Shadowboxer (Tapped Out 1)

“Make me bleed. Make me hurt like you.”

I didn’t understand what he was saying. What it meant. But I fought like the wild animal I was, bucking my hips and lifting my shoulders from the mattress again and again. Jerking and twisting, gyrating under him until I got my leg free and brought my knee up. Connecting with his ribs, his gut. His surprise at the ferocity of my attack gave me the opportunity to yank my hand free and I scratched his back, his arms. Rearing up, I bit and clawed at his skin. Bruising him like I was bruised, making us the same.

He tried to hold me down, his power all the more incredible because he kept it leashed. He never struck out. Never used his fists or his teeth or his cock to injure me further, to take more than I’d consented to give.

Never frightened me, even when his body blanketed mine. And when I started to cry, he did too.

My sobs racked my chest, ripping from me with a force that I’d never known before. I couldn’t get the pain out. It was eating me up, tearing through internal organs. Carving into soft tissue until only the agony remained. For the first time I let it consume me, scarcely aware of the body on top of me. Holding me. Crying with me.

“Let it out. I’m here. I’m here.”

His mouth found mine, clung. I tasted his tears as they smeared over my skin. Felt his heart slamming beat for beat with mine.

His fingers binding, my hips rising. Seeking. His descending, pressing close. Opening to him, him filling me. Sobbing through it, my tears slowing only as the pleasure built, a blind need that was more than thought, more than desire. Giving myself over to something beyond hurt and desperation.

And through it all, knowing I wasn’t alone. Never alone.

The release poured through me, overwhelming in its intensity. Drenching me like the surf at high tide, washing away everything that had come before and leaving behind what matter

ed. Him and I, together.

Me, still alive. Still fighting to be whole. Still breathing.

“I love you, Mia,” he gasped as his own release took him. “I’m not letting you go.”

I wrapped my arms around him, tighter than I’d ever held anyone, and breathed in deep as he shuddered in my arms. He was stronger than I’d ever dreamed, but somehow he was weak for me.

And this time, he’d come inside me. Not like last time when he’d gone off on my stomach. He really did trust me.

Maybe he really loved me too.

Tears drenched my eyes but I could still make out his features in the dark. They were imprinted on my heart. “Don’t let me go. Please.”

“I won’t.” He breathed the promise against my lips. “I won’t let go.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Tray

The fly woke me.

Buzzing near my ear, tiny wings fluttering over my cheek. I slapped at it, mumbling curses, rolling over in bed to grab the soft, warm body I’d cleaved to in the night.

She wasn’t there.

My eyes flew open and I sat up in bed, a sound leaving my throat that verged on a snarl. I was already praying like hell when I scrambled up. Nearly crashing to the floor as my foot caught in the sheet, oblivious to anything but finding her. I bumped the nightstand and my alarm clock fell, shattering into pieces. Hunk of fricking junk. I kicked it aside and stumbled to the bathroom, pushing my way inside and pivoting around to look in every corner as if she could cram herself into spaces as tight as the fly.

Not a trace of her anywhere.

Grabbing a towel, I hitched it around my waist and lurched back into my room. Hands already fisted. The sheets hung off the bed, tangled and spattered with blood. She’d scratched welts in me that opened up again as I stalked down the hall, straining to see with my one good eye. I already knew she wouldn’t be there. My place felt empty. Like the breaths rattling from my chest as I struggled not to lose it completely were echoing in an old, abandoned tomb.

“Don’t let me go.”

I’d failed her again. Worse, I’d failed myself. I’d battled for her last night with everything I had, and I’d fallen asleep thinking I’d won. Dreamed the exhausted sleep of the victorious. As long as the road ahead was, as many cracks and potholes covered the ground, I had truly believed we’d cleared that first hurdle.

We were together. No matter what, we’d be okay.

What a fucking joke.