“With the diamond in the glass, and everything?”
“Don’t joke,” Toni laughed bitterly. “I once accidentally swallowed one of those fuckers.” Her cheeks turned pink. “It was no fun having to wait two days for that to turn up again.”
James laughed uproariously.
For a moment or two, they lay there in companionable silence. Then Toni reached over and laid her palm on James’ face.
“It’s funny,” she sighed. “You’re such a sweet guy. Who’d have thought a guy like you would be into MMA?”
“It’s not that I’m a particularly sweet guy,” James confessed. “It’s just your boyfriend’s an arsehole.”
Chapter Twenty Eight
Toni
Toni snatched her hand away, cheeks burning red.
“I’m sorry,” James saw her embarrassment. “That wasn’t cool.” He sipped his drink. “Look – I just saw the way he treated you and…”
Toni didn’t look him in the eye as she confessed: “He’s not the worst.”
Then, cautiously, the beautiful black girl turned to the handsome Brit and explained: “I’ve had kind of a rough dating history.”
He said nothing. He just listened.
“My first boyfriend was a crack dealer,” Toni explained. She lifted her arm and showed three deep scars near her wrist. “He gave me those with a crack pipe, when I tried to leave him. I was fifteen.”
Taking a deep swallow from her champagne, she continued:
“After that, I did it all. Gang-bangers. Felons. I never turned a trick, but I dated a pimp for a couple of months.” She looked up into James’ wide, blue eyes. “Growing up in Compton without a daddy isn’t easy. I did what I had to do to make it, y’know?”
James didn’t know. He came from an upper class Scots/English upbringing. While Toni was getting burned with a crack pipe, he was probably taking riding lessons, or going on skiing trips with his friends to Chamonix.
“So I look back at that,” Toni continued, “and Hannibal isn’t so bad.” She looked at James coolly. “Not by the standards of some of the men I’ve been mixed up with, anyway.”
“Wow,” James breathed. “You’ve had a rough life.”
“I got some miles on me, baby,” a sad little smile danced on her lips. “But that’s the past. I’m focused on making myself a future.”
“With Hannibal?”
She said nothing.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Toni reached over and laid a reassuring hand on James’ bare arm. “It’s a fair question.”
She took a deep breath.
“The thing with Baller… It’s more, like, a business deal.”
She looked up, deep into James’ eyes. “My agent, Frank, set it up. He needs my reputation – you know, a little gang-banging hood-rat made good. I make Baller look like, well, a baller.”
Then she shook her head.
“And, fuck me, James. I need his influence. His money. He’s on TV all the time. On the back of cereal boxes. Fuck, they’re gonna cast him in a movie next year.”
She shrugged.
“As long as I’m with Baller, the record companies will consider giving me a shot. I’m legit with him – which is fucking funny, because he’s trying to be gangster by being with me.”
James nodded. He pursed his lips.
“So… A business deal?”
Toni snorted.
“I know what you’re gonna ask next, and the answer is: Yes. He and I fuck. Shit, when it all started out, I even thought it was real. Like, I got this and everything.”
She held out her other arm – the one not burned by the crack pipe. On her wrist was tattooed an 8-Ball, and the words “BALLER” in graffiti-style script.
“Well, at least it’s better than Hannibal,” James said dryly. “If you ever leave him, you can just pretend you’re a really big fan of pool.” He laughed bitterly. “If you were stuck with ‘Hannibal’, you’d have to pretend you really loved the A-Team as a kid, or something.”
Toni smiled.
She rolled over, and laid her head down on James’ massive chest. Looking up at him with her beautiful brown eyes, she asked: “So, do you think I’m a hoe for what I’ve got with Baller?”
“A what?”
“A hoe. A whore,” she explained.
James laughed dryly. He stroked her hair, and flopped his head back to stare at the ceiling.
“No. No, I don’t.” He took a deep breath. “In fact, I’ve got a story not so dissimilar to yours.”
Chapter Twenty Nine
James
“Her name was Elise,” James explained. “She was the daughter of a prominent banker in our town. My parents set me up with her when I was sixteen.”
“And?” Toni asked. “What happened?”
“I got into MMA fighting. Her parents told me: It’s the cage matches, or her.”
Toni ran her fingers through the reddish blond hair on James’ chest.
“So you picked the fighting?”
“Obviously.”
“And what happened?”
James snorted.
“And my parents kicked me out. I spent six months sleeping on friend’s floors and sofas before I ran into Taffy. He got me in shape for some real fights, and I haven’t looked back since.”
Toni sighed.
“It’s nothing like my story at all.”
“Sorry. Not many crack dealers where I was from.”
“No,” she sighed. “It’s not that. You left.” She twirled her fingers around a tuft of his chest hair. “I’m still there. With him. And that means no matter what I do – how many records I sell, or how often I get a song played on the radio – I’ll always have to wonder.”
“Wonder what?”
Toni rolled over, and picked herself up. She stared into James’ handsome face.
“Wonder if I made that happen, or it was because of him.”
James pursed his lips.
“Maybe it’s best not to know.” He took a sigh. “I mean, look at me. I know who won the fight tonight, and knowing the truth is worse than just suspecting it.”
Toni’s beautiful lips curled. She stroked James’ face.
“Oh, honey. You didn’t lose the fight. You gave it to Baller.”
James blinked.
“Urm…. Explain.”
“I was watching the whole thing,” Toni explained. “I must’ve watched a hundred of Baller’s fights. You fell right into his hands.”
“I did?”
“Sure,” Toni nodded. “He’s got that long-ass reach of his. And he hits like a freight train. You standing there boxing him was a losing strategy, honey. You should have gone in and taken his ass down.”
James remembered Hannibal’s impressive physique. He was heavier than James, and from the way his punches landed, clearly a lot stronger.
“He’d have torn me apart, wrestling him,” James said.
Toni laughed, shaking her head.
“That’s what they all think. They look at the size of Baller and think: He’s a wrestler. But you know what? They’re all trippin’. Baller hates wrestling. He trained as a boxer, like you did – and he’s too fucking lazy to learn anything else.”
James narrowed his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Toni explained, as if to a child, “if you get him down on the ground, you could fucking win.”
Chapter Thirty
James
James sat up sharply.
Toni rolled off him with a squeal of “Hey!”
But the big, British fighter had lost interest in all the lovey-dovey stuff, and was staring at Toni with frightening intensity.
“Just what do you mean?” He demanded.
Toni froze.
She suddenly felt a thrill of guilt. Fucking another man behind Baller’s back was one thing – her asshole of a boyfriend had been banging hoodrats and pornstars from one end the country to the other
the whole time they were together.
But to betray his sport?
That was cold.
But, as it turned out, she didn’t need to.
“Holy shit,” James was looking blankly ahead, running memories of all the countless fights he’d watched to study Hannibal’s technique.
Bloody hell, he suddenly realized. She’s right.
“I must have watched a dozen fights,” the Scotsman turned excitedly to Toni, “and I never saw him win by submission. Not once. It was always TKO or a judge’s decision.”
Toni relaxed a little. He was figuring this out on his own, instead of her betraying her boyfriend.
“All this time – we’ve all just been assuming he was dangerous on the canvas. Because of his size. His build. His aggression.”
All three of those things were important in wrestling – but they weren’t everything.
James looked to Toni for confirmation, and she nodded.
“He does some Krav,” she shrugged. “Brazilian jiu jitsu. But only the basics. I mean, he keeps going back to boxing. Even Delwood warns him about that.”
James’ eyes narrowed.
MMA had started off as a competition pitting one style against another – a karate champion against a wrestler, for example. As time went on, the fighting style itself had evolved into what people popularly think of MMA now - a mixture of punches, kicks and wrestling.
Fighters obviously have their preferences – like Hannibal, James was primarily a boxer. He’d been taught the ‘Queensbury Rules’ back at private school in Fettes.
But the good fighters were trained in all three – and were adaptable.
Of the three styles, wrestling was the most intense. Two men wrangling on the ground required fiendish strength and agility – and strategy.
Once you were down there, pinned or pinning, it was like a game of chess. Your opponent would try to figure out how to get out of the hold you had him in, and you’d try and think two steps ahead – to counter his move before he’d even made it.
That’s why you couldn’t skip on wrestling – Krav Maga, Brazillian JiuJitsu, or even old-fashioned Judo.
And it sounded like Baller had.
James suddenly felt fire in his belly. His heart raced. He suddenly realized that if Taffy was right, and Hannibal’s people agreed to a rematch, James could potentially win.
With a lustful snarl, James pounced across the bed, and threw Toni down onto the sheets.
Crushing her beneath him, he kissed her passionately, cock growing hard at the sensation of her plump, pliable lips writhing against his.
“You,” James growled, “are fucking irresistible.” He kissed her passionately once again. “Hell, I don’t ever want to have to let you go.”
Toni laughed. She glanced at her Bulova watch – which was all she wore.
“Well, you got me until 6am honey – so pretend we have all the time in the world until then.”
James smiled, and kissed her passionately once again.
“Sweetheart, I’m going to savor every second.”
Chapter Thirty One
Toni
They made love like newlyweds that night.
For James, it was a revelation. He’d never met anybody as uninhibited and sexual as Toni. With her curvy brown body, she introduced him to things no posh little English girl could ever imagine.
And for Toni, it was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. A hot, hard, handsome lover who was attentive, and intimate with her. Kisses. Squeezing her hand. Staring into her eyes, even as she squeezed them shut to climax on his big, thick cock.
After gang-bangers, and rap stars, and selfish assholes who just treated her like meat – she felt like a princess.
Which is perhaps why she felt so uninhibited.
“Baby, I’ve done everything,” she purred, kissing James’ throat as they snuggled together. “You know how they say black girls don’t give head?” She started planting kisses down James’ muscular torso – and soon taught him otherwise.
“Oh, fuuuuuck,” James groaned, as Toni expertly worshipped his straining cock with her plump lips and agile tongue; until he spurted hotly into her mouth.
She swallowed eagerly, licking her lips. Then, crawling up James body, she kissed the Scotsman hard on the mouth, and he tasted his own cum on her breath.
“Yeah,” she winked, with a smug little smile. “I give head.”
They slept intermittently, always curled in each other’s arms – sometimes with James still buried inside of her. Toni felt like a sticky, used mess – and she was loving it.
James was respectful. She was so used to assholes like Hannibal, who’d pull down his pants with demands of “suck my cock, bitch” or “eat my ass.”
(What was it with black guys and eating ass?)
These were demands to which she’d comply, with the deference only a ghetto upbringing, surrounded by dangerous men, could instill.
But in contrast, James demanded nothing – and that made her almost excited to offer him tastes from her lexicon of forbidden sex tips.
She felt like a sorceress – and James her willing victim. By the time sunlight began filtering through the curtains, she’d climaxed eight times – and her ass and pussy ached deliciously.
“My God,” James groaned, sprawled out on the covers, absolutely drained. “That was…” He laughed. “I can’t even find the words.”
Toni crawled on top of him, her curvy body fitting perfectly with his. She was practically purring like a pussycat.
“I don’t want to go,” she sighed happily.
James stroked her head. “Well, don’t.” He turned to her. “I mean it. I’m here for the next three days. Why don’t you stay?”
Toni’s plump, kiss-bruised lips curled.
“Baller’s got a private plane flying us back to L.A. at 11am.” She stroked the hair on his chest. “It’s not that I’m not tempted, baby… But this?” She looked around the luxurious hotel room. “This wasn’t real, honey.”
“It felt real.”
Toni laid her head on James’ chest, and listened to him breathe.
The worst part? It had felt real to her, too.
Chapter Thirty Two
James
The phone rang.
Snatched from his doze, James struggled to sit up – having to peel Toni off him.
Bleary eyed and groggy, he reached for the phone on the bedside cabinet, and growled into it: “Yes?”
“Jimmy!” There was no mistaking that accent. It was Taffy. “You safe and sound, boyo? Is that cute little caramel candy still with you?”
James rolled his eyes.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Toni’s still here.”
“Good, good.”
“Fuck, Taffy,” James was looking at the time on his Rolex. It wasn’t even six yet. “Why the fuck are you calling me?” And then he blinked. “And what are you doing up? Last time I saw you, you were en route to a hangover they’d write medical textbooks about.”
Taffy snorted.
“I’m a Valley’s Boy. Take more than a bottle of whiskey to knock me on my arse.”
James snorted.
“Speaking of which,” Taffy continued, “I got to speaking with Delwood Grey last night – that black bastard’s manager.”
“Hannibal,” James corrected. “Stop calling him ‘that black bastard.’ The Americans don’t find your casual racism nearly as endearing as we do back home.”
Taffy ignored him.
“They said ‘no’,” the little Welshman growled.
“Who said ‘no’ to what?”
“To a rematch,” Taffy explained. “Delwood said it was because there wasn’t a good ‘commercial justification’ – but I know the truth. That black bas… erm, Hannibal… He’s scared.”
James snorted. After the revelation last night, maybe ‘Baller’ Alexander had a reason to be scared.
“So where does that leave us?” The sting of his defeat was starting
to blister. James now knew the fight had been a lot closer than he’d realized.
“I’m working on it,” Taffy promised. “Now, in the meantime, what are you going to do with Terri?”
“Toni,” James corrected her.
“Whoever,” Taffy growled.
“She needs to get to the airport by ten. I was going to call the driver for her.”
“I’ll do it for you. Take her out the side door – we’ll avoid any prying eyes if we do that.”
Remembering how important discretion had been to her, James nodded.
“Give us thirty minutes.”
“You got it, boyo.”
And then the phone clicked dead.
Chapter Thirty Three
Toni
Groaning, James rolled over to where Toni was lying, and softly stroked her face.
She looked like an angel, sprawled out across the bed with her eyes screwed tightly shut. The sunlight was bathing her chocolate-brown curves, and the contrast of her skin against the white Egyptian cotton was stunning.
James felt himself growing hard.
He stroked Toni’s cheek again, and then leaned in to kiss her.
With a contented sigh, Toni opened her eyes, and looked directly into the handsome Scotsman’s face.
“Morning, sugar,” she murmured.
“Good morning yourself,” James grinned, running his hand down the curving vista of her hips.
Sighing sleepily, Toni didn’t object when James rolled her onto her back, and slid his hot, hard body across hers.
His hips slipped between her thighs like a jigsaw. Toni opened her legs wider, and accepted the poking, prodding hardness between her legs until James finally found the right spot and…
“Huuungh,” Toni arched her back, as James thrust inside of her.
“God,” the Scotsman groaned, as he felt his straining cock embraced by the velvet warmth of Toni’s pussy. “You’re so incredible.”
Toni looked up, with her big brown eyes.
“You’re not so bad yourself, sugar.”
Curling her slender brown arms around his broad, white shoulders, the little black girl urged James on; and he thrust slowly inside of her.
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