Chapter 40
chapter
forty
For the first twenty minutes, she just… pummels me. Punch after punch. When they start getting harder and faster instead of slowing, I know she’s working something off.
I’ve never related to anything more than the harsh lines of her face as she loses track of where she is and just lets me have it. Grunting and snarling while she hits me again. And again.
That sexy-as-fuck body is quick and graceful. Half an hour after I teach her the proper stances, she’s already moving on to footwork. Once I show her how to balance and where to step, she’s turning circles around the ring within the ho ur.
That shit took me weeks when I first started.
I’ve never been prouder.
She must know it because I can’t keep my fat, stupid mouth shut.
“There she is.”
“Such a fucking badass .”
“That’s my girl .”
When she finally starts to wind down, I see the sadness creep into her stance. Defeat . Because even though she just crushed that workout, it didn’t get rid of her pain.
Fuck , I get that. It’s my big secret—the fact that I never feel weaker or less sure of myself than I do after I win. Because winning meant I threw everything I had at my demons.
But they’re always waiting for me when I climb out of the cage.
Once she loses steam, I talk to keep her from getting in her own head. It seems to work—the more I go on about how I started fighting, my weight class, and my most hated opponents, the easier she flows through the drills.
My kitten lands a hit to my shoulder, and I try not to smile like an idiot. Narrowing her eyes, she goes in for another one, harder. I block it, turning us in a pivot that has her grunting in frustration.
“How did you start doing this anyway?” she grumbles, dodging a super-slow-mo version of my right hook. “You just decided one day to kick the crap out of people?”
I grin. This is my favorite side of her—the no-bullshit, sassy, smart woman she keeps buried under all her fear and low self-esteem. Whenever I manage to tease my kitten’s claws out, she never fails to make me fall harder for her.
“No,” I reply, leaning out of a jab to the left. “They made us fight in school.”
Fuck .
Too late, I realize I’ve said too much. Serena drops back, her gloved hands falling to her sides like stones. “You had to fight in school? What the hell kind of school did you go to?”
I hate talking about this shit. But after everything she told us last night… I owe her this much, right?
“Reform school,” I grit. “Put your fists back up.”
She follows my order, but her eyes stay wary as I circle her. “Why did you have to go to reform school?”
My shoulder rises in a shrug. “My parents are betas. When my Alpha started to come through, they were pissed. Hated that I couldn’t control myself. The aggression, the possessiveness, the sex. All of it disgusted them, so they found a military school that was supposed to wrestle kids’ Alphas into submission.”
Even now, I almost snort at the irony. They sent me away to get me under control… and wound up turning me from a beast into a monster.
They never expected that my Alpha would like the pain. Crave it. And they didn’t know me well enough to know that spite was basically my entire personality at that point.
They didn’t want an aggressive alpha for a son, so I decided I would become the most aggressive alpha there was. A pain professional. A fighter.
They decided I wouldn’t be their son anymore.
Fair enough, right?
Serena is quiet while I tell her my story, letting me lead her through drills and bullshit punches. If she’s trying to keep me talking, it works. Which is when I realize—that’s exactly what she’s been doing this whole damn time.
Humoring me, to get me to keep running my mouth.
Brilliant, bad little girl.
It makes me want to knot her right here on the floor of this ring.
And, fuck me , watching her throw punches is making me harder.
“That’s enough for today,” I decide, pulling off my gloves. “Your arms are going to hurt like a bitch tomorrow. ”
She rolls her eyes at me like that’s somehow my fault but follows suit, tossing the gloves near mine and taking the water bottle I offer her.
After a swig, she nods at my chest. “Did you get new tattoos?”
Without an ounce of shame, I pull one bandage down, showing her what’s underneath.
The pieces took some doing. I had to work fast, after the day she had her first heat-spike—tracing the scratches she left along my pecs with a permanent marker until I could make a proper transfer.
Now, there are four jagged scars branded into each side of my chest.
I used white ink, making sure the lines sliced right through whatever shit I had underneath. A skull on one side. Some crown on the other.
Fuck it all . I only need her marks on me.
“I told you I wanted your claws. You didn’t break the skin, though,” I explain. “So I did.”
She sets the water bottle down, stepping closer. With care, she fits her fingertips into the tattoo’s gouge-like lines, tracing them. When her head falls back to lock our gazes, her eyes are dark.
She likes this. And I?—
Fuck.
I love her.
It snaps through me like an electric current. So intense, I know she must be able to feel it; especially when her lips part and she gasps.
But I let her see. She needs to know.
Especially since I’m about to fuck her like I hate her. Right here in this boxing ring.
Her perfume winds into the air, pumping adrenaline through my blood. If any other alpha in this gym scents her, they’re sure as hell going to smell me, too. By the time I’m done with her, they won’t know where I end and she starts .
Tilting my chin at the ropes, I ask, “What about my claws, kitten? Think you can handle those?”
Who even knows if I’m teasing her anymore? Truth is, I don’t think I am. I want her to see me fight. To know she’ll still see the guy she likes and trusts after she watches what my Alpha and I can do in that Octagon.
Serena absorbs the look on my face, her own softening. “I want to,” she whispers. “Can you show me?”
My heart clenches, fear and frustration and fucking want jolting through me. “Take off your shorts. Panties, too.”
Biting her lip, she casts one last nervous glance around the empty gym but starts to shimmy out of her clothes. I close in, backing her into the ring ropes while I growl, “I’d never let anyone live after seeing you like this. So we better hope no one walks in. Or they won’t be walking out.”
I hear her swallow as she nods, stepping out of her shorts and her shoes, leaving her in just that ripped-up black top and the blood-red bra under it.
The bra I like—but this shirt is pointless. With one tug, I rip it right in half, letting it fall off her.
“You could have just told me to take it off,” she teases, raising a brow. “Menace.”
I like her nickname. It feels right. Like me.
I flash a menacing smile, proving her point as I clamp my hands around her waist and lift her.
Her squeak is short and quiet, swallowed by the silence of the gym pressing around us. I balance her round, perfect ass on the second rope of the ring, making sure it lines up just right.
Then I start working on her hands and feet, winding her wrists and ankles around the top rope and the lowest one. Pinning her open with her knees bent and her gorgeous pussy on full display.
Goddamn it.
I’ll never be able to box without getting a boner again.
Kicking off my pants and shoes, I pad toward her with my cock a t attention. The spotlights catch on the bars bolted through the underside while it kicks up to my navel.
Mouth-watering pi?a colada fills my mouth with saliva. And I just… go to my knees, like I have so many times for her.
Only her. Always her.
She whimpers while I stroke her thighs, holding them spread for my mouth. Roughing out uneven purrs while I lick her smooth, slippery pussy lips.
Ungh . FUCK .
Her taste rolling over my tongue feels like being hit with a defibrillator. A hundred volts, right to the heart. Need crackles through my limbs, lighting every nerve it streaks across.
Yes. More. Burn me up. Melt me down.
Make me into something new .
Something hers.
The sounds she makes while I work my tongue over her clit have me pumping my cock into my fist, slicking my palm with pre-cum.
Her back arches, lifting her hips higher. Pressing herself into my ravenous snarls. Letting me devour her.
When I hook two fingers into her opening and press where her body throbs for a knot, she lets out a high-pitched moan and comes, dousing my face with her slick. It dribbles down onto my chest—another mark of sorts.
My Alpha lunges, trying to break off his leash. He wants that scent all over us, soaked into my knot, dripping down my balls.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck .
I’m used to fighting other people, but fighting myself for someone else is new to me. Squeezing my eyes shut, I lean my forehead into her belly, doing my best to just breathe .
But my girl really is perfect for me. Because instead of sagging into the ropes, she squirms, bucking her soaked center into the middle of my chest.
Rubbing more of her scent onto me.
Jeeeeesus .
My hands snap up to her hips, holding her still as I growl, “You’re pushing it, kitten. How am I supposed to resist knotting this sweet little cunt if you keep waving it in my face?”
“Don’t,” she pants. “I—I want you. Please ?”
Something between a laugh and bark scrapes up my throat. “ Here ?!”
So fucking perfect for me, my kitten. Because she nods hard, her braids whipping forward. “ Please , Avery .”
I haven’t taken her yet today. After all the shit she had to wade through last night, I had all these stupid notions of romance. A bed, a candle.
But this is better.
This is us .
I’m already panting, knowing exactly how she’ll feel when I slide in. So wet and warm, gliding around my piercings. Heat and softness, gripping and pulling at every inch of me. Rolling all the metal bars. Clamping with the sweetest squeezes.
She whines, working her hips into mine while I watch the space between our bodies. I’m fucking addicted to the way she swallows me. Watching my tattoos sink into her pussy, her dark lips spread around my growing knot.
Her head is thrown back over the top rope while she keens and writhes in my grip. I dig my fingertips into her hips, snapping them into mine faster and harder. Losing what shitty little control I’ve strung together for her.
She doesn’t mind, though. Her sweet, perfect perfume—the real shit that makes my entire body come to life—spikes just as hard as my thrusts. When it blends with the smokey cloud of my pheromones, everything in me sings .
Higher and higher, the notes rising until my soul is screaming. Bite her. Knot her. Claim her .
Fuck . I don’t know if I can knot her without sinking my teeth into her neck. Does it even matter anymore?
I start to do it. My jaw drops, and I lurch at her, going for the blank side of her throat? —
But those goddamn green eyes.
They snag mine mid-lunge. Swirling with lust and need and something I want to say might be love.
None of that is the reason I stop.
It’s the trust .
From the moment she met me, this omega’s trusted me. Turned to me, leaned into me.
Most people see me and go running in the other direction. I’ve had omegas actually cry just from crossing my path—feeling how unhinged my Alpha is, the tattoos, the way I can’t seem to stop glaring.
Not Serena.
The more she’s looked at me, the more she’s trusted me. And I have to deserve that.
I’ll fight myself to the death to deserve that.
No , I decide. Not here . She deserves the whole fucking thing. In the nest, with our pack.
Besides, we don’t need to be knotted to be connected. Our souls snap together while we stare at one another. Bodies grinding, climaxes building, orgasms burning us both up.
It’s all incredible, but I know that isn’t what I’ll remember later.
It’s this moment.
The certainty of it, sinking deep.
The second Serena wants a place in my fucked-up heart, it’s hers .