by Mel Curtis
She couldn’t afford temptation. It was late. If traffic was bad – and let’s face it, traffic in Southern California was always bad – she’d miss the female fighters completely. Esme turned and walked out.
It wasn’t until the valet made eye contact with her and opened the passenger door to a black Ferrari that she realized she wasn’t alone.
~*~
For the second time in two days, Graham sat in the audience at a mixed martial arts fight. For the second time in two days, he didn’t want to be in the crowd. This time, he wanted Esme alone. He wanted to satisfy this fascination with her so that he could move on.
He'd driven her to an exclusive neighborhood in Beverly Hills in his Ferrari. Other than giving him directions, she’d been quiet.
The event was held at a mansion – literally in a large backyard, calling to mind the way Hank had referenced unsanctioned bouts. The cage had been erected on a tennis court. The chairs set up on the court and the hilly backyard surrounding it. They were in the cheap seats, not because Graham hadn’t tried to upgrade to the tennis court, but because Esme had refused. She’d slipped her hand behind his neck, drawn his ear to her lips and whispered that she couldn’t afford to be recognized. The feel of her warm breath across his skin was enough to make him obey.
So far, they’d watched a fight between two women who would have had their butts kicked on a high school playground. They were that bad. Not exactly worth the two hundred dollar per person price of admission.
Dance music blared. Informally dressed cocktail waitresses worked their way through the audience.
Graham leaned over to speak into Esme’s ear. “Why are we here?” Why weren’t they in bed?
Esme turned, her bare lips brushing his cheek. “Kyle Harper is cheap. Unsanctioned fights draw amateurs looking to create buzz before they go pro.” She waited until he looked into her soulful brown eyes. “I could hurt an amateur.”
Like the two women they'd just watched. His respect for her was already high. It went up a notch.
“So you pick your opponents.” He traced a finger down the side of her face, learning the peaks and valleys of her features so he could recognize her regardless of the disguise she chose.
Esme sucked in a breath.
He let his index finger trace the fullness of her mouth. “Kiss me.” Graham slid his other hand up her thigh, splaying his fingers around the flesh beneath her short hem. They were at the end of a row in the shadows beneath an oak tree. No one would notice if they got busy. “Kiss me or let me have my way…here.” His fingers extended, brushing against satin panties. He wished she hadn’t worn them tonight.
Her mouth quirked up on one side. “I don’t have to kiss you to make you stop.”
“True.” But she wasn’t stopping him. “I can tell you want to…do things.” He inched his hand higher beneath her skirt. “So why not just go with it?”
She removed his hand from beneath her dress. “Because you could ruin everything.” Despite her words, her lips sealed onto his for a deep kiss. There was heat and there was passion, and a struggle for dominance as they tongue-fucked.
Here was a woman as strong and strong-willed as he was, determined not to let their bodies become involved. And yet, when they touched, the heat they generated evaporated reason. His erection swelled. They needed a room, a stairwell, the shadowy tree trunk.
The emcee announced a bout between Sarah Williams and Maria Valdez. People around them stood. Some cheered. Others booed.
Esme drew back, staring at him with eyes clouded with desire. “Crap.”
“We are going to rock it in bed.” If they ever made it to a bed. Graham’s hand was fisted between her thighs, knuckles pressing into the hollow of her pelvis. Forget what he'd said earlier about not wanting to own her. He was staking a claim and making sure she understood.
“You have the worst timing.” She stood, straightening her dress, and tried to get a look at the contenders. “This is what I came for.”
“I’ll wait.” Graham got to his feet. “But after this fight, I’m going to…How did you put it?” He draped an arm around her shoulders and spoke in her ear. “Screw your brains out.”
She sighed. “Can we have this discussion a month from now?”
“No.” God, no. He wasn’t waiting that long to have her. "I don't do rain checks."
The first contender, Maria, was fit and slender, lighter than Esme. She looked stringy tough, like a starving gymnast. Applause for her was lukewarm. And then Sarah was announced, entering the cage to a chorus of boos. Sarah’s build was different, bulkier than Esme’s, broad shoulders, straight-as-log legs, almost as if...
“Why does Sarah look like a man?”
“Because she’s transgender. Just completed her surgery last year.” Esme never took her eyes off the woman. “She’s good. Really good.”
Graham struggled to rectify the image of the fighter to a female. “You’re not thinking of fighting a guy.” Esme was good. She’d destroyed Steve. But Steve was an untrained asshole.
The desperation was back in Esme’s eyes. “Sarah’s no longer a man.”
“But the testosterone – ”
“No longer an issue because of Sarah’s hormone therapy.” She set her mouth in a determined line.
The crowd settled into their seats.
“Sarah used to be a boxer.” Esme sat on the edge of her chair. “She’s perfect.”
The first round began. Sarah had a killer instinct that rivaled Esme’s and a longer wingspan that allowed her to land blows without coming close enough to be hit herself. Graham wasn’t convinced testosterone wasn’t a factor. Sarah punched hard. Every punch she landed set her opponent back. Every punch she landed was booed. The first round ended.
Graham’s hand found Esme’s. “Why isn’t he…she a professional?”
“No one will fight her.”
“And you want to? Odds are – ”
“Against me.” She grinned at him, but it was a resigned grin, a soldiering grin. “I’d be an underdog for once.”
Cold understanding had him gripping her hand tighter. “That’s why you want me to place the bet.” She was going to gamble her way to the hundred grand.
“I guess you didn’t just win the lucky Richmond family sperm lottery. You’ve got brains underneath all that thick hair.” Her smile faded and her tone turned serious. “Will you help me?”
“No.” It went against everything he’d vowed not to be, everything his grandfather had taught him about being a man. “Why do you need the money?”
She stared at their joined hands. “Eleven months ago, my dad, my sister and I were in a car accident. Pop suffered a stroke that damaged his leg nerves.” Her eyes were dark, watery pools of regret. “He isn’t paralyzed, but he has an ever shrinking window to repair the nerves in his legs so he can walk again.”
“Medical coverage?”
“For the self-insured? For what’s still considered experimental surgery?” She shook her head, blinking her tears away. “I’ve got a month to raise the money.”
Now Graham understood her desperation. But he didn’t want to see her fight Sarah. He couldn’t let her fight Sarah. It was too dangerous, even for a fighter as good as Esme. “I’ll give you a loan,” Graham blurted as the bell for the second round sounded.
Esme shook her heard. “I’m undefeated. Nobody stays undefeated forever. And if I'm not winning, I can't promise to pay you back.” She turned her attention back to the ring, studying her opponent as if her life depended on it.
Chapter 6
“Why do you want to buy the Harper Complex?” Esme fidgeted in the stiff Ferrari seats. They were made for racing, not for comfort.
They were still a few minutes away from the Wilshire. Ever since she’d told Graham about Sarah, he’d been quiet. There’d been no demands for kisses or proclamations that they were going to get busy soon. She had a sense that they’d part ways once they reached the hotel.
It was exact
ly what Esme wanted.
So why did it make her chest ache?
“My grandfather built the Harper Complex back in the eighties. My father lost it in a bet ten years ago. And I…I value family and family history.” Graham drove with a fluid economy of movement, changing gears without flourishes or ramming the shifter home. Everything he did was as smooth as his slow Texas twang.
He’d be good in bed, too.
Her libido. It talked too much lately.
“It’s nice you want to restore the family holdings,” she said absently.
He sent her a dark look.
“You take offense to the term nice?”
“I’m not nice.” His voice rumbled deeper than the engine. “I take what I want, by any means I can. And I want you.”
“So you’ve said.” She placed a hand on his thigh, testing him. Testing herself. “What are you willing to do to get me? You could place a fifty thousand dollar bet without Kyle questioning you.”
“I won’t gamble to get you.” He didn’t look at her, but he didn’t brush off her hand. “And you shouldn’t either. You could lose everything.”
“If I don’t have a hundred grand in four weeks, it’s the same as having nothing. I can beat her.” But Esme’s back twitched apprehensively. Sarah may be more boxer in style than marital artist, and less likely to land a kick to Esme’s spine, but she punched like a machine. A blow to Esme’s kidneys could be devastating.
But so would be missing the chance to help Pop walk again.
Esme pushed forward. Both with her arguments and her hand, reaching for his package, pressing her palm into the bulge at his crotch. “You don’t do one night stands, but we had one. You don’t let women spend the night, but we’re going back to your hotel. Why not place a bet for a…friend?”
"I live – or try to live – by a set of rules.” His voice had sunk into a territorial growl. “My father had no principles. He nearly drove our company into bankruptcy a decade ago. He drank, he gambled, he spent money on women he barely knew and then he did us all a favor and rammed his Porsche into a power pole. I’m not going down the same path. I have a mom, a kid sister and a couple of cousins depending on me.”
Her fingers touched something between his legs as hard as his words. “Well, you aren’t without a few vices of your own. You drink. And you drive fast cars.”
“But I don’t let women manipulate me.” He scowled, sparing a glance toward her hand, which he left right where it was.
She outlined his interest in her with fingers that trembled. Clearly, she was in for a penny and in for a pound, negotiating for Pop. “Tell me…if you could have me anywhere, where would it be?”
“I won’t be played, Esme. The answer is no.”
They came to a stop at the left turn into the hotel portico.
Esme switched tactics and took his hand from the gear shift and slid it between her legs, a place he seemed enamored with. It was a bold move. A daring move. A cheap, slutty move.
Well, he’d said he’d seen desperation in her eyes. This shouldn’t surprise him. “Last night, you were lying in bed and thinking about me. Where did you picture us doing it?”
He cupped the juncture of her thighs. “On my balcony. Overlooking the city,” he said gruffly. “And you?”
“Just a bed.” Her phone chimed with a text message. Leaving his hand where it was, she checked it. “It’s from Kyle. The fight with Sarah is next Friday, providing Sarah agrees to his terms.” She hadn’t dreamed Kyle would schedule another event so soon. That had to be a sign, right? She hoped the sign said she could have it all.
She tightened her legs around Graham's hand.
“I won’t place your bet.” Graham made the turn smoothly into the hotel’s drive without taking his hand off her or shifting out of first gear. “But you will come upstairs with me.”
“Why?” She was wet and wanting. Sex would erase the mind-boggling what ifs. But self-preservation urged her to say no. He and his principles could break her heart. “You want me to come up just to avoid breaking your one-night stand rule?”
“Yes.”
The valet ran up to the car, but paused when he noticed them talking, giving them a few more moments of privacy.
Esme removed Graham’s hand. “Those rules of yours are going to be your downfall.”
“Come see my balcony, Esme. You won’t regret it.”
She regretted hesitating. “I’m stuck, Graham. I’m stuck and making love to you won’t get me out of this corner I’m trapped into. I need this one last fight and a way to double my money.” And then she’d retire for good like she’d promised Daisy months ago. Her back didn’t twinge at the thought of not fighting, but her heart panged because she loved the release fighting gave her.
Graham ran a knuckle down the side of her face. “What if I…introduced you to someone I trusted who could place the bet?”
“You’d do that for me? Despite your rules?” She swallowed and added in a small voice that she hated, “Even if I went home? Right now?”
“Even if you went home and I had a one night stand on my record.” There was that slow smile. It curled into the hard planes of his face. It curled deep within her. That smile, his reassurances, and her slim hope were enough to silence self-preservation for one night.
A few minutes later, Esme stood in the living room of Graham’s suite. The lights were dim. The surroundings plush. She held a cold beer, but it couldn’t cool the burning race of her heart.
He stood by the wet bar, drinking his beer and watching her. Earlier, he’d mentioned wanting to get to know her. She didn’t want to waste time on talk, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t drop some information into the conversation.
She set her beer on the coffee table. “I spent most of the last fifteen years in gyms and most of my weekends in the cage. Do you know what that means to a girl?”
He shook his head slowly.
“It means you get used to men seeing you in your underwear.” She reached behind her and tugged down her zipper. The front of her dress fell forward. She stopped it from falling to the floor by squeezing her arms against her breasts. “How comfortable are you naked?”
“I’d rather see your bare ass than mine.” One corner of his mouth curled upward.
“Noted, but this isn’t a strip tease.” If she let him touch her like he had last night, she’d shatter. She didn’t want this to be over quickly. She didn’t want him to ask her to leave before morning, even though midnight had long since passed. “Take off your tie, Graham.”
He set his beer down and walked toward her.
“Stop right there.” She held up a hand, hoping he didn’t notice how husky her voice had become. “Remove some clothes.”
Still smiling, he slid his black silk tie off, unknotting it with nimble fingers.
Esme licked her lips. “Unbutton your shirt.”
That slow smile was back, doing damage to her equilibrium. But he complied. The buttons came undone and he spread the fabric apart. “Like what you see?”
“I’ve seen better abs on store mannequins.” Such a lie! He had a six-pack and a dark line of hair disappearing beneath his beltline. “Take your shirt off. The pants, too.” Where had this brazen woman come from? She needed to talk to him about limits. Her back. Birth control.
He gestured with a finger that she let her dress drop.
She did, limits immediately forgotten. The orange fabric pooled at her feet, leaving her feeling the chill caress of the air conditioner and his expectations. She knew what he’d see – a woman who was too thick and curvy by today’s standards. Her thighs weren’t pencil thin. Her arms weren’t as narrow as toothpicks. Her hips weren’t without padding. “I like cookies.” And French fries. And steak. Right now, she’d like to eat him.
“Don’t apologize for that.” There was a deep hunger in his dark eyes. “You’re beautiful.”
Two words she rarely heard. She hugged them close, trying to imprint the slow, sexy twang to
memory. But there were other memories to make tonight. “You’re overdressed, handsome.” She pointed to his pants, amazed that she could command him to strip but not talk about more serious topics.
He shucked his socks and shoes, slid his pants down, and removed his shirt, draping his clothes neatly over a chair back. He was big and hard beneath a pair of black boxer briefs. “Now who’s overdressed?”
“These are my negotiating chips.” She gestured to her bra. “They don’t come out until you agree to some boundaries.”
“There are no boundaries,” he growled, coming closer.
“Don’t touch.” She held up a hand again. “I haven’t said yes to anything but looking.”
He didn’t slow down, stalking her around the coffee table. “I need to look up close. I make it a rule never to recommend a business connection if I can’t trust that the party looking for a deal isn’t hiding something.” He stopped within inches of her and peered into her cleavage, using one finger to draw the center clasp of her bra away from her skin.
She wanted his hands on her. She wanted his breath on her. She wanted his mouth on her.
Esme had to swallow twice before she could speak. “I’m not on birth control.”
His finger traced the top of one lace cup. “I bought a big box of condoms today.”
Hallelujah! “I was injured in the car accident. I may be strong, but if I say no to something…”
“I’ll stop.” He gave a low chuckle. “If I’m sane.”
I drive him crazy.
Feminine power surged. Her legs threatened to give out. She grabbed onto his strong arms.
“I want you, Esme.” He was so close, his breath cascaded over her skin. “I want to kiss every luscious inch of you and discover what makes you scream. I want to see how well our bodies fit together. I want to make you arch into me, using your hips to beg for more. I want to grab onto your body with the same urgency you grab onto mine.”
Esme struggled to draw a breath. No one had talked to her like that. Not ever. Guys went nuts over Daisy, not her. “The only question is…how many times can you make me come before dawn?”