(Penny)

He’s going to hurt everyone you and Noah know… he won’t stop until you’re both broken… and then dead.

Andy hugged me before he left.

I then sat at the kitchen counter, a bottle of beer to my right, a gun to my left. I had gone from some nosey woman looking for a story to a woman sitting with a gun, hoping the only man who could protect me would come home soon.

I burst into laughter when I realized how much of a good story it would have all made. I laughed because if I didn’t, I was going to cry.

I heard a noise at the door and grabbed the gun. I watched the door unlock and knew it was Noah. But I still held the gun… just in case…

“Now there’s a sight,” he said as he entered the apartment.

When I saw Noah, that’s when I burst into tears. I stupidly put my hands to my face, my left hand still holding the gun. I cried onto a fucking handgun.

“Jesus, Penny,” Noah said.

He rushed to me, one hand grabbing my shoulder, the other hand grabbing the gun.

“You need to put this down before someone else gets shot,” he said.

I looked at him, the tears leaking down my face. “I’m…”

“Hey. We’re going to be okay. Marcos is gone. Nathan is working with me. He knew Marcos was bad. And Seth too. They were… it doesn’t matter. It’s going to be okay. We just need to stop Erik.”

“That’s the problem,” I said.

“Why? What happened? Was he here?”

I shook my head. “Andy was. Beaten bloody.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Erik really got him good. He came here to kill you, but he wouldn’t have done it. Noah, Erik is out for blood on you, big time.”

“I just need to convince him I’m sorry for what happened. Or just let him have his revenge on me. I deserve it, right?”

“No,” I said. “No you don’t. I can’t… without you…”

I reached for his face. He was still cut up and bruised, but he was so perfect and sexy. Flawlessly flawed and driving my heart into a tailspin. I wrapped my legs to the back of his legs and pulled.

“Say it,” he whispered as our foreheads touched.

“I can’t be without you,” I said. “I know that’s crazy to say right now. I know I was just some woman that wanted to fuck you after your fights, but it’s more now for me.”

“Me too,” Noah whispered. “This is going to work for us, Penny. I just have to settle this with Erik.”

“Your… whoever they are… they won’t help?”

“No. This is lingering from Seth and Marcos. This is my battle. Nathan won’t go near it. Too much heat on his family already. They weren’t people. My best friend… Seth was a hit man for Marcos. All behind the scenes.”

“Oh, Noah.”

“Yeah. Seth was a killer. A trained and paid killer. That’s why he had no fear that night with Aiden. But with you… he hesitated because of me.”

“Why?”

“Because of how I grew up. The shit my old man used to do.”

I stroked Noah’s face. “Tell me.”

“He used to beat my mother up pretty bad. And if I got involved, he’d beat me until I was unconscious. That was sort of how I learned to fight. I had to protect myself from getting knocked out by my own father. So I could protect my mother. The first time I did it… I blocked him and hit him… it felt good. So I kept doing it. Over and over. After that, my mother got mad at me for disrespecting my father. So I left.”

Noah blinked fast. I let my thumb touch the corner of his eye, but it remained dry. Too tough and too proud to cry.

“If it means anything, my entire life has been a lie too,” I said. “My mother died when I was young. My father never got over her. I think that’s why he ended up at that fight. He was into some stuff he never wanted me to know. Drugs. Gambling. Fighting.”

“Oh, honey,” Noah said. “About that…”

“I wrote letters to my mother,” I said. My lips quivered as my throat tightened up. Are you going to tell him this? The worst pain you’ve ever felt? “All the time, Noah. I would then just write the word Heaven on them and put them in the mailbox. My father would then take them. I never knew that. I thought they were going to heaven, to her. To my mother. So I started to wait. I thought I could bring her back. Or at the very least, she would write me back. She never did. So I started to lose hope. Lose faith in everything. I hated my father for living and being who he was. I hated myself for being alive. But I kept writing letters to her. I kept sending them to Heaven. Then I found something.”

Noah stroked my hair. Our foreheads were still touching. I had started to gently sway left to right, so nervous to be talking to him like this.

“What did you find?”

“All the letters,” I said. “He kept them. I guess that was a good thing. Such a sweet gesture, but I didn't take it like that. It was a deep feeling of betrayal. All those letters for nothing. All those words. All those emotions just wasted.”

“Ah, damn,” Noah said. “I’m so sorry.”

“I hated him even more after that. I burned as many as I could. I kept some and I still read them. So… that’s my story, Noah. I’m a broken woman. I was good at writing so I stayed with it. My father was murdered and I wanted to know why. I had to survive on my own and hide until I was eighteen. Then I worked. I took any job I could. I never forgot about what happened though. The wasted letters to Heaven and the murder of my father. I met Andy and we were a good team. We came up with great stories and angles. Each time I worked something dark, the lingering feeling of the fights stayed with me. I wanted to do it. I brought it up to him so many times and he refused because it was too personal. Then out of nowhere he wanted me to do it. That should have been a sign. But I was too stupid to see that.”

“Hey. You are not stupid. Don’t ever say that.”

“Noah, how do we escape this?”

“We fight. We survive. Nathan has me scheduled for a fight. I want you there. You’ll see. I’ll get to Erik and fix this.”

“What if you have to kill him?”

Noah kissed me gently. “If it protects you, I’ll take out the world.”

My hands slid around to his neck. I pulled at him, wanting his mouth again. We kissed over and over. His hands touched my back and he lifted me up. He sat me on the counter and quickly moved under my shirt. His bare hands to my bare skin set me on fire. I put my head back and moaned. His lips and tongue eased down my neck. I loved disappearing into his touch and his need. It made the rest of the world seem like nothing.

As his hand slid over my breasts, I thrust my chest at him. I wish my breasts were bigger for him, but he didn’t seem to mind. He moved his arms up, taking my shirt with him. I took my hands from behind his neck and took my shirt off. I couldn’t wait any longer. We couldn't wait any longer.

Noah moved a hand to the middle of my back and unsnapped my bra. That same hand cut right back around and he cupped me. The warm palm of his hand, the strength of his squeeze, I felt myself losing complete control instantly. His other hand touched my side, his mouth slowly kissing down my chest. I reached for the counter and gripped the edge tight. I looked down just in time to see his mouth ease over my breast. He took me into his mouth and pulled back with the tip of his tongue flicking fast against my hard nipple. He moved fully away and then ran the tip of his nose up and down, teasing me. My hips started to grind against him, demanding his beautiful cock to rip me apart again.

That’s when his cell phone rang.

“Shit,” I groaned.

“Ignore it,” he said and his mouth engulfed my breast again.

I cried out, feeling a tingling pulse that spread from my chest down through my belly and right between my legs. He somehow had everything connected. I felt like I could come just from him kissing my breast, but that couldn’t happen, right?

I managed to convince myself to let go of the counter. My hand touched between his legs, feeing his cock pushing through his jeans. He was so thick and hard, there was no way it could have been comfortable in the position he was.

His cell phone started to ring again.

“Goddammit,” he growled.

His lips started to kiss my stomach. He pulled his lower half away from me, leaving my hand desperate to touch him. I grabbed at his hair, taking a handful.

“Noah…”

His tongue slithered down past my belly button. I knew his destination.

Holy fuck, yes. Do it. Taste me. Taste what you do to me.

He tugged at the top of my jeans, unbuttoning them.

For the third time, his phone started to go off.

His mouth left my body and he stood up. As he reached back to grab his phone, he looked pissed off. I purposely sat there, breathing heavy, pushing my chest out at him again. My nipples were hard nubs, tender and sensitive, waiting for more attention.

“Dalton,” he said into the phone. “All I can say is that the gym better be on fire.”

I grinned.

Noah didn’t. His face dropped.

He jumped back and took the phone away from his ear. “We have to go. Right now. Get dressed.”

“Noah, what’s wrong?”

He was already at the door.

He looked at me, his eyes glossy. “Dalton was attacked… by Erik…”