Punching and Kissing

by Helena Newbury

  He stared at me. Those pale blue eyes were burning brighter than I’d ever seen them, wanting it to be true.

  So I showed him the only way I could. I threw myself at him and kissed him. For a split second, his lips stayed closed. And then I felt his body relax against mine as the guilt bled out. I’d felt the weight of the knowledge for just a few seconds, back in the alley, and it had been unbearable. He’d been carrying that weight for years...and now it had finally been lifted.

  We pulled each other closer, wrapping warm arms around rain-chilled waists. My breasts crushed against his chest and I could feel the beat of his heart through the sodden layers of our t-shirts. He lifted me off the ground and I clung to him, wrapping my legs around his waist. The rain poured down our faces, but it couldn’t hold back the heat of the kiss as we gasped and panted and his tongue explored my mouth. The heat of him warmed my chilled body, sending shudders out to my fingertips. At first, it was about reassurance—letting each other know that we were back, that it was going to be okay. But slowly, it changed, becoming hotter and deeper. I could feel all the barriers between us finally lifting...leaving us free.

  He drew back for a second, gazing at me as if to check he wasn’t dreaming. “God,” he rasped. “God, now I got you...I’m gonna do such bad things to you.”

  I was naive enough to think he meant when we get home.

  He set me down, took my hand and dragged me towards the nearest structure—a parking garage. His warm, urgent grip and the way he squeezed my hand in excitement was exactly what I’d longed for that morning on the subway. Everything was different, now. We were properly together for the first time.

  When we reached the garage, he didn’t bother walking around to the entrance. He just lifted me over the low wall and inside, then vaulted the wall himself. The place was full of cars, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around—a good thing, judging by the looks Aedan was giving me. I don’t think he would have cared if there had been anyone around. At that point, I think he’d have happily fucked me in a police station.

  I managed to steer him a little way away from the street, into the dark maze of cars, but he ran out of patience after just a few seconds and pushed me up against an SUV, his hands sliding up underneath my t-shirt. His lips found mine and his tongue slipped into my mouth. His hands cupped my breasts and he pinned me against the car, my wet shirt squeaking along the window. When the family who owned it came back for it that evening, they must have wondered why their car was dripping wet, indoors.

  Then he stripped my t-shirt up and over my head.

  “Not here,” I gasped. “We can’t.”

  “Yes we feckin’ can.”

  He reached behind me for the clasp of my bra, but his fingers kept slipping on the wet fabric. Frustrated, he flipped me around and pushed me forward against the car. My breasts pillowed against the driver’s side window, the glass shockingly cold. When he stripped off my bra and pulled me back against him, I saw my breasts had left a sideways figure of eight on the glass. Then his hands were cupping them, thumbs stroking across nipples that were already achingly hard.

  He lifted me and set me down on my back on the hood of the SUV. I lay there staring up at him, panting. We’re not going to—God, we can’t, not right here in public—

  He started to unfasten my belt. In the distance, I could hear voices. In the huge, echoey space, it was impossible to tell where they were coming from. They could be heading for this very car, for all I knew.

  Aedan stripped my jeans, sneakers and socks off in one twisted wet bundle. A second later, my panties followed and I was naked on the hood. The metal must have been freezing under my ass, but I didn’t even register it. All I cared about was the sight of the man in front of me as he slowly unfastened his belt and shucked down his jeans. He didn’t bother taking off any more clothes. His cock was already fully hard for me and he took it in one hand as he stepped towards me. He looked right into my eyes, but I couldn’t meet them—I couldn’t stop looking at his cock as he nudged my knees apart and stepped between them.

  I gasped as he pulled me to the very edge of the hood. He bent my knees up and back so that I was wide open to him. The heat was flooding through me, lashing and whipping around like a living thing. I grabbed my legs and held them there. He rolled on a condom and stepped closer, until the tip of his cock just split my folds, and I could feel how wet I was for him.

  “I’m going to fuck you, Sylvie,” he told me. “So hard.”

  I went weak.

  He lunged into me and I cried out as his thickness spread me. With my legs up like that, he could go deep, and he did. He leaned right over me, his hands going to my waist and then sliding up my body to my breasts. My skin was icy cold from the rain but inside I was scalding hot, and every movement of him inside me pushed the heat further and further outward. My nipples rasped along his palms and the heat turned dark and oily inside me, a low groan escaping me.

  He started to thrust, and I knew neither of us was going to last long. It was quiet in the garage and I could hear the wet slap of our bodies meeting and the low, hard sound of his breathing as he filled me again and again. For the first time, he was utterly free, with nothing holding him back. He pressed me down on the hood, his thumb and forefingers pinching lightly at my nipples, and slammed into me in hard, savage thrusts. I could feel the heat swirling and building, taking form. I started to cry out on each stroke, my eyes tight shut and my head thrashing against the hood.

  Voices again, closer, this time. On our floor and heading towards us.

  Aedan didn’t stop. He leaned down and kissed me, muffling my cries with his mouth as he thrust and thrust.

  The people must have been only a handful of rows away. I could hear them asking each other where they left the car.

  His cock was silken perfection inside me, solid and hotly thick and wonderful. My climax built and built and I could feel Aedan getting close, too, his thrusts becoming faster but more erratic. I grabbed his shoulders and squealed in ecstasy, my cry muffled by his lips. “MFFF!”

  The world suddenly exploded into noise—a howling banshee cry. I was too far gone to care, and so was Aedan. Three more thrusts and he thrust deep and held there, wrapping his arms around me, and I felt him shudder and shoot inside me in long bursts. I clung to his shoulders, arching my back as I came too, clenching and tightening around him.

  “Jesus!” said a man’s voice, right next to us.

  I opened my eyes and looked up. Two businessmen were standing there staring at us. It was only then that I realized the SUV’s alarm was going off.

  Aedan pulled me off the hood and grabbed my clothes and we ran, staggering and giggling. And happy.

  Aedan

  For the next two weeks, Sylvie trained like crazy. With the barriers between us removed, we could both focus on getting her ready to fight Jacki. Both of our futures hung on her winning. If she won, she’d be free...and I was starting to believe that maybe I’d redeem myself.

  Telling Sylvie about my past had changed everything. Hitting things still felt good, as it always had, but now it felt honest and clean, not darkly addictive. I started to have daydreams about going back to fighting, when all of this was over. Not for some scumbag like Rick, but on the official amateur circuit. It was a crazy dream and I knew it...but at least I was daring to dream again.

  We spent almost every waking hour together, at the gym or at my place. She basically moved in, disappearing only for her few remaining shifts at the hotel. I hated to think of her down on her knees, scrubbing for rich guests who barely acknowledged her. But she needed to keep a job. If she won, she needed a future after this.

  If she won. She was getting better each day, not just at the basics of punching and footwork but at the little tricks. I taught her headbutts and elbows to the face, eye gouges and stamps to the back of the leg. Some of it would be useless when fighting a woman, of course, like the knee to the groin. But I figured she’d be able to hold her own against Jacki
.

  We got past our fear of hitting each other. We left the sparring for the end of the day, when the gym was deserted and the owner was dozing in his office with a dead six-pack of beer. Then we’d get in the ring and turn it into a game. We’d circle and pant, the adrenaline flooding our veins like a drug. I’d lose myself in the gleaming perfection of her sweat-slick skin, in those gorgeous green eyes, narrowed in concentration. I’d throw big, heavy punches at her, but she’d dart out of the way, gasping and sometimes giggling, letting fly with flurries of her own and sometimes landing one. And eventually, when the tension got too much, I’d rush her and pin her up against the corner post and snog her. And we’d stand there, tongues entwined, punching and kissing, before I finally dragged her off to the rooftop.

  A few days before the fight, I figured she needed a break so I took her for a picnic in Central Park. Nothing fancy—just pastrami on rye and takeout coffees. But we sat in the sun, with Sylvie in a little strappy top, and feck me if we didn’t look just like some real, happy couple who’d met through a dating site, or a matchmaking friend or something.

  Connor’s girlfriend, Karen, was playing as part of a string quartet—not really my kind of music, but it was relaxing. And there were some other girls from the same posh performing arts place—ballerinas, doing pirouettes and those spooky jump things, where it looks like they don’t weigh anything at all. Sylvie was sitting between my legs on the grass. I wrapped my arms around her from behind, put my chin on her shoulder and pretended I wasn’t watching the dancers too hard.

  “You’re looking at the ballet dancers, aren’t you?” asked Sylvie.

  “What ballet dancers?” I kissed her ear.

  She twisted around and whispered. “You could always buy me a leotard.” I felt my cock harden against her ass. Then, watching the dancers do the standing splits, she added, “Not sure I could manage that, though.”

  “I’d rather have you,” I told her truthfully. The dancers were pretty and all, but they were nothing compared to Sylvie. I looked around at the people watching the dancers, because if Karen and Connor were here and their other friends were here—

  Even as I thought it, a shadow fell across us—one with curves that reminded me of an old movie femme fatale. I looked up into a cloud of auburn hair.

  “Your shopping trip worked out, then,” said Jasmine.

  I introduced them and, even if Sylvie was just a little suspicious at me knowing a TV star, they were chatting away happily within minutes. When Jasmine left, she gave me a sidelong glance and a grin that said, You’ve done good. Don’t mess it up.

  I grinned back at her, squeezed Sylvie a little tighter, and nodded. I won’t.

  Sylvie

  It was the day before the fight and the tension was starting to win out over my new-found happiness. “You think I can take her?” I asked for about the thirtieth time that day. We’d just come out of a lengthy session of bag work and my arms felt like limp noodles.

  “You bloody better,” Aedan told me. “I’ll have money on you.”

  I gave him a one-two to the chest. “Be serious!”

  “I am. I will have money on you.”

  I hit him again and then hugged him. After a few seconds, he stroked my hair and said, “Yeah. You’ll beat her. You’re stronger than her and faster than her and you’ve learned to fight dirty. You’re ready.”

  I shook my head slowly. “I still can’t believe...I’m going to have to hit her. I mean, really hit her, like knock her down so she can’t get back up.”

  He squeezed me. “You’ll be able to put her down, when the time comes. She’s used to dishing it out, not taking it.” He pulled back a little and looked deep into my eyes. “I know what you’re worried about, but she’ll be okay. And you only ever have to do this once.”

  I nodded, but I couldn’t get rid of the tightness in my chest.

  “You’ll whup her ass,” said Aedan in a very bad American accent.

  “Stop! That’s awful!”

  “You’ll open a can of whup-ass on her.”

  I started to laugh, despite the tension. “Stop! We don’t talk like that!”

  “Oh hell yeah—she better get her books ready, ‘cos you’re gonna take her to school.”

  I kissed him to shut him up. “I’m going to take a shower,” I told him, “and then stop at the store and pick up a few things for dinner. You coming?”

  He glanced at the punchbag. I’d noticed him doing that a lot, recently, which was why I’d asked. “You mind if I stay here—just for half an hour?”

  I grinned. “Sure. I’ll see you at your place.” He’d given me his spare key a week before. When he handed it to me and curled my fingers around it, my heart had felt as if it was going to launch off into space. I was about to face the scariest thing in my entire life, but I was happier than I had been in years. Maybe, just maybe, if I won against Jacki, I could get my life back. Not just the one I had before Alec was injured but a new one, a better one, one where I woke up every morning in Aedan’s arms.

  And Aedan was happier, too, since he’d opened up to me. I could see him looking at the gym and our training differently. He was thinking about going back to it. That’s why I was ecstatic to see him wanting to thump the bag on his own for a while. Sure, he’d used to come to the gym before I met him, but that was to lift weights and work off stress. This was him getting back into his old life again, like shaking out an old uniform and discovering it still fits. Rick had convinced him that he was nothing more than a thug. Now, he was slowly returning to the guy who’d first come over from Ireland, the one who’d wanted to be a boxer, not a fighter. The idea of him fighting again, even on the official circuit, scared the hell out of me...but not as much as the idea of him never doing the thing he loved again.

  I took a quick shower and practically bounced out onto the street. There was a pretty good grocery store almost next door and I bought bell peppers and ground beef, onions and spices. I figured I’d make a chili. When I came out, I was so preoccupied that I didn’t even see the car pull up behind me, or the window wind down.

  “Sylvie,” said a voice I recognized.

  I span around. Rick was in the back seat of an aging but still impressive Rolls Royce. One of his bodyguards was driving and the other was riding shotgun.

  “Get in,” said Rick. “We’re going for a little ride.”

  I glanced back at the gym. “I should get Aedan.”

  He shook his head. “We don’t need Aedan. It’s time to meet your opponent.”

  My stomach turned over. “I’ve already met her.”

  He grinned. “Change of plan.” He pushed open the door and brandished his cane. “Get in.”

  I looked around. There was no one else on the street. If I resisted, I’d have to fight with a broken leg.

  Heart thumping, I got in the car.

  Aedan

  I wasn’t good at this shit.

  “I really—” I sighed and broke off. “I really like her. When I’m with her, I feel—“

  I broke off again and shook my head. Maybe this had been a bad idea. I’d been hitting the bag at the gym, not long after Sylvie left, when it’d suddenly hit me that he and I needed to have this conversation. And once I thought of it, I couldn’t get it out of my head.

  “Sylvie is...she really cares about other people. Even me. Christ knows why. And she makes me feel—she makes me a better person.” Jesus, that sounded stupid. I kicked the bed, which made more noise than I’d expected. “Shit. Sorry.”

  Alec didn’t respond.

  I stared at his motionless body. “Why am I talking to you? You can’t even hear this.”

  I sat there in silence for a few seconds, listening to the hiss and bleep of the machines. This is stupid! But at the same time, it felt right. And God knows, it was about time I did something right.

  “What I wanted to say was...I want to be with her. All the time. Like, long-term, into the future. I haven’t told her that part yet. I’m crazy
about her. I’ll take care of her. I promise.”

  Alec lay there impassively. But I still felt better.

  I stood up. “I gotta go,” I told him. “Sylvie’s going to cook.” I checked my watch and realized I’d better hurry. She’d be home by now, waiting for me.

  Sylvie

  With every mile we traveled, my confidence drained. What the hell was going on? What change of plan? Had he found some other woman for me to fight—someone I couldn’t beat? But Rick remained tight-lipped the whole journey, only telling me to wait and see. By the time we arrived, I wanted to be sick.

  This time, The Pit was deserted. I didn’t get it, at first. The whole point of me meeting Jacki had been so that the crowd could see us together and get fired up about the forthcoming fight. If there was no audience to see me and this new woman, what was the point?

  As Rick led me out into the pit, he saw me looking up at the empty balcony. “I didn’t want a whole crowd here,” he told me. “I’ve decided to make your fight invitation-only. We’ll move it to a different venue, too. Somewhere more private.”

  I wanted to run—sprint back up the stairs and out onto the street and not stop until I saw a cop car. But, even if I got away from Rick and his guards, Alec was alone and vulnerable in the hospital. They’d take it out on him. “Why?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Why more private?”

  Rick planted the end of his cane on the floor and leaned on it, glancing around at his guards. “I had a think about your little catfight with Jacki. The crowd really liked it when she ripped your top. So I thought: how do we maximize that? How do we turn that up all the way?”

  He nodded over my shoulder and I turned.

  It seemed to happen in slow motion. My opponent walked out from one of the side rooms. Taller than me. Wider than me.