Undone, Volume 3

UNDONE,
VOLUME 3

CALLIE
HARPER

Copyright © 2016 Callie
Harper

Cover
Design Jada D’Lee Designs

Ebook
Formatting by Jesse Gordon

All
rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to
real events, people, or places is entirely coincidental. All rights
reserved. This book may not be reproduced or distributed in any
format without the permission except in the case of brief quotations
used for review. If you have not purchased this book or received a
copy from the author, you are reading a pirated book.

The
author acknowledges the trademarked status of products referred to in
this book and acknowledges that trademarks have been used without
permission.

This
book contains mature content, including graphic sex. Please do not
continue reading if you are under the age of 18 or if this type of
content is disturbing to you.

• CALLIE HARPER’S BOOKS
  
• CHAPTER 1: ASH
  
• CHAPTER 2: ANA
  
• CHAPTER 3: ASH
  
• CHAPTER 4: ANA
  
• CHAPTER 5: ASH
  
• CHAPTER 6: ANA
  
• CHAPTER 7: ASH
  
• CHAPTER 8: ANA
  
• CHAPTER 9: ASH
  
• CHAPTER 10: ANA
  
• CHAPTER 11: ASH
  
• CHAPTER 12: ANA
  
• EPILOGUE: ASH
  
• EPILOGUE: ANA
  
• UNTAMED
  
  • CHAPTER 1
    
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  
• CONTACT
  

Off
Limits: A Stepbrother MMA Romance

Unleashed: Hot Alpha Romance,
Volumes 1-4
(Beg
for It series, Book 1)

Undone,
Volumes 1-3
(Beg for It series, Book 2)

Untamed
(Beg
for It series, Book 3)

Ash

Good thing Connor had
been there at the New Year’s party. Ana had passed out cold, but
he’d been there to catch her. Who knew what could have happened to
her if he hadn’t been around? By the time I arrived, she was
already slung over Connor’s shoulder and they were halfway out the
door.

“Is she all right?”
I rushed over. What the hell? Ana hadn’t even seemed drunk when I’d
spoken with her last. Of course, I’d been away for a while. Two
minutes never meant two minutes, and Lola and the team owner had
monopolized my time discussing the halftime show for far longer than
I’d intended.

“There you are.”
Connor shifted Ana’s weight on his shoulder. For a little guy, he
was strong as hell. “Been looking for you. Your girl’s passed
out.”

“I can see that.” I
reached to take her from him and a strange thing happened. For a
second, I could have sworn Connor pulled her away. But that second
passed and then he eased her into my arms. I must have imagined it.

“Guess she was doing
shots earlier with some of the girls.”

“Really?” She
didn’t stir at all in my arms, completely out.

“Yeah, then I saw her
pound something else down. I went over to check on her and she passed
out.”

“Shit.” She looked
so vulnerable in my arms, out cold. I was glad Connor had found her.
“I guess she doesn’t usually drink much.”

“Your librarian’s a
lightweight,” Connor confirmed, reaching up to clap me on the back.
Then he dove back into the party, high-fiving some guy in the crowd.

“Thanks for looking
after her!” I called to him, but he didn’t hear me. He was
already off and into the next mess he could find. Messes seemed to
follow Connor wherever he went.

I brought Ana back to
my hotel suite, glad I didn’t run into any cameras on the way. I
was only down the hall and the hotel had good security for a party
like the one we had going on. But celebrities drew paparazzi like a
garbage dump drew flies, a perfect match. So I felt relief as I
reached my door and entered into the darkness.

Ana was going to have
one hell of a hangover, I could already tell that. Sleeping soundly
and, it appeared peacefully, not an eyelid fluttered as I rested her
down onto the bed. She had her own suite, I knew that, but I wanted
to be near her. And I could always use her passing out as an excuse—I
wanted to keep an eye on her, make sure she was OK. I could say it
with honesty. It was the truth.

For maybe the first
time in my life, I honestly wanted to be in a hotel room watching
over someone sleep rather than partying like it was 1999 down the
hall. What was happening to me? Had I grown up overnight, taken some
sort of hormone pill that finally kicked me out of adolescence?

But, when I thought of
it, I’d been heading down this road for a while, slowly pulling
away from Connor and his antics. The number of times I turned down
something wild and crazy now far outpaced the number of times I went
along with it, never mind how rarely I came up with that sort of shit
myself anymore. I’d never admitted it out loud to anyone, hadn’t
even really to myself, but when I’d dated Mandy I’d hoped. Or at
least I’d wondered—would she be different? I’d been ready for a
change for a long time.

Now that change had
come. I sat on the edge of the bed, looking at Ana so peaceful. Her
lashes so long, her perfect full lips, the curve of her cheekbone. I
wanted to memorize every inch of her.

Because somehow it had
felt like she hadn’t just been wanting to leave the party earlier
tonight. It had felt like she’d wanted to leave me. I understood
wanting to get out of that party. I’d felt exactly the same way.
But had she been trying to end things between us? The thought made
something in my chest seize up like an engine with no oil.

She had every right to
end things. I’d even understand it if she did. And stupid over her
as I was, I still managed to remember ending things was the plan. She
was supposed to break up with me on January ninth. It was now the
first. We had barely over a week left.

But if things ended
between us, I wanted them to end for the right reasons. It shouldn’t
be because she got freaked out over the celebrity lifestyle. I’d
spent a long time surrounded by the circus, but here was the nasty
little secret celebrities never talked about: if you didn’t seek
out the spotlight, it generally went away. All that fussing and
whining about being constantly hounded and stalked? I could list a
bunch of famous people I knew who managed it well, kept a low
profile. They just didn’t do public, drunk, messy shit.

And maybe it was time
to put all that behind me? I had a hunch that if I were with Ana, I
wouldn’t miss it for a second. I could still keep on with music, I
knew I’d always do that, but maybe there was something else? Some
other way? And maybe we could figure it out together?

But here we were in
Vegas, probably the worst place in the world for real, heart-to-heart
talks about toning things down and stepping out of the glitz and
glam. In Vegas, the lights literally never went out. Especially on
New Year’s Eve.

And I hadn’t even
given Ana a midnight kiss. That seemed a damn shame. I’d been
caught up after the show with glad-handing and photos and people Lola
said I had to meet. Then everyone all around had started counting
down and some groupie had pulled me into a kiss I managed to twist
onto my cheek.

No, Vegas wasn’t
doing us any favors. But the thing about Vegas was you could always
leave it behind. And you know what wasn’t too far away? Mammoth. I
had a cabin there. Or, technically, the band had a cabin there. A
big, tricked out one. The slopes were better in Tahoe, and much
tastier in Vail or Aspen, but Mammoth had location going for it. Just
over an hour’s flight from L.A., Vegas and S.F., Mammoth was like
L.A.’s snow playground backyard.

If we drove, we could
get there in about four and a half hours.

“What do you think?”
I asked, speaking out loud to Ana’s sleeping form. No response.

There was a storm
coming, a big enough one that even I’d heard people talking about
it. Keeping up on the weather wasn’t really my thing, but when the
forecast predicted a days-long torrential storm pounding the state
with rain and blanketing the mountains in snow, it even got on Ash
Black’s radar. Drought-stricken California needed rain and snow,
everyone knew that, but this storm was supposed to pack a wallop. And
it was due to arrive later on today.

I had to make a call.
Ana wasn’t in any shape to make it with me. She’d said something
about flying back to New York, but come on now. What we’d had in
Paris had been real. We needed a few more days together out of the
spotlight.

If we headed up to
Mammoth, we could tuck ourselves away in the cabin. I knew none of
the guys were headed there. They’d planned to stay on in Vegas for
a couple of days and keep the party going. Ana and I would be snowed
in. I’d have her all to myself for days on end.

§

Driving in a snowstorm
was harder than I’d remembered. Actually, I couldn’t remember the
last time I’d driven myself through a snowstorm. Or driven myself
through anything to anywhere. Thankfully, we were already on Route
395. GPS said we had about an hour to go.

The flakes were already
coming down thick and fast. When we’d left Vegas four hours earlier
in the dead of night, the road had been flat and dry and stretched
out in front of us endlessly.

I say us because Ana
was with me the whole time. But she hadn’t exactly been awake for
any of it. She was passed out so cold a couple of times I’d checked
to make sure she was breathing. She always was, slow and steady, just
sleeping the sleep of the dead.

And sleep on she still
did, slumped against the door of the car, unaware of the storm
brewing around her. Unaware that I’d kidnapped her.

Technically speaking,
of course. Kidnapping was an inflammatory term, but, technically, it
applied to this situation. I realized that. She’d told me she
planned to go to New York. I’d lifted her up in a dead sleep,
carried her down in an elevator passed out on my shoulder, and laid
her down in a rental SUV without her becoming any the wiser. This
girl could sleep. She must have been drunk when we’d spoken
earlier. The party had been crowded and loud and I’d barely been
able to hear her speaking. She must have been wasted and I just
hadn’t noticed.

I’d tucked her in
nicely, setting her up with a pillow and a blanket from the hotel.
They’d charge my account and probably consider themselves lucky
that I hadn’t ripped a sink out of the wall like last time.
Actually, that had been Connor, but the two of us tended to get
lumped together.

He wasn’t such a bad
guy, really. Look how he’d been taking care of Ana. And he’d had
a hard time of it growing up, getting bullied so bad when I’d first
met him in boarding school he’d always had a cut or a bruise or
both marking up his face. He’d been a shrimpy little Irish
scholarship kid, and didn’t all those aristocratic British brats
let him know it. Now I knew he took things too far, always over the
top, but the world loved him for it. Could you blame him?

I hoped one day he and
Ana could get on better. I know he’d hit on her, but that was his
way. There wasn’t a woman alive he wouldn’t hit on, that was like
sleeping, eating and breathing for him. And Ana, well, she’d tempt
a monk.

Even looking at her
sleeping there in the car, so innocent, she made my thoughts turn
nasty. Once we made it to the cabin, I’d have her all to myself. No
one else there, nothing to interrupt us, distract us. We could get
lost in each other the way I knew we were meant to do.

But maybe I should say
if
we made it to the
cabin. The towering pines, the ridges surrounding us, we were deep in
the Sierra Nevada mountain range and it was gorgeous but I’d had to
slow down to about thirty miles an hour. I’d rented a powerful SUV,
but snowplows hadn’t had a chance to get up to this stretch of road
yet and the powder was accumulating, fast.

I felt proud of myself
that I’d remembered to call ahead and talk to the caretaker of the
Mammoth property. Such planning from seat-of-his-pants rocker Ash
Black. I’d even been surprised to find his number in my phone under
Mammoth Cabin. I had people to handle those kinds of arrangements.
But not when I stole away in the dead of night trying to avoid all
discovery. Then, I needed to make the call myself.

If the caretaker had
been surprised at a call from Ash Black at four in the morning on New
Year’s Day, he hadn’t shown it. I didn’t know how much we paid
him, but apparently it was enough that when I woke him up in the
middle of the night and told him I’d be arriving at the cabin in a
few hours he said, “No problem.” The cabin would be clean, lit
and heated upon our arrival. He’d even make sure the fridge and
pantry were stocked and we had enough firewood to last us days.