Where the hell is she?
I imagine her walking through that door, seeing those sexy lips smile. It’s her smile and her deep, inky eyes that will take me aback first – they always do, even now. I get lost in them every time. I feel pulled to them, magnetized, and when she looks at me I can’t look away, not even for a second.
My heart rate quickens, sends blood rushing south. The image of her in my mind is clear as day, every single detail.
Her lips are soft, generous, full. Those lips pressed against my own… she sets me on fire. Smiles come so easily to her, a reflection of who she is on the inside.
Somebody much better than me.
And with her standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the spotlights from behind, I’d let my gaze travel down her body, to the peek of silky skin I see at her collar bone that makes me lick my lips and swallow hard. To the swell of her breasts, the curve of her hips, those thighs and that ass…
My throat tightens, my heart pumps quicker still. My gut stirs, and I grow impatient.
She’s late, and I need her.
I’m addicted to her, everything about her. That curvy body, that ass I want to hold and squeeze, kissing my way up the inside of her thighs, making her shiver.
I think about tracing my fingertips over the curves of her body, slowly, teasing her, making her squirm in my grip, making her look at me out of lust-laced eyes, her lips parted, panting.
She’s waiting for me to take every hot, sexy inch of her, claim her as my own, and I’m going to make her beg for it.
I swallow. Hard.
But as much as I love her body, I need her mind with me. She stills the waves in me, quiets the storm. She makes me think about things from points of view I’d never considered before. She’s opened up my mind to new things, made me, without realizing it, a better person.
But most of all she makes me feel happy, and even beneath the shadow of her father, even knowing… knowing that what we have can’t last forever, it’s her presence that makes me forget about all that. It’s just so easy to lose myself in the present with her.
Dee… well, she’s something else. Stronger than me, braver than me… I realize that I don’t just treasure her… I admire her.
My imagination tricks my mind into thinking I can actually smell her wonderful scent, just behind her ears. Not perfume, nothing artificial. Her.
I wake up with that smell, cherish it every morning she’s with me. I can’t imagine not being able to kiss her neck, breathe in, feel her hair around my face, tickling, soft.
My imagination tricks me into thinking I can feel her warm breath against me, see her lips parted, the peeking tips of her teeth, her eyes shut tight, her body tensed in my own, her moans in my ear. She’s telling me not to stop. Never to stop.
God, I haven’t seen her for just a day and already it feels like a lifetime. I’m hooked. She drives me crazy.
I shift my weight, feel a stirring in my gut, anticipation, desire. It’s fight night, my biggest one yet, and I need her with me. It’s like I’m thirsty but don’t have water, like I’m hungry but don’t have food.
I grunt.
Too bad I’m stuck with this fucking joker in front of me. He’s meek, mild, and his back is curved instead of straight. It’s like he’s trying to retreat into himself, hide from me.
What the fuck for? It’s not like he’s climbing into the cage with me.
This fucker was the one who requested, over and over again, to get an interview with me. Now he finally has it, and he’s fucking shrinking.
I don’t have time for this shit. I have time for her, and I have time for the fighting. That’s it. Everybody else, everything else, can go straight to hell. Soon, the fighting will go straight to hell, too.
Just a few more fights. I’ll retire at the top, undefeated. I already know it’s going to happen. I can’t fool myself into thinking I haven’t made up my mind. But I’m not there yet. Nearly, but not yet.
I have to make sure that she and I will have everything we need.
I’m in nothing but a towel wrapped around my waist, and I’m hoping the short, stout man won’t see my bulge. I’ve been sporting it this whole time, a rock-hard boner that I’m hoping the voluminous fluffy fabric hides.
He’s a fucking reporter or something. He’d have a field day writing about that for his magazine or website or whatever. Underground MMA fighter ‘Creature’ sits in his warm-up room, before the biggest fight of his career, with a hard-on…
But just thinking of Dee is all it takes to bring me up. Just a stray thought, and my mind goes from zero to one-hundred, and I’m imagining her in my arms, tasting her.
Since I started fighting, I’ve met a lot of girls. They’re all batshit fucking insane. They beg me to marry them – I’ve been proposed to after a fight. I’m there, blood dripping down my face, sweat leaving shiny smears down my body, and this chick is fucking holding a ring out for me, asking if I’ll marry her. She’s even down on one God damn knee.
People are fucking crazy.
The girls ask me all kinds of wild shit. Every fight night at least half a dozen ask me to have their children, to give them a baby.
A baby is something I want. I want to have a family, give my child something that nobody ever gave me.
But not with any of them. I don’t want any of them. I never have, and I never will.
None of them compare to Dee.
Not a single one.
She is all I want.
“My name is Dan Peterson,” the meek man opposite me says, sticking out a hand. I shake it, feel his grip turn to putty, and he seems mesmerized by how my hand just utterly swallows his up.
“You have really big hands,” he blurts out awkwardly.
I pull my hand from his, give him a bored look.
“Mr. Marino said I could interview you.”
“That’s fine,” I say, gesturing at him to just fucking get on with it.
“Are you in a hurry?”
“I need to start pre-fight,” I say evenly.
“You mean your warm-ups?” he asks.
I tilt my head to the side. “Yes, my fucking warm-ups, stretching, etcetera. Pre-fight. This your first fucking time reporting on MMA?”
He grows flustered, his face goes red, his breathing hitches, and his hands shake. “No, I just wanted to make sure we’re on the same proverbial page.”
“We’re not on the same fucking page,” I tell him. “Use your knowledge, or leave. Do your job, or leave. But don’t ask me dumb fucking questions. I don’t have time for this shit. If you are going to ask me what fucking pre-fight is, then you can fuck off.”
“O-okay.”
I’m sitting on a sofa, elbows on my knees, and he’s on a stool opposite me. The lighting is dim. For a few seconds, I see his eyes linger on my body, the bulge of my shoulders, the striations of muscle on my chest and abdomen.
“Hey,” I say, snapping my fingers in front of him. “Focus.”
I can see that he’s terrifically uncomfortable, and I let out a slow breath of air. I can’t believe this guy needs to be babied.
Fucking hell, why did they send someone so incompetent? Why the hell did Glass okay this? He’s starting to live vicariously through my publicity. It’s a little pathetic.
“Peterson, why don’t you tell me who you write for?”
“Um,” he says. “So, you know, I own arguably the most visited underground MMA website in the world, right?”
“I didn’t know,” I tell him. “But now I do. What’s it called?”
“MMA-Underground?”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
I look over his shoulder toward the door, praying that any moment now Dee is going to walk in and I’m going to get to end this stupid interview, scoop her up in my arms, kiss her like it’s the last kiss I’ll ever have.
I’m going to see the curve of her hips, those thighs that I want to bite, her sexy, beautiful body, and I’m going to…
God, I can’t get enough of her. I’ve seen, smelled, touched and tasted every gorgeous inch of her hundreds of times, and yet all I want is more. Every time I peel off her clothes, every time I run my hands over her soft skin, I feel like it’s all new again, the first time again.
I can’t imagine ever wanting anyone else.
“Okay, so I’ve got some questions here.” Peterson taps his pad with his pencil. “But first I want to know if there’s anything you consider, um, off-limits?”
“Fighting strategy,” I tell him straight-up. “And my personal life.”
That gives him pause. “All of your personal life?”
“Why don’t you just ask me the questions,” I say. “And if I don’t answer, I don’t answer.”
“And that’s the end of that?”
“You’re damn right it is.”
“Mr. Marino did say you would—”
“I don’t fucking care what Mr. Marino said,” I say. “I’ll answer what I want to. If you have a problem with that, you can take it up with me. You want to take it up with me?”
“Okay, okay,” he says, stammering a little. “I don’t have a problem with that. Really. Hey, we’re all entitled to personal privacy, right?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Was that one of the questions you wanted to ask me?”
“It was rhetorical,” he murmurs.
“Don’t waste my time. Get the answers you need, then get out.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to form a relationship with you, okay?”
“I am uninterested in forming a relationship with you.”
“I don’t see why you have to cop an attitude.”
Some backbone! Good.
“Let me fucking tell you something,” I say, leaning forward. He sits back almost instantly. “In about thirty minutes I’m going to climb into a cage and fight a guy six-three, two-hundred and forty pounds of lean muscle mass. He’s fast as hell, and is known for taking his submission holds too far. We’re not just throwing punches, and you should know that. People have died in the cage, and permanent injury is common.”
He whispers, “I know all of that.”
“So what kind of state of mind do you fucking think you have to be in to get into that cage?”
“Um, I don’t know?”
“Exactly. You fucking don’t. But wasting my time beforehand is only going to make it harder for me to prepare that mindset. Stop fucking around. It’s not personal. I don’t care about you personally one way or the other. Take your ego out of the equation and do your fucking job so I can do mine.”
He wilts some more.
I look past him toward the door again, wondering when Dee is going to arrive. I think of her clawing at my back, her legs wrapped around my waist in a vice grip, her—
“So you, Duncan ‘Creature’ Malone, are undefeated for thirty-three fights now, right?”
“Correct.”
“Since you entered organized underground fighting, you haven’t been beaten. What is it, do you think, that makes you a much better fighter than your opponents?”
“That’s strategy.”
“Why do they call you ‘Creature’?”
“Read your own rag, I’m sure you’ve written about it before.”
“But I want to get it from your perspective.”
“I didn’t fucking come up with the nickname,” I tell him, looking into his small eyes. “I don’t refer to myself as ‘Creature’.”
“Fair enough,” he says, scribbling. “Would you say, though, that it describes your fighting style?”
“How the fuck would the word ‘creature’ describe my fighting style?”
“You know, you’re relentless in the cage. Fast, aggressive, powerful. When you fight, you give off the impression that you’re only barely under control.”
I grin. “Barely under control, huh? People who lose their minds in fights are never good at fighting. You want barely under control, go to a bar full of idiots on a Friday night. Barely under control does not describe what I, or any of my opponents do. You should know that.”
Peterson frowns. “Would you share with your fans any tips if they’re looking to get into fighting?”
“Control, discipline, and mental toughness. Technique. Leave the anger out of it.”
“Not physical toughness? Strength? Endurance?”
“You can have all the physical attributes in the world, but if you’re not good up here,” I say, tapping my temple. “You’ll never be successful.”
“I guess that’s the same with anything in life,” he says. “Why do you keep looking over my shoulder?”
“None of your business.”
He raises his eyebrows for a moment, then sighs and accepts my answer. I’m controlling this interview and he should know it. It’s high time he came around.
“You were raised in a group home, weren’t you? In the poor city of—”
“Raised isn’t what I’d call it, but I spent most of my childhood in the system, yes. In more than one group home.”
“Do you think that helped you with your fighting?”
“Of course.”
“Could you explain how?”
“There are plenty of articles on what life is like in the system,” I say. “Do some research. Even the girls learn to fight.”
“But what in particular?”
“Defending myself, obviously, especially against older boys.”
“You were bullied by older boys?”
I meet his eyes again, and he somehow shrinks a little more. “Not bullied,” I tell him. “Like I said, I defended myself.”
“Did it help the mental aspect?”
“Of course.”
“How so?”
“You’ve got to be tough or you won’t make it.”
“Won’t make it?”
“You’ll just move from one system into another.”
“Are you talking about prison?”
“Of course I fucking am.”
“But you were taken out of ‘the system’ by Johnny Marino, yes? At the age of sixteen?”
I nod. “That’s right.”
“He adopted you legally as his son.”
“Correct.”
“He trained you, became your manager.”
“Yes.”
“To be a fighter.”
“Yes.”
“When did your training start?”
“Informally, from when I was about eight years old. Formally, when I was sixteen.”
“You mean Johnny Marino trained you to fight as a teenager?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“You were sparring regularly as a teenager against adults?”
“Yes.”
Peterson sits back, eyes-wide. “That could be construed as child-abuse, especially if he forced you to.”
“Nobody put a fucking gun to my head,” I growl. “I chose it. But if you want to write that about Johnny fucking Marino, go right ahead. See what that gets you. Gagged and tied to a cement block at the bottom of the lake is one possibility.”
“I don’t think I’ll put that in,” Peterson says, offering a weak smile.
“I didn’t think you were that stupid.”
“You’re quite well-spoken, if I may say so.”
“Is there a question hiding in there?”
“Just an observation.”
“And why is it a relevant one? Did you expect me to be some fucking moron because I’m a fighter? Or is it because I’m an athlete?”
“N-no—”
“Maybe it’s my tattoos? Come on, Dan. What did you really want to ask me?”
“It’s just unexpected.”
“To who?”
“Everybody!”
“Then everybody can go to fucking hell.”
He tacks in the wind.
“Um, there are rumors that you were trained out of the country? Is that true?”
“No comment.”
“What about your love life? Any girlfriends?”
“You write for TMZ now?”
“Your fans want to know.”
“I don’t care.”
“You don’t care about your fans?”
“You want to quote me, go ahead and fucking quote me. I don’t give a shit, I don’t owe them anything.”
“Arguably, you owe them your career,” Peterson says. “After all, they come to these fight nights and put money into it, some of which reaches you. Are you trying to say you don’t care about the hand that feeds you?”
I consider Peterson. Maybe there’s more to him than meets the eye. He’s got a soft body but possibly a sharp mind. Have I been lulled to sleep?
If so, I have more respect for this man than before.
“I don’t control what other people do or think,” I tell him, spacing my words. “I fight, I win. That’s what I do, and that’s all I worry about.”
“What about the ethics? We all know underground fighting is illegal.”
“Funny that you should report on it, make your advertising dollars or whatever the fuck off it. Off the backs of us fighters.”
“I’m press, it’s my duty to.”
“You basically run a blog, one that champions the underground scene at that.”
“The most popular blog,” he says. “The readers belong to me. The fans.” He tilts his head to the side, a challenge in his eyes. “Your fans.”
“Dare to quote yourself?”
Peterson’s eyes twinkle. “You know,” he says, his voice now instantly more confident than it was before. “I can make you out to be anyone I want.”
“Go on then,” I say. “But you have an obligation to the truth. Compromise your own integrity for all I give a shit. I can’t help you, and what you write about me will never matter to me.”
“So what does matter to you?”
“Fighting and family.”
“You mean Johnny Marino, your adoptive father?”
I hesitate. “Sure.”
“Do you look up to him? Since he used to be quite a well-known boxer?”
“Well-known how?” I ask Peterson. “Why don’t you tell me what you know of him?”
“He was considered talented, ahead of his time. Fast and strong, a physical specimen.”
“And what else?”
Peterson frowns. “He was often injured, picked up the nickname ‘Glass’.”
I nod. At least he knows his fighting history, and I suppose he deserves credit for that.
“My career has already surpassed his. ‘Look up to’ is the wrong way to put it.”
It couldn’t be more wrong. I despise the man.
Just a few more fights!
“Do you not care that he helped to make you who you are?”
“I made me who I am. But of course I’m gracious for the opportunities Glass has helped to provide me.” I staple on the standard answer.
“Doesn’t sound like the correct sort of way to talk about your adoptive father?”
“We’re getting into personal territory now.”
“You said that all that matters to you is fighting and family?”
“Yes.”
“What about the other member of your family, your foster sister?” He flips through his note pad, bunches up his brow. “Um, Deidre Marino?”
I regard the man. That was an act if there ever was one. Everybody who knows of Johnny Marino knows his daughter by name.
“What about her?” I ask, instantly feeling protective. What’s this guy driving at?
“Is she in the business?”
“What business?”
“It’s an open secret that Johnny Marino is a big-time mobster. Mafioso. That he owns half this town, north of the river. Do you also work for the mob, Duncan? Are you an enforcer? You’d make a good one, no doubt.”
I grin. “Interview’s over, Dan.”
“Just one more question, Duncan.”
“Get out or I throw you out.”
He chooses wisely.
I glare at him as he leaves, and then lean back in the sofa.
I think about Dee, her beautiful face, her soft skin.
Dee, legally my sister, but I’ve never thought of her that way.
Dee, who means more to me than anything else.
Dee, the only woman I can ever imagine sharing my life with.