Fight for Me (15 page)

He reached out, running his hand through my hair, and then his grip tightened as he brought my face within an inch of his. “Don’t go anywhere. We need to talk. If you’re gone when I get out, I’ll find you and drag you back.”

“Ryder, I don’t think I should stay. Maybe we both need some space.”

He leaned in and ran his nose over my neck, breathing me in.

Why does he have to be so
intense and compelling?

Goose bumps covered my skin as his tongue flicked out and teased the skin underneath my ear.

And utterly seductive.

“I need you here.” His voice was husky and heavy with lust. “Don’t. Go.” Just as abruptly as he showed up, he turned and disappeared through the bathroom door. Against my better judgment, I got back into bed, but knew I was too wound up to fall asleep.

Chapter
Nineteen

Ryder

Before I even opened my eyes, I knew she was gone. The warmth of her body was missing, and I was sure I wouldn’t find her anywhere in the apartment. What happened the night before was untamed, wild, and maybe a little alcohol induced. I’d been battling against what I felt for her for a long time.

I managed to convince her to stay the night, but she was so quiet and stiff I knew we’d hit a brick wall. I wasn’t even sure if I could be angry she’d run off before the sun came up, because the connection I felt with her scared me, too. I’d gotten myself into a situation where something beautiful could turn into something ugly and destroy both of us.

I went down to the gym, thinking I would chase away my problems with Lexi with vigorous exercise, but instead, I walked into disaster. My heart plummeted, my breathing stopped as I looked on. One of the huge windows at the front of the gym was shattered. It was still together, but the ribbons of tangled lines made it apparent someone had tried to smash it. The other window wasn’t cracked, but something was written on it. A few of the fighters who arrived before me were discussing it. When I walked in, they turned silent, everyone watching me, waiting for a reaction.

I dropped my bag and walked straight out the door. On the outside, it looked worse. The words ‘she’s a whore’ were spray-painted on the glass. Fire boiled in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to kill someone. I wanted to grab whoever was responsible and smash their head against the shattered glass. The thought of someone threatening me and then hiding enraged me.

Ty stepped out the doors and hissed. “Damn…” He looked at me with a nervous gaze. “You all right?”

“Fuck no! Do I look all right to you?” Unfortunately for Ty, he always took the brunt of my agitation. “Lexi walks out on me last night, then I come down here and have to deal with this shit. The pussy wasn’t even man enough to say it to my face.”

“Why don’t you let me handle this?” I let him. I walked away from the building because I needed some air. By the time I got back, Ty had already filed a report and called someone to come out and fix the windows. It would take three days to repair, and I knew every day I had to look at it would piss me off that much more.

“Let’s go for a run,” Ty said as soon as I stepped in the gym. The crisp morning air and the burn in my muscles should’ve been helping get my mind off everything, but it wasn’t working.

“She’s breaking me apart,” I heaved as Ty and I ran up the hill. Ty paused and then doubled up to catch up with me.

“You think this is funny?” I frowned at his amused face.

He shook his head before saying, “There’s nothing funny about love and the pain that comes with it, but it’s a little amusing to watch it happen to someone like you.”

“Yeah, my love life is a joke.”

“That’s not what I meant. Looking at you from the outside, I know this thing with Alexis means a lot to you. I’m sure it will all be worth it at the end of the road.”

“What are you, the love doctor?”

He laughed. “Look, Ryder, the road to love is long and hard. Judging from your attitude lately, you’re tired of the
hard
part. Sexual frustration is a bitch.”

His bark of laughter sounded off from a distance as I picked up my pace down the hill and left him behind.

I pretended not to be waiting for Alexis when we returned to the gym, but the moment she walked in two hours later, everything seemed to stand still, and I abruptly stopped pounding the heavy bag to watch her walk to me.

“What happened to the window?” she exclaimed, wide-eyed and distressed.

“Someone left us a message. Still think your friend Logan is innocent? He watched us leave together last night.”

She sighed, tunneling a hand through her hair. “I don’t know. Everything is so messed up. Maybe you and I should just go back to ignoring each other.”

“What? We need to talk. Now!”

She glanced over at me and nodded, following me into the back office.

“Why’d you leave?” I asked as soon as the door shut.

She sighed, leaning her back against the door. She probably hadn’t moved far from the door because she wanted to make a quick escape. “I didn’t know I was obligated to stay for breakfast.”

“Don’t make it seem like what happened didn’t mean anything, because it meant—”

“It didn’t mean anything!” she screamed as she finally left her post at the door and walked up to me. “Look, Ryder, we’ve been attracted to each other from the beginning. What happened was bound to happen, but we stopped. So why do we have to make it seem like it’s more than it is?”

Her demeanor was so stiff and she was so closed off, I knew no matter what I said I wasn’t going to get through to her. I reached out and pulled her against me. She flinched on contact.

“The reason you ran this morning isn’t because there’s nothing between us. You ran because you feel it, too. You’ve been pushing for this all week, so what changed?” I moved my face closer, and her eyes dropped to my lips, her breaths short and labored. She may be good at hiding her emotions, but her body reacted to me the same way mine responded to her.

“You were right. We are friends, and I don’t want to ruin that,” she argued.

“Yeah, I thought we could make that work, but now I need more. I need to make you mine, see you smile next to me in the morning, and hear you moan my name at night.”

“God, Ryder. Why are you saying these things? We had a good time. Now it’s over.”

“A good time.” I laughed at her nonchalant attitude. “If I wanted to have a good time, I could have brought home any woman in that bar and fucked. But that’s all you have to offer, isn’t it? You’ve been begging me to fuck you all week, but as soon as things get serious, you sneak out like a thief in the night.”

She pushed against my chest, stumbling back slightly. “What the fuck do you want from me?” she yelled, her hazel eyes flaring. The anger was a lot better than the ice-cold glare she was giving me a few moments ago. I pulled her arms until she was pressed against me. She tried to pull away, but my hold was too tight.

She looked in my eyes as I said, “I want you. I want you so badly that I won’t even let you get in my way.” Her eyes widened, but she melted into my embrace. She leaned her head on my shoulder and sighed.

“Why’d you get that tattoo?” Her question was mumbled against my shoulder.

“What does the tattoo have to do with anything?” I pulled her back so I could look into her eyes.

“Everything,” she whispered, then closed her eyes. When she opened them, they glistened with emotions. “You took the most important thing to me and turned it into a permanent part of your body.”

She slid her hands down my side, under my shirt, and pushed to the edge of my jeans. My cock jumped to attention as she splayed her fingers over the tattoo.

“I’m scared to let you in. You’re more important to me than you realize, and I don’t want to lose you because we complicated our friendship.” She hung her head, but I raised her gaze back to mine with a finger under her chin.

“Our relationship has always been complicated because we’ve been fighting against what we feel. Maybe it’s time we do what we really want.”

“And what is that?” She bit her lip and quirked an eyebrow, causing my dick to throb with need. I pulled her further into my embrace so she could feel how she affected me.

“I want you at my side when I fight. I want to laugh with you over dinner.” I put my lips at her ear and continued, “And I want to fuck you so hard at night that your body becomes a permanent fixture in my bed.”

She shivered in my arms as I licked her skin. Then she moaned so sweetly I had to stop myself from pushing her onto the desk and having my way.

“I don’t trust you with my heart.”

“I know, but just give me a chance. I’ve always taken care of you. I promise to take care of your heart.” I kissed her again until we were breathless and had to come up for air.

“I have to get back to my training or Ty will kill us both.”

She whined and clutched my shirt. The look in her eyes was molten sex, and I took a step back to cool the fire that had been ignited between us.

Chapter
Twenty

Alexis

“So how did you two meet?” I asked as Ryder threw one of my fries across the table at Ty. After three hours of training, Ty forbade Ryder to even look at my plate of fatty carbs. I was glad Ryder cornered me this morning and made me own up to how I felt about him. I really tried to run away and forget about my attraction to Ryder, but after taking a cab home, I realized there was no way I’d be able to stay there for another three days alone. The six hours I spent in the empty house felt like an eternity. I can’t say if my mom was home I’d have lasted longer, but I knew I would’ve eventually found my way back to Ryder.

“We actually hated each other at first until he kicked my ass. Then we were inseparable,” Ty answered with a smirk.

“I don’t get it. Shouldn’t you have hated him more after he kicked your ass?”

Ty shrugged while Ryder continued to eat his lunch. “Maybe, but I was just amazed by the skills the kid had. Back then he wasn’t the powerhouse you see now. He was pretty scrawny, and I was sure I could take him.”

“You could never take me,” Ryder said in between bites.

“Well, I thought I could take him and show Jenny Hartman that I was the better choice.”

“You guys fought over a girl?” I laughed while staring at Ryder, who was pretending to be too engrossed in his meal to listen to Ty.

“First and last time. But one of us should’ve clued Jenny in, because once the fight was over, she walked away with Marcus Young.”

I nudged my elbow into Ryder’s side, and he finally looked at me. “So you didn’t get the girl?”

He shrugged. “I don’t always get the girl. I’m still fighting to get the one I really want.”

Well, I guess that’s my cue to end the battle. He gazed at me in a way that made my panties moist, causing me to shift in my seat. His phone vibrated against the tabletop, breaking the moment. He picked it up and excused himself. Ty gave me an odd look, and the silence bothered me.

“So… after the fight, you two became close.”

“Yeah. After that, I kept bugging him to teach me how to fight, so he took me to his grandfather’s gym.”

“How old were you?”

“Twelve. That gym became my favorite hangout. We’d spend most of our free time there with Drew and David.”

“Were you any good?”

“Hell, yeah.” His smile lit up his hazel eyes.

“So why aren’t you fighting instead of training?”

His smile dimmed, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat and gazed out the window. When he looked back my way there was sadness there. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.

“I got into a car accident a few years ago. Broke my arm in two places, a couple ribs, and my knee got crushed under the dash. After that, my career as a fighter was over.”

Holy shit.

“I’m sorry that happened to you.”

He shrugged, but I knew how one instant could change your life. Alec didn’t walk away from his accident, and it changed everyone who loved him.

“It changed me, but it also affected Ryder. Too much has happened to him. David left, and then he was sure I’d die after they cut me out of that wreckage. Did I mention he was there? He’d been following behind me, so he watched as I skidded off the road and smashed into a tree.”

That was horrible. Ty was like a brother to him, and I could only imagine how devastated he was that night.

“Then he lost Alec without ever getting a chance to fix things. Alec was a great kid, and we all missed having him around.”

I looked up at him in surprise. “You knew Alec?”

He nodded. “Ryder used to bring him around all the time. When everything went down, Alec came by the gym a couple times but stopped when he realized how distant Ryder had become. When Alec died… he really regretted cutting him off, and then he pulled you out of the ocean. I didn’t know how much that night changed him until he became fixated on you.”

“You think he’s fixated on me?” I sat up in my seat, hoping I wasn’t some crazy fascination Ryder would eventually get bored with. He ran a hand over his face and sighed.

“I don’t mean he’s just fixated on you. He’s obviously had feelings for you for years, but after that night, it’s like he finally accepted what he felt.”

“Feelings? For me? How do you know?” I wrung my hands nervously. Ty glanced down at them, placing his hands over mine to still my movements before meeting my gaze.

“Because I know him, and he’s never been this way with anyone.”

Ryder walked up to the table, looked at our joined hands, and frowned.

“Are you two still talking about me?”

“Maybe.” I smiled at him as he slid in next to me in the booth. Ty took his hand off mine, and I put my hand on Ryder’s thigh. His muscles tensed under my touch, and he gave me a warning glare as my hand traveled up, then stilled when I felt his erection pushing against the material of his pants. It was definitely time I fixed that problem.

~*~*~

When we got back to Ryder’s place, his patience vanished and his need to possess me escalated. He dragged me into his room and threw me down onto his bed, pulling his shirt over his head. The slivers of sunlight coming through the blinds illuminated his rippled body.