by Cari Quinn
I stood up so fast I nearly lost my footing. “Say what?”
“It’s not a requirement for a good relationship, Fox,” he snapped, showing a rare hint of temper. Like seriously rare. I think the last time he’d gotten annoyed at me was when I’d slipped caffeine powder into his berry blend protein drink. That was three years ago.
“Says who? Dr. Phil?”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Why? No one’s here but Mia, and she doesn’t care who you screw. Or don’t.”
“It’s not just about screwing.”
“Giving me a relationship 101 lecture, son? You, who can’t keep a girl for three weeks straight?”
Slater’s face turned so red I thought he’d popped a blood vessel. I immediately felt bad. What the hell was I being a dick to him for? So what if I was stressed about this fight, and whatever Mia was hiding now. That didn’t give me a right to act like a fuckwit. “Fuck, man, I didn’t mean—”
“Seriously?” Mia stomped over and threw her towel at me. “Do you think now is the time for this, Fox?”
It was never good when she brought out the Fox stuff. My chances of getting laid were dwindling rapidly.
Thanks, Slater.
“Don’t bother. I’m leaving.”
“If you’d done that three minutes ago, it would’ve saved me acting like a douche.” I sighed and held out a hand. “I’m sorry. Ignore me, okay? You’ve been awesome this week.”
“I’m awesome every week.”
“Yeah, okay. Fine. You are.”
He finally gave in and fistbumped me then glanced at Mia. “I don’t know how you put up with him.”
“You ain’t the only one, brother.”
“Hey, hey.” I tossed her towel back at her and she caught it one-handed without sparing me a glance. “I have my uses.”
“And all of them occur when you’re not speaking.”
Slater snorted. “I like this girl.”
“Like? You love me. Just like I love you.” It was still surprising to watch Mia offer easy affection to anyone who wasn’t Carly, but she and Slater were tight. She gave him a quick hug and ruffled his hair like a parent with a kid then lightly shoved him away. “We’ll see you Friday night?”
“Not tomorrow?”
“Nah, I’m taking the night off.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. Actually, I was almost certain speech had failed me entirely.
Mia’s dreams had finally come true.
“You’re in great shape. Might as well use the night to rest. Or…other,” he said with a sly look at me that proved he wasn’t holding a grudge.
That was Slater, decent to a fault. I had to try harder not to abuse his good nature, especially now that I knew his sac had to be painfully full.
“Other is off the table. You know how it goes. Gotta save up before a fight.” The grin she shot me was pure evil.
Evidently she was as good at reading me as I was reading her. Or else she knew how riled up it got me to fight with her.
Hell, who was I kidding? Of course she knew. She’d probably already caught sight of my wood and was inwardly cackling about shutting me down.
“Oh hell no. You know damn well that only applies to men.”
She cocked a hip. “Sexism will get you the same place as being nasty to Slater. Denial Boulevard.”
I scowled after her as she returned to the heavy bag and resumed her workout. “Maybe I need a chick who knits,” I muttered.
“Heard that,” she called, kicking the bag hard enough to send it careening on its chains.
“Can I marry her?” Slater wondered aloud.
“No. You can leave now. Scram.”
He sniffed. “I know where I’m not wanted.”
I nearly made a crack about not being wanted in his own bed either, but somehow managed to restrain myself.
Man, if Mia really did intend to make me wait, I’d be snarling by tomorrow afternoon, forget Friday. I wasn’t good with the whole self-denial thing.
As soon as Slater had headed out, I walked over to lock the door. It was late enough that no one should need to use this particular training room. Besides, two others were available. And also, I didn’t really give a shit.
Mia was going to come clean, and then she was going to come.
She didn’t pay attention to me at first. A man with a lesser ego might get prickly at how completely she became ensnared in whatever she was doing, shutting out her awareness of me on a dime. I could never quite manage the same. But I found her skills and sense of focus incredibly sexy. I was one of the few people on the planet who could influence her in any way.
And I could—and would—make her beg.
Circling the heavy bag she continued to attack, I watched her bend and kick and punch. The wraps around her hands were starting to come undone from her repeated strikes. She was on the verge of sweating right through her white tank top, and there was no missing her red bra beneath. She didn’t think about stuff like that. There was no artifice with her. Nothing but a determined, driven, strong as fuck woman.
“You going to stand there looking at me all night or are we going to fight?” Her breathing barely wavered around the question. She was in insanely good shape.
Those thighs flexing into her kicks were about to be wrapped around mine. And not because we were going to grapple in any way but naked.
“I could look at you forever. I intend to.” I grabbed the bag and she gave it a frustrated punch before spinning away to brace her hands on her knees. Her shoulders were shaking, and not just from exertion. Something was riding her back hard, and I needed to know what.
I came up behind her and set my hands on her hips, deliberately keeping my erection from brushing the perfectly round swells of her ass. We’d try this straight first, no matter how much my dick protested.
“Tell me,” I said.
She remained bent over but every part of her braced. The muscles beneath my fingers jumped and twitched before going utterly still. “I’m good for more. Let’s spar again.”
“Mia.”
“I need more mat work. I’m getting better at that leg spin and takedown move you showed me, but my ankle still keeps twisting outward instead of in. If we could just do it a few more times, I’d get it.” She was trembling now, and an answering quaver resounded deep inside of me.
If something had unnerved her this badly, there was reason.
“I’ll get it,” she said again into the silence, and the way her voice broke at the end made me shut my eyes. “Just a few more tries. Please.”
I wrapped my arms around her midsection and pulled her back into my arms, pressing my mouth to her cheek. “Whatever it is, we’ll face it together.”
“No. I can’t.” She broke out of my hold and whirled to face me, hands on hips. The fever brightness in her eyes heralded madness or tears, or a mix of the two. “Fight me, you bastard.”
This was what I could do for her. I could make her sweat out the pain that had her in knots, even if I didn’t know its cause. I could exhaust her until she finally sagged in my arms and let me love her, even if it only happened when she had nothing left to give.
Being with her meant loving her the way she needed, not the way I did. I was lucky that sometimes we met in middle.
Tonight we’d be going all the way to the end of the line.
I didn’t give her warning before I charged at her, knocking her off her feet and rolling to the mat beneath us. She let out a startled noise but corrected in mid-air, and we landed with her on top of me. Hands already fisted, she pummeled me, attacking whatever parts she could reach. She didn’t go easy on me because we were in love. No, she tried to break me to see if I could take it.
Like she took it every goddamn day.
Some part of me wanted to let her burn herself out this way. It would be quicker, but less satisfying for her—and me. I rolled her again, pinning her easily, and caught her leg, twisting it up over my shoulder and raising
her hips and back off the mat. Panting hard, I lowered my face to hers, wanting to kiss her, to bite and mark her the way she’d branded me from the inside out, but she averted her head and kicked out, wrapping her free leg around the back of my thighs and reversing our positions. I wasn’t even sure how she’d managed it. But I was on my back again, and she was hauling my arms above my head, her eyes glowing with that unholy gleam that signaled she was sure she had me down and out.
Not so fast.
I swept her bent leg out from under her and she went down with a crash that would’ve made me pause if she hadn’t sprung right back up like a damn inflatable dummy. She attacked me with a series of jabs, forcing me back on my knees until I bent low and caught her around the waist, driving her onto her back. I caught her arms and locked them behind her head, pressing my erection into her pelvis, rocking it until she stopped squirming and went still, shock contorting her features.
“Cheater,” she panted, already arching upward to rub her hardened nipples against my chest. “You better fuck me hard enough that I can’t walk, or you’re dead.”
A challenge I was happy to accept.
“I’m going to let you go, and you’re going to take me out. If you take too long, I’m going to flip you and take you from behind. All ways from behind,” I grated, and the arousal that flared in her eyes wasn’t exactly a denial.
But that wasn’t for today. Today was for her pussy and my cock, and her heartbeat raging against mine.
As soon as I released her arms, I went on guard. She was a fighter to the last, and the promise of a thorough fucking wouldn’t dissuade her from trying to get the upper hand. But she went right for my shorts, tugging on the ties and swiftly freeing my sore cock from my cup. She grasped it in both hands, pulling hard, dragging me up her body until my mouth slanted down on hers. Her tongue slashed between my lips while her sweat-slickened, wrapped hands worked my dick.
After a minute, she swore and turned her head to start ripping the tape off her hands with her teeth. “Gotta feel you. Need your skin. Help me.”
I grabbed the other and did the same, attacking her the way that felt right. We’d gone past civilization right toward feeding like animals. Her flushed, damp skin was my sustenance, and each piece of tape I ripped away gave me more to feast on.
By the time her hands were bare, we were both panting and rocking against each other like frustrated beasts. She grabbed me again and let out a moan, her fingers moving in a blur over my thick, throbbing length.
“In me. In me. In me.” She chanted it, lifting her hips and beseeching me with her dark, drugging eyes to get her naked. I couldn’t yank her yoga pants down fast enough. I tore her tank upward and ripped open her bra, pulling apart the snaps hard enough to make some of them go flying. Neither of us cared.
I fell on her mouth again and shoved open her sticky slick thighs, surging into her all the way to the root. It wasn’t enough. Not even close. With one hand gripping her swollen breast, I hiked her leg around my waist and drove in again, cursing that I couldn’t get deep enough. She read my anguish and braced her elbows, rising up far enough that her body became an erotic bridge. Every part of her open, pink and quivering for me.
“Yes, God, yes,” she moaned as I thrust into her without cease. I couldn’t stop. I needed to fix her. Fix me.
I slammed forward again and again, shaking both of our grip on sanity until black spots danced in my vision, obscuring everything but her gorgeous, demanding face.
“More,” she begged, and I gave it to her, thrusting into her so hard that my spine tingled and the ache in my balls turned into nails of heat. I couldn’t fuck her hard enough to chase away the fear in her eyes, and it was killing me.
Her thighs trembled on either side of my hips as she forced herself wider for my entrance. Knowing I’d ram into her again and again until we were both spent, until words didn’t exist anymore.
I clenched her breast, pinching her nipple until it bloomed red. I sucked on it while I punished her pussy, giving her the pain she craved and somehow turning it into a kind of healing for us both. Nothing could harm us here. Not the outside world, and not each other. Pain transmuted into pleasure, the kind that erased everything that had come before. Burning the slate clean.
Bodies fused, mouths locked, we fell into the darkness together.
On the other side, she reached for me, her arms curling around my head. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered, the words scorching my cheek. “I’ll die without you.”
“Never.” I fumbled for her mouth and fed her my breath when hers stuttered. “You’re everything. My everything.”
She squeezed her legs tighter around me and pressed her mouth to mine. “Tell me I’m doing the right thing.”
I didn’t know if she meant the fight itself or something else entirely. As much I wanted to ask, to demand she tell me what was causing her to shake in my arms, I couldn’t use a crowbar on her heart. The rest of her, yes. But not this.
She had to want to tell me, and I had to trust she knew what she was doing. It was getting easier with every breath.
I couldn’t love her this much and not believe in her with everything I was. I had to be strong enough for us both.
“You’re doing the right thing.”
Her lips trembled under mine and then she was kissing me harder, more desperately. “Once more,” she pleaded, and there was no way I could say no.
I needed her every bit as much.
Rising up, I stroked the wet hair away from her beautiful face. And I sank her into again, groaning at how perfectly right it was.
She was lying and keeping secrets from me, and this was all I knew how to do.
Loving her until it didn’t matter anymore.
17
Mia
I came home Thursday night from an abbreviated shift at Vinnie’s to Mrs. Knox sitting at our kitchen table, sorting through the box of things she’d brought over the week before. My sister was sitting across from her, smiling over the photos and other mementoes while they chatted. Carly still wore her Cooks Do It Better T-shirt that she’d worn to class that morning, and I wanted to know how school was going since we’d barely gotten a chance to speak all week.
But I dropped my backpack next to the sleeping bag where Tray and I now spent each night, and sat at the table to look through the relics of a broken family.
He had class tonight, and a test. He hadn’t been studying, and in fact, hadn’t even intended to go this evening until I reminded him tomorrow wasn’t the end of our lives. We’d still wake up Saturday morning. We’d still be together, and Carly’s giggles would still ring in my ears when I closed my eyes. Every moment I’d lived through until this point was worth it, as long as my baby sister was still laughing.
I was fighting with everything I was to ensure that would remain true.
“Look at this picture of Fox,” Carly said, sliding the faded snapshot across the table to me. “He’s almost naked.”
Carly’s loud laughter brought Vey running as if she’d called him for dinner. He’d spent all week at the groomer’s, who happened to also be Tray’s friend. The apartment was crowded enough that adding the pup to the mix seemed like overkill, but we’d both missed him. His happy yips and the way he stood on his hind legs with his paws in my lap made me grin in spite of the sharpened blade I could feel against the back of my neck every time I took a full breath.
This was normalcy, and I’d do battle with Satan himself to hold onto it.
“Yeah, check out that droopy diaper.” I laughed at the picture, running my thumb over the corner to smooth the curled edges. I wanted to make a scrapbook. I’d meant to do that with Carly’s pictures for years, the ones taken after Mom had died, but I’d never gotten around to it.
Now I would. I had a family, and I wanted to keep their pictures close and within reach.
Ruffling Vey’s butter-soft fur, I glanced at Mrs. Knox. Her deep blue eyes, so like her son’s, were more than a little misty
. “Would you mind if I kept this one?”
“No. You can keep whichever ones you would like. That’s why I brought them here. I wanted you to have some.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“I know Elliott and I haven’t always been the best to you,” she said quietly, her attention solely on the photo of Tray I still clutched. “We didn’t think you were the right influence for Tray.”
“I’m not.” I shrugged as her head came up in surprise. “No arguments there.”
“Bullshit,” Carly said, shaking her head. “Some people go together like PB & J. You’re so his peanut butter, Ame. Don’t even try to deny it.”
I started to issue the standard responses. He could do better than me. This isn’t going to last. He’ll get tired of me eventually. All my usual fears, the ones that used to keep me up at night until possibly losing the people I love had become a real possibility. Now none of that mattered anymore.
“He’s my heart.”
It took me a moment to realize I’d spoken aloud. And then I forced myself to sit there stoic in the face of the truth, not shying away from it. If I could physically face anyone who dared step into a ring with me, I could admit I loved my boyfriend to my sister and his mother.
I could admit to myself how much I had to risk.
“As you’re his,” Mrs. Knox said finally, giving me a faint smile. “It wasn’t easy to see at first. He’s my baby boy. My only child.”
“Like I am with Carly.”
She startled at that. “But Carly’s your sister.”
“She’s all I’ve had for so many years. I didn’t know how to let anyone in.” I reached across the table to brush my hand over her long, flowing hair, smiling a little as she ducked her head and pushed my hand away. “No one is good enough for her. It’s not possible. If I could keep her in a protective bubble forever, I would.” I met her shining blue eyes and swallowed. “I’d give up my own life to see her safe. Without thought.”
Mrs. Knox nodded, her throat working. “You do understand.”
“You can’t say stuff like that anymore. Can’t think it either. You have more than just me now.”