I woke up on a knife edge of pain and pleasure. After the boys had all but carried me home last night, I sat in an ice bath, which was almost as bad as the fighting, then collapsed on the bed with my girl in my arms. On the one hand, my sore, achy body felt like it had been hit by a bus. On the other, the love of my life was asleep on my chest. Did she look perfect first thing in the morning? Hell no. My wife had naturally curly blond hair, meaning that she got bed hair like you wouldn’t believe. She was a light sleeper, no doubt a consequence of always worrying about Frank finding her, and sometimes she drooled in her sleep.
Was she perfect? No, but she was perfect for me. Waking up to feel her warm body safe and curled into mine was like a little piece of heaven and lying here with her in my arms gave me peace. The sun streamed through the window where we’d forgotten to close the curtains, lighting up her hair like a halo. ’Course she chose that moment to snore and wake herself up, which made me chuckle. I loved the way she gave my chest a loving rub as she checked for drool.
“Mornin’, Mrs. O’Connell,” I told her, tilting my head up to capture her bottom lip between mine.
“You’re very chirpy for someone who just got their arse handed to them,” she teased.
“I let him win,” I replied.
“Is that right?” She questioned me with one eyebrow raised.
“Sure. With a face that ugly, someone had to throw him a bone,” I told her with a smile.
“I knew you were all heart.” Any reply died on my lips as she raised herself up on all fours and kissed me. I moaned into her mouth as she brushed past my thickening cock. She’d slept in one of my T-shirts which swamped her so much that she looked like she was sleeping in a tent. Reaching behind her, I grabbed the back of it and tried to pull it over her head. I was so smooth that I ended up tangling her arms and hair in it so, by the time it was off, she’d collapsed on the bed in fits of laughter.
“Do you know what it does to my hard-on when you laugh while we’re making love?”
“What?” she asked curiously.
“Absolutely nothing. Now get your sexy arse over here and kiss my war wounds,” I replied, hauling her to me.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” she asked. I didn’t bother answering. It wasn’t even a real question anyway. I stroked my way gently down her naked spine, knowing how much it turned her on. The skin on her back was so soft that my big callused hands must have felt like sandpaper. If her low moan was anything to go by though, I was doing okay. My face was killing me, and there was only one muscle left that didn’t hurt, but none of that mattered with Em’s body this close to mine. When her tits brushed up against my chest, I slid my hands inside her panties to cup the globes of her arse. She squirmed as she rubbed herself up against my cock. I wanted to flip her onto her back and suck on her until she was screaming my name but given that I could barely lift my own arm, I satisfied myself by sliding my hand around to her front and slipping a couple of fingers deep inside her. Watching her ride them, her head thrown back in ecstasy, was one of the most erotic things I’d ever seen. If I wasn’t careful, I was gonna shoot my load before I even got my boxers off. With my free hand, I reached out to cup her breast and maneuvered her nipple into my mouth. Twisting my tongue around that firm, moist nub made her ride me harder. When I nipped her slightly then salved the bite with my tongue, it tipped her over the edge. Intensifying her orgasm, I rubbed gently over her clit until she literally couldn’t take any more pleasure and collapsed hard against my chest, making me moan in pain.
“Shit! Sorry baby,” she apologized, climbing quickly off me.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m fine,” I reassured her.
“Are you sure there isn’t anything you’d like me to kiss better?” she asked me, provocatively.
I fucking loved seeing Em like this. Alone with me, she was sassy and confident and sexy as fuck. She only had to pretty much walk past me and I got a hard-on. Watching her tease me in just a tiny pair of panties and not trying to hide or cover herself up had my cock hard as a diamond and my blood pumping. Leaning down to kiss her way across my chest, her thigh pressed against my cock, and I had to fist the sheets to stop myself from flipping her under me and sinking deep inside her. By the time she’d shown appreciation to every one of my abs, I was on fire. She gently lifted the elastic of my boxers and pulled them down, so I lifted my arse off the bed to help. Seconds later, her lips were wrapped around my cock, and I groaned. Loudly.
“I fucking love you, Mrs. O’Connell,” I told her as she took me deeper into her mouth. I was seconds away from coming when someone started pounding on the door. Em paused. “Ignore it,” I told her, and she carried on.
“Con. Quit fucking Em and open up. You two have been going at it for ages,” Tommy shouted as pounding started again. Angry whispered voices argued with him, and I could hear a scuffle, so the boys must have been trying to rein him in.
“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him,” I told Em as she started giggling.
“Sorry, love. I’ll make it up to you later,” Em promised me.
Of course that didn’t help me while I was lying here too stiff and achy to move with my cock stood up like a tent peg. Em kissed me passionately, which took the edge off my bad mood over the interruption, then jumped up to let the boys in. Pulling on some shorts, her bra, and my T-shirt, she still looked far too gorgeous to be answering the door to those horny maniacs. At least it was my T-shirt she wore. I fucking loved seeing her in my training clothes. I sighed loudly as I tried to think about washing machines, Father Pat, having a medicine ball dropped on me, literally anything I could to stop my cock standing to attention. Hearing Em’s laughter, I knew Tommy was hitting on my girl, which was all the push I needed to get my arse out of bed. Every bone in my body hurt, and I swear some of them even creaked as I sat up. Five years ago, I would have jumped out of bed after a fight, even with a hangover, and run five miles easy. Now I could barely sit up. These days, I was fighting world-class boxers and my body knew the difference. I pulled on clean underwear and my favorite worn jeans, buttoning them as I went. The guys were slouched in the few chairs around the flat. As I suspected Tommy leaned against the counter next to Em with his arms crossed over his tightly fitted T-shirt as she made them all bacon sandwiches.
“Take your eyes off my wife’s arse, boyo,” I warned Tommy.
“Geez. You’re so fucking possessive,” he answered me back. “You’re married now, Con, and I totally respect that.” Everyone stopped and stared at him, not quite believing what they were hearing. “Besides, if I was going to check out anything, it would totally be your tits. You have an absolutely banging rack, Em,” he whispered conspiratorially to my wife.
“That’s it,” I shouted and, pain forgotten, dived across the tiny sofa to smack him. Liam and Kieran intercepted, talking me down before I got anywhere near him. The gutless fucker dived behind Em, who was laughing her arse off.
“Seriously, Tommy,” she wheezed between breaths, “do you have a death wish or something?”
“He knows how much I respect you. I don’t know why he keeps getting his knickers in a knot all the time.” Tommy whined like he had no idea what my problem was. My problem was that Em treated him like a little brother she needed to protect when she actually needed to let me teach that little fucker a lesson. After sorting everyone out with their breakfast, she sat down in my lap when the boys finally let me up. I gave Tommy the stink eye, which he completely ignored, but any remaining rage faded away when my gorgeous wife wrapped her arms around my neck, bringing me close enough to smell the slight vanilla scent of her skin. Em loved the smell of vanilla. Candles, body wash, shampoo were always the same. For me, if sunshine had a smell, it would be vanilla.
“Em, don’t suppose you’ve been baking lately?” Liam asked hopefully, breaking the tension.
“Red tin on the countertop,” Em answered with a grin.
“Don’t eat them all, you greedy bastard,” I warned him. Danny banned me from all of Em’s cakes during training, and I knew Sunshine had baked those ready for me to eat as soon as the Temple fight was done. Liam opened the tin, and the guys dived into it like it was filled with the phone numbers of Victoria’s Secret models. Rescuing a lone chocolate chip muffin, Em fed it to me so that I didn’t need to let go of her. She smiled as our collective groans explained how fucking delicious they were.
“Jesus, Con,” Liam piped up when the last muffin had been demolished, “you are one lucky bastard.” I smiled widely as I tucked Em into me more closely, knowing that he was right. Having her curves pressed so close was rapidly redirecting the blood flow around my body. As much as I loved the guys, the sex ban had been in place for the last four weeks, and I had a lot of time to make up for.
“So what brings you ugly lot here?” I asked.
“Fucking charming,” Kieran replied. “Anyone would think we’re not welcome.”
“Ignore him, Kieran,” Em said. “All of you are always welcome here. Now who’s for a cup of tea?” she asked, slipping off my lap. I rolled my eyes at their collective grins, knowing how much they loved Em mothering them. She moved over to the kitchenette, and I waited for the kettle to start boiling before I turned to Kieran.
“What’s going on?” I asked him quietly. I didn’t want to alert Em but something must be up for them to be coming round this early after fight night.
“Danny wants to meet you,” he explained. I figured this would be about the loss last night. It wasn’t uncommon for Danny to want a postmortem of what went down.
“Fine,” I huffed. “I’ll stop by the gym tomorrow.”
“No, Con. He wants to see you now. He sent us to come and get you.”
“Shit,” I said, because there really wasn’t anything else to say.
* * *
Liam dropped my sorry arse Driscoll’s Gym then took off with the guys leaving me with no backup. They knew I was about to get a bollocking for my shitty performance and were too chicken shit to stand in the line of fire. Sitting down in the crappy chair opposite Danny was like sitting in the headmaster’s office all over again. I’d been in this seat and under his spotlight many times before for drinking too much and fighting outside the ring, but it was the first time I’d sat here since I’d met Em.
“I’m sorry Danny. I don’t know what to say…” I started.
“I don’t need you to say anything, Con. I need you to listen. Last night weren’t just a feckin’ shambles, it were the first time in a long time that I thought about jacking in the boxing for good.”
I sucked in a breath. That was a serious thing to say. Danny ate, slept, and breathed boxing. I wasn’t sure he could ever walk away from it, and I wasn’t sure what I would do if he ever did.
“All because I didn’t run the fight like you told me to?” I asked, pissed that he was completely overreacting just because I’d gone off the reservation once.
“No, Con. Because if you were any other fighter, Rico Temple would have killed you last night.” It was on the tip of my tongue to argue with him, but the look on his face told me to shut the fuck up.
“Look, I know that everything that happened with Em screwed with your head, but last night I watched fear and anger eat you alive until the only thing I could see was a beaten-up, scared-shitless kid. So you wanna tell me what the fuck’s going on?” I hung my head in shame, knowing that he was right and ran my hands through my hair in despair.
“A few days ago Em got a letter from Frank. There was no note, just an envelope full of pictures. Turns out the sick fuck had taking photos of her for years without her knowing.”
“Shit,” he mumbled, looking as devastated as I probably did.
“You told the police?” he asked.
“I took it down to the station yesterday. It’s being tested for fingerprints but unless they find any, there’s nothing to tie it to Frank. This shit’s got me worried, Danny. I can’t get her through this while he’s messing with her head. And where does it stop? Even when he goes down, we don’t know how long he’s gonna get and it’s clear he can still get to her from the inside. So how’s this gonna end?”
“It ends when you say it ends, son. Frank’s in prison and he’s gonna be there for a long time. He’ll keep messing with your head as long as you let him. Bring me or Kieran any suspicious mail and let us vet it. Don’t set up voicemail and tell Em not to answer any calls where she doesn’t recognize the number. Cut the cancer out of your lives and start living. Otherwise Frank wins. The best way to stick it to him is to lead a long and happy life with the woman you love.” This was Danny’s epic advice but he didn’t know what it was like to have failed someone you loved and having them hurt because of it. It would always be my sin to bear and I couldn’t fuck up again.
“That’s easier said than done, Danny. I’m fucking terrified of letting her down again,” I admitted.
“Son, fear lives in the dark. Drag it into the light and you’ll see there was never anything to be afraid of in the first place. You tell Em how you’re feeling?” he asked, frowning.
“No. She doesn’t need to know all the shit going through my head. It’s my job to take care of her. She needs to know that I’ve got this handled,” I said.
“Bollocks. She ain’t some wallflower than needs wrapping up in cotton wool. That girl had the brass balls to stand up and walk away from that fecker long before she had you behind her. I’m telling you straight that you keep bottling shit up like you have been and not talking to her about it and you’ll end up losing her. Holding on to this anger is gonna eat you alive. So I think it’s time we brought someone in to fix your noggin and while we’re at it, you need a manager.
“I don’t need a manager, Danny. I’ve got you, and I sure as shit don’t need some fucking pansy-arsed head doctor,” I shouted at him.
Taking the cigarette out of his mouth, he turned toward me, his face a picture of anger. “Don’t you fuckin’ bark at me,” he yelled. “If I tell you we need something then we fecking need it.”
“Why can’t you manage me?” I asked, unhappy with all of this.
“What the fuck do I know about managing? It’s a full-time job, and I’m out of my depth. I’m a trainer not a manager. We’re going into the big leagues now, and we need someone who knows what they’re doing,” he said.
“I can’t afford to pay someone,” I admitted. There were lots of things that I needed before I could afford to hire someone full-time.
“Don’t you worry about that,” he reassured me. “I need someone to organize fights for some of the kids. I’ve got some good prospects round here so don’t be thinking you’re anything special,” he warned me, which made me smile grudgingly. “Pretty soon you’ll be able to afford your own guy, but for now you can borrow mine. I’ll keep him on staff until you can afford to take him on.”
“Fine,” I huffed, “but no fucking shrink.”
Danny sighed deeply. “There ain’t no shame in it, boy” he reassured me. “You want Em to get counseling for what she went through, right? You gonna think less of her for doing it?”
“Of course I won’t,” I said, pissed that he would even suggest it. “But it ain’t the same. You know it ain’t. Real men don’t see fuckin’ shrinks.”
“What a load of shite.” He laughed. “Real men ask for help when they need it, and we’re both in uncharted territory here, kid.”
I didn’t agree with him but I didn’t argue either. It still sounded like the worst idea he’d ever had, but I couldn’t lose him as my trainer, and if this was his price, then so be it.
“Sorry I yelled at you,” I mumbled, hating that I needed to apologize.
“So you fucking should be,” he admonished, never letting me off lightly. “I may be a few years older than you, but I can still kick your scrawny Irish arse, so don’t you forget it!”
I compared his frail frame next to my six-foot-five-inch body and smiled. “Whatever you say, Danny.”