The Brawler Read online

  “Schnapps?” asked her sister Waverly’s friend Meg Reyes, lifting a glass. Meg was a narc who’d been shot, could rock the hell out of a cane, and owned a badass shoe collection. She was also the agent who’d blown the whistle on Luca Tarantino’s gambling ring and NFL misconduct.

  “Pour!” Then Aly changed her mind. “Just give me yours. Keep the bottle.”

  Meg slid over her glass and turned up the bottle. “Ay, Dios mio. Over thirty, bumming Christmas dinner from my friends, and drinking Schnapps straight from the bottle. Somebody call my mother, tell her she was right.”

  “Aren’t you seeing someone?”

  In answer, Meg turned up the bottle again. “Dish. I know you’re packing gossip.”

  “Sort of. Someone’s fucking in the third-floor loft.”

  “You saw ass?”

  “No, but I know sex when I hear it.” She pretended to fan herself with the candy cane. “And a red scallop Valentino almost beaned me on the head.”

  Meg twisted her mouth and checked her shoes. “I’m clear.”

  More guests squeezed around the counter for pre-dinner junk food.

  A prosecutor who’d become a national news celebrity during a highly publicized murder trial was delivering the punch line to a vulgar sex joke when Veronica walked in.

  “Because Christmas is the perfect time for a disturbing image like that,” she said sarcastically over the laughter, rushing over to cover Aly’s ears. “My innocent sister.”

  “Hey, I gave them a choice,” the man defended. “G-rated or X-rated. Unanimous vote for X.”

  Aly patted her sister’s hands and told him, “The version I heard involved glitter on the princess’s pussy, not Tabasco sauce.”

  “Innocent, right. She’s as gutter as the rest of us.” With a wink for Aly, he tugged the woman beside him close. “The dance floor’s calling our names.”

  “That’s one big candy cane,” Veronica commented.

  Aly tried to reach around it to set down her glass, but bumped it, propelling it off the counter.

  She and Meg craned their necks to see it land on the floor in front of Veronica’s red scallop Valentino pumps.

  Gasping, Aly swiped the cane and brandished it at her sister. “Oh, my God. Please say you washed your hands before you touched me.”

  “You’re the loft-banger?” Meg snorted, then went back to seducing her Schnapps.

  “The uh—um—”

  “Smashing at a party, Veronica? A family party? Isn’t sex the reason you and Simon couldn’t be reached this morning?” Aly picked up the peppermint carnage. Really, it had a few fractures and was still edible.

  Veronica sighed. “I’m sorry you saw—”

  “And heard.”

  “—and heard what you did.”

  “If you were like this with your ex-husband, you hid it really, really well.”

  “Love’s different for each person you’re with. I was married for ten years and never loved that man this way. Simon and I, we want to be together every chance we get. It’s passion you can’t understand until you live it.”

  “On that note,” Meg said, “I’m going to find out how many eligible men Joan put at my table.”

  As Aly had assisted with seating arrangements, she knew the answer was seven, but figured she’d let Meg make that discovery for herself.

  “Aside from almost being bopped with a shoe, how’s your Christmas?” Veronica asked.

  “I thought it’d be merrier than this.”

  “The mistletoe didn’t garner enough kisses?”

  She’d lost count of how many people had stopped for smooches, but she knew Jackson hadn’t been one of them. If he wanted her, he’d search for her.

  “Aly, your candy cane needs a cast.”

  “It’s broken.” Metaphorically, it’d probably been broken from the beginning.

  “It’s salvageable. Just not perfect.”

  After a minister’s prayer and a twenty-five-recipe dinner—Aly’s favorite dish being steak au poivre—guests dispersed to drink, mingle, and dance.

  She fled to the staircase with her salvageable candy cane and a goblet of white chocolate mousse.

  “Hey, brat.” Waverly, draped in a revealing black gown, waved. “Veronica, she’s on her perch, making assessments.”

  Miss Loft-Banger came rushing around the corner, and the two joined Aly on the staircase.

  “You’re not bored, are you?” Veronica asked. “A bored Aly usually introduces a bad Aly.”

  Bad meaning a trending, social media fodder, trashed-in-the-media Aly. At twenty-three, she wasn’t burnt-out from the party-every-night lifestyle. But since she’d enrolled at UNLV’s business school, she had begun to crave a life spiced with variety. Quiet and leisurely days in between nights of fast, loud parties.

  “Waverly’s the designated pretty-trinkets gift-giver, so I try to go for unexpected.” Opening her silver clutch purse, Veronica retrieved her phone and scrolled the photos.

  Bugatti, Bugatti, Bugatti…

  When Veronica held out the phone, Aly almost moussed the front of her dress.

  Waverly took the dish, and Aly was too stunned to demand it back.

  It wasn’t a Bugatti—or anything with four wheels. Instead, it had four itsy bitsy paws and long ears and a fuzzy cottony tail. “A bunny?”

  Explaining that her best friend, the daughter of a matchmaker, had raved about rabbits’ tranquility-boosting abilities, Veronica said she’d enlisted her to find a rabbit that would be compatible with Aly’s zodiac characteristics. “If you want someone to love and some companionship in that house…”

  It wasn’t the fairy tale, wasn’t the exact way she wanted to bring companionship into her house, but she believed in ways that were intuitive more than logical that the rabbit belonged to her. “It’s going to be Aly and Rabbit, Rabbit and Aly.”

  “Someone to love. Someone to love you,” Waverly said. “Want to come down to the ballroom? Mom and Dad are slow dancing. It’s incredible to see.”

  Aly reclaimed her goblet, took a spoonful of mousse. “I have seen it, about every night for years. If there’s anything they cherish above success, it’s each other.”

  “J.T. and Joan…They’ve got secrets and hidden agendas, but don’t we?” Veronica turned to Waverly, while Waverly spied Aly, and Aly stared knowingly at Veronica.

  Were any of them ready to reveal?

  Waverly cleared her throat. “Jeremiah and I should go. There’re Christmas presents at his place with my name on them.”

  “And I,” Veronica said, “want to get out of this uncomfy dress.”

  Imagine how uncomfy you’d be if you’d actually kept it on all night?

  Off they went, like ritzy mice—one blonde, the other brunette—scurrying to their hidey holes.

  “I found you.”

  Jackson, in a tux with satin lapels that waited for her hands to caress slowly then grip with savage necessity, approached the staircase.

  “And now that you have,” she said, “what do you want to do?”

  “Unravel you.” One stair closer. “Unleash you.” Another. “Taste you while you come on my tongue.”

  Any moment someone could step onto the staircase. Someone would see her arched back and his body almost, almost sheltering her.

  It was terror and thrill intertwined, and she wondered if this was what Veronica and Simon had felt, escaping to a loft in hungry, risky urgency.

  “Fuck,” Jackson said in the softest yet harshest demand she’d ever heard. “Give me a spot where no one else kissed you tonight. Give me a spot to make mine.”

  Risk it. Make him be quick. Take what moments you can steal.

  No. She couldn’t do that. Because they needed to be alone. She needed him to take his time.

  “I sat here in plain sight. The only way I could’ve been more in your face was if I’d wrapped myself in lights. I made it too easy, but that’s what
I am—easy.”

  “Where I come from, easy isn’t the same as complicated and confusing. Every night since you climbed into my ring, ever since your pretty little pussy came on my fingers, I’ve been chained up in hell.”

  “Keep sweet-talking me like that and I’ll fall in love,” she said with an exaggerated eye roll. “Fact is, if something’s too easy to claim, you don’t respect it. You forget it. So, Jackson Batiste, I’m not going to be your easy victory tonight.”

  You’re going to be mine.

  * * *

  Escape was in the darkness. Jackson’s gated Promontory Ridge estate was set in shadows. No lights, no entourage, no delusions of celebration.

  He’d left that behind at the Greers’ place. All his house offered were a Christmas tree—trimmed but unlit—and cranberry vodka.

  Thank fuck for vodka, he thought, walking through the silence, shrugging off his tux jacket in one room, leaving behind shoes and socks in another, discarding his cufflinks someplace else.

  The blue LED flare of the wine refrigerator silently urged him to it. Grabbing a bottle of Smirnoff, he twisted the cap and drank.

  Right now he wasn’t Las Vegas’s prince. Right now, he wasn’t even a fighter.

  Setting the bottle down, he shifted into his stance and threw a tight jab into the darkness. He kept his chin dropped, extended his shoulder, put his weight into the offense. Speed and power were there, but it lacked grace.

  Loosening his shoulders, popping bones throughout his skeleton, he tried again. Better, more disciplined, but short of perfect.

  Failure.

  Damn. Neither liquor nor the late hour could be blamed. In top form, he could spring out of a deep sleep and fight with immaculate brutality. In the rain, his technique was creative and his assault unstoppable. In a ring, with a championship on the line, he was undefeated.

  Alone, with no opponents and no obstacles, he was flawed. Not a beast, but a man.

  Because some part of him had stayed behind at J.T. and Joan’s party: his concentration or his heart, he didn’t know.

  Jackson carried the Smirnoff to the Christmas tree, crouched to plug in the lights.

  The twinkling brightness soared twelve feet, illuminating the rock walls and dark furniture, but it didn’t breach the blackness of his mood.

  About to take to the stairs, he paused at the sound of his phone vibrating on the kitchen counter. Probably one of his cousins wanting to talk him into an after-party somewhere.

  Snatching up the phone to tell them to fuck off, he got a look at the display. Oh, shit.

  “Open the gates,” Aly said when he answered.

  “Why are you here?” His voice echoed throughout the kitchen…or had frustration hollowed out his mind?

  “I have a question.”

  If the gym was his territory, then his house was his sanctuary. Right now it was untouched, free of their knotted history and the hurt they’d inflicted on each other.

  Maybe that’s why he hated being here tonight. Maybe he needed that, the poison—or elixir—of basic, raw, need-to-fuck lust.

  He opened the door, sat at the base of the stairs, and waited for her sugary scent.

  She had smelled like the sweetest sin, looked like the most tempting dirty deed.

  Easy? God, no. If things were easy, he could pound her pussy and walk away. He wouldn’t be wishing he could give her what she needed—be what she needed.

  Then there was sweetness, but it was only her perfume. Because there was anger and accusation in her stomp as she walked into his house, shut the door, and searched until she spotted him.

  “Why’d you give me this?” She dropped the beaten but still wrapped candy cane onto his lap.

  “It didn’t look like that when I gave it to you,” he said. “Did you beat someone’s ass with it?”

  “It fell off a counter.” Her sigh was a whisper in his ears. “Damn it, Jackson. Why?”

  “For a reaction. Even the tears.” He picked up the peppermint cane, threw it an indeterminable distance, and heard it skid across the floor. Rising to his feet slowly, he watched her throat undulate as she swallowed. “Scared of me?”

  “No.”

  “Liar.” Backward, he edged a few steps higher and she advanced, maintaining their proximity. How high up these stairs, how far into his home, how deep into his life would she go?

  “Last night you got the edge off in Reno. Tonight you enticed me with candy canes and car rides. Know how utterly fucked up that is?”

  “What edge?”

  “Pax told me about Reno.”

  “You talked to my uncle?”

  “At the gym this morning. We didn’t say much. He wasn’t acting like his normal Pax self. Sort of jumpy and weird. He made off with a dozen doughnuts and the washer repair guy was over.”

  “TV guy.”

  “No, washer, according to him. Do you always have to be so contrary?” She scrunched her face. “Anyway, before you go after him, try to remember celebrities can’t always keep secrets in the age of social media. You were all over Instagram. And women were all over you.”

  A man who wanted discretion wouldn’t have ridden through Reno in a procession of limos, Hummers, million-dollar sports cars, but that didn’t matter. “You think I went to Reno and fucked someone?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I didn’t. I can’t.” One step higher, and she countered the move. “An edge? Nah, Aly. An edge wouldn’t get in my head, touch my concentration. An edge wouldn’t make me obsess about you.”

  “Mistletoe gave you permission to kiss me.”

  “That’s not enough,” he said, solemnly shaking his head. “Taking your pink little nipples between my teeth, or fucking your wet cunt with my tongue, or pounding you until my seed drips out of your ass—none of it is enough. But tonight we’re going to pretend it is.”

  Jackson leaped down to where she stood. The limestone-walled staircase was wide and curved slightly in its tunnel-like ascent to the second floor. But sharing her step, her space, he knew he crowded her.

  “So you want empty sex from me?” she said. “What if I say no?”

  “You said yes when you walked through my fucking door.” He breathed in her scent, said her name on an exhale. Another night of teasing and tantalizing might end him. “You’re holding me, know that? You’ve got to release me.”

  “At the hotel we said—”

  “We lied. We were wrong.” He splayed his hand on the limestone, scraping the pads of his fingers on the rough surface. “We didn’t know.”

  Aly reached up, grabbed his wrist. “Want me? Work for me.” And pushing against his wrist, she loped down the stairs.

  The sight of her swaying hips torched him. Jackson didn’t rush—he could take his time with her, and fully intended to. He knew exactly how he’d take that damn shimmery dress off…had plans for that mistletoe.

  On the bottom step, she flirted with the jewel straps of her gown. Then he reached her, making contact this time, taking her hand and skimming his lips over her knuckles.

  Biting her index finger, he groaned to hear her stunned little gasp.

  Withdrawing, she told him, “I did give you a spot to kiss,” and sauntered deeper into the house.

  His feet touched the floor, and soundlessly he hunted. This time she had made things easy, because he could track her fragrance and the sound of her footsteps. Aside from that, she stopped in front of the glowing Christmas tree.

  A present, for him.

  “Show me,” he coarsely demanded. “Show me what I can make mine.”

  Aly grabbed his neck, leaned into him, and fitted her lips to his. “No one touched my lips tonight, except you.”

  He swore against her soft, soft lips. Traced their shape with his fingers. Pushed the middle one into the wet heat of her mouth.

  “Moan on it.” He was reduced to whispers, his control weakening by the minute.

 
Boldly catching his gaze, she closed her lips and sucked.

  “God.” He was undefeated in the ring, but Aly Greer was going to fucking break him. Damned if he wouldn’t enjoy it.

  A playful nip, then she let him slip free.

  “This isn’t going to be the perfect candles-and-flowers night you’d wanted from me.” He’d felt compelled to give her a choice, a chance to change her mind about this. About him.

  “Candles and flowers don’t make sex perfect. I’ve had great sex without them. Does that bother you?”

  “No. I’ve had great sex without candles and flowers, too.”

  She toyed with her dress straps again. The jewels glittered under the tree’s lights. “You know what I mean. Some men are fixated on being the end-all, be-all dick. They’re too fragile to accept that there are guys out there with bigger, harder, nicer cocks.”

  Unhooking his belt, he took her hands and laid them over his crotch. “I’m satisfied with my cock.”

  Firmly, she stroked him rigid. “So.” Again. “Am.” Again. “I.” Again.

  “Your dress. Take that fucker off.”

  Aly’s hands lifted, and his rod leaped in protest. She turned, exposing a delicate zipper. Bringing down the zipper, he peeled back shimmery fabric to reveal smooth white skin.

  What had he done to deserve her—her lust…her trust?

  Jackson thumbed the straps over her shoulders, watched gravity lure the dress down her body to the floor in an inconsequential puddle of fabric.

  Quickly he found what lay underneath the metallic dress, scanty bra and open-in-the-ass panties: the only woman who could crack his guard by simply standing naked in front of him.

  And another provocative surprise, when he gently turned her around again: a drop of platinum on her navel. A belly-button ring.

  So this was her hidden piercing. Raking his fingertips over it, he said, “When I spread you wide, when I lick your slit open, this is what I’m going to be looking at.”

  Aly yanked on his shirt, laying a kiss on each button before freeing it. “Give me as many rounds as you can last, Batiste.”

  Jackson watched her sink to the floor after she worked the last button loose and stripped off his shirt. “A new boundary…We need one. Where do we stop? When?”