Chapter 15
BISHOP
Even knowing what a horrific idea it is, I shove through the door to the locker room and storm in, intent on confronting Gage and ending whatever this is now.
Before things go too far.
Before we’re so deep down the rabbit hole that there isn’t any way to climb out of it.
It’s one of the reasons I’ve avoided him. Because even if I think I’m mentally prepared to deal with the emotions he created by our night together, Gage can still toss one look my way and completely unravel my well-constructed defenses.
He can unravel me so easily when I need to stay wound this tight to stay alert and ensure I don’t miss anything.
Right now, it’s impossible to miss him.
Gage stands beside the shower in nothing but his shorts, hands at the waistband, about to shove them down.
There’s no question he heard me stomp in here, and the door swings closed behind me, ensuring he’s well aware of my presence.
But he keeps his back to me, reaching over to crank on the hot water as if he doesn’t have a care in the world while I’m over here fuming.
“You held back!”
The words echo off the metal lockers and the tile, my accusation laced with my frustration and annoyance at more than just the few minutes we played around in that ring.
I may have been intentionally icing him out over the last several days, but it wasn’t as if I enjoyed it and didn’t spend all that time trying to forget everything that happened between us and everything I gave him of myself.
Gage slowly turns to face me, his face deceptively impassive though his eyes burn with an intensity I only ever saw that night at his place.
“I’m bigger and stronger than you, Bishop.
That isn’t meant as an insult, just an objective fact.
You’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever met, and definitely the most skilled, but I won’t risk hurting you. Don’t take it so personally.”
Is he serious right now?
I scoff at him. “How am I not supposed to take it personally?”
He shoves his hand through this sweaty hair, pushing it off his forehead. “You think Atlas doesn’t hold back with you?”
My back stiffens.
Because of course he does.
I’m the only one in the family who gives him even a remote challenge, but I still know it isn’t what he’s capable of. Not in a fight setting. Not even fucking close. But this is different.
With Gage, it’s different.
I don’t want him to hold back with me. I don’t want him to treat me like I’m that adorable girl he sat with on the blanket in City Park. I don’t want him to look at me like I’m someone he needs to protect when I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself. When I have to be able to do it for others.
We may need his help right now with Satriano lurking around town, but I don’t need him to handle me with kid gloves.
“I don’t care what Atlas does. I care what you do!”
Shit.
I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. I hadn’t meant to admit that Gage and what he thinks has suddenly become so damn important to me.
He raises a brow. “Is this what I have to do to get you to talk to me? Piss you off?”
Dammit.
When I came to the gym this morning, I promised myself if Gage was here that I wouldn’t let this happen, that I wouldn’t cave to this pull he has or allow myself to get worked up over anything he did or said.
All I wanted was a good workout before going to real work after another sleepless night.
Instead, I’m staring at him standing here almost naked, and I can’t keep my eyes from roaming over his sweat-slickened muscles, still swollen and trembling from his exertion. The fact that I can’t tear my eyes away from him, and that my body aches for his touch even now, only makes me angrier.
I scowl at him and clench my fists at my sides, otherwise, I might do something stupid like touch him.
He nods slowly, as if responding to his own question when I didn’t.
A non-answer is enough for him to know he’s right. That getting me mad is a surefire way to make me come to him. Which was probably his plan all along.
“I see. Well, in that case, Hellcat”—he shrugs—“you weren’t a challenge at all.”
Gage gives me his back again, then shoves down his shorts and steps in under the water.
Before I even know I’m doing it, my feet are moving across the tile, and I grab his shoulder, spinning him around to face me as the hot water pelts his back and sprays all over me. “You’re lying.”
He grins, amusement dancing in his eyes, too.
“I told you I was a shitty liar.” His hands grasp my waist so quickly I don’t even realize what he’s going to do until he spins me and pins me back against the tile, his mouth a mere hairsbreadth from mine.
“God, I love it when you’re like this, Hellcat, all fiery and angry.
You have no idea how badly I wanted to pin you down in the ring and fuck you right there, regardless of who might see. ”
I groan as his words light that flame deep inside my core and send heat spreading out through every single fiber of my being.
Plastering my hands to his wet chest, I dig my nails into the ink there and try to shift in his hold, to put some space between us.
Because with him so close, I can’t think.
He consumes all the oxygen and prevents my brain from processing things clearly.
But his large body keeps me pressed to the tile.
At his mercy here just as I was in his bed.
“Tell me, Bishop. What were you thinking about when we were in the ring?”
Nothing I will ever admit to you…
Because he did that on purpose. He got me worked up and toyed with me in that ring in order to force this showdown. And I hate that I walked right into his trap.
I swallow thickly, trying to clear my head of the vivid images flashing through it right now—of the way he tied me up, of how he ate me like a starved man who couldn’t get enough, of how he fucked me so slowly that it was like torture, only to finally give me what I needed in the best way possible.
And now I can feel his hard length pressed against my leg, straining and so ready, and my body’s primed for him again, my pussy throbbing and clenching for something that isn’t there but could be so quickly and easily.
“Did you think about how good it felt to have my cock inside you?”
I shudder and shake my head, refusing to look away even though the longer I stare into his eyes, the harder it gets to attempt to remain unaffected by him and our current position. “No.”
He chuckles low, the vibration of his chest against my hands somehow going straight through my entire body and centering between my legs.
“Liar.” He nips at my bottom lip, then reaches down to lift my leg and drag it up over his hip so he can press his cock directly between them, in the spot that so desperately aches for it. “You thought about this. About doing it again.”
I shake my head again, this time clenching my eyes closed, unable to look into his because I know I’ll get lost swimming in them again, just like I did the other night.
He grips my chin with his free hand tightly. “Look at me, Bishop.”
Those words snap my lids open again, almost as if they have some magical quality I can’t fight.
And fuck, I was right.
The warm blue depths look so inviting. His mouth is so close to mine. His hard cock is pressed so tightly along my core. That scent of his seems even stronger, mixing with his sweat and the clean soap sitting on the ledge beside me.
All of it is too much.
I might have had the willpower to resist him if I continued to stay away and put the very real physical space between us like I have over the last several days, but not like this.
Like this…I’m a goner.
Something has to give.
Something has to snap.
And it’s me.
I slam my mouth to his, grinding my hips to give myself the friction my body so desperately demands.
He groans low and deep, pressing against me even tighter as the water continues to beat down at his back.
He moves his hand from my thigh up to the waistband of my shorts and starts to tug them down, but I tear my mouth from his.
“Here? Now?”
His brow furrows, his eyes darkening. “Do you seriously think being in the locker room of your cousin’s gym is going to stop me from getting inside you right now, Hellcat?”
It’s a pointless question since we both know the answer before he even says the words, and I drop my foot and allow him to shove my shorts down. I toe off my shoes, and he grabs my panties in his hand and tugs hard.
They rip off, and just like the other night, the sound of that fabric tearing is enough to make me buck against him. He captures my mouth again as he glides his hand up between my thighs and slips two fingers into me easily.
“Good God, woman.” His lips roam over mine. “You’re going to get what you want. Hard and fast.”
God, yes…
He curls his fingers deep into my G-spot and slides his thumb up over my clit, making me twitch in his hold. “Even though all I want to do is drop to my knees and taste you again…I don’t have the willpower to wait today. Not after the way you’ve been ducking and avoiding me this week.”
At the moment, I can’t remember why I was doing that.
All I know is that this feels right.
Giving in to this attraction.
Allowing this electricity he produces to flow through me.
Accepting his touch and his filthy mouth all over me.
He pulls his hand from my core, grasps my hips, lifts me so I can wrap my legs around his waist, then aligns his cock and plunges into me as he pins me back to the tile again.
“Fuck!”
My scream echoes off the tile around us, my head slamming back against the hard surface, but it doesn’t give him any pause. He draws his hips back again and thrusts deep, a hiss slipping from between his clenched teeth.
“It is taking every ounce of my self-control not to come inside you right now, Hellcat. What you just did out there in the ring was the best foreplay I’ve ever experienced in my life.”