by Paige Notaro
“You know who ain’t going out,” Hector asked. “Carlos. That’s my homie you knocked out.”
So that’s what it was. First I refused to be buddy-buddy with him and now I’d knocked out one of the few shitheads that tolerated his company.
“Well, he got in the ring, didn’t he?” I said. “You don’t always get to walk out.”
“That’s very true. You should remember.”
“Hector,” Mario said softly.
“Nothing, uncle. Homeboy here just has me fired up, a little. It’s all good fun.”
His eyes told a different story though.
“Your boy’s right,” the Anglo said with a heavy drawl. “That was one hell of a near-knockout.”
Pinpricks raised across my back. I took another look at his face and wondered how I’d missed recognizing him the first time.
"Oh let me introduce you, Andre," Mario said. "This is Mr. Randall Tarly, a friend of mine."
"Huge fan," the man said, shaking my hand with a meaty one. "Been watching your fights for months. Half the reason I come south of the border."
"What's the other half?" I asked before I could stop myself.
His smile went wobbly. He glanced at Mario, then back, "Business, of course, and a little pleasure, though that's gone south on me a bit too."
"I was telling Mr. Tarly about your predicament," Mario said. "Why you are with us."
"Damn shame," the big man said. "You could have been huge. Not to say you aren't here."
"Yeah." He still looked like a tomato up close and right then I would have given a lot to mash some juice out of him.
"Anyway, I'm glad I get to see you fight anywhere. Hope to see another dozen knockouts from you."
"Or not, is ok, too," Mario added.
I started to agree, then ran the words through again and went cold. "What?"
Mario gave me an incredulous look. "Listen, you are my star, but people like to see stars fall from the sky too. People are more willing to open their books and place bets when it is likely to happen. It is a good thing, what happened today, yes? This more even fight. It is good to see you as vulnerable.”
"Yeah..." That was the last thing that you wanted people thinking in this town.
"Do not worry. I'm sure they will continue to lose money betting against you."
"I'll make sure that happens."
The men stared at me, and I saw dollars flash on their eyes. I knew right then what I was. What I’d been too arrogant and dumb to admit earlier. I was no champion. I was just property. A house slave, a palace slave even but still in chains. Chains I’d clasped around my own arms.
"Sorry,” I said. “I’ve gotta take care of my nose.”
"Yes, yes, of course."
"Nice meeting you," Mr. Tarly added. Hector glared silently.
I nearly fled out to my car and peeled out onto the road. I had known this day would come. Mario would get tired of an unbeatable winner and start raising the odds. If I could be beaten, there was way more money to be made on bets than pure arena tickets. Even if I proved that tonight was a fluke, the cash would make Mario find ways to tip the odds against me. He would spend me until he’d wrung 100 pesos for every one I’d spent living it up in Juarez. If I was lucky, there’d be enough left of me after that to ditch on the side of the road.
As the twinkle of the hotel rose into view, I felt my heart race. She was there, at the top of my tower, waiting. Waiting for who she thought I was. If she knew why I was here, what I used to be, all my money and luxury and time might mean nothing against it. I saw the way she looked at me, and I knew damn well how I felt about her. I’d done my best, but there was no ignoring that perfect little gem of a face, that sweet smile she wore so often. Late at night, I would even let myself consider that tight little body barely held under her short sleeves and micro shorts. But every day I let her draw closer – hell, brought her closer - to this shackled shell of a man - well, it broke my heart.
By the time the elevator was swishing up towards my room, the excitement came mixed with equal parts dread. I would have to tell her to keep her distance. I would have to tell her she needed to back to the US, that she’d be safer there than any meager protection I could offer.
The one thing I had to hide was the truth. That I didn't give a damn about any of this life, now that I had her. The truth would set me free, but it would chain her to me, and I wasn’t cruel enough to put her through that.
The doors chimed open and I clipped unsteady down the hallway. The TV blared with Mexican soap and I emerged into the living room to see her darkened mop of hair facing it from the sofa. She was mouthing along to some of the words, trying to capture the pronunciation. She looked determined. She looked amazing.
I dropped my bag. Her face snapped to me, lit up into a smile that etched thoughts from my brain.
"Andre," she said, and just like that the smile flipped. "Oh god."
She rushed up off the couch, her eyes poring over my face with deep concern. "What did they do to you?" she whispered.
"I fought a guy," I said, sinking back to easy routine.
"Over what?"
"Over...keeping my title?"
She shook her head. "This didn't happen before."
"Well, it happens. I don't always come out pretty."
"I didn't say you weren’t pretty."
Her fingers traced my cheek. She had never touched my face before, and I fought the pain to let her heat trickle into me. She grazed my nose though, and it was all I could do not to scream.
"Oh, god, I'm sorry."
"It's ok. I'll be fine. I just got distracted and took a stupid hit."
She looked blank. "Because of me."
Any speech I had planned fell out of my head. This girl was not dumb. "I didn't say that," I said.
"I'm the only change in your life right? You were fine before me. You were perfect."
"No, Georgia, I wasn't." I gripped her shoulders, more to steady myself and keep it all from pouring out. "I'm not the guy you think I am."
"I knew who you were when I met you," she said. "You’re a fighter. That’s what you’ve been teaching me to do, right? To fight for myself. Except you don’t even do just that. You fight for other people too. Even for people you have no reason to care about, you refuse to walk away. "
Her voice had a spine to it now, and her words seemed to overwrite the slough of feelings I’d driven over here with. My head was dipping. "I'm a fighter, but that's not all I am. I've run from plenty."
"You didn't run from me. Even after you saved me, you didn’t run away."
I raised my head and saw the softness of her face. That reverence I didn't deserve, but – I noticed now - a glimmer that maybe I did deserve something. The idea that maybe I wasn’t my past, not Atlanta, not even the ring – that maybe I was more than a body, more than just a chip for others to bet with. That maybe saving her had done more than make up for my past. It had given me a chance for a future.
Words came to my mouth, but I stalled. There was no going back after this. She beamed up, ever calm, ever patient, a purifying angel.
Fuck it.
"How could I run from you?" I said. “You’re what I came here to find.”
She stroked my cheek. Her wide eyes shut and ever so softly, her lips rose up and touched mine. I stood there taking this kiss, not sure I earned any of it. She insisted, pressing in harder. Her body sank against me, and I felt her softness, her freshness, taut against her shirt. Pain scratched at my brain, but a wildfire tore through me and I barely even noticed over the blaze. My hands fell to her hips and I pulled her body deeper over mine.
Her hands laced around my neck. Her mouth parted soft and wet. Our tongues met and even her taste was sugary - sweet as a peach. I drank her in. She moaned softly into me, her sounds rumbling down my throat. All the hunger that came after a fight – what I thought I’d lost - roared back into me in spades. I found the rounds of her bottom, scooped her up into my grip. Her body was
in my hands now. Her heat melded us together even through our clothes.
This shouldn't be happening to me. I didn't deserve this passion pouring out of her, all this untested lust. I was her first, I could see it in those sweet green eyes, but even then I couldn't set her down. My body wouldn't let me and she was planted over my face now.
I carried us to my bedroom, the one she used to sleep in alone, and pressed her into the sheets. The curtains sashayed under the a/c, and the moonlight shimmered like a haze across her pale skin. She sat propped up on her elbows, drinking me in.
"I want all of you," she said, tugging at my clothes. “I’ve wanted you so long. Why did you make me wait?” Her touch was too urgent to be useful. I took over peeling off my t-shirt and her lithe fingers dove under, tracing the edges of my muscles, marking each eon of practice it had taken for those creases to form. I wanted to give them to her. God, if she knew how much I had hated myself for wanting to bore into her every night since she’d arrived, she would know how messed up I was.
"I want all of you," she insisted again, reading my mind. She pulled me down.
Her hands told me to take her shirt off. She had on a dark satin bra, which she must have got just for me. The thought of her picking it out for this moment had blood roaring in my ears, and I moved my kisses down her face, onto that slender neck. She nibbled at it, and whispered her desire into my head.
I couldn't hold back any longer. My hands found the clasp of her bra and released her flesh. I sank onto her breast, swirling my tongue around the tips and bring them to rise as my own body hardened further down. She warbled as I consumed her and squirmed between me and the bed. Her hands moved instinctively for my pants and I helped her shuffle me out of them.
She grasped my cock and now it was my turn to lose my breath. Her hands found the motion immediately, sliding up and down, taking pleasure at the way I jerked under her silky touch. She laughed a free and glorious laugh as I collapsed over her, consumed by the feel of that tiny grip taking over me. Her strokes came harder and faster, barely aware of the madness they were causing. I ran my fingers through her thick hair and kissed my way up to her ear.
"You’re the most perfect thing in my life," I said. “You make me free.”
"I don’t want to be free," she said. "I want to be yours."
And then hearing her own words, she moaned it again as a command. "Make me yours."
I yanked down her pants and laid her bare with one swipe of her black panties. She glistened with wetness, fresh and clean. I climbed up around her, a cage over her tiny body. She ran her hands over my ripples of strength, wide eyed and gasping, as if each one was a new revelation. When she was done appreciating from afar, she wrapped her hands around my waist and tugged me toward her center.
I eased myself into her folds. The gentle swell of her brow wrinkled once and twice and then she looked in pain and I slowed. Her blood was pulsing so close to me though. I could feel the heat inside of her running up my cock. God help me, I need to be inside that. I pressed in just a bit more and suddenly I was slipping through her like a key into a lock. She cried out in rapture.
I rode out and into her again and she slid into a moan. My stiff membered swelled to its limits at the sight of her writhing under my thrusts. She gripped at my scalp, ran her hand along the length of my body and curled herself deeper into my insistent lust.
I drove her further and further up the bed. Her mouth found words. "Yes," she said. "Yes, yes. Oh, this is perfect."
Every inch of her slick channel passed over me like agony. I had imagined this moment almost every night since she’d arrived, but this was beyond any of that. She was home and I needed to bury myself as deep in her as I could.
I slammed her up against the floorboards, long forgetting the fragile girl I’d been worried about breaking. She could take me whole, and so I would give her as much as I could. Her legs were high in the air, guiding me in and her hands clasped around me. She pulled me in for a long kiss and our bodies were chained together completely, only cracking apart to groan at the height of each thrust.
They spoke of Rapture a lot in Atlanta, but I saw it for the first time in this Georgia. It came to her first. I had her pinned down, thrusting deep and hard, watching her face. Her eyes glared wide but then she was squinting at me as if seeing something new. Her fingers dug into my muscles and then her voice let out the sweetest sigh of releases.
“Oh, Andre,” she said, and she started to shake. I dropped right onto her and felt her writhe in pleasure under my body. “I’m yours,” she whimpered into my ear over and over. “I’m yours.”
Her voice broke me like a twig. I wrapped her in my big arms and tugged her deep over me as I thrust and came and seared her with my juices. She sealed me into her with those long sexy legs.
We lay like that in the chill air. I tipped us over onto our side and Georgia's breasts slipped heavy up and down my chest. The slow trace of her nipples threatened to spark new fires in me. I looked down at where we met: my cock, dark as the night, slipping into her pale white curves. Her face tilted up at mine.
She kissed me, and said, "Thank you."
Of all the things that could have come out of her mouth that was the last I'd expected. I started laughing so hard the bed shook.
"Thank me for what?" I said.
She looked serious. "For letting me be with you."
I stroked her darkened hair. "Baby, I’m never going to let you go."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Georgia
I’d trusted Andre the moment I saw him and now I knew he was a man of his word.
He didn't let me off that bed the whole night. When the light sifted through the curtains in the morning, I lay in a daze next to him, feeling like I was drifting on a cloud. He was lying facing me, his chiseled torso rustling softly as he watched me with dim eyes. His muscles were still imprinted on my skin from our last bout. It felt right to know that they had reserved space on me for next time.
Andre reached over and stroked my damp hair and it sent me into a powerful sleep.
I awoke again a few hours later with a ferocious hunger, for him and for food. Andre’s eyes were already on me. He'd been waiting for me to wake. I’d dreamed of him, but seeing him in the flesh again narrowed my hunger.
I took his cock with my mouth, and that filled me up nice and plenty. I wasn’t sure what to do – he was so big and my mouth was so small, but he groaned at any little thing so I just bobbed up and down and tasted him and felt his pleasure rumble down into me. It didn’t take long to get him hard and thick and I had to slow. He pulled me off onto the bed.
“When’d you learn that?” he asked with a smile.
“I just wanted to see if I could handle you.”
He kissed me. “You can take anything, baby, I’m sure of it now.”
He flipped me onto my stomach, pushed me down into that white cloud and then slid into me from behind. His cock ran in so deep, it pushed the breath out of my lungs. My voice didn't have the energy for actual words, but my sighs ran out of me in heaving pants. I could feel him sliding over my back, fighting the soft swell of my butt to get in and explore deeper and rougher. How could such a simple act feel so spectacular? Soon my fingers were clawing through those soft sheets, bunching them up and releasing them as pleasure burst over me in wave after wave. It wasn’t enough so I reached back and dragged my nails through his skin. He couldn’t be hurt – he was so powerful. I just wanted the world to know he was mine. I guess he liked that, cause he groaned over me and then hot bursts of liquid shot down into my body.
We lay curled a bit longer after that, grinning and kissing, but soon both our stomachs were rumbling. We needed to refuel. Andre got up, slick and gloriously nude. He placed an order for Chinese delivery food. I smiled at just the sound of his voice. If only that tinny person talking on the other end had any idea how much better the sight of him was.
I crawled over the bed and clamped onto to his firm rear to yank him
back in, but I might as well have tried holding onto a boulder. His hand found mine and I squeaked as he lifted me up - easy as if I were a towel - and carried me off towards the bathroom.
"What are you doing?"
"Cleaning us up so we can eat."
"I know how to wash myself."
"Then clean me."
The shower had plenty of room for us both. We kissed as the hot water poured down on us, and helped get the glass walls nice and steamy. Andre lathered me up, tweaking my nipples until they felt like they could pierce the glass and then rubbed soap between my thighs until I couldn't tell what was water and what was me. I kissed his fresh body and returned the favor, slipping a tiny wet grip up and down his erect cock. I thought I was giving myself to him, but that thing popped up at the slightest touch and I wondered if it might just be the other way around.
Soon my palms were forming handprints on the glass as Andre was behind me slamming up into my slit, slick and smooth. His hands lay on my hips and his force started pushing me clean off the ground. I was at the mercy of his power and it was all focused where I could feel it best. I came all around him and soon after, he groaned one of those sweet groans and filled me again. We kissed and soaked under the showerhead, until Andre gave me a final squeeze and stepped out for a towel.
I washed my long hair with every cleanser in the shower. I’d noticed them before, the flowery labels that meant they weren’t made for men. Some were half empty, but I didn’t care who had used the rest of that liquid. Andre was mine now.
When I came out of the bathroom I was struck with a new lust. The food had arrived and it smelled something amazing. I rushed out and saw Andre already hunched over a steaming plate.
"You couldn't wait?" I said, joining him.
"Didn't feel up to it."
“It's polite to wait for guests."
He rubbed my shoulders. "But you aren't just a guest, are you, baby? Hell, I’m more of a guest."
“You?”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “Guest in your body.”
