Brawler (8 page)

The guy regained his footing just as I pounced on his weakness. I threw a punch that gleaned off his head weakly, giving him the confidence to reach out and take a stab at my face. He landed the hit cleanly, snapping my head to the side, but I was already moving again. I was already taking that opening on his left side that he offered up to me so easily in his greed to get that hit on me. I landed two solid blows to his stomach before his hand was even done with the follow through from his punch. The wind shot out of him. He stumbled back again.

Blood in the water.

The animal was content. It darted and dashed, it landed hits, it took blows, but it was allowed to return them. It gave what it got and then some. It delighted in its prowess. In its control.

Three rounds we went. Three rounds the three of us – the prey, the animal, and I – went, and when it was over I felt good. It hadn’t been a close bout but it’d been a strong one. It had been an effort to win and when the final bell rang and I closed the cage on the animal, he was smiling with satisfaction.

I waited patiently next to Tim while they tallied the scores. It took them forever to tell me what I knew.

I’d won.

When the announcement came, I simply nodded in understanding. I was still numb. Still coming out of the near trance I went into when I boxed.

Right up until I heard the scream.

I looked down at the crowd, seeing it again for the first time, and there was Dan. There was Jenna.

She was bouncing up and down on her feet, her hands in the air, her long, black hair dancing around her face, and her wide gray eyes were locked on me excitedly. She shouted my name along with incoherent excited praise. I’d never seen her look so crazy, and it was all for me.

That was awesome.

I smiled as I pointed my still gloved hand right at her, claiming her crazy as mine, and letting her exuberance pull me out of the dark and right into her. Into her pure joy.

I’d gotten so used to using boxing as a way to relieve the angry tension in my veins that I’d forgotten what it felt like to love it. Looking down at Jenna smiling proudly up at me, I started to remember.

And I couldn’t think of the last time a win had meant so much to me.

One Month Later

I was on a date with Laney Monroe.

I said I never would, yet here I was.

And here’s how that bullshit went down:

“You have another letter,” Dan said, holding the thin envelope out to me. “It’s from UCLA.”

“Will you open it for me?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” I replied with a jerky nod. “Yeah. Please.”

“Alright.” Dan used a long, shining letter open that looked like a dagger from a Shakespeare play to slice open my biggest and brightest dream.

It didn’t take him long to read it. There wasn’t much to be said.

“You’ve been accepted,” Dan told me evenly, lowering the letter and raising his eyes to mine, “but they’re offering little to no financial aid. No scholarships of any kind.”

I nodded repeatedly, but I had no words.

“You have acceptance letters from a number of excellent schools,” he reminded me, handing me the letter. “Schools that are offering incredible financial aid to you. Cal offered you almost a full ride.”

“I know,” I whispered. UC Berkley, or Cal more commonly, had sent me an acceptance letter with a scholarship that made my knees weak. If it’d been from UCLA, I’d have already packed my bags, but I’d held back. I’d stowed the letter and I’d waited for this moment. Now it was here and it was almost worse than a rejection because my dream school was at my fingertips, but the same old issues were still holding me back.

“Son, you can’t beat yourself up over this,” Dan warned me, seeing me start to fall in to a funk. “I know it was your dream school and I am sorry, but it doesn’t mean you won’t go anywhere. You’ll choose another school and you’ll do well there. Maybe even better than you would have done at UCLA.”

He was right. I knew that. I was upset and that was okay, but I couldn’t sulk like a kid. I had to look at my situation and make the best choice I could with the options I had.

But that didn’t mean it didn’t sting like a son of a bitch that my top choice had essentially told me no.

“If it’s any consolation,” he sighed as he sat back in his chair, “Laney will be thrilled.”

“She’ll be happy I got rejected?”

He scowled at me. “You didn’t get rejected, but yes, she’ll be happy. Now she won’t have to go there.”

“Why would she go to UCLA? She hates the Bruins.”

“I think you can guess why she’d want to.”

My shoulders slumped slightly. “Me?”

“That’s what I think, yeah,” he replied, his voice heavy with disappointment.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are
you
sorry? She’s the one making impulsive choices about her future based on a boy.”

“I’ve never given her any reason to do that. I’ve been careful not to encourage her. I would never try anything with her, I promise.”

“You don’t want to date her, I understand. The two of you are very different people.”

“It’s not even that. I know that I—“

Dan sat forward, frowning. “That you what, Kellen?”

I held up the worthless acceptance letter from UCLA, feeling frustrated. “That I’m not good enough.”

“Stop.” Dan held up his hand, his mouth a stern line. It was the face and tone he took in the courtroom when he commanded the floor. “Stop right there. No one in this house thinks you’re not good enough for anything. I’d give you a scholarship through the firm in a heartbeat if you’d take it, but you won’t. I brought you into my home and let you near my daughters and my wife because I trusted you. Do you think I’d let just anybody in here?”

“No,” I admitted gruffly.

“No, I wouldn’t. Those women are my life and I trust every one of them with you. If you want to date Laney, then date Laney. She’ll do it gladly and you have my blessing because no one in this house thinks poorly of you but you.” He chuckled to himself, sitting back heavily. “I’d worry more about you in that relationship than her, but if you think you can handle the madness, then God speed, son.”

I grinned, nodding my head. “Maybe I’ll do that.”

I hadn’t meant it. I hadn’t planned on asking her out. I was just happy to know Dan wouldn’t want to shoot me if I did.

But the ball was in motion and after that bout Jenna and Dan had come to watch, I found out word had gotten through the grapevine. Laney knew I had asked if I could take her out. She was ecstatic and I was trapped. There was no good way to get out of it. No way to tell her that I hadn’t planned on following through, that I didn’t have the faintest idea what we’d talk about on a date, but it turned out it didn’t matter.

Laney didn’t especially want to talk.

She had turned sixteen just three days ago and for her birthday she’d gotten her driver’s license and a car. She drove me out to a remote park overlooking the dark ocean in the sleek, black Volvo with leather seats that she was now straddling my lap in. The expensive sound system played music low and deep through the speakers on every side of us as she slid up and down against me. We were both still fully clothed and I was dead set on us staying that way, but if this didn’t end soon I wasn’t so sure.

I moved my hands up the smooth, hot skin of her thighs where they disappeared under the thin fabric of her skirt. They rode up, flared out, and reached around to cup her ass as she slipped her tongue inside my mouth and groaned. I dug my fingers into her perfect, round flesh and pulled her closer to me.

I hadn’t dated or even fooled around with a girl since the night of the fight, and for a guy that was used to getting laid on the regular, it was torture. But so was this. So was having Laney on my lap with her hands in my hair, her tongue in my mouth, and no clear idea of where this should stop. I got the feeling I couldn’t count on Laney to say when and I knew I couldn’t look Dan in the eye if I slept with her on the first date.

I had to be strong. I had to stop it.

Just not yet.

She breathed deeply, pushing her body toward me. Encouraging me.

I drug my hand up her side and ran it over the smooth material of her tank top until I held her breast in my large palm. It nearly filled it and I nearly died.

She moaned, breaking away from the kiss and leaning back to look down at me. She smiled, her hair a tousled mess and her face glowing in the dim green light of the car’s consul. She was perfection. Kiss swollen lips, smoldering eyes, and lips parted to release long, easy breaths as she continued to grind against me.

She didn’t say a word as she stared down at me. She never spoke or asked anything of me as her hand drifted down the front of my body, her fingers tripping and stumbling over the muscles on my stomach until they fell on my belt. I thought she’d take hold of it and try to open it, a move that I knew I had to stop if I had any chance of ending this before it went too far. But she skimmed over it, and at the edge of my sight I saw her hand disappear up under her skirt.

Her breathing changed. She exhaled sharply then inhaled deep and long. In and out, forward and back with the movement of her body against mine. I watched her face as her eyes fluttered, her mouth falling open as a low moan escaped it. Her speed picked up and I rocked her hard against me with my hand still on her ass.

I wanted to pull her shirt down to see more of her, but I didn’t. Instead, I did something I’d never done before.

I watched her.

It wasn’t intimate and it wasn’t creepy. It was sexy. Her body and her eyes, her breaths and her movements – none of it was meant to be romantic or sweet. I wasn’t supposed to see her soul or give her a glimpse into mine. She wanted me to look at her so I could see how turned on she was. That was it. Clinical and cold, but still disturbingly hot.

Her hand was still in my hair pulling and pinching until it nearly hurt while her other hand made her shiver. She shuddered as a high, tiny whimper burst from the back of her throat. It didn’t take her expert fingers long. She knew what she was doing and I understood as she stared down at me, her lip being devoured between her teeth and gasps coming quick and forceful from her throat, that she was using me. She was watching me, imagining me, masturbating to me as I sat there underneath her.

It was the hottest fucking thing I’d ever seen.

When she threw her head back and let loose a high cry, I leaned forward and buried my face into her chest and kissed it feverishly, licking the salty tang of her glistening skin. I felt her call of pleasure vibrate through her breastplate against my lips and tongue as her body trembled under my hands and she clutched my head to her. Her entire body shuddered and she whimpered like she was weeping.             

Eventually she calmed and pulled herself upright. She grinned down at me with hooded eyes and flushed cheeks before leaning down to kiss me softly.

“Next time,” she whispered against my lips, “I get to watch you.”

***

Two months later I was graduated from high school with honors and a perfect four point GPA, my eighteenth birthday was coming up fast, and I was still dating Laney. I even took her to my senior Prom. She was there at graduation with the rest of her family holding up signs with my name, and when I came out into the crowd to say hi to them, she ran into my arms and kissed me full on the mouth. That sealed it somehow. That physical affection in front of her parents locked me in and I started to think maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing. We could date casually through the summer, then I’d leave for college, she’d hate the long distance thing, and we’d both move on. Easy. Clean.

“You’re banking on her getting bored?” Callum asked, kicking sand up with his bare foot.

“No.” I surveyed the crowd of people on the beach around us. Laney was down by the water with her friends splashing and laughing. No one could hear us. “Not exactly.”

“But you want her to break up with you?”

“Kind of.”

“What is wrong with you?”

I chuckled. “So much.”

“She’s perfect, man. Gorgeous. A certified ten, plus she’s fun and she’s easy.”

I shot him a sharp glance. “Watch it.”

“No, no, no, no! Not easy like that. No. Easy like easy going. Like chill. She’s cool.”

“Yeah, she is.”

And she was, but there was still the fact that we didn’t have much in common. Leave us alone in a room together and we didn’t have a word to say to each other. We were nothing other than fun and a whole hell of a lot of sex, something that didn’t bother me with other girls, but with Laney it always came back to the fact that this was Dan’s daughter. That was a rough point for me. I liked the way things were with her because she didn’t want jack shit from me besides my body, but it felt wrong that that was all I wanted from her too.

“What I don’t get is why you’re looking to break up with her for not wanting all of the shit other girls wanted from you,” he complained. “I think you’re perpetually unhappy.”

“I’m not perpetually unhappy and I’m not looking to break up with her. I’m worried because I’m having empty sex with Dan’s daughter.”

“Is it good empty sex?”

“It’s fucking phenomenal, but it’s still—“

“Dan’s daughter, yeah, I heard you.”

I cast him an annoyed look. “It bugs me.”

“So what? You think you should be marrying her or something?”

“God, no, but I should probably do something. We’re not even exclusive. I should probably at least commit.”

“What are you? A Jonas Brother?” he asked scathingly. “Is she asking you to commit?”

“No.”

“If it ain’t broke…”

“Yeah,” I replied, shrugging vaguely. “Yeah, maybe leave it alone.”

“He gave you permission, dude.”

“He gave me permission to date her, not sleep with her.”

“If he knows anything about her, he knows that’s pretty much the same thing.”

“Yeah.”

It didn’t really matter. Things were going to take care of themselves soon enough. I was days away from turning eighteen, a fact that Laney didn’t know, and once that happened I wasn’t sleeping with her anymore. I was still gun-shy as shit about the law after my misstep last year and I wasn’t about to run the risk of someday being hit with a statutory rape charge. I didn’t think Laney was the type to throw something like that around wildly, but who knew? I didn’t feel like risking it. So in just a few days I would be putting a moratorium on sex with her, and without sex we were nothing, so that would be that.

My phone started ringing in my pocket. It was Dan.

“Speak of the devil,” I muttered before answering, “Hello?”

“Kellen, where are you right now?”

“At the beach with Laney and some friends. Do you need her to come home?”

“No, actually I need to talk to you. Come home with Laney when you’re done, will you? You need to… there’s something important we need to talk about.”

“Okay,” I agreed, my palms beginning to sweat slightly.

“It’s nothing you’ve done wrong,” he assured me, catching on to my hesitant tone. “It’s something that’s come up. Something I don’t think you want to discuss on the phone. Just come home when you can, alright?”