Shadowboxer (Tapped Out 1)

“I don’t hate you. How could I?”

He kissed my cheeks, his murmured question mortifying me with the knowledge I’d spoken my worst fears aloud. Some of them anyway.

“I want to be with you. I know it doesn’t make sense. It’s too soon, you’re not ready, but Mia, I—”

“No,” I begged, pushing at his shoulder. Suddenly his big body ranging over mine became a giant slab of rock sitting on my lungs. “Get up. Get off me.”

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nbsp; “No.” His arms banded around me, so tight that I started to choke. He lessened his hold a fraction, but didn’t come close to releasing me. “You think I’m letting you leave after what just happened between us? Hell fucking no. Stay here with me and we’ll figure it out.” His voice cracked. “Please.”

I blinked through the tears and glimpsed his pained, haunted eyes. My tears hesitated, clogging somewhere near my throat. The only sounds I could make were racking gasps.

Why did he look like he’d been through something horrific too? As if he understood what I’d been through, or maybe as if he knew—

I went wild in his arms, my shame and my terror coagulating into a sludge so thick that I couldn’t draw breath. He hadn’t expected me to go completely batshit crazy, and that was the only reason I got free. His strength was a truly awesome thing, when he wasn’t using it against me. Or maybe he was using for me. I couldn’t tell anymore.

Scrambling away from him, barely able to see through the curtain of tears, I stumbled toward the couch, nearly tumbling over the whimpering dog who kept trying to lick my bare legs. I hadn’t noticed Vey coming back into the room. Couldn’t focus on anything except the fiery panic trying to eat me alive.

Somewhere in my rational mind I remembered the glass when it bit into my feet, but the pain only cemented my resolve. I had to get away. A total breakdown was coming, barreling toward me like a train jumping the tracks and heading straight for Crazyville. If I didn’t get home and sleep it off, I’d be in a padded cell before morning.

“Mia. Baby, wait.”

Every piece of clothing I picked up, he took back. We traded them back and forth until, at wit’s end, I balled up my fist, pulled back, and swung.

His head snapped back, his pupils going wide. He cupped his jaw, staring at me with a mixture of shock, irritation and…admiration? He was a sick fuck if he was impressed by a girl cold-cocking him after he gave her oral sex. Incredible oral sex.

Sick and sorry and so freaking perfect for me that I only cried harder.

“You could’ve broken my jaw.”

The awe in his voice slowed me down long enough to shoot an incredulous glance over my shoulder. Yeah, I could’ve broken it and my now swollen hand, as well. Somehow I’d managed to get on my bra and the shorts and instead of him looking at me like I was Batshit Crazy girl, he was fixated on my ass.

Hysterical laughter poured out of me, tangling with my leftover afterglow and the torrent of tears. Making me sound as insane as we both looked. There we were, standing on a floor full of broken glass, me laughing and crying, him with a bruising jaw and swollen lips that had to still taste like me. His eyes were still full of want. Maybe even more than before. He hadn’t undressed, and yet he might as well have been naked before me, as humbled and as bare as I was.

It made no sense. None of this did. He was healing and killing me with the same blows.

He worked his jaw, wincing, and guilt welled up in me. Cornered animals strike out without compunction, but he deserved better than that. Better than me. “Tray, I’m so—”

“No.” He cut me off. “Don’t apologize and don’t go.”

I nudged Veyron aside and tugged on my jeans. My hands were shaking too hard to work the zipper on the first try. And the knuckles on my right hand were fucking throbbing. It felt like I’d punched a slab of concrete. “I have to.”

“Bullshit. That’s a choice you’re making, just like you decided to come here tonight to yell at me over the gloves. But that was an excuse. You missed me. Just like I missed you. Like I’ll miss you the second you fucking walk out that door.”

I didn’t reply. What could I say? That he was right? That it didn’t matter even if he was?

“I’m going to be in damn knots until I see you again. Do you get that, Mia?” He grabbed hold of my shoulders and flinched, probably from his torn-up hand. Resignation drifted over his features. “And you’re still going to go.”

Desperate for space, for air, I elbowed him away and pulled on my hoodie. I yanked on the zipper and the piece of crap broke off in my hand. The worn silver plating mocked me as I stared at it in my palm. Tarnished and cheap. Not worth saving.

I turned, pushing past Tray’s sweet dog and my own inadequacies. Shoving them back into the box they’d been in all these years. If I could just force the lid down, I’d be okay. I’d survive this too.

Something soft fell out of my pocket onto my bare feet. The gloves. Without looking, I bent to gather them up and clutched them to my chest. I knew them by feel, by smell. I’d torture myself by wearing them, by pretending I understood even for a moment what it was like to have someone care about me. All of me, even the dented, damaged beyond repair parts. I’d sleep in his jacket and remember his reverence and his eyes and the way I’d felt cherished before the truth of what I held inside had rejected it all.

In one week’s time, he’d pulled the best and the worst out of me. This torturous back and forth had to end. The price wasn’t my body, but my psyche. My physical form could withstand way more damage than my mind. Once it shattered completely, I wouldn’t come back from it.

The irony was that what had nearly sent me over the edge wasn’t hate or rage or pain. Those I understood. It was love.