Redemption

by Shey Stahl

  He had every right to be pissed off, but so did I. “I’m sorry.” I couldn’t look at him when I spoke, too afraid to see the hatred in his eyes. “I’m tired of everyone judging me for wanting to see Silas and look better in the process. I want to do this, and I don’t want to be talked out of it.” I looked down at my hands, and then finally at Destry, waiting on his response.

  Staring me down, he didn’t say anything for a few moments. His silence drove me crazy. I wanted to know what he was thinking so freaking bad. A thick silence settled between us, awkwardly, and standing that close to him sent a wave of nerves through me.

  His eyes narrowed in on me, his tongue darting out as he licked his bottom lip. “Fair enough.” Running his hand through his hair, he winked, and motioned toward the weights, his shoulders relaxing. “Let’s start with lunges.”

  What the fuck just happened? Now he’s winking at me? Maybe he’s bipolar.

  Lunges weren’t my favorite and he knew it. And because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, he was punishing me with them.

  After lunges, we did sixty-second planks. Who the hell dreamed up this plank shit? Did they get in the push-up position and decide, fuck it, stay like that and call it a plank. Stupidest exercise ever. And then to piss me off, Destry had me doing side planks, the kind where you lift your knee up to your elbow, and then another where I would lower to my elbows, then back up to my hands. It was awful. If Destry could have figured out a way, I was sure he would have made me twist into a pretzel to do planks.

  Screw planks and him.

  Like I was doing everything wrong, Destry corrected my form many times, had to touch me every time, in every place to make sure my “plank form” was straight as the proverbial plank would be. It was fucking torture. And then to further torture me, he watched me jump rope and then sat behind me counting as I did squats with a bar.

  He watched.

  He scrutinized

  And then he watched some more.

  I did the same circuit type training as last week when he was showing me some squats. Apparently, my form was off. Surprise! “You’re still not doing it right,” he said, standing up.

  Nudging my thighs apart with his knees, his hips pressed forward so he was right against my ass. I sighed. Openly fucking sighed.

  I couldn’t take much more of this touching with him. He’d been doing it all night. It was so different from every other day. Normally, he kept his distance and now he was touching, showing, interacting. I couldn’t handle that, at least not when I was so frustrated, stressed out, and horny.

  His face was near my ear when he whispered, “Good form is as important as exercise and hydration. Bend your knees and keep breathing.”

  I did exactly as he instructed me, bent my knees, and then it happened.

  My ass slid down his dick. Slid all down that, all in his business.

  And.

  AND.

  He was hard.

  I turned my head immediately and stared at him. He winked. The way that wink made my insides goo should have been illegal. He wasn’t supposed to be making me feel these things. He was a trainer. I was a girl looking to get in shape and meeting my long-lost love in a few weeks. I didn’t need to be getting turned on by winks, his smartass remarks, and his hard-on. I needed to hate him.

  Destry tensed behind me when my back arched on instinct. Give me a hard dick and I was gonna treat it like a stripper pole all greased up and ready for me. I ground into his dick. No shame in my game at all.

  Halting my movements, but keeping me in place against him, his hands flew to my hips, his lips at my ear, speaking low and rough. “Wanna get a drink with me?”

  “With you?” I asked, turning around to face him. “Like right now?”

  “Yes. With me.” He looked down, his stare on my lips, then searching my eyes, his breathing heavy. “We’re done for the day.”

  I swallowed as if I hadn’t drunk water in days and Destry was like a desert mirage I needed to get to and taste. “Okay….”

  There was a point in your life when you became aware something was changing. Torn between all the reasons that had brought me to Destry, I was at a crossroads.

  Silas.

  Destry.

  Destry was here, now. Silas was a rock star who, for all I knew, wanted me for one night and then would leave me like he did after high school, to pursue his dreams that didn’t include me.

  How had this man standing before me caused me to doubt the very thing I was working so hard for? But I knew what that one drink meant. With me, it was the point of no return.

  Decisions made with the assistance of liquid courage were never a good idea.

  To break one of boxing’s rules, which can ultimately lead to point deductions if they are repeated.

  “How’d you meet him?”

  I laughed as Destry and I sat at the bar together. It was a Monday night. A handful of bar patrons filled the tables all watching the Mariners game. And here he was, asking questions about Silas again. “I thought you didn’t care?”

  His turn to laugh. His fingers wrapped around the glass as he stared at the contents. “Well no, I don’t. But I’m trying to understand why a girl like you would be doing all this for him. I’m curious. So, how’d you meet him?”

  “Well, you have to realize that I was thirteen when I met Silas. And we were inseparable. Then one day he left, with no explanation at all. When I got to college, I met friends, moved on in a way, but no one ever came close to Silas. That’s why I want to see him again. Just one night.”

  Destry didn’t say anything. He handed me a shot of vodka and then downed his own, as if he knew the pain. “And what happens if that night doesn’t go as planned?”

  “I haven’t thought about that part yet.” The thing was, I was refusing to let myself think about that part of it.

  He nodded, his eyes on his shot glass again. “You know that old saying, something about the best laid plans often go awry. You should think about the what ifs before you show up to meet him.” He wouldn’t make eye contact. “Celebrities are no different than professional athletes. Opportunities are presented to you that are oftentimes hard to pass up when you’re in the public eye.”

  Damn him. Silas wasn’t like that. Surely he passed up the opportunities. Didn’t he?

  I’m a fucking idiot.

  We ended up making small talk for a while, but with Destry, there were some topics that were off-limits. It seemed anything related to his past, his family, and a lot about boxing, were all triggers. That didn’t leave a lot to talk about. You could literally watch him shut down when the conversation drifted toward an outcome he couldn’t control.

  “I’m so out of practice,” I said randomly, as if he should automatically know what I was talking about. “It’s been a while.”

  “Out of practice with what?” He wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were on the television above the bar, which made it a little easier to answer.

  “Sex.”

  Oh my God! Did I say that out loud? Shit. I did.

  The moment the word sex was uttered, Destry’s eyes snapped to mine and my cheeks were immediately red. Smiling while taking a drink of his beer, his eyes softened. “Need some training, do you?”

  “It wouldn’t hurt, would it?”

  He shrugged. So, I had basically offered up sex and he shrugged. Nice. I wanted to punch myself when I got drunk because I said shit like that. I’d presented myself on a platter to this unbelievably smoking-hot guy and he fucking shrugged. If I couldn’t get Destry to have sex, how in the holy hell was Silas going to even take the bait?

  Confused and emotional, in a matter of ten minutes, I had five shots. For someone who didn’t drink, those five shots caught up with me quickly.

  I slammed the last shot on the bar. “I… uh… sorry I said that.” Destry shifted next to me, but as always, kept his cool. When he didn’t say anything in reply, I continued, fearing the silence. “I can be an idiot when I drink.”

&
nbsp; “How many of those are you going to drink?” He leaned forward with his elbows on the bar, motioning toward the new shot glass in my hand.

  Danny came by attempting to fill our shot glasses again, smiling at Destry, and then me. It probably looked obvious what was happening here. Or where we were heading with this. I held my hand up to Danny, trying to cover the shot glass. “No way. I’m done.”

  “Ah, live a little,” Danny said in a thick Canadian accent I hadn’t noticed until tonight.

  Destry chuckled softly beside me, nudging my elbow. Persuaded by his laughter, I ended up uncovering my shot glass.

  Destry bumped his elbow against mine. “So, how many?”

  I gave him a look, my eyes widening as if I was begging myself not to say anything else that was dumb, or offer up sex again. “Just one. Why?”

  “Why not two or three more?” His eyes moved from mine to the television above the bar.

  I turned on my stool and bumped his knee with mine. “Destry Stone… are you trying to take advantage of me?”

  His eyes never moved from the television, but he didn’t miss a beat when he replied with “It’s a lot easier when you make bad decisions.”

  Cute. No really. He was adorable. Look at him. So fucking adorable. I wasn’t good at flirting. Never had been. I once asked a guy while I was drunk if he wanted to go to a clam bake. A fucking clam bake. As if I was the clam. Pathetic.

  Lucky for me that was Jared. That was also the night I set his car on fire and peed on his parents’ living room floor. Another fabulous reason as to why I was still single. “So… Destry Stone.” He looked at me when I said his name, arching his brow. “What’s your middle name?”

  He seemed to contemplate that one for a minute and then grinned softly. “Is that your question?”

  “Well, no, I have another, but I need to know your middle name.”

  “It’s James.” His face was composed when he spoke, maybe a practiced indifference he tried hard to maintain at all times.

  “Okay… Destry James Stone… is boxing hard?”

  He gave me a questioning glance. “Hard?”

  “Yeah, like skill wise.” Then I burst out laughing, rather loud and covered my mouth. “Not like dick hard. Just hard.”

  I’m. An. Idiot.

  At least he cracked a smile. It was more than what he usually offered me. “Anybody can box and throw punches. That’s not hard. Landing them and doing that round after round with the same intensity in which you started landing them, yeah, that’s hard and takes years of training.”

  I thought about that for all of half a second. Enough to take another drink of beer and slam the glass back down on the bar. “I think I could box,” I deduced. “Yep. I can.”

  He chuckled again and turned to face me. “Yeah?”

  “Oh, absolutely!” I screamed, because drunk me is tone deaf and pushed myself away from the bar slightly and held up my fists at him. “Totally could.”

  He reached for my hand and a bottle of tequila behind the bar, smiling at me. “Let’s see what you got, tough girl,” he drawled slowly, his eyelids heavy and drooping as he gave a nod to the basement.

  I returned the contagious smile that kept drawing me in tonight. “By all means, lead the way.”

  He led me downstairs to the boxing ring in the basement, helped me over the ropes, and then stood there face-to-face with me. We both took a drink straight from the bottle and then he set it to the side.

  Bouncing on the balls of his feet, he rolled his neck around. “Hit me.”

  I mimicked his little warm up, trying to act like I knew what I was doing. “What?”

  “You said you could totally do it.” His teasing eyes landed on me. “Let’s see what you got. Hit me.”

  He was making fun of me. So, I hit him.

  And he let me. Crazy.

  “Fucking hell,” he gasped, touching his cheek. “You hit me.” And for the first time since I met him, his voice was playful.

  “You told me to.”

  He smiled, dark and mischievous, and reached for me. My breath caught when he touched me. The strength of his arms was never more apparent when he picked me up like I weighed nothing.

  Then I tried to wrestle him. No idea why. Seemed logical. Let me say, 90 percent of wrestling matches between a man and woman end in sex. Always. There was something about the rolling around and your tingle parts being close together. I was lame for sure. But, case in point, it happened to me and Jared in college and if my memory served me correctly, that involved alcohol as well.

  With very little effort on his part, Destry had me pinned to the ring, my hands raised above my head, moving his mouth to my ear and pressing his erection right where I wanted it. “I wanna show you something.”

  “What are you going to show me?” I swallowed, watching his dark eyes rake over mine.

  “How good sex can be….” He breathed the words, staring at me now. His gaze on me was too much to take. The intensity, it was as if he was warning me that it would be different with him. “How good it is with me.”

  I had no doubt it was. Look at him. “Who says I want to have sex with you.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I bet if I stuck my hand down your pants, you’d be willing and soaking fucking wet.”

  “And you’d be right. But I never said I wanted to have sex with you.”

  Liar. Destry chuckled, the motion in his chest shaking mine. “Bullshit. You’ve wanted to have sex with me since you saw me in the shower.” He moved closer, our chests in line, blinking once, but then finding my eyes again. “Have you ever been fucked?”

  “Yes,” I squeaked, my eyes anxiously sweeping over his chest and ending at his lips. “I’m not a virgin if that’s what you’re asking.”

  God, his beautiful lips. I wanted to kiss him.

  His left hand moved from the floor to cradle the back of my head as he took a handful of my hair. “I’m not talking about sex, Tallan.” He leaned his weight on his left elbow, then shifted sideways slightly, running his right hand down to my hip and squeezed, rocking his hips into mine. “I’m talking about sweat-soaked fucking where you can’t even breathe. You’re just fucking. Giving them pleasure and pain to which they don’t know what they like better.”

  “Say what?” I moaned, arching my back.

  “You heard me.” His lips met my skin for the first time, but never my lips, his heavy hot breath on the responsive skin of my neck. “And by the look on your face—” His tongue darted out, licking me. “—you’re dying to find out.”

  Never stop. Never ever stop kissing my skin.

  “So….” I tried to act all relaxed and innocent, though I was none of that and desperately tried not to rip my clothes off and scream, “Take me now!”

  I didn’t say that though.

  I kept my cool and replied with “Are we talking about whips and chains and shit like that?”

  He smiled, then moved away, sitting up so I was spread out before him. “Do you honestly think a man of my strength and endurance needs anything besides my own hands to restrain you?” he challenged, raising an eyebrow.

  Oh, damn. I couldn’t breathe. No really, I couldn’t. He took my ability to function with those words.

  A boxer loses by way of a knockout or KO when he or she is unable to get up unassisted after being floored by the count of ten.

  “Do you honestly think a man of my strength and endurance needs anything besides my own hands to restrain you?”

  A man could make you feel pretty by a look, or even a simple touch. They could make you feel sexy and on fire with words as well. Destry had me in the throes of hot and bothered with what he’d said to me.

  He made me feel everything. He made me feel beautiful in ways no man had ever done. He was deifying me by a stare and firm possessive hands, and I needed that.

  Believe me when I said I fucking needed that. When I first came down to this basement two weeks ago, I never thought I’d be having sex in this very ring.
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  Never.

  Look at me already making assumptions. My plan was to get in shape so I could have sex with Silas. I’d only developed a Plan A… Plan D, also known as Destry, had thrown me for a fucking loop.

  I was hopeful the moment I saw this man in the shower that I’d get to know him a little more personally. Not gonna lie.

  I glanced at him, wondering what he was going to do next. I was still laid out before him and he was still looking down at me. Would he pull away? What then?

  That was when he reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his chest.

  Fuck yeah. Now we’re getting somewhere.

  My eyes swept over the heavenly body before me. God, those muscles. So tight and rigid, waiting to be touched and worshiped. I could worship every long, hard muscle this man possessed. Every muscle.

  He wasn’t going to ask me if I wanted to. He knew I wanted him.

  Had he done this before in a ring? He’d already spilled that he’d only slept with five women. Was I about to be notch number six on his heavyweight belt? No. I couldn’t think like that because more than likely he had. Look at him. Of course he had. He’d probably had sex in all kinds of places, up against walls, showers, in cars, on cars.

  Without a word, or in my case, another thought, I wrapped my legs around him. He willingly came forward but stopped, both hands on the floor next to either side of my face.

  “I want you…,” he breathed, studying me with an open intensity that caused me to gasp. He wasn’t going to ask for approval, but this was my time to say no. Or maybe he was searching for an out, or worse, hesitating, because deep down, he didn’t want this.

  Was that it? Was he doing this because I instigated it?

  My mind wouldn’t stop. If you looked at Destry and then someone like me, and the women he’d been with in the past, you’d understand why I questioned why he wanted to be here with me.

  I nudged with my legs, a silent invite to finish what he’d started. I didn’t think I needed to remind him that winners never quit.