Rascal (Edgewater Agency Book 2)

by Kyanna Skye

  Callie managed to form together some incoherent words, but Jay kept on speaking as though he had not heard.

  “For a while, I thought that he was right. I mean, if people knew that I could knock a guy out… twist him into an unnatural shape… break his bones… or cause kidney failure… who would be brave enough to try and screw me in the business world? I have a degree you know. Yeah, I do, in business management. Full ride scholarship I got from Princeton. Dad’s money didn’t even have to enter into it… they didn’t even know who my dad was. I finished school in three years… I was only eighteen. That was three years ago… right about the time I started doing this.” He paused and took away the ice pack, revealing the complete set of his abs and Callie found herself – unashamedly – relishing the sight. A bruise rested on his side, and part of her felt the overwhelming sense to want to caress and cradle that injury… to nourish it… make it feel better… however, Jay wanted.

  “But you know what, Callie? I’ve realized something in the last three years. The more I fight… the less I care about running dad’s company.”

  This time, she found herself legitimately unable to speak. The words he spoke were so profound that it was as if he had formed a fist and punched her in the solar plexus. His father owned his own company, one of the top 10 in the Fortune 500… and he didn’t care to run it?

  “I like it,” he said simply. “The fights… the crowds… it’s like I’m in control of my life. And that’s an incredible adrenaline rush.” He looked her over, and her skin danced as his eyes went from her feet all the way up to her eyes and they lingered there as if locked on by laser guidance. “I was just like you when I went off to college, Callie. I studied what my dad wanted me to study… business… because that was what was expected of me and I didn’t have enough of a damn mind to think I could decide for myself.”

  She felt words stirring within herself but was still unable to speak. She wanted to say that she hadn’t yet decided what she was going to study when she went away to school and that she was capable of making up her own mind. But he cut her off before she could speak and she was lost in her own thoughts.

  “But there is something else that I like about the fighting too…” he said, a playful smile dancing across the folds of his lips. “It’s not the fame… I could care less about that. It’s not even the money… I’ve already got plenty of that.” He leaned in close to her, just as he had at the bar, and she felt her heart suddenly climb up into her throat with anticipation… “What I like most… is the women.” He tilted his head to one side as if he did intend to kiss her, but didn’t. “And I don’t mean I like them in general. The ones that throw themselves at me… they’re a dime a dozen. I could have two or even three of them at a time if I wanted… they’re desperate to try and hitch themselves to me somehow. But you know what?” He leaned in closer, so close that she could taste his breath again on the air, and she tried to subtly suck in every last bit of it. “It’s the ones that I can’t have that I want the most. The ones that are married… engaged…” he arched an eyebrow tauntingly, “or my stepsister.” He licked his lips, the tip of his tongue just gently brushing against her bottom lip. “But you know what… chasing them… trying to get them to fold… that is what makes it fun.”

  Her heart began to beat with such rapidity within her throat it felt like there was a drum beating inside her windpipe. And it came to a crescendo when he leaned in closer... So close that a sliver of an inch was all that was between them. And in a voice so gentle that she had to strain to hear it he said, “I like the way they lust after me but try to keep themselves in check. They don’t want me for my money… or my fame… but for me.” He teasingly flexed his muscles, and she felt herself shudder, awed by the sight of so much flesh that she felt weakened just by looking at it. Even a night at a women’s club with male strippers one night with Cece had not produced this kind of a result in her.

  And with that, he retracted from her, a sinister smile on his face and he retreated back into his room, closing the door as if he were sealing her in the hall where she could not touch him, both figuratively and literally. And once closed she stood there, somehow muter than she was a minute before.

  She had learned everything… but somehow she had managed to gain nothing. Nothing except the notion that, despite her deepest feelings, that she knew she wanted more.

  Much more.

  As days went by she wrestled with the morality of her predicament. Socially she knew right from wrong: this sort of thing was taboo. It wasn’t supposed to happen… at least not socially. But biologically on the other hand… Well, it’s kind of a gray area. Sure, this wasn’t incest… not really. No chance of contaminating a gene pool or anything. But every time she thought about it, she found herself getting online and looking up instances where such things had happened in the past and to more historically important people.

  Kings… queens… princes and princesses… business tycoons… musicians… authors… movie stars… gangsters… people that were famous the world over for one thing or another had fallen victim to what she now felt herself enshrouded by. It was a hard thing to be sure and certainly frowned upon by most. But the careers of many had not been deterred by what had happened to them. In fact, some people – including historians – had been pretty light-hearted about the whole thing. True incest was certainly a big no-no, but this…?

  It was a strange thing, really. Some women wound up having affairs with their stepsons. Some of them had even gone on to write books on it or their diaries published after the fact, and they all seemed pretty happy with their choices. Some of them were ecstatic, really. Some men had begun to have affairs with their stepdaughters. Cousins had affairs with other cousins. By-marriage uncles and aunts had affairs with nephews and nieces… there was almost no end to it all. Some of it was sickening… but again, there was also something delightfully about it. Not just because it was forbidden… but because it was so easy to start and to get away with if one planned it just right, as some did.

  And it wasn’t as if things like that were entirely damning. Many of the people she researched had managed to get away with their sordid affairs, both out of the public eye and even within it. While many of them did end, they still ended amicably… only a few ended terribly. Fewer still ended quite terribly and were cautionary tales if nothing else.

  But still… there was something so damn alluring about this that she couldn’t shut her mind off to it. It was like a dream that she had woken from and tried to get back to sleep each night trying to pick up where she left off.

  She did so even when she was awake, trying to make her dreams a reality.

  Then one day, it seemed as if her fantasy had taken a giant leap towards becoming real. As she had woken from a restless sleep, she found a piece of paper that had been slipped under her door. On it, very sloppily written, was a series of addresses, dates, and times. She knew at once what it was: Jay’s fighting schedule. And she knew at once who it had been left by.

  He’s testing me… teasing me… she thought with a delightful grin. It was what he wanted, after all. He wanted her to chase him, simply because he couldn’t have her. And it was that attraction that made her want him all the more. But for now, she found herself wanting to dance to the tune that he played. There could be something fun at the end.

  Not wanting to bring Cece into it – though she felt only marginally guilty for doing so – she started attending the matches.

  One week after another went by and at least one day out of those weeks she saw Jay at his most primal… at his most appealing. The shorts… the sweat… the muscle… the heavy breathing… even the blood. It all lent her imagination to more carnal pursuits.

  It was like watching a magic dance, the way he fought. The way he moved was unreal. Most fighters that went up against him were able to land one or two punches, maybe a few kicks, only one had ever been successful in grappling him on the ground he was so good. But Jay managed to get his way out of i
t… like his body was coated in grease, and no one could hold onto him. And when he fought, he struck with strength… vigor… and with an endurance that somehow seemed to make Callie damp in her panties thinking about how he could apply that kind of power to more interesting wrestling matches.

  That she could be aroused by something so barbaric had never even occurred to her. That she could be attracted to someone like him even less so. Even movie violence had never done anything like that for her, not even when it was the hottest movie stars getting sweaty and bloody. What she saw with her own two eyes, with honest flesh and blood, was somehow more endearing. And when it was Jay that she was admiring it felt all the more appealing.

  A kind of dance evolved from their mutual outings. She would go and watch him fight. She would cheer for him. She would stand up and dance when he won. She would show her favor… her appreciation… whatever he wanted if only he would ask. But he never did. And at the end of every bout, he would turn and see her, as if he had never seen her before, and just as he had the first time he would step out of the ring and kiss her.

  If there were ever any repeat spectators in the different arenas where he fought she never saw them. No one ever seemed to think that this was some kind of a gimmick for him. But that it made skinny and – at least what some would call more attractive – women as jealous as hell pleased her to no end. To be the object of “affection” for a man who dominated the ring like Odin was like a trophy that she had won and would never be able to top.

  Their game seemed to be growing more and more intricate as the weeks went by. But it had yet to become more intimate like she found herself wanting. Everything was still so forbidden that she couldn’t stop herself from wanting it more and more. Outside of the house, where no one knew either of them, he was a champion fighter and she… she was no one that just happened to be someone he wanted to kiss.

  After each fight, their kisses grew longer and longer. She had silently counted the seconds that went by, growing by no more than a single second each time. It wasn’t until his eighth fight that he kissed her long enough to slip his tongue past her lips. If his previous kisses had been like lightning bolts, then his tongue was the thunder, and she could feel the impact of it all the way down in the pit of her stomach.

  The dance took on a more interesting – and exciting – twist when they returned home after each fight. And after each day where he spent his time healing – if he was really injured at all – Callie found herself trying to bump into Jay in the halls of their nearly-deserted home rather than trying to avoid him. Part of her hoped that they would forego their dance and just skip to the main event when opportunity knocked.

  She tried to encounter him surreptitiously in the kitchen… the dining room… the laundry room… in the hall outside his room… the library… the pool… the gardens… anywhere where they could be alone. She wanted to be alone with him. She made overt comments about it as the days went by.

  “…so much space it’s like we’re all alone out here…”

  “Nobody comes down to do their own laundry for at least another hour.”

  “…having a hard time keeping my bathing suit on…”

  “Looking for something in poetry… it always gets me in the mood.”

  One after another she tried every little trick that she knew. But after each attempt, he only smiled that damn enriched expression at her and walked away without saying a word. Her reservations about the morality of their relationship grew dimmer and dimmer with the passing of every day until they were gone entirely. Her desire – her lust – was becoming heavier than any heavyweight champ that ever lived. After every fight that she saw him in she found she could not stop thinking about him… imagining him – imagining them – together. She imagined those powerful arms encasing her. She imagined those hands, which had delivered powerful punches, gently caressing her skin. She wanted to feel her legs wrapped around that muscular waist of his. She wanted to find out if his cock was just as strong as his other two legs. The idea of so much power suddenly becoming gentle – or even rough in some cases – was more potent than wine.

  But more than anything, she wanted a kiss that lasted longer than fifteen seconds, as had been the record, with just a little bit of tongue thrown into it. She wanted to feel his power again like she had that first night. While every little kiss had memorable and powerful, she found that she was getting tired of the appetizers. She wanted the main course.

  But as the weeks rolled by and her efforts to lure him into a tryst had evidently failed she found her hopes beginning to wane. She felt like a fisherman who realized too late that she had used the wrong bait when trying to catch a particular kind of fish. And with her nets empty and her hooks untouched, it was time to return to port.

  Only there’s no waiting to try again tomorrow, she reflected.

  With a heavy heart, she checked her calendar and saw that the time of her mother and stepfather’s return from their honeymoon was rapidly approaching. And with that knowledge tucked away in the back of her mind she knew that any hopes that she had of getting what she wanted would go from hopeful to hopeless with every passing hour. With her mother and father returning to the house, the staff that her mother had given the extended leave to would surely be returning, making it next to impossible for the two of them to be alone. And after that, there was no hope of having a tryst as she had imagined it with Jay.

  Fuck!

  The day preceding the return of her mother and stepfather had been the mass return of all of the house staff that had taken their time off and suddenly returned. They all systematically picked up their duties where they left off. Every time she left her bedroom there were people vacuuming the carpets… cleaning the drapes… mopping the floors… mowing the lawns… washing dishes… folding sheets… trimming trees… cleaning the pool… they were everywhere. They were like ants paid to do a rich woman’s bidding.

  The day following, her mother returned with her stepfather in tow. The pair of them talking on their cell phones as they entered, barely having time to give her and Jay so much as a look of acknowledgment as they were so wrapped up in their own business. This wasn’t the happy couple that she remembered seeing on the beach the day of the wedding. It was more like they had already been married for years and had gotten to the point where they had four-way conversations, speaking to each other while talking to someone else on their cell phones. In some ways she considered that to be a balanced marriage.

  “Welcome home, mom,” she said softly to her mother’s back after receiving a small hug from her after she’d walked away.

  She sighed and looked to Jay, who had only received a warm pat on the shoulder from his father as he too walked into the house, gabbing on his phone. She had hoped for some look of sympathy from him. Maybe a sly and secretive smile… oh, hell; she was hoping that he would kiss her right then and there. But as per usual, all he did was give her that golden and simple smile until he turned and walked away.

  With her mother and father finally returned to the house – and her chances of being able to leave the house whenever she wanted to watch Jay fight, she resumed some of her old habits. She focused on college, going over things that she had already memorized and making sure that she had committed them to memory. Once or twice she found time to go out with Cece, but for simpler and tamer things since Cece had said that taking her to any more fights was dangerous.

  “I don’t want you winning over more of the cute ones,” Cece had said jokingly.

  As the final month of her summer began to draw to an end, Callie found that there was a pit in her stomach. It was like a hunger that she had not fulfilled. Like there was some thrill that had yet to be had… some desire that went unsatisfied. It was like she had gone to an amusement park and not gotten to ride her favorite ride. She knew what it was, and she knew how to resolve it, but there was no help for it. She had tried, once or twice more when opportunity allowed, to attempt to bring Jay into some private space where they c
ould be alone even if only for a short time. But her efforts, as they had before, failed. All she ever managed to get from him was that damn smile that was both priceless and worthless at the same time.

  The night before she was to leave was a big event. Her mother had the cooks prepare her favorite dish, lasagna with spiced wine. Her stepfather disguised advice on what not to do like stories of how he had been so reckless during his days in college. And Jay only sat in silence, listening to his father and her mother, and barely giving her a glance. As if he wasn’t affected in the slightest that she was leaving.

  She supposed that he wasn’t.

  As soon as she was gone, he would find some other woman to play his games with. He would find some other woman to want him… to chase him… after she was gone. He would be like a cat that just found some other toy to play with.

  Oddly, she found herself jealous of that next toy that he found.

  When dinner was finished, her mother did the genuine mother ritual of being slightly weepy over her departure. Her flight would be leaving early in the morning if she was to arrive at the campus on time and there would be no time for her to eat before she left the house. And while her mother went on this short burst of emotion, Jay and his dad excused themselves so that they would have their dining room alone to share a final tender moment. “Oh, this will be your last meal in the house until you come home for Christmas!” It wasn’t much of a display, but Callie appreciated it for what it was. She could come home every weekend if she really wanted, her mother wouldn’t even feel the pinch for the private jet and the fuel expenses, but she knew better than to say as much. Still, it was as heartwarming a thing as she had experienced since her mother left for her honeymoon.

  She wandered back to her room in silence. The house was quiet, most of the staff had gone home for the evening, and she felt a small pang of excitement at the thought of leaving. Tomorrow she would be on her way to higher education and would not see her home for at least five months and in that time she would learn, grow, and generally become something more than she was when she left.