The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1)

by Elizabeth Stephens

  I’m feeling my most monstrous self at the thought of somebody hitting her. I should turn back now, head to the bar and down a bottle, but I can’t. I’m nailed to the scene, now on the front lines. There is nothing that separates me from the warriors in the pit and nothing to keep me from crossing that space and ripping out Tyler’s throat. Nothing but honor. Hers, not mine. To intervene now would be to shame her. So with space at my front and betting, cheering bodies at my back, I remain fixed with my feet planted and my arms crossed over my goddamn button up.

  I’m standing behind her so she doesn’t see me. I want her to, just so she knows she’s safe. So she knows she can bow out any time; at any moment ask me to take her spot in the ring. And fuck, I want to see her face too. I want to know if she’s hurting, what she’s thinking, why she’s doing this, who coerced her. I glance around, but her big brother is nowhere to be found in the crowd, or upstairs in the visitor’s section.

  While the visitor’s section is empty, Tyler’s frat boy fuck buddies crowd the home team’s landing, undoubtedly pissed out of their minds and feeling themselves because they never get to sit VIP. Why the fuck is she a visitor? She works at the bar and she’s here with me, which is just another reason why Ollie should have called. She’s mine. Maybe not mine. But she’s already starting to feel way too much like she belongs on the home team’s seats, not to mention in my bed. Her hair on my pillow. Her sweat on my sheets.

  Tyler swings and she switches quickly under his arm. Cheers and new bets rip from mouth-to-mouth, throats going hoarse with how violently they scream when her fists connect twice with Tyler’s stomach. Being that he towers over her by no less than a foot, she hits him higher than she should and it leaves her left side open, which Tyler’s quick to take.

  He brings his fist into the curve of her waist and I expect her to crumble, but the only reaction he wins from her is the spasm that ripples across the muscles in her back. Her skin is vibrant and glistening, dark caramel interrupted only by that black bra and a pair of men’s basketball shorts cinched around her hips. They’d probably fit me like spandex, but they drape to her knees, reminding me of how small she is and how stupid this goddamn fight is and how I’m going to throttle Dixon, skin Tyler, and butcher Ollie.

  She’s got dimples in her lower back and I see her flat, carved stomach when she pivots, but she doesn’t come all the way around. Instead, she grabs Tyler’s wrist when his right fist hurtles towards her. His left pounds into her upper thigh and when I catch her profile, she’s got her teeth clenched. Yanking down hard on his arm, she drags him to her level. Her right arm folds and she jerks up once and then again, cracking her elbow against his face. Blood explodes from his nose and mouth and when she nails him a third time, he canters back, looking stunned and sedated.

  Idiot kids around me are cheering, surprised at her sudden win but I know better. Tyler’s biggest strength in the ring is that nobody takes a hit better. She’ll have to beat him to a bloody pulp and I hope to Mary, Jesus, and whatever gods she prays to that she doesn’t take any hits in the process.

  She backs up, giving Tyler undeserved space to collect himself. When she stops moving, she’s close enough to touch. I could reach out and stroke the long length of braid that runs down the back of her head like a zipper. Better yet, I could grab its thickness, wrench her into my arms, and finish the fight she started.

  “When Ollie asked me if I’d fight you, I didn’t think it would be this much fun.” He spits out a tooth and rubs the back of his hand across his mouth, trailing blood to his right cheek. “When I finally get you pinned down, you little panocha, I’m going to fuck that panocha bloody.”

  I close my eyes. I’ve got all the composure of a bright white scream.

  “You might pin me down,” she says with easy confidence, “but I’ve heard you’re a limp dick mother fucker so I’m not too worried about that last part, puto.”

  The crowd screams. Tyler blanches. “Fuck you, bitch…”

  She cuts him off. “According to the other panocha I talked to, probably not.”

  Roaring, Tyler throws himself at her and lifts her whole body from the ground. He throws her down and my mind is made up. I’ll cut off his cock and feed it to him, the fucking prick. We don’t have written rules but there are unwritten ones and Tyler just wrote off at least three. If she taps out now, there won’t be any shame in it. Tap out. Tap out. Let me in.

  She does none of those things. Instead she sucks in air between her teeth and writhes on the earthen pitch. She watches Tyler as he approaches with slow menacing steps. His gaze pans up and down her frame and my fingers flinch towards the scene. I don’t know how I remain grounded because in my mind I’m using my whole body to crush him.

  He closes in on her and she sweeps his feet. When he hits the ground, she rises and waits for him to find his footing, but Tyler fights cheap. He kicks in her ankle and as she falls with a groan, he cracks a fist against the left side of her face. She lands directly at my feet on hands and knees and spits up blood between the toes of my boots.

  She tenses and I wonder what she’s thinking because as she rises to stand, heavy braid slipping over her shoulder, she’s rigid in ways she wasn’t before. Slouched posture now straight as bone, limp fingers balled, she looks at me and a surge of pure electricity chars the air between us. She’s got blood on her chin, the bruise on her cheek has already started swelling and pale patches of purple decorate her abs. I want to reach out and touch her, but I keep my arms locked across my chest, wedged underneath my armpits.

  “Turn,” I grunt. I want to say more, but I can’t. Not with Tyler looming over her, looking like he’s ready to end it. And more.

  She blinks at me and for the split second it takes until she turns, I wonder if I don’t imagine her smiling. Tyler’s fist is careening for the back of her head but she spins, ducks under his arm while her braid whips around her neck. She clips him in the inner thigh, then in the stomach, and when he doubles down, thrusts her hand up to his nose, breaking what wasn’t already broken.

  Tyler’s torso folds to meet his knees, but he still tries to swipe at her stomach. She jumps out of reach then kicks, spinning in a move only someone her size with impeccable aim and speed would be able to master. She hits him in the gut and as he struggles for breath, she takes out both of his knees. A loud crack, then he’s down on one hand, clutching his other to his right kneecap, as if hoping to physically hold the leg together. From the ferocious and uncommonly fast way she moved, she slows and paces in a slow circle around him.

  “On your feet or I’ll end it now and make you look completely fucking ridiculous,” she whispers, and there is no more of that japing condescension I heard earlier. There is only the thirst for blood.

  Had I just imagined every moment leading up to this? I think so. Was this fight evenly matched? I’m beginning to think not. She stares down at the brown haired boy as if everything leading up to this moment was only because she had allowed it. Tyler was nothing to her and here I am standing on the tips of my fucking toes, dying with the urge to protect her. She needs protection from nothing.

  I’m a fucking fool. She wanted a fight not a win. Fuck ‘em and leave ‘em. That’s what she said and I didn’t listen because I didn’t want to believe her. She’s doing this to teach me a lesson.

  Tyler struggles to his feet and the cries of the room have never been louder, nor have they ever felt so distant. Tyler strikes for her chest and when she dodges that in a move that’s explosive quick, he kicks for the slit between her legs that he’d wanted so desperately.

  Rather than move, she grabs his ankle with both hands, stopping its trajectory and wrenches hard enough to throw him off balance. As he begins to fall, she advances on him, hooks her right arm under his left and, spinning around him, places her left hand between his shoulder blades and forces him to the ground. She straddles his back, takes a fistful of hair in hand and uses that to tilt his face up. For a fraction of a m
oment, his eyes meet mine.

  She has to shout to be heard over the crowd now. “You done, pinche culero?”

  “Fuck…fuck you…” He’s barely got the words off his lips before she slams his face against the earth. A cracking sound fills the space, adding to the chorus of cacophony.

  “Let’s try that again, piss for brains,” she says, “Are we finished?”

  Tyler chokes on his own blood. It pours down his chin to his throat, dripping onto the packed soil from his bobbing Adam’s apple. “Fu…fuck…”

  She punches his face into the ground twice more and when he fails to respond the third time, she releases him. The crowd breaks immediately, bodies moving into the ring to swarm her more than they are to resuscitate Tyler. Money begins changing hands while the captains for the night try to keep tallies and scores.

  I don’t move. I just watch the girl pull the band from her hair that held back her bangs and wrap it around her wrist. They flop over her forehead, strands adhered there in blood and sweat. Men try to congratulate her, try to offer her beers or other shit excuses to get her into bed but rather than except the freebies, she holds up both hands and pushes through them.

  I wonder where she’s going and am more determined now more than ever not to follow her. She doesn’t need me. She likely doesn’t think of me in the same way I think of her so religiously. Hell, in the past days she’s become my fucking religion. And my pornography. I think of her first thing when I wake up and first thing when I hit the sheets at night. Wondering what those tits would feel like around my cock. Wondering how hard her tight little body could take a pounding. And more than that, wondering what it might feel like if she opened up to me. Charlie was right. I’m fucking pathetic.

  I glance to the right to see Charlie scrambling through the crowd, chasing the man with the money. I wonder how much he bet. The thought makes me want to rip out his teeth. Clifton and Dixon are chatting at the bar. Aiden’s nowhere to be seen. I turn, sparing only one glance back at Mer and it’s in that glance that it occurs to me that the distance between us is closing, and getting closer.

  Bodies block her from view, but a few moments later she resurfaces directly in front of me. A small circle of space opens up around us and I wonder what my expression must look like because the guys that were on her nuts a second ago seem suddenly so preoccupied with their drinks and their money.

  “What took you so long?” Her face is a frown that’s far too serious.

  “What?”

  “You took ages. Had to let him get way too many hits in while I was waiting. And this one even kinda hurts.” She points at her foot and I cringe at her swelling ankle. She seems nonplussed by it and is instead, too focused on my response. What the hell is happening? She didn’t tell me she was fighting, wouldn’t tell me anything about her, doesn’t need anyone, let a man beat on her somehow for my benefit, can barely look at me but now…

  “You waited for me?” I say, though the words taste wrong coming out of my mouth. She shrugs, keeping her arms crossed over her chest in my mirror image.

  “I didn’t want you to think I was weak. Plus,” she says, swiveling around, “after what happened last week, I didn’t want any of these fuckers thinking they could get away with anything. Tyler’s always creeping around so when Ollie paired us up, I didn’t complain even though I knew it was kind of a joke. Tyler deserved what he had coming.” She smiles and blood seeps out from between her teeth. Has there ever been a woman more beautiful? Not one that I’ve fucking seen.

  “You fought for me?”

  Her face flares a bright and incriminating red that makes my whole chest tighten, like I’ve swallowed a stick of lit dynamite and it’s gone off in my lungs. “I mean…no. I just…like I said…I…you…I’m just glad you saw it but if you’re going to be a dick about it…” She starts to turn and I grab her elbow too hard because my muscles aren’t obeying me in the way they were before.

  “You wanted me to see you.” I don’t mean the fight and judging by the tortured expression that crosses her face, she knows it.

  “Yes.” She bites her bottom lip and my gut is rock solid and the halfie that had been idling in my pants at the sight of her has become a thick shot of bone. I drop my hands to the side and she edges half a step back, angling her body as if she’s expecting an attack. She’s not half wrong.

  “We need to get out of here.”

  “Okay,” she says hesitantly. She puts another couple inches of space between us and the men that hover nearby perk up, hoping to use the distance to their advantage. Anybody so much as breathes on her, I’ll break their necks. “I just need to change and get my winnings from Ollie. I’ll meet you…”

  “No. Now.” Her eyes widen. She licks her lips and rubs at the blood on her chin with her hand. I want to lick it off. She nods and I hold out my arm, urging her under it. She’s slow to comply. “Is everything okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “Hey, I can’t go that fast. That pito did a number on my foot.”

  “Can I carry you?”

  “What?” I don’t wait for her answer, but sweep her legs and cradle her back. She lets out a yelp and circles her arm around my neck, even as she lets out a cry of protest. The faces we pass watch us with a knowing in their eyes that she hasn’t caught on to yet.

  Ollie’s is among them and I hesitate only long enough to bark, “Hold Plumeria’s money for her.” He nods, tries to offer an explanation, but I don’t hear it. “I’m not done with you by a long shot.” His face falls and his lips move, but I shove past him. The density of the crowd has released somewhat, making it possible for me to reach the massive, open doorway in a minute, and the near empty parking lot seconds after that.

  “What are you…where are we going? Are you going to murder me because I swear to god I’ll be really fucking…” I reposition her body in my arms so that she’s upright and she gasps when I release her back. Her spine meets the wall of my car, passenger’s side window peeking out on either side of her shoulders. With my hands, I spread her thighs around my waist and lean into her, soothing the pressure of my erection in the soft heat of her core.

  “Shit,” she gasps, realization dawning on her in a breath. Her eyes are wide and she’s never looked more ferocious or simultaneously vulnerable. I take her by the back of the neck in a grip that’s too hard, but I don’t know how to soften it, tilt her head back and crush my mouth to hers, tasting the metallic tang of her blood on her lips. I expect a momentary hesitation on her part but the moment my lips brush hers, her mouth parts and she moans, arching into me.

  Her hands find my shoulders, nails digging into my skin through my stupid, fucking button up and I’m blinded by lust. I have to have her, and I could have her pants down and my dick sheathed by her whole body in under a second, but that’s not what I want. Correction. That’s not all that I want. I want limitless euphoria and her complete surrender.

  Her tongue finds mine and her fingers fumble with the buttons studding the front of my shirt, but I don’t have the patience to let her undress me. I slide my hand around her back, throw open the car door and fling her carelessly across the bench seat. She grins up at me and the moonlight pours in through the window, illuminating the smooth, elegant curves of her taut, carved frame. Very slowly, she spreads her legs and even though she’s still fully clothed, I get the feeling I’m being taunted.

  With one swift jerk, I rip my shirt open, sending buttons scattering across the gravel and the floor of the truck. I cover her body with mine, my warmth meeting hers to form one perfect union. My right knee is on the floor and I reach back to slam the door shut behind me. I kiss her deeply, devour her jaw and work my way down her neck. Her skin tastes like salt and metal and earth all I see is caramel and onyx as I pull the tie from her hair and drag my fingers through the braid.

  She’s breathing hard and everything is in fast forward. Her bra is gone and so are my pants. I reach past her elastic waistband and slid
e a finger deep into her wet heat. She moans low and arches up so that her perfect mocha nipples meet the wall of my chest. I can’t wait any longer. Don’t know how I’ve waited as long as I have to hold her like this.

  I hook my arm around the back of her head, cushioning it and simultaneously trapping her between the wall of my body and the back of the seat. I’ve got a condom on and as I plunge mercilessly into her hot, perfect opening her gaze doesn’t break from mine and my gaze doesn’t break from hers and we are, like this, connected. The moment seems to last an eternity and seconds. Her eyes at some point close, and she bites the inside of my arm. I growl and my whole body stiffens.

  The orgasm comes over me violently, gripping the backs of my thighs and working its way up to my neck. I bury my face in the waves of her thick hair and she combs her fingers across my scalp in a way that’s soothing and warm and sensual. I’ve never felt more grounded anywhere than in my own house, or here, with her in the front seat of my truck. All the doors are unlocked, the moon is bright, and we’re sure as hell loud enough to attract spectators, but her hands wrapped around my back are enough.

  Now is the moment where I would say somewhere along the lines of, ‘thanks, but I won’t be needing your number’ or ‘no, I won’t be staying, I have somewhere to be.’ To tell her either of those things wouldn’t just be an outright lie, it’d be sacrilegious. Her arms fall away from my skin and I feel her begin to shift beneath me, but I lay my palm against her chest and hold her down, moving so that I’m kneeling on the floor of the cab and she’s spread before me on the bench like an offering. I take her like one.

  Kissing my way down her body, I worship her breasts, tracing the lines of the bruises on her rib cage with my tongue. Her breath, which had slowed, begins to pick up and when I glance up at her face, her eyelids flutter. The muscles in her legs are taut as I bite and blow against them, before finally making my way to the pale brown slit that rests at their provenance. A thatch of soft curls tickles my nose, though I’d have taken her any way she was offered. Taken and devoured.