Chapter 5: Winner Takes All
There was no better feeling than a good burn.
At the risk of sounding like an overly muscled idiot, Torran admitted that the gym was nirvana to him. Before the money and before the fame, there had still been gyms. Of course, they were piece of shit facilities in hole in the wall joints, but that didn’t mean they were any less effective. In Torran’s mind, one didn’t need thousand dollar equipment to train. All you needed was iron will and something heavy to swing around.
The gym where he trained now was neither a hole in the wall or a high class facility, but it suited him just fine. When he wasn’t in his office or at home, this is where he came - and where he pushed himself until he was suitably sore. In the gym, he didn’t have to think about who he had to please or whose ledgers needed balancing. Since he wasn’t in his office, he didn’t even have to worry about going back upstairs to work.
Currently, he was working on the leg press machine - doing sets of ten before adding twenty pounds after each. As he worked his way towards his limit, he zoned out, his thoughts straying to his particularly confounding meeting from the previous week.
Savannah fucking Jones.
He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind since she’d so politely fucked off. Torran had tried everything he could think of. He’d gotten drunk out of his mind, punched something until it broke, he’d even spent a ridiculous amount of money on a new car that he didn’t need (and instantly regretted it). His last resort had been to seduce Amanda, even though she hadn’t seemed quite as alluring since Savannah had sashayed herself into his office.
He found that he couldn’t go through with it. Halfway through sucking her tits, he realized that his only motivation was wondering what color Savannah’s nipples were and he tossed her out of his apartment in disgust.
There was obviously something wrong with him. Torran had fucked his way through half the female population without ever lingering on a single woman. His reputation preceded him on that point and any woman idiotic enough to think she could tie him down was gone before she could blink.
He realized now that he hadn’t been laid in almost a month, and the fact worried him somewhat. Sure, he could go out and look for a warm, willing body, but he feared the result would be the same as his last attempt.
What the hell was so special about Savannah Jones anyway? It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen a woman of her ilk before. Legs for days, gorgeous dark curls, inviting honey eyes and a figure that just wouldn’t quit….but there was something else. The sharpness of her tongue, her refusal to take any of his bullshit, even if it meant she would be out of a job…
It had him wondering if she would be that fiery in bed.
Setting the three hundred pound bar he was using on the rack, he cursed lowly. This certainly wasn’t the time to be getting aroused. The gym wasn’t necessarily crowded at this hour, but if he popped a fucking erection, someone was going to notice.
Savannah had no business interrupting his work outs, even if she wasn’t physically present.
Shoving sweat soaked hair from his face, he moved to add more weight, forcing himself to think of accounting deadlines. Anything to keep from remembering how fucking sexy the subtle swing of his not-publicist’s hips was.
He was so absorbed in the memory that he almost didn’t notice when Ben, one of the trainers, stepped in front of him. “Torran.”
He was so startled he nearly dropped the three hundred and twenty pounds he was hefting. “What?” He barked, not enthusiastic at being interrupted. When he looked up at Ben, however, he was surprised to see that the bulky man looked somewhat confused. “What is it?”
Ben sighed, running a hand through bleached blonde hair. “You’re not going to believe this, but some chick recognized you and wants to spar.”
Torran blinked in surprise a moment before a snort of laughter escaped him. “You have to be fucking kidding me.” Perhaps this was his punishment for losing his focus recently - having to deal with a deranged fan. “Kick her out.”
“She won’t go.” Ben immediately countered, frowning deeply. “Says she won’t leave until you talk to her.”
Torran’s mouth pulled tight in displeasure. “So call the cops.”
“Come on, Torran.” Ben groaned. “I don’t need to deal with this shit today. Isn’t being a star what you do?” The Irishman only glared at him in warning until Ben continued. “It’s not like you actually have to fight her. Just sign an autograph or something and get her out.”
Standing, Torran grabbed his water bottle to take a long swallow. While he didn’t mind dealing with fans under the right circumstances, he still didn’t have a publicist. Which meant that if he made one wrong move, the media would skewer him. He would have to be careful with how he handled this.
He supposed that if she was decent-looking enough he could just seduce her out of the gym and then deliver some excuse or the other. Torran was trying to decide exactly how he was going to handle this mess as he followed Ben towards the entryway of the gym. When he finally got a good look at the woman who’d demanded to see him, however, he struggled not to gape.
It was Savannah.
But she wasn’t dressed...properly. Instead of the stuffy suit she’d been wearing the last time he saw her, now she was clad in only a sports bra and the tiniest pair of shorts he’d ever seen. The outfit clung to her like a second skin and all the curves he’d wondered about for the past week were suddenly exposed.
She had the nicest set of tits he’d seen in a long while - high, full, and gloriously plump. Her waist was minute, her stomach well-toned, and her hips...fucking God those hips. Just seeing them again made him want to grab her and jerk her to him.
To make her his.
“Nice to see you again, Mr. Maloney.” Her dry tone snapped him from his very blatant appreciation of her body and he forced his gaze upwards to her face. She wasn’t wearing a stitch of makeup, and he found he liked the look of clean, bare chocolate skin on her.
“What the hell are you doing here?” He demanded immediately.
“I heard you worked out here sometimes and I decided to pay you a little visit. We need to talk.”
“The hell we do.” The last thing he wanted to do was talk. Torran would much rather drag her off to the closest private place and shove his tongue down her throat. “Our discussion was over last week.”
“Come on, Maloney. You have a ridiculously pivotal fight coming up to defend your title in three months. This could be the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“Yeah,” he deadpanned, trying very hard not to stare at her chest. “I should be training. You’re interrupting that training.”
“Oh, I came to help.” Torran’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head as Savannah glanced at a flummoxed Ben by his side. “Didn’t he tell you? I want to fight.”
Torran wasn’t sure whether he should laugh or groan in exasperation. What exactly was she trying to do here, besides drive him utterly insane with her stubbornness. “I already told you, Jones: I don’t hit women.”
“Who said I was going to let you hit me?” She arched a brow so imperiously that, for a split second, she had to know something he didn’t. When he recovered, Torran only smirked.
“Hate to break it to you darlin’, but this isn’t a game. I’m actually preparing to knock another man senseless.”
“I have an idea.” Incredibly, Savannah continued as if she hadn’t even heard him. “How about we have a friendly match. And if I land one hit - just one - you agree to sit down and hear me out.”
The woman had some serious bullocks, he’d give her that. Torran merely eyed her wryly. “You do realize that there’s a good chance I accidently knock your pretty teeth out before you get close to me, right?”
“Oh, of course. That is, if you’re willing to break your rule for me.”
He didn’t want to hit her. Despite the fact that he liked to beat on a lot of things, gorgeous women definitely weren’t one of them. Or any women, for that matter. As Torran realized the course of his own thoughts, he realized, with no small amount of incredulity, that he was actually thinking about doing this. It wasn’t, however, because he wanted to fight Savannah. It was because the thought of being in close quarters with that scantily clad body of hers was a bit much for him to resist.
He could pull his punches. It had been a long time, but Torran was sure he could handle that much. And he’d be sure to keep away from her face. Once he knocked the wind out of her once, he was pretty sure he could get her to leave.
Sighing, he scratched the stubble on his chin. “When I beat those tiny shorts off you, will you leave?”
Savannah’s smile was slow and pleased - and Torran gritted his teeth against his body’s impulsive response. “Right away.”
“Fine.” Was it just him, or did he sound a little too eager? “You have practice rings in the basement, right Ben?”
“Yeah.” Ben looked completely shocked that this was even happening. “But Torran, you’re going to have to-”
“I know,” the fighter groused, glancing over his shoulder at the woman following them. “I won’t hurt her.”
If only he had known what he was getting himself into.
The practice rings were simple things, made more for boxing than MMA fighting, but that didn’t seem to bother Savannah. While Torran had been sure she knew little, if anything, about fighting sports at all, he was surprised when, soon after entering the ring, she took a very solid boxing stance across from him.
Her position allowed him a lovely view of her ample cleavage, pressing her breasts up and together, and his dick twitched at the way the muscles in her long legs tensed. “Alright,” Ben called from the sidelines. Thankfully, the lower level was deserted, so Torran didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing him punch a lass. “Three minutes, one round. Ready?”
“I’m ready,” he growled, somewhere between anticipation and anxiety. She was really going to make him hit her, just to teach her a lesson. It might have pissed him off if it wasn’t so ridiculous.
“Ready.” He noticed then that Savannah’s gaze had gone flat and determined, her body completely still. It was a stance that seemed somehow familiar to him, but he couldn’t place it for the life of him…
“Fight!”
She was fast.
In fact, she was so fast that Torran was still ogling her tits when her uppercut smashed into his jaw with the force of a small sledgehammer.
He was so stunned that he didn’t even realize what had happened until he stumbled backwards, bleeding from the corner of his mouth.
Fuck! Torran blinked, utterly shocked, and barely recovered enough to block her next blow. What the fucking hell!?
She wasn’t using her feet - that he noticed after barely blocking a few more of her strikes. Instead, she just levelled punch after well-timed punch at him. It was clear that she had experience fighting - and particularly in boxing. It was also a few seconds before Torran realized that, even though she’d gotten in her one hit, she was still coming for him.
Like a fucking Energizer Bunny.
For at least twenty seconds, Torran found himself absolutely transfixed. He stared at her, seeing her almost as if in slow motion, as she moved like a demon - right hook, left block, uppercut, uppercut…
He thought the worst time for him to be aroused would be during his workout, but Torran was quickly proved wrong as he felt himself rising in his shorts. He’d never stepped into the ring with a woman, let alone expected one to put up this much of a fight.
After he realized exactly what she was doing, however, Torran quickly recovered. He went from blocking her punches to anticipating them. Then he was moving around her, putting her on the defense as he looked for an opening. By that time, he had completely and totally forgotten his promise to go easy on her. Somehow, Savannah was skilled enough to put him on his guard, and that deserved his full attention.
That said, when he caught her in the stomach with his elbow, her grunt of discomfort as she lost her breath made him wince. Gasping, Savannah stumbled back against the robes and Torran paused, watching her carefully as he regained his breath. She was definitely a boxer, and that move wasn’t a boxing move. So, what the hell would she do now?
If he expected her to breakdown and cry, Torran was sorely disappointed. Savannah merely glared at him, her eyes glittering in something that looked strangely like excitement. Then, in a split second, she leapt at him, catching him around the waist and tackling him to the floor.
Ben’s shout of surprised admiration echoed around the gym.
Torran very suddenly found himself pinned beneath Savannah’s much smaller form, she was straddling his chest with unexpectedly powerful thighs. Though he knew, at this juncture, that it would be stupid not to pay attention to the fight, he couldn’t help but notice that his head was all but between her legs. Under different circumstances, he would be one happy fucking camper.
Just now, however, she was hell bent on pummeling the hell out of his face, and he couldn’t have that. He was already embarrassed enough that she’d even managed to catch him unawares not once, but twice during the same fight. He needed to end this before she either discovered he was hard as a rock, or he humiliated himself even further.
In a smooth motion, Torran shifted his weight so Savannah was forced onto the mat and their positions were reversed. All at once, he was pinning her beneath him, her torso folded almost in half as he restrained her demon hands on either side of her head. He was sure that it was pretty apparent from this position that his dick was all but screaming to be inside her, but if Savannah noticed, she said nothing.
She was too busy trying to catch her breath - at least, that’s what he told himself. Now that neither of them could move, he found himself staring down into her intense gaze, his eyes dropping to her slightly parted lips. What he wouldn’t give to kiss her - to lower his mouth to hers and taste all that raw aggression. To go even further and just rip her out of those tiny shirts and have his way with her right in the middle of the ring…
His mouth moved lower, and lower still, until he was only a hairsbreadth from her lips -
“I think Torran wins this one, fair and square.”
He snapped back to the present, realizing that Ben was still there, watching him all but maul Savannah against the mat. Savannah, too, seemed to snap from whatever haze had settled over her and began to struggle.
“Alright, alright. Get off me.”
It would be easier if she didn’t wriggle like that. It felt way too damn good for Torran’s liking. It took everything he had to release her and straighten. Even so, when her succulent behind grazed his prominent erection, he swallowed a heated growl, discreetly adjusting himself. “You might have won,” Savannah rose to her feet, her expression smug with victory. “But I landed a hit. Several, in fact. And you know what that means.”
As the true enormity of what had just happened dawned on Torran, a low groan escaped him. What the fuck? She had tricked him. Known he would underestimate her and gotten the upper hand. How was he supposed to know that she could do...that!?
“No complaining, Mr. Maloney.” She chastised him with a grin that was far too prideful for her own good. “You agreed.”
Torran wiped blood from the corner of his mouth, still somewhat disbelieving that he’d been so easily duped. “Where the hell did you learn to fight like that?” He could still feel the warmth of her body beneath him - still smell the faint tang of her sweat and perfume.
To his surprise, the stuffy little Miss Jones only winked at him. “Runs in the family.”
He had no idea what that meant, but Torran was going to make damn sure that he found out. “Now, come on.” Savannah ducked between the ropes, hopping to the floor as he stared after her.
“‘Come on’ what?” He demanded, eying her warily.
“We’re going to have a little chat. I hope you didn’t throw my report away-”
“I did.” He deadpanned, before she could get too full of herself. To his annoyance, Savannah’s smile only widened.
“Good thing I brought an extra one, then. Ever prepared.”
Torran couldn’t decide if he wanted to kill her or fuck her brains out; but one thing was sure: If he was going to be spending any amount of time with her in the future, he was going to have a shit ton of frustration on his plate.
And that he didn’t know if he could handle.