BUCKED Box Set: A Bull Rider Western Romance (40 page)

I smirked at the thought.

“What’s so goddamned funny?” the man spat.

“Your goddamned face,” I answered as we
began to circle one another. I knew that I had the form, far more than this
barroom brawler, so I wondered why he would be picking a fight in a gym, but
didn’t question it. Instead, I just added, “Can we get this the hell over with,
cupcake?”

While I was talking, he tried to run in
and take a cheap shot, but I dodged it. I could have hit him, but I was feeling
sadistic. I wanted to give him hope of being able to beat me before I
completely emasculated him.

The only thing better would have been if
there was an audience, but working to please myself, I had learned to be
comfortable enough with my own praise.

So, for the next few minutes, I allowed
him to swat at me, and after a few skillfully planned near-misses, I actually
allowed him to hit me.

He punched me square in the jaw and even
though it didn’t really hurt, I was surprised at the strength he had
accumulated for it.

However, in the moment it took me to
recover, mostly fabricated than anything else, I saw in his eyes that he was
growing cocky and I knew that this was going to be over soon.

I moved in closer to him and set myself
up, before taking my first swing. He ducked, just as I expected, so that he
leaned right into the force of my second jab.

Just as I thought, the man was down on the
floor in a moment. There was blood coming out of his mouth and a bruise forming
around his eye. My massive fist had crushed the side of his face in one careful
blow.

I backed off of him, not wanting to lose
control and waited for him to pull himself back up. “Are you done?” I asked,
moving my feet skillfully, more out of habit than necessity.

“Go to hell!” he answered before he jumped
to his feet and leapt at me. I grabbed him and as I did, I felt him try to
swing at me. I blocked him and shoved him back.

I beamed, knowing that I hadn’t even had
to swing at him again in order to get him down on the mat.

I heard him hit hard and slide a little
bit, but there was no more blood. I took this as a good thing.

“You can be done. I won’t tell anyone how
much of a bitch you are,” I answered when I saw that it took him a moment to
get to his feet.

I saw fire burning in his eyes as the
man’s nostrils flared. He took in a large breath, spit out blood and got back
up on his feet. However, this time, he didn’t run at me. He kept his distance
and mimicked what I was doing.

“What are you a fucking five year-old?
Copying me?” I shook my head.

He didn’t respond, but continued to keep
up with my movements.

“Well, copy this, shithead!” I exploded
before I punched him hard enough to knock him back. I grabbed his arm, pulled
him close to me and kicked my leg under his knees so that he collapsed.

When he was on the ground again, I moved
over-top of him to ensure that he was alright, but before I could say anything,
he kicked up with all of his might, aiming for my crotch.

I grasped his foot just before it hit me
and twisted it so that he had no choice but to flip onto his back. As I did
that, I knelt down on his back, so that he couldn’t’ get up and answered, “Wow!
You really do fight like a bitch. I could do this all day, but fortunately for
your pride, I would like to go. It’s clear who the winner is. See ya around
when you grow a sack of balls instead of those lady parts you’ve got up there.”
I pushed him away from me and stood up.

However, I heard him behind me, running at
me with a blind sense of fury. I turned around quickly, but this time, he
wasn’t going to be stopped easily. He wound up and hit my face, but just kept
running at me until I lost my balance.

I fell hard onto the mat and immediately
felt the man straddle me, before throwing hard jabs at my face.

Before I had a chance to recover, I felt
blood come out of my nose and was immediately angry.

With one swipe of my arm, I knocked the
man off of me and leapt on top of him. I hit him a few times, until I saw a
bruise forming under both of his eyes and his mouth filled up with blood.

At first, when I felt the blood begin to
splatter against my knuckles, I knew that I should stop, but just as I had
feared, anger had overtaken me.

I wasn’t just angry over the cheap shot. I
was also angry over everything that had gone on with Ashley. I was angry over
the way I felt and even though I wanted to find it in my usually calloused body
to think of her like I think of the other women I fuck, I couldn’t. That made
me even angrier. I hated to think that she had gotten the best of me and that
was what continued to propel my punches.

However, after a moment I stopped short. I
knew that I didn’t really want to hurt this man and it was because of that
thought that I was able to pull back. I moved off of him and stared down at the
man’s body.

He was bloodied and would probably hurt
for a good while, but I didn’t think I had broken anything except maybe his
nose. I figured I should be good.

I walked over to the front desk and told
them, “Hey, I don’t know what the fuck happened in the boxing room, but I heard
some dude moaning. I figured you would want to know.”

“What happened, sir?”

“How the hell should I know?” I demanded,
hoping that I had gotten the blood off of my face and hid my hands well enough
as to not give myself away. “He could have screwed up with the equipment or he
could be jerking off in there. I can’t really tell, but the point is, I am just
a concerned citizen trying to help before your ass is on the line any more than
it might already be.”

After I made my case, I made sure to walk
away. I certainly didn’t need any of this shit following me; especially not for
a pussy like whoever the hell that man was.

On the plus side though, I felt much
better. My anger had calmed and I was thinking much clearer.

Unfortunately for me, the problem had not
fixed itself. It had only become more glaringly apparent.

Chapter
33

Ashley

“We need to talk!” Tyler exclaimed as he
barged into my room about a week after I had woken up in his bed. It was kind
of strange, considering we had not spoken throughout the entirety of the week.

He had left me alone and I had left him
alone. I didn’t know what he did and I hadn’t cared. In fact, I had hoped he
had lost interest, but that obviously wasn’t the case.

To the best of my knowledge, no one else
was home and so, it would have been a good time to discuss the gigantic,
attractive and aggravatingly handsome elephant in the room; but I didn’t feel
as though I was ready. Still, a week later and I didn’t have any inclination to
have this conversation.

I was hurt deeply and I had no interest in
opening the wounds that I hoped had begun to heal. Even though I was pleased
with the advice that Stacy was able to provide, I still didn’t know if I would
be able to go through with that advice. Looking at him now, asking me to talk
to him severely challenged my thought process about the whole thing.

My face must have portrayed that thought
to him though, because after a pause, he demanded, “Right fucking now!”

Now I really didn’t want to talk to him. I
felt my face fall into a scowl before I answered, “Excuse me, Tyler. I am not
just some whore that you can boss around whenever you feel like it.”

He groaned and his eye seemed absolutely
furious. “I fucking know that, Ashley. That’s…Shit…I know! Can we just talk?”
At first, his words started out in a normal tone of conversation, but as he
spoke, his voice elevated until he was screaming at me.

I moved back, feeling as though something
wasn’t right. However, I didn’t want to just give into him. I had made the
decision that I was a young, capable woman who didn’t take anything from
anyone, especially my stepbrother…lover…
Ewww!
I thought, but knew that I didn’t mean it.

Therefore, despite the feeling that I had
which told me he actually needed to speak with me, I just glowered at him and
answered in a carefully stern tone, “No. I don’t want to talk to you right
now.”

Once again, I saw a spark of anger ignite
in his eyes, but when he spoke again, he seemed more desperate than angry. “Oh,
come on! I came in here to talk to you. I don’t want to trick you, or fucking
hurt you, I just want to talk. I think you owe me that, at least.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” I answered
coldly. After how he had spoken to me and the way he lived his life, I had
decided that I deserved better; and even though he couldn’t see that, I wasn’t
about to let him take over my whole life.

However, I couldn’t ignore that it was
hard. Even though I couldn’t stop myself from wanting him, no matter how much
of a dick he was to me, I knew that Stephanie was right. I didn’t need this
kind of negativity in my life. Within my family it made sense. I could deal
with him being in my family, because that was just one big ball of negativity.
It had been since the moment my mother told us she was sick. But my life: the
one that I chose to live, outside of this stupid house and my stupid family,
who knew the people in this stupid beach town better than they knew me: was not
riddled with the same demons. I had worked hard to make a life for myself that
extended past my grief and pain. I had tried my best to make everything work,
but when I felt everything slipping through my grasp, I knew what I had to hang
onto. Frankly, Tyler wasn’t one of those things.

Even though I didn’t say any of that, I
stared at him as the thoughts ran through my mind and somehow, I believed that
he got the message. He staggered back after a long moment looking into my eyes,
as though he was pushed, or I had truly voiced something hurtful.

For a moment he didn’t speak. I wasn’t
sure if he couldn’t find the right words to say or was fighting against his own
mind to not dig himself deeper into the grave of our dying relationship…or
whatever it was that you wanted to call it.

“You’re right,” he said suddenly, which
really surprised me. That was the last thing that I had expected from him. In
fact, if I was asked before this moment, I would have been almost positive that
he was incapable of saying such a degrading admission. But just as I was
beginning to think that I had heard him incorrectly, he said it again. “You’re
fucking right, Ashley. I don’t owe you shit.” He sighed and answered, “You
don’t owe me anything either, but I just thought that maybe we could move past
all of this crap and maybe come to some kind of arrangement.” He shrugged. “I
don’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you. I just want to talk to
you.”

He paused and I couldn’t help but feel as
though he was telling me the truth. He did want to make things right, but I
also couldn’t ignore the fact that no longer mattered. Things were going
absolutely crazy for me and I just needed them to slow down. In order to do
that, I truly felt that I needed to back away from him. He had become the only
priority in my life this summer and I didn’t even really like him.

So I shook my head and answered, “No,
Tyler. I’m sorry, but I can’t talk to you.”

“But you said you wanted to fucking talk!”
he exclaimed, coming closer to me. He didn’t look the least bit threatening,
but I didn’t want to take the chance, so I pulled farther away from him.

When he saw this, he shot me a look of
disappointment and shock, as though my movement had really hurt his feelings;
not that he had any.

“I changed my mind. At first, I thought it
would be good to talk it out and see where we wanted to go from here, but after
thinking about it, I realized that I didn’t want to go anywhere from here.” As
I spoke, I heard my voice grow meaner, yet more assured. When I paused to
collect my thoughts, I glared at him as though I hated him. I could tell by the
look in his eyes that he once again understood how I was feeling without me
having to say a word. However, after a moment of silence, I did speak my mind,
“At least, I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”

Now, it was Tyler whose face turned angry
and hateful. He threw his hands up as he screamed, “Well, fuck you then!” and
pivoted around on his heels to stomp out of my room and slam the door.

I watched him leave and when he slammed
the door, I felt my lip slide in-between my teeth, just as I bit down lightly,
nervously. I flinched at the sound of the door and the rattle it caused to
quake throughout the house, but after he had left, I just sat there quietly,
holding in any emotion. Even though he was gone, I didn’t want to show any sign
of fear or nervousness. My heart was racing inside my chest and my emotions
were teetering on the edge of feeling awful for what I had said and how I had
gone about everything. But just in case he came back, I didn’t want to worry
about Tyler seeing me lose any of my resolve.

So for a long time, I just stayed there,
glowering in the direction of the door and hoping that he felt the anger of my
piercing gaze as a raging and relentless heat on the back of his neck.