Luke (A Cocky Cage Fighter Novel Book 8)

by Lane Hart

  “I’m sorry, by the way,” Nate says when I’m standing next to him. “Eli loved you, probably more than he loved me despite what we did.”

  “Doubtful,” I reply. “Did he sleep with you?” When Nate’s face flames red in embarrassment, I know the answer. “I’m pretty sure Eli was gay. Not bisexual,” I tell him. “You were the only one he wanted, so I’m pretty sure he loved you more.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nate says again.

  “It wasn’t completely your fault that he lied or hid it from me. I was just…jealous that you were who he wanted to be with on his birthday. On the last night of his life,” I admit with tears welling up in my eyes.

  “And I was jealous because despite what we had, Eli still wanted you,” Nate replies. “That night he was planning to spend his birthday with you, not me, but I gave him an ultimatum. One that I’ll regret for the rest of my life. That’s why he canceled on you. And that’s why he’s gone.”

  “It wasn’t your fault someone ran him off the road,” I tell him honestly after Luke filled me in on the recent discovery about why the accident happened. Despite how much I would like to blame Nate, Eli’s death isn’t on him.

  “No, but that doesn’t stop me from blaming myself for everything else,” he says sadly, and unfortunately I’m all too familiar with the emotions of self-hate and guilt.

  “That’s the shitty thing about decisions. Once they’re made, there’s no going back in time and changing them. Eli made his own decisions that night. Don’t hold yourself accountable for those too,” I tell him.

  “Thanks, Megan,” Nate says with a small smile. “Well, good luck with Luke.”

  “Thanks, I’ll need it,” I say, feeling a little better about the past as I walk by him and into the gym. “See ya, Nate.”

  Leaving the past outside where it belongs, I walk into the building where the rock music grows louder, only interrupted by the occasional thumps and smacks of gloves hitting flesh. I head toward the sounds until I see the octagon cage made of metal fencing. The door is closed, so I climb the three steps carefully in my heels to get a better look. Luke and another guy about his size with shaggy brown hair are trading punches.

  Luke’s muscular back is to me, but the other fighter spots me over his shoulder and says “Oh shit,” right before Luke nails him on the jaw, causing him to sag backward into the fencing. The guy holds up his hands in front of him and spits his mouthpiece out at his feet. “Fuck, I’m so done. And I think you are too, unless she’s here for me,” the fighter says, nodding over Luke’s shoulder to where I’m standing.

  Luke glances back and gives me a quick once-over before looking away and asking, “What are you doing here?” not sounding the least bit happy that I showed up.

  “I wanted to see you. I was waiting, but you didn’t come home, I mean, over to my place, or respond to any of my texts,” I say in a rush.

  “Go home, Meg,” Luke says. “And put some fucking clothes on the next time you leave the house.”

  “I have clothes on,” I argue with my hands on my hips.

  “Not enough,” he mutters.

  “I think she looks hot,” the other fighter says as he leans to the left to look at me around Luke’s body.

  “You can have her,” Luke responds as he yanks off his gloves, making me gasp at his audacity. “Just don’t be stupid enough to fuck her without a condom.”

  “Okay,” the guy says as he straightens and starts toward me. Once he gets past Luke, he winks at me, not salaciously but as in telling me to play along. “Hey, I’m Alex,” he says with a stunning grin when he pushes open the cage door and is standing right in front of me, offering me his gloved hand.

  “Megan,” I say when I shake it. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too, sweetheart,” he replies. “Let me grab a quick shower, and then we can get out of here,” he says with another wink.

  “Sure,” I say. “I’ll be waiting.”

  I step aside and watch Alex walk away, disappearing down a hallway before I turn back to Luke, who’s standing in the middle of the cage frozen, his jaw hanging open, bumps, bruises and even a little blood marking his face. Jeez, how rough do they get in here?

  “You’re not leaving with him,” Luke finally says to me through clenched teeth.

  “You’re the one who told him he could have me,” I remind him as I step into the octagon. “He’s cute.”

  “Careful,” Luke warns.

  “It’ll be nice to go to bed with someone who doesn’t hate me. Someone who actually wants to touch me –”

  My sentence cuts off when Luke suddenly lunges at me. He grabs my waist roughly and spins me around so that a second later I’m pressed face first into the cage. His big, sweaty body pins me tight to the fencing from behind as my fingers search for something to hold onto. I curl them around the rings of the metal openings.

  “You don’t deserve to be touched,” Luke growls against my ear while his hands roughly make their way down my sides until they’re sliding underneath the hem of the short dress. He squeezes both of my ass cheeks hard before his fingers slip between my legs. They brush gently over the damp, narrow crotch of my thong before following the trail of lace up the crease of my ass. From there, Luke jerks roughly on the fabric. The flimsy material between my legs tightens over my clit in a pleasurable, painful way before I hear the rip of it tearing, causing me to yelp in surprise. My breathing is already turning labored, my pulse racing as liquid warmth gushes from my pussy in anticipation of what’s to come.

  “I always thought you were a beautiful saint with a sinner’s body,” Luke says when he raises the back of my dress, revealing my now bare ass. He spreads my cheeks apart before grinding the bulge at the front of his shorts into the crevice. “But now I know that using this sinner’s body is all you’re actually good for. It’s the only part of you I’ve wanted since the night you spread your legs like a desperate whore, begging for any cock you could get just to try and feel better about yourself. To actually feel wanted.”

  Luke’s words are harsh, yet I can tell from his tone that he means them, every single one. But I needed him that night, whether or not I knew it myself at the time. And even though his words gut me, I know deep down I deserve them. I deserve all of his punishments and then some.

  The pressure of Luke’s clothed pelvis on my backside disappears. But before I can panic, thinking that he’s walking away, it’s replaced with his bare flesh. His long, hard cock resting against my ass until he grabs it and directs it lower.

  “You asked me if I wanted you, but you never said you wanted me,” Luke reminds me about our conversation that night long ago.

  I gasp and go up on my toes as the tip of his cock brushes through my damp pussy lips.

  “Is this what you want?” he asks, pulling my hips back so that I feel more of his thick length. “Want me to fuck you right here, right now?”

  “Yes,” I answer in a moan. “Please, Luke, I-I need you.”

  “You don’t deserve my cock, and you sure as fuck don’t deserve to get off on it,” he growls against my ear while his hands come around and jerk the top of my dress down so that he can fill them with my breasts.

  “I know I don’t deserve you,” I tell him on a sob while I push my hips out even more, begging for more contact. “But I still want you anyway. Only you.”

  In one, hard thrust, Luke slams into me, filling me.

  “Ohh, God!” I scream, my upper body sagging against the fencing. He’s so deep I can’t breathe or speak. If I could, I’d probably be asking for more.

  Covering my hands on the fence with his, Luke plasters himself to my backside and starts fucking me in quick, angry, strokes, rattling the cage around us and grunting with the effort of each trust.

  “No condom…so you know what that means. Where am I gonna finish?” he asks. “Where am I gonna come, Meg?”

  Nodding my agreement between cries of pleasure while he continues his relentless pounding, it takes me two tri
es before I can answer. “In my…in my mouth.”

  “That’s right, in your mouth. Because the one time I came inside this pussy, you took everything from me. My virginity. My heart. My son. My entire. Fucking. Life.” He punctuates every way I’ve hurt him with a thrust before he takes a step backward and pulls out, leaving me even emptier than I was before.

  Knowing how this ends, I turn around to face him, the cage fence pressing into my back, holding me up, with my dress bunched around my waist. Luke stands before me, and his predatory eyes take in my exposed breasts and mound a moment while he strokes his cock that’s slick with my juices.

  Eventually, he reaches for my shoulder and squeezes it, pushing me down to my knees in front of him. Using my tongue to wet my dry lips, I then open my mouth wide in offering to him. Luke groans before taking a step forward. Gripping my chin tightly, he feeds me his cock a slow inch at a time. Once I take as much of him as I can, the gentleness is over. His fingers then spear through both sides of my hair, bringing my mouth all the way to his body harshly and holding it captive there until my eyes water from him being so deep in my throat so soon.

  Not only do I deserve it, but there’s a part of me that likes seeing that I’ve finally made him lose control. He not only touched me but fucked me, even if he didn’t finish inside me or get me off despite how desperately I need a release.

  When he starts fucking my mouth with rapid, desperate strokes, I become so achy and wet from Luke’s aggressive treatment that I have to slip my fingers down between my legs. I come with nearly the first touch of them pressing on my clitoris.

  With me moaning around his nearly suffocating cock, it doesn’t take but a few more ruthless jerks of my head, before Luke’s shaft swells and starts pulsing his release down my throat. Holding on to his hips, I swallow as fast as I can, the taste of his seed so familiar that I crave more of it even after he finishes. I crave more of him.

  Jerking on the back of my hair to pull my mouth off of his dick, Luke steps away from me. After he grabs up his discarded shorts from the canvas, he turns around and walks naked out of the cage without a parting word.

  Maybe it was naïve or stupid, but I thought that once we finally had sex again things would be different between us. Better.

  I was so wrong.

  Tears began to fall down my cheeks as I hang my head. Faster and faster they fall while I struggle to catch my breath.

  “You okay?”

  I startle at the sound of Alex’s voice. Since I’m still on my knees, I quickly try to fix my dress to cover my breasts and pull it down to hide my ass.

  “Megan, are you all right?” Alex asks again when he’s standing at the cage door.

  “Yeah, fine,” I say with a dismissive wave of my hand, my long hair shielding most of my wet face.

  “You don’t deserve to be treated that way,” he says, making me wince, wondering exactly how much he saw.

  “Actually I do,” I reply.

  Gripping the fence, I pull myself to my feet and try to find my balance on my heels since my legs are still shaking.

  “Luke’s my friend; but if he makes you cry, it’s not worth it,” Alex says.

  “It’s nothing compared to how badly I hurt him,” I mutter honestly before walking past him out the cage.

  “Are you okay to drive?” he calls out right before I reach the front door.

  “Yeah, it’s just a broken heart,” I say. And a slightly damaged soul.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Luke

  “What the fuck was that about?” Alex asks when I step outside of Havoc and lock up for the night.

  “None of your business,” I tell him caustically as I walk past him toward my Mustang. Looking around, I notice Meg’s SUV is thankfully gone. She must have left right after I fucked her so brutally and then left her on her knees to go get my shower.

  Tonight was not the night for her to push me. I was angry about the fight, and the shit Cain pulled on me, and still had the adrenaline pumping through my veins from the beatdown I gave him in the locker room. Meg should have stayed away. That’s the reason I didn’t reply to her texts or show up at her house, because my head wasn’t in the right place to deal with her. But then she had to come to Havoc, looking so damn gorgeous in that slutty dress and trying to make me jealous of Alex…

  Do I feel bad about what I said and did to her in the cage? Of course I do, because I’m not an asshole at heart. Things are just so complicated and confusing lately, especially my feelings for her and trying to be a good father to Lennox, even if he’ll never know it.

  After the day I had seeing Linc so happy with his sons, talking to my father about how he could do something so horrible to me like paying off Meg to lie to me, realizing neither he nor the woman I love think I’m capable of being a dad to Lennox, the fixed fight with Cain, it’s all too fucking much! More than I can handle. So when Meg showed up in that dress, flaunting her body in front of not only me but Alex, I lost it because I want her. Insanely enough, I want her despite the fact that she’s pulverized my heart.

  “What’s going on with you, man? Do you get off on hurting her? Making her cry?” Alex asks persistently as he trails behind me. I can’t help but flinch at the mention of Meg crying after I left her. Did I want to hurt her? Hell yes. But I also feel guilty. Which makes me angry that I can’t hurt her the way she hurt me without feeling like an enormous jerk.

  “No, I don’t like hurting women,” I grumble in response to his question. “But she brought that shit on herself.”

  “How the hell is that possible?” he asks. “She seems like a beautiful, sweet girl, struggling as a single mother. I just don’t understand…”

  “Lennox is mine!” I spin around and shout at him, so he’ll shut the fuck up and stop defending her like she’s some sort of saint. I used to think the same thing until I realized what she had done to me.

  “Ah, what?” Alex asks with his forehead visibly furrowed underneath the glow of the parking lots lamp posts.

  “I fucked Megan after Eli’s funeral. I’m the one who got her pregnant. He’s my son, and she kept him from me for three goddamn years!”

  “Whoa!” Alex exclaims, staggering backward a step. “That’s awful, man. So, why does everyone think he’s Eli’s?”

  Blowing out a breath to the star-filled sky, I tell him the truth. “My father paid Meg off to lie because he wanted to make my mother happy. Oh, and he apparently doesn’t think I’m father material.”

  “Holy shit,” Alex mutters. “Wow. I thought my dad was evil, but that…that is seriously fucked up.”

  “Fucked up is the definition of my life right now,” I reply. “Seriously fucked up. And I don’t know what the hell to do about it,” I admit, my back slumping against the side of my car as my head hangs. “I loved her. I loved her so goddamn much, and now…now every time I see her, I can only think of everything with Lennox she made me miss.”

  “I can definitely understand that,” he says. “Who else knows?”

  “Just Nate and Senn, now you,” I tell him. “You can’t tell anyone. If it gets back to my mom, she’ll be destroyed.”

  “Because she thinks he’s Eli’s son, like his last gift to her from the grave?” he asks.

  “Exactly,” I answer. “Which means, I’ll never be Lennox’s father to him. Only his uncle, and that is what’s eating me up inside.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alex says. “That’s some crazy shit going on.”

  “Crazy shit indeed,” I reply. “I’ve only ever loved two women, and both wished I was someone else. To Abby I was nothing but a temporary replacement for Linc before Senn came along. And with Meg…well, I happened to be there for her when Eli wasn’t. I’m nothing but a fucking stand-in despite how much I love her. And in her eyes, I’m apparently not worthy of being a father to our son! So, unless you have some magical wisdom to bestow to make all this go away, I’ve gotta find some place to crash tonight. It sure as fuck won’t be under the same roof
as my father ever again, and I’m thinking Meg probably doesn’t want to see my face right now.”

  “Well, that’s actually something I can help you with,” Alex replies. “The apartment complex closest to here didn’t have any one-bedroom units when I moved down a few months ago, so I have a two-bedroom place with a room sitting empty. I could really use some help making the rent payment now that my funds are running low.”

  “Seriously?” I ask him in disbelief that finding a place could be so easy. “How much?”

  “Rent is seven-fifty, so if you could do three seventy-five a month plus, like, a hundred and twenty-five for utilities, that would ease the burden.”

  “Five hundred a month and then groceries and shit, huh? I should be able to cover that and Lennox’s daycare,” I say, thinking aloud.

  “If you need a little extra cash until you find something more permanent, you could ask Trick and Mina about manual labor at the safe house. They’re paying me two hundred a weekend to help tear down and rebuild shit.”

  “Safe house restoration?”

  “Yeah,” he answers. “I told them they didn’t have to pay me since it’s a charity thing they’ve got going on, but they insisted I couldn’t work my fingers to the bone for free,” he says, looking down at the callouses on his hands.

  “Thanks, maybe I’ll talk to them and see if they need anyone else,” I tell him. I’m not so sure I want to keep fighting if it means ending up like I did tonight.

  “So,” he starts and sticks out his hand to me in offering. “Roommates?”

  I consider the pros, which are having my own place, other than a roommate, and finally being on my own. Then the cons, soon I’ll have to get an actual decent job to afford everything, and I’ll miss staying at Meg’s. But realistically, what we’ve been doing isn’t healthy. While I want to keep spending afternoons with Lennox, it’s best if I leave once he goes to bed instead of selfishly taking advantage of Meg’s regret like I’ve been doing.