Unleashed

One week in paradise will make or break them…

It’s not enough that Kelsey’s husband left her for another woman. Oh, no. The “other woman” had to be her best friend Evan’s fiancée. Not only has she lost her marriage, she fears losing Evan to the lingering awkwardness and humiliation that hangs between them.

Evan has no intention of letting that happen. He’s got plans…namely, an extra plane ticket to Hawaii now his future wife is out of the picture. There’s only one person he wants on the trip with him, the one who’s always been there for him. The one he should never have let slip away into the arms of a traitorous friend who shattered her heart.

Kelsey is anticipating a week of fun in the sun with the man who’s always treated her like a little sister. No one’s more surprised when she discovers that Evan has seduction on his mind—and that she’s more than ready for it.

Love is the most powerful healing force of all. But past demons have a way of ripping open old wounds, and threatening the survival of even the strongest friendship…

Warning: This title contains explicit sex between best friends, graphic language…and a hero who knows how to put the hot in “hot tub”.

Reviews

“Best Book” rating from Lilac at Whipped Cream Reviews! “Unleashed more than earned Best Book status from me! I was captivated by this touching, yet passionate read and couldn’t wait to see what would happen next. This was Ms. Lynn’s first book, but I certainly hope it won’t be her last…”

4.5 Blue Ribbons from Chrissy Dionne at Romance Junkies: “…a sweetly passionate story of a friendship that’s about to undergo some major changes. Cherrie Lynn infuses this story with humor, friendship, realistic emotions and all the beauty and freedom to be found while vacationing.”

4.5 Hearts from Brenda Talley at The Romance Studio: “I could not help but fall in love with this couple and hope things worked out for them… The storyline was beautifully written… Suffice it to say that you will not be sorry to read this book.”

4.5 Stars from Francesca Hayne at Just Erotic Romance Reviews: “Ms. Lynn writes in a way that is smooth and descriptive, as though you were watching a genuine love story come together on the silver screen. I could not put this book down… Unleashed delivers a strong romantic love story with enough sex to keep the passion red hot. This was a wonderful read.”

Excerpts

Chapter One

“Aloha, gorgeous. How would you like to run away to Hawaii with me?”

Kelsey Peterson had been taking a sip of her latte as she answered the phone ringing on her desk. The proposition—deep, breathy, undeniably male—sent the portion of the gulp she hadn’t choked on spewing across her monitor. What the hell?

Hacking like a lifetime smoker, she gasped for oxygen and reached across her desk for tissues, mind still reeling. The instant he broke into laughter over the line, the world righted itself…somewhat. Still, it took a moment before she could form words, and he—damn him—seemed to be having the time of his life.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “the receptionist told me Evan Ross was calling. Obviously, whoever you are, you’ve kidnapped him and taken over his body.”

“Sounds kinky.” The response was jovial, normal—the Evan she’d known since college. So what if she’d enjoyed the fantasy for one nanosecond? “How are things on the dark side?” he asked. “Haven’t made a decision to join us good guys yet?”

“You know we have to maintain our balance between good and evil.” She began to mop up the mess she’d made as he chuckled. As a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office, Evan agonized over her position as legal assistant to a defense attorney he often faced in court.

“How have you been, Kels?” Evan asked.

“Great!”

“Liar.”

“Yeah, so? How are you?” That question was far more loaded than it sounded. For both of them.

“I’m actually good. I’m really, really good.” Oh, God help her, his voice had taken on that sexy purr again. She strangled over the remaining latte caught in her windpipe and held the receiver away from her mouth while she tried to clear it. So much for playing it cool. She hadn’t spoken to Evan in weeks and, at this rate, it might be a few more before she was able.

She could hear him going on, oblivious to her struggles, and she brought the phone back to her ear. “It just so happens I’ve been struck by inspiration,” he was saying.

“Really,” she wheezed.

Concern suddenly tinged his voice. “Hey, are you all right? I didn’t mean to freak you out back there. Man, this is going over well.”

“Sorry, just—” She took another quick sip. “Okay. I’m a dweeb. So what is this you’re rattling on about?”

“The very thing that made you nearly hack up a lung. I’m taking you to Hawaii. For a week. All expenses paid. Notice it was a statement and not a question?”

“You’re…taking me…what?”

“It seems I’m stuck with a useless paid-for honeymoon. It was a gift from my parents.”

“Oh…I didn’t know about that.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, I never bothered to cancel the reservations and, as it turns out, the plane tickets are nonrefundable. So, it’s either use them or let them go to waste. I actually feel like using them…just not alone.”

“Well, I’m happy you’re getting the chance to jet off. But I’m sure you have two dozen other buddies who would be thrilled to take this trip with you. Why me?”

“They probably snore and don’t smell nearly as good as you.”

“Jesus Christ, Evan Ross.”

He burst out laughing. “I think you say that at some point every time we talk.”

Kelsey tapped her pen against her keyboard, smiling absently. She loved hearing from Evan, always had. Since her divorce from his former best friend, Todd, there hadn’t been very many opportunities to talk to him. Everything had changed last winter. She couldn’t speak to Evan now without remembering one conversation in particular. It had been very brief, but it had involved her screaming at him like a banshee, crying and cursing into her cell phone, while he maintained dead silence on the other end. God, what a nightmare. She eased her head down on her desk, cringing as she always did whenever she thought about it.

“Come on, Kels. I know you want it. I know you need to get away. We both do.”

Oh, she wanted it all right. And she didn’t mean the trip. Well, maybe the trip. “Yes, but um…together? If my boss found out, he wouldn’t be pleased. Consorting with the enemy and all that.”

“Of course. It’s a covert op. No problem.”

“Evan… I can’t…I can’t afford to pay you for my share.”

“Kelsey, that’s not even an issue. It’s paid for.”

“Do your parents know, then?”

“Yes, but you don’t have to worry, they’re discreet old souls. We have their blessing. So bring on the next objection, and let me slap that one down, too.”

“I just can’t.” She doodled with absent ferocity. Hawaii. Hawaii! She’d never been. Evan had. If she was ever going to go, who better to go with? Why wouldn’t her damn mind just shut up and let her accept?

“That’s the easiest one of all. You can.”

Kelsey’s eyes widened as another thought occurred to her, and she glanced down at her desk calendar to be sure. “Wait a minute…wasn’t your wedding supposed to be in two weeks?”

“Yep.”

“And your honeymoon to start right after?”

He chuckled. “Yep. So you see, I need an answer. Like now, Kelsey. Now.”

“There’s no way, then. Work—”

“I’ll have a big case waiting for me against your esteemed employer just as soon as I get back, so don’t talk to me about work. Hit me again.”

“I’m going to ask you one more time. Why me? Is it…is it pity? Evan, I don’t need that—”

“God, no. Nothing like that.” He was quiet for a moment, and she lifted her head to watch the quote on her screensaver marquee scroll by. Without the bitter, the sweet ain’t as sweet. It was from Vanilla Sky. Evan went on, his voice somber now. “You and me, we’ve been through too much together for pity to play into it. We’ve been friends forever. What’s wrong with two friends getting away from it all?”

When the friends are male and female, she thought. When they’re apparently sharing a room…and a bed…in a honeymoon suite? When her occupation was all about causing his defeat. And when they had such a screwy history. Ten years certainly wasn’t forever, though it sometimes felt like it.

Evan being sin incarnate had something to do with the wrongness of it, as well. His voice alone, rich and melodic over the line, had her wanting to slide her skirt up her thighs and plunge her hand into her panties right there in her office. One more word in that deep, erotic tone he’d used before and she might not be able to resist the urge.

She could just imagine what he looked like right now—his black hair perpetually tousled, his sharp green eyes fringed with eyelashes that could make a cover girl weep with envy. Eyebrows two decisive black brushstrokes. Probably had his jacket off and his tie loosened and his white shirtsleeves rolled up over his olive-skinned forearms, as always when he was on the job but not at court or in a meeting. As if he couldn’t bear the restraint a minute longer than necessary. He might even be kicked back in his chair, his feet propped on his desk…

Her boss, Jack Ballinger, always said when he tried a case against Evan, the jury’s reaction to his opposing counsel concerned him more than their reaction to the defendant. More specifically, the women’s reaction. “One twinkle from that boy’s eye and they’re ready to throw their goddamned panties at him during closing arguments,” she’d overheard Jack say. Kelsey thought it was pretty damned misogynistic of him, but that was Jack.

She fidgeted in her seat, not wanting to prove her boss right just from a simple phone call from the man himself. Yes, she and Evan had been friends for years, but she’d had a raging crush on him long before she’d met and married his best friend. It had subsided…somewhat. From a roaring flame to gently smoldering embers. But now that she was single—and so was Evan—she hadn’t been able to stop it from flaring to life once again.

Did thirty-year-olds even have crushes?

Oh, this could not happen. There was no way. The idea seemed like pure bliss, but the reality, she knew, would be a nightmare. Another one, and she didn’t think their friendship could bear that kind of strain now. He didn’t know what he was doing.

“Evan, I think this is the sweetest thing anyone has ever offered me. But I can’t.”

He groaned playfully. “Please don’t leave me like this, Kelsey, with my vision of having you isolated and helpless in Waikiki so cruelly denied.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. It was all innuendo on his part, at least she knew that much. Impossible flirt.

A week with that kind of innuendo might prove to be her undoing.

Her phone emitted a muffled ring and, upon checking the display, it was her turn to groan, though there was nothing playful about it. Jack. “Evan, I really have to go—”

“Not until you at least give me a maybe.”

“Oh, you—”

“Give me an answer or I’m going to call Jack myself and request your time off.”

“No!”

“The reason I’m asking you is that no one else I know deserves this as much as you do. And we haven’t hung out in a while. I feel bad about that. Let me make it right. Come on.”

Maybe it was time for her to come undone.

“Evan?” She lowered her voice to a throaty phone-sex pitch.

“Yes, yes?”

“I’ll think about it.” Grinning like a fiend, she hit the button that disconnected him then put on her best professional voice to greet her boss on the other line.

Excerpt #2

“He couldn’t get you hot?” Evan asked.

Oh. My. God. Was he drunk? Was she? What universe was this? And he wouldn’t look away from her. His gaze was inescapable. And burning. Kelsey’s nerve endings came to life, agitated by the rushing water, the heat of it. Of him, so close to her. Evan Ross made her hotter just by existing than Todd Jacobs had in eight years of sex. All put together. It was horrible to admit.

“Evan…”

“God, Kelsey, you’re looking at me like you used to.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. You haven’t answered my questions.”

“I can’t…”

“Can’t what?”

“Talk about this with…you. I know I started it, back in the bar, but…”

His lids fell over his eyes, hooding them. She didn’t know how she was supposedly looking at him, but he was looking at her as if he wanted to eat her. She couldn’t be mistaking it. “He didn’t take care of you,” he murmured, and her breath stilled as his hand smoothed back a strand of hair plastered to her forehead. “I was afraid he wouldn’t.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this back then?”

“I did. You didn’t listen.”

No, she didn’t. He was right. She’d thought he was being a jerk for never wanting her yet questioning the happiness she’d finally attained with someone else. What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t have Evan, yet she couldn’t have anyone else, either? “I needed someone.”

“You didn’t need anyone.”

“I didn’t need anyone, but I wanted someone. And he was a good guy, for the most part. He shouldn’t have done what he did, but I stopped making him happy.”

He sighed. “How long ago did he stop making you happy?”

The question caused her to freeze. He went on. “Todd and I grew up together, lived on the same street, played baseball all through school together… I probably know him better than anyone, better than you, better than even his parents. I’ve known him practically my whole life, and I’d seen him do some shady stuff before. I never thought he was quite good enough for you, but I never thought he would betray either of us like he did. Kelsey, truth be known, I don’t think there’s a guy walking this planet I would trust with you. So you can’t really listen to me, I don’t guess.”

Now she could feel her blood heating and it had nothing to do with the water or his proximity. She wasn’t going to condemn herself to a life of loneliness and remain a slave to this infatuation, just so Evan Ross could know she wasn’t with some guy who was neglecting her needs. It made no sense. It was pissing her off.

She made a move to stand, though she had no idea where she might go. The suite keycard was in his pants–probably the only thing she would ever get out of that particular article of clothing, and that was damn fine with her at the moment–but if she ran back there, he would only follow.

“Kelsey.” His hand caught her arm, keeping her seated. “Don’t get upset. We don’t have to talk about any of this, if you don’t want. But maybe it’s not such a good idea to keep it bottled up.”

“Then why don’t you talk about Courtney? You haven’t mentioned her at all.”

Even in the darkness, she saw his expression tighten. “I have nothing to say about her.”

“I think it hurt you more than you let on.”

“Kelsey, you have to let it go. Courtney is what she is and she’s not for me. Good enough? I think you need to face what happened and move on.”

“Oh, I did face it, Evan Ross. I faced it head on. When I faced it, she was on top of my husband. You didn’t have to see it. I did.”

Kelsey sensed his demeanor change–he stiffened as if she’d doused him with ice water. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you are blaming me for not being able to hold on to my woman.” His voice had taken on a dangerous edge she’d never heard before.

She licked her lips, the urge to challenge him rising up in nearly undeniable waves. Despite her earlier words to the contrary, the thought had crossed her mind. Not lately, of course…but back when her heart had been lying in bloody shards along with her life, after having to move out of the house she loved so much into a closet-sized apartment–putting most of her stuff into storage because it wouldn’t fit there and spending Christmas in Lisa and Daniel’s empty house rather than facing the pity in her family’s eyes–she had wondered why Evan hadn’t kept Courtney happy enough to keep her hands off Todd.

But she’d been thinking irrationally. She’d made some mistakes, but she’d done everything she knew how to make her marriage work. There was no reason to believe Evan hadn’t done the same with his relationship. “No, that isn’t what I’m saying at all. If it were, it would go for me, too, not being able to hold on to him.”

He relaxed a bit, taking his hand from her arm, but the darkness still shadowed his expression. She didn’t like it there. She wanted to wipe it away. From him, from her. God, why did this have to happen to them? Adding another layer of complication over the catastrophe of their friendship?

She might as well add yet another.

“No.”

A vertical line formed between his dark brows. “No what?”

“He really couldn’t get me that hot. For most of our relationship, I overlooked it.”

One corner of his mouth tugged upward, showing a flash of white teeth in the darkness. “Why?”

She shrugged, dropping her gaze from his. She put a hand in front of one of the water jets, letting the pressure tickle her palm. “Why did I overlook it? Because I loved him.”

“Then what was missing?”

It was a good question. “I really don’t know. But there was an emptiness there. I never felt it as strongly as I did after we had sex.”

She wasn’t looking at him–she couldn’t–so she tried to tune in to him in other ways, gauging the sound of his breathing, the tension in his limbs that were somehow brushing against hers now. He seemed to be holding himself perfectly still. She dared the briefest glance upward to find his gaze riveted on her. It made her suck in a breath. It trapped her.

“Am I completely crazy?” she asked.

“Not at all.”

“I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

“I’m glad you are. I get to be the one to assure you that you’re not the problem.”

She laughed, though the insinuation had her heart brimming with hope she probably had no right to feel. “How can you be so sure?”

“Look at you. Beautiful, sweet. I remember how whenever I touched you your muscles would pull tight, your breath would catch. It still does. I see how you’re looking at me. There’s no reason a woman as sensitive and loving as you should feel empty after a man makes love to her. If there’s a problem, it’s not with you, and I get the feeling he tried to tell you it was.”

Kelsey was trying to control her breathing and her pulse. Both threatened to spiral out of control at his words. Jesus Christ, he knew, he always had. And he was moving closer to her. Her eyes closed, purely an involuntary action. Her senses were overloading and one of them had to go. “Not in so many words…but, yes.”

“Kelsey,” he whispered, his voice tinged with sweetness and reassurance…but not pity. She couldn’t stand that, and he knew it. His fingers whispered across her shoulder. True to his words, her entire body pulled taut. “Come here.”

She exhaled shakily and went into his arms.