20. Liar #2
I stopped struggling because in spite of the bleeding and the bruising and the drama, it was really good to see him, too.
I hadn’t seen him all summer, and then only for a few hours before that in the spring.
He uncovered my mouth and touched my face, the top of my lip, brushing it like he was fixing my lipstick when I knew for a fact that the high quality stuff didn’t drift.
I could make out with him for five hours and it would still be in place.
“Why did you do it?” I asked, tugging down his hand and holding it tight.
He ran his other hand through his short hair. “You’ve got to get over it, Sunshine. Violence is only a problem if the people involved don’t want it. I want it. I need it. If I can make money off it, if I can entertain other people, why shouldn’t I? It’s my pain, not yours.”
“It is my pain,” I said, thumping his chest again before I chewed on my bottom lip. I was awfully close to tears. “I haven’t seen you for so long, but when I do see you, you’re here letting someone else hurt you. It does hurt me to see that.”
His mouth was in a cold, hard line. “Well, you’re going to have to get used to pain, Sugar, because what you just saw me do is nothing compared to what some other fighters put out and get off on.
When it’s in your blood, it’s life, death, everything in between.
Just because you’re dying doesn’t mean that you understand life or death. ”
Just then the door opened and a medic came in with a kit. Beastie picked me up and set me on the counter so I wasn’t on his lap, although the med had already seen me there. When the guy came closer, he saw the work I’d done and started nodding.
“This is my cousin,” Beastie said coldly.
He was always so cold to people he didn’t know.
“She looks young, but under that makeup is a doctor who knows more about treating bruises than anyone else I know. She was nervous about my first fight, but I did okay. Tell her I did okay so she stops nagging me.”
I made a face at him. “Idiot,” I muttered.
“Oh, sure! He did great for his first time,” the medic said before he checked Beastie’s breathing, pressing his face against his chest and having him take deep breaths.
I made a face at Beastie and mouthed, ‘You’re still dead,’ and he rolled his disgusting eye and then the medic was upright and gave Beastie a quick run over, but I’d already done my best. Yeah, no one else knew the treating of bruises like me.
I was also really good with needles and did extremely neat stitches.
“Well, I have to agree that your cousin knows what she’s doing.
We’d love to have you on board if you’re looking for work,” the medic said, looking me over in a way that didn’t exactly scream professional boss looking for applicants.
“Have you seen the sights around Vegas? I’d love to show you around once I get off. ”
Beastie snorted and then stood, bumping the guy back with his arms crossed over his massive chest. “My cousin’s married. If she wasn’t married, she’d still be married, do you understand?”
The medic gave Beastie a curious smile then shrugged and smiled.
“Can you blame me for trying? Take care of yourself. If you have any sudden bleeding, cramping, stomach pain, get to the hospital, or better yet, have your cousin take you.” He gave me a wink and then headed out, leaving me alone with Beastie.
“It’s the magic bra,” I said drily.
He turned to look at me, still in his oppressive crossed-arms pose. He really was tall and brawny, a lot like Nix. “You are what men would fantasize about if they knew such a thing as your desirability was possible. And the bra doesn’t hurt.”
I rolled my eyes and hopped off the counter, only I forgot I wasn’t wearing sneakers, landed badly and broke off the right heel. “Well that’s fun,” I muttered, standing on one foot while I took off the stupid shoe. “Do you have any extra shoes I can wear?”
“Seriously? Do I look like I have extra shoes? Actually, I have a pair of shower slides, but they’re not going to fit you.”
“I’ll pad them with my magic bra.”
“You have an unhealthy obsession with breasts.”
“It’s because I was a man in my last incarnation.”
He bent down and tugged on my shoe, so I put my hands on his shoulders while I switched out the shoes.
“That explains everything. You’re going to get blisters if you wear these too long.
Do you want me to carry you back to your hotel?
No, that won’t work because you’re a married woman.
Wouldn’t want to make the lover jealous.
” His eyes glimmered with something, but it was hard to see through the blood and black in his iris.
“Whatever. I was going to look good for him, but without the heels, do you think I still look okay?”
He grabbed my face and pressed his forehead against mine while he stared into my eyes with that creepy one.
“No. But he doesn’t care because he’s not a superficial idiot who can’t appreciate a woman’s finer qualities such as self-sacrifice, kindness, and artistic talents.
I’m lying. He’s not going to notice anything other than your breasts and how that dress makes your waist look so tiny that it’s almost impossible to resist the urge to pick you up one-handed and throw you into his car.
Or closet. Or wall. This counter would be good. ”
I blinked at him. “Your eye is so disgusting. We aren’t like that. Either one. We’re just together for convenience, him for six months to please his mama, and me because whenever he touches me it doesn’t hurt. He’s a really good cuddler.”
“He’s a good cuddler. You told me about all the… You lied. Of course you lied. Why are you so obnoxious?” He pulled away, sending me a cold glare that made him look like an arrogant prick.
“Why do you want me to have sex with someone else? You’re just like him. Are you really cousins? Is there some genetic defect that makes you all so incomprehensibly infuriating?”
“As a matter of fact, there is.”
I gasped and stared at him, feeling like the bottom of my world had dropped out. “You’re really cousins? You actually set me up with him? Was there no deal with his mother? Was Trevor really spying on you? Why? Did Nix get you the job here with his connections?”
He turned on a screen that took up the whole wall, and suddenly we were looking at two men in a ring, one wearing yellow shorts, the other red.
“Bulldog’s not going to make Nix ugly, because your husband doesn’t want you to know what he really does, who he really is.
Also, Nix is pissed because he took second last season, and he never loses.
He’s the champion. You were right about that. ”
I grabbed his hand to keep from falling over while I watched Nix, my nice, unnaturally muscular husband walk around in those tiny shorts so everyone could see exactly how perfect he was. “He’s a fighter?”
“He’s not a fighter, he’s the fighter, number one in the circuit, any martial art you choose.
At mixed martial, he’s unbeatable unless he’s feeling merciful.
He’s been trained by the Crocodile of Alabama since birth to be the most brutal force in the world.
No one expected him to leave the House of Beasts when he turned eighteen, but he did.
Even though he’s been gone for over a decade, he’s still their prince. ”
I squeezed his hand tighter while black specks filled my vision. “The Crocodile of Alabama?”
“His mother.”
I took a deep breath and leaned against him while I tried to get it together.
He put a careful arm around me and kind of patted me, hardly making contact, because he wasn’t a snuggler.
Still, he didn’t mind however much I climbed all over him like a monkey.
“Sorry for the shock, Sugar. I guess Nix was going to break it to you gently, but Trevor had different ideas. What is that miscreant’s problem? ”
“He was sober,” I mumbled into his shoulder.
He smelled like blood and arnica. What would Nix smell like when he got home tonight?
What was I supposed to do? Pretend I hadn’t seen it?
Like it hadn’t happened? It was none of my business.
I didn’t own him and we didn’t have any real relationship.
But how could I just ignore all of this when I’d specifically said how much I disliked violence?
“Nix doesn’t know that we’re acquaintances,” Beastie said softly.
“I gave him the list of debs he had to pick from, and you were on the list, but I told him to pick someone else, because you were a virgin, and he hates virgins. Is that it? He won’t have sex with you because the idea of your virginity makes him freeze up and lose his?—”
I straightened up and grabbed his broken nose. “Where did you get so vulgar? You could have told me that you were Nix’s cousin when I told you that I’d married him. Why didn’t you?”
His eyes were icy behind my hand where I still had hold on his nose. “Because I didn’t want to interfere. I’m your friend and his family. I’m not choosing sides.”
I let go of his nose and started for the door. “You chose sides a long time ago, Beastie. It wasn’t mine.”
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“I’ll walk with you.”
I whirled around and held up my hand. “No, you’re going to do whatever you do for family, not me. I feel really betrayed by you, Beastie.”
“What do you want, Sunny?” He asked it in that cold way that hid all of his emotions.
That’s what Nix asked me all the time. I shook my head and sighed. “Nothing. I just hope that the deal with his mom doesn’t fall through if I die too early. You can help with that, right?”
His creepy eye darkened, narrowing and looking even creepier. “Yeah. That’s the plan.”
I shivered and rubbed my arms. “Oh, good. No wonder Nix left that whole world. So cold. I guess it’s good that he had his fists to fall back on when his family turned their back on him.”
I walked out before I burst into tears. It was all too much.
Dealing with Beastie’s injuries was one thing, but watching Nix beat the crap out of some other guy in my periphery on the screen?
Even though I didn’t look directly at it, that whole conversation had been full of the muted sounds of fist against flesh, my husband’s hands which were always so utterly gentle with me turning to steel when facing an opponent.
He made Beastie look soft, slow, indecisive, unskilled.
Beastie wasn’t, but Nix had almost a decade on my friend plus all those years growing up, trained to be nothing but brute force.
Weird that the senator hadn’t instilled anything else into him.
No, he was a prince of what sounded like organized crime.
He knew manipulation too. He’d said that was part of his upbringing.
My mind was a mess, so I didn’t even see the guy who threw a bag over my head and picked me up.
I screamed. Were there two guys? My wrists were zip-tied almost immediately, and I lost Beastie’s shoes while they carried me.
They didn’t say a word, which was the creepiest thing.
I struggled and screamed, but Nix’s fight was filled with screaming fans whose voices rang on and on.
No one was going to hear me. Now would be a good time to die, before Michael Dupre put his filthy hands on me.
What a crappy day, and it was all Trevor’s fault.