Breathless (The Game 3)

Reese responded by extending his hand.

Holy fuck. Was this possible? All I had to do was defeat him in a fight, and then he and his brother would kick my ass and degrade me once a week?

So this was what it felt like to win the lottery.

I shook his hand and agreed to the terms.

I guess I was kicking a Sadist’s ass tonight.ThreeReese TenleySo far, so good.

As we left the club, both River and Shay lit up smokes.

The kid didn’t lack confidence; he was casual and seemingly had no issues whatsoever leaving DC to go with two strange men to their place. Did he automatically believe everyone in BDSM was a good guy? Or did he just not care?

Good change in direction by River, though, to move the fight from an illegal underground club to our house. I should’ve come up with that sooner. I probably would have, if I had feared such a location.

“Our truck’s this way.” I nodded up the street. “Now’s the time for you to ask questions.”

He took a drag from his smoke and walked alongside me while River fell behind and checked his phone.

“Am I supposed to have questions?” Shay wondered. “I don’t wanna be stuck out there with y’all for two weeks, but you’re not gonna win, so it doesn’t matter.”

I shook my head. “You forget that we’ve seen you fight.”

“Huh? No. Not one bit. But I barely use half of what I know at those things,” he said. “There comes a time when it’s no longer about not underestimating your opponent. I just haven’t met a single stranger in five years who could beat me.” At my frown, he quickly tacked on, “I haven’t fought in cages for that long—just a few months.”

So he was basing that on men he’d trained against? Or competed against?

“What makes you so sure?” He turned the question on me.

“Life,” I replied distractedly. Something wasn’t adding up. Who the hell had he been fighting in order to get so cocky? It didn’t make a lick of sense, given that River had called him sharp.

“Life,” Shay stated flatly.

“Mm. After we got outta the Army, I spent eighteen years as River’s personal security detail in some of the most hostile environments on the planet. Life.”

Shay could ponder that for a moment.

“You…you were in the Army?” he asked.

“Not very long,” I replied. “We went through basic training. Top of the class too. But when all was said and done, we only did the bare minimum because there was already talk of separating us.” I’d fucking hated the Army, though it had nothing to do with the military branch and everything to do with the anxiety we’d felt at the prospect of being stationed at different bases. We’d wised up quickly and gotten out, thankfully. “First thing we did when we got out was to go to this bar for old grunts and get wasted. There, we met a British guy who took us under his wing. He introduced us to the private sector and put us through the roughest training imaginable.”

Showing Shay a glimpse of what was in my arsenal, to use my brother’s words, made an impact on him. He quieted down and stared at the ground as we walked up another street.

“Have you heard of the SAS?” I asked him.

He squinted and exhaled some smoke. “Isn’t that some special forces type of branch?”

I nodded. “One of the most elite forces out there. The British guy was SAS. He used everything he’d been put through at their selection and wouldn’t work with Riv and me until we’d gone through it too.”

“I get it,” Shay bit out with some annoyance. “You can fight. Whatever. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Oh, it meant everything—to anyone who reasoned logically. But something was telling me that Shay’s argument came from somewhere else entirely.

I decided to shelve that for later. We were almost at River’s truck, and we had other things to discuss before we reached Mclean.

“Let’s talk limits.” I gave the back of his neck a squeeze and lingered, wanting him to get used to my hands on him. Because when this ridiculous fight tonight was over, he’d feel them a lot. “Do you have your own safeword, or do you use the color system?”

He rolled his eyes. “I prefer not to use one at all.”

“Good thing masochists are used to being denied.”

I wasn’t convinced he actually was a masochist yet, but it wouldn’t be difficult to find out.

But the text on his T-shirt was a cute touch.

“Color system, I guess,” he said with a shrug. Then he glanced back at my arm. “Are you afraid I’m gonna run away from you?”

“No.” With my hold on his neck, I slowed him down and gestured toward River’s F-350 off the sidewalk before I released him. “In my experience, some casual touches make it less of a shock later when I try to fuck them.”