Faking It

by Nikki Bella

  “We’re still waiting to hear,” he said. “Vlad is deciding whether he thinks there’s enough money in it. I’m ready. He’s not. But it’s up to him. He says he’s got an injury, but maybe you’re right. Maybe he’s just a chicken.”

  Janie fanned her elbows out and flapped her arms like chicken wings. Braden did the same.

  This was news to me. I hadn’t known that the title fight was actually under discussion. This would be a huge jump for Braden. He was as tough as they came, but Vlad was viciousness from another dimension. And country. And continent. Part of me wanted him to heal up so Braden could thrash him. Another part—the part that, I guess, wanted to be his girlfriend—wanted Vlad to convalesce until the end of the time and stay far away from any octagon where Braden was fighting.

  The conversation went on for another half hour. For most of it, I was happy to sit back, listen, and watch. Janie and Amy asked me a few questions, mostly about more books, but it was obvious that they were desperate to connect (or reconnect?) with him. Braden seemed so at ease, which was so odd to see. For all his swaggering, cockiness, confidence, whatever you wanted to call it, Braden didn’t seem like he had a lot of peace in his life. But this was him at his most peaceful.

  They were all just so normal. I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe a bunch of people dropping towels and strutting around, daring cub reporters to step into the shower. But this was very much like a conversation any loving family would have had.

  When he finally said goodbye, Braden closed the laptop and leaned back into the couch. He closed his eyes and smiled. “Janie really wants me to come home,” he said.

  “I can tell. Do you visit often? With the way you all interact, it sounds like you really miss them.”

  He opened his eyes. “Not as often as I used to. Not as often as I should. And yeah, I do miss them. Constantly. For a while, I avoided visiting because I told myself it would take away from training. That part’s actually true. Then I told myself that if I went home I’d feel judged, even if no one was actually judging me. That part’s just in my head.”

  “What part? Are you talking about your brothers again? You know, you really shouldn’t—”

  His brow furrowed but his eyes smiled. “Hey, you know what would help?”

  “What? Should I turn the microphone back on?”

  He leaned forward and kissed me, just like that. I felt like I had just stepped off of a merry go round that had been going a little too fast. Heat shot through my body from my toes to the top of my head. Braden pushed more insistently and I relented, kissing him back, slightly opening my mouth. He pressed me back into the couch, putting his thighs on either side of mine. I put my hands on his lips and gasped. His muscles were so hard it barely even felt like a body.

  The last time a man had touched me I had had to do all the work. We had both been unsure. Me because I hadn’t been that into it but was lonely, him because he was insecure and inexperienced and had no idea how to handle me.

  This was the opposite and then some.

  Braden wrapped his fingers around my wrists and squeezed lightly. I bit his lower lip and raised my hips to meet him. He put his hands under my ass and ground himself against me. His strength was incredible. He could move me around anyway he wanted. And it turned out that was exactly what I wanted.

  So much of my life had been defined by a lack of control, but when it came to the men I had dated, it had been the opposite. I had always had to be the leader in bed. Now I was realizing that giving up control, being desired like this, was all I had ever wanted.

  Braden’s breath deepened with my own. Before I could react he had picked me up, turned me around, and pressed himself again me as I leaned over the back of the couch. His hands moved up and down my back, exploring, the suddenly they were under my shirt on my bare skin. His fingertips traced patterns across my shoulder blades, then dipped under the straps of my bra. One hand grabbed the waist of my jeans, gripping my belt and pulling me back against him.

  He was hard. I had never wanted anything so badly, and from the feel of him, he wanted me just as much. But he was obviously intending to take his time. He gripped the back of my neck lightly in one hand and pulled the back of my shirt up. He kissed up and down my spine, letting go with his hands long enough to undo my bra. Then he bent over me again, his arms on both sides of mine. Then he gripped my wrists and kissed the back of my neck.

  I heard a high, soft moaning and realized that it was me.

  His breath was in my ear. “I’m going to take you upstairs in a few minutes,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Ask me what’s going to happen then,” he said, slipping one hand between my legs from the back and rubbing me through my jeans.

  “Tell me,” I said. “I’m not sure I can form a whole sentence right now.” I was instantly wet. My mind was already spinning, wondering what he had in store for me upstairs.

  “Whatever I want,” he said. “I’m going to make you feel good and I’m going to show you what you need.” Before I could answer he applied more pressure between my legs and kissed the back of my neck again. He pushed his cock against my ass and rubbed back in forth slowly. I thought I was going to explode.

  “Now,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Take me up there now, I can’t wait.”

  I felt like a toy as Braden lifted me up, tossed me over his shoulder, and took the stairs two at a time as if I weighed no more than a bag of yarn.

  The long hallway passed in a blur. From my perch, I couldn’t help but notice how this man had the greatest ass I had ever seen. The thought that I was actually going to see it within moments—and not in that awkward way that I had in the locker room—made my vision blur. Finally, he pushed a door open with his foot and took me into his bedroom. I had a vague impression of a king-size bed with dark covers before he dropped me on it and pounced on me.

  Braden pushed one of his knees between my legs and opened me while his hands pulled my shirt up and got rid of the loose bra. One hand played with my nipples while the other unbuckled my belt.

  I squirmed as if I wanted to get away from him—part of me actually did seem to want to escape when the pleasure was too intense—but he held me in place, not letting me stray too far as he pulled my pants off and threw them off the side of the bed. I scarcely had time to breath before he began licking a light trail from my breasts to my stomach, and then his fingers were opening me softly and his tongue found me.

  I heard the sound again, the high whimpering moan. Braden buried himself in me, teasing me with his tongue, and I was dimly aware again that the sound was coming from me. I turned my head to the side and saw that there was a floor to ceiling mirror on the wall. As soon as I saw what he was doing to me, I came instantly. By the time I finished he had lifted me and sat me against his headboard. He stepped back and unbuckled his belt, then pulled down his briefs.

  The brief glimpse in the shower hadn’t done his cock justice. I had never wanted anything as bad as I saw him crawling across the bed towards me, but I worried, in the best way, that it might be too much for me.

  When he reached me he reared up on his knees. Instinct took over and I had in my mouth before he had to tell me what to do. I couldn’t help myself. I took him in in short strokes, then longer, stopping to appreciate his moans and to taste every inch of him, running my tongue from the base to the tip every few seconds, in total disbelief that this is where our disastrous first interview attempt had led us.

  His hands were in my hair. He gently pulled me back when he couldn’t wait another second. He reached down and pulled me forward so I was no longer sitting up, then spread my legs with his hands. He was inside me two seconds later, deeper than I had ever felt.

  As our bodies rocked together, the sensations were so intense that the barely even registered as feelings. To be touched, handled, was something that nearly every woman had felt, but this was being consumed. Braden had invaded every one of my cells, and I had don
e the same to him. It felt like we were the last people on earth, racing together towards an oblivion that we could only get from the other.

  As he thrust into me, over and over, I climaxed once, then again. He leaned back so he could reach my clitoris and kept going while touching me lightly, driving me over the edge again.

  I felt him building towards his own orgasm inside me. His abdomen tightened. His breath grew ever quicker. The veins on his neck stood out in sharp relief over his torso that was now slick with our sweat. When Braden came I put my hands on his thighs and marveled. Caught in his passion, he looked like he was sculpted from marble. He trembled again and again, then finally collapsed on top of me.

  I felt like I had simultaneously been emptied of everything thought, been brought back to life, had enjoyed the greatest meal of my life, and won the lottery. But had it been good for him?

  “Oh my God,” he said into my ear. I traced the muscles of his back as his breathing began to slow.

  “What?” I said.

  He leaned up on his elbows and smiled down at me. After kissing me once, he said, “That’s the kind of sex people pay to see. I’m telling you, there is nobody on the entire planet who had it better than we did tonight. You are a masterpiece. You just brought my body to life, little Alyssa Edwards. Or, from the way I’m feeling now, you just may have brought on a coma. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to move again.”

  I laughed, which made me snort a little, which made us both collapse into giggles like we were kids at a slumber party. “I feel the same way.”

  As it turned out, once we had a few minutes to recharge, our bodies took over and we found that yes, we could still move.

  Chapter 8

  When I’m trying to promote a fight—or myself, for that matter, which usually amounts to the same thing—I’ve never been a stranger to hyperbole. But when I say that first night with Alyssa was the best night of my life, that isn’t me overselling it. If anything, it’s an insulting understatement to what happened. I thought about the Transformers I played with as a kid. You could take an ordinary pickup truck and reassemble it with a few clicks and twists into a robot.

  It was like Alyssa had grabbed me—in fairness, I grabbed her first—and turned me inside out, upside down, cranked my limbs and my personality, and turned me into...what?

  Something better. It felt like she made me into something better.

  I’ve always had a strange relationship with sex. Well, strange might not be the word. I wanted it constantly, but what young guy doesn’t? The difference with me was that, after high school, where I was often ignored by girls, I could have it constantly. I found that I liked the chase, but no one was making me chase them anymore.

  My night with Alyssa hadn’t been the result of a calculation or a pursuit. And it hadn’t been the sort of spontaneous one-night stand I was used to. It had been a singular event that made me think I needed to divide my whole life into Before Alyssa and After Alyssa.

  Why not? BC and AD had a good run, as far as notating significant events in human history. Maybe it was time for BA and AA.

  There is a reason that there are entire religions based around sex. Some of them say that when you’re really into it, that’s when you see God, literally. Alyssa, all of her, body and soul, made that finally click for me. I wasn’t religious, but I was feeling pretty damned worshipful. Maybe I needed to start a church and install her as some sort of alluring high priestess.

  I wasn’t sure what might happen next. We hadn’t talked about expectations or plans. We spent that night absolutely drunk on each other, and parted wondering when we would see each other again.

  I thought it might fade. Lots of things happen late at night when people start breathing hard. Things that have a very different sheen in the harsh light of day.

  Not this, though. If anything, my attraction to her got more intense.

  The next month was pretty wild, to say the least. I meant it when I had told her that we were having the kind of sex people usually watch alone on their laptops. It was all like something out of a novel. It had only been an hour after she left when I called her. I couldn’t stand it. We made plans to go out again that night. I wanted to see her all the time, and she felt the same way.

  I kept waiting for the euphoria to fade. It kept not fading. In fact, it kept not fading even more every time I saw her. It was the opposite of not fading.

  There was a very real problem, however: her dad. Getting away with it once had been lucky. We had had the shield of the interview, if we turned out to need it. But that excuse wouldn’t last forever. No, we had to stay off Mason’s line of sight. I wasn’t sure how he would react on her end, but the fighter in me imagined him finding out about us, kicking me out of his gym, calling the heads of the organization...then soon I would be fighting for sandwiches on Youtube. Unlikely, yes, but you can’t always control the places your mind goes.

  In some ways, this made it all way hotter. It would have been smarter to lie low, but we couldn’t control ourselves. I had never been wanted like this, I only thought I had. And I had never wanted like this. Not anything, let alone another person.

  I liked to be disciplined in my fighting, always hoping that it would trickle out into the rest of my life. Sometimes it had. But there was no way I could have been disciplined when it came to her.

  Alyssa had to sneak out to see me, or we would meet somewhere in public and fool around in one of our cars. One of our hottest trysts happened when she was driving me somewhere and then suddenly pulled into a car wash. Once we were in the bay and the windows were soaped up, she unzipped me and gave me the best blowjob I had ever had. Then I insisted on driving, drove to another car wash, and returned the favor. We felt like high school kids. An hour after that we drove to a cheap hotel and rolled around in bed for two hours before I had to get back to the gym.

  Alyssa would come watch me practice and then we would hit the locker room for another “interview.” Once I got so wild for her that we did it in Mason’s office, which didn’t even have a lock on the door.

  There were other benefits as well. I had never noticed how much focus went into all the different women I was trying to string along. It seemed like since they were always coming to me that I wasn’t putting any effort into it at all. But going through the motions with new people all of the time was a time suck. Everything was just a prelude to sex, sex had honestly just meant having an orgasm with another person, and it had cost me. I realized that now my headspace was devoted to two things: Alyssa and training. Focusing on her made it easier to focus in general. Apparently, I wasn’t one for multitasking. It was like the rate at which I could improve was, itself, improving.

  And opportunities were appearing out of nowhere. Sparring guys like to gossip. Clips of me training were making their way onto the Internet. If results were anything to go by—spoiler, they always are—then I was killing it. I had sponsors sniffing around wanting me to endorse everything from pain relievers to wrist wraps to pre-workout drinks. And I wasn’t going out and chasing them. I was spending less time thinking about my image than I ever had and I owed it all to her.

  Interviewers were showing up at all hours, wanting to know how it was going, how I was feeling about Vlad, and so on. I didn’t have time for most of them, which was a great feeling. I really didn’t have time for them. There was only preparing for the fight and dreaming about the next time I saw Alyssa. There was a thrill in the stripped-down, monkish austerity of the whole thing.

  The facts were indisputable: Less womanizing equaled a better Braden. I didn’t party. I didn’t drink. I was more or less on Alyssa’s schedule when we could see each other, and there was only one vice we both loved.

  We had a couple of close calls, which heightened both the tension and our desire. I’m sure the other fighters noticed the attention. Alyssa was coming and going constantly, but there’s a sort of fighter’s code. I wasn’t too worried about them talking. There was a day when Alyssa said her dad had
been a little distant and we wondered if he might have seen or heard something, but that turned out to be a migraine he was trying to fight through without her knowing it hurt.

  Mason was as great as ever with me. Razor sharp in his suggestions, encouraging without overdoing it, and genuinely excited about my clash with Vlad. Things literally could not have gotten better. Or if they could, I wouldn’t have known how.

  But history is full of people—let’s be honest, mostly men—getting what they want and then messing it all up for no discernible reason. Exhibit number nine billion?

  Yours truly.

  I know I’ve been talking a lot about the new me, reinvented, rising from the ashes, all that jazz. But some things hadn’t changed. No matter how good our habits become, there’s always going to be something unchangeable, or less changeable, in each person’s wiring. For instance, I’ve never been that good at making promises to myself. No, scratch that. I’ve never been great at keeping promises to myself. Making them is easy. Tomorrow I’ll stop drinking. This time it’s going to be different, and so on.

  I’ll be good. Just not yet.

  But this time I thought I had really changed. Then Alyssa had to travel for work and was gone for nearly a month. It was a cool gig. She flew out to the east coast to interview an American sumo and wound up staying longer to pursue some other opportunities. I was a little jealous. The sumo sounded like a cool guy and I’m sure I could have learned something from him. And of course, I was jealous of anyone spending more time than me with Alyssa.

  Our first week apart was fine. We talked on the phone every day and had a couple of intense phone sex chats on Skype. I have to say that, while she had never been a shrinking violet, it was a damned delight to see her come out of the small shell she did have. Alyssa had turned into a wicked little fiend, making it all feel even more like an addiction.

  If you’re going to be addicted to something, it might as well be something that makes you happy and doesn’t come with the diminishing returns of drugs and booze.