Candy Boys

by Raven, Jo

  We’re in the middle of the sidewalk, and I want to kick or punch something, my stomach clenching with the memories.

  Because what you really wanted was a home, and a family, and something silly, a toy or a gadget, like the ones other kids had whenever you walked out onto the street. What you really wanted was a dream of a happy life, without older kids beating you up for fun or tired social workers ignoring you when you cried.

  Dammit.

  “Come here,” she says, and she puts her arms around me, pulls me close until she’s pressed to my body and her head is on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

  I say nothing. Can’t speak, my breath caught in my lungs. There was one Christmas with my foster mom, before she got sick, when she bought me the cell phone I wanted, and she hugged me and told me she loved me, and fuck, I can barely remember the phone.

  But I remember the hug. I’ll never forget it. It was as tight and warm and wonderful as the one Pax is giving me now.

  I let my foster mom go, watched her get lowered into the ground in a shiny coffin, but Pax... Pax is here, and how can I let her go?

  ***

  Sunday is over too soon. Pax has her last week of classes before Christmas break, and I have one more day before I go meet my fate in the ring.

  Holy shit, what the fuck shall I do?

  I can’t let myself be killed. I have to make it out of the fight alive, find a way to pay back the debts, and be with Pax. But how?

  I sit on my couch, my head in my hands, recalling the conversation I had with Elliot and Oliver after they beat the shit out of me. Them telling me they waited all this time, skulking in the shadows, biding their time, until the Crusher came back to Chicago to fight. He was touring, then he was out sick. Now he’s back and I’m supposed to fight him. It’s all set up with the boss of the Hellfire Fighters Club.

  Because Elliot and Markus were cousins, and even though they weren’t close—which is also why Elliot never cared to pay for Kyle’s expenses after Markus died—for him it’s damn personal.

  And I’m fucked. They know I’m not ready. Haven’t trained for it in two years. That’s exactly what they’re counting on.

  They want me to lose. Even worse, they want me to never get up from the floor of that ring ever again. Reenacting Markus’s death. Taking their revenge on me.

  I mean, this is the Crusher we’re talking about. The one who put me in the hospital before killing Markus. If I couldn’t take him on then, when I was in top form, how the fuck can I take him on now?

  Yeah, they know all this.

  What they don’t know is that I’m not the same guy I was then. These two years that passed have changed me. Markus’s death changed me.

  Pax changed me.

  Back then I fought for money and a fleeting sense of family and pride and a twisted sort of honor.

  Now I have real goals. Real reasons.

  Kyle and his mom depend on me. Dexter and Batman depend on me.

  And Pax loves me. So I will damn well get up from that blood-spattered floor and do my best to live.

  ***

  The agency doesn’t know about the upcoming fight. Happily oblivious, Johnson has booked me an appointment for tonight. I’ll be spending what could be my last night on earth with a woman I don’t know instead of with Pax.

  Pax who said she understands, and that she will meet Corey for a movie.

  Dammit, I’m the one who should be sitting on her bed, my arm around her, her head on my shoulder, instead of banging another woman.

  How can Pax stand it? I can barely stand the thought of her and Corey, and he’s gay, for fuck’s sake.

  My bad mood haunts me like a dark cloud over my head as I make my way to the rundown hotel I was given the address to and wait at the reception desk for my client to arrive.

  I don’t wanna be here. I don’t wanna fucking do this.

  Holy fucking shit, I can’t. I feel like I’m cheating on Pax. Cheating on myself and what I really want.

  Goddammit.

  The receptionist watches me impassively as I start pacing up and down the hotel lobby, muttering to myself. He’s probably seen his fair share of insanity here.

  Fuck this. I don’t care. My life may or may not end tomorrow, and I need to spend tonight with my girl.

  The receptionist doesn’t even blink when I march up to the desk and tell him the name of my client and to let her know when she arrives that unfortunately I was called away on a family emergency.

  I really am sorry for standing her up like this, but that’s the least of my worries as I hurry outside. I’ve left my bike at home because the clutch was giving me some trouble, so I wait for a cab to pass. Fuck, I wish I’d downloaded the taxi app Gale keeps talking about. Having my bike I rarely have to take one.

  As I wait, shifting from foot to foot, rubbing my frozen hands together, my phone starts to ring. When I pull it out of my pocket, Pax’s name flashes on the screen and a grin spreads over my face.

  “Hey.” I walk a few paces away from the curb and the speeding cars. “How’s my favorite girl?”

  “Riot. Where are you?”

  She sounds tense and angry and scared, and it raises every hair on my body.

  “Outside a creepy hotel, trying to get a cab. Listen, Pax…” I draw a deep breath. “I couldn’t go through with it. I canceled my appointment. I’ll leave the agency. I don’t fucking know what I’ll do instead, but that’s it, I’m done.” She says nothing, and I wait, breathless. “Pax? Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yeah, I heard.” Her voice trembles and I don’t fucking know if it’s because she’s happy or upset.

  Fuck.

  “What’s wrong, then?” I ask, leaning against the façade of the hotel. Worry starts to gnaw at my insides. “What the hell happened?”

  “I know.” Her breath hitches. “About the fight.”

  What in the fuckity fuck? “Pax.”

  “Corey saw the announcement on the website of the club. You against that guy, that Crusher.”

  They put in an announcement? I thought it was a run-of-the-mill fight, one in a list of several for the day.

  “Fuck.”

  “I thought you said you were done with the fight club. I thought…” Another hitching sound. “That’s the guy who killed your friend. Who almost killed you. Why are you doing this?”

  I push away from the wall, the cell phone case creaking in my hold. “Can I come over? I need to talk to you.”

  Need to tell her the truth. It’s too late to hide it now.

  “I’ll be waiting,” she says and disconnects.

  ***

  It’s weird how a decision can not only change your life, but also your perception of yourself and the future. Until now I was trapped in a vicious circle: the debts, the expenses, the agency. I had no option. I could see none.

  Funny how expecting to die tomorrow can make you wanna live. Really live. And love. And experience happiness.

  Until tonight I had one faint hope for tomorrow: to survive the fight so I can go back to my life like before.

  Tonight, as I ride a cab to Pax’s apartment, a different hope, a different plan is forming in my mind. A crazy one.

  What if I won?

  Yeah, I know that’s improbable. I couldn’t beat the guy before, why would I be able to do it now? Goals aren’t enough to slay the monsters.

  But if I won, and got a good cut, I could pay part of Kyle’s debt. God, I could leave the agency, get another job even if it pays less. Lead a normal life.

  Be with Pax.

  Goals won’t improve my skills and strength, but hope... Hope can do fucking plenty and I have that.

  I take the stairs to her apartment two at a time. By the time I reach her door, my ribs are agony, but I don’t give a shit. I ring the bell and run what I have to tell her through my mind over and over again.

  Hey Pax, it’s true, I’m gonna fight Crusher but what if I win? You know, against the odds? Isn’t it gre
at?

  Fuck…

  Before I can think of a better angle for my argument, the door opens and she’s there, dressed in a long white sweater that hits the middle of her bare thighs, tall blue stockings and her dark hair loose on her shoulders.

  All the words vanish from my head, leaving me speechless.

  God, she’s so fucking beautiful. Her dark eyes are shiny with tears and fear, and then she smiles at me and I lurch forward and grab her in my arms.

  “Pax, Pax…” I whisper her name again and again, like a prayer. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t do it.” She draws back, and the tears are slipping down her cheeks. “Don’t fight. Please don’t.”

  Oh fuck it. “I don’t have a choice, babe.”

  “Why not?”

  I pull her into the apartment, kick the door shut, and lead her to the sofa. I don’t see Corey anywhere. Looks like he hasn’t arrived yet, thank fuck.

  This is between Pax and me.

  I sink on the sofa, pulling her onto my lap, curl my arms around her. She rests her head on my chest, and I stroke her hair.

  God, I wish we could stay like this forever.

  “Is this connected to the guys who beat you up? You said they were people from your past. Your past at the fight club?”

  “Yeah. They were delivering a message, about the Crusher being back in town to fight. They’ve been waiting for this to happen to set up a fight between me and him. It’s what I deserve, for walking out on the fight two years ago and letting Markus take my place and die.”

  “Jesus, Riot.” She clutches at my T-shirt. “They can’t force you.”

  “Yeah, they can.” I lick my lips, my mouth parched. “They’ll hurt people I care for. Kyle. Gale. You. No fucking way. I do this one thing they want, and I’m free.”

  “How do you know you’ll be free?” But her face has paled. “How can you trust a single word they say?”

  “Club code. The fight club boss has agreed to this, set this up. My blood for Markus’s blood. If I walk out of the fight alive, then they can’t touch me or the boss is bound to punish them.”

  “If you walk out of it alive?” She curls her small fist and smacks my chest. “Good God, Riot! You can’t. You can’t go.”

  But it’s too late. My past has caught up on me, sunk its hooks into my present.

  “I have to, Pax. It’s the only way to be free. I won’t die.” I hesitate, because how can I promise that, though? “I’ll do all I can not to die. And if I win…”

  I wince, and not just because Pax is pressing on my bruised side. As I ran here, everything seemed possible, but I’ve always called a spade a spade, and I can’t deny the odds are definitely not in my favor.

  “Can you win?” she asks softly.

  Yeah, that’s the billion dollar question. “Maybe. I’ve been training at the gym almost every day. I’m in good form.”

  That’s true, at least.

  “You don’t really believe it.”

  Shit. “It doesn’t matter. But I can promise you this.” I grip her chin, lift her face until she’s looking right at me. “I won’t die. I’ll do everything in my power to stay alive.”

  She nods, a tiny jerk of her head, her eyes filling up again. “That’s all I want. The agency, you sleeping with other women for money...I couldn’t care less compared to this. I love you, Riot, and I want to be with you.”

  It’s a jolt to my system every time she says something like that—a jumpstart to my heart, to my resolve.

  “Then I’ll make it.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Paxtyn

  Fear is threatening to take over, to pull me under, and I can’t let it. But it’s hard when the man you love tells you he’s going off tomorrow to fight a killer, and that he may not come out of it alive.

  But he says he will. He says he might win. And even though he can’t promise anything like that, not really, even if I want to run away screaming and hide…I have to believe it. That he’ll make it, that he can do it.

  Have to believe in him.

  No choice. He won’t let anything bad happen to the people—and pets—he loves, so he’s set on it. Wouldn’t I have done the same in his shoes?

  “What can I do?” I straighten, my arms around his neck, and look into his pale eyes. “How can I help?”

  “You already are.” He nuzzles my cheek. “You are the purpose, the reason I’m coming back.”

  Then his mouth is on mine, demanding, harsh and salty and white hot, stealing my breath. His hands slip under my sweater, under my tank top, over my bare breasts.

  “No bra?” he whispers against my lips, grinning.

  “I got ready for a movie night, not—”

  “Damn gorgeous,” he whispers. He grabs my hips and twists me around so that I’m straddling him, my knees on either side of his legs. “If Corey knocks, don’t open,” he orders, and I barely hear him because right then he pulls my sweater and tank top up and off me, throwing them over the side of the sofa. He bends his head to mouth my nipples, his hands sliding down to steady my hips.

  “Oh God.” I tangle my fingers in his tousled hair, still cold from the wind outside, and rock against him as his tongue moves in wicked circles on the puckered tips of my breasts. Pleasure rips through me like a bullet. “Please—”

  “Yes.” He rocks against me, his cock long and thick and rock hard inside his jeans, the piercings hard points. “Do you feel me? This is us,” he whispers. “This is how much I want you. Now and always.”

  “I want—” One of his hands slides down the inside of my thigh, slipping under my panties, and I shudder when he parts my seam. “Holy crap.”

  “I need you, Pax,” he says, his hot breath teasing my nipples. “Never needed anyone so much in my life. I’ll come back to you. I’d come back from hell itself to be with you.”

  I pull his head to my breast and just hold him there, stroking his hair. “You’d better.” Speaking past the lump in my throat is difficult. “I’ve never loved anyone like I love you.”

  He rubs his stubbled cheek on my breast and my breath catches. He draws back, looks up. His eyes are very bright with something that looks an awful lot like happiness.

  Then his hand presses between my legs, one finger pushing into me, and I moan, spreading my legs wider. He pumps in and out of me, long, deep strokes, alternating with pressure on my clit, until I see stars and come, moaning his name.

  No way to stop it. He owns my body.

  Like my heart.

  As I return to earth, my ears buzzing, he kisses me, softly, then more urgently. He draws out his fingers and I settle back in his lap, against the bulge of his erection.

  Suddenly, the need to feel him inside me grips me like a fist. Need to feel his skin, his bare flesh. I break the kiss and smile at him.

  “Off.” I tug at his jacket—Good God, he’s still in his jacket and I’m naked in his lap—and claw at the sweater he’s wearing underneath. “Take it off.”

  “Okay, I—”

  “Everything. I want to see you.” I gulp, not sure why this urgency to get him naked. “To feel you.”

  He nods as if he understands something I don’t, and starts undressing. He shrugs off his jacket, then grabs the hem of his sweater and T-shirt and pulls both off. I run my hands over his bare chest, over his tattoos.

  “It’s okay to be afraid,” he says, and I shake my head.

  “No, I’m over that. I can’t be afraid anymore.”

  “Pax.” He cups my face, waits until I look up. “I’m here. Right here. It’s okay.” He strokes my cheeks. “You can’t stop the fear. You can only learn to live with it. Push it to the back of your mind with everything else and be happy.”

  “It’s not fear for me,” I manage to say. “It’s for you.”

  “I won’t leave you. I’ll come back. You have to believe it.”

  My heartbeat calms down after a moment and he brushes his lips over mine.

  Then he slides his
hands down my body to his lap and starts unbuckling his belt. “No more barriers,” he says, his gaze locked with mine as he unbuttons his jeans. “No secrets, nothing hidden. I swear.”

  He pushes down his pants and briefs and I rise on my knees, my hands gripping his shoulders, so he can shuck them off.

  Then he’s naked, bared to me, finally. He doesn’t let me lower myself, though, clasping my hip with one hand, with the other taking hold of his cock. I can’t see it, even as I strain to catch a glimpse, but I feel his movements as he strokes himself, one, two, three, four times.

  “Riot…” I’ll beg if I must.

  The head of his cock brushes my entrance, hot and wet, slips into me just a fraction, but it’s enough to make me tremble with desire. His hand on my hip clenches and unclenches and his breathing turns irregular and shallow.

  “Damn,” he mutters, then tugs on my hip, lowering me on his cock. He pushes into me, little by little, and I feel every hard, hot inch of him filling me until I’m sitting in his lap once more. The barbell on the top of his cock presses a point deep inside of me that sends flares of pleasure up my spine. “Christ.”

  Both his hands are now on my waist, fingers digging into my flesh, but I barely notice, the feel of his hard cock inside me overwhelming.

  “Oh God, I need…” I wet my lips with the tip of my tongue, not sure how to explain. Deeper. Maybe it’s not even physically possible. “More.”

  “Put your legs around my waist,” he says, his voice gone hoarse.

  Excitement flutters in my chest as I obey, and instantly he slides deeper into me. I hiss at the burning ache, and he grunts, his head falling forward. He’s so deep inside me, I can’t tell where he ends and I begin.

  Then he rolls his hips and the ache transforms into sharp pleasure. I moan, impaled on him, and when he lifts me and lowers me again, I cry out, unprepared for the delicious pulses in my core.

  God, I won’t last long, is my only thought as he does it again, his mouth on my shoulder, lightly biting, muffling his own moans as he makes me ride him, fast, and then faster, until I scream his name, convulsing around him, my mind filled with white light.

  He muffles a cry against my skin as his cock jerks inside me, filling me with heat in long pulses. And then he holds me all night until the dawn.