All In

by JD Hawkins

“Do you have family? Where did you grow up? How did you get into fighting?”

  Connor takes in a deep breath. “I was born and raised in Stockton. Only child, though I always wished I had a brother. My mom died when I was ten. My dad was a martial artist—a stuntman and consultant for movies. He got me into fighting. He wasn’t around much when I was growing up, so it was something I could pour myself into when I was all on my own.”

  I continue looking at him, then tuck my hair behind my ear and say, carefully, “Sounds a little lonely.”

  He shrugs. “Maybe it was. I think I turned out okay, though.”

  “I think so, too.” Our eyes lock, and I can feel myself blushing. “Is that it, then? No skeletons in that closet?”

  “Who cares?” Connor says, his face suddenly open, soft. A look in his eyes like a man about to give in to something. “Where you come from, what your childhood was like, your dreams—it’s all just stories people tell themselves, to try and make sense of things. What matters is who you are now, how you live your life each day.”

  Connor’s leaning on his side now, his attention fully on me. I lean back onto my elbow, stretching my legs out and facing him.

  “The past makes you who you are.”

  He quirks a brow. “That doesn’t sound very ‘zen.’ Aren’t you all about ‘letting go’ of your past?”

  “That’s the idea. But there’s a difference between ignoring and letting go. You have to accept things before you can really move on from them.”

  Connor smiles and looks down at the sand for a second. “People talk too much about the past, think about it too much.”

  “And you?” I say, my voice lowering, lips pouting almost involuntarily, as if my body knows something I don’t. “You’re all about thinking of the future?”

  Connor’s face seems to come into hard focus. I hear the sound of waves lapping on the shore, the distant chatter of the crowds beyond the beach as if it’s a new thing.

  “I’m all about living in the present.”

  The way he says those words, with so much conviction and authority in his voice, makes me think them too. I want nothing more than the present, to be looked at by those fierce eyes, full of desire, as if I’m a goddess. To wait what feels like an age for his hand to move toward my cheek, and to press myself against its coarseness. I want nothing more than for Connor’s lips to touch mine—and as they do, I realize I want them to stay there, right in the present, the future too uncertain, the past meaningless.

  His kiss is tender and soft, as if he’s wary of his own strength and protecting me from the power of his immense body. It’s me who pushes with force, who sucks his lips roughly, laps my tongue against his, panting and wild. I lift my hands to either side of his face, hard stubble and hard jaw against my soft palms, and he responds by wrapping a thick, muscled arm around my leg and pulling it around him with ease. On top of him, straddling his leg, I force myself down onto those lips, urge his tongue to fight back against mine.

  Delicate restraint floods out of his body, but then he grips my ass and pulls it roughly against him, pushing my pussy against the hard shape in his shorts. He squeezes me to him and I feel deliciously overpowered, engulfed. As if I’ve woken some beast only to become its slave, unable to break free, held by his might, by my own inability to resist. He smacks my ass and sucks my tongue, hand across the back of my neck, holding me to the fire of his lips until I’m burning.

  On top of Connor’s sculpted body, riding his flexing muscles like a thoroughbred, I’m no longer Frankie Jones, pointless yoga instructor, failing studio owner, and disappointing little sister—I’m the feeling of wet pleasure between my legs, I’m the flickering heat of Connor’s tongue in my mouth, I’m the tingling joy of tracing his shoulder muscle with my fingers. I’m losing something, but it feels too good to stop. But it’s terrifying as much as it’s sensational…and I want to follow this through…but I don’t know where it goes, how far and how fast I’m willing to let myself go…

  “Wait!” I say, breathlessly, putting my hands on Connor’s chest and pushing my face away from his.

  He reacts immediately, removing his hands from my ass and looking at me with concern, though he makes no move to pull me off his body. “What’s wrong?”

  “I…I think that’s enough for me,” I say, smiling apologetically as I slide off of him and stand up, swiping the sand from my bare legs. Looking out toward where Tyson and Lucy are bathing in the fading sun so I don’t have to look back at Connor.

  “If you wanna go back to my place—”

  “No,” I say, turning back to him.

  He nods, his expression unreadable. “Did I do something wrong?”

  I laugh, still able to appreciate Connor’s occasional lapses into puppy-dog self-deprecation in the moment.

  “No. You…most definitely didn’t,” I say slowly, sighing a little. “I’ve just got a little too much on my mind right now.”

  Connor nods sincerely. “Ok. I get it. Won’t happen again.”

  This is what I wanted, to stop things from going too far, so why do I feel so awful hearing those words? “Thanks…anyway, I’m gonna go get Lucy,” I say, turning and walking toward the dogs, unable to shake the feeling that I just missed out on something amazing.

  Maybe I really am a little too proud.

  7

  Connor

  For days after my tussle with Frankie on the beach my case of blue balls is bordering on terminal. I jerk off so hard and so frequently it may as well become a part of my training routine. Even then I still can’t get her out of my head. I dream about her lips and wake up with a hard-on serious enough to be classified as a weapon. I relive every detail of the evening on the beach so many times I could write a report on it. Punching bags and pushing weights is the only time I let her out of my head—and even then it’s only because I don’t want to taint my memory of her with Butch’s croaky, constantly-enraged voice.

  “Your punches are going soft, Connor! Hit that fucking bag!”

  “There’s only so long I can imagine your face on it, Butch.”

  My next yoga class is a few days away, but there’s no way I can wait that long. I text her asking for a one-on-one session in a couple of days, making it clear that I genuinely just want to do some more breathing stuff. I doubt she’ll buy it—even I don’t totally buy it myself—so I almost hit the ceiling when she agrees. I don’t know what it means, whether she’s comfortable enough to go for it, or just wants to give me the lesson and take my money, but either way, I wanna find out.

  “Yo!” Matt says, stepping into the locker room while I’m wrapping my knuckles.

  I answer without taking my eyes away from the tape. “Hey. How’s it going?”

  “Not too good,” he says, squeezing the last of a protein shake into his mouth. “I just checked the odds on your fight against Hendrix—you’re the favorite by a longshot. Anyone would think this isn’t your first ever fight in the UFC.”

  I stop winding the tape around my hand to look at him.

  “Why’s that bad?”

  “I wanted to make some money!” he says, laughing. “Couldn’t throw the fight, could you?”

  “People always underrated Hendrix,” I say.

  “They’re certainly expecting a lot from you,” Matt says, before loudly slurping the last of his shake out of the straw.

  I finish wrapping my knuckles and flex my fingers a little.

  “Not as much as I expect.”

  As I move toward my locker I take a while examining a sore bruise on my torso that I got in sparring. After a few minutes, Matt goes to his own locker a few away from mine, opens it, and tosses his empty cup inside.

  “So,” he says, putting on the smile of someone who’s got questions they’ve wanted to ask for a long time, “what’s all this about ‘breathing exercises’ Butch told me?”

  I turn to face him, ready for the mockery and willing to face it. “Been doing them a while now. Meditation kind of thing. Y
oga, too.”

  “Yoga, huh?” Matt says, nodding as if I’m a kid who learned a new word.

  “Uh huh,” I say, not biting.

  “So who is she?”

  “Who?”

  “Come on! The broad who’s got you touching your toes! She must be wicked hot if you’re even letting her tell you how to breathe, I know guys who got divorced for the same thing.”

  I open my locker and pull out my sports bag, freezing as I hold it to look at Matt.

  “Who told you?”

  “Dude!” Matt shouts, incredulous. “I ain’t no genius, but neither are you. You didn’t get the idea yourself, and you sure as shit didn’t get the idea from Butch. The guy can barely exhale without swearing at someone.”

  I laugh and dump my gym bag on the bench, ready to pack.

  “Ok. Her name’s Frankie.”

  “Here we go…” Matt says, as if I’m about to read him a penthouse letter. But this time it’s different. Frankie’s nothing like my other conquests, and compared to Tara she’s a Disney princess.

  “She owns a yoga studio—it isn’t doing that well just yet, but she really knows her shit. I’m telling you, I haven’t felt this up for a fight in years—maybe ever.”

  “I can see that, dude. Everyone in this gym is talking about you being in the zone. I knew it wasn’t all Butch.”

  “A lot of it is her,” I agree. “It’s like having another Butch; only instead of messing with your head to make your body stronger, she’s messing with my body to make my mind stronger.”

  “Oh shit!” Matt says, his voice rising like a whistle with delight. “That’s what I’m talking about! That tantric shit! Kama-fucking-sutra! Dude, that’s good shit.”

  “We haven’t fucked yet,” I say, adjusting my bag on my shoulder and avoiding eye contact.

  Matt slams his locker shut and looks at me like I just told him I’m pregnant.

  “What? Why the hell not?”

  “It’s complicated,” I say, moving toward the door.

  “Complicated?” Matt says, like he doesn’t know what the word means, as he follows me out of the locker room. “Wait, is she not hot?”

  “She’s a yoga instructor,” I say, pushing through the side exit and stepping out onto the street. “Of course she’s hot.”

  “Ok, hold up,” Matt says, squeezing his temples like he’s squeezing the last drop out of a tube of toothpaste, “I don’t get it. She’s hot, she’s helping you be a better fighter, and you don’t want to fuck her.”

  “I wanna fuck her. Any guy would wanna fuck her—”

  “I wanna fuck her and I haven’t even seen her.”

  “It’s just…complicated.”

  “There’s that word again, dude. Am I missing something here?”

  I take a few moments to rearrange my thoughts as we step past the graffiti-ridden, trash-strewn street. Matt looks at me as if taking his eyes away will make me disappear without giving him a proper answer.

  “The thing is,” I say, “we don’t know each other that well. I mean, I know she’s got this studio that isn’t doing well, and a sister that doesn’t approve of it. I know that’s she’s kinda proud, kinda independent. But—”

  “Wait a minute, dude. Are we talking about fucking, or are we talking about something bigger? ‘Cause you’re talking like this is some real shit.”

  I turn a corner and look back at Matt, what I’m about to say too close to home for me. “You know what I went through with Tara.”

  Matt’s eagerness immediately sinks into pity. “Yeah dude, I know.”

  “I don’t need that kind of shit again—especially not now,” I say, as I stop and face him on the corner we go our separate ways from. “I mean, Frankie isn’t like that, but it’s still a risk. Plus she’s got her own shit to deal with. Dude, I wanna fuck her more than I want the UFC belt, I got it so bad for her. She’s the kind of girl you can go crazy, go to jail, or go to grave over. But the bottom line is that she’s teaching me a lot. I’m getting better, more focused, becoming a better fighter because of her. I don’t know if it’s the yoga, the breathing, or the fucking hard-ons, but whatever it is, it’s fucking good for me. So far I’m just seeing how it goes, where it leads—if it leads anywhere. ‘Cause thinking about it too much is just getting too—”

  “Don’t say it,” Matt interrupts. “I feel you.”

  I laugh and we clasp hands. “We’ll catch up soon.”

  “I hope so,” Matt says, walking backwards, “‘cause I gotta hear how this ends.”

  8

  Frankie

  This might be the first time ever that a part of me is hoping somebody won’t turn up to the studio. The only reason I don’t text Connor and cancel is because a much, much bigger part of me needs to see him again. I pace around the reception desk randomly stretching and bending, wondering how the hell I’m supposed to give a lesson on achieving focus and calm when I feel as giddy as a schoolgirl before the prom. Unfortunately, every time I pass the desk I have to look at the huge vase of gorgeous flowers that Connor sent to the studio—‘to brighten up the reception area,’ the card said, as if that’d convince me it was merely a platonic gesture. Between the heady scent of the lilies and the lush blooms of the roses and peonies, I can’t help swooning a little bit every time I look at them.

  It’s not just the flowers distracting me, though. Ever since our intense kiss at the beach I’ve been the world’s worst example of a yoga and meditation teacher. I’ve tossed and turned trying to fall asleep, I’ve daydreamed when talking to other people, zoned out in the grocery story, and found myself thinking about Connor’s biceps as soon as I sit down to do my daily meditation.

  I ask myself over and over again what exactly I want from Connor. Why I’m so shaken up by a guy whose main preoccupation is beating other guys up, a guy who gives cocky radio interviews talking about how great he is, a guy who seems a little too reluctant to talk about his past, as if he’s hiding something. I try to play out every way I see our relationship going, except I keep getting stuck on the part where we fuck, and I love it. What if Connor ends up wanting more than that, though? What if I end up wanting more than that?

  It's not like I’ve never had a one-night stand before, and not like I don’t enjoy the idea of no strings attached. I know myself and what works for me, both in and out of the bedroom—and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I know that one time with Connor would never be enough.

  Can I really handle a fuck buddy right now? Can I really afford to start thinking about a relationship when I should be spending every waking second figuring out how to stop my studio from crumbling?

  I hear the door open and whip my neck around to look. It’s him. Standing in the doorway looking like the lovechild of the beauty and the beast. Shoulders that could lift a house and legs strong enough to run with it. Suddenly all my questions seem irrelevant—of course I’m going to fuck him. The alternative would be a lifetime of wishing I’d done it when I had the chance, of feeling regret instead of the thrill of conquest, of wondering exactly what he would have felt like inside me. And I don’t want any of that. Life’s too short for ‘if only’s.

  “Hey,” I say, standing upright and setting my shoulders back, putting my typical cool front on like body armor against the barrage of overwhelming hotness. “You ready?”

  Connor narrows his eyes for only a second, a flicker of acknowledgement of the last time we met, before smiling and going along with my casual stance.

  “Sure,” he says. “The flowers look good there, by the way.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “I love them. They really do make the reception area look nicer.”

  He nods. “Let’s get to it, then. After you.”

  He follows me to the studio and I put a little sway in my hips, knowing that he’s licking me with his eyes. I stop in the center of the room and spin around to watch him step out of his shoes and drop his gym bag at the entrance, then saunter over to join me.

  “Stil
l don’t have your own yoga mat?” I say, winking.

  Connor looks down like a schoolkid who forgot his pen. “I might be tough, but even I can’t protect myself against the jokes I’d get if the guys saw me carrying one of those.”

  I laugh and grab a spare from the storage shelves on the far side of the room.

  “No worries, this one is practically yours anyway.”

  Connor takes it from me without breaking eye contact, then rolls it out in front of me.

  “Ok, so what I thought would be good for you to do today,” I continue, clinging to the formal routine of conducting an actual lesson like clinging to a ship mast in a thunderstorm, “is work on body scanning. We kinda did a bit of that in the yoga classes, but it can be really important in itself, especially in conjunction with meditation and breathing.”

  Connor nods, but there’s a sense of dissatisfaction all over his face like a bad poker hand. I see his eyes move down to my sports bra for a moment, a quick flicker, easy to miss, the eyes of a fighter, but I know his face too well by now not to notice.

  “Um…Frankie…”

  “Yes?” I say, tightly, as if I don’t know what he’s going to say, what he wants to say. So that I can act surprised when he does, pretend that it isn’t what I’ve been desperate to hear since the moment I woke up this morning.

  Connor looks at me, studies my butter-wouldn’t-melt expression, then chuckles nervously and waves a hand.

  “Nothing. Forget it. So…body scanning.”

  “Ye—yeah,” I say breathily, quickly clearing my throat to cover up the effect he’s had on me. “Yes. I’ll explain what it is first, and how it can be useful.”

  “Sounds good,” Connor says coolly—is he already over it? Was that it? I would have bet good money he was about to pull me against him and rip my clothes off not three seconds ago, and now it’s like it never happened. Did I imagine the whole thing? Either way, I can’t let it get to me. I’m a professional, and for better or worse he’s my student right now. Anything beyond that can wait.