“You can screw whoever you want, Kingston. Don’t let me stop you.”
Kingston's heated gaze travels the length of my body, and I've never felt more like a zebra in a lion's den than I do now. "I'm well aware of my options, Jazz. Just because I can fuck someone else, doesn’t mean I want to." He holds up his left hand. "If you're not on the table, then this'll have to do while I imagine it's your mouth."
Nope. Not going to think about Kingston touching himself. Or you know, sucking him off.
Damn it.
He smiles when heat rises to my face. “You okay there, Jazz? You’re looking a little flushed all of a sudden.”
I flip him off. “Bite me.”
“Name the time and place.”
I wave him off. “Stick to the subject. So, how does this thing work? Do you just go out and start a brawl?”
He motions for my water bottle, so I hand it to him. After taking a big gulp, he says, “There’s an underground ring in LA. A few, actually. I put some feelers out and got my name on a card.”
“An underground ring,” I repeat. “As in, illegal?”
Kingston shrugs. “It’s certainly not sanctioned by the UFC.”
I lean against the counter and cross my arms over my chest. “How often do you do this?”
He guzzles the remainder of my water. “I haven’t done it in almost two years, actually.”
Well, I wasn’t expecting that. “So, why now?”
“I couldn’t calm down after hearing your version of the events that night.” Kingston rakes his hands through his thick hair. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t get the images of finding you like that out of my head. Couldn’t stop feeling like the world’s biggest piece of shit for putting you in that situation in the first place. When I fight, all the chaos in my head is silenced.” He shrugs. “At least for a little while.”
I step forward and link his fingers through mine. “Kingston, I don’t blame you for what happened that night.”
I didn’t realize it until now, but I don’t. Not anymore.
He scoffs. “Well, you should.”
I shake my head. "If those guys were telling the truth about being hired—which at this point, I'm pretty sure they were—they would've gotten to me eventually. Maybe not that night, but soon after that."
Kingston’s grip tightens. “I’m going to fucking kill those bastards when I find out who they are.”
“Speaking of...where do we even begin?”
“If we can figure out who hired them, it’d be much easier to identify the henchmen. Process of elimination is a good start for that. The person behind it would’ve had to have been someone with the assets to pay for it.”
“That doesn’t exactly narrow it down now, does it?”
He thinks about that for a moment. “Yes...and no. Peyton is at the top of my suspect list—especially after she nearly claimed responsibility—but she doesn’t really have the money for that to make sense.”
“What do you mean? Isn’t she like, a mega-billionaire?”
“Technically, not until she gets her inheritance. Not a dime can be liquidated until all the terms are met. The only money she has right now is Daddy Callahan’s credit card. It’s not like she could pay for something like that with plastic.”
“Well, shit.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “But...Peyton is resourceful when she wants something. She uses everything she has at her disposal to get it.”
“If she doesn’t have any actual cash, what’s left?”
“With Peyton...take your pick. She could blackmail someone, promise them favors. Offer her body. If she wants something—or someone—bad enough, nothing is off the table.”