Cage (12 page)

“How did you start?”

“I got into it not long after I left. It was an opportunity that sort of
came out of nowhere…and I just ran with it.”

“So, when you say
underground
…”

“Unsanctioned. I’m not a UFC fighter or anything, and a lot of the
places that I’ve fought have been in improvised cages…gyms, bars, that sort of
thing. But there’s a surprising amount of interest for off-the-records cage
fighting.”

I nodded, listening to him speak. He was coming out of his shell, and
I’d never been able to just have a normal conversation with him. It was somehow
uplifting.

“ It can be nastier…a lot more brutal,” he continued. “I’ve moved around
from time to time with it. But I have a small following. The fans love it when
I fight. Usually, it’s a small tournament or something, but after I’ve
developed a local pack of loyal fans, they’ll come out to see me fight someone
one-on-one.”

“How many guys have you fought?”

“I’ve lost count. A lot.”

“How many times have you lost?”

“Very, very rarely.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I just get in the zone,” he answered, looking me straight in
the eyes. “It’s the same thing as riding my motorcycle and hitting the roads.
It’s like I stop thinking…I just start to
react
.
It’s instinctive. I might see my opponent’s moves right before they make them.
I can assess them quickly enough, figure out weak points and just go for it. It
helps that I have a high pain tolerance.”

“From all those fights you used to get into when we were teenagers?” I
asked, almost coyly.

“Yes…something like that.” He seemed shy now. “I used to like to push my
limits. Figure out what I can really do. This was pretty much that, turned up
to 11.”

“So, are you fighting again?”

“Well, I’m semi-retired… but I just committed to a fight in a couple of
weeks. Should keep me busy since things seem pretty calm here. You know, training
and everything.”

“Yeah,
about
that…” I almost
didn’t dare to ask. “Why
have
you
been avoiding me? And why the hell did you get sent down here in the first
place? If you’re really supposed to be my bodyguard you’re doing a shitty job
of it!”

“I’m not…I’m not avoiding you,” he lied. “It’s
just that…”

Sawyer paused, staring into space. For a moment, it seemed like he was
fighting with something inside – some deep, internal storm – and I
felt suddenly compelled to just walk over to him and kiss him.

Wait, what?

“I can’t explain it right now,” he told me, cutting off my thought
process. He harbored a pained expression as he spoke. “I’m going to have to
just ask that you trust me. Whatever you do, I don’t want you to think that I
hate
you – far from it. I’m
just…there’s a complication in my life. It makes me…difficult to be around, I
guess. I’m still here for you. I won’t let anything happen.”

Shoving down the previous thought process, I could only nod meekly.

“You don’t…look, I’m going to try to be easier on you,” he told me.
“You’ll have to bear with me, I know that I can be rough on you…but
hate
you? Never.”

I stood up, moving over to him. As if my body was moving independently
of me, I placed my hand on his shoulder. He looked up at me, but there wasn’t
confusion in his eyes…only…understanding?

Sawyer rose beside me, so that we were almost chest-to-chest. My hand
fell to the side as he pulled himself onto his feet, and now he seemed to tower
above me. His pronounced muscles were the closest they’d ever been – I
barely lifted my fingers, itching to run the tips along his washboard abs.
Unconsciously, I bit my lip, gazing from his pectorals up, into his eyes.

He was looking at me with a look I’d never seen before.

It was almost
adoration
.

“Sawyer,” I murmured his name. I had intended to say something else,
some sort of continuation of the thought, but the rest of the sentence just
didn’t happen.

He lifted his thumb to the tip of my chin, his finger beneath.

“Saffron…I just…”

At that moment, the doorbell rang. My eyes caught the nearby clock.

Close to 2PM. Who the hell
would be knocking now?

We broke apart immediately, and he immediately stalked toward the door,
looking incredibly tense.

“Who is it?” He asked, standing by my side.

“The cleaners,” I answered.

“Ah.” He sounded irritated. “I guess I should have just left the
spaghetti, then.”

I chuckled nervously, opening the door. “Yeah,
guess so…”

“Hello!” One of the cleaners chimed up, indicating a nearby car with a
maid logo on it,
Sutterville Home
Solutions
. “Hope we weren’t interrupting anything!”

I caught myself before giving Sawyer a look.

Had they?

And why was I so disappointed?

(
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)

Chapter 14 – Sawyer

Pensacola, Present Day

The cleaners overstayed their welcome by a short while. It seemed like
they particularly enjoyed being in this house. I could only imagine that they
thought this was one of the nicest houses on their schedule.

Of course, they had completely destroyed the mood by the time they left.
Maybe that was for the best. I had never gotten that close to losing my
restraint around her; her very scent intoxicated me as she stood at my side,
and I could feel the last restraints breaking free.

Yes
, I told
myself.
That was for the best.

My eyes were opened when she snapped. For the first time, I had
her
side of things to consider…and while
I should have been pleased, actually confronting that information shook me to
my very core. I’d wanted her at arm’s length, but what it…
what if I was wrong?

While the cleaners did their thing, Saffron curled up with a book in the
small, downstairs study. She seemed far more relaxed now; sneaking a glance
from around the doorway, I noticed that she looked much happier.
Have I pushed her too hard?
I thought to
myself.

She had changed into a long shirt and shorts, although the way that she
was draped over the reading chair hid them beneath the shirt. I couldn’t help
but picture her in just the loose-fitting shirt and a pair of panties, and I
found myself getting hard just at the very thought of it. My eyes wandered,
scoping her body while she was preoccupied.

Saffron turned and coughed.

I immediately disappeared from the area.

But this unspoken physical appreciation didn’t appear to be one-sided,
as much as I was afraid of admitting it. I canceled my intentions to do most of
my training at Luke’s gym; for all the equipment he offered, a simple punching
bag was not one of them. Instead, I ordered one and had it delivered and set up
at home. There wasn’t room in the home gym, so I had it mounted outside,
underneath an overhang to shade me from most of the heat. Although I was
already fine with the heat, a large fan helped keep my stamina up in the
Pensacola summer.

Saffron came and watched sometimes. She pulled over a poolside lounging
chair and sunbathed, although I thought I caught her checking out my body a
couple of times. Occasionally, she would bring a book with her, although it
seemed that her page reading speed dramatically dropped when I was working out.

Sometimes, she took ran a few laps in the pool instead. This,
conversely, interfered somewhat with my workout, although I certainly wasn’t
complaining.

I loved to see the water dripping from her awesome, bare body in that
tight bikini she liked to wear. I made sure that I was punching the bag, doing
crunches, or in the middle of pushups when she surfaced from the water. Out of
the corner of my eye, she seemed to glance over my way every time that she
pulled up from the water to rest, or when she climbed out of the pool at the
end.

We continued this unspoken dance for the duration of my training. If one
of us was going outside, the other found a reason to wait a short while and
then follow. It meant that I didn’t spend a lot of time in the gym proper, but
I kept myself at the peak of physical condition before this little trip, and I
needed to ensure that my fists were up to the challenge anyway. If anything, I
was simply given an excuse to specialize.

It appeared that my fans had responded well to the Twitter reveal of my
upcoming match. I only logged into the thing a couple of times, offering some
small anecdote or insight into my training, but there was a lot of activity buzzing
around about the fight.

Or, I think it was a lot.

I don’t really pay much attention to these things.

Luke called me in the middle of a punching bag session to tell me that
the tickets had already sold out.

“This thing’s gonna be a
hit
,
man!” He excitedly burst down the phone. I’d put him on speaker so that I could
continue to assault the bag.

Saffron was in the pool at the time, although she seemed to take an
interest. A small burst of pride infiltrated my core as she became aware that I
was talking to someone about the upcoming fight, and she paused to
rest…although I called it
eavesdropping
.

“Well, that’s great,” I muttered, my fists striking the bag in a volley.

“What? I can’t hear you!”

“I SAID, ‘WELL, THAT’S GREAT!’”

“Awesome, dude! It’s funny, we actually had to reopen tickets
twice
just because the turnout is gonna
be so good. You
sure
you don’t want
any of this pot, man? It’s gonna be hot!”

“I don’t – care – about the – money!” I groaned,
launching fists between bursts of thought. I stopped, wiping myself off with a
rag quickly. “Look, I said it’s all yours. Just pay the consolation fee out to
my contender, then pocket the rest and keep the place running.”

“If you say so, man!”

“Speaking of, Luke, the match is Saturday night…who the fuck
am
I fighting?”

“Got a guy called
Jabberjaw
lined
up for you! Or some shit, I forget exactly…think that’s it.”

“Jabberjaw?” I laughed at the ridiculousness of the name. “You’re going
to have me knock the lights out a guy called
Jabberjaw?
I mean, what’s he gonna do? Talk me to death?”

“Heheh, something like that, man!” Luke laughed. “He’s a pretty tough
dude, man! You’d better train hard!”

“I’ll be fine,” I reminded him. “But when do I get to meet the guy?”

“The night of the fight!”

“That’s not usually how these things go, Luke,” I admonished him, giving
a few fresh punches to the hanging bag. “Kinda violates the sanctity of the
thing, right? I mean, I’ve never heard of this guy before!”

“All the more for a better match, right?”

“How so?”

“I’ve seen you fight, dude! You’re insane! You figure these guys out
like it’s
nothing!
How’s about you go
in blind for once, sort everything out when you’re in the cage!”

“I don’t know, Luke…don’t have the best feeling about that.”

“Nah, it’s gonna be excellent! The fans are pumped, man! Can you
imagine? We might even advertise the fact!
Reigning
veteran Bonesaw…going in blind!
They’ll eat that shit up!”

“Bonesaw?” Saffron asked from the side.

I glanced over at her and nodded wearily. I’d almost forgotten that she
was listening.

“Dude, do you have a chick over? That’s awesome! Is she hot?”

“Better choose your next words carefully, my friend,” I warned him with
gritted teeth. “That’s my stepsister you’re talking about.”

“Oh shit, you’ve got a sister? Why didn’t you
ever mention a–”

“Shut UP, Luke,” I growled. “Look, alright, I’ll do a fight blind. Just
this once. But if you pull a stunt like this again, that’s me
out
for the summer. No more matches in
your cage. You got it?”

“Yeah, yeah man, I get it,” Luke answered sadly. “No more blind bouts.
We cool?”

“We cool,” I muttered, hanging up the line.

“You’ve never mentioned me?”

I glanced up. Saffron was standing by the pool, wiping herself dry with
a towel. For a split second, I wished I were the towel, before I realized how
stupid a thought that was.

“No,” I answered her. “They never knew anything about you, or our
parents, or the life of privilege I left behind…my past was a ghost to them. I
have always valued my privacy, after all...”

She thought on my words, looking troubled for a moment, but before I
could say anything she continued pressing. “Did they ever ask?” She was
brushing off the side of her head with the towel now, before letting it drape
at her side as she walked over.

“A few times, maybe. I usually shut them down.”

“I see…”

My stepsister seemed a lot more comfortable around me. I’d never seen
her in a bathing suit, and now she was in her bikini
all the time
around me. I wasn’t sure what angle she was playing,
or if she thought she was just being coy, but it was sending me some seriously
mixed signals.

Just brush it aside,
I reminded
myself.
You wanted this. Just let her
have her fun. It’s not going to go anywhere, and the two of you know it.

“Well, in that case, do I get to see you fight?”

“Absolutely not.”

“And why not?” She looked disgruntled, but playfully – almost as
if she were toying with me. I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not.

“Because I said
no
. And you’re
supposed to stick around the house, remember?”

“Sawyer, Dad’s just paranoid. Nothing is going to happen. I’m a grown
woman now. You can’t just boss me around.”

“Are you sure you want to see me like that? In a cage, beating the shit
out of some punk? Is that what you want?”

“Maybe,” she conceded, a mischievous look in her eyes.

What is her DEAL these days?

“This isn’t some little high school wrestling match, Saffron. This is an
underground cage match. I’m going into a box with a stranger, and our only
concerns will be bludgeoning the other until somebody gives up or stays down,”
I chided her. “It can get brutal. I’ve spilled
blood
on more than one occasion…most of them, actually. Faces have
been crushed, even mine. It’s probably going to get savage.”

She hesitated for a moment. “I still want to see it,” my stepsister
answered, running her hand along my sweaty arm, feeling the muscles. It sent a
ripple of excitement down my spine that I barely controlled. “I’ve spent so
long being antagonized by you…I want to see you do it to someone else. I want
to see you let all that anger out…and beat someone down with it.
That’s
what I want.”

I became highly aware of my breathing, but kept myself in restraint. She
was
only
in a tiny little bikini…oh,
what I would have given to show her what I could do with my body.

It would have been easy to pluck those strings and toss the minimal
fabric aside, carry her over to the pool, and drop between her thighs as she
sat on the edge. I’d dig my fingertips into her thighs on either side, lapping
away at those delicious juices from her wet pussy…and then I’d take her over to
that sunbathing chair she loved so much, shove her down onto all fours over it,
and fuck her like an animal.

Maybe I’d even finish up by bringing her around to the front, where we
were technically in the open and almost
anyone
could come down the driveway, and put her on her knees. I’d have my thick
cock down her throat, making her polish her own wetness off of my rock-hard
erection before she swallowed it all…

“Sawyer,” she mumbled, and I followed her gaze.

Shit. What the fuck is wrong
with me?

I had an unmistakable erection, tenting my boxing shorts. I hesitated,
considering pulling her onto her knees or into my grasp, but she withdrew her
hand from my arm and turned away. I spun around and fixed myself, cursing my
active imagination.
Why NOW? Why couldn’t
I just jack it later to these thoughts?

“Listen, I…I’m going to go inside,” she muttered quickly, walking
towards the entrance. “But I do want to see you fight.”

“Fat chance of that,” I told her.

Yeah. Fat
chance of a lot of things.