Her Untameable Lust

By A P von K'Ory

Adrian was born and bred to the upper crust but internally he’s a savage. He knows the rules but lives by his own. Gentleman, rogue or barbarian killer, Adrian operates by his own playbook. Leo has enough money to purchase Manhattan and give the island to charity. But she can’t buy her way out of her entanglement with Adrian. He turns her world upside down, a malevolent god she can’t help but worship. She can’t avoid the hellish-hot Brit without avoiding herself. Through the death of someone close, Adrian learns of the Phantom, a shadowy power that controls the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The Phantom rules them one and all, down to the deadliest inmate. All the more reason Adrian is determined to find him and eliminate him. But Adrian’s plan goes wildly wrong and the bodies pile up. Will one of them be the one and only woman he’s ever loved? Note: This book contains triggering and adult material unsuitable for all under 18.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A P von K'Ory
• Release date: Apr 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224569847

A P von K'Ory

Short Author BioA P von K’Ory writes romance, psychological thrillers, and nonfiction. She loves diversity – it’s in her aristocratic DNA. She has won six awards from four continents. Her family stretches from the Nilotes of the Eastern African Nile Delta to Germany, France, and the Walloons (Belgium). She lectures Economics and Sociology in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Being migratory – and weather willing – she lives in Germany, France, Cyprus, and Greece.Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/A-P-Von-KOry/e/B00MDHD7ZSVisit me at http://apvonkory.com

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Table of Contents

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

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chaper 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"I’ll kill you for this, Adrian Xerxes fucking Cranford, Leo hissed in his ear. I’ll fucking kill you!"

But Adrian was all smiles to the entire banquet hall of wealthy New York racy, reckless, and godless gala dinner guests. With his British velvet charm slaughtering them to leave smitten fawning bodies in his wake. Dis-fucking-gusting.

Adrian didn’t work the room, he fucked it.

Which only invited more eyes to roam over her. After all, she was now talk of the City. Cancel that; talk of the nation.

Leo, the murderess of a murderess.

The murdered murderess being her own mother who was serving a life sentence.

Murdered in a maximum security prison.

It doesn’t get more scandalicious than that.

That should have been what worried her most right now, yet it wasn’t. She was far more concerned about her bare back in a dress that revealed it down to the crack of her ass. Only two thin criss-crossing diamanté and pearl strings decorated her naked back, competing with a million welts of scars.

Adrian had deliberately bought the backless gown. Special delivery. When she tried to reject it, however diplomatically, he labelled her some sort of coward.

Because he knew that would challenge her fiery nature. He fucking well knew why she didn’t want to wear the gown.

I wasn’t aware we were negotiating anything, Leo, he’d said with British cool. You’ll wear that gown. Not for me, but for us. His charm and tact to make her feel like she wasn’t the only one involved. That somehow, he too, knew about the spider’s web of King Kong scars on her back but didn’t give a damn about displaying them to the elites of New York who nipped and tucked till kingdom come.

He’d forced the impossible gown on her to wear. He’d insisted and dared her, knowing challenges by their very nature were what made Leo take them head-on. Knowing she breathed challenges to survive. Now, her naked back was showcased down to her ass aperture for everybody to feed their eyes on.

She fumed at him.

Normally, unless it concerned business of her own charities, Leo avoided such gatherings. She wasn’t a small talk person.

Nothing to it, gorgeous darling. You might make a new business connection, Adrian told her. But it’s more fun than work. Think of what you want to accomplish here this evening and then define your purpose and go for it. That’s more lucrative than killing me, my gorgeous baby, hm?

To drive the fucking point home, he circled his tuxedoed arm around her waist, deliberately running his fingers up and down her naked spine, from her shoulder blades to the crack of her ass.

Discreetly indiscreet. Yeah, she hadn’t sorted that out in her own head either. Bare was bare, nothing discreet about that.

Leo leaned in to his ear again. I’ll still kill y—

Perry, well, hulllo there, old lad. On the dot as always, the British silky charm cut her off and steered her to another man holding a cocktail glass in one hand.

They shook hands like they were touching gauze to gauze.

May I present this invaluable financial wizard and a lady dear to me, Ms Leontine Boswell. No doubt you know about her brilliance like the rest of the city does. Leo, he continued smoothly in upper-end English of the bring-them-all-slobbering-at-your-feet kind, meet Peregrine Linley, our trade attaché at the British Consulate General here.

Yeah, right. Delighted, but could you just give me a wee moment, old lad, to throttle this overbearing fucker first?

The man offered Leo the gauze and she shook with a smile she hoped was cultured enough. The gauze was as soft as velvet and smoother than satin. Brits, really. She might as well enjoy.

So good to meet you, Ms Boswell. And it sounded so damn genuine, as he ducked and breathed warm air at the back of her hand without letting his lips actually descend on her skin. He gave her a look she could only describe as sturdy, still clinging to her hand with that unspoken we’re the ones who rule the world. Her mind drifted briefly to her mother, the Brit who made her cherish certain things British. But in the next second Leo banned the thought categorically for this evening.

My pleasure, sir.

The double entendre she’d learnt from Adrian.

Perry, he finally released her hand. We’re in America.

What was she supposed to say – indeed, indeed, we are? Leo for the umpteenth time wondered how Brits managed to sound or even be so fucking condescending even when they were kissing your ass.

Quick word, Perry, Adrian said saving Leo from replying to his countryman’s rather Eurocentric remark. Adrian was already pointing in a certain direction. He always planned what to do next a hundred steps in a row. Perry put his glass on the next airborne tray as Adrian led the way to a room that turned out to be a sort of den.

Or perhaps drawing room for the Eurocentric.

He locked the door behind them and ushered Leo onto a sofa while he strode to a drinks cabinet in the form of a globe. He tilted the top half of the globe and pulled out a bottle of scotch.

A tot? he held the bottle up in one hand and two tumblers in the other. Leo watched him pour two drinks, so Perry must have nodded assent. Leo was busy wondering if this humongous mansion belonged to Adrian.

Or at least to his Uncle Gordon.

She was learning that she knew very little about the man. Adrian was about as multi-facetted as a prism with bases ranging from polygons to parallelograms. Shine a light through it and it gets bent by the angles and plane faces of it, each wavelength of light refracted by a slightly different amount.

Adrian was… well, Adrian.

She and then Perry accepted their drinks from him then he strode back to the globe and poured himself a tumbler too.

Let’s sit down, shall we, he said to Perry who still stood inspecting the room with his eyes like a field marshal the battleground. They sat on the sofa opposite Leo’s chair.

Cheers, Adrian raised his glass to them.

Leo sipped, instinctively bracing herself for what would come next. She knew Adrian well enough by now to guess that he hadn’t ushered them in here and locked the door behind them just for a tot. Not Adrian.

Planning a Vegas wedding and need me for best man, sport? Perry quipped, as if he’d read Leo’s mind, his eyes swaying between Leo and Adrian.

Adrian laughed with Perry. Leo watched them, waiting. She worshipped Adrian’s laugh – smooth and illustrious, utterly sublime. A laugh she’d love for breakfast, lunch and dinner forever.

No, this is a lot less serious but needs the diplomatic tact no one thought to bestow me with. I’m a knuckles man.

Well then, stop looking like a symphony of rain on a London street, Adrian. You two look quite the formidable pair.

This time, even Leo couldn’t help laughing. Curiously, with these two Brits she wasn’t even conscious of her indecently bared back, even while she wondered what Adrian meant with knuckles man. Was he the wet jobs man of the organization, after all?

And yet… the man whose darkness matched hers. Even as she schemed to kill him if he was involved in her mother’s death, a vital part of her wanted to once again feel his lips on her. Anywhere on her. That darker part of her that only he knew about because only he hunted for it and brought it to life. Even for her. Whenever her common sense screamed at her not to trust him specifically because he was a man, her body screamed harder to welcome him and have him quench its thirst for… men.

Yes, Leo. The first I give you. Ease into it with the supremacy of a descending Adrian goddess, wildcat. Do it.

And for the first time as a woman she took off to a special place she’d never been. A place she once gleaned a shadow of as a small girl of thirteen on her first bicycle.

A mountain bike birthday present she had been given by her foster family for her thirteenth birthday. She’d been so proud of that bike she jumped on it and took off at once, riding her birthday present to Tabby Woodward’s home to show off her new possession. On the way, suddenly this crazy sensation burst between her legs all the way to her belly, sending her screaming and unable to control herself on the bike. Her head went woozy. Her vision went woozier. And her thoughts were wooziest of all. The more she tried to remain seated and cycle the more extra sensations kept on erupting between her legs. She landed on the ground, shaking and still screaming, her brand new bicycle careening off to hit against a tree on the sidewalk.

Leo? Leo? Hey, dreamer?

Storm in, he whispered hoarsely, This time, storm in with the supremacy of an ascending Adrian goddess. High as… you’ve ever wanted… to ascend, gorgeous mine. I’m right with you." His soft murmur contradicted his increased pace and force.

Leontine?

Adrian stood before her snapping his fingers in front of her face. She nearly jumped out of her skin and plastered herself on the ceiling. What? Er… What’s up? She swatted his hand away.

I was asking you the same thing. You mewled and squirmed on your seat as if you were sitting on something’s sharp teeth that were taking nips on your bum. What’s up, Leo?

Bum. Like Mom. She wished the nippers could simply swallow her whole and the floor gulp the whole sofa as well.

Sorry, scotch not my thing… favourite drink, I guess.

Adrian tugged his tux pants at the knees and dropped on his haunches. He leaned in on her, brow furrowed. Leo? like a parent who knows the child is fibbing.

Yes, Adrian? with her chin lifted in the haughtiest way.

We’re discussing a certain very rich and very hard to meet gentleman whom everybody calls Phantom. You should be interested in joining in the conversation. Or at least listen.

Phantom. Billionaire mob boss or politician or, or, or…

Yes, of course. Sorry, Adrian.

He went back and sat on the sofa with Perry.

Why should this phantom interest me? she pretended.

Because he’s more interested in you and knows you practically to the colour of your knickers, Leo. He plans to invite you to his luxury yacht at Westpoint Harbor, Redwood City. You’d be flown there in style—

What the hell are you talking about?

Join the club and listen, you’ll know soon enough.

Leo nodded and brought all her attention to the discussion that resumed in the room between Adrian and Perry.

And herself.

About the recluse billionaire named Phantom.

Chapter 2

They left the party with, Adrian noted, a less combative Leo. She drove, which suited him fine because she’d hardly drank any alcohol. Not even the whisky. He’d had a tad more than her. So when she rejected his suggestion to take a taxi he didn’t argue.

She headed straight back to her penthouse in her Roadster Xago Edition that guzzled fuel like a teenager his first beer. Same way she’d driven them to the party. The Aventador was her way of scoring a point, Adrian knew, for his forcing her to wear the backless gown to the gala dinner.

He’d allowed her the satisfaction.

With the Xago, so to speak.

That was his Leo. Competitive, assertive and stubborn. Just his luck that, try as she said he did with her, she kept on changing who he was when it came to relationships with women. With anybody, for that matter, since his mother. What the fuck’s a man to do, break this very strong spirit before which he longed to kneel? Adam or not, he had to bite this apple and to hell with the rest. With her reciprocal darkness, she saw through him like no other person, man or woman. Yet Leo truly had innocence and vulnerability that she would never allow the rest of the world to see.

Only Adrian did. Voluntarily.

Because she allowed him the privilege to do so.

Because we all need that special person we usher in.

The one we can allow to see that particular secret us.

And it rendered him weak-kneed. More spheres in their lives where they were unique with each other.

Now she spoke as if she’d read his thoughts.

You know what I hate about you most, Adrian?

She was cruise-missiling the black Lambo to apparent Manhattan’s utter pulverisation.

He said nothing and kept his eyes on the street.

She continued, The fact that I should have known better than to give in to Temptation of the Itch that is you.

Itch. Fucking appropriate, really. Mutual, gorgeous. So far, I’d simply fucked the willing and fuckable, then zipped up. Arrivederci, baby, ciao bella. Adrian MO. Itches verboten.

She laughed heartily, mellowed by the evening’s mild imbibing. She didn’t even indulge in more than a couple of sips of her wine. But he knew ever since he met her five years ago that Leo normally avoided drinking alcohol. He’d mentioned that to her over the dinner in London and she’d told him to sod off. But he knew it had something to do with her parents.

Yes, I know. Adrian the ruthless god who avoids any female soul nuzzling up close against him.

He could gauge her mind yet again telling her to stay away from him. Same way as his own common sense begged him to stay away from her body. But their combined bodies formed a completely different coalition of the willing. Conceded, he did want her to be under his control. It was exhilarating to have her under and all over him. Leo’s touch seemed to quieten the untameable beast lurking inside him. Leo’s mere presence amazingly brought some illumination to his darkness with her own darkness. But he wasn’t some hearts and flowers bloody lover with whom she could plan some fucking darkly ever after.

He returned to her words.

A cold-hearted god, ma’am. Collecting souls in a very negative way. Never risking to touch a single one that might prove bothersome. The bothersome souls are tricky.

Would she be content with the darkly without the ever after? It could be just fine if it remained darkly ever after in the fucking sense of it, couldn’t it? So why this fucking inconsistency in his armour-plated emotions? He wanted his gorgeous baby forever and ever. He just didn’t want the silly bits with rings on fingers and possibly little thems trotting around that might attract some gangster’s lust for quid pro quo. Some gangster who might come to the fatal idea of harming them and/or his gorgeous woman because they couldn’t harm him, Adrian. Someone who would know that his loved ones were easier targets and less dangerous prey.

Adrian, can I ask you something?

You can ask me anything, gorgeous. If I can, I’ll answer.

There goes my Dangerous Darkness. Always planning a thousand Next Steps all lined up in strategic positions.

His Leo.

She knew him.

With that huge brain of yours, I need to cover my precious dangerous arse whenever and wherever you’re involved.

Leo hadn’t been tricky after he got over her during the subsequent five or so years following their first meeting. Their first business lunch at Park Chinois in posh Mayfair surrounded by walls draped in swathes of red and gold silk, where he first scented her darkness and it nearly felled him. That was the moment her darkness cloaked in gorgeousness first penetrated into his roaming darkness and logged in. If he were to be honest, both of them were still very much struggling to know how to navigate caring so much about someone that you feel some sort of loss or incompletion if they’re not with you. If they were not physically attached to you, or near enough to allow the tactile bits and bloody pieces. Christ almighty.

Okay, she said, Who’s that woman Pippa?

His lips quivered with a suppressed smirk. Why do you—

Adrian? the warning in her voice.

Gorgeous?

She sighed like a tried-to-the-limit tolerant mother. Answer me. Or don’t, if you don’t want to. But knock that smirk off your fucking face.

Except very few mothers would swear like Leo.

So you have the face that fucked you mingled with Pippa?

She accelerated so suddenly Adrian was jerked back into his seat and pinned there. Do you want me to floor to two hundred and fifty fucking miles and head for the nearest building with you?

Take care of her. Focus on protecting her. Keep death on the waiting list for the time being. Uncle Gordon’s words.

And that would get you the answer to your question how?

Adrian, for fuck’s sake!

And he had given his word to his uncle. One thing Uncle Gordon taught him was that a Cranford was a man of his word.

Perry’s daughter. And yes, she and I have fucked some.

She braked, making Adrian pitch forward this time, as she went, Oh. My. God. You’re so fucked up.

Because I fucked Pippa Linley? It was consensual, Leo.

I don’t doubt that it was. It’s just that… is Perry gay?

You mean homosexual?

You understood me perfectly.

Why do you ask?

Do I have to spell that, Adrian?

One-love for you, gorgeous. But, I’m not sure. I believe he’s a closet homosexual. Maybe bisexual, come to think of it. After all, he’s married and has children. But, at least as of tonight, closet, as I said. Or a starved masochist, come to think of it yet again. He needed whipping.

You did worse to him. I mean what you did in that room, not merely the fucks you’ve had with his daughter, Adrian. It wa—

"He couldn’t keep his lecherous stare off you and that pissed me off. Yugely. I could see him fucking you in his wildest fantasies."

JFC, Adrian, you’re the devil. Don’t all men fantasize?

They’re welcome to it. Just not while staring at my woman.

Screeching rubber on asphalt jerked Adrian and pressed him to his seat again. In time to see Leo avoiding to plough under a taxi just in the nick of time. She swerved expertly to the left and then slightly back to the right to avoid another vehicle, remaining sandwiched between them for a couple of terrifying seconds.

Fucking snails! Leo screamed with a middle finger held up, making Adrian nearly lunge for the steering wheel. This is a street to drive on, not fucking crawl over on all fours!

The bloody Lambo was so low it could easily plough under an ant innocently crossing the street. If I were on your receiving end, gorgeous, I’d scream back at you that this is a street, not a fucking rocket launching pad.

I’m sure you would, she retorted, excitement making her eyes glow from the streetlights. Are you one too?

One what?

You underst—

—stood you perfectly, yes. Have I given you any reason to make you think I could be?

Yes. What you did with Perry. He was even more stunned than I was. Transfixed. I thought the two of you would fistfight.

He watched your sweet labour on me like you were on him. That motivated me to show him what a fucking tosser he was.

That sweetest devoted blowjob was mine for you, Adrian.

He laughed. Your glorious face was very tempting as always, gorgeous. But Perry’s open-mouthed fascination tempted more.

JFC, Adrian, we’re so fucked up, you and I. And watching that surprise from you – I was utterly gobsmacked as you guys say across the Atlantic. You looked absolutely… never mind.

Oh, I do mind… watch the road, gorgeous. You sound jealous. But Perry just climbed to the top of my tosser list.

Why was he in the list to begin with?

He’s one of the rings of scum doing business with Phantom. So he knows him or knows about him and his whereabouts. Now I just gave him more reason to tell us that.

He said he didn’t know Phantom but would try and find out.

And you believed the tosser’s bullshit? Granted, he has excelled as a loyal diplomat posted in every nasty shade of hotspots the Service had to dole out, shrugging off two wives along the way, Pippa’s mother one of them, and picking up a third along with a couple of gallantry medals. Still a bloody wanker to me. Fucking diplomats.

Wasn’t your dad a diplomat?

Meaning?

Nothing. But after what you did to Perry, Adrian, including letting his own daughter into the room to see him like that… How old was Pippa when you got together?

His daughter got a perfect explanation and accepted it.

Okay. But how old was she when—

Over twenty-one for sure. Already joined Oxford.

You don’t know the age of the girl whose father you—

I was interested in fucking her, not fucking her age.

You narcissist. Know what other thing about you that annoyingly still lingers on me? Annoyingly wonderfully?

She didn’t wait for his answer.

"After hours of fucking, you leave my body sore, my pussy blissfully wrecked, Cranford! And my fucking jaw as disjointed as a broken string of pearls. Not to mention the state of my fucking back. And my having to keep checking the back of my skirt when I get up and your remnants start leaking out of me! And stop fucking chuckling, Adrian, or I’ll go right ahead and kill both of us right here and now. I’m behind the wheel of a missile, forgotten? So easy to ram into any of these crawlers and send them crashing over us from above! Wanna bet? I’m a certified unstableness, remember?"

His Leo, ablaze with all sorts of emotions. As passionate as a raging inferno. Fucking her right away would be galactic.

He suppressed his chuckles and said, Oh, I too, need to recuperate with every single fuck. Just not in the same way.

You have a pussy? How come I missed detecting it, Adrian?

They were still roaring with laughter as she packed the Lambo in the Boswell Building basement car park.

Here we are, Mr Cranford, sir. Like to see my stamp collection or would you rather just come up for a nightcap?

They burst into new laughter.

You’re incorrigible, Leontine Nigella Boswell, he said, helping her out of the scissor door of the Roadster Xago.

Chapter 3

As usual when her mind wasn’t at ease, Leo woke up early. She blinked first at the sun’s rays stealing through cracks in the carelessly drawn velvet curtains. The light shot lazily on the sleeping body of an evil god still under the magic spell of their ravenous flesh fest.

Live, sweaty, pulsating flesh gone satanic.

As she watched him, her mind spooled back like a movie reel to the scene in that room at the Montblanc gala dinner.

They were in the middle of discussing the mysterious Phantom, the proclaimed lord of yachts, private jets and even the White House without himself bothering to win an election for it.

Phantom was apparently the puppeteer behind the events that led to Mom and Uncle Gordon getting nowhere with their appeal. And behind Mom being overdosed and finally killed. Leo was riveted to the discussion and for the first time grasped just how much Adrian had been doing behind the scenes, working in tandem with Uncle Gordon.

Then she noticed that watching Adrian was doing more to her than just convince her he was on her corner. Adrian simply turned her on relentlessly with his voice, presence, that charm that could turn into a dangerous beast in a heartbeat.

And maybe, reacting to Adrian like she always did, she was naturally emitting alarming amounts of pheromones into the air in the room which affected both men. Hearing just how often Adrian had risked his life to battle with all these criminal people who ganged up on Mom for no other reason but that she in her turn had been involved with the Carrington fortune.

But while she lusted after Adrian while listening to the narrative of his dangerous machinations, Perry looked at her like she was his dinner. At any rate, Perry couldn’t take his eyes off her and seemed to hardly pay attention to what Adrian was saying. When Adrian asked him questions, Perry often had to have the question repeated because he hadn’t paid attention.

Then, with no warning, she saw Adrian’s beast emerge out of him and fill the room with the scent of a malevolent god.

Like Adrian was a true shifter, turning into his ferocious Alpha monster god. He continued to talk but his eyes darted between her and Perry. Perry gave him distracted answers, hardly looking at Adrian while he talked.

The malevolent god emerged to his full capacity.

He stopped talking and got up, strode majestically to her.

The room got charged anew.

She’s gorgeous, Perry, I know. You can’t take your fucking eyes off her while I talk to you. He was already next to Leo.

Sorry, I’m distracted, Adrian. Indeed, she is, I’ll admit.

And all mine, Perry. Mine like no other before her.

JFC, when Adrian had that dark soft voice, hell’s right here.

Sit back, gorgeous, he ordered Leo. She obeyed.

Next thing she knew, he’d grabbed her legs, lifted them onto his lower chest and removed her shoes. Then her panties followed. Adrian dropped them casually to the floor.

All the while Adrian is frying her and Perry with his molten gold gaze, ferocious, calm, and methodical.

The god of Meted Out Consequences.

Put your palms on the seat to balance you, gorgeous baby. Let’s give Perry his fucking eyeful of just how much you’re mine.

What the hell are you doing? she wanted to say but didn’t. Because this was absolutely, deliciously evil. Instead she planted her hands on the edge of the seat and curled her fingers into the damask, already trembling with her Adrian goddess lust. He leisurely ran his lips down one of her legs, planted on his chest while her precious gown slid down her thighs. His lips travelled the inside of her thigh, pushing the gown down. She automatically lifted her ass to help him push it out of the way to bare herself to his ferocious lustful gaze.

And Perry’s mesmerized eyes.

Adrian, she couldn’t help murmuring, ready to explode.

Her bare ass rested on the damask. Her pooling pussy too, no doubt, dripping on the damask upholstery.

Gorgeous? in that dual voice between shut the fuck up and darling? while he continued to kiss the inside of her other thigh after skimming over her pussy to get to