Untamed (4 page)

“T
wo years ago at my engagement party when I caught Peter screwing our waitress in the bathroom.” Tara didn’t even have to think about it. It had been burned into her memory banks for all eternity. She felt the pain as though the incident had happened just yesterday
.
A person didn’t forget when their heart got ripped out of their chest and stomped on, and she’d gotten shit-faced drunk to compensate for the pain after finding her fiancé having sex. She’d been bombarded with emotions that night. Anger, rage, sadness, and even a little bit of self-pity consumed her; the more she thought about it, the more the memories tried to worm back into her heart.

Cathy’s
grin fell, and her squirming stilled as she reached for Tara’s hand and squeezed. “He was an ass. You deserve better.”

Tara
half-heartedly smiled, knowing Cathy would see through the charade, but she tried it nonetheless, hoping to pull a fast one on her best friend. “It’s okay. It could have been worse. He could have cheated after we said ‘I do.’”

A
waitress walked over to their table and placed a shot in front of each of them. Tara couldn’t have timed the interruption any better if she’d done it herself.

“We didn’t order these
,” Cathy said, even as she raised the shot glass to her nose and sniffed the contents.

The waitress nodded toward the pool table
, and Tara followed her gaze. “Brody did.”

Figures he’d be on a first
-name basis with the waitress. Brody stood next to the pool table with a beer in one hand and a pool cue in the other. Ethan was leaning over the table taking a shot. Brody wiggled his brows before he gave a flirtatious wink.

Tara
dismissed the scrumptious view, trying as she might to forget that Brody was even in the room. She turned back to the waitress. “What is it?”

“A Screaming Orgasm.”

The waitress sauntered off to another table, and Cathy chuckled.

Could he have spelled it out any more
clearly? Not only was she in need of some sexual release, he was reminding her every chance he got, when he was the whole reason she needed the release in the first place. Tara closed her eyes and shook her head. “Figures.”

Cathy
studied the liquid in the shot glass before sipping it. “It’s not bad.”

Tara
didn’t waste any precious moments draining hers. She swiped the droplets on her mouth with the back of her hand. “The real thing is better.”

Her friend
laughed and, for once, Tara was grateful that Brody was such a flirt. It lifted her friend’s mood. She was smiling now, no longer pitying Tara for the colossal mistake she’d almost made by marrying the sleazebag.

Tara fanned her face. “Is it getting hot in here?”

“You’re a lightweight. It’s the alcohol.”

The
same blonde tramp, Brody had been flirting with, was sitting at a tall round table next to where he was playing pool... like a dog and her master. She wasn’t leaving his side. She met Tara’s gaze, and the blonde’s eyes narrowed. Tara could almost feel the hate directed at her from across the room, almost as if it were a living thing. Brody’s bimbo was marking her territory as if Tara was competition.

Tara squeezed her eyes closed. She didn’t want to be here, no matter what Brody thought about her needing to release some pent
-up stress. There were other ways she could take care of that, ways that didn’t include a one-night stand. She released a deep sigh and opened her eyes. Cathy leaned back in her chair, the lines around her eyes softened. Had Tara been that obvious?

“I’ve got a headache
, and I’m tired. I think I’m going to cut out. Are you going to be okay here by yourself?”

Cathy
pegged her with an assessing gaze. “I can play pool with Ethan, but please don’t tell me you’re leaving because of the blonde. I really don’t think Brody’s into her. He’s just using her to make you jealous.”

“I
don’t care what or who Brody uses. My life isn’t here, and it’s definitely not with him!” Her voice rose as to make her point. None of this was Cathy’s fault. It wasn’t her fault that Brody was a pig. It wasn’t her fault that Tara wished it was herself that Brody was fawning all over instead of the blonde bimbo. It wasn’t Cathy’s fault at all. She inhaled another deep breath and then exhaled slowly. “I know you mean well; I didn’t mean to snap.” Tara gestured to the pool tables. “I’m just over it… I don’t want to be here anymore and watching him is driving home my point.”

Cathy’s brow
raised a fraction, and to prove her point, Tara conjured a jumbo-sized box of condoms out of thin air, not caring if anyone noticed her little trick and slid them across the table to Cathy. “I mean it. Give him these and tell him I said to have the time of his life. Maybe she’ll wear his ass out and I won’t have to practice tomorrow. I’m going back to base.”

Chapter 4

Tara
gave a conspirator wink to Cathy, grabbed her purse, and headed for the door. Her heels crushed against the gravel in the parking lot. Her skin felt flushed, and it wasn’t from the night air. Her blood pressure was shooting through the roof. All of her personal problems back home, compounded with her sexy partner problems, were enough to drive any woman crazy. A tall, dark figure stepped out from the shadows from behind her SUV, as she was fumbling with her keys.

Her heart lurched as she stepped back
.
Peter
. She sighed as recognition hit her. “Peter, what are you doing here?”

“Why didn’t you call me back?” His gaze went down to
the swells of her breasts peeking above the dress, reminding her of the scum she’d already run off. “And why in the hell are you dressed like a hooker?”

Tara folded her arms over her chest and squared her shoulders. “I didn’t call you back because we have nothing left to say.
” She lifted a brow. “And last I checked, you were the whore in our relationship.”

She pulled the SUV door open just as his hand clamped around her arm
, preventing her from climbing in. His fingers encased her arm; his hold tightened in that special kind of way that cops would use to get someone to cooperate.

“
We aren’t done talking.” He pulled her back, slammed the door closed, and leaned on it, blocking her escape.

Usually Tara would have just closed her eyes and shimmied away but if she was really going to make a go of trying to prepare for a fight, she might as well start now. Start with someone she couldn’t stand. Tara bit the inside of her lip
. She brought her arm up and brought her elbow down hard into the bones at his wrist. His hold on her instantly fell away and she stepped back. Her face felt as though it were on fire. “What’s the matter? Did Justine finally realize you’re an asshole and kick you out?”

Another man stepped out from behind her SUV
and took a step into the light. Just peachy. Could her night get any worse?

Mitch
from the bar; correction, the man from the bar she’d threatened to castrate. Only this time, he had friends. Three big, burly friends who looked just as mean as he did. Mitch chuckled.

Peter turned toward the sound and was met with Mr.
Beefy’s fist. Peter’s limp body slumped to the ground. 

Mitch
patted the bat in his other hand against his palm. “Not so big now, are you, bitch?”

Big and Burly
Number Two, standing next to Mitch, chuckled. “This little slip of a woman got the drop on you? You must be losing your touch.”

The
y started inching away from each other, to form a circle around her. “I think we might need to teach her a lesson.”

“Seriously
!” Tara narrowed her eyes and kicked off her high heels, using every bit of her concentration to not shimmy away from the threat. She’d prove she was strong enough to handle even these assholes. “We have to do this now? Haven’t you ever heard about knowing when to cut your losses?”

With those words
, the nine-inch cleaver from the bar appeared in her hand. “If you leave now, we’ll pretend none of this happened.”

“Not this time
, bitch.” Mitch’s eyes flashed an ugly shade of yellow, and Tara paused. What the heck was that?

Shit. Shit. Shit
. This asshole had to be one of Black’s thugs, maybe another territory boss. Either way, she wasn’t going down without a fight. She felt her body shimmer. The easy thing to do would have been to teleport and not deal with these assholes at all, but that’s not what she was going to do. No, she knew if she was ever going to get out of this godforsaken town, she needed to step up and do her part to take these thugs out of the equation.

“Nifty trick with the eyes.
What’s your gift?”

His beady eyes brightened as the men around her inched closer. The color of his skin started to change from
a deep rich brown, fusing with a puke-green hue.

“What the hell
are
you?” she asked out of mere curiosity. It wouldn’t affect how she dealt with him, but damn, she’d never seen anything like…him.

His tongue darted out
, and he licked his lips as he lunged for her and wrapped a strong arm around her waist. She shoved against his chest to get out of his hold. Her mind went blank on anything she could use to get out of her predicament. He leaned in closer, and she turned her cheek. His red tongue snaked out, and he licked a path from her cheekbone up into her hair.
Eww, now that’s just nasty
. “Looks like you’re free tonight, after all, and it won’t even cost me a dime.”

The other men
around them chuckled at the remark. One of them called out, “I get her next.”

It was now or never.
If one of these assholes knocked her out and she was unconscious and couldn’t use her brain to get her out of this jam, then she was really screwed. The big man-shifty thing wanted to play… Bring it on… Three baseball bats appeared out of thin air. Two of them swung up and hit the men standing around her in the balls. They went down instantly. Mitch squeezed her tighter. Pure hatred radiated from his eyes. The baseball bat swung for his head. The crack echoed in the night sky as Mitch fell to the ground, almost dragging her down with him.

The other two men were cupping their jewels and w
rithing in the parking lot. She didn’t care if she’d knocked their manhoods clean off or shoved them so high up that they’d never be able to use them again. They would have raped her given half the chance. Maybe now they’d think twice before taking something that wasn’t offered. She slid back into one of her shoes and hopped on one foot while trying to pull the other one on over her heel.

Two more men stepped out of the shadows
, as the two men on the ground started to recover. Thankfully, Mitch was still knocked out cold. She blew out a deep breath and held out her palms. A machine gun appeared.

“I suggest you back the fuck off if you don’t want to die.” She
placed her finger on the trigger. Her cheating ex-fiancé was still out for the count, unconscious, on the ground near Mitch. The music from the bar got louder, and she chanced a glance in that direction to see if more trouble was going to be added to the mix. Brody was standing just at the threshold with the phone pressed to his ear and the blonde by his side. His worried gaze scanned the parking lot until it landed on Tara.  

Brody
started running for her. The closer he got to her, the wider his eyes grew. Mitch moaned and rolled over before pushing himself off the ground, still half in a daze as Brody stepped in front of her and lowered the gun. “I can’t leave you alone for five minutes without you wanting to kill someone.”

The blonde stepped up beside
them, the same blonde who had given her a dirty, territorial look in the bar. What the hell was she doing here? Maybe Brody had been leaving with her. It couldn’t have been coincidence that they were leaving at the same time.

The blonde
glanced at the men on the ground and the ones getting up. She narrowed her eyes and lifted a finger to her temple as she closed her eyes. Her words came out a whisper on the night wind. “They were going to rape her.”

Her eyes flashed open
. Brody spun around and pushed Tara behind him, as though he was going to save her, only he was about five minutes too late. Tara would have laughed if the situation weren’t still so…volatile. “They didn’t stand a chance.”

He glanced at the blonde
. “Veronica, how do you know that, and how did you know she was in trouble?”

Veronica stepped f
arther away from the guys on the ground. “It’s my gift.”

She pointed to the guys struggling to compose themselves. “They were going to rape her and kill her.”

Mitch spun toward Veronica, his eyes widened in disbelief. Veronica narrowed hers as she crossed her arms over her chest. Beefy Numbers Two and Three pushed to their feet.

“I just wanted to scare her for embarrassing me. I wouldn’t have hurt her.”

Brody’s facial expression turned thunderous; his eyes deepened like the scowl on his face. She’d yet to see this side of him. He looked ready to kill. One touch, one word, and she instinctively knew the men who had attacked her wouldn’t live long enough to see another sunrise.

She’
d never seen that look he was giving them before—the barbaric, chest-thumping, this-is-my-woman-and-now-you-die look and it was sexy. Regrettably, she wouldn’t let him follow through on the killing part, but it was still hot to watch him get all worked up.

“Brody….”

He growled. “Not now, Tara.”

Brody levitated the men off the ground
, into the air as though they were in bubbles. Their eyes grew wide as each one reached up and grabbed their throats as though they were trying to remove an invisible hand that was choking them. First one, then two fell unconscious, and Tara knew she had to do something.

“Brody
, stop.” She squeezed his arm.

“Oh
God, he’s killing them.” The blonde screamed as she took several tentative steps backward toward the bar door.

He ignored
them both, his eyes swirled with fire and brimstone as the other thug fell unconscious. Tara stepped in front of him breaking his eye contact with his latest victim. She placed her palms on his cheeks, and pressed her lips to his. His eyes bulged before they slid closed. His arm snaked around her waist, pulling her body flush with his. She heard the thump of the men behind her falling to the ground, the men who had almost just died.

Brody groaned deep in his throat when his
hands landed on her ass and lifted her in the air. She locked her ankles around his back to keep from falling. He turned and pressed her against her SUV as he deepened the kiss. A soul-searing, melt-your- panties, forget-your-senses, knock-all-rational-thought-out-of-your-head kind of kiss. The kind where she couldn’t fight back, not that she wanted to. Good God… had this been what she was missing out on all this time?

She
surrendered to his touch, to the tangle of their tongues as he pressed his jean-covered erection into the hot juncture of her panties.

One hand traveled up her body and
behind her neck.

“Brody
,” she mumbled into his mouth.

He ignored her and continued with his onslaught.

“Brody, you need to stop. We can’t do this here.” Although she was saying the words, she couldn’t bring herself to force his body away from hers. It was as though her mind and her body wanted two totally different things.

Brody was tugged away from her
, and she almost landed on the ground.

“I can handle this from here
,” Peter announced as he moved to place his arm around Tara’s shoulders. “She’s
my
fiancée.”

Tara
rolled out from under Peter’s arm, unable to stop the blood that was boiling just beneath the surface of her skin. Her fist was shaking, balled at her side. Her jaw hurt as she clenched her teeth. The stress of the evening took control and, unable to stop herself, she swung with all her might and hit the asshole square on the jaw as hard as she could. It was a move she should have done the night she found him fucking the waitress; yet that embarrassment had teleported her to her beach house instead. He wasn’t so lucky tonight. She wasn’t embarrassed anymore; she was pissed. “
Ex
-fiancée.”

Veronica’
s breath hitched. Brody lightly chuckled and Peter stumbled back, catching his balance. His face grew red as the color of his eyes darkened and swirled with rage. He narrowed them to slits. If Brody wasn’t standing nearby, things would have gone from bad to worse. Peter’s temper would have surfaced. He would have tried to hurt her, tried being the operative word. She might have struggled for a minute, but the outcome would have been to her favor. She’d have used her gifts on the jerk just like she had on the unconscious thugs.

Brody moved to her side. “Tara. Let me handle this.”

“Oh I don’t think so.” Images
of how she might have stopped him flashed in her mind. Another gun popped into her hand out of thin air, this one much smaller, but just as deadly as the machine gun that Brody had confiscated. The weight of the heavy metal was a silent reminder that she could indeed defend herself from the trash standing in front of her.

“Tara, you know pointing that gun at a police officer is against the law.” Peter whined.

Her lips twitched. “Only if I get caught and right now, you’re out of your jurisdiction.”

Peter lifted his hands in the air
and stepped back. He pulled out an envelope from his back pocket, and handed it to her. “I just wanted you to hear me out. I came to apologize and to give you this.”

She glanced down at it.
Her bank’s logo was in the corner and her name was scrawled in cursive across the front. “What is it?”

Peter frowned. “I couldn’t let them send this to your address knowing you weren’t the
re. I know how important the restaurant is to you.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “It was the least I could do.”