FORCE: Alpha Badboy MMA Romance (9 page)

“No. It was me. I just needed you to say it. Tell me it was my fault. You’ve never said it before.”

They had been fighting in the back seat of the van after Emily picked them up from school. Cameron emptied everything out of her pink and purple checked backpack as he did every day to be sure she had eaten her lunch or brought her math book home.

Only this day, he found a bookmark inside her Tom Sawyer book. A folded scrap of white, light blue lined notebook paper with a scribbled note, “I like you.”

He tore the book from her hands as Victoria clutched to retrieve it.

With one fling, Cameron lost his grip, the book flew like a black crow from the back seat, hitting Emily in the temple, knocking her head into the side window. It was just enough to veer them into oncoming traffic; the semi-truck that bore down on the driver’s side door did not have a chance to touch his breaks.

Cameron felt the prickling sensation under his skin.

The same impending sense of overprotection that came when she was close to danger, like now.

But, this was different, it was a foreboding that welled up inside and made him want to snatch her up and run out of here as far as they could go. He wanted to cover her with himself; to keep every dark thought and painful memory from settling once and for all in her heart.

He moved forward three strides from the blue sofa, covering the distance necessary to close the gap between them. The warm prickling turned into an all-out assault like heated needles were rolling up and down his back.

That heat rose up from his feet, rushed up his legs, tingling the ever present lust he had whenever she was this close. He could smell her, like a shark, she was like blood in the water and nothing could break the trance once he was on the scent.

“It wasn’t your fault.” Her bravado broke.

Instead, her doe eyes began to flood, and Cameron felt the knife twist in his gut.

“It was mine.” Her voice was shaking. “My fault. I was teasing you. I always teased you. I put that note in the book because I knew you would find it. It made me feel powerful like someone cared. You took every mean thing I said or did to you. You took it all, and still — the way you always managed to make me feel safe, important. Like no one else was as special as me.”

The strap around his heart ratcheted down three more clicks, and he wasn’t sure she understood exactly the restraint it took to look down at her like this without touching her.

“No one
is
as special as you. Look at me.”

His rough hands covered her cheeks, raising her face.

“What do you want? I have nothing to give you Cameron. We have nothing.
Please
, it’s too much, let it go.” The flood that wavered over her eyes spilled onto the warmth of her cheeks and touched his fingers.

“I have no fucking choice, don’t you get that? I was born for you. Born to protect you, care for you. Do you ever fucking see me give anyone else a
moment
of what I give you? Maybe Asher, but that’s not even fucking close. No one will hurt you again. Haven’t I proved that to you? I will walk to hell and back to keep you safe.”

“You’ve almost
killed two people
Cameron.
Twice
, you did that, with your HANDS — you are too much. There is too much anger in you. I’m not a child anymore. I don’t need protecting. Please, really, I’m begging you. If you care for me at all, you need to leave.”

Her eyes fell from his, wrenching her neck to the side she untangled her face from his hands. Cameron felt the final twist of the knife; the heat was gone; his body was cold.

His fingers clung to her cheek, like a man receiving life blood, he could not break the bond, his arms fell to wrap around her neck, pulling her shivering warmth toward him. His lips fought their way to hers; it was the only breath he needed.

He felt the stiffness of her body as his tongue discovered a new day the flavor of her lips, the softness as he pushed inside, and the warmth and willingness of her tongue as she began to melt slowly against the hard tension of every muscle in his body.

He didn’t want her to be the one to push away this time. At the moment their kiss softened her, Cameron pulled back. It took a manner of will unlike anything he had used before to break away.

His blood started its march down, rising the beast upward like a lightning bolt, but he pulled her face from his. He gave her a moment; pulling her into his chest, his lips tasting the sweet, floral softness of her hair.

“We know we’re more than just this. Two kids that ended up thrown together by a crazy bullshit marriage.” Cameron felt he no longer needed to breathe, there was no air, but somehow, it became unnecessary.

“Yep. A crazy marriage that made us brother and sister. A life that made us too close ever to get away from each other. But, I need you to leave.” He could feel the vibration of her voice into his chest. “Please, if you have ever cared for me, you’ll leave.”

With a gentle push, the softness of her body left his, tugging at the hem of her faded Southside Gym t-shirt, she dropped into the worn, brown leather of her swiveling desk chair.

Her fingers brushed a trickle of salt water from her cheeks and her eyes locked onto the bright flickering of her monitor.

“Tell me one thing.” Cameron said.

“What?” Victoria kept her eyes straight, the Excel spreadsheet waiting.

“You and me. Tell me you never think of us. Tell me you didn’t feel anything when I kissed you.”

Cameron didn’t need her answer, he felt it already, but he needed
her
to hear it, out loud.

Victoria let her fingers rest on the keyboard, her warm honey chocolate irises dilating as she carefully chose her words.

“I’ll tell you what I feel.” She lifted her chin to look right into his eyes. “I feel like you are a self-centered asshole for coming back here after six months, leaving us all wondering what the hell is going on. Then, here you come, marching back, thinking for some crazy reason, all of the sudden you kiss me and I'm supposed to fall over backward, thanking you? Profess my undying love? I feel like you need to figure out some things on your own, Cameron. You are not the axis on which my world turns.” The look in her eyes was scorching as Cameron felt his face burn. She was so amazing when she was mad. “Are we done? I think we’re done. I do have a job and you probably have some ring girl that can help you out with whatever it is that you need.”

He couldn’t let it end like this, she was obstinate, she needed just a little more pushing and pushing was his middle name.

“HEY IN THERE!!” A harsh pounding on the door shocked Cameron from his single minded focus.

The voice was coming through the wood door, muffled but familiar.

“OPEN THE DOOR!”

10

Cameron flipped the lock and let the door swing open.

He needed to let her rest, give her a moment, but an odd sense of sadness overcame him as he turned away from that angelic, fierce face and met with a shoulder punch from Asher.

“What the hell you two doing in here with the door locked? Something I should know??” Asher gave them both a flash of that impish smile and the room filled with a light they both desperately needed.

He was more Spickoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High than a young fighter growing up on the fringe of the underbelly of Detroit.

“No. Your big brother was just lecturing me on the virtues of time alone. Right Cameron?” Her snarky tone only drove the blood hotter through his veins.

“Alone? Yeah, that’s his specialty. This man that could go for a year without human contact and probably barely notice. He has never learned the many virtues of human interaction.” Asher’s light brown hair curled around the back of his ears and his blue eyes matched Cameron’s if only a shade deeper.

Where Cameron stood like a dark knight, Asher filled a room with a sense of hope and wonder. His childlike enthusiasm stood in stark contrast to his brother’s cynical brooding.

“So, it’s Saturday man. No school, what’s the plan?” Asher flashed his crazy white teeth, pumped his eyebrows up and down then fell slumping down on the sofa with both hands locked behind his head.

“Don’t look at me. I’ve got work to do. First of the month, time to count the eggs or make the donuts or whatever I’m suppose to do.” Victoria went back to the safety of her computer screen, her panic taking a rest and allowing her lungs to fill completely with a cleansing breath.

Asher brought a blissful break to the palpable tension in the depressing office.

“Well? What’s the plan?” Asher prodded.

Cameron rocked back on his heels, cocked his head to the side, and lost his battle not to smile at his younger brother.

“I’ve gotta meet Reggie over at Tyson’s.”

“No shit? Tyson’s took you back? Thought he said he wouldn’t train you unless you were exclusive?”

“Yup. That’s the deal.”

“Fuck, Cam. Dad’s gonna shit a brick. You’re not going to train here at all?”

“Nope. It’s time man. Me and Dad — “, Cameron gave her a glance, Victoria’s eyes shot back to her screen. “Yeah, I’ll be around, but I’m not training here. I gotta move on.”

Cameron saw her roll her eyes and the sound of her condescending
‘psssfftt’
sound drew Asher’s eyes too.

Cameron wanted to reach over and give her what he knew she needed, right here in the office over his knee. It was all he could do to keep his cock in check just knowing she was this close. The thought of her naked ass bent over his lap with his hand playing her for the first time had a knife blade at his throat.

Oxygen was suddenly scarce, and apparently he also lost his hearing because Asher was moving his lips, but Cameron had no idea what he was saying.

“What?”

“Jesus.”
Asher joined Victoria in the eye roll.

Cameron felt the heat rising up from his gut, both of them were pushing every damn button he had right now. “DO. YOU. WANT. TO. WATCH. ME. FIGHT. LATER?”

Another bright white flash behind Asher’s lips, and Cameron took a breath.

“Sure, what time? I’m done at Tyson’s around 4:30.”

“I’m working until 3, then a quick workout, then sparing. Be back here by 5:30. I’m gonna knock him out!” Asher popped up and danced around in his best Mohammad Ali tiptoe imitation until he took a mis-step and knocked into the lamp on the corner of Victoria’s desk.

“Sure. I’ll be here.” Cameron smiled, his brother always managed to dislodge the curmudgeon in him.

He gave Victoria another long, slow look before Asher ushered him out the door.

Just as he pulled his eyes away, she wiggled her hips in her chair, licked her lips and let out a deep breath. It was in there, Cameron just needed to find a way to bring it out.

Walking through the busy gym floor, Cameron met with extended hands and restrained head nods. He commanded respect and hatred in equal measure from the sweat stained faces that filled the gym with grunts and smacks of fists.

He’d fought plenty of them, both in the ring and out, but he was far from a friend to any. Most of them watched Victoria as she moved through their world, sniffed around like Pavlov’s dogs looking for their next meal. That made them all adversaries; enemies that only needed to put one toe over the imaginary line and invoke his wrath.

Luckily, the years instilled an unspoken rule of law that anyone who broke the code of conduct with her; they had a price on their head. Cameron was the bounty hunter that always collected on that debt.

Asher walked in front of Cameron like the damn Grand Marshal of the Mardi gras parade.

Cameron stood several inches above most of the other men that banged away at the bags and faces of their sparing partners.

Since he left for Colorado, he put on a good 15 pounds of hard, lean muscle. The change not unnoticed as his faded blue hoodie hung open, a white t-shirt tight enough to show off the square angles of each valley around his pectoral muscles. Even the humps and crevices that defined his eight pack were clear against the clean, white cotton.

Even before he glanced their way, he heard the sound of Roger and Larry arguing from behind the front desk. It was always the same thing, beginning of each month.

They battled over who was behind on their club fees. Who was going to get the job of trying to collect on those unpaid markers from the other set of books that was the source of most of their arguments.

Booze and betting were more a part of his upbringing than it should have been, but Cameron quickly learned how to dodge and duck when either the Jim Beam had run dry, or the odds had turned against the bet.

Neither man gave Cameron an acknowledgment as he made his way out the steamed glass of the front door.

From behind, Asher’s voice yelled.

“Be back by 5:30. Don’t take a detour to New York, or Florida or where ever this time.”

“Yeah.” Cameron sauntered out into the wind, flipping up his hood.

The damn wind gave him a big ‘ol fuck you back as it whipped his hood immediately back off his nearly bald head.

His gut was still wrapped tight, a pounding in his ears from the blood that raged hot and powerful through his veins.

Staying away for so long, every day he woke up immersed in thoughts of her face, the move of her body. Every night, as he stared at the ceiling, he imaged her warmth, the heat from her curves pressed against him, the sweet smell of her breath in his ear.

The only way he would ever leave here again was with her. If it took the rest of his life, he was going to win this fight. Six months felt more like a life sentence in a damn Turkish prison. He’d left to be sure, to see if distance would soften the hold she had on him.

Would time and space allow him to break free of whatever it was that bound her to him like a sickness? No. Not only did it not work, it only created an even deeper, primal need to bring her to him. He felt like a wolf, hunting for the mate nature intended.

Sure, he used plenty of other diversions. Women threw themselves at him without a word out of his mouth. He fucked into them like a tiger, always turning their faces away before he could find the will to finish, pumping hard and violent until he pressed his hand over their mouth and let go. They were a masturbation tool. He felt nothing for them except the biological release of sexual tension they provided.

The wind stung as it whipped up dirt and god knew what else from the streets around the gym. Cameron could feel his body tightening, his muscles twitching.

He needed that release, he couldn’t remember ever going this long without. But that day in the bathroom of his apartment in Colorado after he threw the last Trixie out the door, he swore she would be the only one.

No matter how long it took, there would be no one else in his bed until he claimed the ultimate prize.

He felt that thumping in his groin, but it was matched in size and intensity by his other primal need to conquer, to punish. When both of those engines were firing, there was only one way he knew to provide him with some modicum of relief.

His fingers pulled out the keys and he dumped himself into the seat of his beloved, restored Camaro. The eight cylinders roared then settled into a rumbling hum. He made his way through the nearly empty streets to a place where he could at least unleash part of the beast that had him wound far too tight for anyone’s safety.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Where we at?” Larry threw back a handful of peanuts, some of them actually going inside his mouth. The rest scattered on the office floor.

Sure, I’d be happy to clean that up for you. No problem. What am I, the scullery maid too?

“Here, see for yourself.” Victoria hated the beginning of each month.

“What the fuck? This can’t be right. Where the fuck is all the money?” The single sheet of legal sized paper shook slightly in Larry’s hand. It was before noon, and he hadn’t yet settled his body’s normal blood alcohol level.

It was the same dance each month.

Victoria did the books, handed over the P & L, and Larry and Roger got into a scorching argument. Only first, they both railed at her. They never seemed to grasp the meaning of the phrase, ‘don’t kill the messenger’.

It was funny how alcohol seemed to allow someone to deceive themselves in such a way that their version of reality trumped everyone else's.

“That’s it. The numbers are the numbers.”

And the numbers don’t lie, unlike some other people around here.

“Where’s Roger? That son-of-a-bitch better get in here and see this. We can’t keep going like this. He’s skimming, right? You’re hiding it from me aren’t you?”

Victoria felt the undeserved guilt rise up.

Why did she still feel the thump of shame whenever Larry scolded her? She wasn’t a child. The bizarre relationship that evolved over time between the two men still astonished her.

How could such a sweet, kind soul as her mother love both of them? Sure, it was a long time ago, and the years stomped all over both the men emotionally, intellectually and physically. Victoria felt incredulous imagining how her mom could have been attracted to either of them.

Deep down, though, she knew. Cameron was a younger version of his father, his magnetism far beyond the explanations of this world. Victoria watched from a front row seat from the time she could remember — girls — and later women — stuttered and swooned near Cameron before he ever grew a hair on his chin.

His arrogance and indifference only seemed to fuel their pathetic need for his attention.

If Larry possessed even a fraction of Cameron’s magical pull, there was a part of Victoria that understood her mother tearing apart her marriage and succumbing to that force of nature.

The most bizarre part of the story is how the two men had managed to stay business partners. Sure, fighting was their life, the family came a distant second, well, more like third or fourth after booze and betting.

Still, your business partner beds your wife, she divorces you and marries him? Maybe if Victoria was given the chance, she could have asked her mother what really happened. Gotten to know her on a level that would answer some of the questions about how and why.

All the while, three kids were watching and spinning in circles between the two camps. Finally, when the dust settled, Victoria found herself family to the two young brothers of her father’s business partner.

One of whom already displayed an almost psychotic need to hover over her. To ensure her safety like someone cast a dark spell upon her that at any moment would have the damn boogie man jumping out and slicing her from ear to ear.

It did nothing to quell his thirst when they shared a hallway (less every other Wednesday evening and weekend). It never mattered much, they all ended up at the gym working almost every spare moment, regardless.

While other kids were out learning to ride bikes and built forts, the three of them were mopping floors, folding towels and learning words that sent them to the principle’s office more than once.

“What?” A loud voice smacked her back into the moment.

“You better not be working behind my back. You and your father, he’s taking from the till, I know it.”

“He’s not. You’re both losing money every month on bad bets. You haven’t brought in a new fighter in months. You need the training dollars, and you aren’t getting them. You need a winner. 10% of nothing is nothing. You can’t survive on monthly dues alone. Bring in a new trainer, or a new fighter, someone with a name, you need to breathe some life back into this place. Don’t you think I see who comes around here, sneaking in the back door while you two scurry around like rats? Stop betting, you’re going to lose this place.”

What she didn’t know, what both men barely acknowledged even themselves, was that they were not far from the knife’s edge already.