“Why not? I live here.” I drag my composure back around me along with a healthy dose of smartassery. “Nothing illegal about going home and going to the grocery store.”
Spada gives Romano the barest of nods, and Romano punches me again. I taste blood, and the pain flares across the side of my head. But I refuse to react to the pain. Instead I let it wash over me then turn slowly back to face Spada. “You gonna let him keep me out of that next fight? The one that’s supposed to net you what—a million and a half?”
Spada’s mouth thins. “You’re damn lucky you’ve got that fight, McAllister, or you’d be dead right now.”
“Oh, really?”
For the first time ever, I see Spada lose his composure. He takes a single step forward, fists clenched, and I see his jaw tighten as he bares his teeth. His eyes look like they could shoot lasers at me. I almost flinch, but I hold on to it. If I can stay calm, I’ve got one up on him.
“You…” He starts and then lets the word die while he swallows and visibly forces his hands to relax. “You have the fucking nerve to talk to me like that after what you did.”
“What’d I do?” It’s kind of fun, actually, seeing how far I can push him. Won’t be as fun when he decides to shoot me in the head, but it’ll be over quick.
He backhands me. That I didn’t expect at all. Spada’s threatened, cursed me out, and verbally humiliated me, but he’s never—never—physically attacked me. That’s beneath him. He has people for that.
“You touched my daughter without my permission. You know she’s promised elsewhere.” I notice he’s careful not to look at Romano as he says this. “And what do you do? You betray me. This is worse than the fuck-up at the fight, Cain. Way worse. And the only reason I’m not having Romano beat the ever-loving fucking shit out of you right now is that I need you for that fight.”
Of course. It’s all I’m good for. Just a body to be pummeled for Spada’s profit. I just stand there and take it.
“Now.” He’s regained his composure now, at least for the moment, and adjusts his cuffs again. “I’m going to tell you how this is going to go down.”
I start to say something but think better of it. Instead I nod stiffly, teeth clenched.
“You’re going to finish this fight coming up. You’re going to lose. You’re going to make me a lot of money. This purse, however, will be forfeit. And then, when you’re done, you’re going to file for a divorce, and my daughter is going to do as I’ve told her.”
I just stare at him. Then, quietly, I say, “No.”
“No?”
“I’ll fight your fight. But I’m not going to divorce your daughter. That’s a done deal. It’s over. You,” I direct this at Romano, “will never get the satisfaction of touching her.”
Spada’s not happy with my answer. I can see his hands shaking. I’ve never seen him this worked up; that fabled control, the coldness, is barely holding its own against his fury. “Do you have a fucking death wish, McAllister?”
“No. But I have a wife. And I’m not leaving her.”
I figured he’d threaten me a few more times before we get to the good stuff, but apparently he’s done talking. He gives Romano a curt nod. “Take care of him.”
Before I can prepare for what I know is coming, Romano has hold of my arm and has wrenched it behind my back. The back door of the car opens and another black-suited asshole appears. He casually unbuttons his jacket and punches me in the gut.
I double over. Romano has both my arms pinned behind my back now. The stress on my shoulders makes me think one or both is going to pop out of the socket any minute now. He twists almost hard enough to snap bones. The other guy punches me again, smacks me around. My nose starts to bleed. I think I might have a loose tooth. There’s blood in my eyes.
Then Romano lets go, and I crumple to the ground. While I’m still getting my breath back, the car starts and peels off, leaving me a bloody pile of shit in the middle of the supermarket parking lot.
Throughout the incident, nobody’s bothered to come over to see what’s going on. This part of town, they know better. There’s nothing to be gained by interfering with mob business, except maybe your own early demise. So I’m left alone to get back to my feet, regain some equilibrium, and figure out what the fuck to do next.
There’s not much to do, honestly. One thing I do know, though, is that I’m not going home to Jess looking like this.
Home to Jess. It sounds so strange, and yet so right. Never in my life have I felt like I had a real home to go to. Yeah, I had a house, a place I call my own, that has my name on the mortgage papers, but that’s all it was. Now it’s got Jess in it, and that makes all the difference.
I head for the line of buildings on this side of the parking lot, where there are several other businesses. There’s a bar I go to sometimes. I’m not that far from the gym where I normally work out, and the bar is a popular cooling-off spot for me and some of the other fighters. It’ll be closed this early in the day, but that’ll give me some time and space to get myself back together. Plus I know the guy who owns the place, and I know he won’t mind if I use his bathroom to clean up as long as I don’t damage things getting in.
So I’m careful breaking in through a back window; fighting’s not the only thing I learned when I was drifting through the system. The window opens into a storage area, and I make my way through shelves of foodstuffs and liquor until I find the door out to the bar.
I should probably head for the bathroom to clean up, but the lure of the liquor behind the bar is too much. I help myself to a shot of tequila. And another. And then—what the fuck?—a third. Patrón has healing powers.
The hot anger fades to a dull rage. What the fuck was I thinking, to hope anything would change? Nothing has. Instead, the only thing that was starting to give me some hope in the world is about to be torn out from under me.
I should have known Jess’s plan wouldn’t work. But once she’d put it in my head, I couldn’t put it back out. Now I was starting to realize that it wasn’t just because I wanted a way out. It was also because I wanted Jess. And not only because it would piss off her father. I wanted her because she’s Jess. It’s true, but I don’t want to think too hard about it. I’m a little afraid of the conclusions I might come to if I do.
I start to move toward the bathroom, but I haven’t quite cleared the bar when I hear a faint knock from the front door. What the fuck? Nobody should be here at this hour. The bar’s closed. But I go to the front and peek out through the Venetian blinds.
It’s her.
Frowning, more perplexed than ever, I pull the door open just enough for her to slide in.
Before I can ask her what she’s doing there, she loops her arms around my neck and kisses me. I can taste tears on her mouth; she’s been crying. But the kiss is hard and insistent, and I’m not going to push her away just to ask her what’s wrong. Instead I pull her closer. I need the comfort as much as she does. Maybe more, since I’m actually bleeding.
Finally she pulls back and takes in my face. “God, Cain,” she mutters. “Are you okay?”
“Not really,” I admit. I make a vague gesture toward the bathrooms. “I was just going to get cleaned up. How did you know I was here?”
Her mouth folds into a tight line. “Pop called me. Told me to go see how ‘my darling husband’ was doing. And that you’d get way more than this if we don’t play nice.”
She grabs my shoulder and steers me toward the bathroom.
“What does he mean by ‘play nice?’” I ask, although I know damn well what he means.
“He means do what he tells us to.” Her voice cracks a little, and she swallows. “He wants us to split up. Like, yesterday.”
“Divorce?”
“Divorce, annulment—I don’t think he cares as long as we’re not married anymore.”
I’m surprised at the steadiness of her voice. Her face is firmly set, and she’s very no-nonsense as she pushes open the bathroom door and guides
me inside. It’s the ladies’ room, I notice, although it doesn’t matter. Except that there’s a small lobby off the main bathroom, and it has a couch. I know for a fact there’s nothing like that in the men’s room of this bar. She sits me down on the couch and goes to fetch paper towels. I hear the water running.
I’m not sure what to say. My head’s starting to hurt along with the cuts and bruises. My side hurts where Romano hit and kicked me. It feels like he stopped just shy of breaking a rib. Good call, since his boss wants me to fight in the very near future. Although he could have picked a different rib from the one that almost got broken the last time Spada’s goons beat me up. I draw a slow breath that’s meant to be cleansing. Instead, it just hurts.
I must be grimacing when Jess comes back into the little lounge, because her face immediately shifts into an expression of concern. I want to rub those worry lines off her forehead, kiss her there, tell her everything’s going to be all right. But I know it might not be all right. I have nothing to give her. I don’t know why I ever thought I did.
She scoots up next to me on the couch and starts daubing blood off my face with the paper towels. Some of the clots break, and I feel fresh blood rolling down my cheekbone, but she catches it, making a soft “shhh” sound like I’m a kid who needs to be comforted. I find it strangely reassuring.
“This is awful,” she mutters as she carefully cleans me up. She’s grabbed a first-aid kit from somewhere—maybe a cabinet in the bathroom, I don’t know—and opens it, sorting through its contents. There’s some antiseptic and bandages, gauze, little packets of ibuprofen. She applies the antiseptic, which stings like fuck, and then carefully tapes me up with Band-Aids and gauze. I probably need stitches, or at least some butterfly clips. Staples. Super Glue. Something.
It’s not until she shifts her attention to my banged-up hands that I get a glimpse of the look on her face. There are tears on her cheeks that she’s been ignoring. I reach up and wipe them away. My touch seems to break something in her; she chokes back a sob.
“Oh, Cain, this is my fault. I should never have…” She breaks off, closes her eyes, and I can tell she’s focusing all her strength on getting herself back under control. When she opens her eyes again, she turns her face down and fixes her gaze on my bloody knuckles.
I lean forward and kiss the top of her head, then stroke her hair with the hand she’s not working on. “Hush. We made this decision together. It’s not your fault.”
“Yes, it is.”
“You think you forced me to say ‘I do’? You think you’re even capable of forcing me to do that?” I let my tone turn light. “Or anything, for that matter.”
She manages a slight smile. Good girl. “No. But I convinced you Pop would leave you alone if we got married, and now look at you.”
I shrug. “I’ve had worse.”
She shakes her head. She’s rubbing the cuts on my knuckles a little too hard, and I wince. “Sorry,” she says, then, “But there’ll be more. He’s not going to let this go. You’re in danger, I’m in danger—I mean, we both were before, but this has just made everything worse.” Finally she tosses down the bloody paper towel and puts her face in her hands. “Goddammit, Cain, I fucked everything up. Can’t you see that?”
I take her shoulders gently in my hands and lift her so she’s looking into my face. “Look,” I say, “I’m not going to divorce you, or get an annulment, or anything else just to placate your fucking father. I’m sick and fucking tired of having someone else tell me how I’m going to live. I’m particularly sick and tired of having that someone be fucking Phil Spada.”
“Cain…”
But I’m not done. I put a finger over her lips. “I don’t care what we have to do. We can move out of state. Fuck, we can leave the goddamn country—I don’t care. Whatever it takes to get away from him. To get you away from him. I want you safe. I want out from under his thumb. And most of all, I just want to be with you.”
The tears are sheeting down her cheeks now, but she’s not sobbing. A vague smile makes its way onto her mouth. “I thought this was just an arrangement.”
I shrug. “Whatever.” I’m not ready to make any emotional declarations. I’m not sure I know how. But I cup her face again, kiss her gently. “I’ve got a bad spot on my ribs. You want to look at it?”
She nods. I pull my shirt off over my head and lean to one side so she can work her magic.
As she carefully explores my ribs—they’re not broken, as I suspected, or even her gentle exploration would have me hitting the ceiling—I realize the pain, the frustration, and the anger are all morphing into something else. My dick is at rigid attention, because of course everything boils right down to sex with me. Or at least with my dick. Even the shards of pain as her fingers press into my skin are doing nothing but making me that much hornier.
“Nothing’s broken,” she says unnecessarily, although she doesn’t know I already figured that out. “Do you want me to wrap this up and maybe make you a sling, or—”
I grab her and kiss her before I can tell her no, I do not want a fucking sling. Her mouth is soft and yielding, then harder as she responds. She reaches up, her fingers clamping on my biceps.
Tipping her head back just enough, she manages, “Cain… You’re hurt. Maybe we shouldn’t…”
“Fuck that,” I growl, and kiss her again. In spite of the discomfort of my ribs, the aches in my hands, and the throbbing in my head, I stand and swing her up into my arms. Because couch or no couch, there’s no fucking way in hell I’m having sex with her in the ladies’ bathroom.
Instead I carry her into the main part of the bar. The tables are mostly empty, but the chairs are sitting on them, upside down. I shove them off inelegantly, paying no attention to where they land. Salt and pepper shakers go flying along with a napkin dispenser. I sit Jess on the table and move between her legs, finding her mouth again, kissing her hard.
She makes no more protests, but loops her arms around my neck, pulling me closer. I pulse my hips between her thighs, feeling her heat even through her clothes and mine. I’m past thinking about anything else right now; all I want is her. All I want is to be inside her.
There are clothes in the way, the angle is all wrong, and I’m bleeding again above my eye. I can feel it. But I’m not going to stop. I start dragging at the snap and zipper of my jeans, doing what I can to get them out of the way as quickly as possible. She cooperates, pulling at her own clothes. Why didn’t she wear a dress today? Seriously, is that too much to ask? I mean, she should be prepared to have me fuck her in a bar, right?
The thought almost makes me laugh, but when I smile into her mouth she bites my bottom lip and I’m not thinking much anymore after that. My jeans finally come loose and hit the floor with a rattle of belt buckle. She starts wiggling, and I step back a little to give her room to work her way out of her own jeans. While she’s doing that, I shove a hand up her shirt and palm her breast. The jut of her nipple against my palm is familiar by now, a hot, thrusting nub. I pinch it. She gasps. As her jeans slide completely off, I lean forward and bite her nipple right through her shirt.
“God, Cain…”
And then I’m inside her, and she’s not talking anymore. She’s so hot, so slick. It hurts for me to thrust into her, but I don’t let that stop me. I can taste my own blood in her mouth as I kiss her. My fingers comb into her hair, holding her head stationary as I press her mouth open with mine, as I bite her tongue.
I realize as I accelerate my pace that she’s started to cry again, but her hands are clutching at me, nails digging into my back. I’m probably bleeding there, too, but it doesn’t matter. She wants something from me—needs it—and I’m more than happy to give it to her. It feels like she’s trying to claw her way into me, like she thinks there’s safety there.
I can’t guarantee her anything. I also can’t make a coherent thought. So I just hold on to her, and she buries her face in my neck while I pound into her, her legs wrapped around my hips, he
r arms strapped around my torso. Her teeth latch on to the muscle of my shoulder, biting down. I grunt at the pain, but I don’t mind it. I can feel her hips thrusting back against me, hard and desperate. Her teeth clench harder on me, and suddenly I’m coming deep inside that clutching heat, and then she clamps down on my cock and starts to pulse, her voice coming out in a wordless, grating breath.
“Cain…” she says, but nothing else.
I tighten my arms around her. “It’ll be all right, Jess. I promise. You’re mine now. I’ve got you.”
I hope to hell I’m telling her the truth.
8
Jessica
We’ve been home from our honeymoon for a week, and it’s been fairly quiet since the incident when Cain went to the grocery store. It seems ridiculous that a trip to the store ended so intensely, but it did. And Pop, in trying to drive us apart, actually pushed us closer together. It’s like it’s him and me against the world, or at least against Pop. We talk more, spend time just getting to know each other instead of fucking day in and day out. I’ve been happy to discover Cain and I actually have things to talk about, things in common. That I really enjoy spending time with him.
It’s been occurring to me lately that I might actually be in love with him.
It’s also been occurring to me that I might have a stomach bug. At first I thought food poisoning, but I didn’t have a fever, and it went away after about two in the afternoon, only to start up again the next morning. Then I thought stomach bug, but again, the symptoms didn’t quite fit.
I finally let myself put two and two together, after several days of denying it out of sheer desperation. And now I’m not sure what the hell I’m going to do. I have no idea how Cain might react. Not to mention my father. To say he will probably flip his shit is one of the biggest understatements ever understated.
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