Love: In the Fast Lane

by Rie Warren

  I dodged the cement-block fist he aimed for my gut accompanied by his growl, “Wiseass.”

  “Dumbass.”

  Then it was a battle to see who could make the most obscene gesture first. He pumped his hand in rude Sicilian gesture. And I jerked off with an open fist in a slow stroking motion.

  “And the winner is Stone!” Javier shouted.

  “That’s just ’cause he signs your paychecks,” I shot back.

  The dickheads dispersed after our juvenile display, and I said, “I wonder what the girls talk about when they get together.”

  “You want me to pump Leelee for information?”

  I didn’t want to think about him pumping Leelee for anything, especially not on my behalf. I also didn’t want it getting back to Wildcat I was keeping tabs on her. “Nah. That’d make me look like I was fifteen or something.”

  I wheeled the Beast into the garage and started packing away my tools. Josh hovered beside me the entire time, watching my every move until I asked, “What?”

  “You’re infatuated, dude. I’ve never seen this side of you.”

  I snorted and shook my head. I begged to differ. What I had wasn’t a little infatuation. It was full on, getting the shakes addiction at this point.

  “Jonesin’ for her much?”

  I wiped damp palms on my thighs. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Yeah. All right.” He wrapped an arm around my neck and dragged me out back to the picnic tables. “I think we oughtta talk about our relationship.”

  I slid from his grasp. “Relationship? What the fuck are you smoking? Besides, you kissed me first.”

  Josh stood like a tower against the back wall of the garage, keeping his voice low. “Yeah, and you didn’t really kiss me back?”

  “Are you seriously complaining about our lack of lip-lock in Atlanta?”

  “He-ell no.” His eyes shone brighter than ever, the smirk on his mouth growing. “I’m just winding you up. It’s fun to watch you squirm.”

  I let out a long exhale. “Thank Christ, because that kiss-thing was weird.”

  “Amen.”

  I could hear Jacqueline yell Preach it!

  “Okay. What’s so important you had to yank me outside?” Sitting on the edge of a picnic table, I soaked in the late October heat.

  He pulled up a bench beside me. “We gotta discuss this best man gig.”

  “Oh, so now you’re asking me? It’s less than a month to the main event, hoss.”

  “What? I gotta get on one knee with you, too? Like you didn’t know I was gonna ask you.” He laid a hand on my thigh and squeezed.

  I swatted it away. “What if I have other engagements?”

  Josh bumped against my shoulder. “Whatever.”

  “So, are you asking me to stand up with you?” It was crazy, but my voice sounded rough and my pulse sped.

  “Yeah, Nicky.” He put his hand on the back of my neck. “Yeah, bro. You’re my family. It wouldn’t be right without you up there with me. It’s the most important day of my life and you’re the only man for the job.” His voice was rough, too.

  I nodded. I swallowed a couple times. “That’d make me really proud, Josh.”

  We turned our heads to the side, discreetly wiping under our eyes, both aware of what the other was doing. After we’d composed ourselves, we met with a long hard hug, our big back slaps rounding it out.

  A dozen big ears were right there with us, beginning with Mick. “From bromance to best man. Awww.”

  With our arms around each other, Josh and I performed a quadruple flip-off.

  Ray shoved his hip against Gerald. “Gettin’ verklempt yet?”

  The tall dark dude motioned across to the other bay door where Javier was using his grease rag as a hankie. “Someone’s getting weepy.”

  “Suck my cock, pendejo.”

  “I’m tellin’ Tate. You are so busted, mano.” Ray tattled on Javier.

  I slapped Josh’s back one more time. “Josh?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think I just grew a pair of ovaries.”

  We broke away from each other with grins.

  Leading the way into the garage, Josh called over to me, “Yeah. Let’s go do somethin’ manly.”

  ****

  Something manly was a trip to our local CrossFit gym for a little MMA sparring, which was more like street fighting when we got into it. My Jeep crunched into the gravel drive behind Josh’s behemoth old-school Bronco. I grabbed my duffel from the back, leaped out to meet him, and rocked back on the heels of my feet.

  “Holy shit.”

  Josh dropped a hand to my shoulder. “Steady now. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “That’s Cat’s Dodge.” I pointed across the lot to her distinctive top-class Rallye. The sleek black, sharp looking car bore a thick red racing strip and custom-tinted windows. It was as unmistakable as her.

  Cat’s car here meant she was inside, working out. She’d probably be in the bare minimum of exercise gear. If she was lifting weights in this gym where only the hardcore worked out, I wouldn’t be held responsible for asking her to pump my iron. For the second time that day, I almost shot a load in my jeans.

  I ambled to the wide-open garage-style doors and stepped inside. The dim lights after the bright sun momentarily blinded me. At my back, Josh prodded me farther inside.

  The weight machines ringing the walls didn’t reveal Cat nor did the complicated arrangement of suspended metal bars in the center of the room. The fighting ring stood empty. With no sign of Wildcat, I strode to the locker room and stripped down. Going commando made the swap from jeans to basketball shorts a swing, but I added a jockstrap to keep my junk in place. Besides, Josh was known to throw a punch. He just wasn’t as dirty a fighter as me.

  “I hope you came prepared for an ass kickin’,” I said.

  “As long as it’s not an ass-lickin’.” He hauled up his shorts.

  Har-de-har-har. He taped my hands and I did his. “What’s it been? Six months since we did this shit?”

  I tied my hair back with a leather band. “About that long. I ain’t going easy on you though.”

  “Especially not with Cat Steele in the house, eh, hoss?”

  Pretty much. I wanted to prove I wasn’t just a romance writer to the woman, and if I had to make Josh bleed to do that, so be it. My grin was in place when we stalked to the ring. As usual, there would be no rules, no referee, and no holds barred. Our faces were familiar enough a few regulars set their weights down and followed us. Josh and I ducked under the ropes, bare-chested because the sweat was gonna pour and the blood was gonna roar.

  Meeting in the center of the staging, we rapped our knuckles together.

  “Bring it, bruiser.” Josh bounced on his feet, speaking around the black mouthguard.

  “You bet.” I swung first, hitting him with a bare-fisted blast to his midsection.

  He barely twitched. Ass. He drove forward, his hardheaded skull ramming my gut. I swallowed a yell, rolling him off me with a knee to the ribs.

  My chest heaved. Oxygen surged to my lungs. Josh might’ve been slightly larger than me, but I was just as cut from my thighs to my Adonis belt to my traps.

  From the middle of the ring, I hooked my fingers at him. “Give it your worst shot, boss.”

  His grin widened. Plowing straight toward me, he waited for my feint to the left then he sprang his trap. The slap of his knuckles pounding the meat of my ribs reverberated through my ears and down my side. Three punches to the same spot on my side vomited the breath from me.

  I slunk down low and spun away from Josh’s arms. Coming up behind him, I wrapped my arms around him and did the whole fulcrum action. My knee was the point at his spine, his back the plank about to break.

  “Fuckin’ seesaw, my man.” I splatted him to his back.

  The crowd grew. I saw flashes of money exchanging hands as bets were placed. Josh, the untiring motherfucker, weaved to his feet. He shook h
is head and raised his arms, giving rise to the audience. Rocky goddamn Balboa had nothing on him.

  Rocking back and forth, left and right, he tucked in tight around himself. “Heehaw, man. And now it’s your turn to squeal.”

  It wasn’t a squeal I gave but a groan because I finally spotted her. Cat Steele stood in one corner of the room. Her attitude was firmly in place judging by the cocked hip and cold eyes, but I wasn’t looking at her face, not with most of her sun-kissed body on show. All natural too, because there wasn’t a tan line marring her naturally glowing skin, which figured since she was always covered up from her ankles to her neck.

  Not this time though. Fuuuuck. Tiny black shorts rode high on Cat’s lean thighs, reaching just beneath her hips. Her belly was sleek with sexy muscles that rose to the bottom of an electric blue sports bra. Even her tits contained by so little fabric didn’t hold my attention.

  There was ink, Cat’s sleeves finally on show. The artwork unfurled from her shoulders to her wrists on both arms. The tats were beautiful and badass, just like her. Every color of the spectrum twisted up the slopes of her arms. Amid flowers so realistic I could almost smell them, black etchings peeked out.

  Sugar skulls. Uncountable Dias de los muertos—otherwise aptly called in her case catrinas—sent a warning. Words too far away to distinguish combined with those faces as if she was saying “Beware” on her very skin. The caution reflected in her frost-bound eyes: Get Out and Stay Out.

  It was a warning I had no plan of heeding. A challenge I had every intention of meeting.

  Keep out? Not on your life, darlin’.

  I licked my lips. She pursed the ripe red of hers. Before I had a chance to commit that fine sight to memory, I heard a low laugh behind me then Josh grabbed my arm. He torqued it behind my back and used it to pivot me face first into the ropes.

  His fist slammed into the side of my jaw with a fast one-two follow through. Clutching the ropes, I spit blood onto the mat, staining it dark red. I swiped my lips on my bandaged knuckles, adding crimson blots to white cotton.

  Wheeling around, I jabbed him with an uppercut and a fist to the gut. “Not my pretty face, man!”

  He recovered from the blows as quickly as me. “Don’t worry. We’ll book you in for Botox. Your age is showin’.”

  More verbal sparring and blistering physical contact ensued to the claps and yells of our onlookers. All the while I was aware of Cat watching, moving closer to the ring. My muscles strained with exertion. The slick sweat on my stomach dropped my shorts an inch lower until they all but dangled over my strapped-up junk.

  If Cat enjoyed the view, she didn’t show it. That was okay because a hell of a lot of other ladies sure did. Now I knew how Josh felt at the Guys with Balls competition at LitLuv with women eye-fucking him all over the place. It wasn’t so bad, especially when I saw Cat’s eyes narrow in my direction.

  Looks like I hit a nerve after all.

  Josh and I had just broken apart when Cat appeared next to the ring. She hopped inside and asked Josh, “Mind if I cut in?”

  As if Josh and I were just doing the tango and not punching each other’s lights out.

  “Be my guest,” he grunted, cracking the muscles of his neck.

  He left the ring to cheers, bottles of water, and clean towels shoved at him.

  Dick.

  “Shit,” I muttered. Stepping away, I dragged a long gulp of water down my throat. I poured the rest over my head, wishing the cold liquid would freeze off my cock, too.

  Cat skipped in front of me. She stretched her arms back and forth, which thrust up her tits inside the sports bra.

  She snapped her fingers to draw my attention from her breasts to her face. “See something you want, Nick?”

  Holy fuck, yes.

  I tossed the water to the corner and faced her. “You box?”

  “Gotta work out my sweet temper somehow, don’t I?” Then she hit me with the full force of her grin, the one that dipped a gorgeous dimple into her cheek.

  She didn’t need to hit me with her fists, that smile was enough to make me fall over.

  I know exactly how to work out her temper, on the floor, across my desk, in my bed.

  I rubbed the bruise swelling on my jaw. “I can’t hit a woman.”

  She’d taped her knuckles, but that was the extent of her protection against me. Her fit body was mine for a take down, but not the kind I wanted.

  She slid closer, her movements fast and liquid as water running down a mountainside. “Don’t think of me as a woman then.” With one swift swirl, she caught me in the side with a mighty roundhouse kick. “Think of me as Wildcat.”

  “Get ’im, girl!” Josh boomed.

  I blocked her next kick with a wink. “PS. If you go for my nuts, I won’t be able to perform later.”

  “I thought you just performed with your hands.”

  Josh outright guffawed at Cat’s comeback.

  “Maybe you’d like to find out what I can really do with my hands,” I sent back.

  My comment left Cat momentarily as flustered as me. She was right about performing with my hands on more than one account. But she didn’t need to know about my current lack of interest in the ladies, mostly due to the fact I couldn’t get her out of my head.

  She came at me again, her other leg raised to do some damage. I grabbed her thigh with my hand and yanked her to me. Trapping Cat against me with one arm wrapped around her waist, the other running beneath her ass, I leaned down into her face. She struggled. I tightened my grip. Her wriggling motions only made her pelvis grind harder against my erection.

  “I asked you to fight, not flirt.”

  I jerked her even closer so the fit of her body against mine was a fusion of hot curves, wet heat, and pure need. “This ain’t flirtin’, Wildcat. When I take the time to flirt with you, you’ll know it.”

  “Fighting words, Cat! Take ’im down!” Josh continued to rile her up, as if the woman needed any help.

  Her growl rumbled, and she cursed me out a new one when I laughed in response. This close to Cat I could make out the words running through the flowers on her arms. Remember. Over and over again in beautiful black ink. Her arms were covered in a colorful and cruel landscape that had to have deeper meaning.

  Cat was a fucking paradox. She clawed at my back until I locked her wrists behind my neck with one hand.

  “Now, now. I know you said wildcat, but I don’t need any more cuts.”

  “Fuck you and your platitudes,” she hissed in my ear, sending a landslide of shivers down my body.

  I’d always liked a challenge because the odds of winning were stacked against me and I never had to risk more than I was willing to give. This time I wanted to win, and for once I was willing to risk everything.

  “Cat got your tongue, Nicky?” She rubbed against me, sliding her body along mine. Her mouth found my neck, sucking skin and rough stubble and salty sweat onto her tongue.

  My hands spasmed, dropping for a better hold on her. A groan tumbled from my throat.

  Cat slipped from my arms. Before I could react, she tunneled toward my stomach. Goddammit! I grabbed her ponytail the second before impact and snapped her head up.

  I was turned way the fuck on. “There are a lot of things I want to do to you, Wildcat. Hurting you isn’t one of them.”

  “You couldn’t hurt me if you tried,” she spat.

  Too bad I’d already made a giant chink in her defenses.

  When I cut her loose, Josh was there, taking both of our hands in his. “And the winner is?” He frowned, looking between us.

  “Just let ’em fuck it out, man!” One brave soul in the audience yelled.

  I concurred with that call.

  I tugged my hand free and watched Cat do the same. We three stood abreast as the gym emptied. Josh leaned against the turnbuckle of the ring. “Best man?”

  I grabbed a towel and tossed one to Cat. “Best boxer, dude, although Miss Steele almost got me good.”

&
nbsp; She dragged the towel over her tight stomach, making me crazy with need. “Next time you come at me with everything you’ve got, Nick.”

  No problem with that.

  I ambled over to her and laced my fingers through hers. I tugged her against me. “Will you be at the Halloween Party at Stone’s?”

  “Hell yes, she is. The Steeles already RSVP’d,” Josh answered for her.

  Cat’s body glistened with sweat that dampened her sports bra cleavage, and I had a hard time concentrating on her voice. “My brothers may be into it, but I don’t have a costume.”

  I looked at Josh. He grinned at me.

  I drew Cat to me. “Come back to my house. I think I’ve got something for you.”

  “You’re a cross-dresser, too?”

  “Tell me you’re not questioning my masculinity.” My cock pulsed against her, and her eyes fell to my shorts.

  “You can have an innovative wardrobe and still have . . .”

  “Beef?” I pumped my hips.

  Josh laughed before he jumped over the ropes.

  “C’mon, darl’. I’ll make you dinner.” I guided her out of the ring.

  “Are we fighting or flirting?” She smiled, the dimple settling into her cheek.

  “Feels like flirting to me.”

  Walking across the floor with her hair swaying, Cat shrugged. “Well, to the victor go the spoils.”

  She better not be kidding about that.

  Chapter Five

  Tomcattin’ Around

  MY HEADLIGHTS ILLUMINATED THE low-hanging branches of magnolias and southern pines. They slapped my windshield with feathery fronds and glossy leaves, creating a quiet shush-shush inside the Jeep cab. Cat flashed her lights when we turned onto the dirt drive, letting me know she was behind me. The track gave way to crushed oyster shells as we approached my cabin.

  I’d thought about Cat’s tattoos the whole drive out here. Man, she must’ve been in agony sitting for hours and days getting inked up and down both arms. Or perhaps the physical pain had been nothing compared to whatever emotions had driven her to get the sleeves in the first place.

  My own tat was a bold black band around my bicep, a design Daniel had used as the border for all his artwork—paintings and collages that had become increasingly dark closer and closer to his death.