Warrior Fight Club #1
By Laura Kaye
Coming May 22, 2018
Click to pre-order
Loving her is the biggest fight of his life…
Home from the Marines, Noah Cortez has a secret he doesn’t want his oldest friend, Kristina Moore, to know. It kills him to push her away, especially when he’s noticing just how sexy and confident she’s become in his absence. But, angry and full of fight, he’s not the same man anymore either. Which is why Warrior Fight Club sounds so good.
Kristina loves teaching, but she wants more out of life. She wants Noah—the boy she’s crushed on and waited for. Except Noah is all man now—in ways both oh so good and troubling, too. Still, she wants who he’s become—every war-hardened inch. And when they finally stop fighting their attraction, it’s everything Kristina never dared hope for.
But Noah is secretly spiraling, and when he lashes out, it threatens what he and Kristina have found. The brotherhood of the fight club helps him confront his demons, but only Noah can convince the woman he loves that he’s finally ready to fight for everything.
* * * *
Noah had really gone and done it now, hadn’t he? Opened his mouth and spewed his poison at one of the most important people in his life. And tonight was supposed to be all about making amends.
Goddamnit, the minute he came out of that flashback he should’ve gotten the hell away from her. He’d just been so shell-shocked by how realistic it had seemed. The anti-aircraft fire. The crashing Blackhawk. The screaming chaos. He’d been even more stunned that Kristina had kissed him to pull him back—and that it had worked.
He shook his head, ignoring the fuck out of the wave of dizziness that threatened, and grabbed the doorknob. “I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
“No,” she said, her voice stern. Frowning, he dragged his gaze to her to see her fingers working at the knot in her dress’s belt. She pulled it apart and let the fabric fall. The dress swung open, baring her all down the front. “You need me. Have me.”
He blinked, once, twice, and his jaw fell open.
Jesus. She was beautiful, gorgeous, a fucking fantasy of soft, feminine curves. His pulse beat so hard he could feel it beneath his skin. Everywhere.
Noah gripped the doorknob harder, anchoring him in the moment. Keeping him from taking something that wasn’t his to take. No matter how much he might want it. “Kris—”
“Have me, Noah.” She shrugged the dress off her shoulders. It fell to the floor in a soft rush, leaving Kristina standing there in a pair of strappy silver sandals and a matching pale blue and white satin bra-and-panty set.
He couldn’t do this. Not to her, not to them. But his brain seemed to be the only part of him riding the do-the-right-thing train. Because his heart wanted. And his cock fucking needed. He licked his lips and shook his head, feeling solid ground slide out from beneath his feet with every breath. “I’m a fucking wreck, Kristina.”
“Then be my fucking wreck.” She shrugged and shifted her feet, and Noah studied these small movements, trying to decipher what they meant. “Just for tonight.”
“Just for tonight?” He tried out the words—and their meaning. Could he really let himself have her…just this once? The idea that he could escape all the bullshit in his head—just for one night, the idea that he could work out this crazy desire for her…and maybe get it out of his system. It was all so damn tempting. She was so damn tempting. When had that happened? Why was he seeing her so differently? And did any of that even matter? “I don’t want to use you,” he said, his thoughts flying and tearing him in two.
She stepped closer. Heat flashed over Noah’s skin. God, she was brave. So much braver than him. “You wouldn’t,” Kristina said. “Because I…I want you to fuck me, Noah. You think you’re the only one dreaming of that? Imagining it? Fantasizing about it? I wake up from those dreams and you’re not there…and it hurts. It feels like there’s a fire inside me that only you can cool. So maybe, maybe if we do this, if we give in, just this once…”
Her words resonated inside him, so deep it was like she was speaking his mind. “What?” he asked, his heart a runaway train in his chest.
“Maybe it will get rid of this tension between us.” She hugged herself, plumping those beautiful breasts and making waves of soft blond fall around her shoulders.
He let go of the doorknob, but forced his feet to remain planted right where they were. Because if he got any closer to her, his brain was going to be off the hook for the rest of the night. “So this would be…just sex?” he asked, his chest rising and falling heavily.
Nodding, she looked him right in the eye. “Just sex. Just this one night.”
He swallowed. Hard. He was so damn hungry for her, and that made him hesitate when all he wanted to do was give in. “I’m strung so tight right now, Kristina. I don’t know if I can be gentle.” He shook his head and forced his fists to unclench, but aggression was a living beast within him. “That wouldn’t be right. That wouldn’t be—”
“I don’t want gentle, Noah.” The smile she gave him was so confident, so sexy. When had she become so goddamned amazing? Or had she always been? “I just want you, however you are.”
One second he was standing at the door, the next he was all over her. Hands in her hair, forcing her head back and her mouth open to him. Lips sliding over hers, claiming, sucking, tongue penetrating. Body fused to hers, pushing her back, one stumbling step after another, and trying to get closer. And closer. And closer.
“Oh God,” Kristina moaned, her hands clutching at his neck, his shoulders, his hair.
“One night,” he said, lifting her and wrapping her thighs around his hips. Her ass felt so lush in his hands he couldn’t help squeezing.
“One night. I need you. Now. Here. Anywhere.”
Sucking and licking at her throat, he stalked down the hall toward her bedroom. “No. I want you under me.” In her room, he went right for her big bed with all its pretty blue and yellow covers and pillows. Standing beside the bed, he laid her out, the weight of his upper body coming down on top of her and making him grind right against the delicious heat between her legs.
“Oh, yes,” Kristina said, her hips thrusting against his.
Nearly frantic, he fumbled at the buttons to his jeans. “Need in you.”
“Yeah.”
“Promise I’ll take care of you.” He shoved his jeans down around his thighs, freeing his cock against the satin of her panties.
Kristina moaned. “I know you will.”
“Fuck, need you. Need you so much.” He tugged her panties off, then took himself in hand. Standing between her spread thighs, he rubbed his head against her entrance, feeling her wetness, spreading it around. He wished he could go slower, savor, linger. She braced her feet against the edge of the bed and pushed, trying to impale herself on him. “Shit. Condom,” he said. Resisting the urge to plunge forward was almost painful.
“On birth control. Now, Noah.”
On a groan, he was inside her, sinking deep, finding home. Fucking hot and tight and perfect. And then he was all the way there, buried deep, as deep as he could go. Just like he’d been yearning for. Only the reality was worlds better than anything his imagination had been able to conjure. It was so good it sent him flying.
He came down over her as much as the position allowed, his hands curling around her shoulders.
She cried out, her hands clawing at his back. “Holy shit, you’re big.”
“You okay?” he asked, the comment making his balls heavy and sending an urgent demand to move down his spine.
“So much more than okay,” Kristina said in a breathy, awed voice.
“Then hold on.”