by Raven, Jo
I know I have to touch her first, get her ready. Between the pain flaring in my ribs with every movement and the burning need to come, my brain is a blank.
Breaking the kiss, I press my forehead to hers, trying to ignore my body and focus. Focus on her, because she comes first, always.
“What’s the matter?” She runs her hands over my cheeks, my jaw, my neck. “Are you in pain?”
“It hurts,” I grind out, “how much I fucking want you.”
She lets out a breathless laugh. “Then what are you waiting for?”
I pull back, stare into her pretty eyes. “But you...I haven’t even touched you yet.”
“But I’ve been touching you. What do you think that does to a girl?” She winks, and oh fuck, I think I’m falling in love all over again.
I kiss her again, taking it slow this time, exploring her mouth, one hand resting beside her on the wall, the other tracing her curves, from the softness of her breast to the dip of her waist and the flare of her hip, her thigh, her pussy.
She moans when I stroke her, parting her folds, finding her small, hard clit and flicking my finger over it. Her body is trembling where it’s pressed to mine, and when I stroke lower, into her, she’s slick with arousal.
“It’s true,” I whisper, panting with need. “You’re wet for me.”
“I’m yours,” she whispers back and fuck, that’s what I’ve been dying to hear from her and now she’s said it I’m sure she doesn’t mean it. Not with my fingers deep inside her clenching pussy, pumping in and out.
I don’t wanna think anymore. Doubt, fear, worry about tomorrow. She’s with me right here, right now, and I can’t wait a second longer.
Pulling out my fingers, I grab my cock and guide it into her. I slip into her heat and a buzzing fills my ears. Sparks race up and down my spine. Her hand slips into mine and I lift it, pressing it to the wall over her head as I push deeper into her pussy.
We both shudder. I nip at her mouth as she mewls her pleasure, her hips rocking in small circles.
Holy fuck, I’m about to burst, my gut tightening so hard I wheeze.
“Pax…” I breathe. “Pax…”
In reply she slips her free hand round my back, lifts her leg higher around my thigh and takes me deeper. Before I can process the ratcheting up of pleasure, of pressure, she grabs a handful of my ass and hauls me against her. Her mouth seeks mine and we kiss, a hungry, desperate clash of tongues and lips and teeth.
She’s a vise around my cock, pressing in, tightening, rippling. She’s coming, her hand curling into a fist where I’m holding it against the wall.
The pressure breaks. My balls lift. My dick pulses in huge spasms that never seem to end, and I spill inside her, my hips jerking. Feels like every orgasm I’ve had in my life before her was a ghost, a pale reflection of this. As if I wasn’t living before. As if I’m dissolving into her, melding with her.
I have to tell her. Everything. Come what may.
How can I not when she’s a part of me?
***
Our limbs tangled together on my bed, her head on my shoulder and my arms around her, I tell her.
“I fought for the Hellfire Fighters since I turned sixteen. I was in local fights at first, and my cut when I won helped pay the bills after my foster mom got diagnosed with cancer and stopped working. It was that or go back into the system and there was no fucking way I was doing that.”
A shiver grips me, and she curls closer, stroking my bare chest. She says nothing, and that’s good because then I might lose my nerve and shut up.
“She passed quickly, once they knew what it was. Far too soon. Goddamn cancer.” I stop, draw a sharp breath. My throat clogs for a moment, when I remember my foster mom. She was kind. The kindest person I’d ever met—until Pax. “At least she didn’t suffer for long. That’s what everyone kept telling me.”
As if that helps with the crushing sorrow. Pax kisses the hollow of my throat, my collarbone. “I’m sorry.”
Yeah. So many years ago and the pain is still fresh.
“I was eighteen when she passed. Just barely. The fight club was my only family after that. For five years I trained and fought. It was my whole life. I won some fights, lost some. Won, mainly. Those were good times. I had friends. Markus. He was my best friend. Son of one of the bosses, he and I hit it off right away. We grilled on weekends, sometimes with the other guys from the club. We trained together, went out for drinks. Met his family, his girlfriend, his baby son.”
“Sounds like a great guy.”
The pressure in my chest becomes too fucking much and I shift, rolling onto my side, so that we’re face to face, our noses almost touching.
“I had some real good fights, won some money. Started thinking if there was more in life. Never had the time or the money to imagine it before. Something like leaving the fight club was never in the cards, not when the next fight was where the money for food and rent and the bills would come from. And then came a bad fight. Like, real bad.”
She places a feather-light kiss on my chin. “Why?”
“A new fighter came from Boston. The Bone Crusher, they call him. Clay the Bone Crusher.”
Her eyes widen. “You serious?”
“It’s his nickname in the ring.”
“Do you have one?”
I roll one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Never needed one. Riot is as good as a nickname.”
She kisses my cheek, smiles against my skin. “So you fought The Bone Crusher.”
“I did. He beat me up so badly I thought I was gonna die in the ring. Got a concussion so bad I was passed out for an hour.”
“Oh God.” She’s not smiling anymore.
“It’s a dangerous profession. I knew it from the start, but it never sinks in until you wake up in a hospital bed and are told you may have damaged your brain. Until the shit happens to you, you know?” I close my eyes when she kisses the tip of my nose. “Decided to leave the underground fight scene, then. After I walked out of that hospital, after the doctors told me I should avoid any more hits to the head and realized I could be dead by the time I turned twenty-five, well...I told the boss I wanted out.”
She waits patiently for me to go on, but the words stick in my throat. The memories flutter around me like great black wings, taking away the light for a long moment.
“The boss said hell no, I couldn’t walk out. That he’d taken a fucking chance on me, and I had to pay back what he invested in me. Motherfucker.” I bite back a couple of more choice swearwords. “Anyway, I refused to fight. Missed my next match. And the one after. The boss was livid. He couldn’t keep canceling fights, he was losing bucks. A big match was coming up. It was my turn to fight the Bone Crusher. I flat-out refused and walked out of the club.”
“That’s good,” she says, her voice soft like velvet. “I’m glad you did.”
“It wasn’t good,” I mutter. “It was selfish of me, and stupid. I never thought…” Her lips find my cheek again and my breath leaves my lungs in a whoosh. “Never thought they’d make another fight in my place.”
“Who?” she asks, but then she pulls back and looks into my eyes. “Markus.”
“Yeah. Markus. Because we were friends. The boss wanted to punish me. And he did. Although Markus didn’t want to do it. The boss made him. Said it was fight or leave with me.”
Her eyes look huge in her pale face. Her pretty mouth is downturned. “I’m not going to like what happened, right? Did Markus make it out of the fight alive?”
I shake my head. If I speak, my voice will crack right through.
“Oh crap, I’m so sorry…” She snuggles closer, throws an arm around me and buries her nose in my neck. “So sorry.”
Me too. So fucking sorry.
“It was my fault.”
“No, it wasn’t.” She doesn’t move, so her voice is muffled against my skin, and her breath is warm. “Not your fault. You were right to want to leave.”
“I got Markus killed.”
This time she does draw back. “It wasn’t you, Riot. That was your boss. That was your world. But not you. You have to trust me on that.”
I stare at her. She really believes that. It doesn’t make my burden any lighter, but for the first time in two years, I feel like I can breathe again.
Chapter Nineteen
Paxtyn
God, he breaks my heart. He lost his best friend and thinks it’s his fault. I don’t know if it’s because he’s in pain or is still drunk, but he can’t hide the sorrow in his eyes when he talks about Markus, or his foster mom.
And throughout his story he sounds so...alone. In the world. Like he lost the only family he had and since then has accepted he won’t find another.
We stay like that, curled together, and after a while I think maybe he’s fallen asleep. I wince when I look at his bruised face, realizing he hasn’t told me why he was beaten up.
Give him time, Pax. He’s already told you a lot more than in these past weeks combined. Things that were hard for him to say.
Then he blinks. He’s awake. “I don’t want you making any appointments with me,” he says, and I frown.
“But Riot—”
“Please, Pax.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, and curl in tighter in myself. “If you don’t want to see me again, just say it.”
“Dammit, that’s not what I mean.” He grips my chin, lifts my face. “Call me, but not through the agency. I can’t take any more money from you. You’re not a client.”
“What am I then?”
His eyes are very bright when he says, “Mine. You said...that you were mine.”
I gulp. “I said that.”
“You did.”
I smile, and he smiles back, but it’s hesitant. “Well, then. There you go.”
“But Pax…” His smile morphs into a grimace. He looks away. “You know I can’t leave my job at the agency.”
My heart sinks. “Why?”
“Because.” He lets go of my chin, strokes his fingers down my neck, sending goosebumps skittering over my body. “What I told you about Markus is not all. There’s more.”
Caught between excitement and apprehension, I wait for him to tell me what that “more” is. And oh crap, I said I wouldn’t ask, and yet I did.
So I keep my mouth sealed and touch the line of his jaw, letting him know I’m here and listening.
“Markus,” he finally mutters, “had a girlfriend and a baby son. I told you, right?”
“Yeah.”
“His son, Kyle. He has a heart defect. Was born with it. Had multiple surgeries since he was born. I knew that, Pax. Markus was pouring every single penny he made into the medical debts. And you’d think he’d jump on an opportunity to take on The Bone Crusher, get a bigger payout if he won. But he knew that if anything happened to him, the boy’s mother and Kyle himself would be left to fend on their own. The house is mortgaged. They’d be on the street, and he’s not healthy. Maybe will never be.”
He rolls on his back, jaw clenched, and I try to absorb all this. “I’m sorry to hear about Kyle. And when Markus died, what happened to the boy and his mom?”
“I’m taking care of them. It was the least I could do since I got Kyle’s dad killed. He died because of my selfishness. He took on the Bone Crusher in my stead. So now I’m looking after them in his stead. Paying off debts and expenses. Making sure they keep their house.”
There’s a huge lump in my throat. God, this man...As the pieces of the puzzle come together, I’m glad he’s not looking at me, because my eyes burn with tears.
“That’s why you can’t leave the agency.”
He gives an angry, helpless shrug. “I don’t even have a school certificate. In what other job can I make enough to keep them afloat?”
I’m speechless. I want to hug him so hard.
And I also want to ugly cry and go lock myself up in the bathroom. How can I ask him to do that after knowing this? Leave the agency when that boy and his mom depend on him? What can I offer to make up for it? I have the money I was given in exchange for my silence, but I’ve already used most of it to pay for college. Too late to get it back.
“See,” he says, his voice a low rasp, “I’m the real deal. I pretend to fit in the student circles, the hotels and bars and restaurants where I meet my clients. But the agency told the truth. I’m bad. Real bad. You shouldn’t be with me.”
Yeah, I see that now. How wrong I was.
But not on the one thing that counts.
I draw a shuddering breath and try to think of something, anything to fix this. Offer a solution. Offer some comfort. Convince him he’s not bad.
Not bad at all. He’s the best guy I’ve ever known, and he doesn’t even realize. He sells his body, killing his soul little by little, to support his dead friend’s family. He’s been living in a crap apartment, in a dangerous neighborhood, saving money for them.
He’s lonely, and doesn’t think he deserves anything better.
God, I wish I could lie with him every night, hold him, show him he’s not alone. That I care for him.
I know I shouldn’t. I know it. He won’t leave his job at the agency. And I can’t share him anymore. Somehow, loving him will be the end of this. Of us.
I can’t bear the thought of him being like this with anyone but me.
And yet I can’t let go. In fact, after what he just told me, I think I love him more than ever.
***
It’s Sunday morning. Sunday, I repeat to myself as I roll on my back and stare at a low ceiling. A faint crack winds diagonally through it. I don’t have classes today, or anywhere to be.
So where am I? This isn’t my bedroom.
Wow, I’m brilliant this morning. I snicker as I roll onto my other side to take in the small room. Need my daily caffeine injection to make sense of things.
The small window lets in just enough morning light to let me see. The bed I’m lying on is barely wide enough to be called a double. There’s a plastic chair with some clothes thrown over it. A trunk? A plastic trunk, open. Inside there are more clothes, folded, and some papers. A few pairs of shoes are piled beside it.
I sit up, look around. There’s no closet. These are Riot’s clothes, his shoes.
I’m in Riot’s bedroom.
Last night comes rushing back: my call to the agency, the bar, Gale, coming to Riot’s apartment, finding out he’s been hurt.
Throwing back the covers, I cautiously get up. I’m naked, and then I remember taking a shower with him. Images, sensations and heat shoot through my body as it all comes back to me: Riot moaning as I washed him, as I touched him, then pushing into me, taking me against the wall of the shower stall.
God.
And then of course I remember all the other stuff. The things he told me about his past. Crap, it is true. He’s Riot Callahan, one of the star fighters of the Hellfire Fighters club. Or he was. Markus, Kyle, the debts, his resolve not to leave the agency so that he can keep that family afloat.
His guilt. His pain. His loneliness.
As I stand there, my heart heavy, I hear a bark from somewhere inside the apartment. Batman, Riot’s dog that I have yet to meet. Last night I was more concerned with taking care of Riot himself.
My clothes, which I shucked in the bathroom last night, have been laid out on a rickety table on the other side of the room. I smile, thinking of Riot gathering them, smoothing them out, placing my panties on top.
Like a message.
My face is aflame, more details from last night flashing through my mind: how he stroked me, how good he felt inside me, how he filled me with his hot seed. I drag on my clothes and pat my hair down.
Exiting barefoot, as silent as can be, I open the next door. Bingo. Bathroom. I pee and brush my teeth with a blob of toothpaste on my finger. My cheeks are red, my eyes bright, and a smile keeps tugging on my lips.
Christ. Like a love-struck teenager, despite not seeing any happy endings up ahead. Riot is an esco
rt and will continue meeting women for money, and no matter how noble his cause, I can’t imagine a scenario in which I’ll accept that and be his girlfriend.
Sobering, I walk out of the bathroom and into the living room, making a beeline for the kitchen. A scent of fresh coffee is in the air and I follow it.
I pause at the kitchen door. Someone is talking. Riot. I peek inside.
“Yeah, that’s it. You can let me touch you. You know I won’t steal your food. Fuck yeah, boy.” He’s crouched on the floor, beside a pretty wolf-like dog, petting its back. “See? You trust me. As you should. Been wiping your ass and feeding you, so why would you—?” The dog snaps at him, growling. “Whoa, okay. Easy does it. I’m backing off, okay?”
He almost falls on his ass as he scoots backward, and a ball of black fur on his shoulder rises on tiny legs and hisses.
Dexter. When the kitty let me feed him yesterday, he only approached his dish when I was well out of the kitchen.
Riot reaches up, pats the kitten’s head and yelps when sharp teeth nip at him.
Oh God. I clap a hand over my mouth not to laugh, even as warmth spreads in my chest. Riot’s boys. I think I might melt into a puddle of goo watching the three of them on the kitchen floor.
He turns and oh shit, his jaw is blue and black, his eye swollen shut. Didn’t get around to putting a cold compress on it last night.
“Hey.” He smiles at me and my heart does a little backflip in my chest. “Good morning.”
“Morning.”
“There’s coffee.”
“I smelled it.”
“And here you are.”
I am. Right here, with him, with all my heart and soul.
There has to be away to fix this. To be with him. To find enough money to pay off the debts and keep this Kyle and his mom fed and cared for.
But what? A Kickstarter campaign? Not being the most sociable of beings, I don’t have many friends to ask for support and sharing. I haven’t been on Facebook or Twitter in ages.
Corey. He has a network that encompasses half the globe. He’ll know what to do. I’ll twist his arm around his back if I have to. Hide his favorite Shakespeare Rules T-shirt and Moroccan slippers.