Coming Back

by Lauren Dane

  “Should you fight when you’re upset?” Jessi asked.

  “I can think of worse ways to burn off steam.”

  Jessi shrugged. “Okay then. If you’re sure.”

  “Are you sure? You just told us something really terrible and you’re upset. I can beat on people any time I want or need to.” Mick kissed her quickly. “So if you’d rather stay in and hang out just the three of us, that’s cool too.”

  “I want to get to know your friends.”

  Mick stood. “Let’s do this.”

  CHAPTER

  Fourteen

  Maybe it was all the testosterone in the air, or having Jessi with him after she’d related that story about what Mick’s dad had done to her, or the way Mick looked—all dangerous and angry—but Adam’s blood seemed to hum with the need to possess them both.

  The three of them walked up from where they’d parked to a field behind the house with a boxing ring set up in the center. The group resembled the one at the grand opening of the new showroom for Twisted Steel. Only with less formal clothing.

  People stood around in knots here and there, drinking from red cups or from bottles, their breath misting in the growing cold.

  Mick towered over most people—including Adam—and he used his size to barrel through anyone who might bump into or otherwise bother Jessi. Adam had seen this in action hundreds of times over the years. Had always respected Mick’s dedication to Jessi in that gesture.

  But this time Adam was included in the way Mick ran interference. That the same man who bulldozed through the crowd with an easy grin that didn’t always make it to his eyes was one who begged to be fucked by Adam only made the situation hotter.

  Adam hadn’t been entirely sure how this would work in the end. A relationship between the three of them when Jessi had been the heart of it had been natural enough. But the Adam and Mick stuff? It had been part of why he’d lingered longer than he should have before finally owning how much he needed them both.

  What he’d come back to over and over since the night just one week before was that yes, Jessi was the heart of it, but not at the expense of his connection to Mick.

  There was AdamAndJessi, but there was also AdamAndMick. There’d been a growing sense of Adam/Jessi/Mick since they’d all met, that stable foundation of love and protection he felt for both and for their friendship of three. But the deepening of that friendship and connection to love and committed romantic relationship had been a delightful—if surprising—result. Better than he could have imagined.

  They came to a stop where Carmella and PJ stood with Duke and some other guys.

  The women welcomed Jessi, which visibly relaxed Mick. Adam really didn’t have much doubt that Jessi would find her place in Mick’s circle of friends. Adam, though? He’d have to see.

  It wasn’t that he was uncomfortable. But this was an entirely new social situation for Adam. He was there for Mick more than he was there because he wanted to watch his lover beat someone up.

  Though it sort of did sound sexy now that they stood feet away from the ring. Violence and sweat hung in the air, and damned if it didn’t make his dick hard.

  “Right on, you’re here. You want to go next?” Duke asked Mick. “Asa’s getting ready to go in. If you take the next slot, we can clean up and be out of here in an hour.”

  “You’re really hungry, aren’t you?” Mick asked him.

  “I haven’t eaten since lunch.” Duke shrugged.

  Mick and Duke had an ease, a back-and-forth that was borne of deep, intimate ties. Not sexual, Adam was certain of that. But Duke saw Mick as a brother. So despite Adam’s concern that maybe he didn’t fit into Mick’s new world, he’d do whatever it took to make it work. He was relieved Mick had Duke and Asa, especially in a place like the middle of a goddamn war halfway across the planet.

  “What do you think, angel?” Mick asked Jessi. “Should I go next?”

  She looked him over. “You have a lot of energy you need to work out.” Jessi took his hands in hers, bending his fingers to make a fist. She kissed each one. “We’ll be here when you’re finished.”

  Mick exhaled and Adam knew there was a terrible storm inside Mick’s heart. It was terrifying at times because Jessi said things, things you needed to hear but weren’t always ready for. It wasn’t to manipulate or scare. It was just how she was.

  Duke took this scene in, Carmella at his side. Her smile brought one to Adam’s face. She got Jessi.

  Mick bowed his head a little, resting his chin against Jessi’s hair for a moment.

  “Next it is, then. Jessi’s hungry too, and she’s cranky if you wait too long to feed her.” Mick kissed her quickly and she rolled her eyes.

  A group of dudes drifted into the edges of the circle they’d made with Duke and Carmella.

  Mick tipped his chin at them but didn’t say more. It was enough that Adam knew there’d been something between him and at least one of the guys. Though probably not the one looking at Jessi’s tits like he’d never seen breasts before.

  Jessi noticed and turned her body away from the guy. Adam stepped between them, glaring at the dude. Yeah, they were great tits and all, but a person didn’t need to be disgusting about taking in their majesty. It was never acceptable to make a woman uncomfortable.

  Especially when it was Adam’s woman.

  Asa tossed his shirt to PJ and then stomped back over, pulled her to his body roughly, kissed her hard enough that at least half the people there got a little tingly, and then headed away, wearing a smirk.

  Adam recognized a dominant man when he saw one. And Asa had probably been one from birth.

  “I need to warm up a little,” Mick said quietly to Jessi and Adam. “You’ll be fine here out of the fray.”

  Jessi smiled up at him. “Is it weird that I get super turned on when you use words like fray on your way to get into a ring and punch someone for fun?”

  Adam laughed. “If it is, angel, I’m weird along with you.”

  Mick’s smile promised lots of dirty fun as he took a step back.

  “Kick some ass, Mick,” Jessi said. “I’ll probably say bad words if you get hurt. So, you know, don’t get hurt or my mom will get mad.”

  It was the most Jessi-type sentence ever. It meant fifteen different things, and all of them were exactly what Mick and Adam had needed for all sorts of reasons.

  Mick, still grinning, kept walking backward, facing them for several long moments more before finally turning and heading around the other side of the ring where Asa had gone.

  “Beer?” Duke, wearing a sexy grin, held two out Adam and Jessi’s way. Jessi took hers, clinking it with them both before she sipped, her gaze roving over the crowd, lighting here and there as she took the place in.

  “Looks like she’s cataloging every last detail,” Duke said to Adam.

  “She’s a costume designer, so most likely she is. Taking mental notes about this or that thing she’ll end up using at some point in the future. She’s like a magpie. Always collecting ideas.”

  Duke nodded. “I like that. Sunday at my house Carmella and I are having a barbecue. I told Mick earlier this week that I wanted to invite you myself. Except I forgot.”

  “Which is why Mick is so awesome, because he and I work together to remind Duke of things like the time he invited thirty people over and forgot to tell me.” Carmella leaned around Duke, her arm linked through his. Her expression was one of affection, not annoyance, though.

  A big red-haired dude got into the ring and announced the first bout. Asa and some other guy the size of a boulder ducked between the ropes and met in the middle with the announcer.

  “He better not play around with this fool,” Duke groused as he tugged Carmella to his side.

  “I’ve got snacks in my purse, you know, if you can’t possibly wait.”

  “You do?” Duke asked her.

  She dug around and pulled out a bag, handing it his way. “Cashews.”

  He beamed, kissing her ha
rd before making quick work of getting the bag open and half the cashews eaten in one bite.

  “Don’t get excited. I only have an apple,” Jessi murmured into Adam’s ear.

  “I bet it’s the tastiest fucking apple ever.”

  She laughed, kissed him, and turned to watch as the fight began.

  PJ moved forward, but Duke reached out, grabbed her belt loop, and pulled her back.

  “She gets all worked up. Asa gets distracted. She gets mad that we didn’t stop her from bounding up to the damned ring like she’s Tigger and Asa ends up with a black eye because he looked her way. So she makes us promise to keep her back,” Duke explained.

  “Not his face!” PJ yelled. “Jeez. His face is so handsome! I like it unbroken.”

  “Does that work?” Jessi asked. “If so I guess we both need to yell at the next guy not to punch Mick’s face.”

  “The point is not to get punched in the face,” Duke said easily.

  Asa didn’t take too much longer before he was declared the winner. PJ scampered over to Asa, who held the ropes for Mick to take his place.

  Jessi leaned back into Adam’s body as he wrapped his arms around her, grinding his cock into her ass.

  Their man looked ridiculously hot. Shirtless, his ink over all those damned muscles managed to be menacing and beautiful at the same time. He, like Adam, had a lot of anger and guilt to work through.

  “He’s so sexy right now. I don’t know what to do with myself,” Jessi said quietly.

  Adam bent to speak into her ear. “That’s all right. I always have ideas about what to do with you. And I definitely have many about what you should do with yourself. In fact, I have something in mind for later.”

  Mick gave in to the need for whatever he got from doing crazy and or dangerous shit and moved with grace even as he took a punch and barely even moved.

  Adam’s protective streak went into high gear when it came to Mick and Jessi. He wanted them to be safe. But Jessi was… Jessi. And Mick, well, Mick’s edges came with the whole package. He was driven by demons Adam figured he and Jessi would spend the rest of their lives helping him slay.

  “Did you see how many people checked him out? Not that I don’t get it. I mean, look at him.” Jessi waved a hand in Mick’s direction and winced when Mick got nailed in the face. “Kick his ass, Mick!” she yelled.

  Part of Adam bristled. Mick was theirs. And yet it was undeniably sexy that others wanted but couldn’t ever have him again.

  Asa and PJ came over to them once more to catch the rest of Mick’s fight. Mick and his opponent were very evenly matched in size and relative power. Both had landed several solid hits but showed no real signs of slowing down.

  Jessi put her hands over her eyes after a shot to the gut sent Mick back a step. But he recovered quickly, and soon enough she was peeking around her fingers.

  “He’s a tank,” Asa said quietly before he squeezed Jessi’s shoulder. “No one can take a punch like Mick.”

  “It’s all that anger,” Jessi said and the truth of it made the men go still. “You can get told you were broken your whole life, but it’s going to leave a mark. If you want to survive, you give up and acquiesce, even accepting a life that’s a total lie, or you build yourself armor.”

  She licked her lips and stopped speaking. Adam knew she’d never want to reveal things about Mick that he didn’t want shared. Hell, even Adam hadn’t known all the details, and as he learned earlier that evening, the Roberts family seemed a bottomless well of bullshit behavior.

  What they’d done to Mick had been bad enough. But the way Mick’s father had treated Jessi could not be tolerated. Adam would find a way to handle this situation so Mick and Jessi would be safe from people who hurt and called it love.

  He hugged Jessi tighter, and she ran her hands over his forearms a few times to soothe him.

  “He’ll win.” Jessi’s words had no doubt in them. She was totally sure and Adam couldn’t argue. Especially as they continued to watch.

  He got close to her ear, choosing love over the anger roiling in his gut. “And we’ll soothe all his aches afterward.”

  She shivered as she nodded, her gaze never leaving Mick, her eyelids growing heavier as she chewed her bottom lip. Thinking of sex.

  Their sweet angel was so, so dirty.

  The hair on the top of his head that Mick’d been letting grow out had been pulled up into one of those things Jessi called a man bun. Whatever it was, it rang Adam’s bell as much as the ink, sweat, and look of utter violent concentration of Mick’s face.

  “Mick’s looking mighty fine tonight,” said one of the guys with the dude who’d been stupid enough to stare at Jessi’s boobs to Asa, who barely looked his way but did move his body to block him out.

  This guy again? Obviously either Mick had fucked him or the guy had really wanted it. In any case, the past was past.

  “He hasn’t been around much,” the guy continued.

  Asa continued to ignore him.

  Mick and his opponent were totally beating the shit out of each other, though Mick seemed to have squarely gotten the upper hand.

  There were rules of some sort, Adam knew. But this was… feral. The violence between those two men squaring off seemed to radiate from them.

  Mick took two pretty solid punches to the kidneys and then his gut. Jessi yelled something Adam couldn’t quite make out because the noise of the crowd rose.

  “Who’s the gash?” the guy asked Asa. Meaning Jessi. “She some passing fuck toy? Mick likes cock. Does she know that?”

  Adam spun, shoving Jessi toward Duke as he headed right the fuck into that loser’s face.

  “What did you just call her?” Adam’s anger at anyone disrespecting Jessi, especially in such a misogynistic way, surged through him.

  Asa didn’t get between them. Instead, he settled at Adam’s left, both forming a line between where Jessi stood with Duke and this asshole.

  “What’s it to you?” The guy made a decent enough sneer, but Adam wasn’t overly impressed.

  Adam didn’t even think before his fist was already making contact with the guy’s face.

  “That’s what it is to me.” Adam’s hand was going to hurt like hell the following day.

  The guy lunged at Adam, but while he was rougher, Adam was pissed off and defending what was his, so he stepped to the side and tripped the dude, punching him as he went down.

  “She’s a fucking queen, that’s who she is. And Mick is taken,” Adam snarled.

  He knew Duke and Asa would keep Jessi from interfering, but he heard her in the background, and despite the situation, he wanted to laugh at how pissed off she sounded.

  So he let himself. Let go of the laughter in his belly, of the nervous energy of his rage about what Mick’s father had done, of the possessive, protective things they both made him feel.

  The little fucker who was about to come at Adam yet again stilled at the sound of Adam’s less than calm laughter.

  But still didn’t mean silent. Much to his misfortune. The guy looked over at Jessi and then back to Adam. “Taken? By a chick? I think not. You think you’re the first one to try to scare others off with a bullshit claim?”

  By that point the crowd had shifted their attention from the official fight to the one happening between Adam and this douchebag.

  He was already seeing red after Jessi’s story earlier, and this asshole upsetting her more was the last push into full-blown rage. He fisted his hands and it felt really good.

  “I’d really like to punch your face again. So keep coming at me,” Adam taunted, meaning every word. The darkness he kept at bay roared into his ears.

  The guy was bigger, but Adam was angrier. He had a reason to fight that was more than a hard cock.

  The guy was also dumb. He failed to see those things and came at Adam, giving him the perfect opportunity to clock the stupid fucker right in the face, sending him to his knees.

  “You sure do know how to fit in, babe.”
/>
  Adam turned to Mick, who stood, grinning, covered in sweat and blood. Jessi hopped up and down, but Asa and Duke had her penned in.

  They’d have to pay for that, Adam knew. She was safe, though, so that was enough.

  “He called our girl a very unpleasant name.”

  “That so?” Mick stepped closer, but Adam slid an arm around his waist.

  “Handled. Did you win?” Adam asked Mick as they turned their backs on the piece of shit being helped away by his friends.

  “I did. What happened?” Mick looked over at Jessi, tipping his chin at Asa, who let her out.

  She stomped over and poked Adam in the side. “I’m not okay with being penned in like a puppy.”

  “He referred to her as a gash.”

  Mick went very still and then spun to take in the asshole, who was limping away with his friends.

  “No!” Jessi took his arm. “It’s over. Jeez. Adam already punched him in the face. Twice.”

  “Let’s skip the next round and get going. Dinner sounds like a good idea, don’t you think?” Carmella asked with a smile. “Adam probably needs to ice his fist.”

  Jessi’s emotions were stamped over her features, and Asa paused after a look from PJ.

  “I’m sorry you’re mad at me,” Asa said to Jessi. “Mick would kill us both if you got hurt in any way.”

  “You can’t be sorry for how I feel. You can only be sorry for what you do.”

  Asa’s mouth quirked up at the corner. “Jesus, you’re going to fit in just fine, aren’t you?” He slung an arm around Jessi’s shoulders and hugged her quickly. “I’m sorry I made you upset. I’m not sorry I kept you out of the fight.”

  Jessi nodded. “Fair enough.”

  “We okay? I don’t have to watch my junk?” Duke asked her. “What? You all laugh, but you think Carmella or PJ wouldn’t be just as dangerous?”

  The chuckles died down.

  “As long as you’d have had Adam’s back, we’re cool.”

  “You and Adam are with Mick. That makes you ours too. Of course we had his back.” Duke’s expression was sincere and Jessi nodded.