Chapter Forty-Three
Brooklyn
It was too much. I should’ve fled while I had the chance, not dug myself deeper and fallen a little harder for Shane Knox. Like me, he’d given up his dream for a while, for a far more valiant reason than I had, and it was just another reason to not get in his way.
It was like every time I thought there was a lot at stake, the ante got upped. I couldn’t afford to play this hand, not if it meant standing by and watching people I loved lose everything while I tried to have my career and my fighter, and have sex with him, too.
And yes, I loved Shane. I’d been tiptoeing around the realization for the past week, telling myself it was too soon. Love didn’t care about logic, though. I’d gone and fallen for a cocky, sexy fighter who could break my heart so easily, the very thing I’d sworn to never do again. The way my heart swelled and my soul turned to liquid fire whenever I was around him made me question if I’d ever truly loved any other guy. Not in this same intense way, I knew that much.
And if the love was this intense already, and I let it grow even more… I’ll never survive the crash.
Ever since Liam pointed out everything that was at stake and asked me if I was going to help Shane or hold him back, I’d tried to figure out a way to be with Shane without risking so much. The evidence stacked up quickly, from all the ways I served as a distraction to the fact that it took me two days to reply to the email that offered up one of my dreams on a silver platter.
If I stayed in this world, fighting would always come first, which meant my stuff would always be last. I couldn’t put off my dreams and watch Shane soar through the ranks until the day he decided he’d outgrown me. Or that the rules didn’t apply to him or “he just slipped and it didn’t mean anything.”
A tiny voice in the back of my head spoke up, that maybe argument it wanted to make so tempting.
You’re not the exception to the rule… I wouldn’t turn into my mom, giving chance after chance until she ended up broken; wouldn’t make the same mistakes I’d made in the past. You know it’s going to end badly, and the longer you drag it out, the worse it’s going to be.
For the past few days I’d worked twelve-hour shifts, slashing the budget to the bare-bones minimum and implementing new software that’d help whoever took over the books at the gym keep better track. It would also generate a report and send it to Liam at the end of the week. That way he could see problems as they arose, not after it was too late to do much about them.
I’d set up a self-defense class that Liam and Finn were set to teach and put out a call for aerobics instructors who specialized in kickboxing type classes, plus asked the guys at the gym who’d be up for helping with that or doing some personal training. Dad might be too stubborn to follow through, but it was there if they needed it.
Still, if Shane didn’t win his fight, the gym would drift that much closer to possible foreclosure. Team Domination needed him way more than they needed me, regardless of what magic I could work with the admin stuff.
“Baby?”
I jerked out of my thoughts, back to the living room where my perfectly imperfect boyfriend sat talking to the woman who’d taken him in and believed in him when no one else would. “Sorry, what?”
“We were talking about dessert.”
“My answer is yes, please.”
“Is your vote for ice cream or brownies?”
“I have to choose?” I asked, going overboard with the dramatics to hide my sad thoughts and ensure he and Tammy knew I was kidding. “Are you trying to make me have an emotional breakdown?”
Shane took my hand and kissed the top of it, and I found myself fighting off tears for the second time that night. “Whatever my baby wants, my baby gets.”
His eyebrows scrunched together, so clearly I was shit at hiding my sorrow, so I bolted up from the couch. “I’ll help.”
A few minutes later, Tammy and I ate dessert while Shane allowed himself one bite from my bowl and a handful of almonds. Afterward we used our teamwork skills to tackle the dishes, and then Tammy announced it was time for her to go home.
“It was so nice meeting you,” I said, and she threw her arms around me and hugged me so tightly that I feared I’d never survive the night without crying.
Shane put his hand on the small of my back. “I’m going to walk her to her car.” His eyes locked on mine. “Promise me you’ll still be here when I get back.”
Obviously he knew something was up, and I fought the panicky urge to claim I needed to go, too. But it wasn’t like this would get any easier, and I refused to go the coward’s route. We were adults, so we’d talk like adults. “I’ll be here.”
He arched an eyebrow, and a little sunshine broke through my cloudy mood.
“I promise,” I said.
Satisfied, he gave me a quick kiss, and then I was alone in his apartment, my lungs bound, my rapid pulse pounding through my head.
My feet felt like they weighed a thousand pounds as I made my way to the couch. The seconds fell from the clock one by one, no way to stop them. Our time was always meant to run out, I just thought we’d have a little while longer.
The door swung open, and the breeze carried in rain-scented air. Droplets speckled Shane’s blue shirt and peppered his face and hair. It reminded me of the first night I’d shown up at his place, drenched and done with fighting the chemistry between us.
The slam of the door reverberated through the quiet, and then Shane made long, steady strides toward me. My heart beat faster and harder, and then his mouth came down on mine. His hands framed my head as he angled it back to deepen the kiss, his movements tender but sure.
His fingers circled my wrist and he tugged me to my feet. He drew me flush against him, his hard body a wall of pleasure-fulfilling resistance, his arousal pressing into me and making me want to forget everything I’d decided. No thanks to being an adult as well.
“Shane…” Each breath only left me shorter on oxygen; every thought drifted farther away before I could catch hold. Summoning every ounce of restraint I had at my disposal, I choked out, “We need to talk.”
It was one of those lame, cliché sentences that lay waste to relationships, and I wished I’d put it a different way, although it wouldn’t change anything.
“Later, baby.” Shane rested his forehead on mine and implored me with his green eyes. “Let’s talk later.”
One second ground out in the air, then two and three. I closed my eyes and dove back in, kissing his lips and giving in to the desire searing its way through my body. We deserved one more time.
His hands gripped my ass, and as he lifted me into his arms, I wrapped my legs around his waist. Impatient and needy after four days without, I rubbed myself against his gloriously hard length, satisfaction coursing through me at his throaty groan.
He stumbled into his bedroom and then we fell to the bed, a tangle of groping limbs. He stripped me bare, in every possible way, and after we’d shed our clothes, he crawled over me, his delicious weight pinning me to the mattress. Our eyes locked as we moved together, a perfectly choreographed routine ensuring maximum pleasure. Sweat slicked our bodies, our ragged breaths came faster and faster, and still we dragged it out as long as we could, clinging to the here and now because we both knew things were about to change.
“I don’t think I can hold on any longer,” I said, my head lolling back when he hit that spot that drove me crazy.
“Then let go.” Shane drove into me, deeper and harder, the pressure that’d built between us screeching toward the tipping point. He roughly kissed my mouth, a kiss that was pleasure and pain, lips and teeth and scruff and more passion than I’d ever experienced, and I let go.
His name spilled from my lips as I reached a whole new level of ecstasy, the aftershocks tumbling through me one after another, so close I could hardly tell where one ended and the next began. I clung on to him, my fingernails digging into his back, then I dragged them down, scoring lines for him to remember me by. His control snapped, and I arched my hips, meeting him so we could come down together.
After dropping a kiss on my lips, Shane shifted to the side of me, pulling me onto his chest as he fell to the bed. He held me against him extra tightly, like he never planned on letting go. I closed my eyes and soaked in every detail, from how amazing it felt to be in his arms, to his scent, to the steady sound of his heart beating away inside his massive chest. Then I silently chanted be strong, be strong, be strong…