CHAPTER 23
JAGGER
Sweat ran down my spine and soaked into the waistband of my shorts as I circled Cruz, the canvas scuffing under my bare feet. The underground gym smelled like rubber mats, leather polish, and the metallic trace of old blood. The lights overhead buzzed, throwing long shadows against the walls.
We were both shirtless, our chests slick and gleaming, our muscles pumped from the hour we’d already spent beating the shit out of each other. My knuckles ached under the wraps, but the burn was welcome—anything to drown out the noise in my head.
Eden hadn’t answered a single text all day.
Not one. After last night—after I’d had her legs wrapped around my face, her screams echoing off the bathroom tiles, her body shaking through three orgasms while I drank down every drop of her—she was ghosting me like none of it had happened.
Like I hadn’t marked her chest with my cum, hadn’t felt her pulse racing under my thumb as she came apart.
Cruz feinted left and drove a hook into my ribs. I took it without flinching and came back harder, snapping his head to the side with a clean right.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered, stepping back. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“Maybe,” I said, rolling my shoulders and stalking forward again.
She wasn’t allowed to act like nothing had happened. I’d felt her. Every reaction. Every tremor. She’d looked at me like I’d lit something up inside her that she didn’t even know was still alive.
And now she was pretending she hadn’t.
Cruz ducked my right hook and grinned like an asshole. “What’s got you so pissy? Eden still playing hard to get?”
I landed a solid jab to his ribs that made him grunt and back up a step. “Fuck off.”
He laughed and bounced on his toes, sweat flying off his pretty-boy hair. “It’s hard when I can smell the desperation from here. You look like a kicked puppy who just realized his favorite toy has teeth.”
Cruz feinted left, then snapped a quick combination that clipped my guard. “You’re swinging like a man who just discovered his dick shrank an inch,” he continued. “I’m assuming Eden finally revoked your imaginary boyfriend privileges, and now she’s ignoring you?”
I drove a sharp jab into his ribs. He grunted, but he was still smiling.
Snarling, I drove forward with a left hook that caught his shoulder. “She’s not ignoring me. She’s . . . processing.”
“‘Processing,’” he repeated in a voice thick with mockery. “Is that code for ‘she woke up and realized she should file a restraining order’?”
“Fuck you.”
He blocked my next punch, his grin spreading wider.
“This is the same thing you were doing before you handled Sir Cock Head. Hesitating. Once again, you’re being too fucking soft.
You let her walk out of that bathroom with your cum still drying on her tits, and you didn’t chain her to the nearest bed. Rookie fucking mistake.”
I swung harder, landing a clean shot to his side that made him hiss through his teeth. “Says the guy who thinks relationships are poison and the only commitment worth making is to a bottle of bourbon.”
He dodged my follow-up with a fluid twist. “That’s irrelevant. You should listen to my advice. You’re letting her breathe too much. That’s why she’s pulling away. Women like Eden? They need to feel owned. Not courted like some fairy-tale princess.”
“How would you know what she’s like?” I growled.
He ignored me and tried to break my nose instead. “You put the hole in her life. So stop pretending you’re not the one who gets to fill it.”
“You’re so fucking annoying,” I told him, feeling every syllable he’d just said twist in my ribs.
“You know I’m so fucking right, though,” he said with a wink.
“Now stop whining and listen to me. What you need is forced proximity, Thatcher. That’s how you break her walls.
Get her kicked out of her apartment. Call in a favor—have one of our guys ‘discover’ a leak, black mold, structural bullshit, whatever gets the landlord to slap an eviction notice on her door by morning.
She’ll have nowhere to go. Then you show up, her psychopath in shining armor, and you offer her a place to stay.
“Your place, obviously, just in case you didn’t understand that,” he drawled, shooting me a look like I was stupid.
I punched him in the side, and he groaned and rubbed his ribs.
“Continue,” I told him magnanimously.
He sighed and started circling me again.
“Tell her it’s temporary and that you’re going to help her find something new.
But we both know temporary becomes permanent when she’s sleeping in your bed and waking up to your mouth between her thighs every morning.
We both know your bed is much better than where the two of you have been sleeping. ”
I snarled and shoved him back. “You’ve been tracking me again.”
He didn’t even flinch. “Obviously.”
“You’re a stalker.”
He tilted his head. “Please. I’m quality control.”
“If you hacked her cameras,” I said quietly, stepping in close enough that he could feel it in his throat, “I will actually kill you.”
That wiped the smirk down a notch.
“Relax,” he said, his hands lifting slightly. “I’m not suicidal. Of course I’m not going to watch her. I track you,” he continued. “You’re the liability. You’re the one circling her building like a lovesick gargoyle.”
“A gargoyle?” I asked. “That’s the best you could come up with?”
He waved me away. “Seriously, Jags. She’s not ignoring you because she doesn’t want you. She’s ignoring you because she’s terrified of how much she does. So stop playing nice and go fucking take what’s already yours.”
Cruz wasn’t done. He suddenly lunged forward, catching me off guard with a takedown that drove his shoulder into my midsection. We hit the canvas hard, the impact jarring my spine.
We grappled, rolling for dominance. His arm snaked around my neck in a loose choke, his muscles straining as he tried to lock it in.
Sweat made everything slick, our bodies sliding against each other in the scramble.
I bridged my hips and flipped us, pinning him beneath me with my forearm braced across his chest as my knee dug into his side.
“I wrote you a poem to give to her since you suck at romance,” he grunted as he bucked hard to throw me off. “‘Roses are red, violets are blue, I killed your ex, now I’m obsessed with you.’ She’s going to love it.”
I laughed breathlessly, tightening my hold on his arm until his muscles trembled. “Fuck off,” I said, gritting my teeth as he reversed the position with a twist, flipping me onto my back again.
“Kiss him already!” Maddox called from nearby. I hadn’t even seen him come in. Cruz paused just long enough to wink at me, and I slammed my elbow into his throat just in case he got any ideas.
Cruz didn’t let up, mounting me with his knee on my chest and his forearm pressing down like he was trying to crush the air out of me.
“Do it, Jagger. Use the guilt she’s carrying.
Twist it. Make her see that dead guy was nothing compared to what you can give her.
Own her grief. Own her body. Own every fucking thought until she’s addicted. ”
I bucked, throwing him off balance, and we rolled again—sweat-slick skin sliding, breaths coming in harsh pants as we wrestled for the upper hand.
We ended up side by side on the canvas, both of us laughing through the exhaustion, our chests heaving as the adrenaline crashed.
The fight was done—not because one of us tapped, but because that’s how they usually ended.
Push each other to the edge, then pull back.
The circle of trust . . . unbreakable, even when we were trying to break each other.
I sat up, peeling off my wraps, the gym spinning a little from the rush. “You’re a man among men, Cruzy.”
He clapped me on the shoulder, harder than necessary, because he hated that nickname. “Go get your girl, Thatcher. And hey—if she does realize what’s wrong with you and you end up shot, I’ll be sure to blare Taylor Swift at your funeral, as you have requested.”
I rolled my eyes but of course didn’t argue with him; that was in my funeral wishes.
Jumping out of the ring, I rubbed a towel over my face and let Cruz’s little eviction fantasy roll around in my head.
A leak. Mold. Structural damage.
Those were all way too temporary and way too reversible. If she thought there was even a chance she could go back, she would. She’d cling to that place out of spite alone. If I was going to do this, it needed to be final.
I ran through the list in my head as though I was planning a grocery run instead of arson. Gasoline. Something that would make it catch fast. Maybe a timer so I wouldn’t have to linger. Matches in case the first spark failed. Gloves. A dark hoodie—nothing memorable, nothing that would stick.
I’d swing by the stash at the warehouse on Fifth, load up what I needed, then head to her place.
I didn’t want her inconvenienced . . . I wanted her untethered.
She’d lose the apartment that was the last place that reminded her of him. When the fire took everything, she’d have nowhere to go but to me. She’d hate it, and I was sure she’d try to fight me. But this time, no matter what . . . there’d be no running.
I tossed the towel over my shoulder and nodded at Maddox. “Want to help me with something fun?” I asked as I nodded toward the locker room.
“Always,” he said with a smirk.
“Good boy,” I told him, and I snorted when he scowled.
Shooting a goodbye to Cruz, I turned and walked off, already planning . . .to make her world burn.