Doctor Death scrubs a hand over his face. “There’s still a five percent risk.”
“I like risk.”
Unfortunately, he doesn’t go away. Instead, he gives a dramatic sigh and joins me on the couch. After he tidies up his stuff and sends a couple of texts, we watch Delia Smith bake her triple-layer chocolate fudge cake, then learn two ways to prepare roast chicken and how to make a six-pound taco with only two pounds of beef. A screech outside cuts off the chef’s secret ingredient for taco sauce, and I frown at the interruption.
“Did you hear that?”
“I didn’t hear anything.” He looks at me with a decidedly guilty expression. “Gee. Look at the time. I’d better go. I have lives to save, including my own.”
He frees himself from my grasp and grabs his bag just as Zack bursts in the door.
“You’re going to die, Death,” I shout as Doctor Death makes a run for it. “As soon as I can get off this damn couch, they’re going to call you Doctor Dead.”
Zack follows him into the hallway. Through the open door, I see some manly handshaking, shoulder patting, and money being exchanged. When Zack returns, I fold my arms over my chest and glare. “We’ve been through this overprotective nonsense too many times. I know how to fast, and I know how it feels. I heard about how you starved yourself for a fight. You know what this is all about.”
He presses his lips together and scowls. “This isn’t easy for me.”
“I know.” I look up at him and smile. “But I’m proud of you for trying.”
After two hours of watching TV, I feel good enough to get up for my run. I make a move to leave the couch, but Zack pulls me in a straddle across his lap.
“I know something that can burn calories better than a run.”
“What’s that?” I ask as if I don’t already know from the rock-hard erection pressed tight against my pussy.
“Sex.” He pulls his shirt over his head.
“Hmm.” I press a kiss to his warm chest. “I like to have a lot of sex before a fight to get my testosterone level up.”
“I’d prefer to be the only one in the relationship with testosterone.” He helps me off with my shirt and unhooks my bra.
“You do have a lot of it.”
He gives a satisfied grunt. “In spades.”
“I hope you’re planning to put it to good use tonight. Otherwise, I might have to put up a Craigslist ad for the multiple partners I’ll need to get ready for my fight tomorrow.”
He slips my bra off my shoulders. “You’re not gonna pass out on me?”
“Depends how hard you make me come.”
“I’ve always wanted to make a woman come so hard, she passed out.” He leans down and draws my nipple into his mouth.
“You mean, you haven’t already?” I sink my hands into his soft, thick hair. “Zack Grayson? Fantasy of women everywhere? Never seen with the same woman twice?”
He switches to my other nipple, and I arch into his hot, wet mouth. “I’ve been saving it all for you.”
Zack slides his hand down my hips and drags me close. I grind my hips against the bulge in his jeans. “Don’t save it too long. Once isn’t enough when there’s a fight the next day.”
He swings me down to the couch and cups the curve of my sex. “As you command, beautiful ballerina.” His fingers slide into my yoga pants, and he yanks them down, leaving me in only a skimpy pair of panties.
“Um…” I point down. “You forgot something.”
“I forget nothing.” He slips his fingers beneath the elastic and strokes my folds. “If I take those off, I’m going in, and I want you ready for me first.”
“Did you not notice I’m ready for you now? Or did you think that wetness was something else?”
“More ready.” He strips off his jeans and stretches on top of me.
His cock, thick and hard, presses against my clit, and I plant my heels on the couch and rub up against him like a contented cat.
“Naughty girl,” he growls. “You think you’re gonna push me over the edge, but you don’t appreciate my self-restraint.”
“Your woman is wet, almost naked, and her vibrator is out of batteries after having to make up for your absence. This isn’t the time for self-restraint.”
Zack runs his hand over my body, and his face softens. “You’re gonna get hurt in the ring.” He slides his arms around me. “You’re gonna come back to me covered in blood and bruises, maybe even broken bones.”
“I had bruises after that night you spanked me. You didn’t seem to mind then.”
“My bruises.” His hand drifts down my back to my ass. “Sexy bruises.”
I sit back and cup his face between my hands. “Please don’t ask me not to fight.”
“I won’t. I’ll be there with you. In your corner. But I won’t pretend it will be easy.” He leans in to kiss me, his lips soft against mine. And then he eases me down on the couch, his lips skimming down my neck to my collarbone. “I’m going to kiss every part of your body, so when you get hit tomorrow, you’ll remember I was there first.”
He kisses me everywhere. Soft kisses. Hard kisses. A brush of his lips, and then deep passionate kisses that arouse me more than his games. We make up for the weeks of missed kisses, our tongues tangling together as if we have all the time in the world. We share our bodies and our souls. We share our breaths, our hopes, and our dreams.
He kisses my face, my eyes, my nose, my chin, his whiskers rough on my skin. Then he moves down, flicking his tongue over the pulse at the base of my neck, tasting my collarbones, my arms, the insides of my elbows, even my wrists, and my fingers one by one.
I have never felt worshipped before. So utterly adored.
His mouth brushes over my ribs, now visible after days of fasting, and my concave belly. His breath is hot on my skin, tongue warm and wet where he licks and nibbles—the curve of my hip, my belly button, the top of my mound…
“Lower,” I whisper, sliding my fingers through the thickness of his hair.
He slides my panties off and then lavishes attention on my clit, sending tiny bolts of pleasure shivering up my spine. His tongue is gentle, slick, lapping me up as if I were a delectable dessert.
He teases out my orgasm with the soft steady brush of his tongue. It rushes over me like the tide, pebbling my skin, filling every nook and cranny of my body. An irresistible, unstoppable force that flutters, flows, and ebbs, sending me drifting as it pulls me with it.
“Beautiful.” Zack slides up my body. “I love watching you come.”
With one firm thrust, he fills me, his cock deliciously thick and hard. We groan together. Move together. Breathe as one person, not two.
“Deeper, Zack,” I whisper. “I want to feel all of you.”
He takes his weight on his hands and pushes until he is seated as far as he can go. Our hips rock together, and then he pounds into me, filling me utterly and completely.
Finally, his body stiffens, and he comes with a hoarse cry, the pulse of his climax against my swollen tissue sending me over the edge again.
Zack collapses on top of me, buries his neck in my shoulder, and for a moment, we hold each other, chests heaving, bodies sated.
“I want to do this for you when you fight.” I stroke my hand through his thick, soft hair.
“Once won’t be enough.”
“Twice?” I wiggle, rubbing my breasts against his chest, and he groans softly.
“More.”
“How much more?”
“I’ll need you every day of the year before the fight and every day after. Sometimes two or three times.” He pushes himself up and runs his tongue over the seam of my lips.
“Hmm. How are we going to have all that sex unless we’re together all the time?”
“We’ll have to live together.” He nuzzles my neck. “Th
en I can sex you up whenever I want.”
“That sounds serious.”
He studies me, his face intense. “It is serious. We’ve wasted enough time. I don’t want to waste a second more. I love you, Shay. I want to be with you forever.”
I hold him tight and whisper in his ear. “I love you, too.”
And for the first time, I am not afraid to open myself up, because I have found my passion again, and he has found me.
30
Shayla
“Shayla.”
A shadow detaches from the wall outside Redemption, and I recognize Damian in the fading evening light before he comes into view. Everything about him, from the angle of his neck to the set of his shoulders, from the slight wave of his hair to the timbre of his voice, is so painfully familiar, watching him walk toward me is almost like coming home.
Except I am home. At Redemption. And all my friends are inside, waiting to throw a celebration party just for me after my big win against Carla Gordon last night. Zack will be joining us later, after he finishes his charity photoshoot.
Damian stops under one of the parking lot lights, only a few feet away. In some ways, I have been waiting for this moment since the day I left New York, knowing in my heart he would eventually come. But of all the emotions I expected to experience when I saw him again, I feel only one—relief.
“How did you find me?”
“Zack Grayson paid me a visit. It wasn’t hard to track him down now that he’s in the news because of his big comeback. I called the MEFC office and said I was a reporter looking for a story. They told me he was training here. I knew you’d be with him.” His gaze drifts down my body, lingering on my Symbian uniform and the utility belt around my waist. Sadist told me to come straight from work for the party, and I didn’t stop to change.
“I watched your fight last night…” He trails off when my face tightens.
“I’m glad I didn’t see you there.”
“After seeing you in the ring, I’m glad, too.” He looks me up and down, and then he smiles—that cool, slightly detached smile that should have warned me from the start that there was a monster lurking beneath the man. “You look good. Different. Stronger.”
“You look older.”
His smile fades the tiniest bit. “You’ve changed, too. You’re more confident, self-assured.”
“I don’t let people beat me up is what I think you’re trying to say.” I take a step toward him. “I don’t let them hit me or kick me or punch me or beat me with bats. I don’t let them tell me they love me and then push me down the stairs. I am not a toy or a treasure or a piece of arm candy or a stepping stone to success. And I don’t run away from the things that scare me.”
He runs his hand through his mop of blond hair. Once, I thought his hair was beautiful, artistic, cut long in the front and glistening gold in the sun, but now it looks dirty, unkempt, and badly in need of a brush. “I missed you, darling.”
The affectionate term makes me cringe, not just because I don’t want to be his darling, but because he only ever used it when he was drunk, as I suspect he is now from the way he slurs his words and tilts his head.
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have tried to kill me.”
Anger flickers across his face, and then it’s gone. “I see your memory still hasn’t returned. You lost your balance when you were trying to stop me leaving you.”
“Seriously?” My voice rises in pitch. “You are totally delusional. You think I cared about you so much that I would risk killing myself over you? That I suffered these injuries because I was that desperate for you to stay? Do you think a fall can crush every bone in a hand? Or that stairs leave boot prints in your side?”
He holds up a warding hand. “You’ve always been so emotional. It was one of the things I had hoped you might grow out of as you matured so you could see the world in a more logical way. We were good together. We could be good together again. I’ve researched MMA. My choreography skills can help you in the ring. And you need someone experienced to guide you.”
It’s like he doesn’t even hear me. But then, maybe he never did. “Don’t be ridiculous. Even if you were the only trainer on earth, I wouldn’t work with you. And I’m with Zack, now. As you well know.”
Damian sighs. “I can see you’re upset. We can discuss it another time.”
“I’m not upset.” I close the distance between us, stopping only a foot away. “I’m angry. Angry and disgusted that I wasted years of my life with you. I thought I loved you, and you took that love and broke it.”
“I loved you.” His voice softens. “Never doubt that.”
“You don’t know what love is.” My hand clenches into a fist by my side. “Love is sacrifice. Love is giving. Love is taking the long, hard road back when it’s easier to walk away. Love fills all the cracks in your heart and gives you strength in the darkest of times. Love never leaves. It is there when the lights go out and in the depths of despair. I know love now, and what we had wasn’t it.”
I thought I fought my best fight yesterday, but as I lift my hand, I realize I am fighting my best fight now.
Everything I have learned—every fight, every class, every loss, every win, every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears I have shed, Sol and Clive and the other burglar I caught at Symbian—has prepared me for this.
My fight.
With all my power, I smash my fist into Damian’s face. He staggers back into the car behind him, making no move to defend himself.
“That is for everything you did to me, for twisting my love, for breaking me, for destroying my dreams.” I hit him again and again until he slides down the side of the car.
Damian wipes the blood off his face and pushes to his feet. He puts one hand under his jacket and pulls out a gun.
“This is for everything you did to me,” he spits out. “I lost my career because of you, my respect in the community, my friends, my life, and now because of your boyfriend’s meddling, I’ve lost my wife. All you had to do was keep your mouth shut instead of blabbing to the police. Loyalty. That’s what love is. And gratitude. Forgiveness. You protect the people who looked after you and made you a star. You honor the vows you said in church to love, cherish, and obey.”
Given this was my biggest fear, the cause of the nightmares that drove me to train as a security guard and join Redemption, I am curiously unafraid of the gun. Maybe it’s because I have been threatened with a gun before. Maybe it’s because I’ve faced death and won. Maybe it’s because I am a damned good fighter who has been offered not one, but two professional contracts. Or maybe it’s because, after what happened to Joe, I never go to work without my bulletproof vest.
“Don’t be a hypocrite.” I mentally calculate my distance and angle, weighing the option of another Clive-like takedown. “In what world did you honor your vows by beating me and trying to kill me?”
“A world where your wife doesn’t walk out on you when you need her the most for the man she professed to hate most in the world.”
“I didn’t leave you for him,” I say. “I left for me.”
“Now you can leave forever.” He raises the gun. “And when I’m done with you, he’s next.”
A door crashes open. Feet pound on the pavement.
Torment takes the safety of his fighters very seriously. He has cameras all over the parking lot. He will have seen Damian approach me and he will have watched the scene play out. And if he knows, Redemption knows. I just wonder how he was able to hold them back for so long.
Taking advantage of the distraction, I go low and shoot in for a takedown. A bullet cracks the silence. Glass shatters. I grab Damian and carry him down, knocking the gun from his hand before I straddle him and pin him to the ground.
Redemption fighters swarm around us. I am plucked off my prize and unnecessarily deposited a safe distance away. Then the frenzy begins.
I hear the screech of tires in the distance, and I press my lips together and glare at the fighters gathered around Damian, arguing over who gets to hit him next. “Who called Zack?”
No one looks at me directly. Instead, they become interested in the vehicles, in the parking lot, the streetlights, and the faint stars in the night sky.
“Yeah. I thought so,” I mutter, fighting back a smile. “All of you.” I gesture to Damian as I walk toward Redemption. “Make sure you leave a piece for Zack. He deserves at least one punch.”
31
Zack
Twelve months later
“Winner by a knockout, the new MEFC middleweight world champion and holder of five MEFC title belts…Slayer!”
Zack raised his arms in triumph as Blade Saw announced his arrival at Redemption, playing to the packed gym going wild for his return from his championship fight in Vegas. Even after a two-day media junket, he could still feel the sheer and utter thrill of holding the title belt in his hand. He had done it. He had come back from oblivion, defeated the Terminator, and achieved his dream. And he couldn’t have done it without the Redemption team.
He hadn’t come to Redemption to return to fighting. He had come to recruit another body for the MEFC stable. Who knew his entire life would change the moment he walked in the door? Not only had he found the ballerina who had stolen his heart, he had found redemption, and he had found a home.
“Welcome back,” Sadist said, clearing a path through the eager fans. “How did it go?”
Zack shook his head. “It was easier before everyone and his dog started streaming their broadcasts. I lost count of the number of interviews I did. MEFC had a team of publicists, and even they couldn’t keep up with the requests.”
“I saw the one of you with Shayla after the fight. You were great together. Very entertaining.”
A new MMA streaming service had asked for a joint interview with Zack and Shayla, who had become a hot celebrity couple after they had announced their engagement. Media interest had intensified after Shayla won the amateur featherweight title belt and was signed by MEFC, prompting them to elope to Glenwood. They’d had a small outdoor wedding with only their family and close friends in attendance, including, of course, the entire Redemption team.
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