Knockout: A Bad Boy Billionaire MMA Romance (Athletic Affairs)

by April Fire

  She made me laugh so much, and sometimes her smartness scared me. It wasn’t that there weren’t plenty of clever people working in sports, just that her kind of eloquent, razor-sharp wit wasn’t something I came across that often. It was addictive. She was addictive.

  I left the party not long after that conversation, after some perfunctory flirting with some random guests to keep it looking as though I was single and ready to mingle. I was glad that Natalie wasn’t there, because I caught the way she looked at me when I flirted with those other women and I knew it made her feel like shit to be rejected so obviously. I mean, this had half been her idea, but that couldn’t have made it much easier to handle.

  Her editor had been in touch after she spotted the pictures on one of the gossip rags that made the rounds; Natalie denied everything and told her that there was nothing to worry about, strictly professional, the story was coming along great and thanks for asking.

  I had dropped a few hints about wanting to see the story since we had started hooking up, but she had always been quick to shut me right down. I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to like everything that turned up in print, but I had to trust that she would represent me in at least a halfway flattering light. The orgasms I’d given her, she owed me at least that much.

  I headed back up to my room, and found it empty; Natalie had left a note on the counter telling me that she had some transcription work to do and that she’d see me the next morning for another set of questions. I sighed, crumpled it up, and tossed it away, sliding into bed and praying that I actually managed to get a decent amount of sleep that night.

  But here I was, the night after, and nothing much had changed. I had the day off, and I wanted to make the most of it, but Natalie had insisted on keeping things professional so as not to attract too much suspicion. I knew she was right, and that it was her level-headedness that would keep us out of trouble at the end of the day, but it was hard to convince myself of that when all I wanted to do was call her up and tell her to get her ass over here so we could spend the day ordering room service and fucking our brains out. I wanted to know her, outside of the little slivers of time we allowed ourselves.

  I found myself second-guessing whatever it was we had between us. I would lie awake at night in the evenings that she didn’t sneak in to stay over and stare at the ceiling, wondering if she had some guy back in the city who she was going to return to as soon as the tour was over. Maybe there was a reason she’d asked to keep things on the low-down – plausible deniability.

  Maybe she wanted me at arm’s length so I would be easy to drop-kick to the curb when everything was said and done between us. And if I tried to protest, well, who the fuck would believe me? Because what would a woman like Natalie ever have seen in a man like me? She was a high-flying journalist and I was a jock asshole with a chip on his shoulder and more women than I could keep track of. If she denied it, then people would believe her.

  Besides, it worked out better for all of us if no one knew. My sponsors wouldn’t pull out on me and her editors wouldn’t yank her off the story for acting unprofessionally. Win-win. But no matter how often I told myself that was the case, it didn’t feel like it to me.

  I tried to remember the last time I had felt this way about anyone, my memory reaching and stretching back as I did my best to come up with an answer and turning up nothing. I had dated before, fucked, screwed, maybe even romanced the odd woman here and there, but nothing like what the two of us shared. She was spectacular, smart and funny and so good in bed that it made my head spin.

  She was also completely unreadable, and I had no idea if she thought the same kind of things about me or if she regarded me with a kind of removed lack of emotion. Surely, we couldn’t be having sex that good without there being something more to it than just the physical – but I honestly had no clue. No frame of reference. Nothing at all, apart from the strange feeling in my stomach that felt as though I was spinning out of control and keeping my feet firmly on the ground all in the same breath.

  I loved it and hated it, and, with only a couple more weeks of the tour left, I would have to find some way to find out the truth before Natalie dropped out of my life for good.

  Chapter Nine

  Natalie

  Laying my head back on the pillow, I pulled the covers up and around myself and closed my eyes. But I knew I wouldn’t be getting to sleep any time soon.

  There he was in my head once again, there every time I shut my eyes. We had continued our little affair, and there was no denying that it was pretty much the hottest thing that had ever happened to me. It wasn’t often that two people so perfectly matched came together, but when it came to sex, it felt like Jacob and I were a meeting of the minds the likes of which had never been seen before. When it came to everything else, though? I wasn’t sure.

  I drummed my feet against the sheets and tried to force myself to focus on something other than him. The article. It was going well, and I was being deadly careful to keep any feelings that I might have had for him out of the text as much as possible, I had read it through a thousand times, scrubbing out any hint of romantic affection I might have had for the man - I held my breath when I sent it in to the editor first time round, but the only thing she had any notes on were the flow of some of my paragraphs.

  Nothing on the fact that I was having the craziest, wildest affair I’d ever had in my life and it was obvious through the text. I was surprised that nothing had sneaked its way in there, considering that I felt my lust for him oozing off me in waves whenever we were together.

  Even thinking about him now, alone in this bed, my stomach flipped and I felt a heat beginning to rise between my legs. I squeezed my eyes a little

  tighter, and slipped my hand between my thighs, hoping to at least get that part of the equation out of my head.

  My fingers found my clit quickly, and I let out a small sigh of relief as I started to play with myself. I did my best not to think of him but it was nearly impossible; my brain was still freshly seared with the memories that we’d made the night before, when he’d made his way down to my hotel room in the middle of the day, brazen as all hell.

  “What are you doing here?” I’d hissed as I opened the door, and he shrugged coolly.

  “We still have a few interview questions left yet,” he pointed out, and pushed past me and into my room. I glanced around the corridor, closed the door behind us, and moments later he had pinned me up against the stiff wood. He always seemed to get me rooms in the most sequestered-away parts of the hotels we stayed in, and I wasn’t complaining. Not when it meant he could stop by here whenever he wanted.

  My muscles tensed as I remembered the way he’d pushed me down on to the bed, climbed on top of me, and started to unbutton my shirt and push up my skirt before I had a chance to get so much as a word out.

  We had spent long enough hooking up that he seemed to know exactly how to please me, his hands moving deftly across my body as though he had practiced for days to build the necessary skills. He fucked the way he fought – animalistic on the outside, but actually carefully considered and perfectly practiced. I knew we didn’t have long before someone noticed that he was away from his hotel room, and I pulled my panties down before fumbling with his jeans for a couple of seconds.

  “Fuck,” he growled in my ear, brushing my hands away and pulling down his pants to expose his fast-growing erection. I fumbled in my drawer for a condom, and he tore it open with his teeth before quickly sheathing himself and positioning himself at the entrance to my cunt.

  “Ready?” He panted, and I nodded. He asked every time, and it never got less hot. I loved that he wanted me to enjoy it so badly, loved that he knew exactly which buttons to push to get me going. He pushed himself inside me in one swift motion, leaning down to take one of my nipples into his mouth as he did so, and I let out a deep groan.

  I moved my fingers quicker, my breath coming faster than before, as I lay in that bed alone and thought about him fuck
ing me. I could almost smell the remnants of his aftershave on the sheets around me, and they just took me further into the moment; I pushed two fingers into my pussy and could almost pretend that they were his cock, that he was here right now, that he was making me-

  My eyes sprang open when I came, and I let out a small gasp of pleasure as the orgasm washed over my body. It was more relief than anything else, something to clear my head and remind me that I didn’t need to go to him to get myself off. I withdrew my hand as the pulses in my pussy retreated, and tried to convince myself that it had been enough for me, even though I knew it wasn’t even close.

  If he’d walked in that door that instant, I would have spread my legs and dragged him on to this bed with me. I still needed him as much as ever. And it didn’t seem like there was a remedy for that.

  I sighed, tucking my hand behind my head and staring up at the ceiling vacantly. How the fuck was I meant to get this guy out my brain? It didn’t seem like there was an obvious answer, no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise. We only had a few more days together, and I had no idea how to confront the notion that the two of us were going to be split apart so soon.

  My heart flipped sadly before I could stop it. Only a few more days together, and then we’d both have to return to our real lives, to the lives we’d left behind. The tour had been a great success, earning Jacob notoriety across the country and landing him a couple more sponsorship deals into the bargain. Basically, he’d gotten everything he wanted from this endeavour. At least, that’s what it looked like on the outside. Maybe he wanted me, too - maybe I was part of it. Or maybe I was nothing more than a distraction while he was out on the road.

  Although…he could have found plenty of that in the women who flocked to him every night after he was done fighting. Those women would have been all too happy to get his mind off whatever was bothering him, and they wouldn’t have come with the baggage that I did - the article, his agent’s disapproval. If that was all he had truly wanted, then why wouldn’t he have just gone with them? A little twinge of hope found its way into my chest, and I tried my hardest to ignore it.

  Even if he did like me as more than just a good fuck, I reasoned with myself, our lives wouldn’t exactly slot together seamlessly when we returned home. I would have to go back to covering stories across the city, and that didn’t leave me a lot of time to nurture a budding relationship. Not to mention the fact that it seemed unlikely his agent would have changed his mind on Jacob getting together with me just because we had returned to the city.

  If anything, his reputation was even more important now, worth more than it had ever been, what with the new sponsorship deals and everything that came with them. Life wouldn’t suddenly straighten itself out just because we liked each other. I wasn’t fool enough to think that, even if that’s all I really wanted to believe.

  I flipped over on to my side and stared at the wall, my brain humming with thoughts. I knew I wasn’t going to get much sleep that night, and I glanced over at my laptop where it was sitting on my bedside table. I sighed, reaching over for it, and pulled it onto my lap, tapping in my password and picking up where I’d left off with the article. If I wasn’t able to catch some shut-eye, then I would at least get this thing put to bed for the time being. And then I could focus on the other issue at hand – what the hell I was going to do about my feelings towards Jacob.

  Chapter Ten

  Jacob

  It was the last day of the tour, and I was getting ready to fight. Natalie was sitting in the corner of the room, Dictaphone acting as a discouragement from reaching over and ravishing her, and asking me a last set of questions as they related to the tour so far.

  “So, what are your plans when you go back to the city?” she asked, and she looked up at me casually. I could tell, though, that there was something going on in her brain, the same thing that was dancing through mine as the question came out of her mouth.

  I paused my pacing up and down the floor of the slightly grimy dressing room I’d been assigned when I arrived and looked at her.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “The season’s going to be over so I’m going to have plenty of time to myself. What about you?”

  She hesitated before she answered, and reached over to flick off the Dictaphone. I cocked my head at her.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, and she shook her head.

  “I just think….” She trailed off, the words escaping her – a rare feat for someone like Natalie who always seemed to have the perfect way of putting things right on hand. “Maybe we should leave talking about that stuff, you know?”

  “Well, you’re the one who brought it up,” I pointed out playfully, and she managed to offer me up a slightly sad smile. I knew how she felt. With only one night left before we flew back and returned to our real lives, the question of what was going to happen to us was hanging heavy and thick in the air around us.

  “Yeah, sorry,” she bit her lip and managed a genuine smile as she looked me up and down.

  “You must be excited, though. Last fight. You going to win?”

  “Of course, I am,” I assured her with a cocky shrug. “Why, you doubting me?”

  “I would never dare,” she held her hands up, laughing.

  “Yeah, I’m going to win,” I looked in the mirror briefly, fixing my hair. “And then I’m going to head back up here and fuck the living shit out of you.”

  “That sounds painful,” she shot back, but I saw the glint of excitement in her eyes as the words came out of my mouth.

  “You objecting?” I asked.

  “Not at all,” she raised her eyebrows. “We’ve got to make the most-”

  She cut herself off before the words could fully form, but we both knew at once what she was talking about. Her face dropped and she looked down at the notebook that was perched on top of her crossed legs. She knew as well as I did that we might never see each other again after all this was over, and honestly the thought was seriously beginning to get under my skin.

  “Yeah,” I replied, voice softer than before. It felt as though someone had punched me in the stomach - well, harder than usual.

  “You should be thinking about getting out there,” she reminded me, nodding to the door.

  “Don’t want to be late.”

  “Will you be there to watch me?” I asked. I always found myself doing better when she was in the crowd. In fact, I was starting to wonder how I would fare when I returned to my usual circuit and had to face the fact that she wouldn’t be there every single time. She nodded.

  “Of course, I will,” she agreed. “And I’ll meet you back here afterwards. To…celebrate your inevitable victory.”

  I walked over to her, leaned down, and caught her face in my hands. She looked up at me, eyes wide, before our lips met. It was a surprisingly chaste kiss on the outside, but it was laced with tantalizing g promise that I couldn’t wait to take advantage of.

  “I can’t wait,” I brushed my nose against her’s, and she closed her eyes apparently to savor the tiny moment between us. I knew how she felt. Soon, all of this was going to be ripped away from us, and we would have no excuse to hide out in each other’s hotel rooms or make out backstage. I was going to miss it, more than I was probably able to admit to myself.

  I pulled back, straightened up, and grinned at the slightly dreamy look she had on her face. She stuck her tongue out at me.

  “You’re just stupidly fucking cute, you know that?” I remarked, turning away so I could fight the urge to take her right there and then. She shrugged.

  “You’d be surprised but I don’t hear it that often,” she shot back. I loved our banter, loved the way we bounced back and forth off one another. She could call me on my shit and give as good as she got; they were the kind of sentiments I saw in romcoms more than real life, but I didn’t realize how much I’d craved them until I met Natalie.

  “You going?” She prompted me again, and I nodded. I was lingering around backstage
because I knew that every second I spent with her would be amongst the last and just wanted to make the most of it, but I wasn’t sure she’d have enjoyed my sappy reasoning. I put my hand on the door, pulled it open, and gestured for her to step outside.

  She did, and I found my eyes drifting down her body – I wasn’t checking her out, necessarily, but committing every inch of her to memory. If I could have photographed her, I would have kept it in my wallet for the rest of my days.

  She was so gloriously perfect, the kind of woman who stumbled into your life and shook it up like a snow globe so everything you thought you knew is left fluttering around you while you try to get a handle on everything again.

  As the two of us headed towards the stage and the sound of the roaring crowd, she reached out to squeeze my hand briefly, and I realized in that second that I was more afraid of losing her than losing the fight.

  It went fast, and I won quickly, even though I couldn’t focus on much but Natalie’s face in the crowd. I felt like an old-timey knight, the kind who won their lady’s favor by declaring a victory over their opponent. I swung my punches and ducked his kicks and soon enough I had him on the ropes; he tapped out, the referee called it, and the crowd let out an enormous cheer that told me most of them had bet on me that evening.