KAGE (KAGE Trilogy #1)

by Maris Black

  The entire round was a game of cat and mouse, with the cat looking like he was ready to eat the mouse at any second. Kage wasn’t playful exactly, but he was enjoying the chase, getting off on toying with his opponent.

  I wondered if the other spectators could see that, or if it was just because I was coming to know him so intimately. Of course, there was always the possibility that I was imagining it.

  I didn’t have to wait long for my suspicion to be verified.

  In the final seconds of the first round, the challenger, who looked frighteningly banged up in the face, caught Kage with a hard right cross to the temple, splitting the skin next to his eye. My throat tightened and my heart skipped a beat. The thought of him getting hurt— really hurt— and of me having to watch it happen had not really hit home until then. It was the first time I’d ever seen a wound like that on his face, and I hoped it would be the last.

  I saw the change in Kage’s demeanor when it happened. A blank mask dropped over his face, and he looked like he was officially not playing anymore. If the bell hadn’t sounded when it did, I imagine he would have unleashed his full fury on the guy. Instead, they separated to their corners, and the challenger got patched up while his coach yammered nonstop at him.

  Kage kept his eyes locked on his opponent the entire time, looking strangely like he’d never experienced an emotion in his life. Cold, calculating, the antithesis of the guy who had held me while I cried for my mother, and then let me fall asleep in his arms.

  I couldn’t hear what Marco was telling him, but Kage smiled and jumped up ready to go when the bell sounded for Round Two.

  Kage came in with a couple of sly jabs, bounced lithely out of the way when his opponent attempted a flailing counter attack. The guy’s face looked like he’d been in a car accident. His left eye was swollen, and blood ran from his eye socket to his throat. He was done already at that point. I don’t think there was a doubt in anyone’s mind. But somehow he summoned a burst of energy— or more accurately desperation— and attempted to take it back to the ground, presumably to try for a last ditch submission. But Kage, with his lightning fast reflexes and talent for anticipating moves, saw it coming. The second the man changed levels and ducked down to shoot his legs for the takedown, Kage caught him with a vicious flying knee to the face.

  The guy dropped like a sack of potatoes. Knocked out cold.

  I sat there in my chair, my breath coming way too fast. Kage had finished the guy in exactly the way I had requested. How could that be? My mind spun, trying to seize on anything that made sense other than the fact that he had been in control the entire fight. That he had orchestrated it.

  Inside the octagon, the referee, a doctor, and several other men were examining the fallen fighter and trying to rouse him. Kage glanced back at him once, saw him move, and then strutted right over to the edge of the cage where I was sitting. As he passed by me, he tapped his fist against his chest once, right over his heart, then looked directly into my eyes just long enough to give me a secret wink that sent shivers down my spine.

  That’s when I realized he was peacocking for me. The entire fight had been nothing more than my lover proving himself to me, and his message was clear: I just smashed that guy’s face for you. Just like you asked.

  For a moment, I thought I might be sick. With no more thought than ordering from a takeout menu, I’d just ordered a man knocked unconscious with a brutal knee to the face. And what’s worse, I got my wish.

  Kage left the octagon with no fanfare or theatrics. This was a private show, not one of the pay-per-view extravaganzas I was used to watching. I sat quietly, studying the injured fighter as he got to his feet, sensing the crowd moving out of the seats and away from me. Then Aldo was standing beside me, pulling something from inside his jacket, and handing me a sealed envelope with my name scrawled across the front in a messy hand.

  Did Kage write this? After all we’d done, I still didn’t know what his handwriting looked like.

  I tore open the very end, careful not to damage the writing. Inside was a sheet of notebook paper with one sentence written on it.

  “That ass is mine.”

  With my heart pounding like a war drum, I reached into the envelope and pulled out the key card to Kage’s apartment.

  Aldo waited beside me, looking respectfully away as I read my message. When I stood up, he led me back to the Land Rover without a word and drove me home, with Aaron riding shotgun as always. This time I barely noticed the opera music. I was too busy fretting over what was about to happen when Kage came home.

  20

  I THINK I can safely say I’d never experienced true anticipation before that night. Time was a taunting beast in the room with me as I sat naked on Kage’s sectional.

  Had I ever been so naked in my entire life?

  My skin was hyper-sensitive to the velvety feel of the sofa’s upholstery. In fact, I was hyper-sensitive to everything. The light, which I’d intentionally kept low, still seemed too bright. The air felt much cooler than normal, causing me to shiver a little. And the subtle sounds of Kage’s empty apartment that normally went undetected were unnaturally loud. In the kitchen, the ice maker churned out a few pieces of filtered ice. The Xbox hummed from its shelf in the media cabinet. Once I thought I may have heard the elevator making its way to the penthouse floor, and that little tease in particular was tough to handle.

  After an hour of waiting, my nerves were shot. How long would I have to wait? What would he do to me when he got there? Did he have a key card, or had he given me his only one? What if someone else came to the door, and I answered it in my birthday suit? Because I didn’t dare answer it any other way. Didn’t want there to be any question about whether or not I wanted Kage. I was ready.

  By the time I finally heard the elevator arrive for real, my hands were a little shaky. I thought I would pass out listening to his footsteps approach the door and stop in front of it. I waited for a knock, but instead I heard a card slide through the electronic lock. It clicked, and the door swung open.

  Kage strode in wearing his faded red t-shirt, and a pair of threadbare jeans that hung low enough to reveal his boxers. His hair was still knotted at the top of his head, though a few strands had worked their way loose. Without a word, he stepped out of his shoes at the door, pulled his t-shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor. The jeans came next. He worked the sexy button fly with nimble fingers as he approached.

  He came to a stop directly in front of me where I sat on the sofa, and I looked up at him, waiting.

  “Open your mouth,” he said, pushing his pants to his hips and bringing out his cock. It was already hard, the head swollen and flushed.

  I did as he said. Opened my mouth wide, anticipating the taste of his cock— a taste I had already memorized by heart. My own dick waxed and waned through varying degrees of hardness since I’d received his note. Hell, since before that if I was honest. When I really thought about it, it seemed it had been that way since I’d gotten my first glimpse of Michael Kage.

  He bent over the sofa, grasping the back with one hand and leaning on it for support, and fed his cock impatiently into my waiting mouth. He wasn’t gentle. He shoved it down my throat until I choked and pulled back, only to shove it in again just as hard.

  It reminded me of his performance in the ring, only now I was the mouse. The barbaric look in his eyes was still there, though now it was tinged with desire— and something else. Something that gave me hope and made my heart seize in my chest.

  Kage was relentless, needy, leaning even farther in as I instinctively pulled back for breath. But I didn’t want him to stop. I loved it. Loved it when he was rough. Because I was learning that the more he needed me, the rougher he got. And tonight he needed me bad.

  He pushed me down onto my back on the sofa, then stripped off his jeans and underwear. When he was naked, he climbed on top of me and straddled my chest, pinning my shoulders to the sofa. Then he knelt up over me and forced his cock ru
dely into my mouth. All I could do was take it and suck it, looking up at him with watering eyes as he loomed over me and labored.

  His face was tight with lust, as if he might lose control at any moment. But he was strong, and I knew he wasn’t about to let go until he was good and ready. If he could choreograph a fight against a skilled opponent with a hundred grand on the line, he could damn sure control himself in bed.

  He fucked my mouth with long strokes, not giving me a chance to speak. All I could do was grunt and whimper around him as he watched me closely with his shrewd, calculating eyes.

  “My sweet college boy,” he said in a reverent voice, reaching down with one hand and running his fingers through my hair.

  He was choking me with his cock, but loving me with his touch and his words. It was the most cherished I’d ever felt, being used and loved at the same time, being needed so fiercely.

  After a moment, he slipped his hand under my neck and cupped the back of my skull with his large hand. He lifted my head off the sofa so that it was at nearly a ninety-degree angle, and fucked my mouth deep and slow, using his hand to keep my head still. It was a lot like dirty boxing. I would have told him so if I could have spoken.

  He didn’t keep me that way for long, though. He sensed the very moment when I’d had enough, and he released my head back down to the sofa and pulled out. My mouth and his cock were both over-wet with saliva, and he rubbed the slicked head against my battered lips. Back and forth he dragged it over my mouth, watching me with those lust-filled eyes.

  “Get to the bed,” Kage said finally, and he stood and let me up. I knew what was about to happen. Knew what that look in his eyes meant. I had to get my bearings as I made my way to his room and climbed onto the bed with shaky legs.

  I laid back on the bed and spread my legs, reaching down to pump my cock as I watched him approach. Then I bit my lip, gave him my best come hither look, and surprised myself with my first words of the evening. “You didn’t shower. I can smell you on me.”

  “And that gets you off?”

  “Yes,” I whispered, still working myself, knowing I needed to stop soon. I was dangerously close to hitting that point when coming was too much of a temptation to stop. “I didn’t shower, either,” I said.

  The more time I spent around Kage, the more his scent aroused me. I wondered if it was the same for him.

  “You always smell sweet.” He laughed darkly. “I smell like sweat, blood and fear. But I wanted you to smell it on me, Jamie. I wanted you to smell it on me the first time I fuck you. So you’ll know who I really am. I need you to know me.”

  “I do know you,” I said. “And you’re perfect.”

  “Baby, don’t be naive. I’m a killing machine. The only things that separate me from the inside of a jail cell are a referee and a bell.”

  I dropped onto my back, staring up at those same rafters that had shifted and danced in hallucinations that seemed so long ago. “All I know is I want to be with you.”

  Kage climbed on top of me, planking up onto his elbows and lowering his body so that we were touching from hip to toe. Our cocks aligned against each other, and nothing had ever felt so good or so right.

  His stubble scrubbed against my cheek as he lowered his head to whisper in my ear, “Last chance to run.”

  I smiled and wound my arms around his neck. “Why would I want to run?”

  He peeled my arms from around his neck and secured them above my head with one strong hand gripping my wrists. “Because I want to hurt you.”

  At the sound of his words, my eyelids fluttered shut, and a dark need began to unfurl in my belly like an infinitely-repeating fractal. It was fear and desire all mangled together, because I knew in an instant that I would do anything for him. Anything he asked of me. And what he was asking was to let him work his aggression out on me.

  He kissed me, licking along my lips, teasing my tongue with his, and finally biting my bottom lip hard enough to make me yelp.

  Still holding my wrists just above my head, he slid off to the side of my body and took my nipple into his mouth, sucking on it and scraping his teeth along the sensitive sides of the tiny bud until I was breathing heavily. Then he spit into his hand and reached down between my legs, bypassing my dick and my balls and going straight for my hole.

  His prize.

  He lubed me up, rubbing his fingers around the outside and just on the inside, barely breaking the surface. I started to contract the muscle, loving the stimulation of the tip of his finger barely moving in and out. I knew there was going to be pain, but this didn’t hurt at all. Not this part.

  All the while, he continued to worry my nipple with his lips and his teeth. It was as if there was an electric wire that stretched from my nipple to my asshole, and every time scraped his teeth along my flesh, my muscles would tighten around his finger in response.

  “Christ… Kage. That feels so good.” I couldn’t hold the words back. He had said he wanted to hurt me, but everything he’d done had brought me nothing but pleasure.

  My head rolled loosely on my shoulders, the only part of my body that was relaxed. The rest of me was coiled tightly around the epicenter of my desire— right at the base of my straining cock. Tingling waves of heat and tension radiated out from that one spot, and all I could think was more, more, more.

  “This is mine now,” Kage said.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t share.”

  “Me, neither.”

  That made him smile.

  Getting up onto his knees, he rolled on a condom, and grabbed a bottle of lube from the bedside table. He poured a pool of it into his cupped palm and then very slowly fucked his own fist, coating every inch from the tip to the root. All I could think was, That’s about to be inside me. It made me nervous, because my ass was virgin territory, and his wasn’t exactly a beginner-level size dick.

  He noticed my trepidation and smiled. “This is going to hurt. Probably a lot.” He rubbed the remnants of the slick liquid all around my entrance, and I gasped when one of his fingers slipped easily up inside me. “But you’re going to love it.”

  I believed him, because I wanted it so much. I’d never wanted anything more.

  He crawled right up between my legs, bent one of my knees, and draped it over his arm. The other one he left sprawled on the bed. I looked up at him, scared, and felt myself tense up. He pressed forward, positioning the head of his dick at my entrance and using the weight of his body to push— not going in, but almost. He repeated the action several times, slowly, methodically gaining position within my body. He was loosening me bit by bit, until finally he just went right in.

  Kage let out a long, agonized groan as his cock slid in. He squeezed his eyes shut momentarily, as if sheer willpower was the only thing keeping him from losing it.

  When the head of his cock popped past the initial resistance of the outer band of muscle, my cry was loud enough to be heard outside the front door of the apartment. But then he was in, and as I adjusted to the sensation of being filled so uncomfortably full, my body began to respond. I wiggled on it just a little, then bit my lip against the strong, pleasurable ache.

  “Open your eyes, Jamie,” Kage said in a gruff voice. I opened my eyes and stared up at him. God he was beautiful, looming over me with that powerful body. More strands of hair had worked free of their knot and were faming his face. “I want you to see me,” he said. “I don’t want you pretending I’m someone else.”

  “There is no one else but you.” I wrapped my fingers around his slick biceps and squeezed, thrilling at the feel of those strong muscles moving beneath my hands.

  “There better not be,” he growled. “Do you feel me? Feel how hard I am inside you? This is what you do to me.”

  Kage reached down and squeezed my ass cheek so hard it took my mind off of the other pain. Then he moved inside me just enough to make me vocal again. He really seemed to get turned on when I made noises.

  “This is my ass,” he growl
ed.

  I nodded, but that wasn’t good enough for him.

  “Say it, Jamie.” He moved faster and harder, the friction burning me up.

  “Your ass,” I panted out. “No one else’s.”

  “I’m gonna use your cherry ass to stroke my cock. Show you what it means to be with me.”

  I reached down and started jerking off, his words lighting a fire in my belly.

  He started pounding me hard then, grabbing onto my hips with both hands and banging into me like he truly wanted to do damage. He echoed my higher-pitched cries of pain with his own low grunts of pleasure. I noticed belatedly that I was getting really loud, and that was something I never did. But I couldn’t help it. He was forcing it out of me.

  He used his powerful arms to slam me down onto his cock at the same time his hips were driving it up into me. It was brutal, and far more painful than I had dared to imagine, but somehow it satisfied a need I didn’t even know I had. I stared up into his eyes, balled up my fists and twisted them into the sheets, and just held on as he used my body however he liked.

  “Anybody touches you, I’ll kill them.” His voice was rough with passion, and with rage. I hadn’t expected the rage. “Do you understand me? I’ll fucking kill them.”

  “I understand. Yes. Oh, God, Kage. Yes. Yes.” The man was hitting me just right. That’s all the excuse I had for saying the shit I was saying, because I was agreeing to back him if he committed murder— giving him my unconditional permission to kill anyone who touched me. But God, it felt that fucking good.

  Without warning or apology, he pulled out of me, flipped me over, and banded his arm so tightly around my chest I could barely breathe. Then he rammed his cock into me from behind, filling me so completely I thought it would rip me in half. He battered my tender ass until tears squeezed from the corners of my eyes, and still I begged for more. Needed more.

  I wondered if this would be the death of me— getting fucked by Michael Kage. It was the most physically demanding thing I’d ever endured. Even the grueling sled drills I dreaded during our workouts paled in comparison. Kage stretched me, folded me, held me down. My muscles screamed for relief, and still I pleaded for him to fuck me harder. He had no qualms about obliging me, shuddering with pleasure as he used my body.