by Sunniva Dee
“You up for Stripes?” Zeke asks as I enter the locker room. The plan was to pick up my stuff and shower at home tonight.
“No, I need to start focusing.” I’m still reeling from the European trip, jet lag being the least of my issues. I wish I hadn’t slept with Helena. It was like pouring gasoline on a fire when I should have quenched it under wet blankets.
“Man, if anyone’s focused, it’s you. Why don’t you take a break and hang out? You don’t have any fights in weeks, do you? When’s the Miami gig?”
“In four weeks. I can’t, Zeke.” I grab my hoodie and stuff it into the bag. Look around for my ear buds and locate them on the sink. I hope that wasn’t Jaden. Dude never cleans them after use.
He snickers. “Are you beating yourself up over the princess still? You crack me up, man. You never drink, and—”
“I drank that night.”
“Which makes it even funnier. Were you drunk? Have I ever seen you drunk?” He crosses his arms, smirking so big it’s almost a grin.
“No, but still.”
“Give yourself some slack, man, seriously. You seemed damn stoked when the two of you caught up with us the next morning. Let’s just say you had that, how do I put it, drained look on your face.”
This conversation needs to be over. Pressure points, welcoming depths, sweet moans. I’m already hardening; it brings me back to smooth skin sliding against me.
Zeke bobs his head, stuffing his face with something from his backpack. “She was a hottie. Real cute. I’d do her, but sadly I wasn’t her fancy. Hey, you know where she’s at? She was gonna stay in Tampa, right?”
“No, Zeke, I don’t know, and I’m not about to find out either. She’ll call me if she needs anything,” I add, sealing my fate. Now I’ll be stuck with days’ worth of teasing over being a pussy that waits for phone calls.
At home, I jump on the treadmill. Then I head to the backyard for some punching-bag time before bed. Damn Zeke. I can’t get her off my mind now. Usually, it’s a weak moment at a party that does me in, but the encounter with Helena was unexpected and a tad bit breathtaking.
I finish my fish and go to bed early in an attempt at forgetting Amsterdam. I try to concentrate on a manual we picked up at the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu camp. Sometimes I can trigger an almost meditative state by flowing through techniques in my head: I pin them on a competitor, and the moves become so real it’s like I’m there.
But tonight it’s not working. Tonight my mind won’t leave a hotel room in a foreign country and the feel of someone wrapped around me as I woke up.
I get up. Take a cold shower to ease my raging hard-on. It doesn’t work, and there’s no other option than to jack off. I come fast, an explosion against the tile wall of the shower, and I rinse it off before lumbering back out.
“You at Stripes already?” I ask Zeke on the phone.
“Hey, V! Yeah we’re all here. Chicago-man too. You did a number on him today,” he laughs. “Right, Chicago? You’re limping.”
“It was the low strike in the second round,” I say.
“Ooh, chicks! Dude, hurry up. The club’s full of tourist chicks. I can’t promise there’ll be any left for you if you don’t get your ass over here fast.”
“That’s not why I’m coming over.”
“Right, whatever you say. See you soon.”
Stripes is busy. Instead of lifting the rope for me, the bouncer gives me a high-five and indicates for me to hop over. I do. A few girls at the front of the twenty-yard-long line titter. I wonder what I’m doing here. It feels a whole lot like I’m about to give in to vices and excess. I even want a drink, goddamn me.
“Over here!” Jaden waves from the top floor. He’s in an excellent mood, I can tell all the way from here. He puts on a show for me, at the edge of the balcony, undulating his hips like some Chippendale guy. “Yeah,” he mouths as the music blares up again, jerking his head not-so-subtly against the group of girls behind him.
I shake my head, suppressing my smile as he forms an oval with two fingers and licks the opening like he means it.
Zeke spots me from within a cluster of blondes. That’s at least three girls, and he’s trying to accommodate them all on his lap. How late is it? And how desperate are these tourist girls?
I take the stairs three steps at a time until I’m halfway up. Then I bounce, catch the banister, and swing myself over. “Omigod, who’s he?” some girl with long red hair squeals. She scurries over before anyone can reply. “Do you work for, like, Cirque de Soleil, or are you a fighter too?”
Her eyes go to my nose, courtesy of Chicago. “Oh fighter, huh?”
“Fighter.”
“What’s your name?”
“Victor.” I don’t ask for hers. There’s a chair across from Zeke and his small harem. I want it.
“You want to dance, Victor?” Her voice, cat-soft and enticing, draws my attention to her face. She lowers her lashes, peering seductively at me from beneath them.
Skin has always been my pitfall. This woman shows a lot of it. Let’s see how long I can make it without having a drink tonight. “Maybe later. I’m gonna chill with my buddies first.”
“Be that way,” she says, winking.
I appropriate my seat. Order soda water from my favorite server. She knows to add plenty of ice and a few mint leaves, which makes my sober status stand out less.
The redhead chatters about lacking availability on the couches and presses a soft hip against me on the seat. I give her some room and sigh, realizing that I’ll be sporting a boner for the rest of the night. So much for my shower relief. It lasted all of twenty seconds.
“This is Donna, she’s from Manchester. She plays soccer,” Jaden says, wide-smiled and lifting Donna’s hand high in victory. “Woohooh—Donna will be hitting the dance floor with me.”
“No, I don’t dance. I told you already! He’s so obstinate,” she whines, but she can’t hide how much she likes his attention.
“Hey, let’s all dance,” Zeke shouts to the other girls. They get up instantly, like it’s what they’ve been waiting for, and squirm-titter their way down the stairs.
Keyon’s here, and Rob’s waiting for his girlfriend as usual. Apparently, she gets off work late on the weekends. He can’t concentrate on much until she’s here. Keyon says that’s how people get when they’ve knocked someone up. Could be true too, another reason to stay away from girls.
Redhead leans in while she speaks about something I don’t catch. Inadvertently, my lower arm brushes over her thigh as I grab my tumbler of water.
“Cheers, sweetheart,” she whispers.
“Cheers.” We clink drinks. I turn toward the dance floor and take in Zeke’s antics at the center of his harem. He’s got some serious moves, and the girls love being dipped, two at a time, then one flies over his shoulder and lands on her feet behind him, laughing her ass off.
Jaden’s even more of a show-off than Zeke. He’s wiping a circle around them—can’t blame people for stepping out of his way.
“They’re something else, your friends, huh?” Redhead asks, trying to pull me back into her convo.
“Sure are.” I notice long, thick, golden hair at the edge of the dance floor. The floor is surrounded by round bar tables, and at one of them sits—
Helena?
She’s wearing a white T-shirt, which is probably why I notice her so easily in the crowd. She’s with a shorter girl who’s busy ordering for them. My eyes go to her neckline. So much smooth flesh, right there in the opening. My balls hurt, and it’s not from the girl chattering next to me.
Helena stills. Her gaze travels from the dance floor up to the balcony and finds me. For a second, I watch her watch me, and my damn heart’s racing. I don’t wave at her. Don’t smile. Neither does she.
“So does that mean every day? I mean, do you ever take a break from working out and preparing for fights and stuff?” Redhead asks.
“Never,” I say.
I’m the one who breaks
eye contact first. This seat and the closeness to this woman has become too much. I move over to the couch Jaden left behind, making a gentlemanly gesture that I’m leaving our shared seat to Redhead.
Zeke returns, shouting about champagne. Two bottles arrive in silver buckets, and the girls, Redhead included, squeal as he fills their glasses, spilling on purpose.
I accept a glass but don’t drink from it. Some tall, blond guy approaches Helena’s table. He hugs her and her friend, but Helena a little longer. He gestures to the dance floor, makes little moves with his hips, showing what he wants.
I’m not sure about Helena dancing with that dude, and I’m glad when she shakes her head, smiling. Quickly, her eyes flick to me again, and I’m too late looking away.
“Victor. Victor! Bottoms up, man—I’ve ordered another bottle,” Zeke yells. “Gotta get the party started.”
Yeah. I shouldn’t have come, but now that I’m here, I don’t feel like leaving Helena alone with the guy leaning over their table and taking sips of both of their beverages. What a douchebag.
A night at Stripes has never passed by slower. Don’t get me wrong. It’s nonstop action across the board, the guys being complete monkeys, showering the girls with drinks and acrobatics around me. But Helena in my club doesn’t sit right. The girl needs a bodyguard.
By the time the lights brighten for closing, I’ve sat through her dancing with that blond guy twice, and some random bar goer another time. It sucked. Blond dude’s back now, talking and making her smile, so I get up, grab a bottle of champagne, and stride down the stairs to the floor.
“Helena,” I interrupt from over her shoulder, huffing in the scent of her hair. She swings, eyes widening at seeing me. Then I grab her hand and walk her toward the exit.
“Hey, what’s going on here?” the guy asks.
“Mind your own business.” I’m not even giving him a second’s focus.
“Hey, calm down! Let go of her.”
“Gun,” Helena says from half a step behind me. “It’s okay. I know him.”
“Are you sure?”
“Who is that?” the girl she’s with asks. She shifts her stare to me instead and continues, “Aren’t you going to introduce yourself?”
I greet the bouncer on the way out. I’ve got Helena’s hand safe in mine, and he crams the crowd to the side so we can leave.
“Victor Arquette,” I toss over my shoulder. A small glance behind me reveals the friend’s mouth forming a small “o.”
“Helena, we’re hailing a cab,” the guy says. “Are you coming?”
Does she live with him or something? I don’t know how I feel right now. He’s obviously interested in her, so I pull her closer.
“I’ll come after, no worries,” she murmurs, moving with me when I speed up and don’t slow down until we’ve rounded the corner and see the beach between the buildings.
It’s late. So late I’m scheduled to start my training schedule in two hours. Helena is silent. Streetlamps interrupt the night as we stride on, but the farther from the club we get, the less light there is.
I’m not sure if I have a goal. As much as I need it, I can’t take her home with me. After the twenty-four hours in transit with Helena, she doesn’t deserve the walk of shame through my mother’s kitchen.
“Hey, so,” she says, voice low as we reach the promenade. “Nice to see you again.”
I stop and chuckle because, what an ass I’ve been. “Yeah, clearly it’s nice for me to see you too. I didn’t mean to be rude up there.”
“No? You didn’t mean all that?” Her expression is playfully suspicious.
“I’m sorry.” I lean in, and without premeditation, my fists find their way to her cheeks. With a rough thumb, I stroke. “Have you moved in with some guy? We landed, what, five days ago, right? Are you…?”
I breathe out through my nostrils. Her business isn’t my business. But if what we did in Amsterdam is any indication, her relationship with that douchebag could have advanced rapidly.
“Are you sleeping with him?” I stare into her eyes because I need to see if she’s honest with me. Her mouth looks so inviting. My hand grips the side of her neck. Why are her lips wet? Did she lick them? She shouldn’t.
If Helena was some regular girl, she’d be offended, slap me, maybe, for my interrogation. But she isn’t a regular girl. She tilts her head so her mane tangles with my fingers, and she shuts her eyes as if she feels my hand as much as I feel her skin.
“No. He’s just my roommate.” She opens her eyes, smiling at me. “I’ve got an apartment already!”
I slide my hand up beneath her chin and tip her head up so I can taste that smile. Surprised, she moans the exact moan that keeps me awake at night.
“He doesn’t want to be just your roommate,” I say as I back her toward a bench. She lets me, answering my kisses.
“The douchebag wants in your pants.”
Helena arches into my palms where I caress her. That T-shirt has lit my way for hours in the club, and I’d love to relieve her of it. I want to touch her everywhere.
There’s no one down here this late. For a second, I play with the thought of revealing warm skin I can feast on. I won’t be taking any chances though. No unexpected passerby can get a glimpse of this girl’s secret places.
Helena doesn’t answer until my breathing is heavy against her lips and my fingers hide between her legs. I’m a hormone-crazed teen again, and the feeling of her hot dampness drenches me in flaming gasoline.
Helena’s hips lift at my insistence. Those little moans. I dip a finger against her panties, right where the flesh gives, where it’s open for me, just the scantiest veil of fabric covering heaven.
She yelps with surprise when I pick her up and plop her onto my lap, a thigh on each side. “You make me…” I kiss her again, jutting upward so she can feel exactly what she does to me.
“I don’t think Gun’s the worst one,” she murmurs cryptically. I rock her. I can’t get enough of her weight on me.
“What do you mean?” I manage, hissing air in through my teeth as my stomach clenches with the need to bury deep inside of her. “Who?”
“The ‘douchebag.’ I think you want in my panties too, maybe a little bit more than he does.”
My fingers dig into her hips, wanting to move her, to keep that slow dance accurate on top of me. My heart’s racing. My body doesn’t want to give up on this. I’m so close. She is too.
If I snuck it out of my zipper and entered her real quick, we’d come so fast no one would be the wiser. We’d even look decent, just two lovers on a bench, a skirt fanned out around us. There’d be no way to tell we were connected.
“Fuck,” I breathe. “Damn right I want you. You’re painful right now, you know that?”
“I am?” Her water-blue eyes gleam with heat and amusement in the building sunrise. “Why?”
Oh she knows. The fact that she asks causes a sting of lust to pierce through me. It’s so intense I feel it in my bones.
“Because I need to be inside you,” I groan.
“Oh your system hurts?”
System?
“You mean my junk?”
She laughs softly, and I need to punish her. Helena absorbs my rough kiss willingly. “You have strange names for your penises here.”
I roll my eyes, but then she’s the one kissing me and the pressure she puts on me from above has me sighing. “You want to come home with me?” she whispers. “I can show you my room. My bed too.”
“Is the douchebag going to be at your house?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Then definitely.” I need to set things straight there. He might live in her house, but I’m the one entering her room. And her.
Tomorrow, in daylight, once I’m fighting Keyon at the Cage Warriors, I’ll think straight again. For now, I’m going to do it again; twice in the same week, I’ll surrender to vice and to excess.
“A sip?” I suggest, lifting the forgotten champagne bott
le from the ground.
“Thanks.”
I watch her swallow, a small trickle of clear liquid finding a path along her jaw and hitting her throat. It makes me stand in a hurry, grab her hand, and stalk toward the city.
VICTOR
I can’t blame too much alcohol on waking up in a narrow bed with pink sheets. And I can’t blame anyone but myself for being tangled under those sheets, still moist from Helena and me.
I can only blame myself when my hands start working again, running slowly over two dimples at the lower part of her back, tracing a rippling spine until it finds a slender neck. She sighs in sleep when I don’t stop my fingers from tightening around that neck. I push her in beneath my ear and enjoy the heat from her mouth as she breathes out.
So many thoughts run through my mind. Since I started training at Dawson’s fight gym, I’ve been graced with more likeminded pals than I have in my entire life. They’re outspoken too, especially about my discipline, and I’m afraid their easy approach is rubbing off. It must be, with the way I lust for physical activities so different to those I execute in the ring.
Already, it’s hours past when I should’ve been doing my morning sprint at the parking garage. Outdoor stairwell to the twelfth floor, up and down ten times before running back home.
Maiko is too proud to call me. With her sixth sense, she probably realized I was gone the second I left the house. She doesn’t sleep when she doesn’t know where I am. Ah and my strong little savior doesn’t deserve sleepless nights.
I pull back to watch Helena’s face in the morning light, allowing myself an extra moment. I’ll wake her up before I leave, of course. I’m not one of those dipshits that scram without warning. I just wish I had something good to tell her.
There can’t be a plan to see this girl again, and I don’t know what her goal is. Is she looking for someone to trust? Someone to be with, someone steady?
Yesterday. Hot damn. I wonder if her body remembered me as much as mine did hers. I feel my nostrils flare at her light exhale. What is she dreaming about? It’s none of my business.
She’s got so little makeup on. It’s cute how there’s just the smallest remnant of mascara staining the corners of her eyes. I know exactly the color hiding under those eyelids. I still haven’t found the right word for that shade. Then again, it doesn’t matter.
