The Brawler Page 16

At least the band had chairs.

  The table’s lights centerpiece created exaggerated shadows on their faces, and with his thick goatee, Dez looked straight-up creepy. “Jackson, Corbin’s with Ciera tonight. Thought you should know.”

  “Their choice.” Easier to say than accept.

  “No rage?”

  “Fresh out.”

  Dez said to Brit, “This man fucked up a heavy bag at the gym.”

  Brit looked to him. “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” Jackson said casually, “I gave Uncle Pax enough cash to cover the cost of a new bag.”

  “Plus a new pair of sweats, ’cause I’m pretty sure he pissed his. Can’t let folks forget Jackson’s capable of killing for a championship. It’s happened before.” Dez reached around his wife to slap Jackson’s shoulder, as if killing a challenger in the ring with a gloved hit hadn’t traumatized the fuck out of Jackson when it’d happened years before. “Whoever was in that building left with zero doubt about who’s going to leave the Garden Arena a champion.”

  “Let them doubt. It doesn’t change what I need to do and how I get it done.”

  Brit slid her phone from her purse and started swiping and tapping. “Someone posted the vid online.” Then, she swore, the word hardly audible over the live band’s saxophone. “Um, Jackson. If you intend to do to Eliáš Brazda what you did to that bag, tell me so I can stay home with all the TVs off.”

  He laughed. “Brazda’s more durable than that.”

  A waitress finally delivered menus and silk napkins, then another followed up with two bowls of strawberries.

  A sexy long-legged woman whose every feature was now imbedded in his memory waved from a few tables away. “Not that I don’t love a good saxophone solo, but I’m wondering I’ll be fed before midnight.”

  “Come over,” Brit encouraged. “We have food.”

  “Truly? I was beginning to think food was a glorious myth here.” Aly discreetly met Jackson’s eyes through the shadows. Is this okay with you?

  In answer, he shifted to the side, and then she was beside him in a silver dress that hung off one shoulder. Dez and Brit were on the opposite side of the tall brick table.

  Brit slid a bowl of strawberries to them. “Tonight must be exciting for the Greers. Congrats on the win.”

  “Thank you,” Aly said graciously. “I’m celebrating by starving in a restaurant called Appetite.”

  Dez and Brit chuckled, but tension coiled around Jackson and he remained silent.

  “Tough crowd.” Aly glanced away from him and gave the couple a soft, hesitant smile. “My jokes are usually funnier.”

  “Don’t mind the beast beside you,” Brit said, teasing. “We’re sticking out the grand opening experience.”

  “Brit’s going to be the first one to give up. Heels this high.” Dez held his hands a good six inches apart. “Or Jackson might take off. All-day workout topped off with heavy bag murder.”

  Before Jackson realized what was unfolding, Aly had Brit’s phone in her hand and was replaying the video. “What’d the bag steal from you?”

  It was a joke, but he heard the seriousness hidden in her words. “It’s just what fighters do, Aly.”

  His duty was to remember what he was, to make sure she remembered. The text message she’d sent him the day after Christmas remained dangerous and erotic on his phone.

  It triggered memories of her sweaty body in his bed and her hungry mouth on his skin.

  You might be good to her, but you’re not good for her.

  But the thought began to fade when he shared his menu with her, continued fading as they ordered dessert and hard liquor, disintegrated completely when she splintered him with one of those arm-patting laughs.

  Life was laughter and flaws and dreams for Aly. She weakened his resolve, but at the same time strengthened some other indiscernible part of him.

  She loved. She trusted.

  She was brave that way, and he a fucking coward underneath his cold perfection.

  His phone vibrated, and he darted a glance from the screen to the woman beside him. Her fingers covered her phone, and she was carrying on a conversation with Dez and Brit.

  Forget what I texted about the mistletoe. I made you uncomfortable?

  Jackson inconspicuously replied,

  Turn my way and answer that.

  He angled his hard body toward her and responded to something Brit said.

  A subtle glance through the candlelight, then Aly turned her phone over and took a bite of her gooey dessert.

  Okay. Just because he’d asked didn’t mean he would get the answer he wanted.

  Swiping a chilled strawberry, he bit into it and watched her address Dez’s question about wild-card weekend.

  And he stopped chewing as his periphery found Aly’s pale, beringed hand slipping off the table and drifting to his crotch.

  Oh, fuck... Swallowing, he studied her profile as she stroked his cock through his pants. Up, down. Harder, slower.

  Taking another strawberry, he brought it to his mouth, and used the other hand to cover Aly’s.

  Jackson stared at the sudden curve of her lips, stole a glimpse of that tight, rounded ass. One night of feeling the taut suppleness of her thighs, of taking her mouth with his, of hearing his name on her shattered moans…that was supposed to be enough?

  Fuck that.

  Rays of candlelight streaked Aly’s face, but he had a perfect view of her bottom lip rolling between her teeth then reemerging wet. His hand tightened on hers, then he moved it off his cock.

  A heartless bastard, a machine, shouldn’t be this caught up. He shouldn’t want her more than he’d wanted his ex-fiancée. He shouldn’t be thinking she was right for him, because he sure as fuck wasn’t right for her.

  Facing the table again, Jackson knocked back a shot and let his cousin lead him into a conversation about the pre-fight media workout.

  “Repeat what you did at the gym today, kill another heavy bag with your fists, and they’re going to lose their shit,” Dez predicted, taking down a third shot. “What brought that on?”

  “Want.”

  Dez and his wife wore surprised expressions, while Aly seemed to be strangely close to tearing up the way she had at her parents’ party when he’d given her a candy cane.

  “Want?” Brit repeated. “Wanting to win?”

  “Wanting something I can’t have.”

  His cousin gave a snort of disbelief. “That Venom you took out on Christmas says you’ve got just about everything you want.”

  “Just about.” Jackson reached for a napkin, seizing an opportunity to touch Aly’s hand—the hand that had just jerked him through his pants.

  “Quite a motivator,” Brit commented, and breezed on to praise the coconut concoction on her plate.

  That launched a conversation about food, and Jackson hung back, preoccupied with the way Aly’s palms lay flat on either side of her dessert plate.

  Fixated on her, he reached for another strawberry. Pinched the luscious, plump fruit between his fingers. Cautiously brought it down until he brushed Aly’s thigh.

  Watching her fingers splay, he knew her thighs were imitating the movement. He envied the strawberry as it skimmed her. When it reached her pussy, he nudged the strawberry deeper.

  Aly’s fingers curled; the tendons on her hands tautened. He fucked her with the fruit, not stopping, not retreating, until her hands started to shake. And when she gripped the table, he felt her come. Convulsing, lips open but offering no sound. A silent earthquake.

  “You okay?” Brit asked Aly, squinting through the jump of candlelight and glaring beams of red light crisscrossing the bar.

  Aly looked him square in the eyes.

  As slickly as he’d maneuvered the strawberry off the table, he brought it up…and bit into it.

  The warm sweetness of her cunt and the strawberry’s chilled tartness blended on his tongue. So fu
cking good.

  “Oh.” Unsteadily, she rubbed her throat. “I—I need to get some, um, air.”

  Jackson laughed.

  “Want me to walk with you?” Brit offered, concerned. And not perceptive enough to guess he’d just fucked Aly Greer with a strawberry under the table.

  “Finish your dessert.” Aly plucked a strawberry from the bowl, started to stagger toward the exit. “Jackson can take me.”

  “Want me to?”

  A solemn, powerless nod. “Yes.”

  Taken. That was exactly it. She was taken. So was he. Completely captured, too far gone.

  And so damn wrong.

  * * *

  They made it to The Grey Crusade, escaping to the arched recessed wall of a corridor boasting a wrought-iron art easel displaying a concert announcement.

  It hit the floor with a clatter, bumped off balance as Aly scaled Jackson.

  What was this? It infused her with a wildness and defenselessness she’d never encountered, couldn’t handle. It bit, scratched, raged. All she could do was grip and ride—the need and the man who tempted it. One arm around his shoulders, the other pulling his shirt, she said through ragged sighs, “I wanted to move on. I wanted to let go.”

  “Not yet.” He pushed her dress up as she folded her legs around him. “Not while I’m still here.” He kissed her hard, then spit on his fingers and twisted them into her. “Not when I can’t let you go, either.”

  “Okay.” Giving up a few more weeks of this…of him…it would break her fucking heart. Flesh to flesh, vulnerabilities exposed, nothing to hide except her love. “After the fight, we stop being crazy.”

  His mouth on her neck, his hands tight on her ass, he buried his naked cock deep inside her. “After the fight.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Lockdown sucked. Maddie’s foster mom had never been as livid as she was the night Maddie had run away from Faith House. Renata was so weak that some days she couldn’t leave her bed, but on that night she’d had her son chauffeur her through Las Vegas, searching, until Maddie had been found.

  If Maddie had planned every detail right, she would’ve had a solid head start—would’ve gotten much farther than Hadland Park, where she’d caught a side stitch and had cried herself to sleep.

  DFS was on her ass, and now that school had resumed, counselors were stalking her—showing up in her classes, haunting the cafeteria, making sure she wouldn’t bolt.

  Renata had grounded her, restricting her to the condo and school. No television, which meant no Food Network. No Faith House, which was all gravy, anyway, because she’d be too mortified to show up there again. Who’d welcome her back after she’d stolen a pair of shoes from a donation bin and bitch-screamed at a tutor?

  The only benefit to her epic fail was that Patrick had backed off with the rude comments and general asshattery. Maybe it had something to do with social workers crawling the place like ants. Or maybe he realized that she wasn’t going to stick around to be picked on anymore.

  So today, when Patrick had given her cash and asked her to bring home tacos after school, she’d been thrilled to kiss lockdown buh-bye.

  Enjoying freedom, she ordered Patrick’s takeout and an extra taco for herself, sat alone at a table in the restaurant, and ate as the sunset died outside the window.

  The taco restaurant’s distance from the condo tacked an extra fifteen minutes to her commute, but Patrick could warm up his food or eat it cold. After she handed over the tacos and his change, she would check on Renata then finish her homework in her bedroom.

  At the condo, she set the tacos and money on the entryway table, hoisted the strap of her textbook-stuffed tote bag over her shoulder and found the place oddly quiet. Between Renata, Patrick, and the nurse, Maddie was never left alone.

  Where was Patrick? The nurse?

  Walking through the living room, she did a double take. Her blood iced.

  No… An interior door was propped against a wall, missing its hinges and knob. A few feet away lay the knob. It was brass, with a lock.

  Maddie’s instinct was to go straight for the front door, but she instead thundered through the condo to Renata’s room. She’d wake her and finally show her what kind of bully Patrick was.

  Barreling into her foster mom’s bedroom, she skidded to a stop. Renata wasn’t there. “Renata?” Crap, why was her voice so shallow? Why did her stomach hurt so much? “Renata!”

  Swallowing past the fear in her throat, she went to her room. Relief soaked her. Her stuff—what was left of it, anyway—remained how she’d left it all this morning.

  Jostled from behind, Maddie tripped into the room. “Hey!” Regaining her balance, steadying herself on the desk chair, she glared at Patrick. “Where’s Renata?”

  “With her nurse. The tacos are cold.”

  “Use the microwave,” she said, her voice so uneven she hardly recognized it. “Put my door up. You had no right to take it down.”

  “Can’t bring home a decent taco. Can’t go to tutoring without causing a scene. Can’t keep yourself out of trouble.” He advanced, crossing the threshold, catching her by the front of her jacket. “Maddie Hawkins. What the fuck can you do?”

  “Leave.” That’s what he’d better do, and if he didn’t, she would—and she would never come back. Whatever safety she’d once had here was gone. “I said leave.”

  “No, Maddie.”

  Run!

  Flinging the chair at him, she saw herself racing to the fire escape, climbing down, and running to safety.

  She clung to the fantasy because reality—the sharp pain of Patrick striking her, the scream of her clothes tearing apart in his angry hands, the gross words he said as he unzipped his jeans and shoved her down—hurt too much.

  * * *

  Aly was bringing a crowd to Club Indiscretion, the nightclub and pavilion hosting the Las Vegas Villains’ pre-divisional game celebration. The last member of her party to be collected, she was met with a chorus of cheers when climbed into the limo in a couture snakeskin minidress, her tallest stilettos, and a row of diamond biceps bracelets on one arm.

  The vehicle was roomy and plush and provided ultra comfort for her guests. Settling in between Soixante Neuf waitress Odette and Leigh Bridges’s boyfriend, Bart, she asked the group, “How do I look?”

  “Hot,” Bart said, and when his girlfriend smacked him, he added, “She asked.” Confused, he rubbed the back of his neck and looked to Gideon, the only other male, with a shrug that pleaded, “Help me out here.”

  Gideon glanced at his date Chelle. “Is it kosher to tell a girl she’s hot in front of your date?”

  “Depends on your date.” Chelle, who’d quickly given up her forced crush on Enzo the cook, had come to Aly’s office to beg for an insta-date for the company celebration. Since Gideon was usually up for anything with free drinks and hot music, he’d been all good with coming to Las Vegas for the weekend and escorting Chelle and Odette.

  In fact, as he eyed Chelle now, he appeared a little too all good. Aly found herself in a predicament, securing Chelle a date without being upfront about her friend’s sexuality and struggles with labels. Chelle’s identity was hers to publicize or keep under lock and key, but there was Gideon to consider, too.

  As the conversation coasted over Aly, she thought back to her own struggles with labels when she’d felt too alone and afraid to empower herself. All water under the Brooklyn Bridge, she liked to think when the memories seeped through. Must’ve staunched them too late, because she suddenly lost interest in the limo’s appetizers and booze.

  Club Indiscretion was all class and promiscuity, stamped with the sponsor’s silver-and-bloodred team colors. Gourmet food was available inside the nightclub, and both it and the pavilion offered an array of liquor.

  Security combed the premises and bouncers flanked every entrance, but determined paparazzi still finagled their way inside to be hustled out again.

  Ton
ight was not only a celebration of the team’s accomplishment, but it was Aly’s validation for the hours she’d invested in securing the concert headliner.

  Yesterday at the administrative building, her parents had journeyed to S-Dubs to shake her hand in commendation for the accomplishment and her apparent attitude that only the best was acceptable for a Villains event.

  Aly had worked tirelessly to get what she wanted, but in the end, DZ Haze’s stubbornness had forced her to call on the ace up her sleeve.

  Aly walked through the nightclub to greet her ace with a smile. “Glad you could make it,” she said to her ex-brother-in-law, Chance Kershaw.

  Personally, she thought him an unfaithful asshole deserving of someone who was exactly like him. Yet professional interests begged her to shower the music mogul with respect. He’d influenced DZ Haze to honor his commitment to the event, and Aly had invited him and a guest to a gratis VIP night.

  Only, as she realized the congregation of suited men and refined women behind him were his idea of “a guest,” he was determined to take advantage of her graciousness.

  “You didn’t tell your people that I’m a part of the VIP experience, did you, Chance?” she asked him discreetly after a third man in his party tried to spirit her off to the dance floor.

  “No,” Chance denied. “What man would look at you and not wonder what’s wrapped in that tight dress?”

  “That’s for me to know and no one here to find out,” she said.

  “I keep good company,” Chance told her. “All of these men deserve a good woman. J.T. and Joan raised three, and you’re the last single one standing.”

  “Didn’t you let one of them go?” she returned pointedly, but in the sweetest of tones.

  “That’d be the one coming up behind you now?” Chance bowed slightly.

  Aly steeled herself for the fallout, hoping Veronica wouldn’t ream her out in a jam-packed nightclub during a team event.

  But Veronica marched past her. “Chance, you and your group need to leave. The Greers are sponsoring an event here tonight. Club Indiscretion’s closed to the public.”

  One of Chance’s security hulks stepped forward. “Is there a situation?”