Fighting Attraction

by Sarah Castille

  I change into my gi and join the other white belts at the front of the class. Fuzzy suggested jiu-jitsu because it’s a good sport for smaller people who want to fight larger opponents, and from a quick assessment of the room behind me, I’m the smallest person here.

  “Sorry I’m late.” Cora slips into the space beside me, her eyes fixed on Blade Saw. After watching her and Blade Saw dance around each other at Score, both afraid to take that next step, I suggested she come to class with me to watch him in action. Blade Saw really comes into his own when he’s teaching a class.

  Shilla leads us through a warm-up unlike any I’ve ever done before. We do tumbling, army crawls, bear crawls, and cartwheels. We jump, lunge, crawl, roll, and do push-ups at specific intervals. By the time Blade Saw partners us for our first lesson, I’m ready to call it a night.

  “I think this was a bad idea,” Cora pants as we go to the beginner section to learn new techniques. “The drowned rat look isn’t particularly flattering. I can’t really get my sexy on when I’m beet-red and covered in sweat.”

  Blade Saw decides to partner everyone up to practice passing the guard. He shouts at everyone to get in line, grabs Cora for the demo, and sends me across the room to Rampage, who must have sneaked in when Shilla had us hauling ass across the mat.

  Heart pounding, I make my way across the dojo. What do I say to a man who chained me to the ceiling of his playroom and aroused me to the point of pain?

  Rampage tracks me with his gaze as I skirt around the people getting into position on the mat. He is breathtaking in his crisp white gi, a worn black belt tied tight around his narrow waist. Some of the fighters wear T-shirts under their gis, but I am not so lucky. As I slow to a stop in front of him, I am forced to endure the visual feast of his truly magnificent chest.

  Burn, cheeks, burn. “Um…hi.”

  “Pen.” His voice is laced with amusement, thick with his Southern drawl.

  “Blade Saw said you needed a partner.” I amaze myself at my ability to form a coherent sentence without collapsing in a puddle on the floor.

  “So he sent me a white belt? Did I do something to piss him off?”

  My cheeks heat, and I look up, only to fall into the warmth of his gaze. “No one else is free.”

  A smile tugs at his lips. “I’m just messing with you, darlin’.”

  My insides turn to mush, and I dip my head so he can’t see just how red my cheeks can get.

  Rampage lies on his mat, propping himself up on his elbows in a semi-recline. His gaze sweeps over me as I get in position on my knees in front of him. He’s got guard, which means he has to make me submit, and I have the goal of passing guard to a dominant position and holding it for three seconds. The irony isn’t lost on me, but I don’t laugh because his eyes suddenly darken almost to black.

  “You ready?”

  Boy, am I ever. “Yes.” I try to play it cool, like I wasn’t shackled to the ceiling of his BDSM playroom in my bra and knickers last night, stroked into a frenzy, and ordered not to touch myself. Like that was going to happen.

  “You understand the drill?” He licks his lips, like a predator about to feast. “When one of us succeeds in our goal, we stop, and the loser goes back to the end of the line. The winner stays out and takes guard on the next person in line.”

  “You have to make me submit.” I toy with the ends of my very white belt. “Maybe I should just go to the end of the line now. You didn’t seem to have any trouble with that last night.”

  “Come here and say that,” he murmurs, patting his belt. “I’ll give you the advantage of full mount.”

  My mouth goes dry as I crawl up his body and seat myself over his belt, my knees spread uncomfortably wide on either side of his hips in a fully dominant position. Something hard and smooth presses against the juncture of my thighs, and I pray he is wearing a cup because the urge to rock against that delicious hardness is almost overwhelming.

  Rampage’s corded neck tightens when he swallows. “Move up. Your knees should be under my arms.”

  I shuffle up, and he grabs my hips and drags me forward until my knees are on either side of his chest and I can feel the heat of his breath on a place where heat should not be felt in the middle of a packed Brazilian jiu-jitsu class.

  “I think maybe I’m too close.”

  He heaves in a breath, his eyes glittering as he grips the inside edges of my gi. “Not close enough.” With a hard yank, he pulls me down until I am lying flat on his body, my breasts against his chest, my hips against his cup, my hands braced on either side of his head.

  “Full mount is where you want to be when you’re grappling a bigger, stronger opponent.” His words whisper over me, his lips so close to mine I only have to drop a few inches to have a little taste.

  “You can use the strength and power of your own body and the force of gravity to your advantage.” He pulls me right down, wraps his free hand around me, shifts his hips and rolls. Before I can catch my breath, I’m flat on my back and Rampage is on top of me.

  “This is where you don’t want to be, as a smaller grappler,” he says. “How are you going to get out of this?”

  The question isn’t so much how am I going to get out of it but do I want to get out of it? And with Rampage’s hard, muscular body on top of me, his legs between my thighs, his hardness pressed tight against my hips, I’m not sure I do.

  Rampage stills, and his eyes widen.

  Bugger. Did I say that out loud?

  “I’m not sure I want you to either.” His breath is warm against my ear. “But if you don’t move, we’ll both get kicked out of class. So, what are you going to do?”

  “Um…overhook an arm, bridge and roll, then get on top into the closed guard?”

  Rampage drops his weight, stealing my breath. “Won’t work against a larger opponent. You need to blast through my hips and use a bit of strength to overturn me. Strength you don’t have. Your best bet is to escape back to half guard.”

  “Okay.” I wiggle just the tiniest bit against him, seeking more of that delicious pressure against my clit. With my vibrator on high, I was able to take the edge off this morning, but with Rampage on top of me, I’m wound up all over again.

  A low growl rumbles in his throat. “You’d better be wiggling ’cause you’re moving into half guard,” he warns. “Now straighten up and make your transition.”

  “This is as straight as I get,” I mutter. “I’m a woman. Women have curves. I happen to have a curve in my back, and it wants to stay that way.”

  “I can feel your curves. Every one of them. And it’s making it fucking hard to concentrate. Make your move ’cause if you don’t do it soon, I’ll have to go out and get a cup.”

  I suck in a sharp breath. “You aren’t wearing a cup?”

  “No.”

  Don’t move. Don’t move.

  I can’t help it. I move. Or more accurately, I grind.

  Wham. Rampage transitions into half guard and flips me onto my front. While I try to get my knees under me, he straddles me and grabs my hips in his huge hands. Heat surges through my body, and I groan quietly in my throat. “What are we doing?”

  “Hips up,” he barks. “Ass down.”

  “They’re connected,” I point out. “Where the hips go, the ass follows.”

  Shilla snorts a laugh and drops to the floor beside me. “Like this.” She stretches her body out into a perfectly smooth, flat, plank position, holding it with one hand. On her knuckles. Then she rolls to show me what Rampage wants me to do.

  “If my body was one solid sheet of muscle, I could do that.” I tense my muscles, try to force myself into a position my body is not meant to go. “However, I have a weakness for chocolate biscuits, lazy Sundays on a blanket in the park, scones with clotted cream, and chicken tikka with thick, white naan bread slathered in butter. Unfortunately, it l
owers my middle center of gravity.”

  Rampage’s hands slide over my stomach, his touch firm, arousing my whole body with the promise of what those fingers could do if they drifted just a little lower. My mind goes hazy with desire and I can’t tell if I’m flying or if my hands and feet are still on the floor. I don’t care about jiu-jitsu transitions. I don’t care that Shilla is watching us with curious eyes or that we’re supposed to be doing a group drill. I don’t care if the whole class is watching us. All I care about is feeling connected to Rampage and wanting this moment to last forever.

  He lifts me right off the floor, as if I weigh nothing, and pulls me against his broad chest, my ass against his hips, feet barely touching the mat, his hands firm around my body. My stomach clenches. My heart pounds. He leans down until his mouth is so close to my ear, I can feel the heat of his breath.

  “I told you not to touch yourself last night,” he whispers.

  Oh God, how did he know? A flush of adrenaline tingles through my body, followed by a thrill of fear. “What are you going to do about it?”

  His hands tighten on my hips, fingers digging into my flesh. “I’ll show you tomorrow night. I want you to come back to the club.”

  His words awaken my darkest desires and a fierce longing to know just how far he will take me. But Amanda…the lawsuit… “I was only allowed one night. Is there another club?”

  “I’ll deal with Damien. I can’t go anywhere else.”

  Anticipation crackles in the air between us, and I feel like we’ve come to the edge of a cliff. Do we turn back, or do we jump? What if one more night isn’t enough?

  “We shouldn’t.”

  “No, we shouldn’t.” He strokes one finger over my hip, and my breath rushes from me in a wave of white-hot heat.

  “Friday,” I say softly.

  He spins me around, sweeps out my legs, and carries me to the ground. We land in reverse of the position we started in. Me on my back. Rampage straddling my hips in the dominant position.

  “Friday.” A slow, sensual smile spreads across his face. “Prepare to be punished.”

  9

  Maybe I shouldn’t have told you

  RAMPAGE

  Friday night. Fight night. Except tonight the fight won’t be in a cage. And it damn well won’t be professional.

  “You fucking bastard.” I stalk into Damien’s office at Club Sin and slam the door.

  “The usual greeting is hello.” He leans back in his leather chair and folds his arms. Defensive. And well he should be. I wanted to have it out with him on Wednesday night, but he slipped out of the club when I was with Penny, and I’ve been stewing for the last two days.

  “You had no right giving Pen a membership to the club, and especially not to the private members’ area.” I am tempted to smash my fist through one of the freshly plastered walls, but I hold back, knowing the worst is still to come.

  “Last I heard, this was my club,” Damien says. “She went through the same process as everyone else, albeit a little bit faster. She has a need, and I think this is the place where she can fulfill it.”

  Maybe if I hadn’t been putting so much energy into keeping my desire at bay, I would have seen what he saw in Penny. Or maybe I did, and that’s why I pushed her away.

  “You wouldn’t have a club if not for your very silent silent partner,” I spit out. My thumb flicks over my ring, twisting it around my finger. I wish I could just get rid of the damned thing. Accept who I am and move on with my life.

  Damien winces ever so slightly at the low blow. His ego is still bruised after having to come to me for financial assistance when the club was in the red. I was happy to help out to keep the club afloat, and I’ve never once held it over his head, never interfered with the running of the club, never asked to be named on any documents. It was a gentlemen’s agreement, and where I’m from, that’s as good as any legal document—sometimes better.

  “We agreed you wouldn’t get involved with how I run the club.” Damien pushes himself up from the desk and walks over to the wet bar in the corner. He pours two shots of scotch and hands me a glass. If Penny wasn’t coming in tonight, I would be tempted to finish the bottle, but heavy drinking and play sessions don’t mix.

  “I wouldn’t have felt the need to get involved if you hadn’t brought in someone I know. She goes to my gym, hangs out with my friends, and she works for the landlord’s attorney, who is the fiancée of one of my close friends. I can’t think of a bigger conflict of interest.” I throw back the drink and let the bitter liquid slide over my tongue. I’m not partial to scotch. My family built an empire on bourbon, and I’m a bourbon man through and through.

  Damien sips his drink, savoring the taste. “Something clicked for her when she came in. How could I turn her away? She might never have had the courage to try somewhere else. She’s not here to feed a kink, Jack. There’s something else driving her.”

  Sometimes his psychology background is as much a hindrance as a help, and right now I’m putting it in the hindrance category. He’s as close to the truth as he’ll get without asking her directly, and I’m not about to tell. That’s Penny’s secret, and one I’m sure she didn’t want me to know.

  Just as I didn’t want her to know mine. How can a Southern gentleman, born and bred to respect and protect women, want to hurt them? That’s the question even Damien could not answer for me. That’s the question Avery screamed at me when she found out about my kink and left me; the question that was on the mind of every member of my family when she married my brother Beau the day she was supposed to marry me.

  “You set me up.” I take the bottle from Damien and pour myself another shot. “You knew I’d find out you had her in your playroom.”

  Damien shrugs. “You’re giving me a lot of credit. Maybe I like pretty, innocent English girls who dress like they’re on their way to a picnic with the queen. Maybe I wanted to see that soft, creamy skin redden under my palms.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Protective.” He swirls his drink. “Big sign of attachment. If you wanted her so bad, why didn’t you ever ask her out?”

  “Because I can’t have a fucking normal relationship.” I thud my glass on the bar counter. “Especially with someone like her—all sweet and innocent, soft and pretty. Why would she want to be with someone who gets off on giving her pain?”

  He raises an eyebrow, dabs at the liquid that splashed out of my glass with a napkin. “Ask any of the masochists.”

  “She’s not a masochist.”

  He cocks his head to the side in his goddamn “I’m a fucking psychologist” pose. “What is she, then?”

  Hurting. Beautiful. Brave. Funny. Determined.

  Broken.

  Pain gives her release, but I suspect she never realized it could give her pleasure, too.

  Sighing into the silence, Damien answers his own question. “She’s not what you thought.”

  “Is that how you justify what you’ve done?” My voice rises in pitch, and I slam the glass on the counter again.

  Unfazed by my uncharacteristic outburst, Damien shrugs. “I did nothing more than introduce someone to the lifestyle. I take it from this visit that you enjoyed your time with her.”

  Enjoy? I can’t even find a word to express the maelstrom of emotion that has consumed me since I had Penny in my playroom. I never intended to take her that far. I just wanted to get her the hell away from Damien, and then I thought I’d give her a taste of what she thought she wanted. I never expected her to respond to me the way she did, to be so willing, so brave, and so open to my touch.

  And the scars…

  Fuck.

  My sweet, sexy Penny has a dark side. Just like me.

  Damien studies me and grins. The bastard fucking grins. “She’s coming back, isn’t she?”

  “Fuck off.”

  He ch
uckles. “You invited her.”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “You just spent five minutes giving me shit for letting her in, and now you’re pissed off because I’m pointing out an inconsistency in your behavior. You’re lucky I’m such a good friend or you’d be looking for new play space.”

  I fold my arms and glare. He’s right. But I wouldn’t have been tempted to ask her back if he hadn’t invited her in the first place.

  “She’s the kind of girl you could actually take back to Tennessee,” Damien says casually. “She’s as close to being Southern as a non-Southerner can be.”

  “There is no going back,” I spit out. “I was fucking disowned. Beau got everything. The family distillery business, Avery…” I swallow the bitterness clogging my throat. More than anything, I wish I could take back the night I shared the darkest part of my soul with Avery. I didn’t want any secrets in our marriage. It never occurred to me that love had limits, and although I assured her I would never hurt her or do anything she didn’t want, my kink was a limit for her.

  Bad enough she walked away only a week before our wedding. Worse—that she told my family my secret and married Beau on what was supposed to be our wedding day, leaving me to wonder just how long she’d loved him and if what we’d had together was real.

  I let out a frustrated breath, knowing the frustration is directed as much at myself as at Damien. If not for my kink, I’d be in Tennessee, running the business I’d been groomed to run alongside my dad, married to the prettiest girl in the county, probably with a couple of kids and a house… Instead, I’m sitting in a sex club with a Master Dominant, on my way to hurt the first woman who has made me feel anything except self-loathing and regret since the day Avery broke off our engagement.

  A woman who discovered my secret and came back for more.