Bruiser: A Lonely Housewife Embarks on a Passionate Affair with an Alpha Male MMA Fighter (12 page)

Chapter Thirty Seven

Ava

Ava couldn’t remember whose idea it had been to invite them to dinner – but she wasn’t sure it was a good one.

Tired, grumpy and aching, Brandon sat at the head of the table and shoveled pasta into his mouth like a machine.

Moody, irritable and scowling at Rob, Clark barely picked at his food.

Harley and Lex, meanwhile, were transfixed by Ava’s ex-boyfriend.

“Thor!” Lex shouted, holding up his Fisher Price toy of the God of Thunder. “Mummy! It’s Thor!”

And while Harley was old enough to know that Rob
wasn’t
the legendary Marvel superhero, she was immediately smitten with the tanned, beautiful man with the long, Barbie hair.

And Rob, infuriatingly, wallowed in their attention and held court like this was his house, and not Clark’s.

“Man, I was worried that I was out of practice,” he grinned, picking at salad and chicken. “But it felt
good
to be back and sparring.” Chewing, Rob turned to Brandon and asked: “How’s the arm?”

Brandon narrowed his eyes.

“
Fine
,” he growled.

Ava actually felt bad for him. Brandon was a big guy, used to being the center of attention of his students and the moms who took his classes. It must have been a brutal wake-up call to be thrown into a bout with a
real
fighter – and have his ass kicked.

While Ava could understand Brandon’s foul mood, she had less sympathy for Clark. He was acting surly and insecure, and it drove her crazy.

Ava had
no
interest in Rob. Shit, she couldn’t even look at him without thinking of all the cheesy wrestlers from the eighties. With his long blond hair and fake tan, Rob looked like he belonged on the cover of a romance novel – not inside the MMA octagon.

But Clark was acting like a junkyard dog, when another hound steps onto his territory. And, quite frankly, it was pretty pathetic to see the sweet, kind, cuddly man she fell in love with act like a toddler.

Fortunately enough, the food was soon finished and Ava doled out the chores gratefully.

Clark took the kids to bed like he always did, and Brandon volunteered to do the washing up. That left Rob to take a big glass of wine and flop down on the couch.

“We’ll watch some videos of James MacDonald,” he explained, grabbing the remote. “Just as soon as I can figure out how to get YouTube on your TV.”

With the tension of dinner broken, Ava stepped into the kitchen and found Brandon loading up the dishwasher.

He groaned as he leaned over; clearly still suffering from the pounding Rob had given him earlier.

“Are you okay, hun?” Ava asked.

As she said that, Brandon pulled himself upright. Ava saw a weird look in his eyes - something between sadness, and anger.

“I’m fine,” he nodded. And then he paused.

And, moving like he should have done when he was sparring earlier, Brandon crossed the room and threw Ava forcefully against the wall.

Thump!

She gasped.

Brandon was suddenly kissing her, forcefully and desperately.

“Mmmmph!” Her small fists beat against his big chest. “Mmmph!” And then finally she managed to push him back, and stood there gasping and spluttering.

“
Brandon
! What the
hell?
!”

Brandon towered over her, hands squeezing her shoulders.

“I needed to kiss you,” he exclaimed, and then moved in to kiss her again.

This time Ava ducked out from under him, and staggered away.

Brandon wheeled around, but Ava held up her hand. “No.”

She hissed loudly, acutely away that Clark was upstairs, and Rob was lounging on the couch in the next room.

“What the
fuck
are you doing?” Ava hissed. “This is my
house
.”

Brandon paused. His eyebrows raised.

“I… I thought…”

“You didn’t
think
,” Ava hissed. She wrapped her arms around her torso. “Jesus, this is my
house
. That
wasn’t
appropriate.”

The big man paused.

Even though he was looming over Ava, he looked oddly childlike at that moment. His big, brown eyes were wide, and yearning, and Ava could see that he was trying as hard as he could to deal with a weird and stressful afternoon.

But pinning her to the wall had
not
been how to do it.

“Jesus, Brandon…
Be cool
,” Ava pleaded. She walked up to him, and placed her hand flat on his chest. “Please. This is a weird enough fucking day as it is. Don’t fuck anything up for me. Not right now.”

And Brandon looked down at her with his soulful brown eyes, and said, “I need to go.”

“But Rob’s pulling up those videos…”

“I need to
go
,” Brandon repeated, and then he backed off, and headed for the door, and a moment later it clicked shut behind him.

Ava heard the sound of his car starting up outside.

She stepped up to the kitchen window and looked out onto the driveway, and saw Brandon pulling off into the distance.

Butterflies churned in her stomach. Her fingers trembled.

She didn’t know what to make of what had just happened.

And she wasn’t even allowed to try and process it – because a moment later, Clark appeared at the bottom of the stairs and said snottily, “Rob better not be messing around with my pre-sets.”

She turned and looked at her chubby husband, standing on the stairs with a foul look on his round face.

It was ironic. He was jealous of her ex-boyfriend; who, out of all three of them, was the man she was least likely to fool around with that evening.

She desperately wished that Clark wasn’t being an ass, and she could run over and wrap her arms around him. She
needed
that, after the weirdness of the stressful day.

But despite being surrounded by two – possibly
three
men who claimed to have feelings for her, Ava Cassidy stood there resolutely, and irredeemably, alone.

Chapter Thirty Eight

Brandon

Brandon’s hands were trembling as he gripped the steering wheel.

It took him just minutes to drive to BB Martial Arts Center, and he slewed his car across two parking spots and staggered out into the cool, night air with a zillion thoughts whizzing through his head.

What a crazy fucking night.

Barely able to fit the key into the lock, Brandon eventually made his way through the glass doors and staggered into the cool darkness of the studio.

There, he flopped against the wall of shatterproof glass mirrors, and sunk slowly to the vinyl mats with a sigh.

What had he just done?

He couldn’t believe himself.

He’d been in Ava’s house. Her fucking
house
, with her husband and kids upstairs. And he’d thrown her against the wall and practically forced himself on her.

He knew
why
he did it. It was more than his arm and his head that got bruised from that punishing bout with Rob. Brandon felt rocked to the very core of him – his skill in the
one thing
he’d spent his life doing – fighting – had suddenly been questioned.

But it was more than that.

He’d been in Ava’s house. He’d been surrounded by her husband, and her ex-boyfriend. And suddenly it had thrown up into sharp relief how what he thought he’d had with her was…

He squeezed shut his eyes.

It was
nothing
.

It was like what he had with Mia. It was sweaty encounters on the floor of his karate center – and then sending his lovers back to their husbands with sticky panties and guilty smiles on their faces.

But when it really mattered – when he was at his most vulnerable…

He had
nobody
.

Brandon let out a ragged sigh, and pulled his cell-phone from his pants. He stared at the screen for a second – at the SMS messages box, which was empty.

Empty.

Just like his bank balance.

Just like his karate center.

Just like his life.

Butterflies churned in his stomach.

Fingers trembling, he typed in a number he hadn’t texted in days.

BRANDON

Mia… You around?

Chapter Thirty Nine

Brandon

“Well, well, well,” said Mia Werber, as she pushed open the door to the karate center and looked at Brandon, sitting in darkness on the floor.

“Hi, Mia,” he said softly, looking up at her.

Mia was standing silhouetted by the streetlights in the parking lot – short, and thin, and with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

She looked simultaneously pissed, but smug.

“I wondered how long it would be,” the former instructor purred, as she let the door click shut behind her. She padded across the reception area, and stood looking down at Brandon as he sat slumped on the floor.

“So,” Mia demanded. “What’s the story?”

Brandon didn’t look at her. He just stared at his feet and murmured, “I was feeling kind of shitty, and I didn’t know who else to turn to.”

“Well,” Mia snorted. “Maybe you should have thought about that before screwing things up between us.”

She sat down on the floor, cross-legged, opposite Brandon.

In the darkness, her wide, anxious eyes seemed oddly endearing. She almost looked sweet.

“What is it, B?” She asked.

Brandon looked up, and into her eyes. He gulped dryly.

“I don’t think I’m ready for this fight,” he admitted.

Mia reached over and patted Brandon’s knee.

“Well, I could have told you that, honey,” she admitted. “That’s why I didn’t want you agreeing to it in the first place.”

Brandon bit his lip.

He considered everything she’d said, and the resentment he’d felt towards her. His frustration that she couldn’t see why he was so desperate to do this – to do
whatever it took
to save his school.

But suddenly, he wondered if he could see
her
point. That maybe she’d seen he wasn’t ready long before he had. Maybe it hadn’t been jealousy, or possessiveness, or whatever it was that had triggered her freakout.

Maybe Mia had been right all along.

As if reading his mind, a smile spread across Mia’s face. She reached over a patted Brandon’s knee.

“So you’ll quit?”

Brandon said nothing.

Mia’s smile widened even further – and she lifted herself onto her knees. Then, like a predator, she crawled forward and practically into Brandon’s lap.

“Just call it off,” she said softly, pressing her lips against his. “C’mon, baby… Things can go back to the way they were…”

And, as she said that, Mia reached down and pressed her hand between Brandon’s legs. She squeezed, and Brandon’s cock throbbed at the pressure of her fingers through the thin material of his pants.

“I’ve missed you, baby,” Mia purred, kissing Brandon’s throat. She started rubbing his growing cock through his
karategi
pants. “And from the feel of
that
,” her fingers tightened on his stiffening shaft, “you missed me too.”

“Huuungh,” Brandon groaned, as Mia’s hand slid up, and under the waistband of his pants, and suddenly her slender fingers were curling skin-to-skin around his cock. “Fuuuuuck…”

Mia bit her lip victoriously.

“So you’ll call up tomorrow and quit, right?” She asked, with her fingers curled tightly around his cock as she asked that, almost like an unspoken threat.

Brandon groaned, and sunk back on the vinyl mats. He closed his eyes, soaking in the delicious softness of Mia’s lips, and the smell of her perfume, and the familiar feel of her slender fingers stroking his cock.

It was moments like this that were some of the only ones in which he felt complete.

But then he thought about her words… And what she expected him to do.

Right then? Right there? Brandon would have happily given up and quit the fight. He was hurt, and scared, and humiliated by his performance against Rob that afternoon.

But there was more at stake than just
him
, though.

Brandon tried to ignore it. He tried to squeeze shut his eyes and relax into the moment and just soak in the scent of feel of Mia, as she kissed and stroked him.

But he couldn’t.

His eyes snapped open. He grabbed Mia’s slender wrist and pulled her hand out of his pants. Then, brusquely, he pushed the slender wife out of his lap and away from him.

“What the
hell
, Bran?” Mia snarled.

Brandon struggled to stand up.

“I’m sorry, Mia,” he shook his head. “I can’t do this.” He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing shut his eyes. “I shouldn’t have called you.”

Mia’s wide eyes flashed. Picking herself up off the floor, she wrapped her arms tightly around herself and growled, “What the fuck is going on?”

Brandon opened his mouth to speak – but before he could, a great swathe of light reared through the windows.

Mia and Brandon turned and looked out of the glass windows overlooking the parking lot. The streams of light had come from a car, pulling into the lot.

A Buick Enclave.

Ava’s car.

Brandon stood there, frozen in place, as he watched Ava Cassidy hop out of her tall SUV, and come running into the karate center.

He heard the front door open, and Ava’s voice calling: “B! Brandon? I know you’re in there…”

And then the pretty housewife came staggering into the studio, and her face lit up as she saw Brandon standing there in the near-darkness.

But then she spotted Mia.

Paused in the doorway, Ava saw Brandon’s former lover standing there, lipstick smudged and hair mussed up, and her eyes narrowed.

“What the fuck is
she
doing here?”