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  “I will always appreciate our time together, and if you ever need me for anything, you know how to reach me. Don’t ever hesitate to call, all right?”

  Farrah nodded. “All right. Thanks.”

  He cupped her chin in his hand before leaning down and capturing her mouth in a kiss that she felt all the way to her toes. His tongue tangled with hers, eliciting all kinds of lust that began rushing through her veins in a matter of seconds.

  When he finally released her mouth and stepped back, she eased back down to the edge of the bed to watch him get dressed. He slid his jeans back over his muscular thighs before readjusting his briefs. She studied the bulge in his crotch, the object that had given her so much pleasure over the past year. It was still hard, thick and so engorged it practically seemed ready to explode.

  Desire thrummed through her body as she remembered how good he felt inside of her, how good he tasted, and she quickly decided there was no use letting a good opportunity go to waste.

  “Xavier?”

  He glanced over at her as he buttoned his jeans. “Yes?”

  “How about one more for the road?”

  Books by Brenda Jackson

  Kimani Romance

  *Solid Soul

  *Night Heat

  *Beyond Temptation

  *Risky Pleasures

  In Bed with the Boss

  *Irresistible Forces

  Just Deserts

  The Object of His Protection

  Temperatures Rising

  *Intimate Seduction

  Bachelor Untamed

  *Hidden Pleasures

  Star of His Heart

  Bachelor Unleashed

  BRENDA JACKSON

  is a die “heart” romantic who married her childhood sweetheart and still proudly wears the “going steady” ring he gave her when she was fifteen. Because she’s always believed in the power of love, Brenda’s stories always have happy endings. In her real-life love story, Brenda and Gerald, her husband of thirty-eight years, live in Jacksonville, Florida, and have two sons.

  A New York Times bestselling author of more than seventy-five romance titles, Brenda is a retiree from a major insurance company and now divides her time between family, writing and traveling with Gerald. You may write to Brenda at P.O. Box 28267, Jacksonville, Florida 32226 or her email address, [email protected], or visit her website at www.brendajackson.net.

  BRENDA JACKSON

  Bachelor Unleashed

  To the love of my life, Gerald Jackson, Sr.

  Dear Reader,

  When I first introduced Xavier Kane in Risky Pleasures (Vanessa Steele and Cameron Cody’s love story), I was already imagining the kind of love interest he would have. Then, while writing Intimate Seduction (Donovan’s story) and introducing Farrah (Natalie’s best friend), I knew I had found the woman for Xavier.

  Bachelor Unleashed is Xavier and Farrah’s story. It’s a love affair started in Intimate Seduction, where hints were given as to where things were headed in Bachelor Untamed. Both have reasons for not wanting to become involved in a serious relationship, but when it comes to true love, this couple finds out that they can only follow their hearts.

  And don’t worry if you haven’t read any of the previous books—this is a wonderful stand-alone story, as well.

  I hope you enjoy reading Xavier and Farrah’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  Happy reading!

  Brenda Jackson

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to Sharon Beaner, who took the time to enlighten me about the job of a mediator.

  This one is especially for you.

  Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.

  —Luke 6:38

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  There was nothing a woman was left wanting before, during and after making love with Xavier Kane. And Farrah Langley was caught now in the throes of one of those heated, satisfying moments.

  She had known she was in for a sensual treat the minute she’d opened the door to him earlier. With a bottle of wine in his hand, he’d stood there looking sexier than any man had a right to look, arriving for what had become known as one of his infamous booty calls. Now with three orgasms behind her in less than an hour and her body climbing greedily toward a fourth, she reached the conclusion that Xavier Kane was a pleasure-producing maniac.

  They were in the middle of her bed, on top of the covers, naked, soaked in perspiration, their limbs en-twined, their bodies connected, making out like sexdeprived addicts who couldn’t get enough of each other. It was always this endless need that drove them out of control and over the edge. Something about the feel of his hot, sweaty flesh rubbing against hers as he thrust in and out of her body made her g-spot literally weep.

  The room exuded the scent of raw sex, the aroma of a virile man, and she was drenched in the fragrance of a deeply satisfied woman. A woman who was his most willing partner and was doing everything to keep up with him. The man’s sexual appetite was voracious, and he delivered just as much as he procured. She had no complaints, just compliments. Xavier definitely knew how to conduct business in the bedroom.

  It was storming outside, and they were having their own monsoon inside. Only with him did she experience such a downpour of torrential sensations, such a deluge of emotions…some she knew were best kept under wraps. But he had a way of pulling them out of her anyway. He had the ability to make her want things she was better off not having. More than once with him she’d let her guard down, allowed her body’s own greedy wants and needs to betray her, which was a transgression that could cost her.

  It was nearly two years since her divorce from Dustin Holloway had become final. Dustin, her college sweetheart, a man she had vowed to always love. A man who’d vowed to love her forever as well. But four years into their marriage she’d begun noticing things. Like him wearing a scent that wasn’t hers. Him moaning out a strange name during sex, and him sneaking out of bed in the wee hours of the night to make private calls on his cell phone.

  She had finally confronted him, and without any remorse, he’d confessed that for the past two years he’d been living a double life. He not only had a mistress but also a child, and he wanted a divorce to marry the other woman and be a father to his daughter.

  It had taken a full year for the hurt to go away, and she would admit remnants of it still lingered, making her cautious, wary and adamant even at twenty-seven years of age never to give her heart to another man again.

  “Let your pleasure rip for me now, Farrah.”

  Xavier’s deep, husky command struck a delicious chord, sent sensuous shivers up her spine, sank deep into her sensitive flesh and touched her everywhere, especially at the juncture of her thighs where their bodies were joined.

  She forgot everything except how he was making her feel. Her body fragmented into a cascade of gratifying prisms that ran from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. She was flooded with more sensations than she could sink her teeth into…so she sank them into him, biting his shoulder as she found herself drowning in total and complete sensual abandonment.

  It was then that he skillfully lifted her hips in order to thrust deeper int
o a spot he always reserved for last. Her legs tightened around his waist, and she released one hellacious scream as pleasure tore through her.

  Farrah was convinced his ear drums were damage-proof, just as she figured the power and strength of his erection should be patented. While she let go and continued to take one merciless fall into ecstatic oblivion, she knew the moment the sexual tension that had been building inside him popped, and with it went his control. His body responded to hers, and following her lead, he went off the deep end. His thrusts became harder, stronger, went deeper, and his hold on her tightened as she locked him between her thighs. And then came the Xavier Kane growl that pierced the air and only made her want him even more.

  “Xavier, please. More.”

  And he continued to give her more, giving in to her shameless plea. Heat built as he stroked her while pushing her thighs apart with his knee to go even deeper. His thrusts were the strokes of rapture, and the skill with which he was delivering them was the pinnacle of pure sensual delight. They were what continued to spark that foolishness in her head that whispered what they were sharing was more than just great sex. It was about a man and woman so in tune to each other’s wants and needs, so in harmony to each other’s desires that practically >anything—a touch, a lick, a breathless groan—nipped at their nerve endings and pushed them to this.

  As she continued to tumble over the edge, she didn’t want to be reminded that he’d become her weakness, nor that she’d made a decision as to how she would handle it. As much as she preferred not taking such drastic actions, her decision was one that couldn’t be helped. Not if she wanted to retain her sanity and peace of mind. And she couldn’t put it off any longer.

  Tonight she would end things between them.

  She pushed the thought to the back of her mind. She didn’t want to dwell on all the pleasurable lovemaking hours she would be giving up. She would just have to learn to deal with it.

  For now she wanted nothing more than to keep falling into the most sensuous waters a woman’s body could plunge.

  Xavier reluctantly eased out of Farrah’s body, sighed deeply and then slid out of bed. The first thing he noticed was that it was no longer storming outside. Calm had settled over the earth.

  The second thing he noticed was the absence of Farrah’s even breathing, which meant even after all those powerful orgasms she was still awake. Usually she would have fallen into an exhausted sleep.

  He glanced over his shoulder and met her hazy gaze and thought he saw two things in the dark depths of her eyes—regret and resolve.

  “We need to talk, Xavier,” she said softly.

  For some reason he didn’t like the sound of that. Usually when a woman informed a man they needed to talk right after they’d made love it meant she had a bomb to drop. The first crazy notion that ran through his mind was that she was going to tell him that somehow, although she was on the pill and he always wore a condom, she’d gotten pregnant. The chances of that happening were probably less than one percent, but it was the one percent that had him feeling kind of nervous right now.

  He studied her features and thought, as he always had, that she was an utterly beautiful woman who wore that “just made love to” look well. And just the thought that he’d given her that look, dressed her in it real good, sent primitive shivers of male pride and possessiveness down his spine. Hell, if he was a cave man, he would be beating on his damn chest about now.

  “Let me take care of things in the bathroom first and then I’ll be right back,” he said. And with every step toward the bathroom he couldn’t help wondering what this discussion would be about.

  If she was going to inform him that he was going to be a daddy, the thought didn’t send him into panic for some reason. He was thirty-two, closer to thirty-three if you wanted to be more specific, and he was pretty well-off, so he could handle child support payments without breaking a sweat, just as long as a woman didn’t try taking him to the cleaners. He knew, after being Farrah’s lover for almost a year, that she was not the greedy type.

  Except for when they were in bed. Between the sheets, her sexual appetite could just about rival his. But he had no complaints. And he knew that, like him, she had this thing about commitments. They’d both gotten burned once, he with an ex-girlfriend and she an ex-husband, so a no-strings affair was all they’d ever wanted from each other.

  They hadn’t meant for things to last as long as they had. He’d been with her longer than any other woman… except Dionne Witherspoon. However, he refused to go there tonight. He would not think about the woman he’d fallen in love with while attending law school at Harvard. Dionne had only sought out his affections so he could provide the help she needed for her law exams. Once she aced them all, she had dropped him like a hot potato.

  Xavier returned from the bathroom a short while later accepting there was a strong possibility that, regardless of whether he and Farrah wanted to play the commitment game or not, they would be forced to do so if she was pregnant. After all, he much preferred being a real father to his child rather than just a child support check. He wanted to be the type of parent to his child that his father had been to him. Benjamin Kane had been a top-notch dad. He still was.

  Instead of getting back in bed, Xavier picked up his jeans and slid into them, then he eased down in the wingback chair across the room from the bed. He had followed Farrah’s lead. She was no longer naked but was wearing a robe. It was short and showed a lot of thigh. He thought she had luscious thighs, the kind a man loved to hold on to and ride. Farrah Langley made any man with red hot testosterone appreciate being a man. Hell, he was getting another hard-on just looking at her.

  “Tonight was it for us, Xavier.”

  He pulled his gaze from her thighs to her face, not sure he had heard her correctly. He stared at her for a long, silent moment, and when he saw the regret and resolve he’d caught a glimpse of earlier, he asked, “What did you say?”

  She sat down on the side of her bed to face him. “I said, tonight was it.”

  He fought to keep back the shock from his face. “It?”

  “Yes. We started this thing between us almost a year ago, longer than either of us intended. It was never meant to last more than a couple of months, if even that.”

  He nodded, knowing that much was true. For him the practice of self-preservation was a way of life. He abhorred emotional involvements of any kind. He and Farrah had established the boundaries up front, basically on that first night.

  And he could recall that first night well…

  They had met at the Racetrack Café, a popular hangout here in Charlotte. He’d been there with a close friend by the name of Donovan Steele, and Farrah had been with her best friend, Natalie Ford. Before the night was over, Donovan and Natalie had paired off and so had he and Farrah. He’d thought she was ultrabeautiful, hot. There had been something about her that had immediately made his mouth water, his tongue tingle, and he’d known from the jump that he wanted some of her. And he had been able to tell from her body language that the feeling was mutual.

  A few nights later he had shown up at her front door with a bottle of wine in his hand and a hard-on in his pants. She had opened the door and let him in, fully aware of the nature of his visit. And things had been that way between them since. No commitment, just great sex.

  And now she wanted to end things.

  Before he could fix his mouth to ask why, she said in a teasing voice that he really didn’t find amusing, “I wouldn’t want to threaten your standing as a member of that club.”

  He knew exactly what club she was referring to. It was one he and his five godbrothers had formed a few years ago—the Bachelors in Demand Club. They were men who enjoyed their single lives with no plans of settling down. All six of them had their own issues with commitment and were basically guarding their hearts. Now there were only five of them left, since one of his godbrothers, Uriel Lassiter, had gotten married last year.

  “Donovan and Natalie’
s wedding reminded me of all the reasons why I don’t want to be seriously involved with anyone again,” she went on to add.

  He drew in a deep breath. As much as he preferred things continuing between them for a little while longer, the decision to split now was hers to make, and he respected that. And then maybe she was right. Things had lasted longer than either of them had planned, and things were beginning to get too complacent between them. Hell, he could recall speeding away from Uriel’s wedding reception like a mad man trying to make it to her place. And wasn’t it just last weekend they had literally burned the sheets off the bed at the Ritz-Carlton in New York after Donovan and Natalie’s wedding reception?

  He didn’t need a rocket scientist to see that things could start getting serious between them if they weren’t careful. She had the ability to unleash feelings within him he preferred staying locked away. So maybe they should make a clean break before things got messy and complicated. Those were two words he didn’t like having in his vocabulary.

  He eased out of the chair and stood. “Hey, no problem. It was nice while it lasted, sweetheart.” He not only meant that from the bottom of his heart, but also from the head of his penis that was already swelling in protest with his words. He was definitely going to miss sharing all those bedroom hours with her.

  “You do understand, right?”

  “Of course I do,” he said, ignoring the tightening in his chest. He slowly crossed the room and reached out and pulled her into his arms. “I will always appreciate our time together and if you ever need me for anything, you know how to reach me. Don’t ever hesitate to call, all right?”

  Farrah nodded. “All right. Thanks.”

  He cupped her chin in his hand before leaning down and capturing her mouth in a kiss that she felt all the way to her toes. She thought being a good kisser was just another quality he possessed. His tongue tangling with hers elicited all kinds of lust that began rushing through her veins in a matter of seconds. It didn’t take much to get her wet again.