Chapter 43 #3
S ometimes you get lucky. Sometimes, opportunity knocks harder than Vanna’s fists currently slamming into Lucinda’s not-so-pretty face.
I know I have to break this catfight up, but Vanna needs the release, and Lucinda deserves whatever she dishes out.
My blood runs hot as I take in the girl-on-girl action.
Vanna looks alive, primal, hair falling wild around her shoulders, eyes lit with the kind of fire that always makes me wonder what else she’d do if I pushed her hard enough…
When Lucinda begins shrieking like a banshee, it’s time to end this before cellphones start popping out.
I swoop in and grab Vanna by her waist, possessive, firm, and yank her back against me.
She struggles for a moment, wild-eyed and panting, but I hold her still.
Her heat, her rage, seeps into my body, and it’s a fucking rush.
“ You did good. Real good, baby,” I whisper against her ear. “Let me take it from here. I need you to think about Ace now and calm down.”
The fight instantly drains from her body, and she spins around in my embrace to face me, nearly panicked. “ Ace… What have I done?”
“ Nothing.” I cup her flushed cheek in my hand. “Do as I say. Go to your car and wait for me there. You can’t drive, but you need to get out of here.”
Vanna nods frantically, and I release her. She heads for the door, and I turn back to Lucinda. She’s just gotten back to her feet and is pressing a napkin to her busted lip. I imagine her ego is just as bruised as her face. She looks mad enough to spit fire, but I beat her to the punch.
“You press charges, and I press upload .”
Her bloodshot glare locks with mine. “What?”
Now that the brief excitement of the fight has passed, and the spectators have resumed minding their own fucking business, I lean in closer to Lucinda, lowering my voice when I tell her, “I wonder what the repercussions will be for Maddie when the town sees her mother sucking my dick in HD…Taking it on all fours in that hotel room we met in.”
Her eyes widen in horrified realization. “You… you recorded us?”
“I took the liberty of cropping myself out, but what will this proper little town think of your… degradation kink? If you so much as glare in Vanna’s direction, I’ll send our sex tape to all of Maddie’s teachers.
Her principal. Her friends’ parents. Hell, I’ll have it playing at the local movie theater if you push me.
Who knows where else the files will end up once I release them?
” I sneer, making an evident display of raking my gaze up and down her disheveled form.
“ You’ve got the body to go viral, babe. ”
Her eyes well up before she spins on her heels and storms off in the direction of the bathrooms, disappearing into the crowd. I immediately vacate the establishment in search of Vanna and spot her pacing down the street beside her car while on her phone.
As I reach her, I’m relieved she’s speaking with Latisha, not Keegan. Not that there’s much he can do about anything from Myrtle Beach.
“We need to go,” I insist.
“But Latisha… And my car,” Vanna gestures to the vehicle parked beside the curb.
“I’ll call a cab, just go!” Latisha pushes. “Lucinda’s in here. She’s pissed. I don’t think she’s called the cops, but that doesn’t mean she or anyone else won’t.”
“I don’t feel right leaving you here,” Vanna hesitates.
“I’m fine, I’m calling a ride the second we hang up. Get out of here. I’ll text you when I’m home.”
“Alright,” Vanna reluctantly agrees. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Latisha laughs. “I wish I got to see it!”
When they hang up, I pluck the phone from her trembling fingers. “Is there anything inside you need before we go?”
She blinks at me. “We’re leaving my car?”
“You can’t drive, so we’re either leaving your car or my motorcycle.”
She hesitates, conflicted for a moment. However, I know which she’ll choose. Her people-pleasing conditioning will rule in my favor.
“Vanna, we don’t have time,” I urge.
“Shit. Let me grab my purse.” She unlocks the passenger side door and crawls over the center console to retrieve the purse stashed somewhere inside.
I take the opportunity to lower the volume of her phone and tap the power button to blacken the screen while she’s preoccupied, then chuck it into the shadows beneath the glovebox.
“Okay,” she says, straightening, and slips the purse strap over her shoulder. I shut the door before she can take a second glance and gently escort her by the arm in the direction of my bike.
“I’ll have your car brought back to your home. Just let me get you out of here before she changes her mind and calls the cops.” I know she won’t.
“Do you think she will?” Vanna fretfully asks. “What was I thinking?”
“That she deserved it, and rightfully so.” I don’t release her until we reach my bike parked near the ally. “Get on.”
“You were drinking, too.”
“I had a beer and a shot. I’m fine. You started way before I did.”
“Does the bartender still have your credit card?”
“It’s not mine. I lifted it off one of the women earlier.”
She blinks at me. “ Oh god! We’re both just out here committing drunken crimes!”
“Vanna, get on the fucking bike.” I snatch my helmet off the handlebar and hand it to her before mounting up.
“Where are we going?” she asks, strapping it on.
“Wherever you want.”
She simply stares at the seat behind me, clearly hesitant, and I know exactly why.
“It’s a fucking ride, not a goddamned affair … Haven’t you ever ridden with any of the others?”
She shakes her head as if it’s some sort of sin. The good girl in her, the faithful wife, is still inside her mind, screaming through the haze of adrenaline and alcohol.
“Keeps you on a short leash, eh?”
“Dean’s going to be so mad at me…”
“That would be rather hypocritical of him, considering where he’s chosen to be tonight. Get on the bike, Vanna. Now. The wind in your face will do you good. Settle your nerves and cut through the heat still coursing through your veins.”
She steps up to the bike to grip my shoulders and climbs on behind me.
The instant I feel the warmth of her thick thighs pressed against me, my breath hitches.
She wraps her arms around my body, and I grip the handlebars until my knuckles turn white.
When she sighs, her warm breath against my neck sends a shiver down my spine.
I twist the throttle, making the bike beneath us vibrate with a loud roar.
If she felt my physical reaction to her touch, perhaps she’ll attribute it to the rumbling bike.
I tear away from the curb and hit the road.
The wind whips around us, but all I feel is her and the hunger twisting in my gut.
I’ve wanted to experience this moment since I laid eyes on her at that bonfire.
Countless times I’ve imagined her exactly like this.
Wrapped around me, no one else in the world but us… A demon knight and his queen.
Every curve in the road, every shift of her weight, every time her grip tightens like I’m the only thing keeping her from crashing, my hands tremble with anticipation.
She’s afraid I might let her fall. She’s right to be afraid, but not of the road. She doesn’t realize she fell a long time ago.
T he cage door slams shut behind me with a heavy clang, but we’ve been locked in on each other through the chain-link before I set foot on the mat.
O’Keefe bounces in place across from me, chin down but I’m not fully convinced by his smug expression.
He watches with his fists already raised as I roll my shoulders and jerk my head left to right, cracking the tension from my neck, attempting to shake off the nagging worry creeping to the forefront of my mind.
She said she hasn’t seen him… Maybe Legion never left the rally…
My gut tells me otherwise. Legion wouldn’t arrange this fight if it didn’t benefit him in some way.
“For your sake, I hope the pot of gold the demon bought you with was worth it,” I growl.
The Irishman grins. “What would you have me say, Keegan? Green’s always been my color, mate. Thought you’d appreciate the Irish irony!”
“There’s nothing you can say. But you can bleed.”
The bell rings, and O’Keefe comes at me fast, throwing a jab-jab-cross combo.
I manage to slip outside and pivot to deliver a brutal inside leg kick.
The impact makes him grunt and shift his stance.
When he lunges with a wild overhand right, I duck and wrap him up, underhooks in tight, my shoulder beneath his chin.
I slam him back against the chain-link before lifting him and driving him down so hard, the mat shudders beneath us.
I land in side-control, quickly maneuvering to pin his clover-tatted arm beneath my knee, the other across his torso.
“Where is he?” I demand while he struggles beneath me.
“Probably right where she wants him!”
I don’t even feel the first few punches I rain down in his face, drawing first blood, and a lot of it at that.
The motherfucker played me. Used my desire for revenge against me to get me right where he wants me… But… what has he done to manipulate Vanna?
Where are they? Did she lie to me?
I imagine her on the back of his bike… Her arms around him… The way she’d look guilty…conflicted…scared…
What did he do to get her where he wants her? And what is he planning to carry out?
The crowd erupting around the cage cuts through my spiraling thoughts, the ringing in my ears dragging me back to the fight.
O’Keefe bucks and twists in an attempt to escape. I can feel his ribs heaving beneath me, but I can’t hear his panicked breath over the roar of the spectators.
Only Viking’s booming voice manages to reach me. A warning. “Don’t fucking kill him, Dean!”
I allow the Irishman to shrimp out and stagger to his feet. He instantly throws a spinning backfist and misses.
I have no intention of granting him further mercy. I lunge, slamming him in the abdomen with another brutal kick that lands him against the cage, before locking him into a Muay Thai clinch.
O’Keefe attempts to grapple with me. The blood draining profusely from his nose and mouth, slickens his neck and shoulders, making it difficult to hold onto him.
I slam my knee up into his abdomen, again and again, while I’ve got him. Blood sputters from his busted face, spraying my chest and dripping onto the mat.
But I want to look him in the eyes when I end him, so I toss him like trash onto the mat. He lands heavy on his back. A bloody heap, desperately attempting to pull air into his lungs with a spasming diaphragm.
“Get up,” I growl. “I want to watch your fucking lights go out.”
O’Keefe slowly rises, positioning himself into another fighting stance. Fists raised, bouncing on the balls of his feet, but with far less ease than when we started.
“Come on, then!” he shouts. “We all have to sleep in the beds we make, don’t we? I wonder if your wife hasn’t already invited him into yours!”
I trust my wife, but this was a mistake. I’m four hundred miles away from where I should be.
And although I’m about to K.O. this Irish prick, Legion has already won this fight. He fucking won the moment I let vengeance blind me to what really matters.
I’d forfeit in this very moment, but that would be forfeiting money my family deserves.
I promised Vanna this was the last fight.
And when I return to her and apologize for allowing my foolish pride to chase retribution, I want to at least be able to do so with a stack of fucking cash to lay at her feet.
When he charges me this time, I don’t move. I don’t flinch. I let him hit me. His shoulder slams into my abdomen, knocking me backward, but I’m already lining up my next move.
My back hits the mat as I hook my leg behind his and grip the back of his neck, using the momentum of his own weight to launch him.
He flips clean over me, crashing down on his back with a thud that shakes the cage.
Before he can even suck in a breath, I roll with him and mount him fast, pinning him beneath me.
My fist drips red with the vengeance I’ve waited for as I slam it into O’Keefe’s mangled face until he’s gurgling on the blood pouring profusely from his nose and mouth.
Barely conscious now, the fight drains from his body, and his eyes roll back in his head.
I release my grip on him and let the back of his skull thud against the mat.
The crowd roars like a hoard of bloodthirsty demons, feeding off the violence oozing from the center of the ring.
I leave him where he lies and exit the cage. Spectators scramble to move out of my way as I slice through the crowd toward Viking.
“You still got it, bro,” Viking slaps the side of my arm.
“We need to get the fuck out of here,” I say.
The shit I said to Legion before we left, I know it pissed him off. I can’t shake the feeling now that my words may have unchained his vengeful tendencies. I don’t think he’d hurt Vanna to hurt me, but he’s up to something.
“Get cleaned up,” Viking begins to say, when some drunk spectator stumbles out of the crowd and knocks into him.
Without missing a beat, Viking shoves the guy away without a care, damn near launching him ten feet with ease.
“I’ll go collect our winnings and meet you by the bikes.
” He reaches into his pocket and hands me the key to the locker.
The walls in the locker room faintly echo with the distant roar of the crowd cheering on another set of fighters.
I wrench on the sink and wet a towel to wipe the blood splatter from my chest. A few of my knuckles are split, but the slight pain takes a backseat to my worry as I scrub my hands clean, wishing I could wash away the stupid decision to come here, to leave her and Ace, to think for one fucking second that demonic prick didn’t race back to her the moment I let him out of my goddamned sight.
“Hell of a fight,” some guy mutters, poking his head into the room as I twist the key in the padlock and yank it free of the locker.
I don’t bother acknowledging his presence.
I toss the lock inside and grab my shit, quickly dressing while every fucking second wasted feels like another moment he could be manipulating her, working some fucking angle in an attempt to make her his.
It won’t happen. Even if he tells her about the Morning Star. Even if he shows her that fucking tattoo.
He’s too late… I’m her Knight. Her husband. Her choice.
I bring up her number on my cell and try to call again the moment my boots hit the pavement outside.
It rings a few times before going to voicemail, and I immediately check her location.
She’s still at the bar. She probably can’t hear over the music.
It’s only a matter of time until she checks her phone, so I shoot her a text before mounting my bike.
I’m coming home. I’m sorry. I love you.