by Cara McKenna
“Mine or his?”
“I’m not sure. Plus this.” She touched her fingers to the now greasy scrape along his back. His skin felt scalding hot and he didn’t flinch.
“Just rope burn.” He capped the tube and tossed it to the ground.
“And a black eye.”
“That’s from yesterday. See you been talkin’ to Pam. She scare you off yet?”
“No, she said only nice things about you. She…she invited me along. For after the fight. To watch.”
His face was impassive. “Did she then?”
“Yeah.”
“You lookin’ for me to second that invite?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Probably. Are you okay with that? If I wanted to?”
He thought for a long moment, unfocused eyes staring past Laurel’s face. “Up to her. But forgive me if I search you for hidden cameras if you decide to tag along.”
Laurel wasn’t sure if the remark was serious or not and chose to ignore it. “I don’t know what I’ll decide. It sounds really…personal.”
“It’s up to you girls,” he said and wiped his hand on a rag then ran it over his sweat-matted hair. “I’m just a willing body.”
“She made it sound like you’re more than that,” Laurel said, voice low.
“She makes me out like a saint sometimes. Patron-fuckin’-saint of the sadists. You can make up your own mind about it if you come along.”
“What time are you guys leaving?”
“I got one more fight coming up. We’ll probably head out in an hour, hour and a half.”
“Can I get you a beer or something?” Laurel asked. “Or is drinking during a fight a no-no?”
“I don’t drink, period,” Flynn said, “but you can find me a glass of water if you’re itching to be useful.”
She nodded and wandered away, found a water cooler and filled a plastic cup for him. She handed it over, wanting to do more…wanting to press a towel to his sweaty skin and clean his cuts and ice his bruises. She felt a strange desire to care for him, to apply feminine affection and counteract all the masculine damage. She stared at the black and gray tattoo that spanned his chest—broad, feathered wings bracketing a tall cross, or maybe a sword. Latin words in calligraphic letters hovered above it. Quis ut Deus.
Flynn swallowed the last of the water and looked down at her. “What goes on between me and her, it’s not pretty. If you can’t stand lookin’ at a little rope burn, you probably won’t enjoy yourself.”
“Do you hurt her?”
He made a gesture, something between a shrug and another neck stretch. “Neither me or her would say I do, but it’s rough.”
“From what she’s explained about it… I’m curious, I guess.” And tipsy enough to admit it.
“Curious is all well and good but I don’t know you. And neither does she. If you freak out and go screamin’ about it all over town or the fuckin’ internet, you could seriously fuck with the lives of two consenting adults. Three if you count her husband. You follow?”
“I’m not a psycho,” Laurel said.
“Good. I don’t have much of an upstanding reputation to protect, but Pam’s a decent girl. I’d be royally pissed if anybody ever messed her around.”
Laurel pursed her lips. “Are you threatening me?”
“I never threaten a woman unless she begs me to.” His smile came slow and sticky, dripping with put-on sweetness.
“Well, I promise I have no intention of outing anybody. Asking to come along for the ride isn’t something I’m all that eager to shout from the rooftops, you know.”
“You asking to come along then?” That smile again, more dangerous than his arms or knuckles or threats.
She nodded and swallowed, wondering what the hell she’d just signed up for.
3
At quarter to one, Laurel snapped to attention. Four hours of fighting and a steady infusion of beer had numbed her senses, but all that fog dissipated when Flynn took to the ring.
His final fight was much like the earlier one, seemingly well-matched but ending in a near knockout. She watched him pull on a tee shirt and toss a bunch of stuff into a gym bag. Pam was at his side.
Laurel balanced her plastic cup on top of an overflowing trash bin and approached them.
Flynn spotted her first. “Still here then, sub shop girl?”
“Looks like it.”
He nodded and Pam smiled, and the three of them headed for a door at the opposite end of the basement from where Laurel had entered. They walked down a couple poorly lit hallways and up a long set of stairs, emerging in an alley behind the bar. After hours in the heady, sultry sauna of the gym, the city’s thick summer heat managed to feel refreshing.
They squeezed passed a Dumpster and a couple parked cars in the alley, out of the dark and onto the sidewalk. Flynn led the way down side streets for a few blocks.
They stopped at the entrance to a hulking brick building—one of the city’s many repurposed factories, though this one wasn’t ritzy like the slick new condos popping up like dandelions all over Boston and Cambridge. Flynn unclipped a noisy ring of keys from his belt and unlocked the foyer door. He strode to the elevator panel to punch the up button.
Laurel ran a hand over the brick and studied the framed picture hung on one wall—a sepia photo of the building from over a century before, carriages passing by in the foreground. “What did this place used to be?”
“Molasses factory.”
She studied Flynn’s sour expression, the dark bruise rising along his jaw to match the one ringing his left eye. The ding of the arriving elevator triggered a mental image of him stripped to the waist in the ring.
They stepped into the car and he hit the buttons for the second and fifth floors. The doors eased open at two and he said, “Hold it.” Pam leaned an arm in the threshold and Flynn jogged down the hall to the right. Laurel heard him knock three times then he jogged back.
“What was that about?” Laurel asked as the doors slid shut behind him.
“My sister,” he said. “She’s kind of a basketcase on fight nights. Likes to know when I get home in one piece.”
“You guys live in the same building? You must be close.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You could say that.”
The chime sounded again as the elevator opened onto the fifth-floor foyer and Flynn led them down the corridor to the very end. He unlocked his door and they stepped inside. He eased up the dimmer on a set of bulbs that hung from the high ceiling. He and Pam dumped their bags on a loveseat that seemed to be there for that purpose, but Laurel held on to her purse, as though it might save her from drowning. The door clicked softly shut behind her.
She took in the open loft space, with a small kitchen along the far wall. Three towering, arched factory windows offered a view of similar buildings and a sliver of white moon, and exposed pipes and vents crisscrossed the ceiling, making the apartment feel industrial and stark. A couch and an easy chair huddled in one corner around a coffee table. A bicycle, purple with silver Mylar streamers, was propped on its kickstand below one tall window, an open toolbox beside it.
Laurel’s confusion about the bike must have shown, as Flynn clapped her hard on the arm as he passed, heading for the kitchen area. “Don’t you go lookin’ for kinks where there aren’t any. I got a six-year-old niece.”
“Ah.”
Flynn’s generous bed was against the back wall, a navy comforter tossed across it in a middling attempt at tidiness. Shelves stood to either side and above the headboard, filled with books and CDs.
“Have a seat.” He waved a hand toward the couch. “Bathroom’s there,” he added, pointing to a door next to the stove. “We’re gonna ignore you from here on out, if that works for you.”
She nodded.
“You need to leave, you know where the exit is.” He turned to where Pam sat on the couch unlacing her tall, shit-kicking boots. “You want me to shower first?” he asked her.
She grinn
ed. “Not a chance.”
He went to the front of the apartment and flipped off the lamps so only the dim, sickly glow leaking in illuminated the room. The orange streetlight exacerbated everything industrial and ominous about Flynn’s home, made the space feel at once hidden and exposed.
Laurel took a seat on an easy chair, not sinking in but perching on the edge as her eyes adjusted, still clutching her purse for dear life. Pam drank a glass of water at the counter while Flynn sat on the mattress and took his shoes off. Laurel wondered how he had the energy to do anything after what she’d witnessed at the gym.
Pam set her glass in the sink. Flynn stood as she approached, looking twice as dangerous now in the shadowy privacy of the space.
Laurel saw his expression shift, eyes narrowing, features hardening. He reached out and clasped Pam’s jaw in both hands, thumbs digging into her cheeks. The kiss that followed was less a show of affection than of dominance and ownership. He pressed into her, chest to chest, forcing her backward until she dropped onto the bed. Laurel felt the cushion under her own butt, imagined it was the mattress, that she was the one at the center of Flynn’s attention.
“Strip,” he said, cold. In her head it was Laurel who peeled her clothes away, skin bared to the humidity and this man’s hungry stare. He stepped back a couple paces. “On your knees.”
Those words rocked Laurel, yanked her back into her own body. This is actually happening. A part of her screamed that this was wrong—chauvinistic and cruel. Another part wanted to see him served, wanted to be the one at the mercy of his selfish demands.
Pam knelt before him and Laurel cupped her own knees, aching for the rude bite of hardwood boards beneath them.
“Get me hard, girl.”
“Yes, Sir.” It was Pam who reached out to unbuckle his belt, but Laurel could practically feel the cool metal releasing in her hands, feel the excitement as she unzipped Flynn’s jeans.
“Take it out,” he commanded.
She tugged his pants and shorts down a few inches to expose his cock. She stroked him, the gesture worshipful, just how Laurel felt. She got him stiff, made him long and thick and ready. Her lips parted, anticipating, and Laurel’s own mouth watered.
Flynn’s voice came, low. “It’s been a whole week. You been missing this?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Tell me.”
“I’ve missed your dick.”
Flynn’s eyes flashed across the room, boring straight into Laurel’s. He held them for just a moment then addressed Pam. “You look hungry, girl.”
Laurel swallowed, watching Pam’s small hand running up and down his heavy-looking cock. She conjured the heat off his skin, the stiffness of him in her fist.
“Suck it,” Flynn ordered. He tugged the elastic from her long ponytail and wrapped that hair around his hand, yanking her closer. “Suck it.”
“Yes, Sir.” Her mouth closed around his head, hand still stroking. Laurel could tell from her hollowed cheeks how hard she was sucking, could feel that aggression building in her own body. Flynn sniffed in a harsh breath and a vein rose along his neck.
“Good. Get it nice and wet.”
She drew him out and ran her tongue up and down the length of his shaft, bathing him in her spit.
“That’s right…now more.”
The fist gripping her hair set the pace, drawing her mouth down his dick in slow, deep swallows. Laurel suppressed a moan to match Pam’s, pushed a rough hand through her own hair, wondering how it would feel to be held that way.
More, she thought. Desire and fear hummed in her pulse and her cunt clenched, impatient.
“More,” Flynn commanded, and his hips began to pump. In seconds he had her taking all of him, her lips meeting his base with each thrust. Laurel’s neck and face flashed hot, her hands damp as she imagined holding Flynn’s sides, feeling the flex of muscle and bone beneath his jeans.
“Good girl. I wanna see you choke on that cock.”
More, Laurel thought again. She watched him bury every last inch, shut her eyes and clawed her nails against her own thighs, what she’d be doing to him if she were the one on her knees.
Arousal began to overshadow his callous self-control—Laurel heard it as his breaths turned raspy. She opened her eyes, frozen when she found his attention nailed to her.
He looked back down at Pam and tugged the bottom of his shirt up, giving himself a clear view of her mouth. “That’s it. Keep that up. Keep that up and I’ll fuck you so hard you’ll be begging me to stop.”
In Laurel’s imagination, she was the one giving him this pleasure, the one who’s sucked him so good she’d brought that rusty edge to his voice. Even in the dim light she caught his cheeks and neck and ears darkening, saw the faint trembling of his arms and shoulders.
“Good,” he said. “Good.” He slowed Pam’s head, made the thrusts shallow then drew his cock from her mouth. He stroked his crown across her lips a few times and Laurel could swear she tasted him on her own tongue.
“You love that cock, don’t you?”
Yes.
“Yes, Sir.” Pam lapped at his head, kissed that swollen skin.
“You wanna drink my come later, sweetheart?”
She gave voice to the thirsty noise Laurel ached to, lavishing more wet caresses on his dick.
“Good… You give me what I like and I’ll reward you with a mouthful.”
Laurel nodded, parched for it herself.
“Turn around,” he said. “Hands and knees.”
Pam shuffled in place and braced her arms. Laurel felt the grit under her own palms, Flynn’s eyes on her back. He shed his shirt and dropped his jeans and shorts and socks, walked to a shelf. Laurel heard a box being opened, a wrapper crinkling. Flynn turned back, rolling the condom down his erection. There was a stern placidity to his face, that same look Laurel had seen him wear just before the bell clanged to start a fight.
He dropped to his knees behind Pam, their bodies in profile to Laurel. Then he glanced to Laurel and all at once it was her before him, dying to be taken, all that heat coming off his body making her woozy.
“Eyes on the floor,” he ordered.
For a second Laurel obeyed, forgetting who she was in all this. As she raised her head she saw Flynn gripping his cock in one hand, the other teasing Pam’s pussy.
“Nice,” he breathed. “You’re always ready for me, aren’t you?”
“Always.”
“Yeah.” He angled his cock to her, pushing in. He made a sound of bone-deep satisfaction. Pam made a different noise—a sharp intake of breath followed by a sigh. His hips set a rhythm, slow and steady.
“You been thinking about this all week?” he asked.
Fuck yes.
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?” he demanded.
“Yes, Sir.”
Laurel saw his fingers dig harder into Pam’s ass as he fucked deeper, his thrusts echoing through her body, through Laurel’s. She watched his driving cock, knowing just how it must feel, all that hot, thick flesh taking what it wanted in greedy strokes.
“Good girl,” he murmured, and Laurel blushed from the praise, needing it to be for her.
He fucked, steady and calm, for several minutes. Then one palm slid from Pam’s ass to the small of her back, the gesture dripping with possession. He sped, pumping deep and fast and selfish.
“Lower,” he said, a new meanness in his voice.
She obeyed, dropping onto her elbows, hair pooling on the floor like a curtain and hiding her face.
“Lower.”
She dropped to one shoulder, then the other, face and neck wrenched to one side. Laurel imagined it, letting her discomfort be Flynn’s pleasure. Pam slid her arms to her sides and he took her wrists, crossing them behind her back and pinning them with one big hand. Laurel held her breath, grasped her own wrist, disturbed and turned on and nervous and hungry.
“You want this?” he demanded, and fuck if it didn’t feel as though that question we
re meant for Laurel. She bit her tongue, letting Pam speak for the both of them.
“No,” she said, almost too faint to make out.
Flynn turned to Laurel, expression cold as he nodded—the exact moment the play shifted from rough to far rougher.
He grunted in time with his hard thrusts, his free hand running up and down Pam’s thigh. He brought it down on her ass with a harsh slap and she cried out just as Laurel gasped. Chemicals flooded her bloodstream, the same confusing mix of adrenaline and shameful intoxication as when she watched a rape scene in a movie. In both cases, no one was really being violated, but she registered that same hot guilt she had her entire life, finding the visual powerful and horrifying but undeniably arousing.
“You like that?” Flynn asked, sneering, body hammering Pam’s.
Fuck yes.
“No. Stop.”
His laugh was sharp and cold and his eyes darted to Laurel, words stopping her heart. “I saw the way you watched me tonight.” He looked back to Pam. “You were dying for this cock, weren’t you?” He pounded her fast, hips slapping her ass for a handful of violent beats.
“Stop. Please, stop.”
“You think I can’t feel how wet you are for me?” He slowed, drawing his cock out, easing it back in, controlled and explicit and mocking.
“Don’t, please.”
“Shut your mouth, bitch. Shut up and get fucked.”
“No—” Her protest was cut off by another hard smack of Flynn’s palm on her hip.
“Shut your mouth.”
Laurel gulped for air, lightheaded and breathless, assaulted by a hundred conflicting emotions. Her awareness flashed in and out of the scene, torn between red-hot curiosity and icy fear. Part of her wanted to run for the door, but she remembered everything Pam had told her during the fights, about how women came to Flynn specifically for this treatment. There was consent, and a core of respect buried inside the cruelty.
She watched Pam’s arms jerk uselessly in Flynn’s grip.
“Struggle all you want. Only gets me hotter when you fight it.” With that, he let her hands go. He pulled out long enough to wrestle her onto her back before grabbing her wrists again, pinning them to the floor as he shoved his thighs between hers. Even in the dim light, even with her black hair strung across her mouth and her face set in a fearful grimace, Pam was unmistakably aroused. Her eyes blazed up at Flynn’s as she flailed her legs, kneeing his ribs as he tried to get his cock back inside her. Laurel felt her own arousal return threefold, felt the floor under her spine and Flynn’s weight against her pinned hips.