CHAPTER 12
(JAMIE)
The night of Kage’s first UFC fight was actually a night of several firsts. It was also the first time Kage opted not to have sex with me. I left him all fired up, waiting to do a post-fight interview with the media outlets, and went to our room to prep myself. The sexy words he’d spoken to me in the Octagon after his victory had gotten me good and horny, not to mention the knowledge that Kage was always ready for some good rough sex after a fight.
So when he came to the room and found me lying on the bed wearing nothing but the glasses that he claimed to love, I was beyond shocked when he bent over and kissed me and said, “I’m tired, babe.” Then he got into the shower.
My first response was to be embarrassed, because wasn’t he attracted to me anymore? Then I was pissed, because how dare he reject me like that! But by the time he came out of the shower and climbed under the covers beside me, naked and damp, I was just worried about him.
Was this one of those let-down things, like when someone finally achieved a goal they’d been working toward for a long time and then didn’t know how to deal with the success? I’d heard of that happening. If ever there was a case that might fit, Kage’s was it.
Then again, maybe it was something altogether different than that. I thought maybe I should ask.
“Did something happen, Kage? After I came to the room?”
He shook his head. “I’m just tired. It took more out of me than I thought it would, fighting in the big ring like that. Hell of an adrenaline surge, I guess. I just feel tapped out.” He reached over and put a hand on my bare leg, massaged with his thumb. “You forgive me?”
His voice was vulnerable, worried.
“Of course,” I assured him.
“Just turn out the light and cuddle with me, okay? I just want to go to sleep holding you.”
I did as he asked and clicked off the dim bedside lamp. We went to sleep with only the glow from the bathroom to illuminate us.
If the UFC fight and the no post-fight sex had been the only two firsts, I would have felt a lot better. Unfortunately, his first nightmare came in the middle of the night, and it was not pretty.
I don’t know how long he had been mumbling when consciousness finally gained a foothold in my mind, but the sound gave me chills the second I heard it. For a second, it sounded like a child, words alternated with a breathy, distressed whimper. I blinked in the almost-darkness and listened, trying to make out the words.
“Can’t… Don’t make me…I don’t want to.” He was begging someone to not make him do something, that much was clear. What an awful nightmare he must have been having.
I reached out to touch him, and his skin was slick with perspiration. Not normal night sweating, but profuse sweating like you get during physical exertion. His hair was damp and the pillow was drenched. This was especially strange because I was huddled under the blanket, and the hotel air conditioning still had me shivering.
“Kage.” I nudged him gently, not wanting to scare him. I really wanted to hear more of what he was saying, because I knew most of the time it was hard to recall dreams. If I could get a good idea of exactly what was going on in his head before I woke him, it would probably help him to remember. I didn’t stop to analyze why I thought he needed to remember it. Some nightmares were just that— nightmares. This one seemed significant.
I reached over and turned on the lamp, then I shook him harder. He stopped whimpering, and his eyes flew open.
“Jamie?” He had a wild look, like he was still trying to figure out what was real and what was dream.
I smoothed the wet tendrils of his hair off of his forehead. “I’m here. You were having a bad dream. Do you remember it?”
He shook his head, but he didn’t say anything.
“Why do I get the impression there’s something you’re not telling me?”
Still he kept his silence.
“I heard words, Kage. Begging. Were you dreaming about something that really happened to you?”
“It’s not anything you need to worry about, okay? I used to have nightmares all the time when I was a kid. I don’t have them anymore.”
“Well, I’ve got news for you. That thing you just had was a nightmare, and it wasn’t a normal one. Do you feel how much you’re sweating? You were terrified.”
“It’s nothing. Just go back to sleep. I’d take a sleeping pill if I could, but I’m still considered in competition until twelve hours after the fight. You’re just gonna have to deal. Do you want me to go sleep on the floor?
“No, I don’t want you anywhere but here. Just tell me. Is it just a nightmare, or is it something real? Please, Kage. Let me in. I want to know you. Please.”
“You know enough,” he said. “More than anybody else, okay?”
“Maybe I can help you. Let me share your burden. You sounded so scared, and I feel so fucking helpless right now.”
He wrapped an arm around my neck and rolled me smoothly under him, buried his face in the hollow at the side of my throat and let out the most anguished cry I’d ever heard. Tears squeezed from the corners of my eyes just for him and whatever torment he was trying to push through. I was torn up for him, but I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing. He pushed up between my legs, I just lay there and let him do whatever he wanted.
He didn’t move the way he normally did. He was jerky, insistent, manic. He needed me, though. That much was painfully clear. He needed to bury himself in me and feel that I had him. I held him, shouldered him as he strained. This wasn’t about seduction. It was about salvation.
I reached up and pressed the palm of my hand to his cheek. “I love you. You know that, right?” I’d never said it before, not to anyone who hadn’t given birth to me, but I fucking meant it.
He whimpered, sputtered tears everywhere, and dug his forehead painfully into my collarbone. I just held him, trying to be everything to him, knowing I was nothing but a warm place to bury his pain. But that’s what he needed, and that’s what I’d be.
Pressed down beneath his weight, I groped desperately for the bedside table where the bottle of lube was sitting. I had put it there when I was waiting for the post-fight ravishing that never happened. I nearly knocked the bottle to the floor, but in the end was able to get a grip on it. I flipped the top and spilled a thick puddle into my palm. I was trembling with a mixture of anticipation and fear, my ass tightening at the thought of being invaded by the enormous thing pushing against my belly.
Pulling back a bit, he gave me a small smile and let me lube myself. I was surprised and grateful, stretching my arm to reach between my legs and slather that puddle of oil all around my hole. I coated the entire area liberally, spiraling inward to find the center of the pucker and sinking two fingers in without a thought of being coy or self-conscious. I was so engrossed in the task of getting my ass sloppy wet and open for him, I didn’t notice I was worrying my bottom lip between my teeth until I saw Kage’s eyes spark. He swooped in and captured that lip between his own teeth and bit down.
He knew just how to make me groan, and knowing how much he loved it, I didn’t even try to stifle it. I just let that lusty groan loose and wiggled beneath him, letting him know I was hot and ready for him. He didn’t let go of my lip as he sank his cock deep into my ass, slowly, steadily. It hurt, both on my lip and in my ass, and I yelled and bared down, trying to relax my muscles so it didn’t hurt so much. But the pain… I knew it was part of who he was, and now who I was. It tethered us together in a way I never would have imagined.
Then he lifted his body off of mine and stared down at me, looking straight into my soul as he fucked me. I was used to him talking dirty to me, making me feel all nasty and wanton, but this time he was completely silent. He bounced me off of his thighs, rocking my body back and forth on the mattress, but it wasn’t fast. It was deliberate and slow, like he was savoring every inch of movement. My feet were planted firmly on the tops of his thighs to brace myself, and his muscles flexed and bunched beneath my soles. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from his sorrowful gaze, his eyes so steady while he just bounced me in that hypnotic, slow rhythm.
When he came, it wasn’t quick. It was slow and drawn out just like his movements, his face a beautiful mask of pain, lust, and heartbreak. I doubted if anyone else had ever belonged to another person as much as I belonged to him in that moment.
The first three weeks after the fight were a whirlwind. Kage received a UFC contract for five fights, and we spent most of the time doing business-related things. We were informed that his uncle had hired a notable PR firm to handle Kage’s public image, and that I would be relegated to running his website and smaller social media accounts. This did not sit well with me, but I couldn’t blame them for wanting someone with experience to do the job. Kage pulled me aside and kissed me hard after we got the news.
“This is good for us, right? Now you can focus on your main job.” He reached around and grabbed my ass with one hand and started tickling me with the other until I couldn’t take it anymore. I appreciated the effort to cheer me up, but we both knew that it was just the first step in phasing me out. I’d be going back to school in a few weeks, and who knew what would happen to us then?
He kept me by his side as much as he could, though his PR people had him making appearances around town, sometimes at night. A more suspicious man might have thought he was seeing someone else on the sly, but when we were together he showered attention on me. He kept me well-fed and well-loved, but I was all too aware that he and I were living on borrowed time.
I slept in his apartment, even during the four nights he spent away when he had to go to New York City to do some UFC promo. I was upset about not being able to go with him, but we were told that the situation was going to be too close for comfort with other fighters and promoters and Kage didn’t need a tag-along. He kissed me goodbye, and we texted a lot, and Steve kept me company during his off time.
Apparently hanging out with the other fighters gave Kage sort of a tribal mindset, and he came back wanting a tattoo. “Some of the guys went out and got them on our last night there,” he said. “They invited me, but I didn’t want to get one without you there.”
“What would you get?” I asked.
“Well, they were getting stuff like their little kids’ faces or birthdays, sayings that meant something to them and their wives. One guy got a geometric pattern. That one didn’t mean anything, it just looked really amazing.”
We made an appointment at a local place with a really good reputation, and started working out what he wanted to get. It became clear early on that the main thing he wanted was an eagle, and it seemed he’d put a lot of thought into it.
“I didn’t know you liked eagles,” I said.
He looked shy when he said, “My dad was in the Army. That’s why I want an eagle.”
“Oh.” It was the first time he had ever mentioned his father, and it felt like I’d just hit the Kage-backstory jackpot. I wanted to encourage him to talk about his dad. “How long was he in?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t remember too much about him. But he always wore this green Army jacket, and we slept under the rough-ass Army blankets that my brother and I always hated. They scratched our skin, you know? Made us itchy as hell. But now sometimes… I kind of miss it.”
“That’s so cool,” I said, trying not to let on that I was about to have to excuse myself to the bathroom so I could cry. Because here was this big, brawny fighter who could whip anybody’s ass, and he turned all shy and boyish when he talked about the father he could barely remember. I made a mental note to appreciate my own father more, and to call my mother and check on her, because it had been over a week since I’d last called.
Even worse, he’d just mentioned a brother, and I’d had no clue Kage wasn’t an only child.
“I think I’ll get a rose for my mother,” he said, continuing to plan his tattoo. “No color. I want everything black.”
Father? Mother? Brother? Where were these people? Were they dead? Because that certainly seemed to be the case. I was terrified to ask.
When we went to the tattoo artist, Kage explained all of his ideas, and the guy worked up a design for a three-quarter sleeve with an eagle jutting out onto the chest. It took three weeks to get it all designed and put on his skin, but it was worth it. In the beginning, I hadn’t been a hundred percent on board with the idea, because I thought he was just jumping on the bandwagon with the other fighters. But after Kage was all inked up, and I saw him admiring the stunning results in the mirror, I realized that it was more about marking his body with the things he cared about that were no longer in his life. There was one current thing within the sleeve: an abstract fighter’s championship belt. Kage hadn’t discussed that one with me, just told the artist he wanted it. I told him he’d be getting a real one soon enough, but he just smiled and said it wasn’t the same. He also added the year in Roman numerals, to commemorate his official emergence as a pro fighter.
“And the year I met Jamie Atwood,” he whispered when the tattoo artist walked away for a minute after filling in the last of the numerals. Kage pointed at the tattoo. “You’ll always be right here. With my family.”
I nodded, but I couldn’t say anything. Instead, I stood there and blinked back tears.
Then Kage stunned me with his next suggestion. “I wanted to wait and surprise you with this. Let’s have our initials put on each other.”
I laughed. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were going to miss me when I go back to school.”
“What do you think this is? Of course I’ll miss you. You’re gonna miss me, too, right? You’ll need something to remember me by.”
I didn’t want to think about leaving. It was the most painful thing I’d ever faced, and I didn’t think a tattoo would be much comfort when I was sleeping in my bed alone at night.
I argued. “What if someone sees both of our tattoos and puts two and two together. That won’t be good, Kage. It wouldn’t be too hard to figure out that two guys have the same tattoo in the same place, and oh look, they’re each other’s initials. Boom, we’re busted.”
“I don’t care,” he said.
“There you go, doing that reckless thing again. I thought we had settled this. That you are not going to come out and jeopardize your career, no matter how tempting it may be.”
“Come here,” he said, crooking his finger at me from the tattoo chair.
I walked right up next to him and looked around, making sure no one was looking. Then he snatched me down and kissed me. “I hate hiding. I’m proud of you, okay? You’re so fucking hot. I want the whole world to know you’re with me.”
So I got a tattoo, because how could I say no to that? Kage got JA, and I got MK, and we both got them on the sensitive underside of our forearms.
“Don’t you want to hide them, like below our waistbands or something?”
“No, Jamie. Then you can’t see it while I’m fighting. I want you to be able to see. When I land a hard right to someone’s face, it’s got your name on it.”
Again, how could I say no to that?
The week leading up to my departure was hell. Kage noticed my appetite diminishing, and he started personally making sure I got enough calories. “Don’t do this when you go back to school, okay? Don’t torture yourself. It’s just a year, and we’ll see each other plenty. Do you trust me?”
I nodded, but it was an empty gesture. The truth was, I still didn’t know if I trusted Kage. Trusted him to what? Not sleep with other people? Not visit enough? Not forget about me? Hell, I couldn’t say whether I trusted him. I didn’t even know if I trusted myself. All I knew is that leaving hurt like hell.
Kage had two more nightmares that week. One of them was especially terrifying, because it took me ten minutes to wake him up. I was just about to call his therapist, when he suddenly snapped out of it. There were tears in his eyes, and he was clinging tightly to me and crying no, no, no.
In the last twenty-four hours before my plane left, Kage and I made love six times. By the time we wound up the last one in the wee hours, we were both exhausted and empty. I didn’t think I’d be able to come again for a week. And forget about touching my ass. I was considering buying a donut pillow at the drugstore, but I knew I wouldn’t. As always, pain was part of our relationship, and I cherished the physical pain, the way it reminded me. It was the emotional pain I couldn’t stand.
Apparently, Kage felt the same way. He was gone when I woke up. He had arranged for Aldo and Aaron to drive me to the airport, but about an hour before it was time to go, Dr. Tanner stopped by Kage’s apartment.
“Jamie, I’m so glad I was able to catch you before you left. It’s been so difficult to catch you when Kage isn’t around.”
I gave her a puzzled look. “When he’s not around?”
“Well,” she began. “I’ve been worried about him, and I wanted to talk to you about it.”
“I don’t know how much help I can offer you.”
“I’ve been reluctant to say anything about this, because I know he’s happy lately. But there’s a problem I think you need to know about. I need to ask you some questions.”
“I don’t know how well I can answer them, but I’ll do my best.”
“Alright, I know you have a plane to catch, so I’ll get right to the point. Has Kage been acting different lately? Any personality changes? Has he been doing things that seem out of character for him?”
I nodded. “Actually, I guess he has. He’s been… I really shouldn’t be telling his business. Maybe I should talk to him first.”
“I’m his therapist, Jamie. I’ve been treating him for a very long time, ever since he was a young boy. I know you don’t want to betray his trust, but if there’s any way you can help me by answering questions… I don’t need specifics, but I do need something to go on. I need you to help me help him. Can you do that?”
“Well, I suppose it’s not a breach of trust to give you general information. I just can’t give you any details.”
“That’s fine, Jamie. Just fine. We’re both here to help Kage, not to hurt him or jeopardize his career.”
I took a deep breath and let it out. “He’s been having bad dreams. Like really bad. He’ll wake up in the middle of the night sweating and crying, and he’s saying scary things. Begging someone to stop doing something to him, I think”
“Has he told you anything about the dreams?” she asked. “Any details that might help us figure out what they’re about?”
“No. He’s always really out of it when he wakes up, and by the time he’s coherent again, he always says he doesn’t remember. I’m terrified for him, Dr. Tanner.”
“That’s understandable, Jamie. I know you only want what’s best for Kage. Anyone can see that.” She paused and pursed her lips, her eyes softening sympathetically. “That’s why what I’m about to say is so difficult.”
My heart thudded. Did I want to hear this?
“As Kage’s therapist, I am privy to confidential information that you don’t have. I have also spoken to Kage at length about the nature of your relationship. He confides everything to me. His hopes, his fears, everything. Obviously, due to patient-therapist confidentiality, I can’t share details. But based on everything I already know about my patient and the things he is currently telling me, I have reason to believe that the reason for the mental breakdown he’s experiencing is…” She gave me a piteous look over her reading glasses and took them off. “I think it may be his relationship with you.”
“Me?” The ground fell away, and I was floating. “Mental breakdown? I thought he was just having, you know, some issues. A few bad dreams isn’t such a big deal, right?”
She twirled the arm of her glasses between her thumb and forefinger. “You just said yourself that you’re terrified for him.”
Yes, I had said that, hadn’t I?
“Let me put it bluntly. Kage is having issues, as you say. But for someone with a past like his— with so much tragedy and heartbreak— issues has a whole different meaning than it would for you or me.”
“What kind of tragedy and heartbreak? Can’t he… How about drugs, or more therapy? Maybe we could come in together and work it out. I could transfer schools. I’ve actually already considered moving to UNLV.”
“Jamie.” Her tone was pitying. “If we don’t get Kage some relief from this stress he’s under, I’m afraid he may attempt suicide again.”
“What?” I jumped up off of the sofa. “Again?”
“Sit down, Jamie. Calm down. I know you want to help him. I think I know a way that you can help him, and keep another tragedy from happening.”
My heart was pounding out of my chest.
“What can I do?” I asked, fearing the answer.
She took a deep breath in and out, then clasped her hands primly in her lap. “You can cut ties with him.”
“But, he doesn’t want that.”
“Like I said, I’m privy to information that you aren’t. And while I’m not at liberty to discuss everything, I believe you may already know that he’s considering marrying Vanessa Hale.”
I gasped, instantly giving away the fact that I had never heard any such thing.
“Oh, I assumed Kage had told you. He led me to believe that he’s been honest about everything he’s been doing. That the two of them have been dating again.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” I whispered.
“It’s nothing personal. He cares a great deal about you, Jamie. Which is why it’s proving so difficult for him to lead this double life of his. Vanessa is good for him. He acknowledges that fact, and he loves her. He also desperately wants children. I’m sure you know he lost his parents and his older brother when he was a very young boy. He’s always dreamed of having a family of his own, and Vanessa can give him that.”
“This can’t be true.”
“He’s already given her a ring, Jamie. I can’t believe he hasn’t been honest with you about this. He told me he had. I’m sorry. If I’d known, I never would have approached you like this.”