Brawler's Baby: An MMA Mob Romance (Mob City Book 1)

by Holly Hart

7

  Maya

  I looked at him, stunned silent by the callousness in Conor's voice.

  Why did you bother inviting me here in the first place if all you wanted to do was hurt me?

  I looked more closely into his eyes, refusing to flinch in the face of his cold stare. I wasn't willing to accept that he'd changed that much. He was hurting. I could tell that just by looking into those once-effervescent emerald globes – and it wasn't a great stretch to figure that that hurt had everything to do with me. It had been a long time since I'd stood so close to him, and we hadn't parted on good terms. We hadn't parted on terms at all – I'd just disappeared. Was it any wonder that he was still hurting?

  No.

  "I'm not really called Rachel." I murmured. If I'd thought that telling the truth would feel like a weight falling off my shoulders, I was wrong.

  "I guessed as much." Conor replied dryly, crossing his arms. It was a defensive comment that reflected his closed off posture.

  He doesn't want to listen to my excuses.

  I let my head bow forward as I searched for the words that would make everything right again. Why was I here? What the hell was I hoping to achieve? The best case scenario was that I simply raked up old memories, and when Conor left, as he inevitably word, I'd be left to pick up the pieces. My life here was hard enough as it was.

  Was he really worth it?

  Yes. This is what you want, what you've been waiting for.

  A drumbeat of nerves played its relentless tune in my head, the knowledge that I'd only get one shot at redeeming myself amplifying my tension. I'd once known Conor better than anyone alive, but that was a long time ago. He was a proud man, and fiercely determined, but if there was one thing I knew, it was that Conor could be set in his ways.

  "I'll tell you everything." I said softly. I knew that telling the whole ugly truth was the only option at my disposal that stood even the faintest chance of succeeding.

  Can I?

  An image of a high school boyfriend's face, bruised and battered at the hands of my father's thugs simply for having the temerity to ask me out on a date, flashed into my mind. Conor wasn't Jake – an innocent, sweet guy who'd barely understood that some people had dads who weren't accountants, or lawyers, or something equally dull – and safe.

  No, Conor was a man who came from the streets, a man who could be equally at home in the seedy underbelly of every city he visited, and a man who understood the cliques, the strife and the hard ways of life in the criminal underworld.

  Conor was no fool – now that he'd met my father, he would have quickly picked up on everything he needed to know about him to understand exactly how evil a man he truly was.

  His weight shifted fractionally, an unconscious response to my distracted silence, and it betrayed his desperate desire to learn exactly why I'd abandoned him without so much as a word of farewell.

  But I still couldn't shake the image of Jake's broken face – the cloud that had lain over my life, holding me back from romantic entanglements for years. Perhaps, for his own safety, I didn't have to tell Conor everything…

  Seriously, Maya. Don't lie to yourself. This isn't about Conor's safety – this is about you being afraid to lose him. Again.

  "My real name is Maya, Maya Antonov," I whispered, struggling to quiet the voice inside me. "Not Rachel. I lied to you, back then. I had to."

  "Why," Conor asked, demandingly.

  Why? It was such a simple question with so many answers. Why was my father so controlling? Why had my mother never challenged him? Why had he sent me to college in Ireland

  Of course, there was one answer that lay at the bottom of all the mystery and at the heart of the intrigue. But it was the one answer I couldn't – didn't dare – give.

  "Why?" I repeated helplessly, searching for a way to put into words something I'd struggled to overcome for my entire life.

  "You've met my father, so you know the kind of man he is. I didn't have a choice. He sent me to college in Dublin to, I dunno, keep me away from his enemies. It was street warfare back then, nobody was safe, not even –." My voice cracked as I was assailed by a wave of grief that I normally kept locked far away, where it couldn't hurt me.

  "Not even?" Conor prompted.

  I looked him in the eye. "Not even my mother."

  He flushed red with embarrassment for making me relive the memory. "I'm sorry."

  "Don't be." I shrugged. "Don't get me wrong, she was a great woman."

  But she was always too scared of Dad to actually stand in his way during his periodic rages. She failed a mother's biggest task – to protect her children. I won't.

  Conor filled the silence as I tailed off, captured by my memories. "So you had to pretend to be someone you weren't?" He prompted.

  "No!" I exclaimed. "Well, yes. But everything I said, everything I told you – it was all real."

  He raised his eyebrows disbelievingly. "Except your name. That seems like a pretty fundamental thing to lie about, doesn't it, now?"

  I stared at the man whose memory I'd loved for years, the man I'd had to leave. Was he still the same gentle giant I'd fallen for so many years before, I wondered, or had my leaving changed him somehow – embittered him. And if he had changed, was it permanent?

  I looked around the room, noticing its disarray as if for the first time – the beer bottles he hadn't managed to clear away, the clothes strewn around the room, the suitcase he was living out of dumped haphazardly next to a wall.

  Add to that the fact that Conor was now a traveling martial arts fighter who made his living hitting men in a cage, it was hard to avoid the creeping suspicion that he'd never fully recovered from me leaving. It was what I'd feared all these years, but brought vividly to life.

  I pulled my mind back to the present. "Yes. I was going to tell you, I promise, but –."

  He interrupted, his voice low and husky, his eyes glinting with the fierce, determined zeal of a man who was finally getting to ask the questions he'd held onto for years. "But you could never find the right time?"

  I nodded mutely, tears prickling my eyes as I too was forced to deal with memories I hadn't fully unpacked in years. I let my head sink, unable to bear the pressure of Conor staring back at me with those deep, hurt green eyes. I'd known him long enough to know exactly how he was feeling right now – the same pain as a wounded animal. It was perhaps worse even than the hurt I was experiencing, because he couldn't, or wouldn't, express it out loud. If I knew him, he'd soon be off to look for a punching bag to hit.

  He surprised me.

  He closed the distance between us, and before I knew it his hand was on my shoulder, pressing down, comforting. The touch was electric. My body remembered it as if we'd only parted yesterday, and it reacted with a shiver. It had always had a mind of its own around Conor…

  "Don't cry, girl." He murmured softly, his lilting accent suited so perfectly to providing comfort, so unusual for a man who looked as dangerous as he did, the kind of man you wouldn't want to pass late at night in a darkened alley.

  I couldn't turn to look at him, couldn't bear to see that hurt in his eyes. He hadn't moved his arm from my shoulders, nor stopped his hand from gently stroking my upper arm. He smelled the same, too – of the salty scent of fresh sweat on his skin, and the heat of his favorite Irish whiskey on his breath.

  "You've been drinking," I whispered back.

  He threw his head back and laughed uproariously. "Have you forgotten that much about me? I'm Irish, for God's sake – and I had a bleeding fight tonight!"

  I flushed and turned my head automatically to face him. It was like barely a moment had passed, like I was still that same naive young girl who'd wandered into the wrong part of Dublin – his part, and he was still the same eighteen-year-old kid who'd put his fists up and his street-cred on the line to save me – a girl he'd never met before.

  I shivered with the memory of how close I'd come to…

  Don't think about it.

  He'd
saved me once. Could he do it again?

  I didn't dare think about it. Long years of bitter experience had taught me that to think about salvation was inevitably to hope for it. And Alexandria isn't a place that rewards an emotion as fleeting or as ephemeral as hope.

  No, it was safer to focus on what I had right in front of me. And besides, it wasn't like I was capable of much thinking right now, anyway. Not with Conor so close. I'd spent so many years lying in bed at night, dreaming of this moment, dreaming of us being reunited. Okay, sure – this old, faded motel wasn't exactly where I had pictured our reunion going down, and sure, I'd imagined a softer bed…

  But what really mattered was that he was here at all.

  After all this time, he was here, sitting next to me with his arm around my shoulders. I didn’t even know how we’d come to sit down, like my brain was ignoring anything but his presence, here, next to me And all the rest? The stained, ratty curtains; the springs pushing their way out of the old mattress, all of it. It simply faded away.

  My heartbeat was the only thing I could still feel – like my body was extending a lifeline to me, something to hold on to. As for the rest of me? It was numb. It was as though, now that everything I'd dreamed of was actually happening, my conscious brain had decided that this was precisely the right time to switch off, to leave me clinging onto a raft of hope in a sea of emotion,

  BOOM BOOM, BOOM BOOM!

  The sound of my heart thundered in my ears like waves crashing down on a stormy pebble beach.

  "Conor…" I whispered.

  Honestly I had no idea whether I actually whispered it or not, because I could already barely tell what was real and what wasn't. I had an awful, lingering suspicion that this was all a horrible dream, and that I might wake up at any time, soaked with sweat in my own bed, and violently gut-clenchingly alone.

  If this is all just a dream, you better make the most of it!

  Four years of enforced celibacy does things to a girl, things even the most energetic fingers can't fix. Though God, I've tried.

  Conor didn't answer me with words. He answered me the only way he knew how – with his body. He pressed his hard, lithe frame against mine, his body searing with heat, and I melted against him, my curves fitting his edges like we'd never been apart.

  I felt like I was home, like if he picked me up and held me against him nothing could ever tear us apart. My mind knew that whatever was happening between us right now was as likely to be fleeting as to last – perhaps more so.

  I couldn't understand how my father would allow this to happen. Didn't even want to try, because it reminded me of how he'd already once ripped us apart. Even if this didn't stand a chance, I wanted Conor to have me, to hold me, to possess me, so I'd at least have one last memory of happiness.

  Don't think about that. Be present.

  My body took my brain's mild reproach on-board at full throttle, and I felt every nerve ending in my entire body light up, like an electric current was coursing through my body, heading down my spine and branching off at every joint to fire up my senses and stoke the fire burning between my legs.

  I've never accuse Conor of being a wordsmith, but he’s not half bad at using his tongue.

  "I'm going to make you scream," he whispered, pressing his face close against my ear. "Until you beg for me to stop."

  Just hearing that lilting, soft Irish accent describing the things he wanted to do to me was practically enough to make me come. Feeling his warm, wet tongue licking my ear at the same moment his fiery red Gaelic stubble grazed against my cheek already had me sighing with pleasure.

  "I won't." I said with a voice breathy with anticipation. I'd been thinking about him for years – no matter how long we spend on this bed, there was no chance I was going to tire of feeling him on top of me, with me, in me.

  And besides, even the memory, the nightmare, of my celibacy was enough to compel me to throw myself into this like this was the last sex I'd ever have. Hell, if my father ever found out, it might be.

  "We'll see." He growled provocatively, as if I'd thrown down a gauntlet – like now his manhood was on the line. It only seemed to make him want to redouble his efforts, to caress my body, to stroke it, to pleasure me ever more energetically. I hadn't meant it that way, but I sure wasn't complaining.

  Wherever he touched me, I quivered, my body remembered how he'd once played it like a fiddle, reminded of how my legs would clench around his head, how my thighs would tremble, how my back would arch and my hands closed around the bed sheets, grabbing handfuls of the soft white material as my body fell away into orgasm. The muscle memory overrode any conscious thought that still lingered in my brain, unleashed me from the mental bonds that my father's restrictive, jealous captivity had left behind.

  Conor slowly began to undress me, his fingers tracing their way underneath my top and leaving fiery lines of pleasure on my hyper-sensitive skin. Suddenly an aching, dull pain coursed through my body. I grabbed his hand.

  "Stop." I begged anxiously. "Hold up, will you?"

  "What's wrong?" He asked, looking at me with eyes tinged with worry. "If you don't want to do this…"

  8

  Maya

  I cut him off, the concern I saw in his expression tearing me up inside. He cared – he truly cared, even if it'd take far more for him to actually admit it. No, the last thing I wanted was for this to stop, especially now I had him back in my life again after so many years apart.

  "It's not like that, it's just…" I croaked, before tailing off, desperately searching for a way to phrase what I needed to ask without giving away the secret that I'd kept from him for so long – if only out of necessity – and which now hung so heavily on my mind. I jutted my chin toward the light switch, folding my hands across my chest protectively.

  "The light in here's horrible."

  It wasn't exactly a lie – the light cast by the bare lightbulb was bright, harsh and overpowering, but I sure wasn't telling him the whole truth, and nothing but.

  Conor leapt athletically to his feet, landing lightly on his toes in a fighter's stance. "You want me to turn it off?" He asked as he stepped toward the light switch and tried to hide the surprise on his face. I'd never been a prude – far from it, so for him my sudden reticence must have come straight out of left field, but he was covering it well. "I've seen you naked before, gal…"

  Not like this. I thought, biting my tongue. There would be a time and a place to tell him everything – I hoped – but now wasn't that time.

  I just knew I couldn't let him see the marks, or how my body had changed. I wasn't ready, and I didn't know whether Conor ever would be.

  Instead, with blood rushing to my face, I confessed to an embarrassing secret. I croaked. "It's been a while since I, you know, got laid. Just do it, okay?"

  Conor's eyes flared with what could only be described as an expression of possessive excitement, as though the idea of me lying with another man repulsed him, and the knowledge that I hadn't excited him even further. "You're the boss."

  His eyes raked across my body hungrily, causing the self-conscious part of me to imagine that he was searching for the reason I'd stopped him in his tracks. The truth, I knew deep down, was probably far less exciting. Or more, depending on your point of view – he was horny as hell. I could see the outline of his thick cock through his pants, and there was nothing flaccid about it, not now.

  The room went dark as Conor flicked the light switch off, returning to the bed with all the speed of a hunting cheetah – except instead of roaming gazelle, I was his prey. And he didn't want to eat me. Not like that, anyway. Now that he had me in his sights, and with the last obstacle in his way dealt with, I knew there'd be no stopping him.

  "How's that?" He cooed quietly, the easy Irish calmness in his familiar accent immediately reassuring me that as far as he was concerned, whatever the reason I didn't want him to see me naked was, it couldn't have troubled him less.

  "Perfect." I sighed, his hot breath once
again tickling my face, and the stiff hairs of his fiery red stubble sensuously scratching against my face.

  Permission granted, Conor didn't pause for a second longer, pulling my arms apart and tearing my top off with a fevered, desperate speed. I had a momentary second of panic as I remembered that – since I hadn't expected to end up half-naked on my back tonight in Conor's bed, my bra and panties were about as matching as they were flattering. That is, not very. And that was putting it lightly!

  Either the room's darkness hid the offending articles of underwear, or he simply didn't care. Conor had never been a man to get hung up on the little things. Way back when he'd liked it when I dressed up for him.

  But like he used to say, "I'd want to fuck you even if I was blind." I used to say that it was either the most, or the least romantic thing anyone had ever said to me. Even now, years later, I wasn't sure which it was.

  At the very second my bra joined my top on the floor, an act that happened so smoothly I barely noticed, Conor planted a fierce kiss on my lips. I pressed mine back against his, feeling the heat as they joined together, and cried out a little as his tongue grazed my bottom lip. I felt his right hand trace its way down my torso. It moved with exquisite slowness and left a trail of pleasure in its wake. His left weaved itself into a handful of my hair and gently pulled at it.

  "Please, Conor," I begged. God knows what I was asking for, but whatever it was, he delivered it.

  He scraped the bristles on his chin down my front, beginning at the little dimple where my neck meets my shoulders, and trailed his way down my body, passing through my firm breasts and then down, down, down toward my belly button.

  It was slow, sensuous torture. It seemed as if he was barely moving, but he knew exactly what he was doing. He was building me up to tear me down.

  "Turn over," he grunted, not leaving me a choice. I couldn't have disobeyed him even if I'd tried, because he did it for me anyway. He grabbed my hips and flipped me over in one easy movement, leaving me marveling at the power contained in the bulging, rippling muscles that marked his shoulders and back like thick segments of rope.