wasn’t looking for one. Which is also why training the new ones was one of his favorite things to do. He loved helping a sub to find their way by testing their boundaries and learning their limits, and then setting them free to find the right Dom for them.
But Ronnie Mack… the tomboy next door. He wasn’t sure he could train her.
Damn, she’d been such a little thing when she’d moved in next door. Tiny, and tough as shit, she’d walked around with a chip on her shoulder that had held her relatives at a distance no matter how much they’d tried to bring her into their fold.
“Alright, everyone. First meet’s tomorrow night. Be here and ready to engage.” Adam’s words pulled him out of his head and back to the table. “Ian, stick around a minute.”
No surprise there. Simon and Eden nodded to him as they left the table, and Ian faced Adam.
Ian wasn’t an idiot, so he had a pretty good idea what was coming. He wasn’t wrong.