Chapter Thirty
Brooklyn
Shit, what was I thinking, opening my big mouth? Easy, I wasn’t thinking. I’d been so stunned Shane had stood up to my dad, and then there’d been kissing, and I really wanted to get back to the kissing. Clearly he wasn’t going to let it go. I sorted through the truth, trying to pick out what parts of it I should tell him.
“He was…temperamental. And before his fights, the mood swings were worse. I wrote it off as him being driven, especially since after he won and his stress-level went down, things were mostly good again.” I told Shane how I’d taken a gap year because Conrad said he needed me with him to reach that next tier on the ranking ladder, the one where guys started making real money and becoming household names. “Since it meant having me around to take care of all the admin stuff, my dad was thrilled. Of course, my art got pushed to the bottom of the priorities pile and I began to feel really restless. I submitted a couple of pieces and got into a small, local show—my very first that wasn’t sponsored by the high school. That week, my disgruntled boyfriend, my brothers, and my dad went to Vegas to get ready for the bouts, and the same night as the fight, I had my first showing. I’ve never felt so alone.
“Until afterward, when I found out that Conrad had slept with one of the Vegas ring girls to celebrate his win. We’d abstained for those few weeks prior because he was exhausted, dropping weight, and prescribed to the theory it’d give him that extra edge, and when we had our big blow-up, he berated me for not being there and told me my absence was to blame for his infidelity. Apparently after going without that long and then having all that extra testosterone and adrenaline from a win, it’s impossible not to trip and fall into some girl’s vagina.”
I smiled at my attempted joke, even though it didn’t land, and Shane was far from laughing. Conrad could be a complete ass and often was, but back then I’d mistaken passion for intense, infinite love, and factor in the part about him being my first, and the betrayal made me question everything and was hell on my self-esteem. “He told me it didn’t mean anything, but it did. It meant that he and I were over, something he had a hard time understanding.”
In that after period, Conrad would park outside my house, and if I was out with anyone but my brothers, he’d threaten them, threaten me. It scared me, and then I felt weak, and I didn’t want to admit to my family that I couldn’t handle it, especially since they’d always been crazy overprotective and Finn had nearly landed himself in assault territory over the situation already.
Right when I was about to loop in Liam, Conrad backed off. Then I moved several hours away, and that seemed to solve all my problems. But I didn’t dare tell Shane any of that, since intent-to-maim was written in the tight set of his features already.
“I should’ve seen it coming,” I said, putting lightness I didn’t feel behind the words. “I should’ve ended it before any of that happened, but I was young and naive and optimistic. That was when I believed the MMA lifestyle didn’t have to take over everything. That I could be a part of it and do my art as often as I wanted to, and there could still be a happy ending.”
That was when I’d realized where my mom was coming from those years she’d clung on, hoping somehow things would change despite having so much evidence to the contrary. Sometimes I thought I should’ve moved to Arizona with her after they divorced my junior year. Then I never would’ve even met Conrad.
Naturally, Dad’s infidelities only made it harder to believe guys who traveled a lot could be faithful, something I didn’t want to delve too deeply into right now, standing across from a guy who was on the verge of doing exactly that.
Shane had gone from angry to…I wasn’t sure. “It doesn’t have to be that way. It doesn’t mean you can’t have the best of both worlds.”
“I’m afraid it does. Every single time my family missed my events for theirs, it made me bitter. I don’t want to feel bitter toward my brothers. I didn’t want to feel bitter toward my dad, but that ship’s sailed. I’ve accepted it.” The words scraped my throat on the way out, making an accidental liar out of me. “I’m working on accepting it, anyway.”
The silence stretched longer and longer, and instead of thinning out and evaporating it grew thicker and heavier.
I ran my finger down that carved line in Shane’s forearm I was becoming slightly obsessed with. “So, sexy, right? There’s nothing like talking about exes and family drama and all the issues both have left you with to really set the mood.”
“Hey…” Shane placed his hand on the side of my neck and then tipped my chin up with his thumb, another thing that drove me crazy in the best possible way. “I asked. Everyone has issues, and everything you just told me? It doesn’t scare me. And honestly, all it takes to get me in the mood is to look at you.”
He gave me the once over, being extra brazen about it, and I cracked half a smile. He reached for me, and I pushed my hand flat to his chest, holding him back. Before I got carried away in the way he looked at me, the wicked curve of his mouth, and the ridiculously hot body, I needed to make sure that I drove a very important point home. “I want to move on from this crappy topic, but before we do, I need you to swear to me that you won’t do anything with what I’ve told you about Conrad until you step inside the octagon. Think of your career. Think of all this work you’re putting in. You’ll get your chance to hit him.”
“I know the risks of fighting outside of the cage.”
“That’s not a risk, it’s a sure way to ruin your career. Just stay clear of him until your fight. Promise me.”
He removed my hand from his chest, lifted it to his mouth, and kissed the center of my palm. A zing darted from that spot right to my heart. “As long as he keeps his hands off you, I’ll wait.”
I tilted my head.
One of his dark eyebrows quirked up. “Do you want me to keep my promises, or not?”
I groaned. “You’re making this really difficult.”
“So are you. I promise. With the aforementioned exception.”
I rolled my eyes. “Really? ‘Aforementioned?’” He nodded, a proud grin on his face, and I couldn’t help dragging my thumb over the scrumptious stubble lining his jaw. “Maybe right before you knock him out, tag me in and let me take a shot or two before you finish him off?”
“Sure thing,” he said, then he wrapped his arms around my waist and brought me flush against him. “I’ll make you another promise. While you and I are together, I won’t touch another girl.”
My heart tried to soar, but I’d clipped its wings a long time ago. “I’m not asking you to—”
“I’m telling you that I won’t. That you can trust me. You don’t have to ask.”
“I appreciate it, I do. But it’s the while we’re together part that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? We can’t really be together—not out in the open—and we have an expiration date.” My worries and frayed emotions swirled together, bringing the crappy debris to the surface. “There are so many things against us. What are we doing?”
“The best part is that we don’t have to know. We can take it a day at a time.” He leaned temptingly close, one breath between our mouths. “Just ride the wave with me, Brooklyn.”
He parted my lips with his tongue and rolled it over mine, his hands working free the button of my jeans, and I went ahead and caught the wave. I rode it as we stripped off every last piece of our clothes, as he put his mouth on me, licking and sucking and driving me wild with desire. Rode it when he covered his body with mine and it became impossible to tell where I ended and he began. One moan blurred into the next, along with my cries and his groans and an overwhelming rush of pleasure.
Then we were coming together, and I went ahead and let the current pull me all the way under.