by Olivia Chase
The bell rings.
I shut out everyone and everything around me, willing my brain to go silent and stop torturing me. This is my time for victory. Gotta have my head in the game.
The first couple of rounds start off without a clear winner. We both get in several good hits. Finn’s grinning widely, taunting me as he bounces on his feet. Dancing around me. I’m growling back at him. I’m fucking ready to tear this shithead up.
By the time we’re two rounds in, I’m dripping with sweat. My muscles are growing fatigued. This is the hardest match I’ve had yet. And I’m not sure I’m going to win.
Out of nowhere, Finn socks me in the chin, and my mouth guard almost goes flying. Fuck. I right myself, ignoring his smug look. His left eye is swollen where I hit it, and he has a small cut above his brow. The breaks between rounds seem to fly by; I can’t get my bearing, can’t seem to gain control over the situation.
One more round to go. The crowd is chanting, jeering. There’s still no fucking clear winner, and we’re close. Too close. I’m rallying everything I’ve got, but I’m exhausted. Angry. Frustrated. This isn’t the clean, quick fight I thought I’d get. I’m scraping by for every point I can manage.
When the fight is over, Finn and I are panting, back in our corners, our coaches talking to us while we stare hard at each other. That fucking know-it-all smile is on Finn’s face; he’s so sure he won.
“The judges have tallied up the points,” the announcer says. “And the winner is…Hale Beckett!”
I heave myself off the bench and lift up my arms. I want to be smiling right now because I won, but it wasn’t a good performance. I fucking let myself down. Stinging sweat is sliding down into my eyes, and my hair is dripping wet.
I get out of the ring as fast as I can. I need to get my shit together. As I’m walking behind Al, Diane sidles up to me.
“Looked like that was a hard effort you put in that match,” she says, her voice bearing a decidedly cool edge. “Haven’t seen you struggle this much before, Hale. But I’m sure you’ll get it together against Gunner.”
“He’ll be fine,” Al says to her. “We all have off days sometimes.” But I can hear the same thing in both of their voices. Doubt.
Neither of them thinks I can beat Gunner. Not after the shit show I just put on. If I lose the fight against him, I lose everything. Diane will pull her support, which means Al will disappear, since I don’t have the funds to pay him to coach me…he won’t want to work with a loser anyway. And I’ll be back to what I was before—just a thug street fighter with no chance at getting where I want to be.
I make quick work of getting dressed. Shame over my failures is weighing me down. I feel distracted, on edge.
Phoebe comes over. I can’t quite read her face, which also adds to my inner tension. “Hey, good job out there. You won! You’re in the finals.” Her voice is a little too high, like she’s trying to rally me.
“Barely,” I grunt.
“Hale.” Her eyes look up at me with concern. “You won. It’s not a barely. It’s a fact. Doesn’t have to be a KO to count as a victory.” Her soft scent wraps around me, and she takes a small step closer. Draws her lower lip between her teeth. “I…I’m sorry with how we left it off. I just…”
“It’s okay.” I want to touch her so badly. “I need you tonight, Phoebe.” I want to sink into her and fucking forget about my reality for a little while.
“Yes.” Her response is a breathy whisper.
My dick is already hard. I want to take her right here on this bench. Show everyone that she’s mine. These feelings are overwhelming, and if I’m honest, a bit unwelcome right now. I need to keep things between us less emotional, more sexual. Not let my heart get tripped up in her.
I tug off my shorts and slide into my jeans and a clean shirt. “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”
“We can go to my place,” she offers. Is it because she’s scared to be around Butch? Can I blame her? The idea rankles though.
“I’ll follow you.”
I get in my car. Concentrate on getting to her place. Nothing else. It’ll be fine. I just got to get this shit off my mind is all.
We make it into her apartment, and once I lock the door behind us, I immediately start ripping clothes off her. Neither of us speaks. I’m hard as hell, frustrated, and I need to purge this darkness out of me…this feeling, like my life is a tsunami dragging me under.
I’m almost shaking with my need. It’s hard to not throw her on the ground right here and push into her. I don’t have the patience to be gentle. I need it hard, rough.
Phoebe seems to sense my mood. “I want it,” she tells me in a tone that’s so sultry it makes precome leak out of my dick.
I grip the back of her hair. “Oh? You need to be fucked hard by me, sweetness?”
“Yes.” She gasps when I tighten my hold. “Please.” Her face is turned up to mine, the desperation in her eyes mirroring what I’m feeling.
I touch her cunt. It’s dripping. For me. I touch my digits to my tongue, lap at her flavor. Fuck. I can’t get enough. The smell, the taste, the way she squirms for me. How her legs are trembling. This woman does things to me I can’t even make sense of.
I tug her against me. Possess her mouth. She opens for me, willingly, begging for what I can give her. I can hear her desperate gasps.
“You need me to own that pussy?” I growl, then take her hand and tug her into her bedroom. Push her down on the bed. She drops her legs open, and I dive right in and eat her pussy.
She gushes for me, coating my tongue. I eat her like there’s no tomorrow. Like she might disappear if I don’t devour her right fucking now. She’s thrusting that warm cunt against my face, body begging me for more, so I push two fingers into her. “Yes,” she hisses. I can hear the edge of frantic need in her voice.
“I’m going to make you come,” I tell her hotly, giving little bites on her inner thighs in between my words. Her flesh is so soft for me. I can’t get enough of tasting her. “And then you’re going to suck my cock, right up until I can barely hold it back. And only after that will I fuck you. Hard.”
She shudders. “Yes. Please.”
I push into her tight cunt, stroking, making sure to hit her G-spot. With my other hand, I squeeze one full breast, giving extra attention to her sensitive nipples.
Soon she’s writhing for me, panting, calling my name over and over. “Hale, yes, I…” Her words turn incoherent as she nears her orgasm. “God, God, I…I’m so close…”
I don’t want anything else in the world right now except to make her come all over my mouth. In this moment, literally nothing matters but her. I glide my tongue on her clit and finger fuck her. Her pussy is squeezing my digits so tightly.
Her body tenses, right on the edge of orgasm, and then she’s flying for me, hands shaking on my shoulders, her beautiful face upturned, lips parted. God, I just can’t get enough of her. This woman will be my destruction. And right now I can’t even care.
I crawl up on my knees over to her head. Her eyes are molten, staring at my bobbing cock. “I need to taste you,” she says. “Show me how.”
I don’t know that I’ve ever heard sexier words in my life. I grip myself at the base and nudge her lips apart. “Start slow, baby.”
She darts a tongue out to taste the tip of me. Then her small pink mouth sucks the tip in. My senses explode—I can’t help but reach down and stroke her wet pussy while she begins to lick and savor me. Her hands reach up to clutch my thighs, and she lifts her head, and she draws me in as far as she can.
It’s evident she doesn’t know what she’s doing, that I’m the first cock she’s ever had between her pretty lips. But the way she’s diving in and tasting me…so fucking erotic. Even hotter because of her curiosity.
It takes every ounce of energy to keep from plunging all the way into her hot mouth, making her deep throat my cock. The little suckling sounds she makes as she enjoys me. Her eyes locked on mine. It’s so sexy th
at my dick is painfully rigid from the sight.
I can feel my balls tighten; she’s going to get me to come way faster than I expected. Shit.
She removes a hand from my thigh and brushes a fingertip across the bottom curve of my balls, and I have to rip my dick out of her mouth. “Did that feel good?” she asks, all innocence.
“So good that if I don’t fuck you now, I’ll be coming down that wonderful throat of yours.”
“Oh.” Phoebe flushes, but I see the pleasure flashing in her eyes at my blunt words.
I reach into my pants to get a condom. Roll it on as fast as I can. Then straddle her. Push inside that pussy.
Home.
The thought pops up out of nowhere. I dismiss it. I’m not getting emotional. This isn’t that kind of sex. We’re fucking. That’s all.
Phoebe rests her small hands on my lower back, and her knees come up to the sides of my hips. I’m pushing her into the mattress with the force of my thrusts. The way she’s looking at me…it does something funny to my chest. She’s completely open now, vulnerable. No walls up—just her letting me see deep inside her. I’m not ready for this.
But I feel my own heart stirring in response, and some small part of me wants to do the same with her, no matter how stupid that would be. Fuck. I lean down and take her mouth. Not in a hard kiss, but one that is much more…intense. I swallow her moans and pick up the pace.
The sounds of our bodies slapping, our breath mingling, the way she murmurs my name over and over like it’s a prayer…I’m so close, right there on the edge… And then my body is shaking and I’m coming and gripping her blindly, my seed spilling, the orgasm breaking me apart into a million pieces.
I start to come down off the high. Muscles loosening bit by bit. I stay buried inside her to the hilt. I can’t seem to withdraw from her, not yet. Need these moments of closeness before reality crashes in again.
Phoebe winds her arms around me. Presses a fucking sweet kiss to my brow. The gesture turns all those broken pieces of me into fine dust, scattered on the breeze. My heart is racing now, but not from the orgasm I just had. Because I have to acknowledge that I’m having real feelings for her, and I’m so not ready for this. I never wanted this to happen.
I’m fucking scared and freaking out. I’m going to lose who I am, lose my dreams, because of my desperate need for her. I can’t be like my brothers. I can’t abandon everything for a woman.
Phoebe is both the cause of and the solution to so many of my current problems.
“What is it?” she asks me softly, pulling back and looking at me. Her hair is sex-mussed, her lips swollen, skin flushed. All signs of me making her mine.
Fuck. “Nothing.” I withdraw from her and take off the condom. Pad over and discard it, not looking at her. I can’t. She’ll see everything in my eyes, and then she’ll have me. She’ll have all the power over me. I’m already too far gone for her as it is. I can’t lose these last pieces of myself. My independence. My strength. My drive.
I grab our clothes and bring them into the bedroom. Start pulling on my boxers and jeans. “I should get going.”
“Wait, are you serious?” She sits up, draping the sheet over her chest. Her eyes are flaring. “You’re just going to leave after that? I…”
After several long seconds of neither of us speaking, her sigh is heavy. Weighted with the disappointment she feels for me.
More people judging me. More people finding me lacking. Splendid.
Deep down inside, I know that everything going on right now is caused by my own issues. My own demons. But Phoebe is triggering things in me that I never wanted to feel. My jaw is ticking from the tension in my body. “I just need to go home and sleep. Long day.” It’s true—I desperately need sleep. And maybe beforehand, a half dozen beers to dull the edges of this darkness I’m falling into.
“Fine.” Her voice is flat. “Get some sleep.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” I don’t know what else to say. The eruption of my feelings is draining my body. I’m fucking exhausted, spent. I can’t deal with this right now.
“Sure.” Phoebe looks away.
I know I’m letting her down. But I can’t be there for her the way she needs me to right now. I’m fucked up. A total mess. I’m not good to myself, much less her. I gotta figure out how to get my shit together.
Once I win the final fight, I’ll be on the path to being a professional boxer. I might be worthy of her. But until then…I have to focus.
I leave her apartment. And a big part of my heart is left behind with her, back in her bed.
Turns out beer doesn’t help.
I sleep like shit. Toss and turn all night. I can’t stop thinking about what happened. The shitty fight. Sex with Phoebe. The way I just left her right afterward when she was tender with me. God, I’m an asshole. Too freaked out to stick around. I fucked her and ran off.
Dad would probably high-five me for that shit—the old pump-and-dump. Which just makes me feel sicker.
I think about Smith, recuperating from a stab wound my own father inflicted on him. Everything is so twisted. I don’t know what to think, what to do. I’m trying so hard to stick to my principles, to not lose my drive and vision, but why does doing so make me feel like a piece of crap?
I finally just decide to get up and make a cup of coffee. I’m not going to sleep anyway. Might as well get my day started. I trudge into the kitchen and fire the coffee pot up. At least the scent of brew gives me a little perk. I dig into the fridge and pull out stuff to make a massive omelet. Add in some ham, bacon, veggies…
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the almost-champion,” Butch declares, dropping himself down at the kitchen table. “Whip one of those up for me too, will ya, son?” He sounds downright jovial for a man who’s still sporting a helluva shiner and a bit of a limp from getting beaten up by Smith.
For a second, when I glance at him, I feel pure rage.
Hate.
I push it down, tell myself to knock it off.
“Sure, I’ll rustle you up some grub,” I say, trying to sound like I wish I was and not how I actually feel. I grab a few extra eggs and begin preparing the omelet, chopping everything up for cooking.
“So. Read about you in the paper, Hale. They even have pictures of you in the ring. Lots of people are talking about how you’re going to be a star. You didn’t tell me it was this big of a deal. Keeping shit from your old man, eh?”
There’s a smug tone in his voice that for some reason sets me on edge.
My chopping becomes more aggressive. “I wasn’t keeping anything hidden. You weren’t interested in what I was doing—I told you about it when I picked you up from the joint.”
“I was too caught up in other things,” he says. “I had to find out from the paper that my son made it to the final round in such a prestigious tournament?” He waves dismissively. “Well, bygones and all that shit. I’m here to help you.”
I can almost hear his brain whirring. Where is he going with this conversation?
I want to believe that my father is actually interested in what I’m doing. That he wants me to succeed and achieve my goals. But I know the truth. And I can’t look at him. I remain silent as I put veggies in the skillet. All those emotions from last night come roaring back, along with a new addition—disillusionment.
“So make me your manager,” he continues, “and I’ll help you with your pro career. We’ll get you to the top, son. I got connections. I know people.”
I pour the eggs in and when they’re ready, fold them. I can’t imagine what his connections would do for me that wouldn’t end up costing me more in the end. They’re all thugs and criminals. Not likely to be any good for me. “Aren’t you too busy right now?” I say lightly.
“Sounds like you think you know better than me, boy.” There’s a sharpness in his tone. “That’s no way to talk to your old man. I’d be doing you a big favor by managing you. Family business should stay in the family. You’ll see�
�I’ll be a big asset to your team.”
Anger swells fast and hot. Butch doesn’t give a shit about helping me. He clearly sees Outlaws as a dead end, and he’s decided to find another easy target for money. Me. And knowing him, he won’t give up on this until I cave.
“Fine. You can be my manager.” There really isn’t anything I can say. I’m choking on my own bitterness anyway.
“It’ll be good, you’ll see. We’ll talk about your plans for the future, getting you up against bigger competition for better purses. I can meet with that chick who’s bankrolling you. And your coach.” Butch is lost in his own musings, talking out loud about how he’s going to squeeze Diane for more money…for my benefit, of course. And to make sure he has enough of a starting capital to get the ball rolling for me.
I plate one omelet and put it in front of him. I can’t even eat mine now. My stomach has turned; I have no appetite. “I gotta go hit the gym,” I say flatly.
Butch forks the food into his mouth, chewing loudly. “Oh, good idea. Can’t have you getting wimpy on me, can I?” He laughs. “We’ll talk more later. We got a lot of plans to solidify.”
I go to my room, grab my equipment, and leave home. I’m so fucking mad that I can’t even speak. I’m furious with Butch. Furious with everything.
I miss the simplicity of how my life was before my father came back on the scene. When I was working at the bar, fighting for fun. No pressure, no stress.
A flare of guilt hits me. I’ve bitched at all my brothers for being disloyal. And here I am, wishing my father would go away. I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. I don’t know who I fucking am. I don’t even know what I want.
Maybe a good workout will help me stop thinking about everything. And about Phoebe. About the hurt in her eyes when I left her. Fuck.
I head to the gym and work myself hard. Hours. I’m tired, sweaty, and at the end of my workout, I’m still not feeling any better. How the fuck am I supposed to sort this shit out? Maybe I can’t on my own.
Maybe I should have opened up to her last night instead of running off like a dick. Phoebe would have listened to me. But I freaked out and left her. I’m a coward.
