It was clear who the crowd would want to win.
“Sylvie!” yelled Rick.
Aedan grabbed me and kissed me hard. Then he lifted his fists towards mine. I realized he wanted me to tap fists with him. The same good luck ritual I used to do with Alec. I stared at his huge, scarred hands and at my own much smaller ones, and then I tapped.
And ran out into the pit before I could change my mind.
Sylvie
I’d watched plenty of fights from the balcony. And I’d been down in the side room, where Aedan now was, when Alec fought. So I thought I knew what to expect.
I was wrong.
The crowd above became a hooting, screaming hurricane, their voices surrounding me and leaving my ears ringing. The harsh overhead lights blinded me whenever I looked up, turning the people above into faceless silhouettes. I could just see the white of their teeth and the gleam of their spit as they yelled.
The pit itself was a merciless prison. Smooth concrete walls much higher than my head. A bare concrete floor. The doors into the side rooms looked pathetically small.
There was nowhere to run.
Jacki was already standing directly across from me, glaring at me. Rick slapped me enthusiastically on the shoulder and ran back to the side room to wait with Aedan.
And the fight began.
Jacki started to circle around to the side and I did the same, walking like a crab, hands raised to guard myself in case she suddenly came at me. I’m not ready! My heart was thumping in my chest and I could actually see my hands shaking as I held them in front of me. This wasn’t like the ring I’d trained in—at all! There was no bounce in the floor, no give. If I even slipped and went down, it was going to hurt. If I was knocked down and hit my head...it didn’t bear thinking about.
Jacki suddenly came at me in a zig-zagging, erratic run. Her hands weren’t up in fists. They were more like hooked claws, ready to grab and pull and tear.
I backed up, trying to keep my distance. Immediately, she moved faster. It was obvious which of us had the upper hand, right from the start. I was scared of her but she wasn’t scared of me.
She suddenly snaked her hand out and I blocked instinctively. But she wasn’t trying to hit me. She grabbed my hand and pulled, using the full weight of her body to swing me around. My feet skittered under me and my stomach lurched. The wall came up to meet me, too fast—
I crashed into the concrete, feeling the gritty surface chew at my exposed arm and shoulder. My hip banged hard against it and my leg went numb.
The crowd cheered.
I tried to get away from her, but I was staggering, now, and didn’t have the speed to get any distance. All I could do was retreat, backing up along the curving wall, praying I didn’t trip over my own feet. If I went down, it was all over.
I didn’t dare take my eyes off Jacki’s cruelly grinning face. But then I saw the door to the side room behind her and, in it, Aedan. He was screaming at me.
Screaming hit her.
Before I could take it in, she grabbed me again. This time, she pulled me towards her and—
Pain exploded in my face. I tasted and smelled blood. And suddenly it was fountaining out of me, splotching onto my top. I lifted my hands to my face and they instantly turned red. Jesus, what had she done to me?
The pain dulled a little, centering on my nose. I realized she’d head-butted me, and my nose was bleeding.
For the first time, I started to pick out voices in the crowd.
“Get her on the ground!”
“Shove your foot up the bitch!”
“Fucking finish her!”
She was coming at me again, hands raised, leg drawn back.
Hit her.
She was going to grab me and kick me.
Hit her.
She was going to get me down on the ground and smash my face into the floor, just like she promised.
Hit her. Behind Jacki, I saw Aedan screaming it.
I can’t! And then Jacki shouted and came at me hard, hands grabbing for my waist—
I lashed out and two solid weeks of muscle memory snapped into place. There was a sickening crack as my fist hit Jacki’s jaw. Her head snapped to the side and she staggered. The crowd cheered even louder. Apparently, it didn’t matter who got hit, as long as someone did.
Jacki put her hand to her face and winced, then looked at me, her eyes narrowed. I was looking at my own fist in wonder. My knuckles were throbbing, my wrist aching. Did I really just hit her? I realized I’d dropped my guard and started to lift my hands again.
Too late.
Jacki shoulder-charged me and bore us both down to the floor. I landed under her, gasping as the air was knocked out of me. Jacki’s expression was vicious, now, her lips drawn back from her teeth in an animal snarl.
I lifted my head, only to have her punch me. It wasn’t as strong as one of my punches—it seemed like she was used to grabbing and throwing, not hitting. But it sent my head towards the concrete and I only just managed to hold it away, my neck muscles screaming. She hit me again, on the other side, and this time it hurt more.
“Tear her clothes off!” screamed someone in the crowd. There was a sudden roar of approval from all around the room.
Sickened, I looked up at Jacki. She looked equally appalled, her nose wrinkling in distaste. But then she glanced off to the side.
Towards Rick.
I couldn’t see him, but he must have nodded. Jacki punched me a third time and then grabbed my tank top at the base of one strap and jerked. The strap tore free and suddenly my bra and breasts were revealed to the crowd. The hoots and wails were deafening. Jacki’s hands reached for me again—
A shining aluminum cane shot between us, then pushed her back. She got off me, sullen-faced, holding her jaw. Already, the skin there was starting to discolor. The crowd howled their disapproval as they realized the fight was over.
“That’s all, folks!” yelled Rick. “That was just a taster. If you want to see Sylvie get hers, be here! Same place! Same time! Two weeks!” And he grabbed Jacki’s hand and raised it in the air in victory.
She grinned at the crowd and then scowled down at me. I clutched the rags of my tank top to my chest, humiliated and shaking. In those final few seconds, all of the crowd’s male rage had bubbled up to the surface and shown itself for what it really was. And it looked like Jacki and Rick were only too happy to go along with it, if it kept them happy.
Aedan ran over. For a second, he stood there glaring at Rick, his massive fists bunched, clearly ready to kill him. Al and Carl sidled up to protect their boss but, for a second, it looked as though Aedan was going to wade in regardless.
I reached up and grabbed Aedan’s hand. “Just get me out of here?” I pleaded.
With a last snarl at Rick, Aedan pulled me to my feet and helped me to the side room. My legs had turned to jelly and I had to lean on him the whole way. I felt slightly better once we were out of sight of all those male eyes.
“Let me look at you,” he said. He took my head between his hands, his eyes wide with fear. He probed gently at my nose and I squealed and thumped him on the arm. “Sorry,” he said. “But good news—it’s not broken. Just bleeding. Put pressure on it and it’ll stop.” He examined my cheeks and then my hip. “Nothing too bad here, either—just bruises.”
Just bruises? I wanted to burst into tears. The adrenaline was receding and the pain was hitting me full force, now. My whole body throbbed and I wanted to crawl under a rock and die. “I’m sorry,” I blurted.
He stared at me. “Sorry? What have you got to be sorry about?”
I was breathing in big gulps now. It felt like I was about to start crying, but the hot explosion of tears didn’t arrive. I was stuck in the prickly-faced heaving stage that normally precedes it. “I—I couldn’t hit her. I didn’t know what to do. I messed up.”
“Messed up?!” He hugged me close. “You did great. Neither of us was ready for that. But now we can be. We know what she’s g
ot. I can teach you how to deal with that, how to fight dirty. She can’t learn to fight like you—not in a couple of weeks.” He squeezed me tighter and stroked the back of my hair. “It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.”
Now I did start to cry. I cuddled in tight against his chest, my face leaving blood on his t-shirt.
“And you did hit her. Christ, you nearly broke her jaw!”
I gave a nervous little laugh, but I didn’t feel like laughing. It had all been way too frightening: the brutal aggression; the speed at which it had all gone wrong, when she’d charged me; the cruel, male evil of the crowd at the end.
I pushed back from Aedan. “Take me home,” I begged.
He nodded and passed me the hooded top I’d brought with me. I pulled it on over my ruined tank top and we headed for the stairs.
Aedan
I pushed through the crowd, acting as a wedge to keep them clear of Sylvie. They weren’t so brave, now that they were face-to-face with her...and me. It was impossible to tell which of the men had yelled the worst things. But all of them were guilty. All of them had, at a minimum, come along and watched. None of them had left in disgust when Jacki had torn off Sylvie’s top.
I was ready to kill every single one of them.
I settled for battering them aside, using plenty of elbow and shoulder, and growling at any who resisted. Outside, I bundled Sylvie into a cab and told the cabbie to take us to my place.
I looked at Sylvie. “No arguments,” I said. “I don’t want you to be alone, tonight.”
She nodded.
At my apartment, I showed her to the shower. “Get in,” I said. “Take your time. I’ll get us something to eat.” What I really wanted was to do something nice for her—some big bath filled with bubbles and scented candles and all that girly shit. But I didn’t have any of those things. All I had to offer her was hot water and men’s shower gel. And yet she looked at me as if I’d done all that and more.
I left her alone to shower. The thought of her naked in there had me instantly hard in my pants but she’d been through too much—I didn’t want to do anything that would make her feel pressured into sex, not right now. So I retreated to the living room and ordered a massive pizza with everything on, and dug some cold beers out of the refrigerator.
When the bathroom door inched open, it was like a rerun of that time she’d fallen in the river...but so much had changed, since then. She stared at me around the edge of the door, steam billowing out around her, and I stared right back at her.
Her nose had stopped bleeding and she’d washed the blood away, but she was still red and tender there. Her left cheek had a dark bruise where Jacki’s fist had cracked across it and her right eye was turning purple, the lid swollen.
Her lip was trembling and her eyes were filled with tears. “How do I…” She swallowed. “How do I look?”
And I realized that she hadn’t seen herself, yet. The mirror in the bathroom broke a long time ago, after I—
Well. It broke.
The only mirror is in the living room, and she couldn’t see it from where she was. And I’d hustled her straight through to the bathroom when we arrived. She hadn’t seen the damage, yet.
“It’s not so bad,” I told her. I got up slowly and walked across to her, grabbing the best towel I had. She hesitantly released her grip on the door and I slowly opened it and wrapped the towel around her like a dress.
I guided her to the mirror, stepping behind her and wrapping my arms around her waist for support. Her steps got smaller and smaller as she approached. When she saw her face, I saw her go pale. I thought she was going to be sick.
“It’ll heal,” I told her as she touched her cheek. She’s never been hurt before, you feckin’ idiot, I told myself. I was used to coming home with a broken nose or a mashed-up lip, back in the day. But she’d always known the same face in the mirror. Now it had suddenly changed. She must not feel like her anymore.
I lifted my arms and wrapped them tighter around her, hugging her close to my chest. “You’re beautiful,” I told her.
She shook her head and I heard her breath catch. She was on the edge of tears.
“Beautiful,” I said. And she was. It broke my heart to see her hurt like this. But it didn’t for one second change the way I felt about her.
And for the first time, I felt that deep lurch inside, the one where you feel like the floor’s just been pulled out from under you. I’d been thinking about how much I wanted her, but I’d been skating around the other stuff: how much I liked talking to her; how she made me laugh like no one else did; how I’d wanted to protect her from the first moment I met her.
No. No way. Jesus, look at me—look at my shitty apartment. Look at what I am. She deserves a hell of a lot better than me.
She turned around, wincing as she moved her hip. “Thank you,” she whispered. And she drew me down into a soft, tender kiss. And for a little while, I let my doubts go and allowed myself to pretend we could actually be together, long term.
I could feel her naked body through the towel, cool and deliciously soft against me. But before things went any further, there was something I needed to do. I picked her up and lifted her onto the bed on her back. Then I unwrapped the towel, leaving her naked.
Her eyes widened.
I held up my hands in defense. “I’m not—Not that. I gotta check the rest of you.”
She looked chastened...and a little disappointed. “Oh.”
The way she said it made my cock twitch and strain against my thigh. Damn, but this girl turned me on. “Not that we can’t do that too,” I growled.
Her voice changed again, a nervous little laugh creeping in. “Oh!”
I looked down at her. The most gorgeous girl I’d ever seen, naked on my bed, and I had to be halfway professional, at least until I’d checked her over. I took a look at her hip, where she’d whacked it against the wall. There was one hell of an ugly bruise there, purple and green and spreading to cover an area the size of my hand. Ouch.
I took her ankle in my hand and tried lifting her leg a little, then bending it. She winced, but everything seemed to move okay. I’d been worried she might have fractured something. I tried rotating the joint a little and that seemed okay, too.
It was difficult to ignore the fact that I’d just opened her legs, and that her naked pussy was right there in front of me.
We stared at one another.
She pressed her thighs together. “I want to,” she said quietly. “But I’m not sure I can. I’m too banged up.”
I nodded quickly. “Gotcha.” And I started to cover her up. Then I saw her blink a couple of times, not quite crying but on the verge. She thought I didn’t want to. She wasn’t up to sex, but she needed that reassurance. She needed to know that I still found her beautiful.
“There is something we can do,” I said. “Without you moving.”
“Oh yeah?” she asked softly. “What?”
I opened the towel again. Her legs were still a little way apart. I climbed onto the bed and lowered my head between her thighs.
She drew in a huge, startled gasp of air as my tongue touched her lips and flicked up the line between them. I’d always loved going down on a woman and Sylvie had the sweetest, most perfect pussy of them all. Up on the roof had been great but here, with her lying on a bed, I could really go to town.
I had to be careful to avoid touching her hip, or moving her legs. I didn’t want any pain to distract from the pleasure. I slid my hands up to her breasts and began to gently stroke them, and she groaned. God, they felt so good under my palms, full and soft and with the nipples already hardening to warm, stiff buds between my fingers.
I traced the shape of each lip again and again, staying clear of her clit for now. I listened to her breathing and felt her movements under my hands. Only when she was panting and gasping and grinding her head into the pillow did I flick my tongue over the hidden little nub for the first time. I closed my mouth around it and sucked an
d she went wild.
Very slowly, I parted her folds with a finger and then slid it up into her. God, the warm, silken pressure of her around me, so smooth and perfect. I began to pump slowly at her while I wrote the alphabet with my tongue on her clit.
I heard her grab the headboard of the bed. Her breathing was coming fast, now, and I could feel her thighs twitching. She was instinctively moving to lock them closed around my head, but her banged-up hip was forcing her to keep them open. In a way, that made it even better. That little bit of helplessness, the fact she had to just surrender to my mouth.
I added a second finger and curled them into her until I found that secret place that made her groan low in her throat and arch her back. My tongue moved faster, sliding over her clit again and again, taking her higher and higher, then pulling back just before she could reach the summit. I teased her like that for a half hour, until she writhed and cried out my name and finally clawed at my shoulders and begged me. Only then did I speed up my fingers, fucking her deep and circling that secret spot. Only then did I go crazy on that firm little nub, lashing it with my tongue and this time not stopping. Only then did I take her nipples between finger and thumb and pinch….
She came, rocking the bed and banging the headboard against the wall, her whole body going tense as a bowstring. I felt the shudders run through her, loving the way she arched her back and pushed her breasts up into my hands, the way her pussy contracted around my fingers. At the very end, I moved up the bed and kissed her, my fingers still inside her, feeling the last tremors squeeze me even as she panted against my lips.
Seconds later, the door buzzer went and I rewrapped her in the towel and left her cuddled there while I paid the pizza guy. We found a position that was comfortable for her—me sitting up in the bed with her between my legs and lying back against my chest—and I fed her pizza like that, and we drank cold beers and watched late-night TV until the early hours.
Saving Liberty (Kissing #6) Page 36