KAGE (KAGE Trilogy #1) (27 page)

“I was not trying to get your attention.”

He laughed. “Yes, you were. You were trying to get in my pants.”

“Oh. My. God. I was not.” My face turned fourteen shades of crimson.

Kage slid his tongue between my lips and pulled away again. “You would have gotten on your knees right there in the backstage area of Phillips Arena. You would have bent over that buffet table and let me take your ass right there in front of those reporters. They couldn’t stand you, by the way.”

“I know very well how much they hated me. However, I think you must be confusing me with someone else who would have let you bend them over. That was definitely not me.”

“Yes, it was. You may not want to admit it, but even then you were looking at me like you wanted to eat me. You would have swallowed my cock right then and begged for seconds.”

And then reality hit me right in the face. “You hired me because you wanted to fuck me.”

One of those sexy cat grins stretched across his handsome face. “It may have crossed my mind.”

“I feel so used. So cheap.” I was only teasing. I
think
he knew that, but maybe he didn’t.

“Tell you what,” he said, hopping off my lap and leaving me with an unsatisfied boner I’d hoped he would help me take care of. “I don’t want you to feel like I hired you for sex, because I assure you that is far from the truth. So I’m gonna let you do your job during working hours, and then you can choose whether or not you want to spend personal time with me during off hours. Okay?”

I groaned and made an obvious adjustment to my pants. “Damn, I need to learn to think before I speak. I really don’t think that’s necessary, do you? I mean, we’re both big boys. We can handle it.”

Kage smiled indulgently. “I want to, believe me. But I think you need to at least go to your apartment and sleep on it. I’m the one with something to lose here, so…”

His weighted words hit home, and suddenly I thought I understood. Kage was in a precarious position where a potential sexual relationship with me was concerned. For one thing, he was paying me. And for another, he was on his way to becoming a celebrity. If things went sour, or if I changed my mind because I felt pressured, it was his reputation on the line. He wanted me, but he was being careful, and I had to respect that.

On my way out the door, something occurred to me, and I looked back over my shoulder. “Hey, I thought your uncle was supposed to be some hard-ass businessman. How did you talk him into hiring an intern with no experience?”

He grinned. “I told him I wouldn’t fight anymore.”

17

IT WAS nearly impossible to get settled into my room that night. For one thing, I was a little bit angry. What was this business Kage had come up with about sleeping on it? I was also still shaken by the way he’d acted in the restaurant.

For a few minutes, it was as if he’d flipped into a different personality. His alter-ego. His Bizarro self.

I tried to busy myself with uploading the pictures I’d take of him over the last several days. I put them on his website, then shared them on his social profiles. While I was messing around with his online presence, I noticed there were messages for him on a couple of sites.

Crap
. I hadn’t thought of that. Who was going to answer his messages? Me?

I downloaded the corresponding apps to my phone so that I could receive notifications when he got private messages. That was at least a start. But that got me thinking about the scope of the job I was carving out for myself, in essence creating from scratch. It was becoming much larger than I’d anticipated, and I wasn’t sure how it was going to be possible to cleanly extract myself from it at the end of the summer.

Then of course that made me think of leaving Kage.
Fuck
. How had this all gotten so complicated so fast? And why was Kage waffling when it came to our personal relationship? I mean, he’d basically seduced me then sent me away to second-guess things. Or maybe he was the one who was second-guessing.

The more I thought about it, the angrier I got.

Yeah, I understood that he had to be careful, but he had been the one pawing all over me at the front desk, kissing me at yet another front desk, and discussing my penis size with a very talkative Alcazar employee. He was contradicting himself.

But there was really nothing I could do about it, so I did what I normally did when I felt helpless. I called my mom.

“It’s good to hear from you, sweetheart.” Her voice was tired like she’d been asleep. Or maybe she was ill. It was only nine-thirty in her time zone.

“Yeah, I was just hanging around here in my room with nothing to do, so I thought I’d call.”

She laughed. “Oh, you have to be bored these days to call your mother.”

“I’ve been really busy, Mom. I’m a working man now.”

She coughed, and I couldn’t help wondering if it had anything to do with the cancer. Funny how a diagnosis could make even a common cold or a sleepy voice sound terrifying.

“Oh, I know. I talked to your boss. Such a sweet guy. Is he really letting you fly down for my surgery?”

“Actually, uh… I think he’s coming with me.”

“Wow. I thought that’s what he said, but then when I told your father, he said I must have misunderstood. He didn’t think an employer would be that hands-on, he said. But I told him that you were doing a different kind of job, and that you and this man had become friends. Is that right?”

I laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, feeling a tiny tug in my heart, then closed my eyes. “Yeah, that’s right. Did Kage tell you about what I do for him? About who he is and all that?”

“Not exactly. But he did tell me that the secrecy contract you signed did not extend to mothers, and that you could tell me anything you wanted about him.”

My eyes flew open at that. “Really? Were those his actual words? That I could tell you anything?”

“Yes, honey. I wouldn’t make that up. He said anything.”

“He’s an MMA fighter,” I blurted. “Supposed to be really good, but I haven’t seen him fight yet. You can check him out on
MichaelKage.com
. I made that website myself, Mom. I’ve been taking pictures of him, building his website, establishing a social media presence, and I got him an appearance at a gym over the weekend. He’s rich, or his uncle is, and we live in this really fancy hotel.”

She laughed. “Slow down, honey,” she said. “Sounds like you’re doing a fantastic job, but... He’s a fighter? He didn’t sound like a fighter. He sounded like a very nice person, and well-spoken.”

That made me laugh. “Fighters aren’t mean and illiterate, Mom. I mean, they could be, I suppose. But I think for the most part they’re just normal guys who happen to beat each other up for a living. For our entertainment.”

“Hmmm. I hadn’t thought about it that way. Maybe it says more about us than them, that they do it for our entertainment.”

“Maybe…” I wondered if Kage had ever thought of it that way.

“You seem different, son. What’s going on?”

“Different?” My voice squeaked. That was the second time someone had accused me of seeming different in one day. Of course, the first had only concerned my skin color. This one was real. This was my mom, who knew me better than anyone on the entire planet and could always guess my mood or tell when something was bothering me. What made me think I could hide from her?

“I guess I’m growing up,” I told her, which was partially true. “This working for a living thing really makes you look at things in a different way. Plus, all this stuff about you having… surgery.” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word
cancer
to her. Not while she still had it in her body.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “Everything is going to be fine. I’m doing the right thing to get rid of it for good.”

“I know. I just don’t like thinking about it.”

She gasped on the other end of the phone. “Is this him, Jamie?
Michael “The Machine” Kage
, it says. I’m on his website. My goodness, he’s… Well, he’s something else. Look at this, Jennifer. This is the man— er, boy— your brother is working for. Somehow, I thought he’d be older, being your boss and all.”

“Oh my God,” I heard Jennifer squeal in the background. “Is he single?” Then she snatched the phone from Mom and asked me directly, “Is he single?”

“Nooo,” I lied, jealousy prickling all along the back of my neck. “And neither are you. Aren’t you supposed to be getting married soon?”

But she was gone, replaced by my mom again. “Let me put this thing on speaker phone. There we go.” Her voice took on a tinny, distant quality. “Son, did you say you took these pictures yourself?”

“Yep,” I said. “Kage bought me a really nice digital camera. It cost thousands of dollars, Mom. They look pretty professional, huh? I’m thinking about advertising my services when I get back to school, to make some extra money. Don’t you think they look professional?”

“Well, yes, but some of them are sort of racy, aren’t they? Is this what fighters are doing these days? Posing with their behinds sticking out of their pants? I can see his
crack
, for heaven’s sake.” She whispered the word
crack
.

“Oh.” I had forgotten about the sexy shots I’d taken over the weekend. What the hell was I showing my mother? I thought of what had happened right after that photo had been snapped, and my face went hot.

“Can I volunteer to be your photography assistant?” Jennifer yelled. “Oh my God, Mom, look at that one.”

A knock at the door startled me, and I sat upright in bed. “Hang on, Mom. Let me see who that is at my door.”

When I peered through the peep hole, Kage was looking back at me. My heart sped up, and I opened the door.

Before I could even say anything, he grabbed my head and leaned in, stealing a quick kiss. “Have you thought about things long enough? I can’t wait anymore.” He kicked the door shut behind him. “Get on the bed, Jamie. I need you naked. I am so fucking hard right now.”

I swallowed and held up the phone, feeling the color draining from my face. When his eyes stretched wide, I mouthed “
It’s my mom!”

“Oh. Fuck.
” He covered his mouth with his hand.

I brought the phone back to my ear. “Mom? Are you still there?”

“Yes, baby. Who is it? Is that the fighter?”

I let out the loudest, most obvious sigh of relief. “Yeah, Mom. It’s the fighter. He’s having a hard time with something, and he needs my help.”

I could have sworn I heard my sister laughing in the background.

“Oh, well tell him I said hello, honey,” my mom said.

I put her on speaker phone.

“Kage, my mom said hello. She and my sister are on your website looking at your crack right now.”

“Jamie!” my mom admonished from the other end of the line. Then I heard my sister howling with laughter for sure.

Kage narrowed his eyes and shook his head at me. “Hello, Mrs. Atwood. Nice to talk to you again.”

“Oh, hello Michael. I didn’t know you could hear me. Please disregard my son’s rudeness, and you have my blessing to take it out of his paycheck.”

“Mom, no fair!” I yelled.

Kage leaned close to my ear and said, “I’ll just take it out of your ass.” To illustrate, he reached around and squeezed my ass cheek with one large hand, his fingers spreading me and bruising my flesh.

It gave me chills, and I groaned out loud.

“Mom, I’ve gotta go.”

“Okay, honey. Goodnight.”

I’d clicked off before the last word was completely out of her mouth. Then Kage was on me. He brought his other hand around to grab my other ass cheek, squeezing until I groaned again.

“I love that sound,” he said before he claimed my mouth with his. My lips were already parted, and he just slid his tongue right between them, squeezing my ass again until I moaned into his mouth. Then he lost it.

He pulled me against him and rutted against me, cock to cock through our shorts, kissing my throat so thoroughly I had to throw my head back to give him access. I’d never felt so ravished. I tangled my fingers in his hair and pulled, encouraging as much contact as I could get.