13. Eli
ELI
The gym smells like blood, sweat and the chemical bite of the spray used to wipe down the cage. Most of the lights are off now, just the overhead bank above the octagon still hums, casting that fluorescent glow that makes everything feel like a held breath.
She’s sitting on the bench by the lockers. Tape still wrapped around her knuckles, blood crusted at the corner of her mouth, the skin around her left eye already turning the color of a bruised plum. Hands resting palm-up on her thighs like she forgot they belonged to her.
I should have left an hour ago. Should have driven home, poured a finger of bourbon, and pretended my chest wasn’t caving in with every blow she absorbed..
Instead, I’m watching her through the glass of my office, and I can’t move.
She won tonight. Three rounds. The middle one almost killed me. I stood outside that cage with my fingers woven through the chain link so tight the metal cut into my palms, and I watched a woman with longer reach and dirty hooks rip through my fighter’s defenses.
My fighter. That’s what I told myself when I took her on. Mine to coach. Nothing else.
Lie of the fucking century. I felt every blow that landed as if it was me in that cage.
I push out of the chair before my brain catches up to my body. The office door clicks shut behind me. The sound travels.
She lifts her head.
“Thought you left,” she says.
“I told you. I don’t leave until everyone’s out.”
“Then I’ll go.”
She doesn’t move.
I cross the floor slowly, the rubber mats soft under my shoes, and when I reach the bench I don’t sit. I stand in front of her, close enough to see the way her pulse is still hammering in her throat, close enough to count the freckles on the bridge of her nose under the smear of dried blood.
“You should go home, princess.” The word slips out before I can catch it.
Her eyes lift to mine. “So should you,” she says. Soft. Knowing.
The silence stretches. I should walk away. I should turn around right now, lock up and drive home. Tomorrow I’ll just be Coach again. Whistle around my neck. Clipboard in my hand. Nothing else.
“I’m going to ask you something that may be none of my business.”
She meets my eyes, and holds the contact. Her chin lifts slightly as she simply says, “Okay.”
Her chin comes up. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blush. Just looks at me with those hazel eyes still glazed from the adrenaline and the post-fight crash and says, “Okay.”
“In the locker room. After I sent you to the showers.”
“Yes.”
“Just him?” I ask.
A beat. She holds my gaze.
“No.”
My jaw works. I taste copper at the back of my throat, the way you do before a fight when your body’s already deciding things your head hasn’t caught up to.
“Dante.”
“Yes.”
“Brady?”
“Not yet.”
Not yet. Two words and my whole spine lights up.
“Are you angry?” she asks.
“No.” It comes out rough. “That’s the problem.”
She stands. Slow, wincing, and I have to fist my hands at my sides to keep from reaching for her. Her bare feet on the mat. The smell of her shampoo under the sweat. She steps into my space and she’s so much smaller like this, head tilted back to look at me, and I forget how to breathe.
“You’ve been toeing that line since I arrived, Coach.”
“Don’t.”
“Watching them touch me. Watching me watch them. Pretending you don’t want it too.”
“Dakota.”
“I see how you look at Cruz.” Her voice drops. “I see how your jaw clinches when Dante leans into him. When Brady laughs too loud. You think I don’t notice? I notice everything about you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about.” Her hand lifts. Settles flat against the center of my chest. My heart hammers against her palm like it wants out. “You want all of us. It’s okay if you don’t know what to do with that. I didn’t either.”
“I’ve never—” My throat closes. “Forty years old. I’ve never thought I was into men—”
“And now it seems like you are and you don’t know what to do with that.”
“Yes.”
The word breaks me. I haven’t said it out loud. Haven’t even said it inside my own head clean like that, just yes, no qualifier, no excuse, no four years of careful walls. Just yes.
Her hand slides up to the side of my neck. Her thumb finds my pulse.
“We’ll figure it out,” she whispers. “Together. All of us.”
The dam finally breaks and I kiss her.
It’s not a conscious decision, it’s instinctive.
My mouth finds hers and the split in her lip opens again, the coppery tang of her blood blooms on my tongue and I don’t stop.
I cradle the back of her head in my palm, careful of the bruises, and kiss her like a starving man, because that is exactly what I have been since the day she walked through the doors.
She makes a sound against my mouth—a soft surrender—and my whole body answers it.
I pull back before I lose what’s left of my faculties. My forehead presses against hers. Her breath comes in the same quick succession as mine.
“It’s not jealousy that makes me ask,” I say. The words come out scraped raw. “I want to be part of it. With them. With you. I don’t know how, I don’t know what that would look like. Only that I can’t stand on the outside looking in anymore.”
“Then don’t,” she says.
“Princess—”
“Daddy.”
Everything in me goes still. One word tilts my entire world on its axis.
She says it again, softer, watching my face for any sign of my truth. “Daddy. I know what I’m asking for.”
“Do you?”
“You protect me. You’re the one I get to surrender to. The one who keeps me safe when I can’t fight anymore.” Her voice cracks. “I’m so tired of fighting.”
I close my eyes. Open them. Take her face in both hands, as gently as I can, with the swelling, and tilt her chin up.
“Then you’re mine to protect when you can’t fight anymore.”
“Yours.”
“All of you. I want the fighter, the girl behind those walls who walked into my gym with bruises on her wrists. I see her. I’ve seen her since the day you walked in.
” I drag my thumb along her cheekbone. “I don’t want this because I think you need rescuing.
You don’t. I’m doing it because I want you. I want them. I’m done pretending.”
She makes that sound again, and my office door is closer than the locker room.
I take her hand. Lead her across the floor. Lock the door behind us and pull the blinds.
She’s already reaching for the hem of her shorts when I catch her wrists.
“Slow.”
“Eli—”
“Daddy,” I demand.
Her breath stutters.
“Try again, princess.”
“Daddy.”
“Good girl.”
The flush that climbs her throat could light up a city. I sit down in my chair and pull her to stand between my knees. She winces when I press my palm flat against her ribs. aI lift her shirt carefully to examine the bruise that has bloomed a dark purple across her ribcage.
“This is going to hurt tomorrow.”
“It hurts now.”
“Tell me if anything’s too much.”
“Okay.”
I check her over slowly. Hands on her hips, her waist, the swell of her ribs. The clean bra. The taped knuckles I unwrap myself, kissing each finger when it comes free. She watches every move I make as I survey each injury methodically.
“You don’t have to be strong right now, sweetheart. Daddy’s got you.”
She breaks. Just a little. Just enough for me to see it, the way her shoulders drop, the way her breath shudders out. I sit onto my chair and pull her down to straddle me, being careful of her ribs, my hands wide on her thighs.
“Easy.”
“I want—”
“I know what you want.”
I get her shorts off one-handed, slow, holding her up when she has to lift. The bra goes next. She’s bruised and beautiful and shaking, and when I drag my mouth down her throat she makes a sound that’s almost a sob.
“Look at me.”
She does.
“You’re not running tonight.”
“No.”
“You’re not fighting.”
“No.”
“You’re going to let Daddy take care of you. Yes?”
“Yes.”
My belt. My zipper. She helps with hands that are still trembling, and when I lift her over me she’s already wet, soaking wet, the kind of wet that tells me just how badly she wants me.
“Slow.” I hold her hips. “You’re sore. Slow.”
She sinks down on me, her mouth falls open, and I forget every promise I ever made myself about boundaries with her.
“Fuck,” I breathe. “Fuck, princess.”
“Daddy—”
“I know. I’ve got you. Just like that. Take what you need.”
She rocks. Tentative at first, her hands braced on my shoulders, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. I let her set the pace until her breathing evens out and her thighs stop shaking, and then I take over.
My hands go to her hips and I lift her. Bring her back down. Set a rhythm that’s slow and deep and ruinous. Her forehead drops to mine and her breath comes in these little hitched gasps that I’m going to dream about for the rest of my life.
“That’s it. That’s my good girl.”
“Eli, I—”
“Daddy.”
“Daddy, please.”
“Please what, sweetheart? Tell me.”
“Harder. I can take it. Please.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
I tighten my grip. The next stroke makes her whimper, and the one after that makes her bite down on my shoulder to keep from crying out. I can feel her heart pounding against my chest.
“Look at you.” My mouth is at her ear. “Took a beating tonight and still ready to take Daddy. My tough girl. My princess.” Another stroke, harder. “You know how long I’ve wanted this? How many nights I’ve watched you walk out of this gym and gone home and hated myself for what I was thinking?”
“Tell me.”
“Every night. Every fucking night, Dakota. Since the day you walked in here.”
“Me too.”
“I know.”
“I called you Daddy in the cage that day and I wanted to die.”
“I wanted to take you right there.”
She breaks apart on me. No warning. Just a sharp gasp and her whole body going tight, clenching down on me so hard I see white at the edges, and she’s saying it over and over, Daddy Daddy Daddy, and I follow her over with my face buried in her throat and my arms locked around her like if I let go she’ll disappear.
For a long time afterward, neither of us moves.
She’s still in my lap. Her cheek on my shoulder. My hand stroking up and down her spine, slow, the way you’d gentle a horse.
“What happens now,” she says into my neck.
“Now I stop pretending.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means tomorrow when I find Cruz and Dante, I tell them I know. I tell them I’m not stopping it.” I press my mouth to her temple. “Tell them I am all in.”
She lifts her head. Her eyes search my face for any sign of deception. “You’re sure?” she asks.
“No,” I admit. “I’m terrified. I don’t know what I’m doing. I haven’t wanted a man in my life and now I want three of them, and I want you most of all, and the only thing I’m sure of is that walking away isn’t an option.”
“Brady?” she asks.
“Brady too. If he wants this. If he wants me.”
“He wants you,” she says with complete certainty.
“Yeah?”
“I see how he looks at you when you’re not watching.” She gives me a small smile. “Same way you look at Cruz.”
I huff out something that’s not quite a laugh.
Press my mouth to her forehead. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Yeah.”
“All of us. Together.”
“Together,” she echoes.
I help her dress slowly. I find her a clean hoodie from the lost-and-found shelf and bundle her into it. The sleeves come down past her fingers, she’s swimming in it, also she’s clearly exhausted. I want to fold her into my chest and keep her there all night.
I drive her home. My truck is too quiet, just the engine humming and her watching the dark streets roll past with that hoodie pulled up to her chin. When I park outside her building I walk her to the door and stand there with my hands in my pockets so I don’t reach for her again.
“Tomorrow,” I say.
“Tomorrow.”
“You’re mine to keep safe. You understand what that means, yes?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“I’m not standing outside this anymore. Whatever’s building between all of us—I’m in it. All the way in.”
She goes up on her toes. Kisses me, careful of her split lip, slow and soft.
“Goodnight, Daddy,” she says so sweetly it makes my heart ache.
“Goodnight, princess.”
I wait until her key turns in the lock. Until the door closes. Until the light in her front window comes on and then goes off again.
Then I sit in my truck with both hands on the wheel and let myself feel. The wreckage. The relief. The thing that’s been clawing from under my skin for weeks finally set loose.
Tomorrow, the real work begins.