by Avery Flynn
"Who was there to tell? My family put me there and it's where I stayed until the authorities raided the school after three students committed suicide and the administrators tried to cover it up. They shut down the school and we were all sent home. If it wasn't for my B squad, I don't know that I wouldn't have been one of those three."
"So you got out and became a ghost."
"To family traditions." She raised her beer bottle in a macabre toast. "It wasn't alcohol with me. It was trips and spa retreats and yoga clinics. But I'm changing that. I'm not going to be a ghost anymore."
"Instead you want to risk your life by doing the DEA's dirty work." He shook his head in wonder and...awe. Fuck, she was getting to him.
"I want to help people and this is one way I can." The conviction in her voice matched the stubborn tilt of her chin.
No doubt about it; like him, she was a fighter. It called to the bruiser in him, the one who nearly went to jail for beating the shit out of his abusive dad who'd taken a drunken swing at his mom. He knew that fire, that righteousness that powered the do-good instinct. He also knew the flip side, when that impulse ends with the death of the one person who didn't deserve it.
Fisting his fork hard enough that the metal bit into his palm, he shoved the memory of Freddie vainly gasping for breath away and forced himself to make the first lame comment that came into his head as he sat down next to her. "You probably always root for the underdog in movies too."
"Every damn time. That's what you do when you've spent too long in the underdog's shoes." She cut off a bite of chicken, her grin more than a little strained. "Now you better tell me funny stories about growing up with your not-blood brothers, the fighting toilet cleaners, or you'll ruin the taste of what smells like some delicious chicken piccata."
So he did. Embellishing a few of the funny things and playing down the sad, he gave her the short history of the wild bunch of boys who'd grown into men at Devil's Dip Gym under Freddie's wary gaze. By the time their plates were clean, both were laughing about the time Duke dared Marko to dye his hair puke green right before a junior boxing match.
He stood and reached for her empty plate, but she stopped him with her hand on his forearm.
"You cooked, I'll clean," she said, her voice breathy and soft.
Neither of them moved. They just stood there staring at each other, with her tiny hand on top of his arm. Electricity sparked in the air around them, making his whole body vibrate. She did this to him, even without Genie's Wish, because that drug only amplified what he was already feeling. He wanted her. He'd wanted her since the first time she strutted into his gym like she didn't just belong, she ruled the place.
She glanced up at him through her thick eyelashes, her brown eyes dark with desire, and she dragged her teeth across her berry pink bottom lip. He nearly lost it right there because she wanted him just as much.
Take the win when you can get it.
Touching Bianca was like combining the feeling after every win he'd ever had in the ring and multiplying it by a thousand. She didn't want him for his fame or his bank account or that excited little shiver of being with a man whose fists were considered by the law to be lethal weapons. She wanted him. That was the most win he'd ever had in his life.
Done fighting the attraction, Taz dropped the plate. It hit the granite island with a loud clang, but he didn't look to see if it broke. He was too busy kissing Bianca for the first time.
CHAPTER SIX
Bianca couldn't blame the drugs for this and she didn't care. She wanted Taz too much. His lips were like fire, searing her and demanding she take it, take all of him despite the heat—maybe because of it. She couldn't get enough. She needed more of what only he could give her.
His hand cupped the back of her head and he twisted his fingers in her hair, holding her firmly in place as he plundered her mouth. That's what it was. It sure wasn't something as sweet and innocuous as a kiss.
No. What his lips and tongue were doing to her bypassed all of that. Kissing Taz was like having three shots of tequila before noon—wild, intense, and too delicious to spend any time considering whether or not it was a good idea.
Without breaking contact with his sinful lips, she slid off her barstool so she could stand between his splayed legs. She braced her hands on his hard thighs and raised herself up on her tiptoes before sliding her tongue across the seam of his mouth and sweeping inside.
Pleasure, hot and demanding, poured through her, sliding against her sensitive skin, teasing her peaked nipples and settling between her thighs. It was all she could do not to rub herself against him like a cat starving for attention and purr her satisfaction.
Taz's Sex Kitten. That pretty much summed her up right now—except for the fact that she was more than ready to pet him—but he had on too many damn clothes.
She tore her mouth away from his. "Tell me you have condoms in this place."
"Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself?"
She walked her fingers up his muscular thigh, relishing the way his cock twitched against his slacks the closer she got to it, until finally she dragged her nail around the large outline. "This tells me that I'm right on time."
His nostrils flared as he sucked in a breath and fisted his hands at his sides. "Is it the drug?"
An angry heat mixed with the desire pooling in her belly and she snapped straight, whipping her hand away from his hard cock. The words to tell him off danced on her tongue, but then she saw the look in his green eyes and they melted away. Sitting on the edge of his stool, his entire body tense and his hands fisted at his sides as if he were afraid to even touch her, she realized he was a man barely holding on to what little control he still had. He was fighting just as hard as he ever had in the ring.
"No. You heard Keir; it's worn off. Anyway, this is different than before." She grabbed the hem of her borrowed shirt that still smelled of him and pulled it over her head. "This is all me."
Standing before him in only an oversized pair of workout shorts, she skimmed her fingers over her heavy breasts, circling her stiff nipples before gliding them down over her stomach to the bunched elastic waistband. He sucked in a breath, the sound magnified in the stillness of Taz's loft. The green in his eyes darkened and his gaze never left her fingers toying with the shorts. Still, she didn't lower the shorts. She wanted to see just how much he could take before he lost control.
Slow as a snake baking in the Texas heat, his predatory focus traveled up her heated body to her face. "It's dangerous to tease me."
Power, lust, and a desperate need for Taz—and only Taz—rushed through her. This was her man and she was going to have him. She pushed the waistband down so it barely covered her mound. "Are you trying to scare me off?"
"Yes."
"It won't work." She shoved the shorts all the way down, then went to work on the buttons on his tuxedo shirt. "I don't scare easily."
"It's one of the things I like best about you."
"What else do you like?"
"Oh, I like this." He traced a finger around her puckered nipple. "And I like this." He brushed the back of his fingers up her inner thigh, coming close but not quite touching where she needed him to. "But mostly, I like this..." He pressed his lips right above her breast to the place where her heart beat hard against her ribs. "Because it shows the kind of person you really are.”
Under his light touch, her heart hammered against her chest as a battalion of butterflies made kamikaze runs in her belly. "You shouldn't say things like that."
"Why?"
"It sorta ruins the whole badass-who-doesn't-care-about-anyone-else image you've got going." And it makes my heart fall right through the floor.
"Oh, trust me, Kitten." He flicked his tongue across her nipple, giving her just enough of a touch to make her crave more. "The badass part isn't just an image."
Barely holding on to her own control, she hooked a finger under his chin and tilted his head upward so she could look him in the eyes when sh
e delivered her challenge. "Prove it."
Heat radiated between them, but not like at the Bisu. That had been drugged passion...attraction...lust... There were a thousand different names for it. This was different. It squeezed her tight and expanded at the same time, making it hard to breathe because it took up so much space.
Want, need, and something more darkened his green eyes with such intensity that she should have turned to ash under his gaze. Feather-light, he trailed his fingers down the side of her ribs, past the small of her waist and to the curve of her hip. The rest of her body disappeared. The only thing she could feel was the burning desire he left in his wake.
* * * *
"I was wrong," Taz whispered against her soft skin as he tried to process what in the hell was going on with him. "It's not me that's dangerous, it's you."
It wasn't the last remnants of the drugs talking. This was all him. All her. All them.
Standing, he scooped her up in his arms and rotated her curvy body so she could wrap her legs around his middle. The move brought her naked body right in line with his hard cock and she undulated against him. She felt so good in his arms, the way her ass filled his hands and the press of her full tits against his chest—as though she belonged here like this with him. Her hips twitched, rubbing her hot pussy against him.
"Kitten, you keep on like that and there's no way we're going to make it to my bed."
She laughed and moved against him again. "Who needs a bed?"
She nipped at the base of his neck, sucking the tender skin into her hot mouth and giving him all sorts of ideas about what else she could be doing with those pretty pink lips of hers. Without giving her time to react, he strode across the loft to his unwalled bedroom and dropped her unceremoniously on the black comforter.
She landed on her back, her luscious tits bouncing from the fall and her long, wavy brown hair landing around her, framing her beautiful face—both of which made his mouth go dry. She was impulsive where he was controlled. She wanted to save the world when all he wanted to do was make it leave him alone. Bianca Sutherland might just take his entire world order and scatter it like a tornado through a trailer park, but he wasn't about to stop her.
"Are you planning on only watching again?" Batting her eyelashes, she dragged one finger through the deep V of her cleavage. "That was fun but I don't only want to look this time. I want to touch. I want to taste. I want to feel you deep inside of me."
His cock strained against his zipper, doing its damnedest to break free and point the way toward exactly where it wanted to go—straight home to the warmest heaven between her lean thighs. He shrugged off his shirt and dropped his hands to the button on his pants. Her eyes went wide and she sucked in a deep breath that pushed her tits out.
"Don't you worry. I'm going to be balls deep in you and filling you until you scream my name as you come all over my cock, but not quite yet. I want to taste what I only got to look at before."
Leaning down, he pushed her legs apart, giving him a closeup view of her glistening wet pussy. With deliberate slowness, he trailed a finger from the inside of her calf to the middle of her inner thigh. "Don't you dare move."
"You're so bossy."
"My bed, my rules." He freed the button of his tuxedo pants and pushed them down along with his boxer briefs, so that he stood naked before her, pre-come already wetting the tip of his rigid dick. Wrapping his fingers around his thickness, he stroked up and down while staring at her plump, wet pussy. "Rule number one, you always come first."
Her thighs quivered. He released his cock and kneeled before her, wrapped his hands around her legs and then yanked her closer to the edge of the bed so her ass half hung off the mattress. "Don't worry, I won't let you fall." He cupped her perfect butt. Her cheeks fit perfectly in his hands. "Now open for me."
Dropping to his knees at the end of the bed, he watched as she showed him every hidden inch of herself. He kissed a path from her knee to the edge of the thin line of tight brown curls at her core, crossed over her center with his mouth close enough that his breath made her curls dance, and then followed the opposite trail up her other leg. Lifting her butt higher as he leaned forward, Taz finally found himself right where he wanted to be.
The first lick along her passion-swollen lips had her squirming. He tightened his grip on her ass cheeks and she moaned with pleasure. Continuing the blissful torture for them both, he traced her lips—sucking, licking, and worshiping her with his mouth until she was writhing and calling his name. But he wasn't done. Fuck, he didn't know if he ever would be.
Pulling back from her core, he released her ass, hooked his hands under her legs and spread her wide as he pushed her knees toward her shoulders. The position showed her off to perfection, but that wasn't what made him pause. It was the look of need in her eyes, the kind that only he could satisfy. She was his as much as he was hers. It wasn't the drug, which had only upped the wattage on the electricity buzzing between them for months. This was them.
He dove back in, relishing her every whimper and plea not to stop as he feasted on her sweetness. Up and down, twirl to the right and a sweep to the left, he tasted all of her, pushing her closer and closer to the edge until her center tightened beneath him. She screamed out his name and her back arched, lifting her lower half off the bed and bucking his mouth from her. In a lust-clouded daze, he watched as her climax rolled over her.
This was what he wanted. To make her his. Not just for tonight, not only until they found her friend and stopped the Davies-Smythes. He wanted her for forever. He'd sworn he'd never wear a gold band again, but if she had a matching one...
"I'm dying to know what rule number two is," she panted, looking at him from beneath her long lashes.
"You haven't guessed?" He grabbed a condom from the bedside table and rolled it on before joining her on the bed, lying on his back next to her still-panting form. "You come again."
"I think I'm beginning to like your rules." She rolled over and straddled him, leaning down to kiss him, sucking in his bottom lip. "But I have to warn you I have one of my own."
She enveloped his cock in her heated center in one slick downward stroke. The sensation of her holding him tight within her core was nearly more than he could take. "What's that?" he managed to get out.
"No pretending this was the drugs. This has been six months in coming between you and I." She moved her hips in a figure eight that nearly blinded him with pleasure. "We go into this with our eyes open."
Bianca looked down at him, her long hair tangled around her shoulders and desire hooding her big brown eyes. The soft glow of the light filtering in from the kitchen area emphasized the ebb and flow of her curves as she rocked against him, taking them both higher and closer to heaven than they'd ever get on their own.
"I won't pretend." He couldn't lie like that, not to her.
"Smart man." She increased the speed of her hips, tilting so that her clit rubbed against his pubic bone. "I'm going to come."
"Don't hold back." He couldn't look away from her. "Don't ever hold back with me."
She arched her spine and flung her arms back so she balanced with her palms on his shins. The move changed the angle, so the sensitive nerves just inside her entrance rubbed against his cock with each forward and retreat. Wanting to take her higher, he reached lower and circled her clit with his thumb. She tightened around him and he nearly lost it. Holding on to every last bit of self-control he had, he forced himself to ease back from the edge so he didn't fall into the abyss before she came.
Her legs began to shake and he grabbed her ass, rocking her hard against him until her nails dug into his skin and she screamed out his name. Only then did he let himself go, lifting his hips off the bed and driving into her as deep as he could. Three fast, hard strokes and his balls tightened. The vibrations built in the base of his spine and he made one final thrust before coming with enough intensity to obliterate the rest of the world.
She collapsed on top of him, her chest heav
ing in time with his own, and he closed his eyes and tried to catch his own breath. Dangerous? Oh, yes. Taz knew Bianca was fucking deadly to his keep-to-himself way of life. Falling for Bianca was more hazardous to him and the life he'd created for himself than he could wrap his brain around. Even with his brothers, he maintained a distance that wasn't possible with her.
She pressed up and stared straight into his eyes, as if she could see into his heart, before sliding off him. "Stop thinking. It was just sex."
He tightened his arms around her and pulled her tight against his side. "Nothing is just anything when it comes to us."
And that's what it was—us—because he loved her. It hadn't happened overnight and it wasn't a side effect of the Genie's Wish. He'd starting falling for her the moment she walked into Devil's Dip Gym. She'd KO'd him and there was no going back.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Taz was wrong. Bianca closed her eyes and shoved all the niggling doubts into a cold, dark hole in her subconscious. It was just sex.
Yeah, and Texas hates high school football, BBQ, and cowboy boots.
How could she fall for a man who was so much like the old self she was trying to change? The one who only looked out for herself, even if it meant three girls' death. Taz's heart beat steady and strong against her cheek as she skimmed her fingers over his dark, coarse chest hair. His deep breaths calmed her, even as the demons clawed their way to the surface. If she'd only been brave enough, brazen enough, to speak up sooner, those three girls at St. B's wouldn't have killed themselves. Guilt sliced and diced her insides, leaving her with an all too familiar shredded mess that had driven her six months ago to the decision to change her life, to stop being the woman who wouldn't fight for people who couldn't fight for themselves.
After how Taz had grown up and the way his boxing manager, Freddie, had helped him, she couldn't understand why he was so reluctant to take the same stand.
She bent her arm and propped her head up on her hand to get a better look at him before popping the question. "What happened to make you stop rooting for the underdog?"
