The Fighter and the Baroness: A Modern-Day Fairy Tale
Page 26
“I did?”
“Yep, like, forever ago.”
He pops half a pancake into his mouth while walking with me over his shoulder. The man is a multitasker.
“Victor,” I laugh. “I wanted to see you eat it.”
He stops in the stairs, turns his face to me, syrupy bliss accentuated by a low hum in his throat and half-closed lids. “Watch me. It’s fucking delicious.”
“No swearing,” I tease, and he punishes me with the stickiest kiss in the universe. The eww I manage sounds as fake as it is—because delectable: both the food and the boy.
It’s weird how you get used to stuff; my boyfriend strides off with me over his shoulder, and I’m embarrassed to say this is not new. Up the stairs we continue from the dank dungeon he’s settled on as his gym away from the gym. He carries me out into the sun again.
My student visa took its sweet time but was finally approved in December. I accepted enrollment into the M.A. in Business Management at the St. Pardus College, but between the late clearance of papers and the lawsuit against my ex-fiancé, I had to postpone my return to Tampa until the spring.
“Maybe you’ll say yes to me in Thailand?” Victor cuts into my thoughts. “You like romantic, right?”
“Of course I like romantic. That’s not the issue here. But we’re so young. I haven’t even started on my master’s yet, and… there’s just no need to hurry.”
“Awesome. Now, what can be more romantic than being proposed to during a royal wedding?”
Goodness, this man’s selective hearing is both cute and annoying. I curve up enough to kiss my crazy, stubborn, wonderful, beautiful warrior.
VICTOR
I can’t believe I’m here.
I can’t believe my girl will be watching me.
I’ve been working nonstop for my first tryouts at the Mandalay Bay, and here I am. I’m in Vegas, baby, and I’ve got my fingers hooked into the mesh of the cage where I’ll be fighting in two days.
Surreal.
Helena and I’ve been busy over the last months, a good kind of busy. After the Von Isenlohe family’s settlement with W.G. the Fifteenth, Helena stopped worrying about the douchebag, while I narrowed my focus to him staying far away from my girl.
We missed his hearing date. The State of Germany against Sir Gunther Wilhelm Affenheimer the Fourth had to give way to a much more positive event: the dragon fighter marrying his princess in Thailand.
Their ceremony made Helena cry. I’ve seen her tear up more than once, but girls are strange; I think she recognized their struggle to get to that moment even though I never went into much detail about it. I sure didn’t complain when she sank into my arms and dabbed at carefully painted eyes with a silk handkerchief provided by the venue.
Don’t get me wrong. I couldn’t have been happier for the dragon fighter and his princess. It’s just that I looked even more forward to the Ivory Room and the Celestial Bed they had assigned to us. Helena loved the flower petals, the scent, the trickling water fountains, and the endless sky-ceiling above us. And see, as soon as I locked the door behind us, my own bliss erupted. At that point, it was all about Helena and me. I could treat her with all the love, all the heat she deserved, and I only let up on my caresses a tiny bit after my princess drifted to sleep.
Our return to America coincided with news we didn’t even dare to hope for. Helena had five missed calls and two texts from her father when we switched our phones on at the airport in Tampa. They all urged her to call ASAP.
“Guess what?” he said, face filling the small screen of her phone. “Gunther Wilhelm the Fourth was sentenced to nine and a half years in jail for fraud, sabotage, and extortion.”
“Are you kidding me right now?” Helena squealed.
“I’m not, and did you know he also paid off the three biggest tourist magazines in our region, making sure Kyria Castle hasn’t appeared as one of the top attractions over the last months?”
“Are you kidding—”
“I bet he’s not,” I said, smiling.
“It’s the truth.”
“So we’ll be front and center now?”
“More than ever. Thanks to Gunther Wilhelm the Fourth, we’ll be gracing all three covers for Christmas, and not only due to the beauty of your home, Schatz. Inadvertently, he has done a lot for Kyria’s fame.”
Helena is beautiful. When she’s happy, she’s irresistible, and in that moment, I forgot myself and kissed her right in front of her old man. Neither of them lost their smiles.
Keyon arrives, pulling me back to the now and wanting to show me around. Vegas has become his home turf. I flick a gaze toward Helena, verifying that she’s okay, and find Keyon’s woman, Paislee, leaning forward on a bucket seat, revealing too much about their life in Sin City, I’m sure. She has found a rapt listener in Helena.
“Girls, I’m gonna take him out for a glass of club soda,” Keyon calls to Helena and Paislee, and they give us a thumbs-up each. “His team’s throwing him back into the gym in a few, but I’ve got dirt to share about his opponent first.”
I stalk over and steal a goodbye kiss from Helena. She’s delicious like this, all fairytale-haired with a small, red dress that covers part of her thighs and only half of those breasts God created for me only. She’s the tastiest woman on Earth.
She didn’t accept my plea for her hand at the dragon fighter’s wedding. If I win tomorrow, I might give it another try. I’m nothing if not determined.
HELENA
There’s something about working Victor’s fights. I feel like I can influence his wins when I do, and now I wish I were an EFC round-card girl.
Though I know the reason to his only loss over the last years—him throwing the fight with the dragon fighter in Thailand—I can’t help thinking that I should have been there, not just watching but walking the ring with my cards for him too.
His opponent tonight is humongous. I can’t for the life of me understand how he weighed into Victor’s weight class. Pale and meaty, he’s got a face that’s lumpy from too many hits, a short forehead, and bulging brows. Small, evil eyes peer out beneath short lashes.
I remind myself that Maiko is here. She’s braver about leaving Tampa lately, and Victor claims it has to do with a change in her prescriptions. With Maiko in his corner, wise eyes following his every move as he ascends the steps to the cage, my sensation of doom begins to ease.
VICTOR
Despite the last few weeks of training camp being harder than any I’ve been through, I’m all pent-up energy. My buddies can say what they want about Dawson and Maiko’s old-fashioned instructions of isolating the fighter from women, but it sure as hell works when you’re crazy about someone.
I haven’t touched her in a week and a half. I dream about her skin as much as I dream about destroying Thor “The Thunder” Bergstrom.
I see my mother register the way I clench my right fist. I got a muscle cramp during a sparring yesterday, but it’s not going to influence the fight. Helena sits next to her, eyes glued on me, traveling up my chest to my face.
I love you, she mouths just as Bergstrom lumbers onto our stage, and I blow a kiss at her.
I find my position at the center of the ring. They say purpose can decide a fight. My purpose is clear: I’m going to win.
I’m also damn sure I won’t be messing around because I’ve got a girl, a bottle of champagne, and forty-eight hours in a complimentary suite waiting for me to settle the score.
Thor is a head taller than me. He’s meaty as hell too, but the weigh-in showed him only seven pounds heavier. It baffles me. Dude must have freaking hollow bones.
I’ve discussed Keyon’s new intel on him with Dawson. He doesn’t agree with my tactics, but he’s aware that I’ll be too impatient to let the rounds pass during this fight. Thor is slow but packs a destructive punch if he gets to run the show, so as soon as the bell sounds, I rush him and ram a right uppercut into his chin, then I follow up with a full-force punch to his temple.
Princess, I am done soon.
My elbow hits him square in the nose. Thor loses his balance. This needs to be over, and I don’t think twice—I rush him and do a belly-to-belly suplex, sailing him over my shoulder and landing on top of him.
Before he can react, I start to pound him. When he sinks to the ground, I guillotine him, and there’s nothing he can do except pass out—
A minute and a half into the first round!
The room is a solid roar. Adrenaline floods my veins, and when I look up, Maiko’s on the mesh, fingers fanned like she wants to grab onto it and scream with the audience. Her eyes are so wide. I’ve never seen my calm, collected mother with such a look on her face, and it’s like my throat closes on me, not allowing air to go in or out.
“Jesus Christ!” Markeston bellows, trampling into the ring with Coach on his heel. “Am I dreaming, or did Victor just belly-suplex Thor “The Thunder” Bergstrom? How the fuck did you manage that?”
Seems he’s forgiven me for throwing the fight in Thailand. Markeston’s silent treatment will never reach my top hundred list. Dude pulls that shit off better than a woman.
I lift my hands, grinning. Sweat drips into my eyes, but I blink it away, because behind the congratulants, behind Maiko who’s hugging me, Helena climbs the stairs in high heels, and the look in her eyes is a breathtaking mixture of happiness and seduction that is pure Helena.
I can’t stop staring at her. The commentator speaks. Wants Thor and me to the center of the ring. Just—to think straight, I need my mouth on hers.
“There you are,” I breathe, licking her lips before I suck them in, tasting her and rubbing my sweat against her neck like I’m marking her. “You’re mine. Do you know this?”
“And you mine,” she purrs back.
“Ahh let’s go,” I say.
“Not until you get what you deserve. Let them give it to you.”
“You, give it to me, baby,” I hiss, thoughtless, and I make her giggle though I’m not trying. How fucking hot is a gasped giggle from the sexiest woman in the world? “Stay right there.”
She bobs her head, waiting in my corner. I swing from her, facing the referee, my opponent, and the audience.
“And the challenger, the underdog, Victor Arquette from Tampa, Florida, wins unanimously with a nine-to-five score. Congratulations!” He raises my hand in the air. The crowd shouts and cheers. “Do you want to say a few words to the audience?”
“I do,” I say. “This is my first fight in Las Vegas. I’d be lying by omission if I didn’t mention what an amazing feeling it is for me to win tonight. My dream, ever since I was a little kid, has been to stand in this very ring with my fist held high, staring at all of you with this exact grin on my face.”
Laughter breaks through the audience.
“I’ll always remember tonight, and yet, I’d like to make it even more memorable.”
“How?” someone instantly screams from the front seats, and the commentator joins them, repeating the question too.
“Well, I have a girl. A princess of sorts, and this particular princess needs to give a guy a break and allow him to stop begging for scraps.”
“Hmm, interesting. Do you see the princess anywhere nearby?” the commentator plays along.
“As a matter of fact, I do. She’s right there, behind you.”
Shimmering water-blues meet my gaze. She looks the part tonight, spine ramrod straight and with jewels glittering in her ears and around her wrists. But now her hands lift to her mouth in shock, and she loses that regal composure.
My chest implodes with everything I feel for her, and can’t stop a three-second grin from flashing over my face.
The commentator bobs his head. “Oh she’s a beauty. Who is this princess?”
“She has a name I wonder if she’d like to change up a little,” I say. “I keep begging it of her, but she always says no. Not even royal weddings can change her mind.”
“Hmm, that doesn’t sound good.” The commentator clucks his tongue for me, while laughter spreads in the audience. “Say, what’s her current name?”
An oncoming smirk makes me purse my mouth to remain serious. “See the billboard at the back there?”
“What billboard? Oh you mean that one?” he acts, pointing toward the neon-lit scoreboard over the fighter exit. The sign blinks, and I lower my voice, reading it out loud.
“Maria Isabella Helena Ludenlowe von Isenlohe is her name. Do you want to know what I’d like it changed to?”
“I sure do.”
The sign blinks again, removing parts of her name and adding the missing element that would make me the happiest man alive.
Helena Arquette von Isenlohe.
Oh man, that looks gorgeous.
Helena’s mouth is open, no sound coming out of it, while the commentator says, “Well, I’ll be damned. It looks mighty fine to me. Is she going to like it?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
I turn, swallow the distance between Helena and me, and sink down on one knee. As planned, Zeke sidles up to me, handing off the ring, and I look up into her eyes and watch her lose her breath with fear. I already knew this would happen. I’m prepared to convince her.
“Helena von Isenlohe. You have turned me down four times in as many months. You’re afraid marriage will ruin what we have, but it will only strengthen it. If you say yes, if you carry my ring, I promise you the world.”
“Victor, don’t— Please,” she begs, but I grab her hand and kiss each knuckle before I continue.
“Helena, I just want to see my ring on your finger. I want to own your promise of a future together. For all I care, we can remain engaged for a decade before we get married. I know you’re not ready for a ceremony and paperwork. Your promise and your love is all I need.”
“Ohmigod, you lucky bitch!” someone squeals. “If you don’t give him what he wants, I will,” another girl shouts.
“We’re both young,” I assure her. “We’ve talked about this. But look how unassuming this ring is? You need a magnifying glass for the garnish. This ring is just the tiniest token of my giant love for you, and if you wear it, that’ll be all the proof I need of your love for me.”
HELENA
“God it’s tiny,” I murmur. We’re back in our room. I tease him, because I want revenge for how he embarrassed me in front of thousands of people at the venue. My engagement ring is fitting for us, a thin, gold band with a pearl at the center and baby diamonds crusted around it.
Victor is all burning eyes and cocky smile. The sweat from the fight has dried, and we’re supposed to attend a big dinner in his honor. But he needed a shower and my “help” upstairs first. His mother might have been the only one who didn’t understand what my assistance was all about.
“I’ll show you tiny,” he growls, kissing me, digging his fingers into my hair to hold me still. He’s got it wrong though, because I’m not about to flee. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than right here with my champion, my sweet man with his stubborn, go-for-the-win attitude in every aspect of life.
My heart is on a rampage, whacking the crap out of my chest. Whoa, I hope we’ll agree on the timing of children in the future. If not, I’ll be losing a battle I’m not even battling.
“Goddamn finally,” he says as he tears my brand-new dress off me. “You finally said yes. You strung me along for so damn long.”
“We’ve only dated for ten months,” I remind him. “People don’t actually get engaged that—”
He cuts me off the way he knows best, tongue delving into my mouth and making me pant.
“Goodness,” I huff, pulse pumping hard. When Victor is in my space like this, his focus com
pletely on me, it’s hard to absorb all of him.
“Time means shit. Conviction means everything. When you know, you know, and I wasn’t going to take my chances on some jerk traipsing out of the woodworks and stealing my woman.”
“My warrior is scarred,” I joke.
“Fucking W.G. the Fifteenth,” he agrees, which causes this soft little blob of bliss to spread like a stain through my insides.
I sigh as he lowers me to the bed, filling those big fighter hands with my breasts. “Your skin, baby girl. It’s so soft I can’t even feel you right now. Gotta do something about that.”
He dives in and sucks a nipple so far into his mouth I cry out. It’s pained pleasure, so perfect for this moment.
Victor and I decided to prepare for this fight the way Dawson preaches. I’ve watched him at the gym and he has visited me at Hooters, but we haven’t been together-together in ten days. The man exuded sexual energy like tinted light, driving me crazy.
Victor wrings my panties off. Impatient, so impatient, he groans and pulls me on top of him, pressing the bulb of his penis against my opening, and lust shoots a shard of heat all the way up to my belly button.
“Sorry, no bed. I need closer,” he breathes, getting on his feet with me like I weigh nothing. I scissor my legs around his waist and let him pin my arms to the wall while he works me with the force of his thighs, his cock, and his hips.
“Ah. Can you feel that?” he asks.
I’m already beyond answering.
“Tiny?”
“Nu… huh.”
“Big enough for you, you’re saying?”
“Uh-huh…”
“Hard enough?”
“Ja, shaddap!”
He tries for a laugh but gives up. We rock against the wall, a quickening rhythm, a harmony I want to live in.
“I’d live in you,” he matches my thoughts. “I love you like crazy.”
My orgasm comes suddenly, making me contract around him. Victor’s breath stutters when I cry out, muffled curse words falling from his lips to mine. He grows and hardens. I barely have room for him, but then he surrenders to the pleasure and presses me to the wall while he jerks inside of me.