Brutal Game

©
2
016 Cara
McKenna

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First Edition

Edited by Kelli Collins

Cover design by Cara McKenna

Formatting by Vellum

F
lynn climbed
into his car just after one on Saturday night, waking the grumpy engine on the third crank. It had to be ten degrees out, and just the short walk from the bar’s exit to the curb had chilled his sweat and stiffened his spent muscles. He could feel frost in his hair and an ache growling in his wrists and fingers. Still, he didn’t bother with the heater—it was a quick drive.

It was snowing, barely. Sick as he was of shoveling, he almost wished for a final storm. It was late February, the charm of New England winter gone with the abandoned skeletons of Christmas trees weeks before. The streets were crusted with brown-gray ice and these flurries would do jack to cover it over. Salt and gravel crunched under his tires as he pulled onto the street, South Boston all but abandoned this time of night, save for the odd car in the distance and scattered drinkers making their way home with clumsy, nervous steps along the slick sidewalks.

Flynn was beat, literally. Not defeated, but he’d taken a couple hard shots in his final boxing match, one to the temple and one to the chin, and his neck was sore, like whiplash.

You’re not twenty-five anymore,
his body bitched, but he ignored it. He’d be home soon, in his warm apartment, with a warm woman curled up and waiting on his couch or in his bed. Maybe already asleep with a book on her chest. Maybe amenable to having that book plucked away, replaced by the weight of her lover lowering down, his lips on hers and sleep be damned.

Heat crept through him, not the radiator’s doing. It kept the chill at bay as he slammed the car door and headed for his building, a hulking old brick behemoth.

Fight nights were Fridays and Saturdays. Laurel nearly always came to one or the other, whichever her waitressing schedule didn’t clash with. Tonight she’d worked, and would’ve finished up around ten. She lived just a few blocks from the tourist-trap restaurant she worked at but she always came to his place on fight nights, letting herself in with her key and waiting up for him.

He tested the knob, pleased to find it locked. She’d been sloppy about that when she’d first started hanging out in his absence, and he didn’t like it. Made him paranoid and protective, even if his building was pretty safe. The thought of anything bad happening to her, let alone in his place, with him not there…

He felt a flash of the heat that possessed him during a fight and pushed the worry from his mind as he opened the door.

Flynn’s apartment was a studio—bedroom, living room, and galley kitchen all in one high-ceilinged square space, plus a full bath. Laurel was sprawled across his bed, a pillow on her belly and a closed book atop that, sock-clad feet flexing idly.

“Hey, you.” Her smile was dozy and sweet, hair a coppery tumble he’d be more than happy to mess up if she’d let him.

“You win?”

He dropped his gym bag on the loveseat by the door. “Always.”

“How many matches tonight?”

“Three.”

“You must be wiped.” She knew better than that, though. She knew what fight nights did to Flynn, the way the adrenaline turned to lust the second he stepped out of that basement gym. He might be exhausted, but his body didn’t plan to rest until his cock got its way.

“I’m gonna shower,” he said. “I’ll kiss you when I stink less.”

“I like your violent musk, but suit yourself.” She opened her book.

“How was work?”

She kept her eyes on the page. “It was work. Go get cleaned up.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gathered a fresh tee and shorts and some flannel bottoms from the dresser then headed for the bathroom.

He needed this shower. He’d been up against his toughest rival in the final fight of the night. He’d won but that bastard always gave Flynn a run for his money, underlined the fact that he was thirty-three now, no longer invincible. They fought for glory and for fun, not for money, but that was no reason not to go hard each and every time. Flynn spent his days working construction, which wasn’t kind to his body either, and in the past couple years he’d come to feel it. He ached in ways he hadn’t before, even if his lust for the sport hadn’t cooled a jot.

Something caught his eye as he set his clean clothes on the toilet tank—an old red towel slung over the shower curtain. Hunger rose inside him, exhaustion forgotten.

It was no simple towel. Sure, this was the towel Laurel used for a day or two after she dyed her hair each month, and the one they fucked on when she was on her period, but it was more than that. It was their little joke—the red cape. Laurel had teased Flynn about being a bull when it came to sex, and that towel was their inside joke. If he came home and found it hanging on the rod it was her way of taunting,
Gore me.
A red cape but also a green light, one that told Flynn when he exited the bathroom, it was on. The things he craved in the darkest, homeliest shadows of himself were his to take.

They had a safe word but hadn’t used it in ages. Hadn’t needed to. As Laurel had grown confident playing tourist in his fantasies, he’d come to know her limits as intimately as he did her body. He could read her muscles like a blind man read Braille, could tell when their role-playing was riding too sharp and thin a line between arousing and upsetting.

When you had needs like Flynn’s and you wanted them met, intuition was essential. This shit was dangerous and this shit was precise, like whipping knives at a woman strapped to a spinning wheel, circus-style. Get it right or get it very, very wrong.

Which was sort of funny, he thought as he stripped, as his appetites were, after all, so very, very,
very
wrong.

He spotted a note stuck to the bathroom mirror, an oversized, lined Post-it bearing Laurel’s tidy handwriting. He peeled it from the glass, eyes devouring each word.

I’m a groupie,
she’d written.
I come to watch you fight every week, infatuated, but I’m afraid of you as well. You offer me a ride home but take me to your place first. You’re sick of the teasing and you’re ready to give me what I’m too scared to admit I want. Maybe I don’t even want it at all. Maybe I’m in over my head. You don’t care. You’ll get what you want, either way.

What Flynn needed in bed was cruelty and dominance. Not every night, not even every week, but the thing that lit him up like jumper cables was the dark stuff, the rough stuff. Ugly stuff it had taken him years to accept, and later embrace. Laurel had always been up for it, willing to go there and able to find pleasure in those dark places too, but over the past couple months she’d begun discovering her own kinks nested inside his.

In the games they played, he craved brutality, but she wanted something more—a narrative. A role beyond mere victim. Flynn was happy enough coming at her like a stranger in a dark alley, but her pleasure deepened with some extra dimension worked in. She wanted layers of emotion—lust clashing with revulsion and fear and surrender. She wanted a character to play, he supposed, and he wanted nothing more than for the thing that set his brain and body on fire to do the same for her.

He twisted the hot tap open and stepped inside the shower, stood under the steaming, scalding water and sighed. He eyed that red towel draped over the rod, growing dark and heavy from the spray. A gash at his temple opened and stung but he didn’t care. Just let the heat soften his muscles, wash the blood and sweat and grime down the drain. Wash his fight persona away and make room for another beast entirely.

A man capable of things few women would welcome.

A man capable of exactly what Laurel wanted, tonight.

L
aurel stared
at her book as much as she was truly reading it, listening to the hush of the water in the bathroom, and soon enough the tap of Flynn’s toothbrush against the sink, the squeak of the medicine cabinet door. She tried to recall the words she’d scrawled on that paper, every detail of the fantasy she’d handed him. Had it gotten him as hot as composing it had done to her? Had he allowed himself a soap-slick stroke of his fist in the steaming shower, or was he saving every ounce of his fight-night aggression just for her?

Flynn appeared in his shorts and tee, silhouetted for a second before the bathroom went dark and the fan silent at the flip of the switch. By the light of the reading lamp his body was glorious, nearly too much, yet so essentially right. A
ridonkulous
body, to quote Laurel’s roommate, Anne, the one time she’d come along to watch the underground fights. Accurate, but not erotic.
Obscene
about summed him up.

He looked at Laurel as he crossed the room, kept his eyes on her all the way to his dresser. He must have thought better of the pajama bottoms he’d taken into the bathroom; there wasn’t anything threatening about a drawstring and an elastic waistband. It always helped to have a belt at the ready, and the tease of a zipper or stiff denim never went astray. He seemed to agree, pulling jeans out of a drawer.

Laurel set her book on the shelf behind the bed, sat up and stared back, hugging the pillow on her lap.

Once upon a time, when they’d been all but strangers, Flynn’s body had scared her—she’d not yet known what his intentions were, what lay at the core of his heart and his kink. Physically, he’d been capable of doing for real the things he got off on role-playing, and it had taken a weighing of curiosity versus risk to go there with him. In the end her trust hadn’t been misplaced, and oh, the places he’d taken her.

This body awed her, chilled her, intoxicated her. Whether he sought pleasure or pain, he gave himself completely. As someone who so often held herself back, Laurel found it mesmerizing.

She wondered if the game had begun. If so, it was time to quit objectifying and get into character. This wasn’t her lover of eight months. This was a near stranger who both intrigued and frightened her, dangerous as a wild animal. Beautiful and bloodthirsty and hungry for who knew what. She let the scene settle in around her, tightening her belly with anticipation and fear.

She wasn’t his girlfriend tonight. She was his prey.

He pulled on his jeans, still staring at her. Still staring as he threaded his belt through the loops and buckled it.

“You like my place?” he finally asked, and shut the drawer.

She looked around the room, letting its stark simplicity strike her all over again, just as it had back in July.
I’ve never been here before. I don’t know this man beyond the bully he embodies in the ring.

“It’s nice,” she said.

“How about my bed? You like that too?”

Her lips twitched and she glanced at the rumpled navy covers. “It’s big,” she managed, making her voice tiny, as weak as this man was strong.

“How long you been hopin’ to get invited home with me?”

She swallowed. “I was just happy for the ride. I should be getting back soon.”

“What’s the rush?” He came closer, and she drank in how huge he felt in dark moments like this. Tall, powerful. Threatening. “You want a drink?”

“No, thanks. It’s really late.”

“Stay, then. I’ll take you home in the morning.” He sat on the edge of the mattress, and she caught a spark strike in those hazel-blue eyes when she scooted a little farther away—he was a wolf, and she the deer who’d just twitched. He craved a chase. She craved the weight of this beast crashing down on her when he got his way.

“I can’t,” she said. “Thank you, really, but I should get home. I could call a cab—”

“Why would you do that?” He came closer and his hand closed around her wrist, not tight, but rigid as steel—the cuff of a man who scoffed at bondage props.

“You don’t have to drive me if you don’t want,” she said, channeling a woman too timid to call a man on his shit—the woman she’d been eight months ago, likely. It could be scary sometimes, the way the chemical rush of this role-playing so closely resembled true fear. Scary and exhilarating, and strangely freeing.

“I wouldn’t offer to drive you if I didn’t want to.”

“It’s late,” she said again, letting those words fall flat and tinny with false worry.

His eyes narrowed. “You’ve watched me fight the past, what? Three weeks, four?”

“Not just you. I watch all the matches.”

“I’m not blind, sweetheart. I see how you look at me.”

She conjured the smile of a woman more anxious than amused. “You’re one of the best.”

“One of?”

She swallowed again. “You’re the best, as far as I can tell.”

“That excite you?”

“It… I don’t know. Look, I think you’re an amazing fighter. I’m a little drunk. I probably have some kind of crush on you, but I’m not looking to act on it. Thanks for the ride, but I need to get home.”

“I asked if you wanted to see my place. You said you did. I think we both knew what that really meant.”

She made to leave the bed but that hand around her wrist bit down hard, feeling like the steel it stood in for.

He said, “Don’t.” The word gave her chills, because she knew it’d be her uttering it soon enough. “I don’t bite.”

You do.
“I need to go.”

“A few more minutes won’t hurt. Just a kiss, then we’ll go. Promise.”

“It’s really late—” She was cut off by her own gasp, her surprise real as his hand twisted, wrenching her arm with a twinge. It lit something up inside her, a cocktail of fear and anger and frustration, and she wrestled her wrist free and made it to her feet. He liked a struggle. She’d give him one.

“I scare you?” he asked, tone eerie and casual, as chilling as if there were a jeer coloring that question.

She held her tweaked wrist. “A little.”

“You came after me, you know. Maybe you like the way I scare you.”

She didn’t reply, letting her gaze move meaningfully to the door.

“You like watchin’ me fight?” he demanded.

She met his stare. “Yes.”

“What else do you wanna watch me do?”

She held her tongue and let that dirty, twisted hybrid of fear and excitement work through her body and settle across her features. She watched his expression darken and heat in response.

“You like watchin’ me fight,” he repeated, stepping close, forcing her backward until her calves found the mattress, then her ass. “What else do you wanna watch? You wanna watch me fuck?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“You like watchin’ me bleed,” he said, speaking low, intimate, more threat than flirtation, now. “You wanna watch me come, girl?”

Her only reply was a gasp as that powerful hand grabbed her again, clamping tight to her forearm. “Stand up.”

She didn’t have much choice; he all but yanked her to her feet. He was six-three and change and she was nine inches shorter, and in moments like this he seemed to loom a mile above her, godlike and terrifying.

Not a god. A monster.

“Kiss me.” He said it quietly, not tenderly.

She whispered, “Okay.”

His free arm circled her shoulder and he wound her long hair around his fist. Laurel shivered. That sensation did something to her, something not every rough act did. Some submissive women loved getting spanked, or held down, or blindfolded. Whatever the fuck it said about her, Laurel liked getting her hair pulled. Just feeling his hand tighten had her wishing for the pressure, the promise of domination.

He forced her chin up with a sharp yank, stared hard into her eyes with his cold ones before bringing his mouth down to hers.

It was less a kiss than an assault, but there was heat in it, too, her excitement spurred not by the smooth execution of the act but from knowing what was coming, what this promised. And knowing that Flynn was burning up inside his skin, out-of-his-mind aroused, and all because of her. The gifts she gave him weren’t wrapped in satin. They were harsh and strange and not for the faint of heart. But what they did to him made her feel as powerful as the woman she played felt helpless.

She pushed at his chest with her forearms, tried to wrest her mouth away, only to feel the bite of his fist in her hair. When he spoke, his lips moved against her cheek, breath hot.

“Don’t make it hard, sweetheart.”

“I want to go.”

“You’ll go just as soon as I’ve given you what we both know you came here for.”

“I don’t want that. I don’t. Please, let me go home.”

“You’re a good girl, aren’t you?” He eased her away from him, hand still in her hair, then forced her to sit on the bed. “One of those girls that feels too guilty to admit what they want.”

“No—”

“So they find men like me, men who don’t fuck around. Men who can tell exactly what it is they’re really after.” His hands went to his waist, freeing his belt buckle, then the button of his jeans. She made a break for it but he was on her in a blink, pinning her to the bed by her biceps.

“Make it easy, sweetheart. Your daddy or your priest or whoever you’re so scared of disappointing, they’re not here. Just you and me. Let yourself go.”

“I want to go
home.”
It was a plea, a prayer, a toothless wisp of a wish.

“You will. Just as soon as we both get what we need. You can’t tell me you don’t want this. Like I don’t see the way you look at me every goddamn week.” He shoved one knee between hers, then the other, and Laurel felt it—her body was priming, pussy slick and ready, hungry.

“I never meant to lead you on. I never said—”

“Fuck what you said.” He gave her a single shake, thumping her head and shoulders against the covers. He lowered his chest to hers. “I know what you want. You watch me fight.” He breathed the words right into her ear, every syllable damp and hot and explicit. “You watch my body and you wanna know what else I’m capable of.” He grabbed her hand, forced it low, pried her fingers apart and cupped her palm to his straining cock. “You want this, don’t you? The one part of me those greedy eyes don’t get to see.”

“Stop. Please.
Please
.” Her voice was small, frail, quavering, her words like matches flicked into a puddle of gasoline—one, two, three.

“I know you,” he sneered. “I know your type. You want a bad man like me, but you’re too scared to admit it. You want me to give you what you need?” He stroked her hand up and down his length, so hard the friction burned. “Play your little game, make it like I’m forcin’ you so you can pretend you don’t want it?”

“I don’t want it. I don’t. Please. I’m sorry.”

He put his free hand to her throat, pressing his thumb to the hollow just under her jaw. “Take me out.”

“I want to go—”

“Take me out,” he barked, pressing harder. “Maybe I’ll let you go, if you do. But find out what you’re missing first.”

He released her hand and she fumbled with his fly. The zipper stuck as she pulled it down.

“C’mon.”

“I’m trying.” She got the zipper open and he shoved his jeans to the tops of his thighs.

“Touch me.”

She was dying to but held back, waiting until a rough hand grabbed hers and clasped it to his erection. He seemed to sear her through the cotton, filling her palm, making her clench and heat, sex aching.

“Stroke it.”

She did, luxuriating even as her fist moved in staggered, frightened fits and starts. He never felt half as big as he did in moments like this, flesh like iron, like a weapon. His body seemed to mirror hers; she felt the damp patch each time her palm met his head and her mouth tingled, hungry for this. Hungry for an order she prayed she’d hear before long.

His hand grew impatient, forcing her motions rougher, faster. Laurel replied only in breaths—the reedy rush of air through her nostrils, lips pursed tight.

“This what you been needing?” he hissed.

“Please. I want to go.”

“Did you know I’d be this fuckin’ big, sweetheart? Is this how you imagined it?”

“Please.
Please
.”

“Get your clothes off.”

She froze. His hand released hers but she didn’t move, lost in the role.

“Strip. Now.”

“I—”

“Strip.”

Again, she tried to escape. Tried to slip from under the prison of his legs and arms, but she got nowhere. A rough, broad palm covered her throat. He’d never choke her—he didn’t fuck around with that shit, as he put it—but she knew to pretend he was. She went limp beneath him, eyes wide with terror.

“Strip. Don’t make me say it again.”

He released her neck and she reached down, wriggled her bottoms away as Flynn began tugging at her shirt. He peeled it over her arms and head, ignored her bra. He pulled his own shirt off next, and spoke to her as the cotton fell to the floor. “I’m gonna stand up, and you’re not gonna move a muscle. You understand?”

She nodded, unblinking. She watched that body with awe as he ditched his jeans and shorts, standing before her in the low light, cock long and thick and ready, gleaming at the crown.

“Good,” he said, cold eyes approving of her body or her obedience. “You let me and I’ll make this good for you. Fight me and you’ve only got yourself to blame.”

She held her tongue.

He clasped himself at the root. “This what you pictured, all those nights you came to watch me? You go home after and fuck yourself, hopin’ I was even half this big?”

“Please.”

He got back onto the bed, forcing her legs wide. “That’s good. I like you better cooperative.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“No, I don’t have to do jack-shit, apart from exactly whatever the fuck I want. This is my house. What I want, I get. You fuckin’ knew that when you stepped through the door, didn’t you?” His fist was stroking, hips edging their centers closer, closer. Finally, contact—the bump of his smooth head against her clit. She bucked, letting the pleasure masquerade as revulsion.

He traced her lips, no friction. “Fuck, yeah. I knew you wanted this, you lying little bitch.”