by Sasha Gold
Riley is nowhere to be found.
“Could I offer you some coffee,” I ask Ivan and Sofia.
Ivan brushes the offer away with a few polite words about needing to get Sofia home. The girl is fading by the moment.
“Being pregnant is hard work,” she says, stifling a yawn.
I see them out, thank them for coming and stand in the doorway as they drive off.
The house is quiet and I wonder where Riley is. I suppose he wants to be alone and I can’t blame him. Tomorrow is a big day and I should let him be. Instead of looking for him, I go to my room and draw a bath. I undress and pull my hair into a high ponytail to keep it dry. The tub fills with water and I throw in some bathing crystals. Soon the bathroom fills with a lavender scent.
Soaking in the tub usually relaxes me, but all I can think of is Riley. My heart squeezes. Is he stressing about the fight? Maybe I should check on him and make sure he’s okay. I should at least say good night and…what? Good luck?
After my bath, I smooth on a little lotion and get into a gown and bathrobe. I check my phone and find a ton of messages but none from Riley. I ignore all the messages but Charlotte’s. She’s sent a picture of the shoes she’s picked out for the wedding. They’re cute strappy pumps.
Go? No go?
I text her back. Go.
That’s the way it’s been between us since I left home. Charlotte still sends me pictures of cakes and dresses and bouquets. She wants my approval and it makes me happy that a word from me helps her with the decisions. I’m helping with details, remotely.
Taking my phone with me, I go downstairs and look around. He’s not in the den or study and the kitchen is deserted. I step outside and head down to the gym. The ivory moon hangs low in the sky, just above the horizon and doesn’t offer much light. I turn the flashlight app on my phone and start down the path. The gym is dark but I know he’s there because I hear the speedball going. He’s pounding the hell out of it and I wonder how long he’s been at it.
Just as I get to the door the sounds stop. Silence. The door, a large, garage-style door, is open as is one on the other side of the gym. A breeze blows.
The gym is dark. I know he’s there but I don’t know where. He always knows when I’m nearby. It’s as though he senses it and it’s a little spooky. The darkness doesn’t help. A shadow moves a few feet away and he materializes in the moonlight.
“You came,” he says.
“I did.”
Sweat beads on his brow. His eyes are cool, assessing, and while his body appears relaxed, I sense his muscles are taut like he’s ready to spring.
“I worried about you.”
He shakes his head. “C’mon. You worried about me?”
“You don’t believe me?”
His lips curve into a provocative smile, one that makes sparks fly across my senses. Sometimes when he looks at me with that expression I feel like I’m free falling. He takes my hand in his. My fingers brush across the tape he wraps around his knuckles. Tugging me forward, I’m forced to step into the inky darkness of the gym. He leads and I follow, not knowing where I’m going but trusting that he knows.
His hand tightens. “Watch your step.”
The surface beneath my feet changes from the hard concrete to the springy mat. My step falters and before I can utter a word, he grabs my waist and steadies me.
We take a few more steps and then he stops. He cups my face in his hands. The tape on his hands scrapes my jaw. His mouth comes down hard on mine, and he angles his head to deepen the kiss. I’m powerless to resist. I submit, parting my lips and groan when he strokes my lips and mouth with his tongue. His kiss tastes of power and sin and revenge and hundred other things I’ve never understood. I weaken as he gathers me into his arms. Lifting me from my feet he pulls me against him. The heat of his body warms my chilled skin.
“Riley,” I plead, not knowing what I want from him.
He lowers to one knee and sets me on the sparring mat. I have no idea what he wants. All I can do is wait and in the shadowed darkness, I sense him as much as see him rearing up over me. A sharp tug at my neckline followed by the sound of my gown ripping shoots adrenaline through my veins. I want him. So badly. I want him to take me but I know we can’t do that. Riley cannot be with me. Not in that way. Not tonight, the night before the fight.
The cool night air washes over me. I’m bare. There is nothing between me and Riley. His mouth sears my breast and when I feel his tongue brush across my nipple I know I’m lost to him. The heat of his mouth electrifies my senses. I clasp his head. Hold him. Press him against my breast.
His teeth sink softly around my nipple. The sharp cut of his teeth against my tender skin draws a whimper from my lips.
Anything. Riley. I’ll give you anything. It’s all for you.
He clasps my hips and kisses a line of molten kisses down my chest and further down my belly.
My mind revolts against what transpires. I’m in the middle of a gym. On a sparring mat. My gown is torn from my body. Riley wants something I’ve only ever imagined. In my dirtiest fantasies.
This can’t be real.
Another tug and my panties are torn away. Silently I beg him not to throw away his fighting career by having sex with me on his sparring mat. My thoughts move slowly and as he kisses my belly I want to tell him to stop. I worry about him getting hurt more than anything else.
“If you have sex with me,” I whisper, “I’ll steal you away. Take you to some remote place and keep you there till the fight is conceded. Vronsky will be declared the winner.”
A soft rumble of laughter hits my ears. “Yeah?”
With that single word he taunts me, undermining my resolve.
He knows I have no place to take him. Zero resources. I might be worth a few million, or I might be worth nothing. I have no idea. The story of my life. I’m the poor little rich girl. He’s the rags to riches boy. But now, on the eve of his fight, everything crystalizes. The only thing I need is for Riley to be safe. I don’t care about the money. Just him. That’s all.
With his immense shoulders, he nudges my knees apart. I offer no resistance. He continues his path downward and when his mouth brushes over my sex, I tremble.
“You’re all I want,” he breathes. And then he kisses me, runs his tongue along my sex and growls when I flinch. “You won’t get away,” he warns. “Not from me. Never.”
It’s too much, too overwhelming and I try to edge away, but he tightens his hold on me, pinning me to the mat with his iron grip. I lie beneath him amidst the remnants of my gown, slowly surrendering to his wicked caress. His tongue presses against my clit making me writhe.
My inhibitions fall away. Small sounds escape my lips, sounds I don’t recognize as my own. As my pleasure spirals up, they grow more needy and plaintive. I thread my fingers through his hair. When he sucks my clit, I arch beneath him, ecstasy tearing through my body. My cries echo against the walls of the gym as I’m gripped by the most intense pleasure I’ve ever known.
Riley scatters kisses the length of my thigh and up the front of my body. He prowls over me. My heart pounds against my ribs. I wait to see what he’ll do next. There’s nothing shielding me from him and if he wanted to take me now he could. But he doesn’t. Instead, he takes my hand and pulls me to my feet.
We walk back to the house in silence. The moon rides high in the cloudless sky, lighting the way and casting everything in a silvery glow. When we reach the house, he takes me to my room. He stops outside the door. I wait. For what I’m not sure. A word? A kiss? But he says nothing, simply pulling me into an embrace. And then he’s gone, disappearing into his room.
Chapter Fourteen
Riley
I step out of the shower and eye the bathroom door with a mixture of surprise and amusement. When I entered the bathroom this morning, I must have opened the door with a little more force than was needed. The door frame is cracked. Ivan says I’m stronger than ever and credits his nasty protein shakes a
long with his brutal training regimen. I think it’s something else.
Toweling off, I think about her, sleeping in the next room. Leah. My wife.
Last night was beautiful. Touching her, tasting her, making her come. It was better than any fantasy I’ve ever had about Leah.
Today when she’s at the fight, she’ll see me complete my final goal. My twenty-first win. Fighters don’t like to talk about fights or to predict wins because they think it’s bad luck. I don’t believe that. I’m not superstitious. At all. I don’t believe in rituals or rabbit’s feet, just cold, calculated preparation. Everything else is just another form of fear.
I put on slacks, shirt and tie and a jacket. I dress formally for fight day. Plenty of cameras will be focused on me when I arrive at the arena, but even more will be pointed at Leah. Aside from the night at the restaurant, there are no public pictures of my Mystery Woman. Even the images from the photo shoot won’t be public for another month.
Downstairs I find Ivan sitting in my kitchen, drinking a protein shake. I’ll be happy to be done drinking his concoctions. Two other men sit with him and they jump to their feet when they see me. Sergei and Vitaly, two fighters Ivan has in training.
“Sit down,” I tell them as I take a glass filled with a bright green shake. “We’re informal here. I just wanted to explain your duties in person today. No one comes within five feet of Leah unless she says it’s okay. Keep the cameras and microphones out of her face. And damn sure don’t let anyone touch her. That clear?”
Both men say “Yes, sir” in unison. Good.
I know Ivan wouldn’t recommend people that he didn’t regard highly. Especially for something so important. Leah will be with me every moment right up until the fight. When we’re apart I want her watched over and protected.
The rest of the morning passes quickly with an interview in my gym with some young guy from the Philippines. Apparently I have a lot of fans there. Then I pose with Leah in a few pictures beside the pool. She can hardly look me in the face and when I let my hand slip down over her ass she yanks it back to her waist. In a matter of a few hours, that ass is going to be mine and I intend to make that perfectly clear to her. My marriage to Leah starts tonight.
When the photographer leaves she turns to hiss at me. “Does every picture of us need to feature your paw on my backside?”
I nod. “Mmm, Works for me.”
And then her eyes water and she bites her lip. “What would be the worst that could happen if you just didn’t show?”
“Didn’t show?” I frown. I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“For the fight.”
“Why the hell wouldn’t I show for my own fight?”
“Because I don’t want you to.” She waves her hand around, gesturing at the pool and the gardens. “We don’t need all this stuff. So what if you don’t get some huge paycheck?”
I laugh at her sentimental words. I don’t need anything but her, but I like having money. When I started down this path, I had three simple goals: take care of George and Emily, win twenty-one consecutive fights, make Leah mine. That was all. The money is just the icing. I wanted it so I could have something to offer.
Her eyes glint with a fire that I’ve never seen before and I have to say that I’m surprised that the wealthiest, classiest girl I know is suggesting I walk away from the money. It must be because she’s accustomed to having whatever she wants. She doesn’t know what it means to be hungry. Like truly, fucking hungry.
I pull her closer, cradle her face in my hands and kiss her lips softly. “I’m going to beat Vronsky, not just because I’m better, and not just because he’s cheating, but because he deserves a smack down and there’s nothing I like better than avenging some entitled little dip-shit. I plan on handing his ass to him.”
She gazes up at me with an expression that is so vulnerable and sweet it makes me feel like I could fall into it and happily drown.
“I just want you to be safe,” she says. “And I want one other thing.”
“Name it.”
“I don’t want you to give me money for this…” She gestures again. “This arrangement.”
She doesn’t want my money. That’s different. I drop my hands from her face. Usually, women who hang around fighters can’t get enough of the sweet cash flow. They need it to support their habits or appetites. I don’t have first-hand experience with this, but I’ve heard enough to know.
But Leah doesn’t want my money. I can see it in her eyes. The money is dirty. Like me. Miranda and Anderson Mathews said as much. Miranda never cared for me because I wasn’t good enough to be friends with Dane. She thought an unwanted, foster kid like me had no business around her silver-spoon family.
“I want you to take the money back,” she says. “What’s between us won’t be about money. I don’t want money that you earned fighting.”
My hands hang at my side but I feel the tension spike and travel from my shoulders downward. My fingers curl into fists. I tighten and release, tighten and release. Her words might piss me off but I channel that into thoughts of Vronsky.
“Whatever you want, Leah. I can set the money aside.”
My voice is deep and rumbles and I can see she’s a little worried. She edges away from me. Why I’m not sure. She might anger me but I’d die before I ever hurt her or let someone else hurt her.
“It makes me feel cheap,” she whispers.
God forbid a Mathews might feel cheap.
“All right. Whatever you want.”
I gave her the money so she’d have some independence from Miranda. I gave it to her so she’d have an escape hatch from me, for fuck’s sake, but if she doesn’t want it, I won’t beg her to take it. Fine by me if she has to ask me for everything. I don’t mind being old-fashioned. If I weren’t so pissed at her rejection, I might smile at the idea of her needing to depend on only me.
Enough of this. It’s time I get my mind right. I find Ivan and the boys and we load up and head to the fight.
Chapter Fifteen
Leah
Every seat in the arena is filled and I find my seat next to Sofia. She’s pale but her eyes shine with excitement. Vitaly and Sergei, the two men assigned to me for the evening, greet her in Russian. Vitaly sits beside her and Sergei sits beside me.
“Riley didn’t want anyone bothering you,” Sofia says, eyeing Sergei.
“They’re pretty tough. When we got to the arena there was a ton of reporters. These two guys managed to keep me from getting mobbed while Riley signed a few kid’s autographs.”
Sofia shakes her head. “It’s not just the media. Did you see all the screaming fans? I counted a dozen Rileah posters.”
“I can’t say I’m a fan of that name thing. Anytime that happens the couple winds up splitting or divorcing.”
I scan the crowd looking for Dane, Charlotte and Miranda, but I don’t see them anywhere. The place is a zoo, thousands of people moving about, most of them finding their seats but some of them talking in groups. I recognize many faces even if I don’t know the names, sports stars, TV personalities, the bad guy from a James Bond film but I can’t think of his name. It’s like I’ve opened a magazine while standing in line at a supermarket.
Over the next few moments, Vronsky and Riley enter the arena with their entourages. Both men receive a mixture of boos and applause, but Riley’s applause is thunderous.
“You’re not a fainter are you?” Sofia shouts.
“I guess I’m about to find out.”
Sofia’s about to respond but her gaze is drawn to something behind me. I turn. Miranda stands in the aisle. Sergei gives me a questioning look. He’s prepared to take down anyone aggressive but doesn’t know what to do with an older woman, in a power suit and pearl earrings.
“She’s my stepmother,” I say as I move past him.
Miranda looks out of place and smaller to me. Like she’s shrunk in the last few weeks.
“Come home, Leah,” she says, raising her voi
ce to be heard over the din.
“Why, Miranda?” I’ve mentally rehearsed this conversation dozens of times but never imagined it happening here of all places.
She arches a brow and glances past me to Sofia and the two Russian men. Her lip curls. “You don’t belong with these people.” She tilts her head toward the ring. “Or with him.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“You’re just like your father. You were born for civic service. Leadership. None of these people will ever accomplish anything worthwhile. It’s pugilism. Barbaric. It’s the opposite of what you do and who you are.”
The roar of the crowd grows louder.
“He picked you because of who you are. He wanted to improve his social standing. To be respectable.”
Everything she says is true. He told me as much. He talked about the Halo Effect, but since then he’s shown me that he cares for me. I see it in his eyes.
“Before he married you he stood to lose three big endorsements. Since then he’s gotten them back and gotten a firm offer from a network. Marrying you almost doubled what he’ll make this year alone.”
My mouth goes dry. Riley never told me he might lose endorsements. He hadn’t told me any of that and I must look shocked because I can see the look of triumph in Miranda’s eyes.
“Are you pregnant?”
“No, no,” I’m stammering and I feel my face heat. “I mean we haven’t…”
She smirks. “Right. The pre-fight celibacy. I’ve read a few articles about him. Good. You can get an annulment.”
“I won’t do that. I’m happy.”
Miranda reaches up slowly and cups my face. “Men like him don’t want girls like you, Leah. After the fight tonight, he’s going to pick one of those women down there.”
My gaze follows hers to a section roped off from the rest of the crowd. The section is about a dozen seats and each one is filled with women, each one more stunning than the next.
“Those women are his groupies. They post all over social media. Trust me. You don’t want to know what they write about him.”