All In

by JD Hawkins

  Three seconds later I’m on my ass.

  Pete came out of the corner like a wrecking ball, kicks and punches like he’s got more than four limbs, the conviction of a man with everything to lose behind each hit. I didn’t have a chance. He catches my side with a bone-shattering punch then helps me on my way down with a leg sweep so quick it’s like I’m fighting two people.

  As he swoops down on me like a vulture, it’s all I can do to stop him from getting the best pin on me. We clutch each other on the floor, Pete with the advantage, but me with my arms free enough to punch when he commits himself too much. A physical chess match of tiny movements, reading every slight shift of weight, every indication of what the other’s going to do next. He tries to raise his shoulders but I throw a punch that’s too close to his head. I try to pull him under me but he takes advantage by pinning my leg.

  The bell rings, and this time it sounds like a parole officer giving me a pardon. I skulk back to my corner slowly, taking every second to oxygenate my crushed lungs, to let my aching muscles recover what little they can.

  I glance at the seats. Empty. Not even Matt there now.

  “Two more rounds, Connor, but you’ve got to pull something back on him,” Butch says, just about audible over my quick pants and thumping heart. “He’s as tired as you are. Don’t give up, pull out every last bit of strength and aggression you’ve got, lad.”

  The bell rings, and the crowd sounds more like a party now. Whatever happens, they’ve got their money’s worth, and now they’re just enjoying the sight of me and Pete pushing each other to the limit. Two half-dead bags of muscle and guts surprising each other with what the human body can do.

  We swap a few blows, heads low between hunched shoulders, feet shuffling rather than skipping now, but no less quick. Running on gas and trying to sprint. I start faking, and Pete bites, pushing forward quickly. I move out of the way, but Pete’s too far for me to do anything about it.

  That’s when I see her. Frankie. In the seat she was always meant to be in, leaning forward, my name on her lips.

  Those eyes change everything. Send a surge of electric energy through me like this is the first round and not the fourth. I start throwing big combinations, heavy, energetic, quick combinations. The audience take it for showboating and get a whole new level of enthusiasm themselves.

  Pete gets angrier, his punches sharper and his body heavier. I throw a loose right, badly timed, badly positioned, completely missing Pete and bringing me right beside him. Sloppy. The kind of punch a showboating, tired fighter would throw without thinking. Worst punch I’ve ever thrown, leaving my side completely vulnerable.

  Only somebody who doesn’t know what I’m capable of, who doesn’t think much of me, who thinks I’m just a pretty face and a big mouth, would expect me to make a dumb move like that. Luckily, Pete’s one of those people.

  He launches a hard fist into my side. I’m expecting it, but it still hurts like a motherfucker, still makes me feel like every joint in my body has been dislocated at the same time. It also brings his head near enough to my outstretched arm that I can bring it back sharply, hard elbow against ugly jaw, the crack of bone which even Pete’s knotted flesh can’t shield.

  He spins away, tumbling to his knees, his back to me, and the spot on my side that feels like Pete left a knife in it explodes into worlds of pain. I push through to wrap an arm around the front of his neck and lock him into a choke. He flails, bucks, and grasps at my arms, trying to throw me off, but I wrench him a few times to let him know I’m going nowhere, that it’s over.

  Pete doesn’t tap. I might not either, if I was losing a belt I’d held for three years. It takes half a minute of desperate struggling until he loses consciousness, the crowd losing their shit for every single one of them. But through it all, I’m nothing but pure calm.

  It’s over.

  The ref pulls me away, everything happening in a blur of noise and flashes, with me looking for Frankie’s face in between the chaos. Pete gets taken out for medical attention while the ref lifts my arm. Somebody hands me a belt, and then a guy with a mic and a massive grin steps up to me. The sudden quiet in the crowd brings reality screaming back.

  “Connor! Wow! You’re the UFC’s new light-heavyweight champion! You just shook up the world! How does it feel?”

  The guy sticks the mic in my face, and I know something in me has changed for good when it catches me off guard.

  What I say next comes to mind without me even thinking about it. “I owe it all to my yoga teacher.”

  I conduct the rest of the short interview still on autopilot, media instincts taking over while I regather my sense of time and space. I’m gracious to Pete Foreman in the interview, though he’s spared the humiliation due to the fact that they’ve taken him away to the medical room. Doubt he could talk much anyway with what I did to his jaw.

  As I lift the belt, listening to the sound of my name filling the hot air of the arena, soaking in the glory of the victory and the knowledge that I’m the best light-heavyweight in the world now, all while ignoring the pain of my bruised rib, I close my eyes and laugh.

  I finally did it. Finally made it through the women, the parties, the snakes and the sharks, the haters and the groupies, the hard work and the harder play, to get here. Finally proved myself, finally walked as far as I talked, and finally backed up so many hotheaded words and self-aggrandizing promises.

  And now that I’m here, all I wanna do is get back to my girl, and hear her say she loves me again. Thousands of people scream as I turn around, the belt up over my head, a primal ritual, the most powerful, compelling man in the place, the Alpha Male. They scream because I’m the greatest fighter in the world, scream because I was the underdog, scream because they’re witnesses to one of the greatest fights in history—but none of that means much to me anymore. I thrust the belt up and shout, causing the crowd to go wilder.

  This is all for Frankie. As much hers as it is mine. I move around to look at her. Her eyes catch mine and she stops clapping. Everybody else fades away, the noise, the faces, the lights, they may as well never have existed. Frankie’s almond eyes make the rest of the world go dark, they make everything around them seem unimportant. She smiles, and blows me a kiss, and for that single moment I know I’ll do this all over again.

  * * *

  When I get out of the cage and back to the dressing room, Butch by my side, Matt’s standing outside the door with a grin on his face.

  “Look what I found,” he says, pushing open the door.

  I move inside and Frankie somehow blindsides me, throwing herself against my body and wrapping herself around me.

  “Oof!” I grunt, as she slams against my bruised rib.

  “Sorry!” she says, pulling away, her face too cute for me to complain.

  “We need to get the physio to look at that,” Butch says gruffly.

  “Let’s give them a minute,” Matt says with a wink, grabbing the door handle and pulling it closed as he hustles Butch out into the hallway. “I’m sure Frankie’ll be real careful with him.”

  Alone, together, we look at each other for a moment, as if appreciating for a few seconds just how good it is all over again.

  “I’m so sorry I was late,” Frankie repeats, “the parking was crazy, and Tara took the tickets and I tried to call but Butch wouldn’t answer and then I spent twenty minutes looking for another way in until Matt came out of nowhere and brought us down to the ring so we could watch and—”

  I attack her with even more force than I used in the ring, pulling her tight waist to my pained torso like a submission, lips crashing into hers like strikes, tongue-fucking her wet mouth like a killer blow. I’m sweaty, bloody, and battered, my body screaming in pain as her tits press against my pumping chest, but I want her too bad to resist.

  I move my lips across her cheek to taste her earlobe, soft against my tongue.

  “How are you not exhausted?” she whispers through panting breaths.

&nb
sp; “I told you I’d save some for the celebration,” I purr against her throat as I press my teeth into it, sucking so hard it’ll leave a hickey worse than any of my bruises.

  I grab a handful of perfect, yoga-pant covered ass, pull it toward me greedily, then wince with pain.

  “Stop!” Frankie says, sliding out of my grip expertly and stepping backward away from me. “You’re in no shape for this right now.”

  I stalk toward her.

  “I’m in no shape to wait, either.”

  Frankie smiles seductively, stepping aside and taking my hand.

  “Who said anything about waiting?” she says, guiding me onto a chair and then moving to her backpack.

  I sit there, naked except for my fight shorts and ankle protectors, watching her rummage in her bag as I clutch my bruised rib. She pulls out a condom and hands it to me. I take the hint, sliding out of my shorts to show her how hot she’s already got me, then rolling it on.

  “Just relax. Let me do the work for once,” she says, swaying from side to side like she’s hypnotizing me, wriggling out of her top to let those teardrop breasts fall and bounce in a way that makes me wanna howl.

  She turns around to slide off the yoga pants, revealing nothing but smooth bare skin underneath. So slow the ache in my balls is almost worse than the one in my ribs.

  “You’re so fucking hot when you take your clothes off.”

  She bites her tongue when she turns around, moving slowly toward me.

  “And you’re so hot when you’re sweaty,” she says, tracing a finger between my pecs as she straddles me, pressing that inviting pussy against the head of my cock.

  I wrap my hand around her neck, run my thumb across those lips as ripe and juicy as her pussy, and groan when she takes my thumb into her mouth, sucking softly, kissing my fingers with wide-eyed innocence as she guides my cock inside her.

  Her breaths stutter as her tight lips glide down over the head of my cock, my gasps joining hers when she moves up and down on those toned thighs, riding me. I grit my teeth and a primal sound rumbles from somewhere in my solar plexus. I gorge my eyes on her body, hands running up her back and then down to those soft tits, pinching her nipples and reveling in the way it makes her mouth fall open, taking them between my teeth as her back arches and she moans in delight.

  “So,” she says, moving her lips beside my ear as she rolls her pussy further down onto me, revealing the tight slick warmth of herself inch after aching inch, “how does it feel to be a champion?”

  I smack her ass, rolling my palm around the stinging spot, watching her perfect body writhe above me.

  “How does it feel to be fucked by one?” I growl, pulling her ass down, losing myself in the sweet, ripe tightness of her pussy squeezing over a cock as hard as granite. Her body arches and pumps over my tight muscles, her hands clawing at my stinging shoulder muscles. I smile hungrily, watching her mouth open wide as the breath leaves her body in shudders.

  She leans back and I smack her ass again, jolting her toward me just enough that I can bite one breast, run my teeth across to the other. I love the way she’s panting my name softly as she works her yoga-firmed ass up and down my cock, the way we lock eyes as her swings get harder, svelte thighs slamming against mine, a mutual gaze that feels almost spiritual. She pulls away and then pumps herself onto me hard one more time and I smack her ass once more, my hands holding her body tight, keeping my hardness inside of her, not letting her go, forcing her to keep me deep, to let me hit that spot.

  A low moan gets caught in her throat, the force of desire keeping our eyes on each other’s, my face determined, hers hazy with lust as we reach the brink. She grinds her hips against me and my fingers go to her clit, bringing her with me as she tries to hold onto the moment, but becomes overpowered by it instead.

  She throws her head back, hair splaying the way it did on the rock by that desert pool, a sharp intake of breath seeming to expand her tits, making them glorious. I watch her body convulse as she starts to come, and feel every inch of pleasure she’s getting reverberate down into my core. I blink and see her on that rock, my tongue at her pussy like a first kiss. I blink again and we’re in her office, her mouth on my cock, coaxing strength from my beaten body.

  She sweeps forward and squeals with the force of her orgasm, her spent body collapsing on mine as her last drops of strength go to our connected centers, the heat between us fusing our souls together. I pull her mouth onto mine and come seconds later, exploding deep inside her for what feels like a lifetime, our groans reaching a crescendo and then trailing off, leaving only the sound of our soft panting and the sensation of cooling, sweaty skin against soft, trembling afterglow.

  Half-drunk with release, she sets her forehead against mine, her hand against my jaw. I wince a little as I feel the stab in my ribs come back.

  “I should leave you guys to celebrate,” she says, nipping at my lips.

  “Leave me? I’m going to get these ribs seen to, take a hot shower, and then bring you right back to my place for another round.”

  She makes a soft, throaty laugh.

  “Really? After fighting and fucking like that? You sure you got enough energy left?”

  I let a slow grin play across my lips.

  “That’s kinda my thing. I never stay down too long.”

  Frankie laughs again. “You might wanna rethink that last part.”

  Epilogue

  Frankie

  I pull the car in front of the restaurant and get out, handing the keys to a valet as Connor joins me in front of the red carpet leading inside.

  “I shouldn’t be here,” he says, looking toward the entrance.

  “Jaime insisted,” I reply, threading my arm through his and leading him in the direction of the maître d’. “I don’t know why, but if that’s what she wants, that’s what she’ll get. She’s my sister—and possibly my new business partner if this goes well.”

  “If ‘going well’ means having her call me a caveman for the next two hours, then I guess I’ll just have to take seeing you in that dress as consolation,” he smiles, his hand smoothing down the back of the cream outfit toward my ass.

  I stop his hand at the small of my back.

  “Try and keep it professional,” I say with a wink.

  Connor grins, fiddling with his collar.

  “Just ‘cause I look like a choirboy in this button-down, don’t mean I think like one.”

  “You look cute in it. Maybe you should think about extending your wardrobe beyond sweatpants and faded T-shirts.”

  He grins. “Sure. If I get to choose a couple of outfits for you to wear too.”

  “Lingerie?”

  “I’m thinking more a nurse uniform.”

  “Only if you play doctor.”

  I laugh a little as we take a place in the line.

  “So how’s everything going at the gym? You guys getting a lot busier now that you’ve got a big MMA star training there?” I tease.

  “Butch fired Tara today,” Connor says, his voice gone serious.

  “What?” I’m thrown.

  Connor nods.

  “Yeah. Two kids nearly killed each other sparring today. One broke the other guy’s arm, and he was supposed to fight his second organization bout in ten days. Butch was pissed—”

  “Isn’t he always?”

  “Red vein on the neck mad is alright,” Connor says, with stoic precision, “but this was throbbing purple forehead mad. You only get that when you really fuck up. Anyway, Butch finds out that Tara was fucking both these guys, getting them jealous, playing them off one another. He loses his shit and fires her.”

  We step forward with the line.

  “How did she take it?” I ask. I can only imagine how bad Tara’s reaction would be to losing her job in front of all those fighters and being humiliated by Butch on top of that.

  “She yelled, argued, cried, threatened to kill everyone, then begged them all to back her up, and then left with her tail between her
legs.”

  “I really hope this is a chance for her to move onto better things,” I say, and I mean it. Instead of calling me a hippie, Connor just pulls me close and squeezes me tight. I think deep down, underneath the anger, he probably agrees.

  The people in front of us move off to the side and we give our names to the maître d’, who gestures us inside where a waitress is standing ready to lead us to our table.

  The restaurant is fancy. Over-budget period drama fancy. High, ornately painted ceilings and low, glittering chandeliers. Long velvet panels drape down the tall windows on one side, and there’s enough space between the tables to ride a bike through. The waitress leads us to where Jaime—surprising nobody—is already there.

  “Hey!” I say a little too brightly as she gets up and gives me a hug, before formally shaking Connor’s hand.

  We sit down, Connor pulling out my chair, and a waiter comes over to pour our wine. I’m so anxious I have to take a few calming breaths before I speak.

  “So…” I start, ready to put some work in to melt the awkwardness between the three of us, “how have you been?”

  “Busy,” Jaime says, before taking a quick sip of wine. “You?”

  “Busy too,” I say, nodding thanks to the waiter. We both look at Connor, who finishes gulping down half his glass.

  “Uh…yeah. I’m also busy. Sure.”

  “Connor won the light-heavyweight belt last weekend,” I say to Jaime. There’s a sense of pride in my words that I didn’t realize I felt until I said them out loud.

  She nods. “Oh yes. I saw.”

  “You saw it?” Connor says. He sounds as shocked as I feel.

  Jaime shrugs and puts her glass down.

  “Scott—my husband,” she explains to Connor, “insisted on watching it.”

  I laugh suddenly. “Scott watches MMA?”

  Jaime puts on her poker face.

  “I was as surprised as you were.”

  Connor and I exchange a quick glance.

  “What did you think?” Connor asks, and I can tell by the suddenly tense set of his shoulders that he’s actually invested in her answer.