Today had been the biggest win yet, but my hunger had never been so focused. Maybe I was just trading in quantity for a higher quality of woman. Gabi must be a cut above the rest to be working in a place like this.

  “So Sean,” Troy leaned in. “We should talk about the money. I know it’s triple anything we’ve seen before, but I think it’s still best…”

  “Yeah, man, you invest it and all that,” I said. “I know you got me.”

  “Most definitely. Thanks for the trust, brother.”

  Troy clasped my hand on the table and sank back into his food. We’d grown up together down in Taylor. Silvio, too. That pothead I wouldn’t trust with a dime, but Troy had always been the responsible one. He had managed me since I’d started winning the Detroit circuits and I doubted I’d have booked half these fights without him. I know I wouldn’t be anywhere near as rich. The big prize money in this game came only once you got to the UFC officially sanctioned fights. Luckily, Troy got us paid well beyond the purse by booking odds on me.

  His management allowed me to focus on what I did best, which was getting guys to stop moving for ten seconds in the cage. It let me enjoy what I earned without worry.

  On nights like this, it let me focus on the hunt.

  I spotted the dark bob of Gabi’s hair bouncing as she hurried up to another table. I wasn’t an idiot. She could just be after tips with her friendliness. But I could tell there was a piece of her that wanted something more. A part that responded to the sight of me in naked lust of her.

  “Where we headed to party after this?” Rudy asked me. The others glanced from him to me. He was an up and comer in the MMA circles that I hung with now and then. The guy was clueless reading others outside of the ring, though.

  “You guys take Troy’s car and head where you want,” I said. “Drinks on me. But I’m fine right here.”

  Far away, Gabi’s other table started to rise and put on their coats. The place was emptying out, but the night was still young.

  Soon she’d have no one to face but me.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Gabrielle

  “They tipped you fifty percent?”

  Alice gawked at the receipt in my hand.

  I had checked the number myself, wondering if that nine had really been a four, but nope. There it was. I handed the slip to Alice with my fingers trembling. Deciding to take on those guys had been a calculated risk, but I’d never expected it to pay off like this.

  I glanced back to see the men still chugging glasses of wine. They’d ordered another couple bottles before getting the bill. It didn’t seem like they were in any rush to leave, though I wondered if that was a group choice or if it all came down to the guy at their center.

  Sean.

  His emerald eyes seemed to glimmer as bright as any of the overhead lighting. They glanced my way, and I snapped my head down.

  He’d been the one arranging the tip, I was sure of it. He’d tried to pay in cash before the guy who’d come here in a suit tossed in a card. What money had I just been paid in? Drug money? Blood money?

  I shivered thinking about where the cuts and bruises on that man’s face might have come from. He looked so clean cut without those - why would a guy who looked that good waste it on a life of crime?

  Wait…they were out celebrating right? I considered the chiseled body again and the answer came to me in a flash.

  This guy must be some sort of athlete. I’d heard Detroit was a hotbed for underground fighting. Some of the guys back in high school had liked to sneak in and make bets. The idea of paying to see a man get hurt sounded so brutal though, even as a guy thing to do.

  I snuck a glance back at Sean. He sat erect and with that silent smile just pulling up his lips as he surveyed his entourage. All the muscles on him made sense now, and I could see a purpose in each of them. Each was an essential part of the chemical reaction that had let him explode at his opponent tonight. Watching men fight seemed bad, but the idea of a guy putting himself in the ring and coming out still smiling…

  Sean didn’t seem all that terrifying anymore. I was more scared by the flash of heat that accompanied that realization.

  Their table set off in another glass-clattering earthquake of a laugh.

  “Christ,” Alice said. “Now I know why they paid extra. They’re planning to trash the place.”

  “No,” I said, more as a hope than a word of comfort. There were only a couple tables left occupied and they were far away. What few inhibitions these guys might have had were out the window, and they still had wine in their glasses.

  “You need to get Terry to deal with this,” Alice said,“or he’ll have you eating the damages.”

  “I’ve got this.”

  I could get them out. I’d asked for them, I’d deal with them.

  A little part of me was thinking that there was just one person that I needed to get away from me. Something about Sean was volatile, unsteady. I was at risk every moment he was here.

  At risk of what? I didn’t dare explore that feeling.

  I hustled back through the tables and squared off at theirs, directly facing Sean.

  “Hey guys,” I said. “I just wanted to let you know that we’ll be closing up soon.”

  “Aw, man,” said one of the smaller guys, as he reached for a wine glass. “Yo, it’s barely eleven. What time’s closing?”

  I started to speak, but Sean’s voice boomed over mine.

  “They’re not closing,” he said. “She’s trying to get rid of us.”

  I’d been staring so deep into his eyes that I startled when he winked.

  “No, no,” I said. “I just wanted to make sure you have enough time to finish your drinks.”

  Sean grabbed the wine glass by the bowl and downed it in a gulp.

  “Thanks for the sweet thought,” he said. “The boys and I owe you.”

  His guys started gulping down the wine, but his teasing smile never left my face, only now his lips were just parted. I studied them without anything to say. This was what I wanted right? Him looking at me like this.

  “You don’t need to rush,” I said. “You still have some time.”

  “It’s better spent doing other things.”

  I shivered at the words. Sean ticked his head at the door and all of them got up. They jabbered to each other as they filed past. Sean came up last. He leaned in to me, still half a head above.

  “If it’s closing time, you must be almost done here,” he said.

  His scent washed down on me: sweet with wine, minty with some sort of aftershave. I could barely think.

  “Yeah,” I said, letting the implications mingle with everything else in the air.

  “Glad to hear it.” He nudged in closer, then suddenly pulled back. “I’ll be seeing ya.”

  He strode past me, his bare arm brushing past my sleeved one. I stood where I was, too dizzy to even turn and see him walk out.

  What on Earth had just happened?

  One second, he was bent a breath away from me and the next he’s out the door. I checked the places on the table, but there was no note, no number. The servers came back to bus the trays to the kitchen, and I dumbly watched them carry the remnants of the visit out.

  The other guests left on their own not long after. The staff had no meetings that night, so all there was to do was sort out tips.

  Jada’s eyes popped out at my total. “What in the heck did you do tonight?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, sorting out the cut for the kitchen. “I honestly and truly don’t.”

  “Then cheer the hell up.” She nudged up my chin with a powerful dark hand. “You won.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  All my mind registered was an absence. A hollow space in my memory that had been ready to be filled by something more. I knew just who that space was intended for, but I circled around it, refusing to admit.

  What would I want with Sean anyway? I’d broken up with Marcus just before spring semester ended and I wasn’t ready for a relationship. I doubted fighter types did relationships anyway.

  And well, there was nothing simpler that I could want.

  Right, Gabi?

  It was nuts. It wasn’t me. In any case, it wasn’t happening.

  I hugged Jada goodbye and headed out. The financial district was eerie quiet at nights, with all the tall buildings lining the street darkened and empty. The guests had to park in one of the deserted garages nearby, but we had a small employee lot just behind our place. I scrunched up my apron and rounded the corner

  “Hey there, Cadbury.”

  I would have screamed, but all the air had left my lungs. The streetlight along this strip of road cast an angled shadow along the building wall. A man separated from it and walked towards me.

  I hadn’t really seen his walk but I knew from the power and speed that it was him. His smile glistened out through the shadow, his eyes twinkled and then his lean body materialized into view.

  “Sean,” I said.

  “So you remember me.”

  My hands had stopped shaking, but they started again at the timber of his voice. “I saw you fifteen minutes ago.”

  He inched in, and I felt the warmth radiate off him. “Felt like forever.”

  This is happening, my brain screamed. I fought it down and thought back to what he’d said.

  “Cadbury?” I asked.

  “They make chocolate bunnies,” he said.

  “I thought they made cream filled eggs.”

  “Yeah, they do. But that second thing doesn’t quite apply to you. Not yet.”

  My cheeks heated up violently.

  “We had Lindt at my place for Easter,” I said, just to say something.

  “I can see you’re wrapped in fancy gold foil.” He bent deep until his breath seared my ear and whispered,“But it’s all the same once the wrapping comes off.”

  A vast space pulled apart deep at the center of me. A longing, a heat and a sudden burst of sweat and other wetness that I’d never felt so hard before.

  His hand curved around my neck, gentle but unyielding. He pressed me up into his lips. They probed me, taking soft small samples of my mouth. He exhaled a sigh of hunger and then weighed his face deeper on mine.

  I was rooted by his lust, able to only decide how much I received. Then, his tongue pressed into me, long and sensuous, and I couldn’t even do that. He tasted like garlic and wine, but then that washed away. I could hear him swirling inside me.

  That was it. My hands leaped around his back and I pulled myself deeper against him. His body burned hot but didn’t budge, like alloyed steel. This kiss was delicious but I want to feel more of him. I wanted this body weighing on me, to crush into me. All my gates were thrown open. I didn’t care anymore.

  His hands pressed under my butt and cleaved apart handfuls. I sighed into his neck, dizzy. The next thing I knew he was lifting me. We kissed our way through the shadows and then out into the dazzlingly lit parking lot and all the way to the back. A dark black SUV flicked to life as we came near. My alarms should have been blaring red, but he’d short-circuited them. There was nothing he could do to me that I didn’t already want him to inflict on my body.

  Sean popped open the back seat and hauled me in. The rear seats had already been tilted back like a bed. Apparently, he’d prepared for me. His vast body scrunched in, and he shut the door, sending us into darkness once more.

  I lifted his shirt off, until his white skin lay glowing in the muted light. He unbuttoned my white work dress, working his lips down my bare skin as he revealed it. By the time he reached my waist, I was sure all of me was as wet as those kisses.

  He peeled off my pants and his breath huffed hot over my bare legs. I couldn’t even look, the tension was killing me. He peeled down my panties, and I fixed my sight on the unlit passenger light overhead.

  I nearly exploded as his lips made contact with me. I cried out loud enough to wake the dead. Thank god he’d parked in the back. If anyone heard, they would call the cops.

  His mouth worked on me in deliberate strokes, not rushing or lapping around, but hard steady lines that inflicted the most ecstasy I had ever felt. Before long, my body felt like a vast ocean of liquid, the waves rising higher and higher. His tongue moved urgently, stirring up the waters, and then the last dams in me shattered.

  “Oh, Jesus, Sean,” I cried out, writhing under his breath. He did not leave me as pleasure crashed over me again and again, and within a minute another tsunami broke over me. I whimpered against this one, utterly wiped clean.

  His mouth came glistening back to mine. I could barely lift my lips to greet it.

  “You ok?” he asked.

  “By some definition,” I breathed.

  “Good.”

  His mouth lifted back down and landed on my chest. I could only twinge and sigh as he flicked pleasure from my flesh. His hands were working at something off in the darkness that I could only hear.

  Then, that something was pressing hard and insistent at the center of me, right where his mouth had left off. That vast gap in me ballooned open again. Something must have come over my face, cause he smiled at me. Ever so slowly, he pressed in.

  My mouth parted and let out air as Sean poured into me. It was a lot of air. He pulled out and sank deeper. In France, they called orgasm the little death. I thought that was just a term for the fellas, but I got it now. It was like I was being speared, but I welcomed it.

  He grabbed me firm by the hips and began a hard, steady thrust. Soon, I was keening out into the small cabin. The car frame shook with me. Sean grunted above me and thrust harder, like he wasn’t melding into me as deep as he wanted. Just the sight of his powerful body and chiseled features scrunched up in exertion got me hotter. I must be his hardest fight tonight.

  Release came slow then sudden like rolling thunder followed by lightning. Everything boiled over and then my body started to swell with waves of pleasure. I scratched Sean’s bare skin in my throes, bucking against that car seat. That set him off like a firecracker. He shuddered inside me and then I felt him expand and finish. He had on protection, I realized.

  Christ, I had never even asked.

  We sat locked in place, panting and sweating. I looked up and saw again the bandaged and bruised face.

  As the warmth evaporated, Reality rushed back to me.

  Who the hell had I just given myself to?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sean

  I’d never seen the lights go out of a girl’s eyes so fast.

  One moment Gabi was beaming up at me, glowing from the heat of us. The next, her look was ducked away, and she was almost cowering in the seat.

  Shit, was she going to cry or something?

  My hands were still on her bare thighs, so I took them off. She pulled up her scrunched underpants, still not looking my way.

  “You had a good time?” I asked, feeling dopey even as I did.

  “Yeah, it was fun.”

  She gave me a weak smile, then hustled to pull on the rest of her stuff. I tried to comfort her more, but ended up just dressing silently.

  What the fuck was going on here? No girl had ever made me feel like shit for fucking her. She had wanted this just as much as I did. Anyone within a mile radius could attest to the sounds she had made.

  What exactly was she regretting? Getting done by a white boy maybe? Or was it maybe letting her fine ass be taken by a Downriver redneck.

  She had risen to a silhouette against the light from the back window. Her eyes had nowhere to go but to lay dully on me. I felt an anger start to simmer.

  Fuck it. She was the one that owed me. I bet none of her preppie boyfriends - even the black ones - had ever fucked her like I just did. They called me the Irish Tiger in the ring, but I was a beast outside of it too, and a well-practiced one.

  Then again, tiger sex wasn’t exactly kind on the female of the species.

  “Thank you,” she said. “That was nice.”

  Her voice still held nothing, but her mouth flirted with a smile. The rage dashed out in an instant.

  “That’s what I aim for,” I said. “Nice. Above average would also do.”

  Her lips tucked up into a full grin. I saw a flash of that gorgeous, lush mouth that had drawn me to her. All too soon, it was gone

  “I need to head home.” She fumbled for the door handle.

  “So fast?”

  “Yeah, I gotta go.”

  I don’t know what brought about my hesitation. Her body seemed to have fully sated me for the night. I could feel a creeping exhaustion weigh down my senses. It had been a rough fight, and I was glad the boys had gone out without me. I needed rest.

  It’s not like I wanted her to come home and watch me pass out.

  “Alright, then,” I said. “Let me at least give you a ride.”

  “I drove here. I’m fine, don’t worry.”

  She gave my arm a gentle touch, then unlatched the door and climbed out. Most of the cars had already gone and the lot lay empty under the sodium night lights. She clipped away on her platforms at high speed, but turned back from the middle of the lot.

  “I’ll see you,” she said.

  I flung up a palm. “Yeah, drive safe.”

  I watched as she climbed into a small German car and eased her way out of the lot. Some messed up urge in me screamed to follow. Follow and do what? I had no idea. I must still be groggy from that blow to the head. My brain signals were all haywire.

  I flipped over into the driver seat, took a long swig of water and eased out of the lot. My drive home was a short one. Lafayette Park lay just five minutes down the road and most of that was stop signs and red lights.

  I’d planned this seduction all out, driving the SUV out back to make it easier for her to say yes. I could have just gone home, parked and walked back before she came out, but somehow I knew that wouldn’t work. It would have been too much a barrier for a girl like Gabi to cross.

  As I turned into the gated lot of my apartment complex, I wondered again if I had done wrong by her. She had wanted me, maybe even been in heat at the scent of me like any bar girl. But maybe she just wanted a whiff of danger, not a big bite.

 

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