by Sasha White
CONTENTS
Copyright
Acknowledgement
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Unfettered Excerpt
Unfettered Excerpt
Primal
ISBN: 978-0-928115-05-2
Published by Sasha White
White Hot Books Edition
Copyright © 2014 Sasha White All rights reserved.
White Hot Books Edition
Cover art: Syneca Featherstone (Original Syn )
Electronic book Publication April 2014
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.
Acknowledgements
There is no way to express my thanks and gratitude to these people. Without them, this story might have been written, but it would be a hot mess unworthy of being read.
Erin Suitor and Laurie Kapkowski. I honestly don’t know what I would do without you ladies. I do know it’s unlikely it would be writing though. Thanks so much for being my whip-cracking cheerleaders. Love you both.
Eden Bradley, you are an inspiration. I can’t thank you enough for finding the time to share your thoughts and knowledge on Los Angeles, as well as BDSM. I’m definitely coming to Cali for a research trip!
Kate and Laura from Wizards in Publishing. You truly are Wizards. I have no words that could express what you ladies did for me, not once, but twice. You’ve earned a loyal client for life, and I swear… this craziness… never again. I promise. Thank you!
BDSM club owner Adam Kessler is no one’s hero. He joined the Army to get away from the gang life that had taken his brother, only to come home to heartache. He doesn’t hide his dominant side, and he doesn’t hesitate in his need to protect or enforce his particular brand of retribution on those who’ve earned it. There’s no way in hell he could walk past a man hassling a woman in an empty parking lot and do nothing. Only when the confrontation is over, and the voluptuous blonde turns eyes filled with desire to him, does Adam realize he’s in trouble.
Psychologist Olivia Lang grew up with the proverbial silver spoon and has never regretted spending more time on her career than on romance, until she meets Adam Kessler. He’s dark, he's dangerous, and he's deliciously dominant…and she wants him.
Passion burns quick and hot between them, and soon they’re caught up in an intensely carnal relationship that neither can deny. But when Olivia’s life is threatened and Adam shows her just how dangerous he can be, will it be too much for the civilized psychologist to handle, or will she truly accept the man and win her hero’s heart?
Prologue
Adam Kessler was at home in the shadows; he had no fear of them, even those that writhed in his chest with every breath he took. He moved swiftly over the high fence and skirted the yard’s perimeter. Avoiding the widely spaced high-tech surveillance cameras was easy for someone used to running stealth raids in places far more hostile than Beverly Hills. Pulse steady, breathing calm, he finessed the lock and moved into the darkness of his target’s home.
Just after three in the morning, and all was quiet as he cleared room after room. Adam’s previous surveillance had confirmed the intel that his target lived alone. The house staff wouldn’t begin to arrive for another two hours, so he moved silent and sure through the almost empty house until he reached the hallway leading to the master bedroom. He paused in the middle of the hallway and stared at the keypad next to the door, his instincts screaming.
He wanted to leave checking it for later, but couldn’t. The need to protect overcame all others, and if the room wasn’t empty, whoever was inside it would become his first priority. Holstering his weapon, he made quick work of the little electronic panel. For someone with so much to hide, the security in this house was seriously underwhelming. The alarm released and, gut clenching, Adam pulled the door open gently.
It was what he’d expected, yet so much worse.
Through a set of iron bars, he could see inside the room. There was a double bed with a pretty flowered cover, a small table with a stack of books, and an entrance with no door to a small bathroom with a toilet and shower stall clearly visible. It wasn’t fancy, and if it weren’t for the bars on the windows and the door, you might not see it for what it was. A cage.
Adam fought for control, tamping down the rage burning through his veins. The cage was empty now, and that was all that mattered. It meant he could continue on with his plan.
At the end of the hall, he slowly pushed the door open.
Target sighted.
Adam’s movements were fast and sure as he entered the room. There was no longer a need for silence, and he deliberately made some noise as he flipped on the overhead light, wanting to wake the man up.
“What the hell?” The man rolled over in his comfortable bed and sat up, but he was slow, complacent. Before he could say or do anything else, Adam had him by the hair and pulled him from the bed and onto the floor.
He wasn’t a small man, but Adam had surprise on his side, and the target landed in a graceless heap.
Adam stepped back, aimed the Beretta directly between the man’s eyes, and spoke calmly. “Stand up.”
“Who the hell are you?” the man demanded as he got to his feet, red-faced, cracking his knuckles and glaring at Adam. “Do you know who I am? I’ll have you killed for this.”
Adam spoke softly. “Listen carefully, Michael. I’m only going to tell you once. Maria Alvarez, remember her? I’m here to make sure you pay for what you did to her, and the others.”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything to her she didn’t like. The little slut liked to be hit, she liked to be beat,” he said. “It made her all wet and horny.”
Emotions battered against the box he’d build deep inside himself years ago. He ignored them. “And if you’d let her go when she wanted to go, we might not be here like this. But you didn’t, did you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man said with a cocky sneer. “So either fucking shoot me or get the fuck out of my house.”
“Shooting you now would be too quick, and you don’t deserve a quick painless death,” Adam said as he slid his weapon into his shoulder holster. He stepped forward and let the man get a good look at the promise in his eyes. “And I’m going to give you what you deserve.”
The man looked like he was going to fight back, and Adam actually hoped he did. They were equal in size, and in age, and both men had killed before. The thing that made all the difference was that Michael had killed a much weaker woman, and that fact only fed Adam’s need for vengeance.
The man deserved no pity, and Adam gave him none. He stepped in, grabbed the man by his T-shirt, jerked him forward, and slammed his forehead into the bridge of the guys nose. The pain to his own head was nothing to Adam, as he waited for the man to recover.
When the man stepped back in, swinging a punch from way back, Adam stepped aside and landed a hard combo to the kidney, making his target grunt and drop to a knee. He didn’t say anything more; he just waited for his target to stand up.
As if re
alizing there was no way he was going to win an actual fight, Michael pointed to a black leather briefcase on the chair by the entrance to the room. “Money,” he wheezed. “Millions. Take it.”
Adam reached down and pulled the guy to a standing position again while snarling. “You might be able to buy your way out of an investigation, but you can’t buy your way out of justice.”
Without a glance at the briefcase, Adam took him apart methodically. Punch to the kidney, to the gut, uppercut to the chin, slam a fist in his belly. When he was bent over, another couple punches to the kidney, a knee to the face to throw him back.
Grunts of pain filled the air, and Adam felt bones crack beneath his fists. When he was done, he let the man fall to the floor. Still conscious, but barely.
Then he pulled the M9 from its holster and, with no hesitation, put a bullet in his target’s brain.
Adam stared down at the bloody, blank-eyed corpse in front of him, and regret washed over him. Not regret for what he’d just done, but that it had needed to be done.
He turned to leave, and his gaze landed on the briefcase full of money. Millions, he’d said. Take it, he’d said.
Adam picked it up and walked out the door without looking back. He hadn’t been there to protect Maria when she’d needed him, but he could be there for others.
He would be there for others.
CHAPTER ONE
Four years later.
It was her laugh that got his attention. Deep, husky, and so raw, it made his skin tighten and his dick jump.
Pulling his gaze from the group of teens loitering on the boardwalk just ahead of him, Adam stopped walking, shifted sideways to avoid a couple of rollerbladers, and stepped to the edge of the sidewalk. Standing still, he scanned the thinning crowd on the open-air patio he’d just passed, surprised to see who it was. He’d spotted her and her friend when he’d come up on the cafe, but they weren’t a threat, so his gaze had slid over them.
Now, unable to resist, he refocused and took a closer look.
Her posture was straight-up, and her blonde hair was pulled back smoothly to show off a perfectly made-up face and subtle gold jewelry. She was dressed casually in jeans, a sparkly T-shirt and slip-on sandals, but everything was of the expensive-looking designer variety that made him think business executive, or maybe lawyer, on her day off.
Even seated as she was, he could read the curves of her body. Soft womanly curves that her casual clothes couldn’t quite hide.
But damn, she was a beauty.
Unfortunately, she was also one of those scarily polished, well put-together women. Everything about her brought to mind the word Lady and all it entailed. Not the type that sparked his fire at all. But when that husky laugh floated to his ears again, Adam’s cock swelled quickly and stood at attention.
It surprised him. He hadn’t reacted to a woman that instinctively in a long time. Too long for him to even think about. When he wanted a woman, he went for the earthy type. Women who wore their sexuality on their sleeve and knew the score. Ones who emanated more of a sexual vibe than a classy sophisticated one, and who enjoyed sex the way he liked—raw, sweaty, and all-out.
The woman she was with looked to be more his type. The friend wore loose cargo-style pants and a tank top that showed off the colorful flowers tattooed on each shoulder. Long hair, dark and curly, streamed over her shoulders, and a couple of facial piercings sparkled in the setting sun as she moved and gestured enthusiastically when she talked.
Adam couldn’t help but be surprised that they were so obviously comfortable with each other.
Beauty didn’t talk as much as the other, not by a long shot. She listened with a small smile always on her full pink lips, occasionally commenting, and laughing often enough that Adam found himself standing outside the cafe far longer than he’d planned.
“It’s all about the cock, Olli.”
Olivia Hamilton coughed and tried not to choke on the mouthful of wine she’d just taken. “Damn it, Jazz. Don't say stuff like that when I have a mouthful.”
Her dark eyes danced merrily. “It’s likely a mouthful is exactly what you need.”
As a dark-haired and free-spirited naturalist, Jazmin Plant was the opposite of the Beverly Hills born blonde Olivia in almost every way. Why her blunt words were a surprise Olivia didn’t know.
“If the man doesn’t know what to do with his cock to get you off, then why put up with all the other shit that comes with having him in your life?”
She huffed out a laugh and smiled at her closest friend. “Only you, Jazzy.”
Jazmin grinned. “You know I’ll always tell you like it is, and in this case, you should definitely listen to me and not some spoiled-ass banker who’s trying to blame his failings on you.”
“There’s more to a good relationship than sex,” she said. Not that she’d know from experience, since in her forty-four years she’d never had a relationship last more than three months—the honeymoon stage as she called it. Olivia didn’t blame the sex, though. She liked sex enough and enjoyed it. She blamed her career. “Tom’s breaking up with me didn’t have anything to do with sex, or the quality of it. He just got tired of me canceling dates because I had to work. He didn’t like playing second fiddle to my clients.”
“If he was any good in the sack, then you’d be less inclined to stay late and work and more inclined to head out to be with him.”
Olivia laughed. “He wasn’t that bad.”
“Ah-ha!” Jazz cried, pointing a blunt finger at her. “Not bad is not the same as good, my friend, and you know it.”
The weird thing was Olivia did know it.
She took another sip of her Chardonnay and relaxed completely for the first time since she’d left Tom’s place earlier that evening. She might not agree with Jazz about sex being the glue that held a relationship together, but she got that Tom wasn’t the man for her. He was a nice guy, a good guy, and maybe that was the problem. He’d bored her, in bed and out of it. She would rather be at work than with him.
“Enough about my life,” she said with a smile. “Tell me about this new store you’re opening.”
As Jazz explained the concept for the new cafe/gallery/bookstore she was opening, Olivia listened and marveled at her friend’s ingenuity. She sat and soaked up the energy her friend radiated and thanked whatever higher power had thought to make them roommates at college so many years ago. It had been a fight with her family for Olivia to be allowed to live in the dorms at UCLA, but she’d been determined. Getting out of the house she’d grown up in and into those dorms had been essential to her plan of escaping the family folds that tried to desperately suffocate any sense of individuality. She’d completely lucked out getting the nonjudgmental Jazmin as a roommate. They’d both wanted the same things in a way. Jazz had wanted to get away from her commune roots as much as Olivia had wanted to ditch the silver spoon she’d been born with.
Both of them had been eager for new experiences and had become close quickly. By the time they’d graduated, Olivia was closer to Jazz than she was to any of her blood-and-bone family. Despite living very different lives for the past fifteen years, the two had only become closer.
“We don’t get together enough,” Olivia said after they’d paid the bill and Jazz was unchaining her bike from in front of the cafe. Olivia glanced up and down the near-empty boardwalk. The sun had set almost an hour ago, and now, almost all the shops were closed and the lively and colorful vibe of Venice Beach in the daytime was gone. They’d hung out longer than they’d planned.
“Now that Blake is away in college you have to promise me that you won’t just bury yourself in that store. You will set aside time for yourself,” she said as they walked to the parking lot together.
Jazz smiled. “And you?”
“And me,” Olivia confirmed.
“How about we make a weekly date, like we used to do before…”
“Before you fell in love with a wonderful man, had a beautiful baby girl and ma
de a family together?” Olivia asked gently.
Jazz smiled sadly. “I’m sorry we lost touch, Ollie.”
“I’m not.” Her friend’s teary eyes widened, and her mouth rounded in a surprise. “I’m glad one of us lived the dream of finding and falling in love with a good man. I couldn’t be happier that you married and had a baby, and had a good full life with Daniel before he was wrenched from you so unfairly. It’s my fault I let you drift away. You always invited me to Blake’s birthdays, and family dinners, but I didn’t always show up.”
“You showed up when I needed you.”
Olivia remembered striding into the hospital that night after hearing they’d been hit by a drunk driver. Scared out of her mind, she’d found Jazz covered in blood and cuts with such unbelievable pain in her eyes at the loss of her husband and had known true heartbreak for the first time. “I’ll always be there when you need me.”
“I know,” Jazz said softly. “I’ve always known. And I promise, now that Blake is in school and the shop is almost open, you’ll be seeing me a lot more often. Say every Thursday night again?”
Pleasure warmed Olivia’s heart. “It’s a date.”
When they reached the parking lot and found it near empty, Olivia realized it was quite late. The women hugged, and Olivia watched Jazz hop on her bike and pedal away before she climbed into her old Jaguar.
She turned the key in the ignition and growled when the engine coughed but didn’t turn over. It was the first car she’d bought with money she’d made on her own, and even though she could easily afford a new one now, she loved the car and hung onto it for all it stood for.
