Chapter Thirteen
Gabe
“What?” she said with a surprised laugh.
“Now, Aubrey.” I wasn’t messing around. She wasn’t walking out of here without having at least two orgasms. Preferably ten, and preferably on my face.
The only way it wasn’t happening was if she told me she didn’t want it, but from the way her breath had gone shallow and her tongue thrust into my mouth, I knew that wasn’t the case.
She rose to her knees to unbutton her jeans, meeting my eyes with a self-satisfied grin she tried and failed to hide.
“All the way off,” I ordered when she shimmied them down her round hips. “Underwear too.”
Her gaze dropped as she obeyed, but she didn’t hesitate. No, she was eager. The shy thing who had been nervous to sit next to me on her couch two nights ago had long since left the building. There certainly was nothing shy about the woman who’d just choked on my dick and gone back for more.
Jesus, I was already hard again.
When she was in only her white V-neck tee, I reached for her hands and guided her to her knees on either side of my head.
Her body was a work of art, figuratively and literally.
Bright floral tattoos followed the curves of her hips and over her soft thighs.
Roses and lilies bloomed across her chest with different flowers cascading down her arms, woven between other snapshots of nature.
Blackberries on her forearm. A bee above her elbow.
Honeycomb along the inside of her bicep.
She was a living garden for me to explore, and I was dying to get a taste of her.
Our eyes locked as she rested her weight on my chest, and a hint of shyness sneaked in behind her excitement.
It was a different kind of shyness than before. One with an undercurrent of hunger that had her shifting to get closer to my mouth. More like a reflex than true embarrassment.
That had been replaced with trust.
The honor of that trust burned in my chest. Out of all the men she could have chosen for this little experiment, all she could have turned to for comfort tonight, I was the one lying beneath her, receiving her warm gaze.
Holding that gaze, I gave her clit a playful lick. My chest was already wet with her arousal, the scent of her filling my nose, making me feral.
Her lips fell open, and I licked again, letting her become acquainted with the sensation. When her gasp turned into a full-body shiver, I planted my hands on her ass and dragged her to my mouth.
The second my tongue entered her pussy, a groan rocked my chest. I wanted my mouth on her forever, to spend the next thousand years lapping up her arousal as she got hotter and wetter and more helpless from how good I made her feel.
I could tell the exact moment she realized it because the last of her reserve melted away, and her hips kicked into gear, grinding on my face as instinctually as she had my lap two nights ago.
“Oh my God,” she whispered as if tasting chocolate for the first time. I kept my hands on her ass, squeezing the fullness I loved and pressing her to my face.
A moment later, she tipped forward onto one hand while her other went for the short strands of my hair. She yanked my head to the angle she wanted and ground her clit against my nose.
Fuck. Yes.
My cock leaked onto my stomach, crying for me to reach down and jerk myself into oblivion, but I didn’t want to come again. Not yet. Not if the queen riding my face decided she’d rather ride my cock instead.
My body was no longer mine. It belonged to her.
She liked my muscles? I’d never leave the gym. I’d work out day and night to give her the playground she wanted to climb. She liked giving me pleasure? I’d come as often as she wanted. It wouldn’t be difficult. She sent my cock to a different level. One where it lived to serve her.
There wasn’t much I trusted myself to give her. Not stability. Not love. Not the kind that could be counted on, at least.
But I sure as fuck could give her my body.
I’d go as fast or slow as she wanted. Fuck her ten times a day in every different way she could think of or try one thing at a time until she was ready to move on to the next.
Part of me hoped she’d pick the slower route. Let me fuck her with my tongue but save my cock for later. Let this drag on as long as it could.
I didn’t get to have her forever, and that was fine. How it should be.
But at least let me have her for now.
The short bursts of thumps against the paddles filled my head like a song, my body moving to their rhythm to guide my next jab.
Thwack-thwack. Thwack-thwack. Thwack-thwack-thwack.
“Good,” Noah said before lifting the paddles again.
We circled the ring of the old gym I’d barely stepped outside the past two weeks aside from my daily runs, and finished the last of today’s drills. My timing and technique were still strong, but my power had a long way to go. I rolled my left shoulder as we broke for water.
“It bothering you?” Noah asked, nodding at my healed rotator cuff.
He hadn’t broken a sweat all afternoon, still wearing his hoodie.
Meanwhile, I’d soaked through my T-shirt, even in the chilly air.
I’d almost forgotten how much easier it was on the trainer side of things.
Not to mention him being a decade younger.
“Nah,” I said, shaking it off. “Just a little stiff.”
It was irritating more than anything. A constant reminder I wasn’t the fighter I used to be.
And I’d have to be close to have any shot of winning the money for the gym. Just because the fighters I’d be facing didn’t hold titles didn’t mean they weren’t damn good. Diego had found the best Philly had to offer, and when it came to boxers, Philly didn’t mess around. It never had.
“This dump got an ice bath you can soak it in at least?” he teased, shoving his wavy brown hair to the side. He’d already ribbed me about my sleeping cot.
“Hey, watch it. This dump is going to be the headquarters of your pro career.” That was our goal for him. Compete in the Olympics, take home a medal, then turn pro.
Noah had grown up in Allentown, less than two hours from Philly, with his dad as his head coach until about a year ago when health stuff made it harder for his dad to travel as much.
His dad knew Coach Peters, who I’d been assisting since I retired, which was how Noah had come to work with us in London.
But he hated being so far from his dad. So when I mentioned I was planning to start something of my own back in Philly, Noah asked if I’d take him on.
It had been a good match so far. I wasn’t officially his coach yet—not until after the Olympics—but I’d helped him get ready for selection camp, and if all went well, we’d be getting him ready for his first pro match in another year, right here in this ring.
Well, this ring with newer mats.
Although, I had fond memories of the current ones. I could still hear Aubrey’s moans from when she’d leaned her elbows on them and rode my face through her second orgasm. It made me want to christen every mat and piece of equipment in this place with her.
She’d stopped by once in the two weeks since, and I’d set her on the weight bench and fucked her with my fingers before getting on my knees and eating her out. Letting her bask in her newly discovered love of oral sex was as fun for me as it was for her.
Noah had arrived the next day, which kicked my training way up. More sparring, more mitt work. And when I wasn’t conditioning or skills training, I was watching footage of my competitors.
This old gym wasn’t exactly state of the art, but it was getting the job done.
“A little paint, a few new windows, some upgraded gear,” I said, “and this place will be back in fighting shape.”
“Better shape than you, then?”
He laughed as he dodged the glove I tossed at his face.
“What are you gonna do when I leave again for camp in a few weeks?” he asked more seriously. “You can’t spar on your own.”
I couldn’t. In all honesty, sparring with Noah wasn’t enough either. I needed to find another heavyweight, and Noah was about two weight classes too light. But most of the boxers I knew had either moved out of the area or retired close to a decade ago.
“I’m working on a plan,” I said. He didn’t need to know the plan currently consisted of air. “Did your dad still want tickets?”
I had ten left to sell. My own dad had bought some for his friends, and so had Coach Lou, plus a bunch of friends from high school.
I still had plenty of time to sell the rest, but I’d feel better when they were gone.
Otherwise, I’d be paying for them out of pocket, and the whole point of fighting was to win money, not lose it.
“Oh yeah, I’ll text him.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and typed out a message. “Hey, a few of my friends from high school who live here were going to check out a new bar on South Street. Wanna come?”
I climbed out of the ring and snagged the jump rope. “Can’t. You may be on vacation, but I’m not. No booze while training.”
“So don’t drink anything. Come on, it will be fun. We went out a bunch in London, and you kept up fine, old man.”
I laughed out a breath and started jumping. Somehow, London felt like three years ago and not three months. “Sorry. I have plans.”
Tonight was the first night in nearly two weeks Aubrey had a break in her schedule.
She’d been busy either prepping events, working events, or menu planning for the catering competition, and the couple of nights she’d been free, Evan had invited her to hang out.
He still didn’t know what we were doing, so she hadn’t wanted to say no.
Plus, he was her best friend. She should hang out with him.
But he was working late tonight, and Aubrey would finish prep for tomorrow’s event earlier than usual, thanks to the new chef she’d hired, which meant there was no way I was missing out on seeing her.
“You mean…like with a girl?” Noah asked as if that was as unlikely as me hanging on a yacht with the Phillies. I guess I hadn’t dated much since he’d known me.
Or at all the past two years.
I couldn’t actually remember the last woman I’d been with before Aubrey.
Which was exactly the sort of selfish shit that disqualified me from a permanent place in her life. Right along with letting her use me for my own pleasure.
“No comment,” I said, my breathing heavier as I picked up my pace.
“Shit, you must like her.” He slid to a seat at the edge of the ring and draped his arms over the bottom rope. “Who is she?”
I crossed the jump rope in front of my body and switched to one-legged hops. “No one.”
“Yeah, right. Does she know you’re into her? Or is it like a server somewhere, and you go to her restaurant every night and sit in her section, hoping she’ll smile at you?”
I huffed. “Fuck off.”
He kicked his legs and grinned, his cocky smirk so similar to Evan’s except for the dark hair. “This is my new mission. Discover Coach’s secret love.”
“You’re worse than my brother.”
The words recoiled in my chest, leaving a sting I tried to ignore. The current status of my relationship with my brother wasn’t something I liked to think about. Like how he didn’t tease me like this anymore.
“If what you say about him is true, I must be doing something right. When do I get to meet the legendary Little Hardt?”
I couldn’t remember which story about Evan had landed him the “legendary” title among the fighters in London. Just that I’d told a lot.
Like the time he’d climbed our elderly neighbor’s tree to get their cat off their roof after it’d been stuck there for three days, and no one else the neighbor called had been able or willing to help.
Or the time he’d gone to his buddy’s football party in college and done a gainer off the high-dive platform into the campus pool, catching a can of soda and casually taking a sip on the way down.
I hadn’t been there in person for most of them, but I’d seen the video evidence. So had Noah and the rest of the guys in London. Talking about Evan was just something I did. It hadn’t hurt as much when I wasn’t in the same city for him to avoid.
I was still thinking of an answer besides probably never when my phone buzzed on the weight bench. “Hold on,” I said when I spotted Aubrey’s name.
Aubrey: I have to cancel tonight. Work crisis, will explain later. I’m so sorry.
“Everything okay?” Noah asked.
I frowned at the message. “I don’t know.” Work crisis in a kitchen could mean anything from a burst water pipe to being in the hospital with third-degree burns and a missing finger.
I dialed her number.
I could call Evan. If she was hurt, he’d want to know. Then again, her message didn’t sound like she was hurt. She’d have told me if she was, right?
The call went to voicemail, and I pocketed my phone. “Sorry, man. I have to go.”
“Yeah, sure.” He climbed out of the ring. “Still on for tomorrow?”
“Definitely.” I grabbed my sweatshirt off the mat and jogged for the door. I didn’t bother changing into pants. I’d worry about the cold after I knew Aubrey was okay.