Dylan
Nine months is a long time when your life revolves around one thing.
For the next two hundred and seventy days, my life has been reduced to a brutal, unrelenting schedule: wake up at dawn, hundreds of rounds on the heavy bags until my knuckles bleed through the tape, and try not to drive myself mad replaying what happened the last time Levi Bastien and I got in the ring together.
I spend every waking moment at The Foundry.
Marcus, Max and Jed rotate training me, putting me through my paces five days a week and usually trying to drag me out to a bar to chill the fuck out on the other two.
At first, I take them up on the offer, figuring that a couple of hours shooting the shit will take my mind off of…
everything. But it doesn’t take long to realize that every distraction technique is just delaying the inevitable.
Because whether I’ve spent my night running drills with Marcus or listening to Jed make wisecracks in Duke’s all night, I’ll still end up lying awake on my mattress, my muscles twitching with restless energy, and my mind will inevitably betray me.
It’ll still take me straight back to that dressing room; back to the heat of Levi’s skin, the dominance of his scent, and the totally unbearable relief of submitting to him.
So I train. I spar. I put every ounce of energy I have into making sure I’m ready to crush Levi Bastien to dust when we face each other again.
Because if he wins, and the wager stands, I don’t know if my pride will survive another round on my knees.
Or worse, I don't know if I'll ever want to stand back up.
"You're wrapping those too tight, kid," Marcus grunts from the doorway of my hotel room, cutting through the low hum of the overzealous air conditioning. After our last match and the furor our rivalry has whipped up in local media and online boxing forums, the fight is sold out, so the promoters splashed out on hotel rooms for our teams at the casino the fight is being held at. It’s a taste of the big leagues that I’d usually be excited about, but it’s the last thing on my mind tonight.
I look down at my hands. Marcus is right. The cotton wraps are biting deep into my skin, turning my knuckles a bloodless white. I slowly back off the tension, flexing my fingers to encourage the blood to start flowing again.
Jed slides in past Marcus, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe with a relaxed smile, though his eyes are sharp, taking in my rounded shoulders. "Let him cut off his circulation, Marcus. It's a strategy. He can't feel Levi's pretty face breaking his fingers if his hands are already numb."
"Jesus, Jed," Max mumbles, although he’s suppressing a grin.
He sets down a fresh water bottle and a bucket of ice on the metal table, his gaze steady on me.
"You're in peak condition, Dylan. You’re better than last time.
Your footwork is clean, your defense is tight.
Just don't let him bait you. He wants you angry. "
Marcus reaches down, taking my wrist firmly in his massive palm to still my hands. "Look at me, Dylan. The media is calling this a grudge match, but inside those ropes, it's just physics. You’re faster than you were nine months ago. You’re stronger. Don’t chase him. Let him come to you."
"Yeah," I say, my mouth suddenly dry. "That’s the plan. Thanks guys."
But as they lead me down the narrow corridor toward the roaring tunnel of the arena, my mind is running a thousand miles a minute. The noise of the crowd and my usual walk-on music blurs into one singular wall of chaotic sound. And then, before I even step through the ropes, the scent hits me.
I can smell him. Linen and sun, threaded with a territorial edge that immediately draws my focus to the opposite corner.
Levi is already there, leaning back against the turnbuckle with that effortless, infuriating arrogance.
When our eyes meet, his jaw tightens, his green eyes gleaming under the bright canopy of the lights and the corners of his lips twitching into a smug smile.
He looks like he thinks he’s already won, and it makes an uneasy mixture of fury and heat clash in the pit of my stomach.
“Focus,” Marcus rumbles in my ear before I step fully into the ring, picking up the spike in my scent as he slips the robe off my shoulders. “Do what you know how to do. You’re in control. You’ve got this.”
He’s right. I didn’t train this hard for this long just to get thrown by a fucking smirk at the last second. I’m better than that. I blink away the distraction and shake out my limbs.
I wait as long as I can to step within earshot of him, not giving him the opportunity to hit me with one of his smart-ass comments.
The bell rings, and the world shrinks down to the space between us.
The opening rounds are a brutal, high-speed chess match.
Levi’s speed is as lethal as ever, but my nine months of torturous conditioning have paid off.
At one point I slip his left hook, countering with a heavy body shot that makes him grunt, the force of the impact vibrating right up my arm.
He’s forced to reset, his heels skimming the canvas as he circles me, his breathing shallower than usual.
By the eighth round, the air inside the ropes is thick, choked with our clashing pheromones.
My heavy caramel scent is dense and aggressive, while his clean linen pheromones lash back, trying to crowd my senses and force me into a mistake.
But I refuse to let it. My muscles are screaming, the intensity of the fight keeping me teetering on the brink of my capacity.
Then, during a tight exchange in the corner, Levi slips inside my guard.
His lithe limbs are shining with sweat, the faint dusting of hair on his chest damp as he moves closer, getting in my face as his lips curl into his trademark smirk.
The one that I’m beginning to realise does things to me that it absolutely shouldn’t.
"Getting tired, gros?" he whispers, a panting rasp that nearly makes me shiver, my mind jumping back to having that same voice in my ear and his weight at my back. "Better save some energy for later."
The words trigger a terrifying wave of memory.
My inner alpha recoils and surges all at once, and for a fraction of a second, my guard falters.
A compulsive, seductive thought creeps into the back of my mind, a wild impulse that makes me feel sick—I could throw the match.
It would be so easy. One slow reaction, and I could be back on my knees in a locked room, giving up control to him.
No questions asked, no explanations necessary.
The thought is obscene. Unthinkable. And yet, for one horrifying second, I want it.
Levi sees the split-second hesitation in my eyes, and launches a vicious right hook to capitalize on my distraction.
But the grueling hours at The Foundry have wired my body to react beyond my thoughts. My left hand snaps up instinctively, blocking the blow, and my hips pivot, driving a devastating right cross directly into his jaw.
The hit is sharp and clean. Levi’s head snaps back, his legs buckling as he stumbles backward into the turnbuckle.
He doesn't go down, but his fists drop to his sides, his balance off-kilter as he fumbles against the ropes for support.
He tries to haul himself upright, but exhaustion wins out over the determination still burning in his eyes.
The referee puts a hand out, shooing me back to my corner and halting the fight. He waits a few agonizing seconds to see if Levi is going to find his footing or go down. My breath sticks in my lungs as Jed wipes the sweat from my brow, muttering words that I don’t hear.
The referee raises a hand. “It’s over! The winner, by technical knockout… is Dylan Long!”
The arena explodes, but I barely hear it.
I stand in the center of the ring, my chest heaving, my alpha roaring triumphantly beneath my skin, but something deeper than instinct settling into my bones.
Levi’s team is already helping him up, and when he’s steady on his feet again the referee drags us into the center of the ring for the official hand-rise.
Levi leans close, his voice a rough whisper, his breathing still uneven. "Room 517," he murmurs. "Your turn."
It takes over an hour to shake off The Foundry crew, even after the post-fight interviews, which are as painful as always. They’re in high spirits, animatedly rehashing the fight all the way back to my hotel room, Max and Jed arguing over the exact moment Levi lost his nerve.
“It was over by the fifth round, I swear,” Jed chatters, swinging open the minibar and pulling out four miniature bottles of whiskey. “Bastien knew it. I could see it in his eyes.”
“No you fucking couldn’t, dude,” Max laughs, shaking his head. “It was over when Dyl smashed the guy’s face in.”
“His fight was gone way before that, I’m telling you,” Jed insists, pouring the bottles into glasses and pushing one into my hand, before grabbing my head in both his hands and kissing the top of my head theatrically. “Dyl was on fire tonight, and everyone fucking knew it.”
“No arguments there,” Max concedes, taking a swig from his own drink. I just grin quietly as he ruffles my hair, and swirl the amber liquid in my glass. I take a large sip, enjoying the way it burns down my throat and settles in my stomach, taking the edge off the nerves still twisting my gut.
“You alright, bud?” Marcus asks when he catches me staring into my glass.
“Fine,” I say, maybe a little too curtly. “I am, really. Just wiped. I’m dead on my feet.”
“But we’ve got so much celebrating to do!” Jed says.
“Leave the kid alone,” Marcus mumbles, clinking my glass with a wink.
“I’ll do all the celebrating you want when I’ve had a good night’s sleep,” I say, finishing the whiskey and setting the glass on the bedside cabinet.
Jed aims some fingerguns at me. “I’m holding you to that. Saturday night. It’s fucking on, boys.”
I wait a full fifteen minutes after they’ve filtered out before heading upstairs to find Levi’s room. I stand outside his door for another five, suddenly panicking that his trainers could be inside. Or that he’s changed his mind.
It feels like the fight was just a precursor to this moment. Standing outside Levi’s door, my mind a swirling mess of nerves and trepidation and a deep, thrumming excitement that I haven’t quite let myself feel until right now.
I won the fight, so it’s my turn to take control and take what I want without a thought for his pleasure—just like he did to me.
That’s the plan, right?
Only, that’s not what he did at all. If that was how it had gone down last time, maybe this would be easier. Maybe I wouldn’t have spent the better part of the last nine months desperately trying to stop myself from replaying the memory of him burying himself inside me over and over again.
What actually happened was that he opened the door to something that topped anything I’d ever experienced before, carved out a Levi-shaped hole in my psyche, and left me so twisted up that I’d actually considered throwing the fight just so I’d have an excuse to experience it all over again.
So yeah, fucking Levi Bastien is the plan.
Only, as I finally reach out to knock, I realize the only thing more intoxicating than winning the wager is the terrifying hope that he won't let me collect it.