by Bella King
“Where are you going?” I asked, having to stop myself from lurching at him. There was an embarrassing amount of desperation in my voice.
“It’s time to fight,” he called over his shoulder, leaving me in the car and walking into the corner store without me.
I cursed him under my breath, unbuckling my seatbelt and jumping out after him. “Wait up!”
Chapter 19
Mason’s opponent towered over a foot higher than him, twice as wide, and probably twice his age as well. He had tattoos running up both his arms, and even a few on his beastly face. He was an ugly man, but he looked like he could pound a person into a thin pancake if he was pissed off.
I was afraid for Mason. He looked woefully underprepared to take on such a giant man, but he bounced around confidently in front of him, hitting his gloves together and breathing loudly as he warmed up for the fight.
I had to down two drinks before I felt like I could handle watching this happen. I normally didn’t like whiskey and coke, but I was beginning to feel like I needed it to stand watching men fight like this. Not only was it scary, but I felt like it could easily go too far and end up with someone in the hospital or even dead.
“Another one for you?” The bartender asked me, raising her thin eyebrows.
I looked at the empty glass in my hand and then back up at her. She gave me a forced smile, impatient for my response.
“Yeah, I’ll have another,” I said, sliding the glass toward her.
She took it, and in a few moments I had another cold glass of liquid poison in my hand. I turned back to the ring just as the fight started.
Mason danced around the larger man, throwing pretend punches as though to taunt him, a goofy grin stretched across his wickedly handsome face. What the hell was he up to, fighting like that? The other man looked like he might throw a punch at any second and knock Mason on his cocky face.
“Hit the bastard already,” someone jeered.
I turned to find a bearded man with a potbelly and huge forearms standing next to me, leaning up against the bar with a beer raised in the air. He took a sip after shouting, then turned his head to me when he realized I was looking at him. “Enjoying the show, babe?”
I looked left and right, as though I were trying to figure out if he was talking to me. I knew he was, but I wished he wasn’t. “I’m just here to watch Mason,” I said, hugging my drink closely to my body.
“Huh, Mason the small one,” he said, looking at my shoes and then slowly up my legs. His eyes settled on my bare thighs before moving higher to my breasts. After what seemed like a lifetime, he finally settled back on my face.
“Mason’s not small, but the other guy is huge,” I pointed out.
“Is he your boyfriend or something?” The man grunted, his eyes dancing over my body again.
Jesus, why did he have to be so creepy. This was like what Mason had been doing times a thousand. I was starting to feel a bit panicked just from his look alone, even though we were in a crowded place.
I shook my head. “He’s just a friend.”
The burly man chuckled. “Poor guy doesn’t know what he’s missing,” the man said, shaking his head.
I frowned, then turned back to the boxing ring when I heard the crowd getting loud. Mason was jabbing left and right hooks at the larger man, beginning to wear him down. Mason hadn’t taken a hit yet.
“Well, your friend is going to get pummeled by my friend. I got some money on the big guy,” the bearded man beside me said.
I looked at him again, trying to keep one eye on the ring to make sure Mason didn’t get beaten to death if the larger guy managed to plant a punch on him. I nodded, not paying attention to the bearded man.
“Yessir, I’m going to enjoy myself tonight,” he said, looking me up and down again.
I got a chill down my spine, and not in a good way. This guy was seriously giving me the creeps. I scooted down the bar a little and gulped down the rest of my drink. Three drinks in under thirty minutes were enough to make me feel a bit more than tipsy.
I stabilized myself against the bar and decided against ordering more, trying to focus on the match instead. Mason seemed to be winning, which was good. He was still moving with the same energy and vigor that he was at the beginning of the match, while his opponent was clearly losing steam.
I glance at the potbellied bearded man beside me at the bar, and he didn’t look especially happy. His thick brow was furrowed in concentration, face turning redder by the second as his guy took hit after hit.
I looked back at the game. I was trying to hold out until the end, but my bladder was now berating me for having drunk so much. I needed to go to the bathroom before I pissed myself in the middle of the club. I was never one to be able to hold it for very long. Lengthy car trips were a bitch.
I left the bar and wove through the crowd of people. It was a thick crowd, difficult to get through, but I made it to the other side of the room where the single bathroom was located so that I could relieve myself before I became a spectacle.
The bathroom door was loose on a set of rusty hinges, and swung open awkwardly to reveal a man standing there already using it. I shielded my eyes, profusely apologizing and backing up. The door swung shut with what would have been a loud clatter had it not been drowned out by the noise of the crowd.
I wanted to get back to watching the fight to see who was winning. Judging by the noise, it was starting to come to a close, but I couldn’t see a thing through all the people jumping and yelling at the ring. I waited outside the bathroom until its occupant exited. I gave him an apologetic look, but he rushed past me to get back to the bar.
I sighed and entered the bathroom. It was just a single small stall with barely enough room to sit down. The whole place was glistening wet from many hours’ worth of beer and bad aim. There was a sad little roll of toilet paper that appeared to have met a similar fate as the rest of the bathroom, but if I unrolled enough of it, I could probably get a dry piece.
There was no latch on the bathroom door, which concerned me. I would have to hold it shut while I went. I grabbed the small gritty handle on the door and pulled it shut all the way as I lifted my dress, moved my panties down, and hovered over the toilet.
I managed to get my business down without touching any surfaces of the bathroom. Having to hold the door closed was actually a blessing in disguise because it helped me stabilize my body so that my thighs weren’t screaming at me under the stress of the difficult position. I was no athlete.
I straightened myself up and looked for a sink, but there was none. Great. I turned around in the small cubicle to leave, letting go of the door handle so that I could push it open.
As I tried to open the door, I was met with a weight leaning against it. Someone was blocking my way out. I pushed the door, knocking it gently against the person. They didn’t move at first, but when they did, they didn’t move out of the way. They opened the door and stepped into the stall with me.
Chapter 20
“Looks like your little friend won,” the potbellied bearded man said as he pushed me back toward the toilet with his large chest.
The force of his body was far greater than I could push against. I stumbled back a step and the rear of my bare thighs met the toilet seat. I yelped at the coldness, but also at the shock of being pushed back by this burly man.
“Get out of here,” I managed to say, but my throat felt like it was closing up, not allowing me to speak at full volume.
“I think we should stay here together for a while. Maybe you can show me what that pretty mouth can do,” he said, a smile opening up his mouth to reveal a row of crooked teeth.
“No thanks,” I said, pushing a hand against his stomach, trying to maintain a level of confidence in the situation.
“I’ll let you go when you give me what I want. Fair deal, if you ask me,” he grumbled. He reached out with his pudgy hand and gripped the hand that I had against his stomach, twisting my arm around painfull
y.
I yelped, raising a leg to kick him, but I didn’t have enough room to get it off the ground all the way. He was pinning me against the toilet, pressing his musky body into me. I could smell the sickening scent of his sweat mixed with a good few bottles of cheap beer. The odor rose from his skin like the stench of rotten garbage.
I felt sick to my stomach at what he was doing. I knew what his intentions were and I was terrified, but I wasn’t going to give in to him without a fight. I would knock his crooked teeth out if I had to, but I wasn’t going to let this happen to me.
“Let’s see what’s under that pretty dress,” the man said, moving a hand to my thigh as he continued to twist my arm.
I smack his hand away from my dress, but he was strong. He shoved me back, slammed my body against the toilet hard enough to make my knees buckle. I fell down, my ass slamming against the seat. He grabbed at my dress, trying to lift it up and expose me.
I was vulnerable, but so was he now that my legs were free. I took a moment to let him lift my dress, then drove a leg up in the air toward his face, driving the dirty bottom of my sneaker into his chin. This knocked him back, and his heavy body fell toward the door, pushing it open as he tumbled out of the bathroom.
I could run now, but I froze. He seemed to be up much faster than I could react. I couldn’t think and I couldn’t move as he came toward me again. I had missed the chance to escape, and now I was going to pay the price. This was what it had come to. After all these years caring for my dying father, the good karma wasn’t enough to prevent this atrocity from happening to me in some seedy club under an abandoned convenient store.
If I hadn’t come here with Mason, I would be in my bed by now, curled up under the covers and excited for what the next day would bring me. I would be able to go out with Emma the next day and joke about all the mean things we would do to Mrs. Roadsworth if we were ever expelled. I would never feel in any sort of danger, smoking a joint and talking about the future with my friends. That was what I stood to lose the moment I didn’t take my chance to escape.
Except now, it was too late. The large bearded man was coming back to me, and he looked as irate as he could ever be, a thick vein popping in his flushed forehead. Everything was moving in slow motion as he came toward me. I was prepared to kick again, but this time, I didn’t have to. Mason arrived.
Mason flew into the bathroom stall with a look of pure rage on his face. He had clearly survived the last fight and there seemed to be no end to the energy he had left. He grabbed the large man by his waist and spun him out of the bathroom, slamming him into a wall outside.
I got up, pushing the door open as it tried to swing closed so that I could see what was going on. Mason already had the man pinned against the wall, and was dealing blows straight to his head over and over. A few punches in, and the man was out like a light, but that didn’t stop Mason. He continued to let his fists fly, beating the man until someone pulled him off.
Suddenly, the entire club was in chaos. People were shouting and crowding around the new fight, as though it was the special entertainment of the night. Mason grabbed me by the arm, yanking me out of the bathroom and looking at me with wild eyes. He shook me by the shoulders. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” He shouted over the noise.
I was too stunned to answer him. I looked at him as though he was the only man on earth. He was my hero, but he was also the one who had pulled me into this. I wondered if he felt responsible for it.
“Are you okay?” He repeated, shaking me harder.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” I said, overcoming the initial shock.
“We need to leave,” he said, yanking me into the crowd as someone nursed the bloodied man that had tried to assault me.
I gave his limp body the finger as I was dragged out. “Rot in hell,” I yelled as Mason pulled me out of the club.
“Fuck, what the hell happened?” Mason asked when we got outside. His eyes were moving all over me, searching for signs of injury.
“I’m okay, Mason. The guy, he was going to do something bad,” I said, not wanting to use the word to describe what his intentions had been. It made it too real, and too scary. It didn’t happen, so I didn’t want to say it.
Mason shook his head. “I’m sorry, Jasmine. This is my fault.”
Well, at least he was admitting to being the one who got me into trouble, but I didn’t feel good about him saying that. I didn’t want him to feel bad at all. I just wanted things to be okay between us. I lifted my shaking hand and placed it on his cheek, looking into his panicked eyes. “You’re my hero, Mason. Thank you,” I said gently, trying to put him at ease.
He chuckled. “I beat him down pretty good. That’s two in one night,” he said proudly.
I couldn’t help but laugh at how he made light of such a serious situation. At the end of the day, he was still an arrogant douchebag, but now, I felt like he was starting to be my arrogant douchebag, and that made a world of difference.
“I need to get cleaned up. That bathroom was pretty nasty,” I said, wrinkling my nose at the thought of how much grime was probably stuck to the backs of my legs and my dress.
“I can take you home if you want,” he said.
“I’d rather go to your place,” I said, not forgetting how aroused I was by what he had done to me in the car. Even after all the danger I had encountered in the club tonight, I still wanted more of Mason. I felt an incredible urge to have him ruin me in the bedroom, and I wanted to make that clear.
“Are you sure,” he asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
I nodded. “That is, if you’re not too much of a pussy,” I joked.
“No,” he said with a shrug, “But my parents aren’t going to like that you’re there.”
“Then get a hotel big boy. Didn’t you just win a bunch of money?” I asked, egging him on.
He chuckled. “You’re right. Let’s get out of here.”
“I’m way ahead of you,” I replied, circling around his car and pulling open the door.
Chapter 21
“Why are you at such odds with your parents?” I asked as we drove to the nearest motel to spend the night.
He pulled his head back, making a face that told me he didn’t want to talk about it. I wouldn’t let him go that easily. I needed to know more about what was going on in his personal life. Maybe it would explain why he was out in such a dangerous club beating people up for money.
“Trying to avoid talking to me about it isn’t helping your case,” I cautioned.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said, attempting to smooth it over. “We get along fine.”
I didn’t buy it. “Then why are you trying to make money on your own? Aren’t they paying for your stuff?”
“No, they don’t want to anymore,” he said. “That’s normal. I’m an adult.”
“Your parents are also loaded. Why wouldn’t they help you out?”
“Because it’s not their job,” he replied, sticking to his story.
“Don’t play games with me. I know there’s something more than that going on. What’s the deal?” I asked. I needed him to level with me if we were going to get any further together emotionally. Sex was fine and all, but it didn’t make for a real relationship. I wanted more.
“My stepdad and I don’t have the best relationship, but that’s irrelevant,” he said.
“I doubt that very much. Why don’t you two get along?” I asked.
“He has a bad temper,” Mason said, staring down the road as though it were a thousand miles long.
I sensed something sinister behind those words, so I proceeded with caution. “Does he get aggressive with you?” I asked, placing my hand gently on his thigh.
He shook his head, flashing me a fake smile. “Not anymore. I can hold my own now,” he said, raising a fist from the steering wheel and shaking it for emphasis.
I was horrified. Did he fight his stepdad at home? “Did he hit you or something?”
“He
used to, yeah, but like I said, I put a stop to it. He can’t keep his anger in check and I have to do what I have to do to defend myself. That’s just survival, you know? Plus, I found that it makes me money to know how to fight, so really, I should thank him,” he said.
That was fucked up, but I didn’t want to argue the point. I was more curious about what his mother was doing about this. “Does he hit your mom?” I asked.
His face sank. I could tell that I struck a chord there, but there was no going back. He took a deep breath and glanced at me. “Let’s talk about something else, okay? I’m trying to get out of there, and maybe I can take my mother with me. She just loves the guy, but I don’t understand why. She doesn’t want to leave.”
I shook my head, amazed. All this at home and Mason was still able to come to school every day and do what he needed to do. He was a strong man, and I felt a bit guilty for judging him so critically when I first saw him again. Yes, he had changed, but maybe it wasn’t for the worst after all. Maybe he was still a good guy.
I squeezed his thigh as we pulled into the parking lot to a dimly lit motel a few miles down the road. “I’m sorry, I won’t ask about it again. I just needed to know why you were so intent of fighting for money.”
“I do what I have to,” he said, then turned to me. “And tonight, that happens to be you,” he continued with a smirk.
I couldn’t think of another time I had thought a man was so sexy. His arms were still pumped up from the fight, and his face was so defined and masculine that it made butterflies come into my stomach as I gazed upon him. I was smitten, and that was something I no longer felt like denying. I wanted him badly, and tonight, I was going to have him.
I squeezed his thigh again, looking deep into his eyes. I saw what he intended to do in those powerful eyes, and I wanted it more than anything. Finally, he and I were aligned in our desires, and something beautiful was about to come of it. I smiled at him, tilting my head down and looking up at him with seduction all over my face. “Take me.”