Breathless (The Game 3)

Final preparations for tonight’s event were in full swing, and Kit and I had been tasked with attaching lube dispensers in the cages. Since they shouldn’t be in the way during fights, we were strapping them to a couple of bars so that the dispensers could be turned outside the cage too.

“I dunno.” Kit shrugged and squinted in the sun. “Colt always gets the upper hand over me, so I’m fine with them placing lube all over the damn place. If they’re gonna win every time, might as well make the loss as comfortable as possible.”

But I wasn’t going to lose.

“Reese won’t defeat me,” I responded. After attaching the cable tie around the neck of the lube bottle, I bent down and grabbed one more tie from the bag on the floor.

“You seem confident,” Kit noted carefully. He assisted me by cutting off the excess plastic and making sure the thin foam strips we’d covered the insides of the bars with didn’t get damaged.

I replied as I checked and rechecked the foam strips along the bars, running my fingers up and down them and making sure the adhesive worked everywhere. “My dad trained me. He was a two-time national champion in kung fu and an international champion in tae kwon do. Add years of training in judo, Krav Maga, and combat sambo to that. Martial arts were his passion.”

He’d loved his job too, but he’d built a whole community around martial arts. Getting kids off the streets and into his training center had brought our family together at tournaments and late-night classes, with everyone shouldering a role.

“I never met anyone who could defeat him,” I went on. “And I became his official student when I was seven. By the time I was twenty, he was the only one I couldn’t take on and win.” Fuck, I probably shouldn’t have said that out loud.

I knew I sounded like a pathetic little boy who viewed his father as a hero—like most kids did.

“Anyway.” I cleared my throat and glanced up toward the house. “We should go see if there’s anything else we can do.”In the kitchen of the main house, Tate and I poured approximately fifteen bowls of chips and peanuts, and there was plenty left for refills too. The two fridges were packed with soda, beer, water, and freaking juice boxes, and that was just out here. We’d already helped Colt and Penelope restock the bar as well as the supply shack next to the patio.

They didn’t mess around for these events.

I had an unfunny feeling in the pit of my stomach, but it had to be nerves. I told myself it was nerves. It was the first time I was joining a major event with this community, and I was in a kink triad with the two men who’d started it all.

River and Reese poured their souls into this place.

“All right, what’s left to do?” I threw away the last of the empty chips bags in the trash, then turned to Tate. He’d just finished putting plastic wrap over the snack bowls.

The cages were ready, the playlist was set in the club area, the bar was stocked, the seating areas on the patio—and some of the loungers around the pool—were prepared. All the cushions had been flipped and dusted off, some blankets had been added for when darkness fell, and mosquito-repelling candles had been placed on all the tables. There was even a first aid station set up on the porch of the southern cabin, which was closest to the fighting cages.

These people thought of everything.

“I’m not sure.” Tate eyed the list we’d been given. “Kit took care of the Little Bar, right?”

I nodded and threw a glance at the clock on the wall. River had told me he wanted me ready at his side at six PM, which gave me two hours, and all I had to do to “prepare” was shower and pull on a pair of black briefs. It would be my outfit until it was time to fight.

The door to the kitchen opened, and Reese poked his head in.

“Shay, you can come with me.”

“Okay. We’re kind of done here,” I said.

Reese looked over at Tate. “Luke’s on the patio. If there’s more to do, he’ll know.”

Tate offered a two-finger salute, and I followed Reese out—and apparently we were heading to the office to the right.

He was acting very “business.” He gestured for me to sit in one of the chairs in front of the desk while he walked behind it, and there was no Daddy smile on his face.

“Everything okay?” I asked, closing the door behind me.

He sat down in his desk chair and got straight to it. “It goes without saying that friends should value one another’s privacy and integrity, but we like to put safety first here. That’s why we have a good little tradition in our community where, if someone is worried about their friend, they can go to their Dom or another person in charge, and they can voice those worries.”