by Kendall Ryan
Still, I didn’t like anyone propositioning Ian. It made me so upset that I might have increased my wine consumption just a bit.
Ian looked up at her when she approached. “Hi,” he said in a low voice.
“You guys wanna party?” she asked.
Ian looked over at me. He seemed to be considering something, but I couldn’t read the look on his face. Finally, he turned back to her. “Sorry, not interested.”
She turned to Jonah. “I could find a friend if you wanna double-date.”
Jonah smiled, but didn’t say anything.
Next she turned to me. I was unable to hide my disapproval of her lifestyle choice, and she could see it in my face. She smirked at me and said, “Or we could all party if your girl here wants to join in.” Her gaze drifted to Chris.
I thought for a second that Chris was considering it, but he also said nothing.
“We’re not interested,” Ian said, his voice still low.
“You sure, honey? Because I’d give you a good deal.” Her focus flowed down Ian’s body as if undressing him with her eyes. I fought the urge to tell her to back off.
Ian smiled and shook his head. “Like I said. Not interested.”
She gave Ian one last look before chuckling to herself and walking away.
Chris watched her go. “You and your no-sex rule.” He shook his head. “You know it’s not proven that abstinence makes you a better fighter.”
I looked at Ian, wondering if what Chris was saying was true. I’d just assumed it was.
Ian took a swig of his water. “It hasn’t been disproven either. The no-sex thing works for me. That’s all that matters.”
Chris smiled. “I’m just saying, maybe you should have asked her how much the discount was before you sent her away.”
Ian forced a smile. He took a deep breath, finished his bottle of water, and said, “Well, guys, I think that’s it for me. I’ve gotta try to get some fuckin’ sleep.”
“Me too,” Jonah said, finishing off his beer in one gulp. “I’ll head up with you.”
I finished off my second glass of wine and ordered another. Chris and I spent another hour or so in the bar, and by the time we got up to head back to our room, I was definitely buzzed.
Buzzed enough to let Chris slip his arms around my waist and hold me close to him in the elevator. I let my head rest on his chest as we went up in silence. When the elevator pinged on our floor, I realized I’d been imagining Chris was Ian. Something which made me laugh for no apparent reason.
“What’s so funny?” Chris said as we headed down the hall. He stopped suddenly. “Oh, damn. Is that the prostitute?” He laughed into his fist like he was trying to hold back.
I followed his gaze down the hall. Sure enough, Ian was standing at the door of his room wearing nothing but his boxers, handing the prostitute from the bar a wad of bills. Tears welled in my eyes and my pulse raced. What the…? No way.
The prostitute brushed her fingertips down his bare chest, then patted him on the cheek.
My feet didn’t want to move, but Chris guided me to the door of our room. “Come on. They’re both consenting adults.” He pulled out the key card to our suite and opened the door.
I wanted to turn back, run down the hall, and demand that Ian tell me why. Why would he sleep with some prostitute after all we’d been through together, and after all the crap he’d said about the no-sex rule. Why was it okay now?
But I couldn’t, because Chris was right. They were both consenting adults. The fact was, I had pushed Ian away. I had no right to the feelings of betrayal and pain that brewed inside me. Still, that didn’t make it hurt any less. I wanted to curl into a ball and die. My heart had just been crushed.
I followed Chris into the room. As he went to the bar and poured me another glass of wine and himself a shot, I sat down on the couch, feeling dazed, and completely empty.
Chris handed me the wine and sat down, then put an arm around me and pulled me close. Realizing he was looking at me expectantly, I forced a relaxed expression and took a sip of my wine.
Although I was looking at Chris, in my mind I still saw Ian paying that woman. The one who possessively drew her hand down his bare chest. Anguish washed over me and filled me so completely that I became numb. I’d been waiting this whole time, putting Chris off, and kidding myself into thinking that once the fight was over, Ian would take me back. That we would be together, finally, in every sense of the word. But after seeing him with that woman, I knew I didn’t mean anything to Ian.
It didn’t matter anymore if I stayed away from Chris. In fact, maybe I should sleep with Chris. Maybe that was all I needed to make a clean break from Ian. Mulling it over, I took another sip of wine.
“It’s so good to finally have you alone,” he said.
Chris’s breath smelled like mouthwash and whiskey. He looked into my eyes and, even though it didn’t feel right, I told myself it didn’t matter, so I tried to smile.
He leaned in and kissed me, his lips cold and wet, then rotated his tongue around mine the same way he always did. It was so practiced and desperate that it made me feel bad for him. There was no way I could get into it, but I resigned myself to trying to let go and just seeing what happened. Maybe it would help me forget.
He slid his hands to my breasts and grabbed them, squeezing them tightly. When his fingers dug painfully into me, I pulled back.
“Ouch,” I said.
“Sorry.”
He loosened his grasp a little, but it still felt all wrong. Not only was he awkward as sin, but he did absolutely nothing for me. There wasn’t enough wine in the world to make sex with Chris good. It was something I might have worked with him on, if I actually liked him, but the truth was that I didn’t. He’d been civil to me, but I wasn’t attracted to him. And there was the little issue that he wasn’t faithful to me.
Maybe I did need a way to make a clean break from Ian, but this wasn’t it.
“Sorry, Chris. I’m not ready.” I pulled away.
“Sure, you are. We’ve been dating for months now. I know you’re no virgin.” He grabbed my hips, pulling them toward his.
“Yes, but…” I tried to pull away, but he held me firm. “I’m not feeling well.”
“You’ve been saying that for weeks.” He leaned in again and kissed me as he pushed me back so that I was lying on the sofa. Fear rose up in me and I sobered up almost instantly. He grabbed my wrists and started pushing his way between my legs.
Shit, was this actually happening?
“No, Chris.” My fight-or-flight instinct kicked in and I started struggling against him.
“Chill, Kenzie,” he said. But he didn’t let go of me, instead keeping me firmly pinned to the couch. His hands circled my wrists so tightly it hurt.
“I said no!” I continued to struggle but couldn’t budge him off me, and tears welled up in my eyes. Chris had been a fighter, and I was no match for him.
The self-defense moves Ian and I had worked on came flooding back, and I instantly went to work twisting my body in the way Ian had shown me. Chris continued to hold my arms down, but I wedged my legs up between us and used the strength in my thighs to push him away just long enough to grab hold of his hands, raise my legs, and use his face as a kicking bag.
I kicked and kicked as hard as I could. I must have kicked him eight or nine times before he finally pulled away.
“You fucking bitch.” Chris fell back on the floor, holding his nose.
Frantic, I jumped up from the couch and ran out of the suite, following the signs to the exit. I found the stairwell and started running down the stairs, taking them three at a time. My eyes blurred with tears, and I whimpered as I ran down several flights, then stopped short.
Where was I going? I couldn’t stop crying, and there was no way I was going to walk through a casino hotel lobby, bawling my ass off.
I wanted to go home, but my wallet was in the room with Chris. Not that I had enough money in there to buy myse
lf a plane ticket home. Of course, I could call Alexa and ask her to loan me the money, but my phone and her number were in the room with Chris.
Ian had his fight tomorrow so I didn’t want to bother him, but short of sleeping in this stupid stairwell, it seemed like the only option. He had Cade’s number. I could get in touch with Alexa that way, and maybe I could still get out of here tonight.
I made my way back up the steps to our floor and silently crept down the hall to Ian’s room. Although I’d managed to stop crying, my heart beat rapidly. I didn’t like being back on the same floor with Chris.
As I knocked on Ian’s door, I kept an eye on the door to the suite.
Thirty-Nine
Ian
Fuck!
I’d just started nodding off to sleep when someone knocked on my door. I lay in bed silently. Maybe if I ignored the first knock, they would go away. But then there was another, this one more frantic.
“What?” I growled as I shot up and stormed over to the door, not even bothering to look through the peephole, because whoever it was had knocked on the wrong damn door, and I was going to give them a piece of my mind. “Where’s the fucking fi—”
I yanked open the door to find Kenzie, who’d obviously been crying. She shrank back from my rage.
Shit!
“Kenz, I’m sorry. What’s wrong? Are you okay? Where’s Chris?”
My mind raced as I scanned her from head to toe. She didn’t look physically hurt, but her eyes were red and tear filled and her lips quivered, and she held herself so small as she shivered. She still wore the cute dress she’d worn earlier, but she was barefoot. Instantly I wanted to take her in my arms and protect her from whatever had happened.
But I knew better than to try to hold her again. She’d made it very clear that she wanted nothing to do with me. So instead I buried my intense need to hold her, took a deep breath, and asked, “Where are your shoes?”
She looked down at her feet slowly as if she hadn’t realized she was barefoot. “They’re with my phone and my wallet.”
I didn’t understand. “Did someone steal your wallet, phone, and shoes?”
“Can I come in, please?” Her voice was a shaky whisper.
I nodded and waved her inside, checking the hallway to make sure whoever or whatever had made her this way wasn’t out there. Then I shut the door and guided her to the small seating area in my room.
“Where’s Chris?” I asked again when we were both seated on the couch.
She shook her head but didn’t say anything, instead looking at the floor. I searched her eyes for the strong Kenzie I knew, but she’d been ripped apart. My instincts to protect her were overwhelming. Every muscle in my body tensed. I would be kicking the shit out of someone, if she could just tell me what happened and who I was going to murder for making her look this broken.
I put my hands on her shoulders and made her look at me. “Listen, Kenzie. You’re scaring me. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what happened.”
“Nothing,” she whimpered, then fell into my arms and began to cry.
I wrapped my arms around her. It felt so right holding her in my arms—how could this possibly be wrong? I should be the one here for her. I held her gently and let her weep. Her breath mixed with tears warmed my bare chest, and my heart fucking ached for this woman. How could anyone hurt her?
Nothing happened? Bullshit. My mind raced through the possible scenarios, all of which ended with me murdering someone in cold blood.
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
“No.” She kept her face buried in my chest.
I ran my hand gently over her soft hair, then realized I shouldn’t and pulled my hand away. Chris should be holding her like this, comforting her. If that was who she really wanted to be with. Where the hell was he?
“Is Chris okay?”
She didn’t answer right away. “I told you, nothing happened,” she said to my chest.
Maybe that was it. Maybe she had finally broken it off with Chris. God, if that were true…
But I couldn’t feel happy about that, not if breaking up with him hurt her this much. No, if that was what happened, it had destroyed her. And I could never be happy about that. Besides, I had no way of knowing what happened because she wouldn’t fucking talk.
I sighed. I couldn’t make her talk right now; she was too upset. So I held her and she cried softly in my arms for a while. When she’d finally calmed down, she pulled away and sat up.
“Sorry,” she said. She wiped at her face, trying to remove the traces of tears, and I got her a tissue.
“Thanks.” She dabbed at her eyes.
“Can I get you a water or anything?”
She nodded. “Can I borrow your phone?”
“Yeah.” I grabbed her a bottle of water from the mini fridge and my phone from the nightstand, handing them both to her.
Kenzie scrolled through my phone. “I just need to call Cade and get Alexa’s number, then I’ll get out of your hair.”
Forty
MacKenzie
Damn it. I hadn’t meant to fall apart like that in front of Ian. The plan was just to get in, use his phone, and get out. He had his big fight tomorrow, and for some reason, even after seeing him with that stupid hooker, I still wanted him to win.
But at the sight of him I completely fell apart. I couldn’t hold it in. He was so strong, and the concern that filled his eyes was so real. I was selfish; I fell into him and let his strong arms hold me. Protect me. It wasn’t just about Chris’s unwelcome advances, it was everything, the deep loneliness that came from my past, the fact that I knew for certain Ian and I were through… It was all too much to process. I sat in his arms, crying, and felt safe from the destruction around me. I knew if I was with Ian, nothing like what had happened with Chris would ever happen to me again. I’d never have to worry about someone hurting me. Because Ian would protect me. He was safe.
So I fell into his arms and weakly wept against his bare chest, allowing myself to take the comfort he offered for a few minutes, until I was able to regain my composure—or what was left of it.
He lent me his phone, and I called Cade and got Alexa’s number.
“Hello?” she answered. She was up, working an all-nighter at the hospital.
“Alexa. It’s MacKenzie.”
There was a pause. “Where are you calling from?”
“I’m in Vegas. Ian lent me his phone.”
I glanced over to see Ian across the small room, sitting on his bed, watching me. Needing some privacy, I got up and went to his bathroom, shutting the door.
“I sort of need a favor,” I said under my breath. “I need to get home, like now. Can you loan me the money for a plane ticket? Normally I wouldn’t ask, but I promise I will pay you back.”
“Wait, why don’t you have your phone? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I paused, taking a deep breath. “Chris and I may have had a small…falling-out. I can’t stay here with him. I have to get out of here.”
“Oh God. I’m sorry, sweetie. Sure. I’ll go online and buy you a ticket. Don’t worry about the money. I just want to make sure you’re okay. He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“No,” I lied. Only my pride, my will, and my faith in humanity. Oh, and my boobs. “We just broke up.”
“And where’s your phone?” she asked.
Spanish inquisition, much?
“It’s in Chris’s room. I kinda stormed out, and I don’t want to go back in. I thought I would ask Ian to get my stuff from him once the fight was over.”
It was mostly true. I didn’t like lying to Alexa, but the truth hurt too much. I wasn’t ready to relive those horrible moments when I was alone with Chris and he tried to take everything away from me.
“Okay, sure,” she said. “I’ll find you a flight right now and call you back soon.”
We hung up, and I sat down on the edge of the tub.
Ian knocked on the door. “Kenzie?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Everything okay?”
I got up and opened the door. No sense in hiding in his bathroom while I waited. “Yeah,” I said. “Alexa’s going to find me a flight home, then I can get out of your hair.”
“You’re going home?” He looked upset. Dang it, why was he upset that I was leaving? He was the one sleeping with prostitutes.
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked.
He ran his hand through his hair. I caught his eyes glancing down my body. “I guess I was just hoping you would see the fight.”
I wanted to see his fight too. More than he knew. I wanted to see him finally have his chance.
I shook my head. “I have to go. I don’t have anywhere to sleep.”
“You and Chris broke up.” He tilted his head to the side and gave me a sympathetic look.
If only it were just that. If it were only that easy. I wanted to tell Ian the truth, and maybe, if he still cared about me, he would take me back. But if he knew what Chris had done—how he’d forced himself on me—he wouldn’t let it go.
I’d seen how protective Ian was with his sister, and women in general. If I told him what Chris did, I had a feeling he would go after Chris. And that would not end well. It would definitely wreck him physically for his fight tomorrow. Besides, even if I did tell him the truth, would I ever be able to get him back? I had pushed him away so many times, there was no way.
“We broke up.” I nodded, chewing on the inside of my cheek. That was one way of putting it.
“Stay here with me. I’ll sleep on the couch. You can see the fight tomorrow, then get a flight after.”
“Thank you, but no. I’m not putting you out like that. I want you to get your sleep. As soon as Alexa calls back, I’ll be out of here.”
Ian’s phone rang. It was Alexa. “Sweetie, I have some bad news,” she said. “There are no more flights out until tomorrow morning.”
I felt my shoulders fall. “Crap.” My mind raced to find something else I could do. “I’ll go to the desk and see if they have any rooms left for the night.”