by Quinn, Cari
There was my Mia, not this quiet, accepting version she’d been since last night. I wasn’t against change, or progress, or growth. I knew she would have to go through many different levels to process her grief from what had occurred before I’d ever met her. Lorenzo’s callous words had ripped open the wound last night and sent her right back into that hell. She’d dig her way out however she could, and I would support her.
But the woman I’d fallen in love with, the one full of bravado and fiercer than any man I’d ever met in the ring, was now staring at me across the table.
Finally. Thank God.
“There you are.” I couldn’t disguise the emotion in my voice as my fingers tightened on hers. “Don’t leave me again.”
Her chin trembled and her eyes grew bright. “I don’t know if I can promise that, Tray. I don’t know if I have the right to make any promises at all.”
“You listen to me.” I pushed aside my plate and moved around the table to crouch at her feet. I touched her cheek, my throat working at the warm wetness that dripped on my fingertips. “You don’t have to promise me anything. You and me, we don’t need words. We’re beyond all that.”
“It’s not fair,” she whispered. “None of this is fair to you.”
“Says fucking who? I made my choice. You’re what I choose, always.”
She shut her eyes, tears brimming over.
“I can see how you feel when I look in your eyes. You look in mine, and you know the same.” I kissed her gently, tasting the salt on her lips. “We don’t need anything else. It’s you and me, baby. Back to back. Always.”
Her eyes opened and she cupped my face in her hands. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Oh, yes, you sure as hell do. Warts and all. Just like I deserve you.”
She let out a hitching laugh, one that only grew louder when I scooped her up into my arms. I carted her to the bed and tossed her on top of the mattress without bothering to peel back the covers, crawling over her to cage her in with my hands and my hips.
“Talk later.” My mouth crashed down on hers.
She was already rising to meet me, her hands grasping at my clothes, pushing them up and pulling them down to find skin. I was equally greedy, slipping my hand under her top, forcing it upward until her white strapless bra came into view. I yanked it down and her breasts spilled out of the top, her nipples already hard and pink.
I closed my teeth around one and she bowed back, her fingers weaving into my hair to hold me in place while I switched my attention between them, biting and licking until they were beaded and tight. She was already revving underneath me, her breaths on the verge of moans.
Romance. This wasn’t that. This was about to be a full-on fuck, and I couldn’t seem to slow the train. I needed inside her. Needed to feel all that heat and want close around me and to give back as good as I got.
Just needed her. Hard. Fast. Mine.
“Next time,” I promised.
She seemed to know what I meant, because she nodded and tugged at my shirt, helping me drag it over my head and toss it aside. My jeans were next. We worked on them together, hands fumbling, mouths hungry as she sucked on my tongue and writhed against me. She slid her hand inside my boxers and found me thick and pulsing, the tip wet. She gathered the wetness and spread it up my length, using it to power her long, strong strokes.
No one had ever touched me like she did. Her hands were lethal weapons, in and out of the octagon.
Her dark eyes riveted to mine, holding me still in the center of the chaos taking over my body. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t look away. All I could do was accept whatever she dished out.
Gratefully.
When I couldn’t take another second, I shoved down my jeans and boxers, kicking them off with my sneakers. I turned and grabbed her feet, hauling her to the end of the bed so I could work on her boots. She chuckled when I threw them over my shoulders, and the tears starring her lashes as she laughed knotted my gut.
I’d make it better. I’d take all her pain away, if I had to die trying.
After pulling her jeans down her legs, I let them crumple to the floor. The scrap of white lace she wore made me swear, and she glanced down self-consciously. “I should’ve worn a different pair…” She trailed off.
“These are perfect. More than.” Widening her legs, I moved between them and slid the creamy fabric aside. “I’m going to fuck you while you have them on. I want to see myself going in and out of you surrounded by all that purity and know we have none left together.” I grabbed her chin and crushed my lips to hers. “We’re the same, baby. Back to back,” I repeated, and she nodded, eyes shining.
On this one point, I didn’t want her to fight.
She reached up to shed her shirt, and I reached behind her to undo her bra. I threw it off the bed and cocked my head, unable to look away. She didn’t flinch away from my perusal, but I saw the questions in her eyes.
“You’re beautiful.” I smudged my thumb over her lower lip and my cock jerked as she nipped the tip, her eyes never leaving mine. She didn’t believe me. Probably never would. But I didn’t care, because I’d tell her for every day for the rest of my life.
The darkness in her expression lifted long enough to let the light through. “So are you.”
“Lean back,” I murmured, and she fell back on her elbows, opening her thighs to me.
An almost smile played over her kiss-swollen lips. That she could take these moments in the center of the insanity of our lives proved how far we’d come.
I’d protect what we had until my last breath.
I pushed her up the bed, yanking the pillows underneath her head. Then I lowered to her breast again and trailed my tongue over the tip, drawing slow circles that made her squirm. First, on one, then the other. Cupping them together, I rubbed in the moisture with my thumbs and nibbled at her mouth, whispering, “Watch.”
After releasing her breasts, I trailed my hands down her sculpted torso, amazed as always that those strong muscles quivered at my touch. Her occasional shivers turned to a full-out tremble when I reached her panties. I nudged aside the panel of lace between her thighs and spread apart her legs, making the room I needed.
Holding her gaze, I plunged.
Heat enclosed me, a silky, soaked fist. Gripping me tightly until I couldn’t stand another second of staying still. I needed to move. To take more. To feel every part of her open to me, accept me. Invite me deeper while her eyes grew wider and the darkness of her pupils ate away the brown rims.
I drove forward, cursing at the panties that limited my range of movement. I wasn’t used to having anything in the way of her gorgeous pussy. I rubbed my thumb over the thin strip of wet dark hair, dropping lower to tease her clit, and she gasped and threw back her head, breaking the visual link between us.
But only for a moment. Once she caught her breath, her gaze returned to mine, then lowered to between her legs, where I was slowly sliding in and out. Going deeper with each pass, collecting her wetness farther and farther up my cock until it gleamed. Swiveling my hips to make sure I left no part of her untouched. The bit of lace constricted me, adding a layer of tightness at the base of my length when I bottomed out inside her.
And when I grew tired of being careful with it, with her, I hiked up her thighs around my waist and reveled in the rending of the material.
“Knew that was gonna happen,” she mumbled, and I laughed, still caught in the euphoria that being inside her brought. I fisted my hand in the scraps of her panties and drew them up to my nose, enjoying the way she flushed while she watched me.
I’d taken her places she’d never been before, just like she’d taken me. That was the gift that we’d given each other.
She reached up to cup her breasts, her nails dragging over the sensitive points, and this time, I was the one who gasped. She tightened around me, the satin of her pussy fitting me like a glove built for my cock.
Pulsing her hips against mine, she moved her leg from aroun
d my hip to my shoulder and arched her back, opening herself up in a way that encouraged me to thrust exactly how I craved.
Hard, without apology. Knowing she’d be there every step of the way, begging for more.
I bent her leg close to her chest and drove in deep, forcing our chests together until our noses bumped and our mouths brushed. Pumping into her again and again, waiting for that telltale spasm that told me she was close, as close as I was. Her gaze was fever-bright, those tears slipping free again, but I knew they weren’t from sadness.
Now they were release. Relief.
At least in this moment, there were no secrets. Nothing held back. I was stripped to her, and she was stripped to me.
And it was heartbreakingly perfect.
Even when the sweat dripped into my eyes, I pressed on. I needed her to come. She was throbbing around me, her flesh swollen and slick, and the drumbeat between my legs sounded in my head like a heartbeat. I wanted nothing more than to spill myself inside her, then bend down to lick her clean. To taste what we’d made together.
“Tray,” she cried out, digging her nails into my shoulders. My back. Those scratches made me thicken even more. I needed her to mark me. “Come with me.”
She didn’t have to ask twice.
My hips pistoned forward and I buried my face in the thick ribbons of her hair. Lost in her familiar clean scent, I surged into her again and again as I emptied myself, clutching her to me as if she was the only thing I needed to survive.
She was my life.
Thirteen
Wrapped around him, pulse still racing, breaths choppy and chaotic, I finally heard what he’d said at the table over our forgotten meal.
“They want me to fight.”
He didn’t lift his head from my hair, but his body turned rigid. His cock twitched inside me with the aftershocks even as tension overtook him. His weight on top of me shifted from pleasant to oppressive.
Bracing a fist on the pillow beside our heads, he raised his torso and caught my chin. “Say no.”
His eyes were begging me. He didn’t want me to fight. To go back to the place that called me like a siren, like a lover I’d turned my back on because I’d sworn to everyone I would.
That wasn’t supposed to be my dream. The only problem was no one had convinced me of that yet. I definitely hadn’t managed to convince myself.
“They want me to fight,” I said again. If I had to repeat it one hundred times for it to make sense, then I would. “Why am I supposed to care?”
He released a breath and pulled out of me, then rolled onto his back. Sprawled there, he stared up at the ceiling. “Gio said there’s a price on your head now. After you hit Lorenzo, they decided they wanted you dead.”
A laugh bubbled out of my chest. Surely the punchline to this joke was coming soon. “What?”
He didn’t laugh. He also didn’t look at me. “I think they’re organized crime, baby. That’s all I can figure. Gio wouldn’t spell it out for me, but add a few things together, and it fits.”
Swallowing hard, I shut my eyes. “Well, that sucks.”
“Yeah. You can say that again.”
“So they want me dead, but first, they want me to fight?”
“According to Gio, if you fight, all will be forgiven.”
I didn’t laugh again, but it was a close thing. “Right. Because that’s all it takes to erase a death-worthy debt. A few traded punches, all good now.”
“Gio assured me—”
“Gio sure is telling you a lot. Especially since he’s the one who got us into this situation in the first place.” I sat up and shoved my hands through my sex-tousled hair. Pretty soon, it’d be tousled for another reason altogether.
I wasn’t scared, exactly. Death threats didn’t affect me the same way they did most people. I’d courted death for a long time, inviting it with a smile.
It just had taken a while to show up, like the last guest to a party that was almost over.
“I thought the same thing, until I retraced my steps. I was the one who went to the gym when I should’ve gone off alone and gotten my head straight. I sure as hell shouldn’t have gone to a strip club with a guy I don’t even like when I’m sober. And I definitely shouldn’t have let you come get me, like some dumbass drunk who can’t even get himself home.”
“You’re right. It’s all your fault.”
He hooked his arm around my waist and dragged me against his chest. “You know how to make a man feel better,” he said gruffly, brushing a kiss over my forehead just the same.
From within the circle of his arms, I smiled up at him. “I figure you’re already making yourself feel bad enough. Why should I miss out on a chance to throw some shit on the pile?”
“Mia logic.”
“Mmm-hmm.” I pressed a kiss against his jaw. “I’m hungry. Good thing this room has a microwave, because I think that steak could use a reheat.”
“That’s it?”
“Well, maybe the beans too. Not sure about the potato. I think the butter might have—”
“Mia.” He cupped my chin, tipped it upward. “They want you to fight. One fight, with a female competitor. That’s why I didn’t want you to start meds this week. When you don’t know how they’ll affect you, you can’t take the chance.”
“If I fight. You acted like I could say no.” But I wouldn’t. Not because those rich thugs were trying to scare me into doing their bidding, and not because I truly believed I’d escape from their supposed death threat if I did.
I would fight, because I needed to. Just having the possibility dangled in front of me eased the storm in my mind in a way nothing else had for months.
This would give me my focus back. When I was training hard, nothing else intruded. Not stalkers, not bastards in three-thousand-dollar suits, not my Aunt Patty taking money I didn’t even know if I wanted.
In the octagon, I had one goal. To win.
“You could say no.” His voice grew cool. “If someone else took your place.”
I stared up at him.
“Look, they said they wanted a female fight, that that’s the big thing now. But I know what would be as big or bigger. I could fight Gio. A rematch for last winter.” He framed my face in his hands. “A lot of people want to see that fight. And he’d do it, I know he would, if only to try to take another piece of me—”
“No.”
“Hear me out.”
“I did. I am. And it’s not going to happen. I’m going to fight.”
His arms tightened around me. “After yesterday, you expect me to just let you walk into the ring, just like that.”
“Yes. After yesterday, and all the days that come after. I may be crazy, Fox, but I was my sanest when I had those fucking gloves on my hands.” I broke the cage of his arms around me and rolled away to sit on the edge of the bed, cursing at the fall of hair in my face. I fumbled a hairband off my wrist and twisted it up.
Already I could feel my ill-fitting chick persona receding. I wanted to be a fighter again. I hadn’t realized how much I needed that sense of purpose until it was taken away from me.
Until I gave it away, for love. Nothing else would be worth the loss.
“I never said you were crazy.”
“I don’t have to name the sunset to know the sun’s going down. I’m not balanced quite right. That’s obvious.”
“Who’s to say who’s balanced? That isn’t the point.”
I whirled to face him, unable to restrain my anger. “Oh, yeah? What is it then?”
“You’re out of shape,” he said flatly.
For a moment, I had no response. Words fled my brain, my heart. Him saying that to me was akin to a boyfriend telling his girl that yes, that blue dress did make her look fat.
Then I reacted the way I would’ve in the beginning, back when we’d met. I reared back and punched him in the gut.
“Christ.” He didn’t clutch his stomach, but he went satisfactorily pale. And I didn’t even feel guilt
y.
Fucker. He’d deserved it.
While he was still prone, I climbed on top of him and wrapped my fingers around his throat, right below his Adam’s apple. “You think I couldn’t take you? That I’m too out of shape to hurt you good? You never got the full effect of me in crazy bitch mode, Knox, but we can rectify that. Right now.”
His eyes, so wild and blue, burned into mine. I felt his cock rear between my legs, already seeking its target. I wouldn’t make it that easy on him.
Everything had been too easy between us for too long. He thought the problem was we needed more romance. No, we needed this. Not just to fuck, but to fight. For ourselves, for each other. That was the only way to prove the goal was worth the challenge.
“I never thought you’d go for a sucker punch.” He jostled me on his groin and smiled triumphantly when I gasped as his dick swiped over my clit, just one rough rub.
I shrugged. “Suckers get punched.”
He sat up so swiftly that I didn’t have time to counter. In an instant, I was on my back and he was between my legs, pressing his arm against the backs of my thighs to hold them in place. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
And then his mouth was on me, and he wasn’t licking or kissing so much as eating me alive. Ravenously. As if he’d been starved for my taste, and this was to be his last meal.
I railed against his hold, scissoring my legs, trying to get a hold of his hair. But he was too fast and too strong. He grabbed me and flipped me over onto my knees, impaling me with one powerful thrust that ripped a scream of pure pleasure from my throat. He fisted his hand in my hair and dragged back my head, meeting my gaze in the mirror opposite us with a feral gleam. “Now who’s a sucker?”
Dropping my head forward between my spread arms, I let my shoulders sag. He relaxed, though he continued to pound his cock into me as if we both hadn’t just had head-exploding orgasms twenty minutes ago.
He needed this every bit as much as I did. Maybe some part of him craved the hearts-and-flowers too, but this kind of physical sex sated us both.
