Shattered (11 page)

The throbbing wetness between my legs cried
out for Anderson’s touch. As usual, he didn’t disappoint. Pushing
me against the mirrored wall, Anderson sank to his knees before me,
pushing my knees up and out, as far as they could go. I watched,
wide-eyed, as he grinned at me and lowered those firm lips to my
hot, wet slit. A low moaned escaped my lips as he flattened his
masterful tongue against me, licking all along the length of my
eager opening. He ran his tongue over my flesh in with slow
determination, caressing every fold of me. Finally, his beautiful
lips closed around that aching nub and unleashed a sensation of
unspeakable pleasure. A huge spasm coursed through my body as he
flicked his tongue against that swollen button, driving me out of
my mind.

I tangled my fingers in his curls, pulling
his mouth ever closer to me. He licked and sucked with fervor, my
pleasure turning him on all the more. I bucked my hips against his
glorious mouth, letting myself be subsumed by the unimaginable
satisfaction he was giving me. Just as I thought I couldn’t
possibly handle more sensation, Anderson slid two thick fingers
into me, flexing against my slick, silky flesh. I let out a moan
that echoed against the marble walls as my passion built inside me.
In my bliss, I reached for Anderson’s throbbing erection and
wrapped my hands around its massive width. He groaned, low in his
throat, as I worked my hands up and down the length of him. He’d
already grown long and stiff from pleasuring me, but as I caressed
him, he became even more rock solid in my hands.

As I came down from the peak of my orgasm,
Anderson wrapped his arms around the small of my back. I slid my
legs around him as he pulled me from the counter, suspended just
above his throbbing member. He wrenched open the shower door and a
wall of steam came to greet us, to draw us in. He carried me into
the big glass stall, all but shattering the door behind us. The
water was scorching hot, but the burn was fantastic. I lowered
myself from Anderson’s arms and leaned back against the tile wall,
the water coursed through my hair and down my shoulders. For a
moment, he simply stood across from me, taking in the sight of me
wet and wanting before him. His member was standing straight up,
pointing toward me like a compass toward true north. My legs were
trembling with desire—it was a miracle that I could stay upright at
all.

Slowly, Anderson closed the space between our
bodies. He made his way into the hot spray of water, and I watched
as rivulets ran down his swollen muscles, over his fine chest and
firm thighs. He drew up before me, and I couldn’t help myself. I
took his lengthy manhood between my hands again, savoring the thick
feel of him. He closed his eyes and planted his hands above me on
the shower wall. As he leaned into my caresses, my breasts billowed
against his hard chest. We breathed heavily against each other as I
worked him into a frenzy with my hands. Finally, when neither of us
could stand it a moment longer, Anderson knocked my hands away and
guided himself to my aching entry.

He thrust himself inside of me, pinning me
against the wall with the force of his desire. I held onto to his
bulging arms for support as I cried out. He drew back and drove in
again, opening and filling the very deepest parts of me. His
pummeling thrusts came hard and fast, and I burrowed my face into
his neck, moaning uncontrollably. I could feel his every muscle
begin to tense as he barreled toward orgasm. He seemed to grow
longer with every passing thrust.

Anderson drew back until I held just the tip
of him inside of me. Our eyes locked, and time seemed to stand
still. Then, with a howl of pure bliss, he drove up inside of me
one final time, colliding with that spot behind my navel that was
the key to my ecstasy. Our voices twined together, bouncing off the
walls and creating a cacophonous symphony. I felt Anderson pulse
within me, and felt warmth surging and spreading through my body. I
held him tightly as he came, clinging onto him for all I was
worth.

As the sensation passed through us and
Anderson slipped out from inside of me, we stayed locked in each
others’ arms beneath the steamy stream. Our breaths were coming
fast, and my every cell seemed to be trembling with the force of
Anderson’s attentions. I never felt as spent and as rapturously
fulfilled as I did after making love to him. I blinked up in the
warm mist toward his endlessly deep eyes. Anderson cupped my chin
and brought my lips to his, kissing me long and hard as the water
cascaded around us.

Wordlessly, miraculously, we fell to washing
each other. Of all the things we’d done together in the week of our
acquaintance, this was perhaps the most personal, the most sensual.
We rubbed our sudsy hands over each other’s bodies. My fingers
worked and caressed his every muscle, every firm expanse of skin
and sinew. His strong hands cupped my curves, working over my skin
and leaving trails of heat wherever they touched. I giggled as I
massaged shampoo into his curls, washing away the sweat that had
collected there during his hours at the gym. We stayed under the
hot stream of water until our fingers were seamed and our skin was
scrubbed clean.

Anderson brought me a towel and wrapped me
up, pulling me against his body once more. I melted into his
embrace, our naked bodies separated by only the soft bath towels.
The mirrors all around us were fogged up, the air heavy with steam.
The warm air of the apartment seemed downright chilly as we headed
into the bedroom to change into something more substantial than a
pair of towels. The day was creeping along, and I decided to choose
a dress for that evening’s fight.

“What do you think,” I asked, holding up
another, even shorter red dress with a fringed hem, “Would this be
good for tonight?”

Anderson appraised the dress as he pulled on
a pair of perfectly cut jeans. “What were you wearing the first
night?” he asked.

“That other red dress,” I said, “You know the
one.”

“Right,” he said, “Well, you can’t wear red
twice in a row. That’s bad luck.”

“Bad luck?” I asked, surprised. “What are
you, superstitious?”

“I wouldn’t call it superstition,” Anderson
said, pulling a back tee shirt over his head, “I just don’t like to
take chances about these kinds of things.”

“These kinds of things? Like the color of my
dress?” I laughed, “That seems like a pretty arbitrary thing to
worry about.”

“Maybe,” Anderson said, “But I’ve been
breaking quite a few of my good luck rituals these days. I want to
make sure that I hold on to at least a couple. So, no. You can’t
wear red two nights in a row.”

“What rituals?” I asked, looking for another
dress that might be appropriate for the fight.

“Well...” Anderson started, “I’ve never
exactly, uh...seen anyone so close to a fight. If you know what I
mean.”

“I don’t,” I said.

“I, uh...haven’t ever lived with a woman
while I was preparing for a fight,” Anderson said, “And I’ve
certainly never slept with anyone so often, leading up to a
match.”

I looked over at him in surprise. “But
Anderson,” I said, “We just...we’ve been...”

“I know,” he laughed, “Throwing caution to
the wind, right?”

“I don’t want to be your bad luck charm,” I
said quickly, forgetting about my wardrobe. “Anderson, what if you
lose a fight because of me? I could never forgive myself. You’d be
kicked out of the league, your whole livelihood—”

“Hey, hey,” he said, coming toward me,
“Listen to yourself for a minute. You don’t honestly think that
being here with you is going to mess me up in the ring, do
you?”

But I could hear the worry in his voice. “You
have no way of knowing,” I said. “What if I distract...” I trailed
off, a sudden realization stealing the words from my mouth.

The night of the last fight, Anderson had
been embroiled in his match...until one moment, he happened to look
up into the crowd. He’d stopped paying attention to the fight to
find me up above and give me a smile. In the brief time he was
unfocused, his opponent had landed an excellent blow, his one and
only of the fight. Anderson would never have been hit if he hadn’t
taken a moment to look for me. It was my fault that the other
fighter had been able to drop Anderson to the sand. And from that
moment on, there had been silence from the other side of the box
where I’d been sitting.

That was why Robert had turned cold to me.
He’d seen that Anderson let himself get distracted by my presence.
He knew that it was my fault. No wonder he had been so angry. If
Anderson had been hit a little harder, he could have lost his spot
in the league entirely. To Robert, I was bad news. A distraction.
Someone to be hated and rid of as soon as possible.

“Kaela,” Anderson said, “Are you OK?”

I shook my head to dislodge my fears. There
was no way I could articulate my concern to him. Robert had been
like a father to him, and I knew that Anderson held his opinions in
very high esteem. If I voiced my worry, maybe Anderson would be
convinced. If Robert thought that I was a jinx, Anderson might come
to feel that way too. I decided to keep mum. Surely, that night’s
fight would be far more successful. If it went off without a hitch,
Robert would have no reason to suspect that I was throwing off
Anderson’s fighting. I forced my lips into a smile and looked up
into Anderson’s troubled face.

“I’m fine,” I said, “I just...I can’t figure
out which dress to wear! Why don’t you pick it for me...?”

I prepared for the match, fighting to keep a
cheerful smile on my face. The last thing I wanted to do was plant
a seed of doubt in Anderson’s head before a big match. For his
part, Anderson remained oblivious to the anxiety that was gnawing
away at me. As the fight approached, his focus narrowed sharply. He
was already channeling all of his attention and energy toward the
altercation that was soon to come. Watching him get in the zone for
his fight was fascinating—I was entranced by the way his mind and
body worked together. He’d been so finely trained that watching him
get ready for a fight was like listening to an orchestra tuning up
before a symphony. All of his muscles were preparing for the brawl,
arranging and coordinating. No wonder sex with him was so an
incredible. When we made love, I was the focus of all that
brilliant energy. How did I get so lucky...I could never presume to
guess.

In the end I settled on a tight black dress
with a fine lacy overlay. The back of the dress was cutout, leaving
the curve of my spine and twin wingtips of my shoulder blades bare.
Anderson came up behind me as I made up my face in the mirror and
placed his powerful hands on my hips. I could see his eyes in the
mirror, could see that they were drinking in the sight of me with
desperate desire.

“You’d better not sit too close to the ring
tonight,” he said, his fingers tightening against my skin, “I’ll
get too distracted by how amazing you look.”

“Don’t even joke,” I told him, brushing
mascara onto my eyelashes. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me, a
possible fix. “You know,” I said, “I could always stay here, if you
think that having me at the match will mess things up.”

A troubled look clouded Anderson’s face.
“Skip the fight?” he said, “You want to skip the fight?”

“No, no,” I said, turning toward him, “I just
wanted to offer. In case you’d rather I didn’t come.”

“Why wouldn’t I want you to come?” Anderson
asked angrily.

“I don't know, I just thought it might be
better...” I said, shocked by his anger.

“Is there something wrong?” Anderson asked,
taking a step closer, “Did something happen at the last fight that
you didn’t mention?”

I thought about Robert’s angry gaze, the way
he’d turned cold the moment Anderson had been knocked down. I
wanted to tell Anderson all about my suspicions, but still I was
hesitant. “I don’t want to get inside your head right before the
match,” I said.

“But there is something?” Anderson
pressed.

“Well...Yeah, I suppose.”

“Tell me,” he said.

“Anderson—”

“Tell me what’s bothering you, Kaela. I’ll be
dwelling on it all night unless you come out and say what’s on your
mind.”

I took a deep breath, knowing that there was
no way to get out of talking this thing through. “OK,” I started,
“Remember last week, during the fight against Maelstrom...When he
was down for a second, you looked up into the stands and gave me a
little smile.”

“I thought you’d like that,” Anderson said,
placing his hands on the counter to either side of me.

“I did,” I assured him, “But...right after
that, Maelstrom took you down.”

“Yeah,” Anderson said, a note of
defensiveness creeping into his voice.

“Well...It kind of seemed like...Maybe you
got taken down because I was distracting you.”

“I don’t get distracted,” Anderson snapped,
looking at me darkly.

“Right,” I said, trying to keep the
conversation from spinning out of control, “It’s just...Robert
seemed really pissed off by the whole thing. Like maybe it was a
mistake for me to be there.”

“He said that?” Anderson said, shocked.

“No, not out loud,” I said, “He just looked
so angry. He was really nice to me when I got there, but after that
hit...”

“I’m sure it’s all in your head,” Anderson
said. But I could tell that the idea had stuck with him. It was
just as I’d feared.

“Forget I mentioned it,” I urged him, “I’m
probably just being a little sensitive. I was kind of
self-conscious, being the new girl and all.”

“Yeah,” Anderson said, straightening up,
“That makes sense.”

“I’ll be there tonight,” I told him, laying
my hands on his chest. “I’ll be there to support you, no matter
what.”

“It’s going to be a tough match tonight,” he
said, “Brayden Fusco is not an easy fighter to take down. The guy’s
record is almost spotless in the affiliate leagues.”