by Lana Hartley
“Does this mean you'll start school? Start work?" Jacob said, and his voice was so hopeful. I realized that he really did want to give me the life that everything else had robbed me of, and I wanted it.
"I want to take one thing at a time," I said, telling him the truth and hoping that I wasn’t disappointing him.
I searched his eyes for a response and found none--because I heard a strange, almost wet thwacking sound and then everything faded to black.
Jacob
"What's it like when you're not in control, buddy?" He emphasized that word, buddy, like it wasn't clear already that he had ill intent. This fucker came to my house and threatened my shit on my territory, but that couldn't be and wasn't even my main concern. No, that asshole threatened my girl. Fuck with my woman, and you'll exit this life a lot sooner than you thought and in several more pieces. I was going to fuck him up.
"I always buy whores, Renaud, maybe I need to start robbing daddies like you," the fucker said as he ran his knife through the valley between Leah's breasts. I was grateful that she was unconscious right now so she wasn't feeling this, but I was fucking pissed she was being touched at all. Violated. After that fucking Interpol scum had tried to rape her, and now I finally had her back. I spit my disgust in his direction, growling out my rage with the blood that came out of my mouth. I'd taken a lot of hits to the face before and they usually hurt like a bitch but I couldn't feel anything right now. Nothing but my fucking rage.
The cable ties were a smart move on this asshole’s part. I could have wound my way out of most things, but without something sharp, it would be difficult to get myself free. Still, I wasn't going to let this asshole hurt Leah. He and his crew were fucking up countless possessions of mine, and they thought this would hurt me. They thought I gave a fuck about any of this shit. All I cared about was Leah.
And if they were starting to figure that out, they might hurt her. I couldn't fucking allow that.
Leah started to come to, and I cursed under my breath. Fuck. She was confused, and the instant she saw the stranger with the knife in front of her, her eyes flitted with fear. Landed on me.
I've got you, baby girl. It didn't look like it. But I was never going to let anything happen to her.
Several of his crew members popped up, and I recognized one. The person I'd had killed for not telling me Leah was going to be in the Waterson house. That fucker was supposed to be taken care of. There were cracks in every part of my damn operation.
I knew how to fix it. I could, and it wouldn’t even take much. But the most import thing to fix was me and Leah. She is my whole goddamn heart, my life, everything I breathe.
Leah
I'm coming to, and the situation tears into my brain. Someone has come after Jacob, and they've got us both zip-tied up. They want to hurt Jacob, and now I don't care anything about myself. None of the fear I lived in is within me now. Only the agony at the idea of anything happening to Jacob.
"Marry me," I say, shaking as I say the words. I'm nervous as hell that he doesn't even want that. After all, he owned me. I tried to put him in prison. But now I'm back, and I can't imagine my life without him. I need him to tell me that he wants me to be his forever. That he'll be mine.
My eyes well up. I don't want them to, but I can't help it. After the rollercoaster ride I've been on, and now when I'm probably about to die, I cannot fucking contain the storm inside me. Not when it needs to meet Jacob's. Not when I need his everything to consume all of me.
"You're afraid, I'm so sorry, Leah, but you don't have to pretend that you want me," Jacob says, and he's shaking. He's enraged at our captors, and I know he's never been so out of control. But the hurt that drips from his voice, the pain I see when his eyes look at mine. I can't breathe. A thousand daggers are attacking my heart. "I love you, Jacob Renaud. I fucking love you, and if I live, I will steal you if that's how I get to have you forever."
Jacob looks at me. I'm shouting my exasperated words, and he must think that I sound crazy, but he's laughing with a wide and genuine looking smile. I start laughing, too.
"Does that mean you love me too?" I ask him, and I can't help how desperate my words sound. I don't even give a shit right now. I need him to know. If we don't make it out of here, he has to know that I loved him with every fiber of my body, even if I didn't want to. Now, if I get the chance, I'm going to have to show him just how much I love him. I can never be away from him again.
"Of course I love you, Leah. I've never loved anything the way I love you," he says, and there's a pain on his face. I think it is because Jacob has loved me, for some time, and I never let myself see it.
"If you love her so much," the cretin who has us hostage says as he comes at me with a knife. "Then when I cut her heart out and hand it to you, it will be the only thing left in your collection."
Jacob shouts, and I see him trying to break free and blood coloring the ties at his wrists. Fuck. Let this asshole come at me closer with this knife. I will do something. I don't know what. But this isn't the end of our story, not for Jacob and me. I know now that it can't be it. We're so much more. We've barely started. The asshole gets close enough to me that he's torn my shirt and pricked the skin of my stomach where he's stabbing, and he's tearing my shirt and a tiny, stinging line up my stomach and to my breast where my heart is. He thinks he's torturing me, but I swallow back the pain, gritting my teeth, and take my one shot. He's close enough to me, and he's got his guard down. My head isn't restrained. Jacob taught me the value in having some parts bound and some parts free. My hands are bound, but I slam the full force of my forehead into this asshole’s face. He falls back just a second, and the knife breaks free from his hands. I try to kick at it, but through the shouting yelps of pain from the cretin with a knife, I see that Jacob has broken his zip ties. He grabs the knife, and runs to set me free as quickly as he can. He kicks that asshole for a second, so he doesn't get up, and then turns to stab that jackass as soon as he does stand. It all happens so quickly, and for the second time, I see Jacob kill a man for me. I don't love him any less. It is fucked up, but I may love him more for it. I know killing is wrong, but he's protecting me. He's committing the ultimate sin for my safety, and I can't pretend not to feel a rush of love for him at that, no matter how wrong it is. He runs to wrap his arms around me, and I jump into his. I can't be without him.
"Yes, I'll marry you," Jacob says, kissing me over and over again. "I love you so much, Leah Renaud."
Of course, he's claiming me, down to my name. And for once, I don't want to just be my first name. I don't want to change it. I want to become Leah Renaud, and I feel like I always should have been.
"I fucking love you so much," I say, and I realize I'm blubbering through tears. "I didn't want to," I tease. "But you always get what you want, even if you have to steal it."
Jacob looks at me with the most aching, heartbreaking face. He's at once the strong man I trust more than anything to protect me, and he's the man who desperately needed to hear the words I have kept from admitting to myself and saying to him. "I love you so much," I repeat. "I'm going to tell you every day for the rest of our lives," I promise him.
His hands cup my face. "You came back to me. You really...you're really mine," Jacob says. I hear his words catch in his throat. This powerful man is so tender for me. He needs me. I can never leave him again.
"Always. I can't be without you ever again. I've never felt so horrible in my life. I couldn't stay away...and you were at the house...and I just needed you. I needed you so damn bad," I said, and now I'm crying. His thumbs reach up to wipe away my tears, and he kisses the top of my head.
"Fuck, Leah, how can you love me? After everything? I've died a thousand deaths since I last kissed your lips," he says, his eyes hooded with lust, his voice thick with need, and I feel his cock pressing into my stomach, hard. All of him needs all of me, and this is everything I want. Everything I need. Jacob completes me in a way that I can't even put into words. I vow to try eve
ry day from here on out. I will never doubt the depth or necessity of my feelings for him ever again.
His lips are slightly parted, and he's waiting for me to kiss him. The man who claims everything wants me to kiss him, me to give myself to him. "I'm always going to be yours, be with you, Jacob. I love you forever," I say, and I stare him down with my eyes, trying to drill this truth in. I press my lips to his and kiss him, tenderly, deeply, without care or thought for when I need to breathe until I'm gasping and still I want to kiss him more. He's holding my hand but he points to the body, now eerie and lifeless. "I have to take care of this," he tells me. I know he does. I should be horrified, or grossed out, or upset, or something. But I'm a selfish bitch right now getting the man of my dreams, who is mine forever, and who I know has escaped a near sure thing to land him in prison. He's killed the man who was supposed to put him there. And this man, who was supposed to be dead already? He's a fucking footnote in what shaped up to be my twisted, fucked up happily ever after.
Hit & Run
An MFM Romance
By Lana Hartley
Copyright 2018 by Dark Princess Press
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental. This work is intended for adults only.
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Hunter
The ring goes off somewhere and it’s like it sets off something in my body that I can’t even control. Fuck the Russian standing across from me, he’s dead already. There’s nothing that can save him now. He had at least three months to back the fuck off—to not challenge my World Heavyweight title. But he didn’t. Fueled by fucking pride or whatever the hell, the motherfucker thought he could take me.
That false pride and expectation that he's going to make it out of this fight standing up vanishes from his fucking eyes in less than two seconds. I’m not fucking lying to you. I see it. His eyes go dull. It happens right about the time that my arm swings up in a fierce uppercut that would normally just defy the laws of biology and physics. See, you’re not supposed to be hurtling straight for your fucking opponent and able to maintain such strong control over your limbs. You’re also not supposed to be lacing them with so much power that they throw the other person’s head back and send him reeling.
It’s probably been three, maybe four seconds I shit you not. I mean, the fight is on Pay Per View. You probably saw the fucking purse for this. $89 million dollars. This is bigger than anything else. Pacquiao and Mayweather? This is nothing. This is bigger than the biggest. If the Russian loses, you can be sure he’s not boxing again after this.
And if he beats me? You gotta believe that he would have fucking killed me. That’s how big the stakes are. That’s how focused I am on winning. I've never fucking lost in my life. I've never fucking given up. I’m a fucking winner.
The Russian tries to stagger back but my feet have already taken me the five paces to get all up in his fucking face and I land another haymaker straight into his temple.
I hear a crunch and I resist the desire to let it distract me. Everything here is a fucking distraction. From the crowds who are cheering to the fucking whores who are waiting on the front seats, ready to suck the winner’s cock till he explodes. The fucking hustlers taking bets. The promoters counting their money. The photographers and journalists hanging on every single action. It’s all a distraction from the absolutely critical few seconds that exist on this fight.
I’ve known guys who get in the fucking ring and swear that time stands still. They say that the moment they leave their fucking mental bubble in the ring, they know they fucking lost. That it’s all a test to see who leaves their fucking zen state first. You gotta keep pummeling the guy over and over until they realize the world around them and get fucking distracted. Because once they realize the world is out there, that’s fucking it. Their heads are outta the fucking game and you fucking won.
Don’t fucking look at me like that. I mean, sure go ahead and look as I deliver three quick jabs to the stomach of the Russian, which makes him bowl over and then one last uppercut literally shoots his body off into the fucking air. He lands on his back and he ain’t moving.
I stay focused as the ref starts calling the count.
Right, if you’re looking at me now and wanting to know who the fuck I am, I think you can take a guess. The Hunter Bradley Vs. Vladimir Gorbachev fight has been promoted for a while now.
And that’s fucking right in case you just clenched your thighs together. I’m Hunter Bradley. That 6 foot 3 inch specimen of fucking man with the fucking sinewy and sculpted muscles. With the lean face and the mysterious fucking eyes. With the 12-inch cock that swings between my legs like a fucking foot long trouser snake.
That’s right, I'm the Hunter Bradley. The bad boy boxer of the sports world. Breaking faces in the fucking ring. And breaking hearts outside.
The ref is holding up my arm. Shit, it’s already been ten seconds. I must've lost fucking count. Guess you could say I got distracted talking to a fucking pretty lady.
That’s you, darlin’.
But you know that, don’t ya? You know that if you were standing next to the ring right now, it’d be you that I get down from the ring to kiss.
I mean, don’t look at me like that, like I don’t fucking care. The whole fucking fight lasted less than 45 seconds. In tomorrow’s newspaper they’re going to say that the fight was over before it really even began. That I had administered my famous Hunter’s ‘Spring For The Kill’.
Whatever.
All I care about is that I won. Everything else is just stupid fucking bullshit.
As it is, there is no one waiting for me and I make my way toward my changing room. They gave me a pretty nice studio to get ready in and I need to fucking get away from all the fucking cameras and media circus that’s enveloping the MGM Grand right now.
It’s not just that I don’t care much for the media circus.
I just loathe it.
To be completely fucking honest, I need to be as far away from that crowd right now as possible. The media and the preening is good, when it’s needed. But I just fucking won. What else do they need me there for, ya know?
I’m happy to see you’re coming with me though as I make my way through the corridors toward my room, decorated with a giant star on the door. I can fucking see it. So fucking close.
“Hey Hunter,” a sultry voice says from outside my field of vision. I turn my head and see perhaps the most fucking dangerous thing in the world right now—a hot woman after a boxing match. After a boxing match that I just won.
Where I prepared by focusing on nothing else. Where I gave up fucking.
Guess what I’m thinking of fucking doing to her right now.
That’s right.
I don’t even have to fucking say it.
She seems familiar, I think to myself as she saunters over to me. Maybe I fucked her before?
“Thirty three seconds against the big Russian and you knocked him out,” she purrs. I can smell her. I lick my lips. I can almost taste that sweet pussy in my mouth. I want to ravage this woman. She scrapes her nails across my chest.
“Do you think you could last more than thirty three seconds with me?” There’s lasciviousness in the question and my eyes glint. She gives me a look of pure lechery and my hand reaches over and grabs her by the ass.
I squeeze her ass cheek and she sighs loudly, coming close to me.
I can smell her. She’s wet. Horny.
They all are when they meet me.
I push her into my dressing room and kick the door closed with my foot.
She doesn’t even need words for what I’m about to do to her.
Natalie
“Just one art
icle, Ed, that’s all I’m asking for.”
“Natalie,” he says, taking a long puff from his cigarette, “we’ve already been through this. People don’t care about that kind of stuff, and we’re in this business to sell newspapers. Last time I checked, we weren’t doing it to change the world.”
“I know that,” I protest meekly, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. I watch as Ed exhales the smoke out through his nostrils, finishing his cigarette and then crushing it on the overflowing ashtray sitting on his desk. “But I think that good journalism can help the Gazette sell some --”
“No,” he grumbles, reaching for the red carton next to his keyboard and fishing out another cigarette. Perching it up on the corner of his mouth, he lights it up and takes a long drag, the smell of it making me wince.
“But --”
“I said no,” he repeats, resting one hand over his shirt, his overgrown belly stretching the fabric thin. Turning his attention to his laptop screen, he waves one hand at me dismissively, and I know that this meeting is over.
Sighing, I turn on my heels and start making my way toward the door when he calls my name. “Hang on,” he mutters in that hoarse voice of his, a product of decades of smoking like an industrial chimney. “Maybe there’s something you can do.”
“Really?”
“Maybe. Don’t get your hopes too high, kid, I still ain’t taking you out of the sports department.” Flicking the burning ash on the tip of his cigarette, most of it landing over the documents covering his computer’s keyboard, he then looks at me as if he’s sizing me up. “Can you handle something more longform than news articles?”
“Longform?” I ask him, not really sure what he’s talking about. Most of my days are spent writing short and snappy news articles (most of which don’t even end up on the print version of the newspaper, they just make it online), and the word longform has really made me perk up my ears.
