After the Knockout

Prologue

The moment I stepped into the little back room that they had KO set up in, his eyes found mine, like I was the only person in the room who mattered.

His trainers were mid-sentence, calling out fight notes, but his eyes dragged down my body, lingering on my thick thighs busting out of the short blue dress I was wearing tonight.

“Out.” He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to say anything. Everybody in the room understood what time it was. His brother, Jaylen, hesitated for a minute like he wanted to say something, but all he did was laugh as if it was a joke.

“Make it quick. Don’t lose focus, Son,” his foster dad/coach muttered as he finished wrapping KO’s hands.

KO rose from the chair and approached the door, his eyes still fixed on me.

I leaned against the counter, arms folded under my chest, watching them all scatter out the door with a sexy smile across my face.

I loved how this man wasn’t afraid to clear a room for me.

I loved how he needed his Lyrius fix before every boxing match.

“Come here,” he said as soon as the last body slipped out, and he shut the door and locked it.

“Assume the position.” He motioned for me to walk toward the couch in the middle of the room.

I didn’t even pretend to hesitate. I didn’t need instructions.

This wasn’t new. This was our thing, our routine.

I crossed the room slowly, my hips swaying side to side, letting my six-inch heels tap against the floor on purpose.

I loved the way he watched me. I’d worn what he always liked on fight nights—something tight and sexy that allowed him easy access.

“You’re late,” he said as I stopped at the arm of the couch.

“Beauty takes time.” I turned, braced my hands on the armrest, and bent over without looking back.

“You know arriving late comes with consequences.”

I was hoping he would say that. I smiled as I put the perfect little arch in my back. Behind me, I heard him let out a controlled exhale.

“You kicked everybody out like that just for me?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder. One of his hands gripped my hips, and the other made its way between my legs and into my wetness. “Your dad is going to think I’m some hussy.”

“He doesn’t. He knows I don’t share.” He bent down slightly. “Not my space. Not my focus.” His grip tightened, pulling me back just enough to line himself up at my entrance. “And definitely not you.”

“God, I like it when you’re possessive.”

“I ain’t possessive,” he whispered in my ear as he pushed inside me. “I’m intentional.”

“Intentional, huh?”

“Yeah.” My pussy lips stretched around him, welcoming him home, as if he wasn’t just inside me this morning and last night.

This man was dangerous, not because of the way his thick dick stretched my insides and made its way into my soul, but because he made me abandon everything I thought I knew about control, about love, about why I was here.

“Shit.” He hissed as the couch shifted beneath us, and he settled into a rhythm that felt deliberate and calculated.

“Good, wet as pussy,” he mumbled, almost like he was resetting his nervous system.

A broken moan slipped from my throat as he moved in and out of me, drawing me back then forward again on his dick until I was moaning, screaming, and calling out his name.

“Ooh . . . yes, baby!” I tried to meet him, find his rhythm and throw it back, but his hand came down firm across my ass.

“Don’t move! I got it,” he said, reminding me exactly who was in control of this moment.

I froze, deepened the arch in my back, and let him take over completely.

KO knew exactly how to handle my curves.

He knew how to grip all this ass, guide me, hold me, and make me come undone.

I’d been a thick, plus-sized girl my whole life, and I’d never met a man like KO.

He never hesitated or cowered under my weight.

He knew exactly how much of me there was, and he wanted to love every inch.

His hands moved like he understood the geography of my body, like he’d been built to explore it and loved every minute.

“Look at all that ass.” His hand came down against my backside again. “My fucking good luck charm. This right here,” he hissed, “calms me down every time.”

“Y-you nervous?” I swallowed down a moan as pleasure broke free from my body.

“About the fight?” I could hear the smirk on his face, even though I couldn’t see it. “Nah.”

“Then what?”

He leaned in closer, pushing himself deeper inside me as he hovered next to my ear. “The only thing I’ve ever been nervous about . . . is losing you.”

My head fell back and forward, and my chest tightened instantly, not because that was the sweetest thing a man had ever said to me, but because I knew a painful secret that he didn’t.

“You got me,” I said, even as my heart fought the lie, “as long as you accept me.”

“Then that’s forever.”

His words hit harder than anything else in this moment because happily ever afters were something that I knew only existed in fairy tales, and my life was anything but.

“Let me hear you.” He thrusted in and out of me faster, rougher, just the way I liked it. It felt like he was anchoring himself inside this moment.

“Mm, KO.” I let myself sink into him, into his rhythm, into the lie that we could have this forever.

The sound of my phone buzzing in my purse cut through it.

An unwanted reminder that we were on borrowed time.

I stiffened a little, and KO noticed immediately.

He always noticed when something was off with me.

“Bad,” he called the nickname he gave me softly. “Look at me.” I turned my head slightly, and our eyes locked as he rested his head on the small of my back. “I love you,” he said.

“I love you too,” I replied, because that part was never a lie. A knock sounded on the door, making both our heads turn.

“Five minutes,” his brother called, and KO exhaled slowly, forehead still resting against my back.

“That’s enough,” he muttered. “You ready to cum for me?”

“Yes,” I cried, my body already shaking. He stayed there, his grip tightening as his hands spread me just enough to keep me still while his thumb found its way inside my back door until my knees weakened.

“Fuck!”

“I got you!”

I shook breathlessly as my orgasm hit me. KO didn’t slow down. If anything, his grip tightened, his thumb deepened, and his pace sharpened as he followed me over the edge.

“Shit!” He grunted as he slowly eased out of me.

He stepped away just long enough for him to grab a warm towel from the bathroom and come back to clean me up.

He used the same care he always handled me with before setting the towel aside, lifting me from the arm of the sofa, and setting me back on my feet.

“Two minutes!” his brother called again, banging on the door. KO blew out a breath, already shifting gears. He pulled his shorts back up and grabbed his boxing gloves off the table as I turned to the mirror and smoothed down my dress, fixing what little needed to be fixed.

“You look sexy as fuck,” he said, catching my gaze through the mirror.

“The crowd is out there waiting, screaming your name, and you in here telling me something I already know,” I said with a smirk as I smoothed my hair down.

He smiled as he stepped behind me, his body heat instantly invading my space again.

“This,” he said, leaning in for one last kiss, “is the only sound I give a damn about.”

“Mm.” A low moan slipped from my lips before I could stop it. “Tonight, it’s just you against you. You’re ready. You’re locked in. You’ve got this.”

“I know,” he said as he stepped away, already moving toward the door.

“I’ll find you,” he added over his shoulder like he always did.

The doors swung open, and the hallway voices rushed in as KO disappeared into the crowd.

I only had a few minutes to get to my seat before the match began.

Wasting no time, I grabbed my purse and checked my phone.

Too many messages. Too many missed calls.

My chest tightened as I swiped off my bestie’s name. I already knew what she wanted.

Chassidy:

We have to move on KO tonight.

They’re tired of waiting.

Send us the account information and the manifest.

My heart beat hard against my ribs, and all the blood left my body at once.

I’d been holding this off for months, stalling, lying, pretending I needed more time, more access, more proof.

Anything to keep them at bay. Anything to keep from crossing the line I already knew I couldn’t come back from.

But there was nothing left to hide behind now.

I’d been playing KO’s girlfriend for six months, letting him think this whole thing was real, while simultaneously forgetting why it wasn’t.

I had the information they wanted, everything they needed to get to KO.

I’d had it for a long time. My fingers shook as I pulled out my phone, the weight of it suddenly unbearable. I typed fast and desperately.

Me:

Not tonight. I need more time. He still hasn’t given me access to everything yet. I’m close.

Give me a few more weeks.

The message sent. Then the typing bubble appeared and then disappeared immediately. My stomach dropped just as another message came through.

Chassidy:

One week.

I blew out a deep breath of relief and shoved my phone back into my bag.

I had one week to figure out how to fix this, one week to save the man I loved without him knowing that they sent me here.

I forced my shoulders back, lifted my chin, and walked out of the back room down the long hall in the warehouse toward my seat.

The lights dimmed, and the crowd roared.

I smiled when I was supposed to, clapped when everyone else did, and told myself that everything would be okay, that I’d find a way out of this mess before it was too late.

Dakota “KO” Knox