Give Me What You Won’t #4
He was tempted to pull out his phone and look up the words ‘joli diable,’ but before he could, he heard high-pitched giggling from inside his office.
He sighed, opening the doors to reveal his thoroughly drunk cousin, who was sitting at his father’s desk with his overly shiny shoes on the polished wood, looking at the computer screen, a bottle of vodka clutched in his meaty hands.
“Cousin!” Alec called out in his Bostonian accent upon seeing him. “Where the fuck have you been? Bob came back hours ago looking for you.”
His mind twirled in a kaleidoscope of images, sounds, smells, and tastes…
He saw blood smeared across a muscular naked thigh, the smell of his father’s dank, dusty panic room, the soft, tantalizing groan gritted out behind a black mask, and the taste of a delectable spice on his lips that he felt almost addicted to.
Fuck.
Thaddeus shivered, the pads of his fingers swirling. He was still able to feel the man in black beneath his touch and his sparking, blinding energy that seemed to pulsate off him. Energy he wanted to feel again…
Stop.
He’s my enemy. And my salvation. I can’t waste this opportunity by getting distracted.
The man in black’s energy shot up his spine like a bullet, unexpected and passing through him yet again.
Thaddeus sucked in a hard breath, exhaling slowly.
He wondered how long it would take for his body to come down from the interaction in the safe room with the man in black.
Days at least, he thought, inwardly sighing.
I will not get distracted.
“Do you mind?” Thaddeus asked curtly, eyes on his cousin’s shoes.
Alec scoffed and slowly dragged his shoes off the desk. “Pity, pity, Thaddie,” he mocked. “Never good at much, were ya?”
Thaddeus arched an eyebrow, removing the ice pack and enduring Alec’s snort of laughter at the sight of him.
“He do that?” Alec demanded giddily.
“What do you want?” he asked without a trace of emotion, refusing to show how irritated he was.
“What? I can’t just stop by and see my cousin?
” He pursed his lips in a deep pout, and the woman he was with snatched the bottle of vodka from his hand, taking a sip and wobbling in her heels.
Alec dragged a sleazily gaze over her short dress appreciatively before slapping her ass, which caused another round of drunk giggles.
“If you’re looking for money,” he said slowly. “I don’t keep any in the office anymore.”
Alec, for the first time, glowered, amusement draining from his face. Kirill kept his son on a tight leash, including his allowance, due to his expensive drug habit.
Alec sneered, “I bet that sucker punch hurt.”
It was a forehead, actually, but he didn’t care to correct him.
“He sways like that one fighter…” Alec said, pointing a fat finger at the screen. “You know—that Brawler guy.”
He frowned, “Who?”
“Chappie something,” Alec said. “He does this…”
Alec, miraculously, got to his feet without falling and held up his fists, then swayed and twisted his hip just like the man in black. Thaddeus stared, pulse thudding.
The woman beside Alec squealed out a giggle and fell into his arms, and they both sank into his leather chair, laughing stupidly.
Thaddeus whipped out his phone and typed in the words: Chappie, fighter, sway.
Videos flooded his feed, and he picked the first one.
It revealed the octagon from the UFC. Two men were in the arena, bright lights flooding them, noise from the crowd thunderous as one of the men was knocked out on the ground and the other rose up, hips swaying and arms rotating back ever so slightly, giving him the appearance of a God standing victoriously over his fallen enemy and smiling, despite the visible blood staining his face, which trickled from his hairline to his cheek.
Thaddeus had never seen a smile like that.
It was arrogant, insolent, and breathtaking.
The smile was so genuine and big that the lines around his eyes crinkled.
And those eyes. Eyes that were the shade of whiskey and gold.
Eyes that would certainly haunt his dreams tonight, staring up at him from the cot, all dark intensity and heat.
And not only was his smile stunning, but so was he.
Jesus fuck.
And he called me pretty.
His jawline was narrow, yet his face was full, giving him an almost boyish appearance.
Except there was nothing boyish about his body.
This man in the octagon was all hard, thick muscle, glistening with sweat under the bright lights, his dark blond hair tousled back, a few locks draping over his forehead.
The wildness of his gaze was sharp and impaling over the defeated fighter on the ground.
It was the same look he saw tonight in the safe room.
Thaddeus couldn’t look away.
“Winner by knockout, Caz ‘the Brawler’ Chapel!” the announcer in the arena roared into the microphone, and the crowd lost their minds in bloodthirsty excitement.
“Him!” Alec snapped his fingers, lurching forward with the woman still in his lap. “That’s the guy. Chapel. Fuckin’ Chapel.”
Fuckin’ Chapel.
He opened another browser page and searched the words: joli diable.
Pretty devil.