Epilogue Two #3
At the penthouse, Sierra curled up on the couch with Toffee, the cat purring contentedly in her lap as she flipped through one of her new books. I settled beside her, one arm draped across the back of the couch, my fingers playing idly with her hair as I checked my phone.
“Connor?” she asked after a while, her voice hesitant in a way that immediately caught my attention.
I set my phone aside, turning to give her my full attention. “What is it, sweet girl?”
She bit her lip, a tell I’ve known since day one that meant she was uncertain about something. “Do you ever think about the future? About what you want after boxing?”
The question caught me off guard. My career had always been a given.
Train, fight, win, repeat, with no clear endpoint in sight.
I was still in my prime, my body still capable of the punishing regimen required to stay at the top.
But Sierra's question forced me to consider what came after, when age or injury finally pushed me out of the ring.
“Sometimes,” I admitted, choosing my words carefully. “We don't have to worry about money, Sierra.”
She shook her head, setting her book aside. “That's not what I mean. I'm talking about what you want to do. What would make you happy when fighting isn't an option anymore?”
I considered the question, realizing I didn't have a ready answer. Fighting had defined me for so long that imagining life without it felt like contemplating existence without oxygen. But as I looked at Sierra, her eyes wide and curious, I found one certainty.
“This,” I answered, gesturing between us. “You. A life with you. The rest, we'll figure out when the time comes.”
Her smile was soft, tender in a way that made my chest ache. “We will,” she agreed, leaning forward to press a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “Together.”
“Together,” I echoed, the word a promise and a future all in one.
As night fell, casting our home in shadows broken by the warm glow of lamps, I held Sierra close on the couch, her small back to my chest, Toffee curled at our side.
Beauty and the Beast was playing, but neither of us was paying much attention.
Sierra's breathing had grown deep and even, her body curling into mine with approaching sleep.
“Bed?” I murmured against her hair, not wanting to wake her if she'd already drifted off.
She nodded, turning in my arms to face me. “Yeah.”
I scooped her up, her arms automatically winding around my neck as I carried her to our bedroom. The trust in that simple action, her body relaxed in my arms, her face tucked against my neck, always tugged at my heart. This sweet girl chose to place herself in my hands night after night.
Toffee wound between my ankles as I walked, purring like a little engine until I nudged the bedroom door shut with my foot, locking him out since I had plans. Mine, I thought, laying her down on the sheets. All mine.
She stirred faintly as I pulled the blanket over her hips, those long lashes fluttering like she might wake.
But she didn’t. She just sighed and turned onto her side, one hand curling under her cheek.
My throat tightened watching her. So small.
So fucking trusting. Even after everything I’d done, with the blood permanently etched onto my knuckles, she still looked at me the same way.
I crouched beside the bed, tracing the curve of her jaw with my thumb. “Sierra,” I murmured. Her skin was warm silk under my calluses. “I need to ask you something.
She hummed low in her throat, a sleepy vibration against my palm, and turned into my touch like a sunflower seeking light. She was always attuned to me, even half-asleep. My free hand fisted in the bedsheet as I leaned closer, my lips grazing the shell of her ear.
“I’m gonna ask you something dangerous,” I murmured, breath stirring the baby hairs at her nape. Her scent flooded my senses as my fingers drifted down to toy with the first button of her pajama top.
“I want to touch you while you’re like this.”
The button slipped free with a whisper of friction that echoed louder than gunfire in the stillness. “Can I take care of you?”
Her lashes fluttered but didn’t open. “Mmm… Connor?”
The drowsy slur of my name made my blood heat. My cock strained against my jeans as I pressed a barely-there kiss to her temple, my lips lingering on the softness of her skin.
“Just say yes or no, sweet girl,” I rasped against her hairline. “I need your words.”
Her hand found mine blindly in the dark, small fingers wrapping around my index with a squeeze that sent heat roaring through my veins. “Yes,” she breathed into the hollow of my throat before going still again.
I stilled, air trapped in lungs, as if moving too fast might shatter this fragile permission she’d gifted me. Slowly, so slowly, I unbuttoned her top one torturous inch at a time, each pop of fabric parting revealing new expanses of skin that glowed under moonlight’s cold kiss.
When I peeled it off completely, she arched faintly off the mattress, a silent plea etched into every line of her body as the cool air puckered her nipples into tight peaks.
My mouth watered like I was staring at a feast after years of starvation.
I mapped every dip and curve with gentle hands.
My thumbs brushed feather-light over her soft skin, and my palms skimmed the swell of her hips that fit perfectly in my grip.
She squirmed under my touch, a soft whimper escaping plush parted lips when I circled one nipple with calloused fingers but didn’t pinch.
“Shh,” I soothed against her sternum, my tongue darting out to taste her skin as I worked her shorts down soft thighs. “Just let me love you.”
Her panties were soaked through before I even touched them properly, dark fabric clinging obscenely to swollen folds. The sight alone could make me come. Her hips rolled lazily, as if chasing ghosts of pleasure only she could feel, her thighs falling open with unconscious invitation.
“Fuck,” I choked out quietly, voice shattered as I hooked my fingers under the damp cotton and dragged it down her feverish skin.
She was fully bare now, and I spread her legs wider with reverent hands. Her scent hit me first, musky and sweet, before I saw how slick her pretty pussy had gotten. Her little clit peeked out from its hood, just begging for my touch.
“My good girl,” I growled low, bending closer until my breath ghosted over glistening flesh. Her clit glistened under its hood as if begging to be taken care of.
I didn’t touch her yet. I couldn’t, because this moment would always wreck me worse than any knockout punch. Watching her body betray itself for me without conscious thought and knowing even sleep couldn’t dull her need for what only I could give .
When I finally licked a slow stripe from her entrance to clit she jerked awake for half a heartbeat, back bowing off mattress with a gasp, before collapsing again when I pinned her hips down firmly.
“It’s okay,” I murmured against her inner thigh, placing a kiss there as she whimpered high and thin into the pillow clutched tight in both fists. “Let me take what’s mine.”
She stilled at that, her body melting back into pliancy even as another shudder wracked through her when I sealed lips over clit and sucked gently.
God, she tasted like heaven and sin tangled together, honey on my tongue that I lapped greedily at, taking every drop I could get.
I circled her clit until her thighs clamped around my ears, and I smirked against her.
I pushed my tongue deep inside her fluttering heat, only to withdraw teasingly slow, scraping my teeth lightly along her outer lips.
Her first orgasm hit her like a wave, her thighs trembling around my head, heels digging into my shoulder blades. Her little pussy pulsed around my tongue still buried deep inside her as she came silently, save for choked hiccup that might’ve been my name if she could form words.
But it wasn’t enough.
My pants were torture then, cotton strangling my cock so hard my veins throbbed angrily against the zipper teeth, begging for release only she could grant.
I stripped violently, tearing my shirt off my head and kicking my pants into a corner. My boxers peeled away just in time for precum to smear across my trembling abs, clenched tight.
She lay sprawled amidst the wreckage of sheets, her hair wild around her flushed face, and her breasts rising under smudged moonlight. Her legs still splayed open wide and perfect, where her slick and my saliva still gleamed between ravaged folds, calling me home.
I crawled up her body marked by teeth and worship until my knees bracketed her hips and my cockhead brushed her warm entrance without entering yet .
When I finally pushed inside, it was an act of penance. Slowly until I was fully sheathed, seated where I’ve belonged since I first saw her.
“Fuck…” My forehead dropped to hers as I began moving in shallow thrusts designed not to wake, but to pleasure. The drag was so slow my veins stood along my neck from restraint; the withdrawal so torturous tears pricked at my eyes, overwhelmed with the need to pound into my sweet girl.
But I didn’t, because I wanted her soft and pliant in my hands, I wanted to do whatever I liked to my Sierra tonight. She’d given me permission, and I planned to use it thoroughly.
Her second orgasm hit softly, her back arching off the mattress in a delicate need, her whimpers quiet as she squeezed my cock tight, too tight. I groaned low in my throat, raw and deep as I spilled inside her hot clenching pussy, painting her with my cum and marking her as mine forever.
I remained inside her when I lay down next to her, gathering her warm, sweaty body against mine and running my fingers down her soft curves. This was exactly why I got Sierra birth control pills. So I could feel all of her, and she could hold all of me.
She sighed softly, curling against my chest with a soft sigh of contentment. “I love you,” she mumbled, the words slurred with sleep.
“I love you too, Sierra,” I replied, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “I always will.”
As she drifted off, her breathing evening out into the familiar rhythm of sleep, I found myself thinking about her question from earlier. What did I want after boxing? The answer was clearer now than it had been then.
I wanted this. Nights spent holding Sierra, mornings waking up to her smile, days filled with the loving strength of her presence. I wanted to give her everything she deserved, to watch her grow and thrive, to be the man she believed I could be.
The rest didn't matter with Sierra's love. We had time, we had each other, and that was all I could ever ask for.
I felt something I'd thought was forever beyond my reach: peace.
Not the temporary stillness that came after a fight, but something forever and engraved in my soul.
A sense that, despite everything, the blood on my hands, the violence in my past, the darkness that still lived in the corners of my soul, I'd found my place in the world.
And it was right here, with Sierra.