Sneak Attack (15 page)

W
rapped around him
, pulse still racing, breaths choppy and chaotic, I finally heard what he’d said at the table over our forgotten meal.

“They want me to fight.”

He didn’t lift his head from my hair, but his body turned rigid. His cock twitched inside me with the aftershocks even as tension overtook him. His weight on top of me shifted from pleasant to oppressive.

Bracing a fist on the pillow beside our heads, he raised his torso and caught my chin. “Say no.”

His eyes were begging me. He didn’t want me to fight. To go back to the place that called me like a siren, like a lover I’d turned my back on because I’d sworn to everyone I would.

That wasn’t supposed to be my dream. The only problem was no one had convinced me of that yet. I definitely hadn’t managed to convince myself.

“They want me to fight,” I said again. If I had to repeat it one hundred more times for it to make sense, then I would. “Why am I supposed to care?”

He released a breath and pulled out of me, then rolled onto his back. Sprawled there¸ he stared up at the ceiling. “Giovanni said there’s a price on your head now. After you hit Lorenzo, they decided they wanted you dead.”

A laugh bubbled out of my chest. Surely, the punchline to this joke was coming soon. “What?”

He didn’t laugh. He also didn’t look at me. “I think they’re organized crime, baby. That’s all I can figure. Giovanni wouldn’t spell it out for me, but add a few things together, and it fits.”

Swallowing hard, I shut my eyes. “Well, that sucks.”

“Yeah. You can say that again.”

“So they want me dead, but first they want me to fight?”

“According to Gio, he said if you fight, all will be forgiven.”

I didn’t laugh again, but it was a close thing. “Right. Because that’s all it takes to erase a death-worthy debt. A few traded punches, all good now.”

“Giovanni assured me—”

“Giovanni sure is telling you a lot. Especially since he’s the one who got us into this situation in the first place.” I sat up and shoved my hands through my sex-tousled hair. Pretty soon it’d be tousled for another reason altogether.

I wasn’t scared, exactly. Death threats didn’t affect me the same way they did most people. I’d courted death for a long time, inviting it with a smile.

It just had taken a while to show up, like the last guest to a party that was almost over.

“I thought the same thing, until I retraced my steps. I was the one who went to the gym when I should’ve gone off alone and gotten my head straight. I sure as hell shouldn’t have gone to a strip club with a guy I don’t even like when I’m sober. And I definitely shouldn’t have let you come get me, like some dumbass drunk who can’t even get himself home.”

“You’re right. It’s all your fault.”

He hooked his arm around my waist and dragged me against his chest. “You know how to make a man feel better,” he said gruffly, brushing a kiss over my forehead just the same.

From within the circle of his arms, I smiled up at him. “I figure you’re already making yourself feel bad enough. Why should I miss out on a chance to throw some shit on the pile?”

“Mia logic.”

“Mmm-hmm.” I pressed a kiss against his jaw. “I’m hungry. Good thing this room has a microwave, because I think that steak could use a reheat.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, maybe the beans too. Not sure about the potato. I think the butter might—”

“Mia.” He cupped my chin, tipped it upward. “They want you to fight. One fight, with a female competitor. That’s why I didn’t want you to start meds this week. When you don’t know how they’ll affect you, you can’t take the chance.”

“If I fight. You acted like I could say no.” But I wouldn’t. Not because those rich thugs were trying to scare me into doing their bidding, and not because I truly believed I’d escape from their supposed death threat if I did.

I would fight, because I needed to. Just having the possibility dangled in front of me eased the storm in my mind in a way nothing else had done for months.

This would give me my focus back. When I was training hard, nothing else intruded. Not stalkers, not bastards in three-thousand-dollar suits, not my Aunt Patty taking money I didn’t even know if I wanted.

In the octagon, I had one goal. To win.

“You could say no.” His voice grew cool. “If someone else took your place.”

I stared up at him.

“Look, they said they wanted a female fight, that that’s the big thing now. But I know what would be as big or bigger. I could fight Gio. A rematch for last winter.” He framed my face in his hands. “A lot of people want to see that fight. And he’d do it, I know he would, if only to try to take another piece of me—”

“No.”

“Hear me out.”

“I did. I am. And it’s not going to happen. I’m going to fight.”

His arms tightened around me. “After yesterday, you expect me to just let you walk into the ring, just like that.”

“Yes. After yesterday, and all the days that come after. I may be crazy, Fox, but I was my sanest when I had those fucking gloves on my hands.” I broke the cage of his arms around me and rolled away to sit on the edge of the bed, cursing at the fall of hair in my face. I fumbled a hair band off my wrist and twisted it up.

Already I could feel my ill-fitting chick persona receding. I wanted to be a fighter again. I hadn’t realized how much I needed that sense of purpose until it was taken away from me.

Until I
gave
it away, for love. Nothing else would be worth the loss.

“I never said you were crazy.”

“I don’t have to name the sunset to know the sun’s going down. I’m not balanced quite right. That’s obvious.”

“Who’s to say who’s balanced? That isn’t the point.”

I whirled to face him, unable to restrain my anger. “Oh yeah? What is it then?”

“You’re out of shape,” he said flatly.

For a moment, I had no response. Words fled my brain, my heart. Him saying that to me was akin to a boyfriend telling his girl that yes, that blue dress
did
make her look fat.

Then I reacted the way I would’ve in the beginning, back when we’d met. I reared back and punched him in the gut.

“Christ.” He didn’t clutch his stomach, but he went satisfactorily pale. And I didn’t even feel guilty.

Fucker. He’d deserved it.

While he was still prone, I climbed on top of him and wrapped my fingers around his throat, right below his Adam’s apple. “You think I couldn’t take you? That I’m too out of shape to hurt you good? You never got the full effect of me in crazy bitch mode, Knox, but we can rectify that. Right now.”

His eyes, so wild and blue, burned into mine. I felt his cock rear between my legs, already seeking its target. I wouldn’t make it that easy on him.

Everything had been too easy between us for too long. He thought the problem was we needed more romance. No, we needed this. Not just to fuck, but to
fight
. For ourselves, for each other. That was the only way to prove the goal was worth the challenge.

“I never thought you’d go for a sucker punch,” he said, jostling me on his groin. He smiled triumphantly when I gasped as his dick swiped over my clit, just one rough rub.

I shrugged. “Suckers get punched.”

He sat up so swiftly that I didn’t have time to counter. In an instant I was on my back and he was between my legs, pressing his arm against the backs of my thighs to hold them in place. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. And then his mouth was on me, and he wasn’t licking or kissing so much as eating me alive. Ravenously. As if he’d been starved for my taste, and this was to be his last meal.

I railed against his hold, scissoring my legs, trying to get a handhold on his hair. But he was too fast, and too strong. He grabbed me and flipped me over onto my knees, impaling me with one powerful thrust that ripped a scream of pure pleasure from my throat. He fisted his hand in my hair and dragged back my head, meeting my gaze in the mirror opposite us with a feral gleam. “Now who’s a sucker?”

Dropping my head forward between my spread arms, I let my shoulders sag. He relaxed, though he continued to pound his cock into me like we both hadn’t just had head-exploding orgasms twenty minutes ago.

He needed this every bit as much as I did. Maybe some part of him craved the hearts-and-flowers too, but this kind of physical sex sated us both.

And I was about to bring it all the way home.

When his thumb lowered to the back of my neck to stroke, to soothe, I kicked back against his braced thigh, shifting until I knocked the leg out from underneath him. He pulled out of me with a drag of flesh that made my eyes cross, and not entirely in a good way. Then he was on his back and I was on top of him again, an arm against his throat and my bare pussy hovering over his straining cock.

“Tsk, tsk,” I breathed in his ear. “Didn’t your trainer ever tell you not to lower your guard? Especially with someone who knows all your weaknesses?” I rubbed against him, spreading heat and wetness along his length until a growl emanated from his throat. “Like this. Like you wanting inside me so much that you’re willing to let me have my way, just so you can fuck my agreement out of me. You know I love your cock. It makes me stupid.”

“Speaking of stupid…” he muttered, lifting his head and raising a brow at the situation between his legs. I lifted my arm enough so he could speak more clearly. “Goddamn pretty pussy always screws me over.”

“It’s not screwing you over right now, and you hate that.” I bit his earlobe and he growled again, pushing faintly against my arm as if in warning. He’d happily pin me one more time, and I’d let him because the thrill of sneaking past his guard again and again made me so wet and hot that I could feel my arousal slipping down my inner thighs. Coating us both.

“Sadistic witch.”

“Cocky asshole.”

His lips twitched. “And your point?”

“My point is shut up and fuck me.” I slid over him and he groaned, tipping back his head in complete submission. I could’ve pressed harder, kept him in place, or I could lean down and nip his Adam’s apple, just to feel the long cords of his body jerk under mine. Door number two won. “Or if you’d rather I do the honors…”

“Ladies first.”

With one circle of my hips, he was seated inside me, buried deep, his tongue slashing into my mouth with every advance and retreat. I didn’t waste time on foreplay. Neither of us needed any. This was plain and simple screwing, with us using each other to get off as fast as possible.

I got there first, with a cry that ripped from my chest. He didn’t so much as pause. His hips continued to ram against mine, driving his length deep and then deeper still, his hand a bruising pressure on my ass. He pushed me down on him while slamming upward, hitting that magic spot inside me that turned the sparklers behind my closed eyelids into a freaking laser light show. I gasped through the pleasure, then the pain as it spun on and on and became something almost unbearable.

Still he fucked me, taking me to the limit then sending me hurtling right past it.

Rearing back, he drove into me a final time, scraping nerve endings wore raw and sending them into yet another screaming spiral of bliss while his quick spurts pumped into me. As he climaxed, he dug his fingers into my hip hard enough that I swore a matching imprint bloomed on the opposite side. Again and again, he stroked into me, still coming, his release dripping between us until we were a sticky, depleted mess.

Or maybe I was the only one who was depleted, because his cock was still semi-hard.

Holy shit.

“You are one sick fuck,” I said against his chest, unable to do more than open one eye. Balefully.

“Why?”

“Ask me that when you’re not still jammed inside me.”

“Such a poet.” He rubbed his thumb over my lower lip. “So I guess you’re not that out of shape.”

I wheezed out a laugh. “Gee, thanks.”

“I’ll probably need a spleen removal op.” He grimaced and rubbed his stomach. “Pretty sure you bruised mine.”

“Good. You deserved it.” But I slipped down his body, ruefully dislodging his cock, and pressed a kiss to the approximate spot I’d punched. “I’ll probably feel guilty tomorrow.”

“No, you won’t.”

“I said probably.”

He chuckled and scooped his hand through my hair. “You know I’m going to train you, right?”

I rested my chin on his torso. “Duh.”

His smile lasted for another moment before fading away. “They want you to fight Evie.”

I’m not sure what reaction he expected to that pronouncement, but from the wrinkle that formed between his eyes, my howl of laughter probably wasn’t it.

Gripping my belly, I rolled onto my back. “Crumpet? No. Fucking. Way.”

“You have to take her seriously. From what I read online, she had one hell of a record overseas.”

“Yeah, and Captain Crunch could really steer a boat back in the day. Color me terrified.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I’m going to tell her I can’t train her, for obvious reasons. Which means she’ll probably get Timmins until a new trainer can be assigned. He’s good.”

“So? You’re better.” She gave him a moment to puff out his chest before she added, “
I’m
better.”

“There’s my modest mouse.” Shaking his head, he flicked her nose. “You’re not upset, are you?”

I said nothing. If I spoke too soon, he’d probably hear the excitement vibrating in my voice. I hadn’t fully realized how much I wanted to get back into the ring until the option was presented to me.

Now that it had been, there was no way I was backing down. I didn’t care why they wanted me to fight. All I knew was that this was my way back in.

“It’s only one fight,” he said quietly, reading me as easily as he always was able to. From the beginning, he’d had an uncanny bead on me and my reactions. Our eight months together had only intensified that ability.

“One fight that will supposedly make them forget they want me dead.”

“They think it’ll bring in a lot of eyes and a lot of money.” He jerked a shoulder. “It sounded BS to me too. Gio thinks it’s legit, and he knows them.”

“And we’re sure Gio’s on our side and not theirs.”