Chapter 11: Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object
Savannah should have long learned that just because Torran agreed to something didn’t mean he would go quietly. Even if he promised to placate his physical needs. Yes, he worked with her father on a daily basis to refine his technique, but he fought the elder man the entire way.
This, the young woman could have predicted. It was a classic case of unstoppable force meets immovable object. Tyrone wanted Torran to familiarize himself with boxing techniques so he could avoid them better, but the Irishman was convinced that he was prepared for everything that might come his way.
Except Tyrone’s right hook, of course.
He never seemed to be able to block it, and as a result, he massaged his jaw through half the hours he spent in the office, his expression surly.
Though she knew it was none of her business, Savannah tried to speak with her father.
“Dad, you know he didn’t lose the match because of his technique.” After Torran’s third session with her father, she cornered him in his office. Her client was taking a beating, but it was because he was too stubborn to listen, rather than being unable to benefit from the training at all. “Maybe work with him a little?”
Her father merely snorted, glancing up at her from where he worked on a mountain of files from the cabinet behind his desk. “That boy needs to learn a little humility. Can’t tell he came from the streets. Seems he’s gotten a little high and mighty since everything was handed to him.”
Savannah couldn’t help but frown at that assessment. “Well what do you expect? Can’t he enjoy life after suffering for so long?”
“Savvy, in this world, it doesn’t pay to remember where you came from.” Tyrone replied, his expression somber. “Maloney’s got to come to terms with why he lost in the first place. If he won’t admit that, he’s got a long way to go back to the top.”
With a low exhalation of disappointment, Savannah sank into the chair before her father’s desk. She was doing her best to set up a series of press conferences announcing the man’s impending come back, but how the hell was she supposed to do that if Torran didn’t want to come back? Sure, he was training, but he still wouldn’t talk to her.
At least not about anything that didn’t have to do with his business or wanting her physically. The young woman was torn between frustration and empathy. She couldn’t stand to see him dejected when he really wanted to regain his title, but if he wouldn’t divulge to her, how the hell was she really supposed to help?
“Why are you so invested in this, Savannah?” At her father’s question, she jerked to attention.
“What?”
Tyrone merely smirked at her guilty expression. “I asked why you’re so invested. I know your boss is up your ass, but I don’t see any shame in admitting defeat when someone’s fighting you so hard. If Maloney’s dead set on crashing his career, why let him take you with him?”
Uh-oh.
Savannah could feel her face heating as she searched in vain for a viable explanation. She had hoped that, somehow, she’d be able to interact with both her father and Torran without some sort of confrontation over the obvious elephant in the room. It didn’t help that the Irishman often tried to undress her with his eyes when he was supposed to be paying attention to Tyrone. Her father would have to be blind not to notice.
And Tyrone Jones had twenty twenty vision.
“Something happened to him, Daddy. I just want to find out what it is.” It was as good an excuse as any. The Joneses were, after all, a stubborn clan who didn’t like to be thwarted.
“Alright, baby.” Holding his hands up in defeat, Tyrone merely sighed, his gaze knowing. “I just hope you’re sure about this.”
When Savannah was younger, her father had always been adamantly against her dating anyone in his circle. Fighters, he was convinced, weren’t for his daughter. She had enough of that lifestyle following him around for her adolescence. When she was a teenager, he actively chased hordes of horny teenagers in the gym away from her.
But things were different now. Savannah was a grown woman, and, as much as she loved her father, he wasn’t going to run her.
But that didn’t mean that his reservations about a man like Torran weren’t unfounded. In fact, Savannah herself was beginning to wonder whether she hadn’t lost her mind. She was putting her career and her sanity on the line for a man she only half understood.
That had to be suicide, right?
But somehow, all of those reservations melted away when she watched him fight. Well, if she was honest with herself, Savannah could watch Torran do anything and become totally and completely engrossed. From observing the way he poured over papers in his office to the subtle workings of muscles beneath his skin when he was trying to dodge her father’s blows...There was something about just being around him that calmed her.
And for the high strung young woman, that was really saying something.
But, try as she might, Savannah still couldn’t get him to open up to her. She couldn’t get him to commit to any of the press conferences she’d scheduled, or anything concrete. It was hard to operate without knowing if the man was going to cooperate and after a few weeks, Savannah found herself desperate for answers.
But she had long learned that begging wasn’t going to get her anywhere - and so Savannah did the next best thing:
She snuck into his office.
Torran was all but run ragged lately, between his trips to Long Island to train with her father to an upcoming acquisition at his company. When he wasn’t in the gym or at the office, he was sleeping - which meant that she had done an admirable job avoiding the man’s physical appetite up until this point. Just that day, she had ducked out of his apartment after getting him to approve a speech she was writing for an upcoming appearance.
That was, if she could get him to go.
Though Amanda, Torran’s personal assistant, wasn’t overly fond of her, Savannah managed to get into his office by pretending he’d left some paperwork there. If she was honest with herself, Savannah didn’t exactly like to think of Torran with another woman either, so she supposed she could see where Amanda was coming from.
Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Savannah sank down behind the man’s desk. The last thing she wanted was to betray Torran’s trust, but she was pretty sure he was already betraying hers by keeping something this important from her.
She booted up his computer and signed in - having long eyeballed the password from her extensive time in his office. Savannah really had no machinations on his personal affairs, so she didn’t touch anything labeled business. She didn’t go through his photos and she didn’t help herself to his documents.
Instead, she started with his e-mails. It was through e-mail that Savannah found out the man’s former trainer had quit, and she highly suspected that she might find a clue to his behavior if she dug a little bit deeper. Of course, Torran had deleted that particular email from his inbox, but not from his e-mails altogether, and she found it within five minutes.
Of course, Savannah didn’t think that Torran’s ex-trainer had anything to do with his unwillingness to fight. For him, Torran would have been a cash cow. It made no sense to sabotage himself like that.
The young woman quickly skimmed through the last few weeks, making sure to mark the messages she read unread once more. There didn’t seem to be anything overly odd in his inbox, and so, after about twenty minutes, she abandoned it.
Gently, she worked open the top drawer of his desk, going through the assorted bits and bobs there. There were pens, paper clips and an assortment of business cards - nothing out of the ordinary. Savannah was getting ready to close the drawer when a silvery sheen at the back caught her gaze and she paused.
What was that?
Leaning over, she reached into the back of the drawer, feeling around carefully. When her fingers slid over cold metal, she inhaled sharply. Savannah wrapped her fingers around the cold, heavy object situated up against the underside of the desktop.
Even when she saw the weapon in her hand, Savannah couldn’t believe it. It was a gun. A gun in Torran’s office.
Why the hell would he need a gun in a building with security up the wazoo? What could possibly make him think he needed this!?
Just holding it in her hand was enough to make her nervous. Savannah had to force herself to take a deep breath before she calmly replaced the weapon where she’d found it. At least, as calmly as she could currently manage.
Strangely enough, the discovery of a probably loaded weapon did not immediately reduce her to a babbling mess. Quite the contrary. It was at that moment that Savannah came to a very clear conclusion:
She needed answers, and she’d be damned if Torran kept them from her any longer.
**
He had fallen into a pretty predictable pattern for the past few weeks. That, for Torran, was fairly knew. If there was one thing he hated, it was monotony.
But at the moment, he didn’t have much of a choice. He had to run his company - that was part of the reason he was in this mess in the first place. On the other hand, however, he had to keep up a front for Savannah. Said front was exhausting him. Certainly, he was training. Getting his ass handed to him by her father almost daily.
But he had still yet to publically announce that he was going to try and win back his title.
There was only so long he could put his publicist off - especially when she was a woman as smart as Savannah Jones.
God, he missed her.
She’d all but given him carte blanche to have her, but the both of them had been so busy that he hadn’t gotten any chance to take advantage. He himself was shocked that he still had enough energy to want her as badly as he did - but he sure as hell couldn’t sleep.
He got out of bed, wincing at his still sore ribs. It wasn’t like Tyrone was really giving him a break to heal, so he still felt the pain acutely.
Damn.
The facts were still enough to make his head spin: Savannah was Tyrone Jones’ daughter. Of course, everyone in the community knew that the man had a daughter, but he had kept her mostly out of the spotlight. That explained why Torran hadn’t recognized her. And even if he had seen her, that was over a decade ago. She would have still been a kid.
Savannah was all woman now. Stubborn, determined, beautiful woman - and she got under his skin more than anyone he’d ever encountered.
What was it about her that drew him in? If anything, he should be as far away from her as it was humanly possible to get. His past was coming back to bite him in a big way, and if things closed in on him any more, he wouldn’t be the only one that had to watch his back.
But, somehow, he couldn’t let her go.
Which made him a fucking idiot.
With a groan, he ran his hand through already disheveled auburn hair. He needed Savannah’s legs wrapped around him - but seeing as he had no clue where she was, a stiff drink would have to suffice.
He was only wearing a pair of boxer briefs, but he didn’t need anything else in his own home. His mouth set in a surly frown, Torran padded from his bedroom down the hall to the kitchen. When he turned on the light to find his liquor bottle, however, he was startled to see there was already someone sitting at the bar.
And not just any someone; It was Savannah.
Immediately, all the blood in his brain rushed southward. He couldn’t help it. It was involuntary. He couldn’t remember the last time he had her alone, and now, all he wanted was to be as deeply inside her as it was humanly possible to be…
It was then that Torran noticed what Savannah held in her hand, and froze in his tracks.
Fuck. Fuck.
“What the hell are you doing with that?” His voice came out in a hoarse whisper of disbelief.
Savannah, however, merely glared at him, her hazel eyes accusatory. “What are you doing with it? Why the hell was there a gun in your drawer, Torran?”
She wasn’t yelling. She hadn’t even raised her voice. Instead, she was just staring at him in a heart-rending combination of hurt and desperation that made his gut clench. Goddamn it.
Torran held his hand out. “Give it to me.” Just seeing the weapon that close to her made him uneasy. He had never imagined when he bought it that it would ever come to this.
Instead of handing it over, however, Savannah merely curled slender fingers around the barrel. “I won’t give it to you until you tell me why you have it. What have you been hiding from me, Torran? For God’s sake, I only want to help you.”
She had him wishing he’d never bought the damn thing in the first place. Not if it was going to be within ten feet of her. “Savannah…” He exhaled a long breath, his lust cooling substantially. “I don’t want you to get hurt.” That much was the truth.
“Don’t you?” Jesus Christ, was she crying? She was that upset over his shit!?
All he wanted to do was protect her, but now everything was turning on his head and his foot was in his goddamn mouth. What the hell was he supposed to do? “Fuuccckkkk…” The Irishman groaned, his stomach twisting. “Give me the damn gun, woman. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
Wordlessly, Savannah slid the gun across the table to him. Torran snatched it from the counter before making sure the safety was on and shoving it into the nearest drawer he could find. “Jesus…” He breathed before looking back at her. He couldn’t decide if he was madder at her or himself. “C’mere.”
At first, Savannah looked as if the last thing she wanted to do was come into his embrace, but slowly, she did. She slid from her chair and rounded the bar to let him enfold her tightly in his arms.
God, he wasn’t good at this comforting and reassuring shit. If Tyrone knew that he was touching his daughter like this, Torran knew he was likely to get his ass handed to him - and violently. But despite the torrent of emotions tearing at him, Savannah felt good in his arms.
She felt right.
He had been wrong to lie to her - but that didn’t mean telling the truth was going to be any easier. For a long moment, he just held her tightly, relishing her warmth against him. Eventually, however, she turned her face up to him, her eyes still glistening with unshed tears. Savannah uttered a simple two word command that he knew he couldn’t disobey. “Tell me.”
It was far from a pretty story, but the truth came pouring from him - straight and completely unaltered.
“A week before the fight I was contacted by some old mates from London - though I suppose calling them mates isn’t quite right,” he added in a bitter tone. “Remnants of my former life, I should say. Before I got off the streets. I can’t mince words, Savannah, I used to be involved in some nasty shit. I stole, I mugged...I did whatever I thought I needed to in order to stay alive - which led me to some nasty people.”
“One of the nastiest of them was Robert Callahan. They called him ‘Two Finger’ - rabid dog ripped the other ones clean off his right hand. In hindsight, I’m not too sure that he didn’t lose his fucking mind. Liked to rape and maim for fun, he did - and laugh the whole time. I’m not proud of it, but he was one of the last boys I ran with before I met me mentor. Two Finger had dirt on everyone he planned to extort, and I shouldn’t be surprised that he had something on Warrick. Of course, I hadn’t heard from the nasty fucker in years. He was saving his trump card.”
“What trump card?” Savannah stared at him with rapt attention, her gaze carefully neutral. A part of Torran noticed dimly that her tears had dried. Now, she looked pissed.
“Warrick wasn’t always head of a corporation, you know. His background is just as shady as mine is. Maybe that’s why he was interested in me in the first place. Anyway, some of his first profits...didn’t come from the best places. Can’t get that information just anywhere now, but Two Finger’s has it.” Torran took a deep breath before pounding the final nail into his coffin. “He told me to throw the fight for the sake of a bet, and if I didn’t, he was gonna release everything to the press. Smear Warrick’s name and ruin the reputation he worked so hard to build. I couldn’t let him.”
To his surprise, Savannah didn’t look anywhere near as horrified as he might have thought. But, of course, she didn’t know Two Finger like he did. Even if the man was an ocean away, his influence in Dublin had grown at almost the same rate as Torran’s fame in the ring. No one fucked with him and expected to come out unaffected.
“So...you threw the fight to keep Warrick’s name clean?” Torran searched the pretty face below him for disapproval, shocked when he discovered none.
“I had to. The man made me what I am - he gave me opportunities. Damn everything else, I wasn’t going to let him get fucked over. Not even from beyond the grave.”
“Torran…” Savannah was shaking her head in disbelief, something curiously like wonder in her lovely eyes. “You are...ridiculous. Ridiculous and complicated and fucking...amazing.”
He was surprised as hell when she kissed him - but that certainly didn’t mean he was upset. Torran swept her into his arms, setting her atop the counter as his mouth devoured hers hungrily. It seemed like an eternity since he’d last tasted her like this, instead of a few weeks. His large hands spread over her thighs, hitching her skirt up to her waist as he situated himself between her spread legs.
She melted against him immediately, clutching almost desperately at his shoulders as she pressed the length of her body against his. If Torran had ever, for a moment, doubted how hungry she was for him, he quickly forgot it. He tore his mouth from hers to trail down her neck and over her throat, reveling in the way her head fell back as a throaty moan escaped her.
She thought he was amazing - the word came directly from her lips. It was cheesy as hell, but he couldn’t help the way his heart swelled. No one in his life had ever paid him so high an honor. He was a fighter, a billionaire - a man who took advantage of everything that had been given to him - but amazing? That was one he’d never heard before.
As Savannah’s fingers slid over his shoulders, massaging and pulling at the tired muscles of his upper arms, he groaned. If he had his choice, he would never visit another physical therapist again. All he needed was her delicate fingers and her glorious warmth.
Torran reached down to tear the sweater she wore up and over her head before tossing it to the floor. Beneath, she was wearing some lacy black confection that gave him a moment’s pause. His eyes dark with ravenous hunger, Torran gave her a slow once over that made her flush darkly. “Where the hell did you get that?”
The smile she finally managed was small, but seductive as hell. “The mall where we bought my dress.”
Torran growled low in his throat. “Do the panties match?”
Savannah merely reached up to bring his mouth back down to hers, whispering lowly against his lips. “Why don’t you check and see?”
Torran was suddenly and very enthusiastically an unabashed fan of telling the truth.
He lifted Savannah from the counter, carrying her quickly to the couch in the living room. When he lay her down, her skirt hiked up even further, revealing that she was, indeed, the proud owner of a matching set.
The sight of all that milk chocolate skin against black lace was almost enough to make him salivate. Torran was so hard it hurt, and when Savannah reached up to wrap her fingers around the hot flesh tenting his underwear, he groaned, low and long. “Fuck, Savannah…” He watched, transfixed, as she peeled the material down over his hips, releasing his throbbing cock.
Savannah’s eyes gleamed with what could only be described as pure heat as she straightened, lowering her head to swipe her tongue over the tip of him. Muscular thighs tightened as white hot pleasure jolted through him, and then she was taking him into her mouth with agonizing slowness.
He could barely fucking breathe. Torran had been sure that nothing felt as good as sinking into the hot, sweet haven between Savannah’s thighs, but this...this was a close second. The fighter brought his hands up to thread in her hair, resisting the urge to drive down her throat. He didn’t know which was better - feeling her tongue slide over him as she sucked, or watching her bob her head slowly and deliberately over him.
Either way, the treatment wasn’t something he could take very much of.
Within five minutes, he was taking Savannah by the shoulders and jerking her upward to save himself from her wicked mouth. When he kissed her, she nipped hungrily at his lower lip, and a new wave of need seared through him. He shifted her in his arms so he could capture a peaked nipple through a mouthful of lace to suckle and lave with his tongue. Savannah cried out softly, her fingers threading through his hair even as his opposite hand slid eagerly down her front.
Beneath the fabric of her panties, he found her wet and wanting - as if she’d been waiting for him all night. Torran’s fingers found her slippery cleft, teasing her as the thick digits brushed over her clenching entrance. “Did you miss me, Savvy?” He growled against her breast, needing to hear the words. “Tell me you missed me.”
“I-oh!” When two of his fingers plunged into her drenched, tight passageway, the young woman’s fingernails left furrows over his shoulders. “Yes, God yes, Torran…” Her hips bucked greedily against every powerful stroke of his hand and her moans and whimpers of pleasure only made Torran’s erection jump against his hard abdomen.
He needed her now - more than he had ever needed anything in his life.
All at once, he was shoving her panties down incredible, long legs before taking hold of her thighs to draw her to the very edge of the couch. When he slid home in one swift, greedy stroke, Savannah screamed, clinging to him as she trembled and clenched around him like a vice.
She was coming - coming the moment he was in her and it was fucking glorious.
Torran gripped her tightly, kissing over her face and neck as her shaking slowly subsided and she struggled for breath, all but fused to him. His tongue tangled with hers and he started to move, catching every cry and gasp she uttered in his mouth as he rutted her against the couch. Every urgent press of his hips against hers drove him deeper into heaven until Torran thought he would lose his goddamn mind.
It wasn’t just the sex, mind you. It was her. The way she clawed at him - the desperate way she clutched his shoulders, his arms, any part of him she could reach - all the while whispering his name like a fucking prayer…
When she wrapped her legs around his waist, taking him deeper than he thought humanly possible, Torran buried his face in her shoulder, any semblance of rhythm he’d had completely gone. He drove into her wildly, each stroke making her shudder and writhe and then, all at once, she was coming again. Savannah moaned his name almost deliriously as her body seized around him and Torran was lost.
He found his own climax with a hoarse shout, his hips working against hers as he emptied himself hotly within her clenching womb.
By the time it was over, they were both sweat-slick and struggling for breath. Torran tugged Savannah from the edge of the couch and onto the seat, settling his large form around her smaller one. There was a time, he realized, when the prospect of having a woman stay with him after sex was absolutely out of the question. At that moment, he might have moved the heavens and earth had Savannah tried to leave him.
Luckily for him, she seemed pretty content where she was. That, and he strongly suspected that her legs were jelly after the way she’d spasmed around his cock.
To his surprise, however, the woman in his arms recovered before he did. Savannah lifted her head to gaze at him with surprisingly clear honey eyes. “You can’t go to sleep.” At the hoarseness of her own voice, her cheeks reddened slightly.
Torran only chuckled, tightening his hold on her. He was exhausted, and there was no force on earth that was going to stop him from passing out with her in his arms. “If you want to yell at me some more, you can do it in the morning.”
Savannah merely exhaled a long breath before reaching up to cup his face between her hands. When she spoke, her tone was completely serious. “I don’t want to yell. But I do want to go ahead and let everyone know you want your title back.”
Almost immediately, Torran was completely awake. He bolted upright to look down at the woman beside him incredulously. After all he’d told her, how could she even think of trying to put him back in the ring? It was Torran’s first impulse to bluster and bellow until Savannah understood him, but, for once, he understood that hadn’t worked too well for him in the past.
And the last thing he wanted at this juncture was Savannah getting pissed at him and running off to do something rash.
“Savannah,” he started slowly, “I can’t go back into the ring. What if Two Finger decides one fight isn’t enough? What if he makes me lose all my fights - or worse, what if he comes after the people closest to me? I wouldn’t doubt he’s fucking capable.” He uttered the last words bitterly, remembering all too well how Two Finger dealt with those who opposed him.
Savannah rose into a sitting position as well, running a hand through her deliciously mussed curls. “Of course he’s capable. That’s why we’re going after him first.”
Torran merely stared at her as if she’d grown a third head; but his lover seemed completely unfazed. “Torran, he fucking blackmailed you into losing a fight. I think that might be of more interest to the media than whatever he thinks he has against Warrick. In fact,” her eyes had taken on a dangerous gleam of defiance. “I’m pretty sure that we could get any accusations he might have completely discredited. The man’s a criminal after all.”
Torran wouldn’t say he couldn’t understand where she was going, but that didn’t mean that he liked it. If Savannah announced anything publicly, it would still be tantamount to declaring war on Two Finger - the biggest ‘Fuck You’ the Irishman had ever received.
“Savannah, you’re tough as nails, sweet.” Leaning down, Torran brushed his mouth lingeringly over her forehead, “And I admire that. I really do. But I can’t put you in harm’s way. I won’t.”
The dark-skinned woman took one look at his somber expression before she raised her mouth to his to kiss him - long and lingering. When her eyes met his once more, none of the determination there had faded.
“Torran, honey, I think it’s pretty much established that I could give two wits what you want. I’m more concerned with what you need.”