by Ranae Rose
So he sat, barely moving, with one hand gripping an armrest and the other beside his leg, his fist wedged between his thigh and the side of the seat.
His knuckles dug into the denim and he could feel the irregular ridge of scar tissue beneath, a jagged line that ran the length of his thigh. As he sat with his spine rigid against the inadequately-padded theater seat, the stripe of raised pink and white flesh was all he could see in his mind’s eye. Thinking of the mark was better than thinking about how he’d gotten it, so he focused on it, mentally tracing every ugly twist and turn until the credits rolled across the screen.
Every muscle in his body tingled with relief as he stood, free at last.
Ally rose beside him, her head of dark waves coming up to his shoulder. When she looked up and met his eyes, he caved, giving in to the desires he hadn’t dared succumb to during the film.
He stared at her shoulder, tracing the curve of it and letting his fingers trail down her arm until they rested on her elbow. Hands steady now that the theater was filled with nothing but the dull murmur of departing moviegoers, he kept his hand there and guided her out into the lobby.
The open area in front of the concession counter seemed especially bright after an agonizing hour and a half spent in the black interior of the theater. He let the artificial brilliance wash away the fiery impressions of half a dozen different explosions – images that had remained in his mind and on the insides of his eyelids throughout the movie. Breathing in the greasy scent of butter-drenched popcorn, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so free.
Ally walked close beside him, saying nothing as they crossed the tile floor. Did that mean she hadn’t liked the movie, either? A part of him regretted wasting her time, but mostly, he was just glad the film was over. Next time they’d see a different kind of movie. Maybe a comedy or something. Had any been advertised in the previews? He thought back. If he could just think of the name of one, it would be the perfect excuse to ask her on a second date.
He scanned the posters lining the walls, hoping something promising would catch his eye as he reached for the door and pushed it open.
His concentration shattered when Ally made a sudden, breathy sound – a gasp; there was no other word for it.
A moment later, the skin on the back of his neck pebbled in response to the cold gust of wind that had just rushed through the door. The air was colder than before, the temperature lower and the sky darker.
Ally’s hair fluttered against his bicep, tumbling in the wake of the wind. Reacting instinctively, he slipped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer as the theater door fell shut behind them.
They walked across the parking lot that way. His arm and her shoulders fit together like a lock and key; the fit was too good to give up when they reached the Mustang. Instead, he stepped in front of her, drawing her so close her breasts nearly brushed his chest as he placed his other hand on her waist.
He lowered his head and the soft feel of her lips against his banished the last traces of the sick feeling the movie’s special effects had given him. Despite how good it felt, he took it slow, savoring every moment of contact and fighting to remain aware of her response, of her subtle indicators of receptiveness. It was their first date, after all.
The way she practically melted against him sent a bolt of victorious urgency straight through his consciousness. He ran his tongue across the seam of her lips in response; it had been forever since he’d kissed someone, but his body responded more quickly than his mind, his actions fueled by equal parts instinct and desire.
She parted her lips and her breath poured out against his mouth in a rush of warmth, cueing a wave of lust that had him fully, almost painfully hard.
He drew her closer, entering a world of wet heat and flavor. Notes of vanilla and cherry spice lingered on her tongue, reminding him of the wine he’d barely tasted at the restaurant. Beneath that, there was a sweetness that didn’t match with anything she’d had to drink or eat – a taste that was clearly her own. It was far more intoxicating than the traces of alcohol.
His cock throbbed, teased by the light pressure of her body brushing his. He tightened his hold on her hip, barely resisting the urge to pull her flush against him. If she were just an inch or two closer, she’d be able to feel the rod of his dick against her belly and he’d be able to feel the press of her warm body against it. It would be a tease, for sure, but one he’d savor.
He leaned back, withdrawing from her mouth less gracefully than he’d entered. The sudden end was a cautionary reflex – he hadn’t wanted to stop at all. But he’d had little choice; if he wasn’t careful, he’d screw things up. She’d obviously been into the kiss, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be dry-humped against the Mustang in the middle of the parking lot.
For a moment, she kept her eyes shut, a faintly startled expression curving the corners of her parted lips. When she finally looked at him, there was no hint of reproach in her gaze.
Good – that meant his thoughts weren’t showing on his face. “It’s been a while since I’ve been on a date. So you’ll have to tell me – was that too much for a first date?”
“No.” She trembled slightly, as if she missed his heat as much as he missed hers. “At least, I don’t think so. I haven’t dated a lot, so I’m not an expert.”
A thread of surprised satisfaction wove its way through his thoughts as he stared back, unable and unwilling to break eye contact with her. She was the kind of woman who turned heads – if she hadn’t dated much, that had to have been by choice. But she’d agreed to a date with him. Something simmered beneath the fog of lust that shrouded his brain – pride, maybe. He was tempted to kiss her again, but resisted.
“Well, you said you don’t date strangers. I didn’t know how you felt about kissing one.” He tested the waters of her graciousness, wanting to hear her say that she’d wanted it, that she’d liked it.
“You’re not a stranger.” Her voice was a little breathy, but her eyes were bold – dark and gleaming beneath the powerful overhead lights that illuminated the parking lot. “Not exactly.”
“That’s good to hear.” His lips burnt, the blood humming under the surface of thin skin, agitated by contact with her mouth. He leaned closer but removed his hand from her hip and pressed it against the cold metal of the Mustang’s door instead.
Strands of her hair waved as his breath combed through them and his fingers tingled with the urge to do the same thing. Her hair looked soft and natural, like she didn’t use much product in it. He couldn’t wait to bury his hands in it.
Another time.
The door opened with a soft click and he unwrapped his arm from around her shoulders, giving up contact with her altogether.
His lips continued to burn as he drove, leaving the theater behind as he made his way toward Ally’s house. He kept quiet and enjoyed the feeling, lost in thoughts of her and unable to think of anything to say that didn’t involve voicing just how badly he wanted to touch her again, to taste her.
“Have you decided?” He broke the silence when he pulled up to the curb in front of her home.
“Decided what?” Her eyes searched his as he sat, his hand still on the gear shift, the crescents of his short nails digging into the grip as he anticipated her answer.
“When I can take you on a second date.”
“You’re fighting tomorrow night, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to get something to eat afterward, like you suggested last time?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then it’s a date.”
Relief and satisfaction hit him hard, like a one-two punching combination.
He leaned forward, across the console, buoyed enough by the thought of their next date to dare to kiss her again – until he caught sight of a distinct silhouette visible through the house’s glass storm door. The more solid door behind it had been left open, and without it in the way, it was easy to see exactly what was going on insi
de the kitchen.
“I guess I’ll have to wait until then to kiss you again, though I think I’d be tempted to try again now if I couldn’t see your mother waiting inside with that huge weapon of a spoon.”
“What?” Ally turned so fast that the ends of her hair whipped his jaw. The soft lashing was one he’d gladly have taken again, but the attention she’d been paying him had been rapidly refocused on her mother.
When she finally turned to face him again, she wore an apologetic expression. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. You have no idea how hard it is for me to hold back when I look at you. There are so many stupid things I want to do – even stupid things I want to say. I could use a lady with a makeshift weapon and a dose of maternal instinct to keep me from spoiling our perfect first date.”
“Perfect?” For a second, she almost looked like she was going to laugh.
“What, you didn’t have a good time?” He couldn’t resist grinning at her.
“I had a great time.”
“I thought so. You don’t seem like the kind of woman who’d agree to a second date if you didn’t.”
“What do you mean?” She raised a gracefully-shaped brow.
“I mean I heard you crush Cameron when he asked you to fill in as a ring girl. You don’t have a problem saying no, do you?”
“I never used to think so.”
“Used to?” Now it was his turn to raise a brow.
“Never mind.” She dropped her gaze. Was it just a trick of the shadows and streetlight that filled the car, or was she blushing?
“All right. Your mother is approaching with that spoon, anyway.”
She snapped her head around again and he couldn’t help grinning as her hair whipped his jaw.
When she turned back around, she was smiling again. “I wouldn’t want to send you home with any bruises,” she teased. “Good night.”
He was about to say the same when she leaned forward with a fighter’s speed and precision – outside the ring, in such a calm situation, it startled him. Frozen to his seat, he was motionless as she brushed his jaw with her lips.
The kiss – if that was what it was – was so light that he expected it to be over as quickly as it had started. But she lingered, warming his stubbled skin with her breath and lips, simply there. When she finally pulled away, it hit him that he hadn’t breathed the entire time.
He exhaled as subtly as possible, willing her not to notice.
“Thanks for rescuing Melissa.”
“I was beginning to think I’d never get my due.” He shook his head in mock disappointment that hopefully disguised the way her simple gesture had left him breathless. “All I got from her was a thank you. No kiss.” And he was much happier to receive one from Ally than from Melissa.
“That,” Ally said, reaching for the door handle, “is because she’s a good friend.”
As she stepped out of the car, he thought he heard a faint sound before the door fell shut – the ghost of a sigh like the one he’d just barely suppressed.
He didn’t stop staring in her direction until several moments after she’d disappeared beyond the front door. After that, he finally leaned away from the console and slumped against his seat as something indescribable washed through him, tingling in his veins and leaving him just as unexplainably breathless as her innocent kiss had.
Chapter 5
“You want some overtime this weekend, Moore?”
Ryan paused at the foot of the ladder, one dusty boot already on the second-to-lowest rung, and turned to face his foreman, Lowell. Forget wanting overtime, he needed it, like most of the other guys on the crew. “On Saturday?”
He’d hoped to ask Ally to do something that day, but maybe that was pushing it, anyway. They were already going out to eat together after his fights on Friday night. He could always ask if she wanted to get together on Sunday.
“Saturday and Friday night.”
“Won’t it be too dark to work Friday night?” They always quit by sundown. It wasn’t like they could build roofs in the dark. At least, not roofs worth living under, anyway.
“It’s not a typical job. Government building downtown needs some repairs and coating installation done. They want the work done at night and over the weekend, when nobody’s using the building. We’ll be pulling some late nights on Fridays and Saturday shifts for the next few weeks. I need three more guys who want some overtime.”
A sense of mingled regret and surprise filled Ryan, sinking his enthusiasm. He’d only been a part of the crew for about nine months, which made him relatively new. Being invited to take advantage of an opportunity for some serious overtime was nothing to shrug off. “I can’t work Friday nights. Sorry.”
Lowell looked at him like he’d just grown another head. “You got a second job or something?”
“No.” Yeah, the Friday night fights brought in some extra money that he needed badly, but not as much as two days of overtime would. Fighting wasn’t just about the money. It was about staying sane – feeling alive, even if it was just for one night a week.
“New girlfriend, then?”
Ryan’s entire body heated a little at the thought of Ally, but he shook his head.
Lowell made a sound in the back of his throat, one that seemed to imply he thought Ryan was lying. “Your loss. I thought you’d want a spot, but I’ll see if Krause wants to pick up the slack.”
The slack? Ryan gripped the ladder hard enough that his knuckles and the tips of his fingers ached. How was there any such thing as slack when there were at least half a dozen guys who’d jump at the chance for extra hours?
Just like he would have, if it hadn’t been for the fights. The tips of his fingers, pressed hard against steel, tingled for a few seconds before numbness began to creep in.
Loosening his grip a little, he climbed the ladder, dirt and gravel raining from the soles of his boots as he went. The faint sound of pebbles bouncing off the steel rungs below was drowned out when someone above turned on a drill. The mechanical whine struck a chord somewhere in Ryan’s mind, matching the biting pressure that was whirring against the inside of his skull, just between his eyes.
As he reached the roof, he pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead and willed the feeling to subside. There were still four more hours until quitting time. He wasn’t dizzy. Maybe the pressure was just a false alarm – a byproduct of the what the fuck feeling his exchange with Lowell had left him with. Either way, it didn’t matter. He’d spend the next four hours on the roof.
* * * * *
The rest of the world faded in a blur of light and sound as Ryan fell to the mat, arms around his opponent, anticipating the impact with relish. He didn’t ever really think about the crowd when he was fighting. Fighters who thought about the people who were watching them instead of the people they were fighting lost. But when he was on the mat, he wasn’t even aware of the crowd in the tiny corner of his mind that registered its presence when he was standing. On the mat, his world was confined in a few square feet of sweat and clashing wills.
He liked it. On the ground, he was skin-to-skin with his opponent, and a body he could touch was a body he could manipulate to his will – a body he could defeat. His opponent pummeled his sides with blows, but the only acknowledgement he gave was an especially sharp exhalation as he thought past the pain and reached for his goal – the other man’s neck.
He almost got the hold in place. He was halfway there, his sweat-slicked arm sliding against the man’s throat, when he rolled with surprising force, dislodging himself from under Ryan, who’d purposely fallen on top of him.
The other man had moved with more strength than Ryan had anticipated, but it hadn’t been a smart move. As he twisted, the knotted crest of one muscled shoulder bobbed in the air, exposing his back to Ryan.
Slamming his chest so tightly against his opponent’s back that the hard knobs of several vertebrae dug into his sternum, he took advantage of the lapse in judgment, wrapping on
e arm around the other fighter’s neck while pressing the other against the back. When the man’s pulse hammered in the crook of Ryan’s elbow, the deal was practically done.
He cinched the hold, counting the seconds as he exerted pressure. One, two, three… He knew what the other man was feeling: the sudden block in the flow of air and blood to the head, the suffocating pressure that was more intense than the pain and eventually, if enough time passed, black spots that flashed in the air, half-blinding harbingers of unconsciousness.
The man slammed a hand down against the mat, pounding out a rhythm of defeat – victory, for Ryan.
Ryan relented and released the other man, rolling, feeling light without an extra hundred and eighty pounds crushing him against the mat. As he rose to his feet, it was like surfacing from deep water. With an abruptness that would’ve been startling if he hadn’t been insulated by the high of victory, he became aware of the world again. Sound, light and motion beyond the bounds of the ring – it hit him all at once. The crowd was roaring; they were glad he’d won.
Not as glad as he was. Ignoring the tremors that sliced through his calves and thighs after three matches, he climbed out of the ring, scanning the audience for a certain face.
She was there, in the second row back. Picking her out of the crowd was like picking a diamond out of a pile of rocks. Waves loose around her face, she sat smiling – at him, his heart emphasized, pounding against his ribs and showing no signs of slowing now that the match was over.
He made his way toward the locker room, gaze drawn to where Ally was picking her way through the sea of folding chairs, heading for the same place.
Cameron got there before she did. “Next week,” he said, fixing Ryan with an intense stare. “Next week you’ll be kicking ass somewhere a hell of a lot bigger than here.” Grinning, he reached out and clapped a hand down on Ryan’s shoulder. “I’ve almost got it all worked out. Should know for sure by Wednesday. I’m looking at a place over on…”
