The Beat and The Pulse Box Set 2

by Amity Cross

  Dean’s phone started ringing for the tenth time since we’d left the Gala, and I fished it out of his pocket. I kind of loved that he didn’t stop me from looking.

  “It’s Lincoln,” I said, scrolling through the notifications on the lock screen.

  “No shit,” he replied, taking the phone from my hands.

  “He’ll start calling me when you don’t answer,” I began and groaned when, as if on cue, my phone started ringing.

  “Your call, Jo.”

  I glanced at Dean and frowned. “My call?”

  “We’re going back to your place. Nobody knows about us.”

  That wasn’t entirely true. Violet had an idea I was interested, but she hadn’t said anything else about it after our shopping trip. She might now that Dean had punched Gabe in the face for trying it on with me. Paired with our dramatic exit and screaming match outside, it might already be headline news.

  I stared at my phone and didn’t know what to say. Taking the plunge and letting him come home with me was a huge step considering the struggle it took to get here. It was way too much to tell his twin brother five minutes after the fact.

  “I’m on board with whatever you want to do,” Dean declared, edging his palm up my thigh.

  Sighing, I twisted around in the seat and said, “We’re on our way to my place to…”

  “Fuck?”

  My cheeks began to turn pink, and I glanced awkwardly at the driver in the front seat, but he wasn’t listening.

  “Then tell him you’re taking my naughty ass home where I can’t cause anymore trouble,” Dean went on, smirking at my reaction.

  The call had already rung out, so I bit the bullet and decided to throw Lincoln off the scent.

  “I just want to enjoy this,” I said as I tapped out a message. “Don’t lay it out for me right now, or I’ll run before we even get to seal the deal, Hayes.”

  “That’s my line,” he replied with a chuckle, his lips pressing against my temple.

  “Fuck them,” I said, pressing send. “They don’t need to know. We’ll talk about it later. Much later.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  Tossing my phone, I threaded my fingers through his hair and pulled him to me. We kissed, the motion of the taxi doing nothing to steady my aching nether regions.

  “How far is it to your place again?” Dean asked as the car came to a halt.

  There was a beeping from the front seat, and the driver announced, “Thirty-two sixty.”

  “Holy fuck,” Dean cursed, fishing for his wallet. “Thirty-two bucks for fifteen minutes in a taxi?”

  “Thirty-two sixty,” the driver said again.

  Tossing the guy a fifty, Dean opened the back door and dragged me out, pulling me into his arms. Slamming the door, he smirked. “Fucking rip off that.”

  He rocked me back and forth as we moved toward the door to my building. It was a little block of modern apartments just outside the upscale suburb of Bondi. It was close to the Twins’ gym, and I could afford the rent here—just. I hardly spent any time in it considering how busy my job was, but I supposed it was as good a place as any. I still missed my little cottage back in Melbourne. That place was classy and cheap.

  “You can afford it,” I said, teasing Dean about the taxi fare as I led us through the security entrance.

  Climbing the stairs, he slapped his palm on my ass, urging me to hurry. I unlocked my front door, almost dropping my key twice, and finally, we were alone. About bloody time.

  “Nice place, Jo,” he murmured as I tossed my clutch onto the kitchen island.

  “Stop looking at the apartment, and look at me,” I said, edging him into the bedroom.

  “I was just being polite,” he replied. “Don’t know what the fuck it looks like.”

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, he pulled at his tie, loosening it around his neck as he kicked off his shoes.

  “Take it off,” he commanded, his voice low and husky.

  He didn’t have to ask me twice. Standing before him, I undid the concealed zipper at the side and nudged the straps off my shoulders, allowing the dress to slip off my body. It fell to the floor, the silky material pooling around my feet. I hadn’t worn a bra because of the plunging neckline, and his eyes widened as he took in my exposed breasts.

  “I like this,” he murmured, his fingers plucking at the hem of my tiny lace boy shorts. “I like it a lot.”

  “Stop talking.” Pressing my forehead against his, I bit at my bottom lip and stepped out of my heels.

  I was suddenly at a better height for his mouth to reach my breasts, and I undid the buttons on his shirt with trembling fingers. It wasn’t exactly the fevered ripping of clothes I’d fantasized about, but the anticipation had me wanting more as I eased the shirt from his bulky frame.

  Seeing Dean Hayes without a shirt was nothing new. I saw him in the octagon and the gym all the time in next to nothing, but being able to touch him and seeing the bulge in his trousers that I’d put there? Priceless.

  He tugged me across his lap, and I straddled him as his lips met mine. His palm worshipped my breasts, his fingers pinching my erect nipples, and I melted into him. I licked into his mouth, relishing his taste as his movements became firmer, guiding me with the same expert precision he fought in the cage with.

  Tearing his mouth from mine, he latched onto my breast, sucking and teasing, nipping the sensitive flesh with his teeth. My breathing quickened as I felt my core respond, and I began to grind against his erection, which he still hadn’t allowed me to free from his trousers.

  Fuck, this felt so good. So raw. It was everything I wanted and expected when I’d lain in bed at night and fantasized about this moment. It was how I imagined it last week in the gym.

  He moved to my other breast, his touch firmer as I fisted my hands in his hair and tugged. I could feel my underwear dampening, and it was becoming harder and harder to keep this slow. I wanted to feel him in me. The ghost of his fingers from earlier that night still ached inside me, and I bucked against him.

  “Dean!” I moaned as he bit down on my nipple.

  Before I could beg, he pushed me back onto the bed and forced my legs apart. Moving down my body, he pushed my underwear aside and licked my entire seam. My back arched off the mattress as pleasure ricocheted through my body, and I fisted my hands into the blanket as his mouth covered my clit and sucked.

  “Oh fuck,” I cried as he began to lave his tongue over me. He did it again and again until I was writhing.

  He put his palm on my stomach, using his strength to keep me in place as he expertly dipped his tongue into my opening and teased. Returning to my clit, he continued pleasuring until my eyes rolled back into my head.

  I couldn’t think of anything else but his tongue between my legs. His tongue. Dean Hayes’s tongue. In me. On my clit. Everywhere.

  I wasn’t inexperienced by a long shot and had been licked by the best of them, but with the right person? Holy fuck. I never understood the difference between lust and something more, not until now.

  My eyes flew open as he slid his finger into me and began pumping, his tongue never slowing its assault on my clit. A second finger joined the first, and I felt an orgasm begin to rise hard and fast. I lost control and began to grind against him, and when I came, my thighs wanted to clamp together, but he forced my legs open wider and fucked me faster.

  Moaning and panting, I grasped his hair and twisted, lost to the rolling waves that were pulling me under. It was the really good kind of drowning if you asked me. I would drown all day and night in him if he’d let me.

  Once some sense returned, I pushed him back and ripped at his fly, tugging the zipper down.

  “You’re a greedy little thing,” he said with a smirk as I freed his cock.

  I wasn’t listening. I was too busy staring at his erection.

  Lowering my lips, I fully intended to repay what he’d just given me, but he sat up and tugged me onto his lap.

  “N
ext time,” he murmured. “I want to be inside you too much.”

  His hands grasped my waist and guided my movements, sliding my seam against his erection.

  “I’ve thought about this enough,” he murmured against my mouth.

  “You’ve thought about me?” I asked, nipping at his bottom lip.

  “In all kinds of ways,” he replied darkly.

  Drawing in a shaky breath, I eased off him and pushed down my underwear, ridding myself of the last barrier between us. He kicked off his trousers, and finally, we were completely naked. We were doing this.

  Coaxing me back over him, he fisted his cock and ran the crown along my seam. Positioning himself, he waited, letting me make the final move.

  I stared into his eyes and knew he was giving me an out if I wanted it. I’d struggled against my feelings for what felt like a millennia, pushing when all I wanted to do was pull, and I almost caved. Almost. The fact that Dean Hayes, bad boy of the AUFC, was giving me a choice instead of taking me like an alpha male from a romance novel, showed just how much of himself he kept hidden from the world.

  Burying my hands in his hair, I lowered myself onto him, breathing heavily as his cock filled every inch inside me.

  “Shit,” he hissed as we joined completely.

  I began to grind against him, working my clit as he sucked at my neck. Then he fell backward onto his back, taking me down with him.

  Grasping my ass, he thrust upward into me again and again, our moans muffled by our fevered kisses. Rolling my hips, I rode him hard, high on the sensation of his cock leaving me, then filling my body to the brim.

  I was lost in the moment, chasing the release I hadn’t realized was building to boiling point, not until he’d cornered me at the Gala. That hadn’t been enough to sate it, but this…

  With a growl, he flipped me over on the bed, my back hitting the mattress, and he thrust into me hard. Clawing his back, I cried out as he pounded into me. Fast, then slow, then fast again. When I began to fall into a blissful plane of oblivion, he didn’t slow, and I tightened around him.

  I wanted to beg him to never stop, to call out his name and never say another word in my entire life, but I was listless as he joined me, spilling everything he had into my body.

  Finally, he collapsed beside me, his chest heaving.

  “Fuck me,” he said, running his hand over his face.

  “I’m broken,” I murmured, squirming beside him. I was deliciously tender.

  He rolled over and ran his palm over my stomach. “Fuck, don’t say that. I want to go again.”

  “Already?”

  “A million times already.”

  Smiling, I draped over him again, delighting at the sensation of his naked body against mine so soon after fucking. My nerve endings were still alive, buzzing in the afterglow, and every touch was amplified.

  “Fuck.” I moaned, burying my fingers in his hair and tugging his lips toward mine. “I can’t stop touching you.”

  “Do you hear me complaining?” he asked, his breath tickling my skin.

  “We’re going to be wrecked tomorrow. I don’t think there’s enough coffee in the world for the hangover I’m going to have.” Could you get a hangover from epic sex? It sure felt like it.

  Dean smirked, his hands grasping my ass and tugging me over him again. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead or out of sperm.”

  I laughed, pressing a kiss against his mouth. “So the cardio came in handy, huh?”

  “I never knocked the cardio once,” he declared. “I was thinking of your thighs.”

  “Smartass.”

  He flipped me onto my back in one fluid motion, causing a gasp to burst from my lips. He pressed his weight between my legs and began to move back and forth, grinding the underside of his cock over my clit. He was ready to go again? Damn.

  “You were saying?” he murmured, his lips brushing against the curve of my neck.

  “Huh?” I muttered, rubbing my palms over his ass cheeks.

  “Josie Cunningham at a loss for words,” he teased. “Hell has frozen over.”

  “Shut up.”

  We had so much to work out in the morning—personally and professionally—but for now, I was content to drown myself in his touch.

  For now.

  14

  Dean

  It was amazing how fast time flashed by when all you did was sneak around and fuck a beautiful woman in secret.

  I wasn’t surprised when Josie said she wanted to keep us under wraps for the time being. At least until we were able to work things out. She had run before when I’d hesitated. I was still working through shit, and this was still new. As she’d said to me once before, she was a professional and any relationship between us could be seen negatively. For her, not me because the AUFC was male dominated. When you get a bunch of testosterone-fueled dicks together, they all want to put it in the closest vagina.

  You want to get to the top, you take it out for a ride.

  Made me fucking sick what some of these assholes did to women. Josie was the best, not just because she knew her shit but because of her integrity. That’s why we gave her the job in the first place.

  It was too soon to tell if it was lust or love, but I was enamored with Josie, so I gave her whatever she wanted.

  As expected, the press had a field day over the Gala. Punching Gabe O’Connell had felt really good at the time, but it was a PR nightmare and just another asshole-ish thing I’d dumped into Josie’s lap. It was fight night on Friday, and Lincoln was up against my ‘victim’. If I was going to be there to support my twin, then there would be questions.

  She was making me pay for it big time with extra long meetings to prepare me for any unexpected questions from the press. By extra long, I meant with time to spare for a quickie behind closed doors.

  Like the smartass he was, O’Connell had only given Lincoln a week to prepare for the title fight, so we were training full tilt. I wasn’t the one fighting to keep the middleweight belt, but from the moment we entered the AUFC, we’d made a pact. We held each other in check whenever we were up for a dance in the octagon. We trained together. We bled together. We were one and the same. Two halves of a whole.

  I didn’t know what bothered me the most. That I was keeping this thing between Josie and me a secret from my twin or that he was fighting the man who tried to take her from me. Either way, it wasn’t a good idea to lay it on him the day he was defending his title against the little fucker.

  The arena was sold out tonight, the din bordering on unbearable as fans took their sets for the main event of the night—the middleweight title fight.

  Josie was next to me, a vision in her tight jeans and silky blue shirt, standing tall in her favorite pair of shiny black high heels. I smiled from ear to ear as I remembered the look on her face that morning after I’d made her come in the shower. So fucking beautiful.

  “What are you looking at me like that for?” she asked, trying unsuccessfully to hide her own smile.

  “This is torture,” I murmured in her ear. “Being in public and not being able to touch you. Having to watch Linc fight that jackass. The list goes on…”

  “Dean Hayes! Dean! Dean!”

  Josie groaned as she nodded toward the shrill voice of a young male reporter who was fast approaching our position.

  “I know what you mean,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  I scowled as the reporter darted toward me, and I glanced back to Josie, an unspoken question in my eyes.

  “Go for it,” she said. “They won’t leave you alone until you comment about the fight. Just don’t say something stupid about the thing.” She waved her hand around. “The black tie punching incident. Or…us.”

  “I’m not that stupid,” I drawled, itching to pinch her on the ass. That one I’d just have to bank for later and turn it into a slap while my cock was in her. That would feel real nice. Josie hightailed it before she was roped into the interview, and I made a mental note to increase it to two.
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  The reporter almost smacked into me as I turned, his face flushed like he’d just run a marathon to get to me.

  “Can I ask you a couple of questions?” he asked, his eyes flicking around watching for the competition.

  “Yeah. But you’ve only got two minutes.”

  “How are you feeling after your loss to Gabe O’Connell? It was the first KO of your career…”

  Before he could say that’s gotta hurt, I narrowed my eyes and said, “I’m feeling fine. I just wish it was me in the octagon tonight and not my brother.”

  “If O’Connell takes the middleweight title tonight, will you challenge him for it?”

  “Yes. Without a doubt.”

  “If O’Connell loses, will you challenge him anyway?”

  “Yes. I’d like to have another crack at him. I’ve challenged the only fighter I’ve lost against and come back to win. O’Connell will be no different.”

  “Would you like to make any comment concerning the incident at the Gala last weekend? Is there a rivalry outside of the octagon between you and Gabe O’Connell? Are you having a secret relationship with Josie Cunningham?”

  I flinched and glanced around for Josie, but she was nowhere to be found. The crowd had swallowed her up, and I was on my own. Best to say nothing at all, rather than put my foot in it trying to do the right thing. Whatever that was.

  “No comment,” I snapped and shoved the guy aside.

  Spying Josie already in our assigned seats, I sat beside her and pressed my arm against hers, wishing I could throw it around her shoulders instead.

  “I was a good boy,” I said, raking my gaze over the octagon as the announcer began to call the fight.

  She glanced at me, her blonde hair shimmering under the bright lights of the arena. “He asked?”

  “My fist, O’Connell’s face. Fully clothed. It’s a hot topic, Jo.” I snorted and turned my head so I could take her in. “He asked about you. By name.”