Takedown Teague (Caged #1) (9 page)

A couple of minutes later, she finally spoke.

“He was right,” she said quietly.  Her voice was strained, and the tension in her shoulders was visible.

“What do you mean?  Who was right?”

“Keith,” she answered.  “He said there was something wrong with me; I just didn’t want to believe it.”

“What?” I bellowed.  Tria jumped in her seat.  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Just what you said!” she shouted back as her voice broke.  “There’s something wrong with me!”

“For fuck’s sake,” I cried, “there is not!”

“But you just said…”

“I said you weren’t into it,” I reminded her.  “You weren’t wet because he didn’t turn you on.  You didn’t want him.  That’s not a problem with you; that’s a problem with him being a douchebag.  You didn’t want to sleep with him.”

“I did…”  Her voice trailed off.  Her tone was completely unconvincing.

“Bullshit.”  I put my empty glass down and turned to face her.  “Maybe he said you were ready, and maybe you wanted to believe you were, but you weren’t.  If you really wanted it, you would have known it, felt it.  Your body would respond to that, and it would have worked.”

I tried not to think about how fucked up the direction this conversation had taken and reminded myself that she was still pretty young.  I hadn’t realized she was so naïve, but it kind of fit with the whole small-town theme about her.  I didn’t want to admit it, but the fact that Keith had backed off and not just…well…forced his way in was a pretty good thing.

“How do you know?” Tria asked as she looked at me.  The edges of her eyes were a little red, and though I didn’t see any actual tears, I could tell they were close.

“Because…well…”  I had no idea how to answer that without sounding like a total man-whore.  I reached up and ran my hand over my face as if that was going to help me come up with a better answer.

“Because what?” Tria pushed for an answer.  Apparently she was not going to let me off easy.

“Because I know women,” I said.  “I know women and how they are when they’re turned on.  If there’s something wrong with anyone, it’s him for not knowing what the fuck he was doing.  He didn’t know how to get you going.”

I looked straight into her eyes, and she looked into mine.   It felt like some kind of understanding was flowing between us, but I couldn’t have put a name to it.  It should have felt awkward—the whole conversation was bizarre—but it didn’t.  It felt right.  It felt good.

“You really think it’s not me?” she asked.

“It’s not you,” I told her definitively.  I wanted to add that I would be happy to show her just how turned on she could get.  I wanted to crawl right over the top of her and leave her dripping in her panties.  I wanted to show her everything I could make her feel with my hands, my tongue, my…

“Do you want more?”

“Huh?  What?” Her question caught me off guard, and my imagination exploded with possibilities.

“Juice,” she said, nodding toward my empty glass.  “Do you want some more apple juice?”

“Oh, um…no, that’s okay.”

Fuck.

With the conversation abruptly changed, we both sat back against the couch cushions.  After about five more minutes of small talk, Tria yawned and we called it a night.  I walked upstairs, stripped, and dropped face down on my bed with my hands up by the pillow.  I tried to relax, but my back and shoulders were tense, and my cock was simply not going to let me sleep without any attention first, so I rolled over on my back and took matters into my hand.

I was never one to think with my cock, but I really, really needed to get laid.

I never worked on Saturday or Sunday, but I usually hung out at Feet First anyway.  They had a couple other dudes who would fight on Saturday nights, but they weren’t very good.  They were lightweights, and the fights were usually quick and scrappy, which some people liked.

There wasn’t nearly enough blood, if you asked me.

“Why don’t you fight against them?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a woman sit down on the bar stool next to mine, but I didn’t turn to her.  My eyes stayed on the fight.

“Because I outweigh them by fifty pounds,” I told her.  “I could probably just sit on them and knock them unconscious.”

She giggled, and I turned my head to check her out.  The long, straight platinum blonde hair was easy to recognize.

“Erin, right?”

“You remembered.”

“You were the only thing worth looking at in the laundromat,” I said with a shrug and a smile.  Flirt mode automatically engaged as she smiled back, and I bought her a drink.

“So, how’d you find me?” I asked.

“Saw that back tattoo on a poster outside the game shop on Fourth Street,” she told me.  “I knew it was you, so I thought I’d come check out this whole cage fighting thing.  Sorry to see you aren’t up there.”  She nodded toward the cage.

“Not until Tuesday.”

“I’ll have to come back.”

“I think you should.”

For the next hour, we drank, complained about laundry, and stepped out for the occasional smoke.  She was pretty cool, had awesome ink, and was smart enough to hold a decent conversation.  She also couldn’t keep her hands off my inked skin, and I was both pleasantly buzzed and horny enough to really, really enjoy it.

“So, what else is there to do around here?” she asked with a raise of her eyebrows.  She slipped the longneck bottle into her mouth and poured amber liquid down her throat.

“I could show you the locker room,” I said, watching her lips wrap around the bottle.

“Private locker room?”

“It is if I padlock it,” I replied.  I licked my lips as I watched for her reaction.

“Hmm…interesting.”  Erin flipped her hair over her shoulder and tilted her head as she looked at me.  “I’ve never seen the inside of a cage fighter’s locker room before.”

“First time for everything,” I said.  “Shall we?”

I offered her my hand and quickly made my way around the cage.  I nudged past Gary, who winked at me as we went by, and I led Erin down the ramp to the locker room.

As soon as we were inside, I slipped the lock through the ring in the metal plate on the door, turned, and grabbed Erin by the waist.  I lifted her easily and spun us both around before pressing her back against the door and covering her mouth with mine.

She pressed her hands against my stomach and then slipped them lower to the buttons of my jeans.  I reached my hands inside the back of her shirt where I found and released the clasp of her bra.  Our tongues tangled together in her mouth, and she moaned as she pressed her crotch up against mine.

She tasted like lipstick.

Her hair didn’t feel right.  Too smooth.  Too straight.

She didn’t smell right, either.  The scent of chemically induced roses or whatever made my nose sting.

Her hand found its way inside my boxers.

Her mouth stopped moving.

“Everything okay?” she said quietly.

“Yeah,” I said quickly.  “Fine…just, um…here—”

I shifted her a little, bringing her legs around my waist and grinding against her a bit.

Nothing.

“Maybe I’m a little drunk,” I shrugged.

“You’ve had two beers,” she reminded me.

I swallowed and then started kissing up the side of her neck.  She wrapped her hands in my hair and tugged at it a bit.

I didn’t like it.

“Don’t,” I mumbled.  I reached up behind my head and pulled her hand down to my shoulder instead.

She looked at me with disbelief in her eyes, and I slowly lowered her to the ground.  I moved in to kiss her again, but she brought up her hand and placed it against the center of my chest, holding me off.

I remembered how another hand felt against my chest, and I liked that one better.

Erin let out an exaggerated sigh.

“Look, Liam, you are totally hot, but I’m not one to pursue a guy who obviously”—her eyes darted down and then back up again—“isn’t into me.  So, let’s not make a big deal out of it, okay?”

“I just…I never…”

“Shush,” she said as she placed her cheap, plastic, fake nails across my lips.  “If I had to guess, there’s someone else you would much rather have in here with you right now.  I can deal with that.  Maybe you need to deal with it yourself, hmm?”

With that, she reached behind her back to re-hook her bra, lifted the lock on the door, placed it in my palm, and left.

Taking a couple of steps backwards, I plopped myself down on the bench by the lockers and dropped my head into my hands.  I had no fucking clue what just happened.  I had never,
never
had any issues with my cock standing straight and tall for any woman I had even the slightest interest in fucking.  Never, ever, ever, not even once.

Well, once now.

I leaned back against the cool metal for a moment, sighed disgustedly at myself, and then started buttoning up my pants.  I dug my hands around in my hair while I wondered what the hell was wrong with me.  Even strung out, I could still get it up.  Couldn’t come most of the time, but performing was never an issue.  Maybe Katie’s crazy was contagious or something.

With nothing better to do, I left early and hung around outside of Fin’s for an hour until Tria was done with her shift.  She was pretty tired after hauling greasy food around for hours and didn’t have a lot to say on the way home.

If I really thought about it, I would have to admit that she’d been somewhat uncommunicative since we had the little heart to heart on her couch the other night, and I hoped I hadn’t pushed her too much.  She didn’t seem like she was mad at me, more like she was introspective.

I was distracted myself, thinking about what Erin had said to me and wondering just how close to the truth she might have been.  It made me wonder about the whole big brother thing and if I should maybe consider turning that around.  I mean, we obviously weren’t related and had only known each other for about a month and a half.  Considering she had a thing with a guy she actually grew up with, maybe she wouldn’t have an issue reconsidering the sibling status we had established.

Say that shit ten times fast.

We were halfway back, and I realized we hadn’t said two words to each other.

“Everything okay tonight?” I asked.

“Hmm?” Tria cocked her head to the side to look at me.  “Oh, um…it was fine, I guess.  Nothing very exciting.”

“No crazy diners tonight?”

“Not really,” she said.  “There was one who sent his food back three times, but that’s not very exciting.”

“He didn’t like it?”

“Guess not.”

That was about the extent I was getting out of her for conversation, and it was starting to tick me off a little.  This was my favorite part of the day, and she wasn’t at all cooperative about it.  That, coupled with the generally shitty way my night had gone, was making me pretty pissy.

“What’s up with you?” I demanded.

“What?” she asked, startling slightly.

“Talk to me or something!” I was practically growling at the poor girl.  I sounded ridiculous, and I didn’t care.  “Tell me more about screwing around with your siblings or something.”

Yeah, that crossed a line.

Tria glared at me, looked like she was about to say something, but quickly closed her mouth instead.  She started to walk ahead of me, like she was going to escape into the building and avoid me altogether.  I took a couple of quick steps and placed my hand over the door, obstructing her entry.  Tria growled through her teeth and clutched at Gorilla Gucci.

I ignored the bag and its potentially frightening contents.

“Get out of my way!” she snapped.

“Fuck, Tria, I didn’t mean—”

“I know exactly what you meant!  I thought maybe you weren’t going to be like that, but I can see you are!  So get the fuck out of my way before I slap you!”

A little chill went through my body, and the boner I couldn’t seem to find earlier started shoving painfully against the buttons of my jeans.

Holy shit, why did I find that hot?

“Stop it!” I yelled as my heart beat furiously in my chest.  I ached to grab her, slam her up against the door, rip off her shorts, and do her in front of the neighborhood.  “I didn’t mean it like that!  It just…it just came out wrong.”

I moved further between her and the door as I took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“You think I’m fucked up just like everyone else in school did,” she said.  I didn’t have to see the slight tears welling up at the corners of her eyes; I could hear them in her voice.

“Fuck, Tria.  I didn’t mean it that way, I swear.”  Well, I did think it was fucked up, but I hadn’t meant to direct that toward her.  “So you dated a guy you grew up with—what’s it to me?”

She glanced at me, her expression telling me immediately that she didn’t believe a word coming out of my mouth.

“Look, Tria,” I said quietly.  I reached out and placed one hand on the door frame and leaned a little closer.  “I’m not going to lie to you and say it isn’t a little…
surprising. 
It doesn’t mean I think any less of you.  Besides, you aren’t with him anymore.  You don’t even live there anymore.”

“Why don’t you just say what you want?” she asked.  The anger was gone from her voice, but her words stung more.  “Tell me I’m a freak.  Tell me I’m going to hell.  Tell me what a horrible person I am.  I’m used to it.”

“I don’t think that,” I told her.

“Don’t you?”

“No!”  I narrowed my eyes, my own ire returning.  She didn’t have any reason to doubt me. I had never lied to her.

She took a step back and covered her face with her hands.  A moment later, she let out a loud growl, shook her head, and then looked back at me.  Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, and I tried not to think filthy things about how awesome it looked.

Her shoulders sagged as she let out a long breath.

“I wasn’t expecting people here to find out and judge me for it.”

“I’m not judging you.”

“Judgment day!  Judgment day!”  A singsong voice called out from above us.

“Shut up, you crazy bitch!” I yelled.

Tria snickered, and the tension between us instantly faded away as Krazy Katie threw her still-lit cigarette out over the edge of the fire escape and toward us.  It dropped to the cement in front of me, and I bent over to pick it up.

“Thanks!” I said as I took a long drag off of it.

“Even she knows now,” Tria muttered.

“Krazy Katie isn’t going to tell anybody anything, are you, baby?” I yelled up at her.  I smiled as I looked back at Tria.  “Even if she did, no one would believe a word of it.”

“What’s wrong with her?” Tria asked quietly, as if Krazy Katie would care if she heard anything Tria said.

“I told you before—she’s crazy.”

“But what kind of crazy?” Tria asked.  “Is she schizophrenic or something?”

“Hell if I know,” I responded with a shrug.  “All I can tell you is she doesn’t make any sense about ninety-five percent of the time.  Then the other five percent of the time, she says something you think is absolutely brilliant.”

“Like what?”  She looked up at the fire escape with wide eyes.

I could feel a smile creep over my face as she stared toward the fire escape.  She was beautiful in the faded light from the one and only functional streetlight around, and I was thrilled she hadn’t stayed mad at me.  It made me feel…
giddy
.

“Like mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy…”

“Liam!” Tria smacked me on the arm and laughed.

“What?” I placed my hand on my chest and tried my best to look shocked.  “I looked it up on the internet!  It’s true!  All of it!  The lambs, the mares—everything!”

Tria shook her head and laughed again.  It was a wonderful sound, and I was glad we weren’t ending the night with any more talk of her ex-boyfriend-brother, Keith Harrison.

We headed into the building, said goodnight at Tria’s door, and I went up to my own apartment for my date with a handful of lather and my fingers wrapped around my cock.

*****

The following Wednesday, our walks came to an abrupt end.

I had just dropped Tria off and was already wishing it were time to pick her up again.  The nights were a lot longer when I wasn’t working, but she was.  Stepping over the little brick border around a half-dead bunch of annuals, I hopped off the curb to cross the alley behind Fin’s, figuring I’d spend my time at Feet First even though I didn’t have any spare cash for dinner or a drink.  I reached into my pocket, pulled out my smokes and lighter, and took a deep drag on the Marlboro.  I blew smoke high into the cooling night air and then turned abruptly at the sound of my name.