Shadowboxer (Tapped Out 1)

I couldn’t think anymore. All I cared about was chasing the pleasure and making sure he found it with me.

He got there first, grunting out his release, his hold on my hand so painful I cried out in actual fear he’d snap the bones. How could I fight with a broken hand? Then his battering strokes eased and he swiveled his hips, angling into me with such precision that I splintered beneath him. Around him. Shuddering and moaning his name as I rocketed upward to bury my face between his neck and shoulder.

“Tell me you don’t want more of this.” He grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him.

My vision blurred with sweat—I hoped it was only sweat—and turned him into an angry, vibrating haze above me. His body suddenly felt so huge and crushing now that I’d used it to quench my endless thirst.

“You tell me that,” he grated, “and I’ll fucking fight you.”

Sprawled beneath him, pinned by the overwhelming weight of his chest, I couldn’t see beyond the thoughts I’d had for months. I’d fight him,

make my money—more money than I could make that fast any other way, other than dealing drugs or becoming a high class hooker—and Carly and I would leave.

We’d leave the city, leave the daily struggle to survive every day. Leave him and all the men just like him. Glossy and untouchable and…clean.

New York represented my old life. Even though I’d left my aunt’s house upstate to come down to the city to fight, I was still too close. I couldn’t deal with the memories of what I’d tried to rebuild there out of the shards of the past.

It had always been such a simple plan. So easy to execute. Now it barely made sense.

I still had faith that I could use my wit and skill to outsmart Tray—Fox, dammit—in the ring long enough to get him to tap out. Even if I couldn’t, I’d still make more than I would in a regular chick brawl. If the crowds showed up to see my tits or to watch me get taken down, I didn’t really care as long as I got paid.

“Goddammit, Mia.” Abruptly, he pulled out of me.

I cried out, not because it hurt but because I hadn’t been prepared. He shot a glance at me, his eyes narrowed, the angle of his jaw as sharp as the blades carving me up inside. He disposed of the condom in the garbage can and fisted his hands on his thighs.

He knew what my answer was. What it had to be. Changing my mind now would feel like failure, and I couldn’t let myself down. I wore my scars on my body because the internal ones had scabbed over and gone numb. If all I was destined to feel was pain, at least it was mine.

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Stuff like this didn’t happen to girls like me. He’d given me his coat and accepted me as I am, but that didn’t mean he would tomorrow. We’d barely even talked. All we’d had were fights and sex. For people like us, that was our communication. Actions showed the truth. Words were often lies. Sometimes pretty ones, but lies just the same.

“We make a deal.” His voice had hollowed out. He didn’t sound like the Fox I knew.

What made me think I had any sort of handle on him? Why did it feel like I did?

I rolled on my side and wrapped my arms tight around my stomach. My belly twisted so precipitously I prayed I wouldn’t be sick. “Terms?”

“The fight will be four weeks from tomorrow.”

I nodded. That was what I’d been hoping for. “Agreed. We’ll start setting it up.”

“You spend one night with me beforehand.”

That didn’t sound so bad. A couple of days ago, it would have, but this had been one hell of a week. “Fine.”

“The whole night. From dusk to daylight. My place. My rules.”

Swallowing hard, I nodded. My voice had deserted me again.

He gazed at the side of my face, nearly singeing my skin with the force of his stare. “What I say goes completely. If I want to fuck you and sleep with you in my arms, it happens.”

I shivered from the implied threat in his words. If he’d said he was going to beat me black and blue, I’d have faced him with my fists up. But this?

I’d never slept in a bed with a man. I had a problem sleeping places I wasn’t used to in the first place. And he wanted me to curl up and…spoon? Or spork or whatever the hell it was called?

Not that I had a lot of choice. I’d begun to believe he would never say yes, even if I’d offered to do a naked line dance on his kitchen counter before giving him an upside down blowjob. This was almost a reasonable compromise.

“Okay.”

“Not saying that’s what I want to do. It could be anything. Absolutely anything, Mia.”