Love TKO

by Selene Chardou

  “Yes, I do. Otherwise I wouldn’t have asked, Chiara. You want to marry me too, don’t you?”

  She nodded her head as he pulled a small velvet box from his pocket and opened it to show her the engagement ring.

  It was a simple princess-cut white diamond set in a platinum band. He took the ring out of the box and slid it onto her left ring finger.

  “Darlin’, I’m gonna need a verbal on your answer to marry me.”

  “Yes, I’ll marry you!” Chiara exclaimed.

  He wrapped his arms around her waist and brought her closer to him. His head dropped and he inhaled her delicious feminine scent that always sent the blood rushing from his head straight to his dick. She had that effect on him and he couldn’t help it if he still got hard from holding her close.

  “Sweetie, I think that massive boner you’re sportin’ is best saved for when we get home but I promise to take good care of you.” She playfully bit his ear before her lips found his and they devoured one another in passionate kiss.

  Torin’s tongue slid inside her mouth and he ached to taste all of her; every part of her beautiful body that was torturous and enticing.

  They separated reluctantly as she wrapped her slender arms around his neck. “This has been—without a doubt—my favorite birthday ever. Thank you for making it so special with a proposal but know I wasn’t expecting one. I was perfectly comfortable with us ‘living in sin.’”

  He laid kisses along her jaw and worked his way down her neck. “Sorry, babe, but I’m a good little Irish Catholic boy, and I always knew when I found the right woman, I would hold on tight and never let go.”

  “How so?”

  “You’re not someone who I come across every day, babe. I have been with countless women in every way there was to have a woman and if I could explain why you’re special, I would. It isn’t something I planned; it’s a feeling, something that I just knew from the moment we met. There’s a spark that can’t be faked and baby, what we have is real. I want you in my bed, by my side, and in my life. Not just for the short term but forever.”

  Torin glanced into Chiara’s eyes and she smiled. “That is the most poetic and beautiful statement a man has ever said to me.”

  He wanted to respond but as he opened his mouth, a male voice cleared his throat. “Mr. Duffy, please accompany me. Angelo and Raymond have a plane to catch early in the morning and they would like to turn in soon.”

  “Go on…just hold that thought…and you can tell me what you wanted to tell me when we get home.”

  His arms slid away from her body before he straightened his expensive suit coat and followed Karl back inside.

  The whole situation had never sat well with him; he hated being beholden to anyone and the last thing he wanted was to be the lap dog to two underworld criminal figures.

  It didn’t make much sense why he found himself in this position to begin with but since they held a colossal secret over his head, he’d had little choice but to comply. He hated these after-fight sessions that’d become a habit over the last few months though he hadn’t told Chiara about them.

  She had enough to worry about. Torin thought she would be bored and have plenty of time on her hands now that she wasn’t fucking men for astronomical amounts of cash but that wasn’t the case at all. He hated what she’d been in her former life but he cared enough about her and had fallen for her despite everything he’d done to try to mentally talk himself out of being with her.

  Nothing worked and he realized he loved her partly because he hated how good she was at reading men in general and him, in particular. He’d had no secrets with her and there was something refreshing about not having to hide his true self from her. She did everything perfect in bed and out; it hadn’t been love at first sight but now he knew how he felt, he didn’t want to live with any regrets. The day he realized they had more than mutual companionship in common, he’d bought the ring, and decided to propose.

  He would rather be with a “whore” who loved him not because he was famous but because she knew him rather than a so-called good girl. The kind of woman who would marry him and then pull the bullshit move of divorcing his ass after a couple of kids and disappear with a quarter of his hard-earned fortune. He trusted his gut inexplicably and everything in his heart innately felt Chiara was the right woman for him. She kept him grounded and he needed that more than ever. However, she also prevented him from going back to his man-whore ways of a different woman every night.

  Most importantly, she sealed up that hole in his heart and soul. He no longer felt empty and without a true purpose other than fighting. It was his profession but it didn’t define him as a person any more than Chiara’s profession had defined her. She’d taught him the whole idea of compartmentalization. He now fought better and smarter due to not thinking about it twenty-four-seven.

  There were downsides for Torin, mainly his brother’s behavior, and deciding to play temporary house with Sienna. Then there was the American gangster and the Mafia Don he’d had become a bitch to for the past five months. They controlled him to the point they might as well be fucking him without lube and no happy ending for him.

  Karl walked him into a mini office where Raymond and Angelo talked while both puffing on expensive Havana cigars. As soon as Torin walked in and sat across from the two middle-aged men, Karl closed the door behind himself and sat down.

  He reluctantly sat down at the boardroom table. This wouldn’t take long and he actually felt good about being buzzed because he wouldn’t react nearly as strongly to anything they said.

  “Well, if it isn’t our favorite last action hero,” Raymond greeted in a condescending voice.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Torin removed his hands from the table and placed them on his knees. The sooner this meeting was over, the quicker he could get back to Chiara and he was ready to take her home and fuck her senseless.

  “You’re not the sharpest tool in the shed, are you?” Karl chuckled out loud.

  “According to all you muppets in this room, I’m just a fuckin’ pawn so what the hell difference does it make? I’m a cash register—you place a bet and make money off me.”

  “Hardly.” Angelo leaned toward the table before he placed his cigar in his mouth. “Thing’s are lookin’ up for us though. No one is so sure that Rodriguez is a sure thing for winning the Championship.”

  “Okay…” Torin shrugged nonchalantly. “Why are you tellin’ me this?”

  “Because, you might just have to throw a motherfuckin’ Championship fight you dumb-ass prick.” Raymond smiled, displaying blinding white, straight teeth. “This shouldn’t be a difficult concept for you to understand.”

  “It isn’t. However, let’s wait until that weekend actually comes up and we see what the odds are before we make any grand predictions. S’all I’m sayin’.”

  “Listen, dumbass, we’re telling you now because there are certain things we know already this early in the game. Stop acting like we haven’t spoken about this.” Karl laced his fingers together. “Now that we know how much Chiara means to you, we know she would be happy to help…carry some of your burden.”

  “If you touch Chiara, I will murder you where you sit and not have a fucking qualm about it,” Torin snapped with cold blue eyes as he looked at Karl.

  The German stood and towered over him. “Oh, really? Are you threatening me?”

  “Only because you threatened me first, you smug kraut bastard—”

  “Christ Jesus, enough!” Raymond exclaimed. “Karl, sit down. Torin, no one is going to hurt Chiara. I knew she was good and extraordinarily talented. I suspected she would follow in her mother’s footsteps, and marry a client…I just didn’t expect him to be young, handsome and virile like you. You can have any woman you want so the question is…why her?”

  Torin shook his head sadly. “All you men think about is pussy and I used to be you—I still am but I only want one woman’s pussy and that is Chiara’s. She gets me, I get her, an
d we understand one another. There’s just some things you can’t explain and this is one of those rare instances where the stars aligned, two people met and the chemistry was there. I couldn’t let her go after I first met her and it’s a lot worse now.”

  “You think we don’t understand?” Karl questioned. “We’re all married so we fucking well understand. It doesn’t mean we can’t bust your balls for becoming a walking cliché. The fighter and the prostitute. How fitting, considering the impoverished background from whence you came from.”

  “Why don’t you quit while you’re ahead?” Torin’s jaw clenched involuntarily and he knew the best thing he could do was to get the fuck out of there before he started breaking some faces. He knew a move like that could cost him everything but at that point in the evening, he no longer gave a fuck.

  Fuck these über-powerful men who thought they were better than him.

  Fuck mixed martial arts.

  Fuck the goddamn Championship.

  Fuck. It. All.

  Raymond and Angelo exchanged glances.

  “You think about runnin’ and we burn your ass,” Angelo hissed as he slammed his one of his hands on the table. “You’re not nearly as clever as you think.”

  “And go where when my siblings are vulnerable? No, I can read a message loud and clear. I have to throw this fight if the odds are in my favor so you guys can bet money and win a pile. I get how this works. And like I said before, it’s too early to tell; we still have another three weeks before the Championship match. When we get closer then we can visit the situation again. Sound good to everyone?”

  Raymond cleared his throat. “Okay, if that’s the way you want to play it then it’s cool. But just remember what my business partner said about runnin’. We have a deal and don’t you think about taking any sudden trips to the old country. That shit don’t sit well with any of us—you catch my drift?”

  He didn’t bother to look at any of them as he stood. “It’s been real but I gotta jet. See you all next week after my quarterfinal round.”

  Torin walked out of the room and strolled directly back to the party where he easily found Chiara.

  “What was that all about? Are they hassling you about the Championship match?” she wondered after he wrapped his arms around her waist and held her close.

  “Yes, they are but I have a better idea. Rather than talking shop about my profession and how fucked up and corrupt it is, why don’t we get the hell out of here?”

  “My place or yours?”

  Torin’s lips found hers and he coaxed her mouth open with a determined tongue. They danced together like that, him swaying her softly to music that spilled outside from the party while he made love to her beautiful mouth.

  “Yours, it’s closer,” he said after coming up briefly for air.

  “Are you sure you can make it out to the limo?”

  He adjusted his junk and rearranged his suit coat. “Babe, I should be fine.”

  A smile played on her lips before she said the magic words. “Okay, let’s go.”

  TORIN WAS MORE than happy he wasn’t driving because he had the privacy to explore Chiara’s gorgeous body as the limo drove them back to her place.

  It wasn’t enough he devoured her lips with his own like pleasure was going out of style; he lifted her little black dress until it was snuggly around her waist slid her thong to the side as he plunged two fingers into her while his thumb caressed her clit. She panted into his mouth, a qualified expert at keeping noise to a minimum even though the privacy glass was up.

  “Moan for me, baby,” he whispered before he kissed her again with an aching desire and need to be inside her with his cock. His dick twitched, jealous his fingers were in a place he wanted to be and his thumb where he desperately craved his tongue. He worked her slow and leisurely as her back arched and her hips ground into him, driving his fingers as deep as they could go inside her.

  So this was what pure unadulterated love felt like. A lust that went beyond sheer desire or a need to possess; a feeling of ownership nestled around his heart like barbed wire and tugged at his soul like the hook at the end of a fishing line. He couldn’t survive without one or the other and he didn’t want to either. She was his to love and adore, and that would never change.

  Not when Chiara stroked her fingers through his head, the same one that had a ring on it he’d given her. She would become his wife and out of this fucked up life, they would make something brand new and unrecognizable to either of their former selves.

  She panted as his mouth slid down further, leaving butterfly kisses along her jaw and chin until he found her neck kissed it slowly, his lips and tongue hovering over the pulse point.

  “Oh my God,” she cried out and he felt her walls contract around his fingers while his thumb continued to leisurely stroke her clit and she climaxed hard. It was supposed to be a tease but nothing they did to one another ever felt that way. This was love, in all of its crazy highs and lows. The sheer agony and unrestrained ecstasy. They’d come together so easily yet there was so much unspoken pain along the way. When they were with each other sexually, the world seemed to shrink, and it was alas, only them.

  He kissed her neck again and allowed the beating of their hearts to soothe his tortured cock and battered soul. “You have no idea how much you mean to me and how much you’ve saved me from all the demons that torture me every day. I’m so fucking empty and life is meaningless without you in it. The fighting, the women, the glamorous life—it don’t mean shit if you’re not loved and don’t have a good woman by your side. You’re that woman, darlin’, you always will be. As long as I’m upright and not six feet under, I want you to promise me forever…my forever, which means until I’m dead and gone.”

  Chiara grabbed his face and her amber eyes searched his with a troubling realization. “Baby, you’re scaring me, what’s goin’ on?”

  Torin kissed her forehead, his hard dick a throbbing pain between his legs but he’d hold out longer because he refused to fuck her in the back of a limo. “I can’t throw a fuckin’ fight. Who was I kiddin’? They’re gonna have to kill my ass—and they probably will. I won’t throw a fight, it’s physically impossible.”

  “Think realistically for a second, honey. Do you really wanna start a war with an American gangster, a Mafioso godfather and an entitled, wealthy German who comes from nothing but money? Does any of that seem like a good idea to you? Honey, from where I am standing, that is the worst possible thing that could happen.”

  The limo came to an abrupt stop in front of Chiara’s house and both of them glanced at one another before the limo door suddenly opened.

  Torin stepped out first and helped Chiara out of the limo after she deftly smoothed her dress down and stepped out like they’d done nothing the whole way other than talk. Where some women would have smudged makeup and look a little worse for wear, she still glowed from the orgasm and a natural beauty unlike any other women he’d had except for Madeline.

  Fuck, it was too late to think of Madeline Shaughnessy and what she’d put him through. It wasn’t worth it and besides, she’d gotten her happy ending, even if it was with another man. Time for him to think about getting his too. Unfortunately, a happy ending would not be one if he threw a fucking fight he’d waited his lifetime to have the opportunity to win.

  He walked Chiara up to her door, and punched in a code he’d installed that would unlock her door automatically. It was easier than installing an alarm, and no one knew the code but him and her.

  She walked in before him and he followed closely behind her as he shut the door and fastened the deadbolt for good measure. She turned on him. “Listen, we need to talk about this. I don’t think it’s a good idea, Tor. I don’t want anything to happen to you and they would seriously fuck you up if you fucked them over like that, do you understand me?”

  Torin shook his head. “I’ve faced bigger bullies than them and besides, I have a plan but it won’t be discussed tonight. I want to fuck you sen
seless and then I will make slow fucking love to you if that’s what you want.”

  “Making love is overrated—I prefer it when you fuck me and call me ‘your bitch,’” Chiara replied without a hint of embarrassment.

  They never made it past the foyer as he hoisted her onto a decorative desk and unzipped her dress. “Fuck, I want you so bad. More than I’ve wanted sex in a long time. I want to feel my cock inside your pussy, pulsating around me and making me all warm, protected and…safe.”

  “Safe?” she questioned with an incredulous tone in her voice. “My pussy makes you feel safe?”

  “Well, yeah. Safe from harm and I feel like my dick has its own protector.”

  Chiara smiled as her fingers undid his jacket before he shed his shirt while she deftly unbuttoned and unzipped his pants.

  He looked into her eyes as he slid her thong to side again, plunged his cock inside of her slippery depths, and began to fuck her hard and rough.

  Torin rid her of her dress and immediately felt the warm contact of skin as she pulled him closer to her by his neck and he pounded in and out of her. This wasn’t gentle lovemaking but passionate, aggressive sex and they both loved it.

  “You like bein’ my bitch?”

  “Yes,” she gasped before her mouth found his. Their tongues did an effortless slow dance with one another’s as he continued to keep up the pace.

  She bucked her hips into his and he found himself inside her cocoon of warmth, her walls stroking and caressing him, applying more pressure and then relaxing slightly but they were both getting off on each other.

  He felt a lightheaded sensation, realized he was more than buzzed and floating into the drunken state of euphoria only fucking Chiara took him to. It was better than any drug out there and he had no qualms about being addicted to her, pussy-whipped, whatever it was called. All he knew that she was the best sex of his life and if this was jaded, twisted and fucked up then he would ride this feeling till it drove him off the deep end because he couldn’t live without being this high, this drunk, and this stupidly crazy and in love with another person.