Chains (18 page)

“I’ll remember that.”

“What do you do that keeps your body so amazing?”

Her eyes roamed my body and lingered on my chest. I could imagine what it would be like with her—crazy hot and explosive, temporarily satisfying. “I work out a lot,” I said. Even thinking about fighting made me feel sick.

“That’s it?” she asked. “You must live in the gym.”

Over the gym. But not anymore.

I took another long drink.

“I’m Natalie.” She held her hand out for me to shake.

I took it. It was chilly and a little clammy from beer bottles. “Tyler.”

“I’ve always liked that name,” she said, sliding her palm over mine.

The rest of my beer went down fast. So did the next four. Before I knew it, the place was closing. Natalie took off her apron and came around the bar. “What are you doing now?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” I honestly didn’t. I was drunk and depressed. Anger still lurked in the shadows, ready to pounce.

“Walk me to my car,” she said.

If I hadn’t spent the past few years practicing footwork for fights, walking would’ve been a challenge. I lost count of the number of beers I drank. When I turned my head, the world spun. I didn’t realize Natalie had her arm around my waist until it was already there. Somehow, mine was around her shoulders and she was leaning into me. My body was on autopilot and doing what it was trained to do around beautiful women who wanted me. I knew my alcohol-soaked brain needed to kick in, but it was passed out in a remote corner of my head somewhere. My dick was not.

And Natalie smelled good. Her dark hair blew in the wind, tickling my cheek. “This is me,” she said, heading to the driver’s side of a white Acura. She leaned against the door and grabbed my hand. “Why don’t you come with me? I’ll get you some coffee. You need to sober up.”

“I’m not drunk,” I said, feeling numb and horny. “I didn’t drive here, anyway.” My hands came up on either side of her to rest on the roof of her car, pinning her between my arms. Her fingers sneaked through my belt loops and pulled me against her. She was tall, her breasts large and firm, her hips matched with mine. Our lips brushed, sending a current directly to my cock.

Danny. My Danny.

I jolted back, head spinning. “I gotta go.”

“Wait,” she said, pulling me back to her. “Where? I’ll drive you.”

Her fingers stretched up the front of my t-shirt until she was touching the bare skin above my shorts. She trailed her fingertips back and forth, causing me to catch my breath. She leaned into me and whispered in my ear. “Get in the car.” Her teeth graze my earlobe and tugged, gently.

The mindless rush of a quick fuck in the back of her car called to me like a siren’s song. Between the beer and her body, I could forget everything for a few blissful minutes. She turn around, opened her door and flipped the driver’s seat forward.

She climbed in, pulling me with her. I ducked under the roof, put my knee on the seat, and my phone buzzed in my pocket.

I wanted to ignore it, but with every buzz, it seemed to get louder until I couldn’t refuse it. “I have to get this,” I said, watching her lips pout as I climbed back out of her car.

Danny’s name flashed on the screen. Guilt for what I’d been about to do battled with thoughts of her betrayal. Fucking Natalie would make us even.

Even thinking it, I knew it was wrong.

“Hey,” I said, turning around as I answered.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “I’m so sorry, Ty. I didn’t even know if I’d see you again. Mike told me he was concerned and I wanted to help you. Please. You have to understand. I didn’t do it to hurt you. I—”

“Danny, I’ll be home soon. We’ll talk then, okay?”

“Oh. O—okay,” she stammered.

“Okay,” I said. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

As soon as I heard her voice, my insides melted. The girl made me useless to do anything but be totally obsessed with her.

“Girlfriend?” Natalie asked behind me.

I nodded. “Yeah. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you think anything could happen.”

“It could have,” she said. “If she hadn’t called.”

“No.” I turned around. “It wouldn’t have. I could never hurt her like that, even if I wanted to.”

“She’s lucky.” Natalie gave me a sad smile. “See you around, Tyler,” she said, and got back in her car.

I held up a hand as she drove away, thinking if Natalie knew me at all she wouldn’t think Danny was so lucky. If there had been anyone in the bar tonight that looked up to a fight, odds were I would’ve started shit with him and ended up brawling out here in the parking lot.

Fighting. Sex. I needed physical release like I needed air. Some things were too ingrained to change. Mike and Danny were probably right about me. I was fucked up in the head and couldn’t control myself in the octagon. I went somewhere else when I was provoked—outside myself—and had to be pulled back, pulled off my opponent. My mental state and fighting were a bad combination.

I headed back to Alex’s, scuffing my feet through the cinders and broken glass in the parking lot.

No matter how shitty it was for Mike to get Danny in on his plan, the truth was it had to be done. If he would’ve come to me and told me I had a problem, I wouldn’t have believed him. Hell, Danny told me over and over, and I still planned to go to Reno again. But now—knowing what I did about the fight with Jose being a test they set up—I could see they were right. I failed. Getting in the ring with me was like facing a ticking bomb, and there was nothing pro about that.

I got back to the condo, unlocked the door and went upstairs. Danny was in the bathroom with the door shut. I knocked. “I’m back,” I said.

“I’ll be right out.”

I sank down onto the side of the bed, picked up her pillow and held it to my face, smelling her lingering scent. Clean soap, honey shampoo, warm, salty-sweet skin. I lay down on the bed and rolled to my side by the wall, hugging her pillow.

Something crinkled underneath me. I sat up and pulled the covers back. A piece of paper was tucked between the mattress and wall. I pulled it out and looked at it. A chill ran down my back and prickled my scalp. It was another drawing of mine from when we were young. A jousting scene. Sir Tyler against Baron Striker. Princess Danielle stood beside Sir Tyler’s horse holding his hand. I remembered drawing it. It was the morning after the first time he took her and locked me in the basement. It was the morning I swore to her that I’d never let him hurt her again.

But he did. Over and over and over.

Danielle plopped down on the bed beside me. “What is that? One of your drawings?”

“It was under the blanket.”

“How?” she asked, her question trailing off as the answer hit her. “He was in here today.”

“Get Alex,” I said, my fingers stiff from clutching the paper so tight.

She went to the door and yelled for him. The dog trotted in thinking it was him she wanted. “What’s going on?” I heard Alex ask as he jogged up the stairs.

“Striker
was
in here this afternoon,” she said. “He left one of Ty’s old drawings in the bed.”

“Shit,” he said, striding to the bed and glancing down at the picture. “What does it mean?” He took it from me and looked at it closer.

“Mean? Who the hell knows.” I sank back down on the bed. “It means even when I win, I lose. Even when she’s mine, she’s his. We’ll never be free of him.”

“No.” Alex tapped his finger against the paper. “This is a message. He’s challenging you.” He turned to look at Danny. “She’s the prize.”

TWELVE

“I’m not his to give as a prize!” Danny shouted, grabbing her pillow from me and tucking it against her chest.

“What does he want from me?” I yanked the picture from Alex’s hands. “Does he want to face me in the cage? I doubt it. So, what’s the challenge?”

“I think we wait and find out,” Alex said, rubbing his hands together like this was a good turn of events.

Danny kicked his shin with her bare foot. “Why do you look happy about this?”

“Because he’s coming to us. He’s like a little kid who’s ignored, so he has to start badgering us to get a reaction.”

“Make him go away,” she said, pulling her knees up and curling in a ball.

“Oh, we will,” Alex said, turning for the door. “As soon as we can find him, we’ll nail his ass.”

He closed the door, and I rolled over on my side facing Danny. We stared at each other with a million things to say and nothing to say, because words didn’t matter. “He won’t get to you,” I whispered, threading my fingers between hers.

She trembled. “He was right here. In our bed.”

I moved the pillow from between us and pulled her in close, resting her head on my chest. “He can’t touch you.”

She sat up, full-out shaking. “I can’t stay here.” I grasped her wrist as she scooted to the edge of the bed. “I have to leave, Ty! He knows I’m here!”

“We’ll leave,” I said, sitting up and wrapping my arms around her from behind. “Not tonight though. You’re safe here with me tonight.”

“When?” She shifted in my arms to look up at me. “When will we leave? Where will we go?”

Mike flashed to mind. He’d been my role model—my safe place, security, home—for a long time. Even if he and Danny might be right about my control issues in the cage, fighting one more time would get us out of here. It was planned. It was paid for. “Reno,” I said. “We’ll go tomorrow, a day early. I’ll text Mike.”

Her eyes widened, but she didn’t disagree. “It’s the least of two evils,” I said, pulling my phone from my pocket.

I sent Mike a text asking him to book the room for tomorrow. There’d be time to confront him about his betrayal, but Danny’s safety came first. If she wanted out of Alex’s house, I’d get her out.

“Done,” I said, sliding my phone onto the nightstand.

“You’ve been drinking,” she said, scooting back against the headboard.

“Does that bother you?” I traced a faint scar on the outside of her thigh. She got it climbing down from Fort Ferndale when she was ten. A nail was sticking out of one of the wooden boards. It caught on her jeans and cut her leg. Her jaw quivered and her eyes watered, but out of sheer stubbornness, she didn’t shed a tear.

“No. But, I wish I hadn’t driven you to leave and find a bar where you could drink alone.”

I thought about Natalie. “I wasn’t alone,” I said, knowing if I didn’t tell her it would eat away at me. “The bartender was there.”

She smiled, thinking I was joking around. “I don’t think that counts.”

“It kind of does. She was hitting on me. I didn’t stop her. I walked her to her car when she got off. I—”

“I don’t want to know,” Danny said, holding up a hand and sliding off the bed.

“Nothing happened, Dan. That’s what I need you to know. I was drunk and pissed—hell, it was a kick in the balls, what you and Mike did. But, I knew being with her would only make me more miserable.”

I got up and went to her, took her face between my hands. “She wasn’t you. You’re the only woman I want, Danny. You’ve ruined me for wanting anyone else.”

“I’ve ruined you?” She blinked innocently.

“No. You make me better.” My lips alighted on hers, and my head stopped its jumbled shuffling from thoughts of Striker and Mike, Natalie and MMA. None of it mattered when Danny was in my arms. When her lips were pressed against mine. When I held her face in my hands.

She stepped back and took my hand, led me to the bathroom. I waited as she turned the shower on, and steam drifted over the ceiling. Standing in the middle of the bathroom, she gave me a seductive smile and began taking off her clothes. I resisted the urge to help and just watched. She was giving this to me. Her wordless way to make amends.

I’d make my own amends once I got my hands on her.

She took off her shirt and shimmied her hips, dropping her shorts, then stood before me in her underwear and bra. They didn’t match, and they weren’t silky or lacy, but it didn’t matter. She was the sexiest woman I’d ever seen, because she wanted to be. For me.

Her hair was mussed and her nails bitten. She was exactly the Danny I knew inside and out. “Come here,” I said, stepping in front of her. “I need to kiss you.”

I spread my hands across her narrow back and took her top lip between mine. Her tongue ran across my bottom lip. We opened to each other, tasting, teasing, getting lost in the heat. Her hands ran up the back of my shirt, pulling it up. Our mouths parted long enough for me to tug it over my head. Then her mouth was on me again, licking my neck and nibbling my chest while her fingers unfastened my shorts.

My cock sprung out of my underwear as she shoved them down my legs, and she took me in hand, stroking and reaching down lower, massaging my balls and rubbing underneath. I was so hard, it almost hurt.

I wrapped her hair around my hand and eased her head back, making her look at me. Then I ran the other down over her chest, gently squeezing her nipples before spanning her stomach and delving between her legs to find her slick and swollen. She let out a sigh and closed her eyes as I slid my middle finger in and out of her. Her hips jutted forward, begging for more. I slipped a second finger inside and bent them slightly as I pushed them in and out of her, massaging and rubbing. Her knees gave a little and her head relaxed back against my hand hold her hair.