Guilt and longing warred in Zack’s chest as he deepened the kiss. Part of him wanted to leave right now and hunt down the man who had hurt her. But the other part understood she was giving him a gift by asking him to come back to her—trust. She trusted that he would respect her wishes and leave her abusive ex alive. And she trusted that he would have the self-control to make that happen.
Going after Damian wasn’t a choice; it was a foregone conclusion. But before he went hunting, he needed to know if he truly had lost control in the ring with Okami. The only way to do that was to go up against a man who could drive him to the edge.
Torment.
Slayer would have to return to the cage for the ultimate fight.
But first, he would have to run the gauntlet of fighters who stood between him and his goal. It wasn’t going to be easy. Although he’d kept up with his training over the years, he hadn’t stepped foot in a ring or cage until Shayla’s underground fight. He had a lot to relearn and not much time to do it. Once Shayla went pro—and he had no doubt she would—her face would be splashed all over the internet. He didn’t know if the bastard was looking for her, but Zack wanted to find him before that happened. Not just so Shayla had the justice he had promised her, but so she could sleep easy at night knowing Damian would never bother her again.
He would do anything for Shayla. She was his Vega, and he wanted to come home.
He didn’t remember moving. He had no idea how he found himself pressed up against her, pinning her to a tree as he covered her mouth and kissed her like it was the first time all over again.
“I want to take all your pain away, all the bad memories, the past you want to forget.” It wasn’t what he’d had in mind when he brought her here. He had intended only to share a moment under the stars after the emotional evening. But after hearing the truth, he wanted to replace her pain with pleasure, connect with her on a deeper level than they had until now.
“I need you, sweetheart.”
“You have me.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and pushed her tongue into his mouth.
She tasted sweet and minty, like the candy Amber had given her before she left, but it wasn’t sweet he wanted tonight. Unsettled by what she’d shared with him, he needed the certainty of control, but he was reluctant to let go with her after she’d shared the violence she’d suffered at Damian’s hands.
“I need you a different way.” He unbuckled his belt and yanked it through the loops. They had played with bondage before, especially as she neared eighteen and Zack had found it almost impossible to hold back when she got her naughty hands on him.
“Why? Are you afraid I’m going to do this?” She slid her hand into his pants. Her fingers brushed the tip of his erection, and he bit back a groan.
“Yes.” But he couldn’t move when her cool hand closed around his cock and she began to stroke. Shayla still knew just how to touch him, how firm to grip, how fast to move, how to use one finger on his balls on the downstroke.
His hand smoothed over her ass and under her skirt. He’d insisted on the skirt when they’d finally rolled out of bed at her place. Mentally congratulating himself on his foresight, he slid her underwear down and off. When he had her back in position, he kicked her legs apart and slipped a finger into her entrance. She gasped and arched into him without breaking the rhythm of her stroke.
“You’re already wet for me.”
“And you’re ready for me.” She squeezed his shaft tight, and he rocked into her grip. “Maybe we should forget the belt.”
He added a second finger, thrusting and stretching as her wetness slid down his fingers. Her head fell back against the tree, and he took advantage of her bared throat to feather kisses up the column of her neck. He felt the vibration of her groan against his lips, and her stroke faltered.
Walking the line between pleasure and pain, he added a third finger and pulsed inside her. She was panting now, riding his hand, her grip stuttering over his cock. When he felt her tissues swell around his fingers, he angled the tips to press against her G-spot and rubbed his thumb gently over her clit.
“Oh God. Zack!” She came with a cry, her pussy pulsing around him. The scent of her arousal made him painfully hard, but it wasn’t her hand he wanted.
When she started to come down, he withdrew his fingers and swept her up in his arms. Placing her gently on the blanket, he straddled her hips. “Hands over your head.”
Without hesitation, she raised her hands, her back arching as he bound them above her with his belt.
“Close your eyes. Don’t open them until I say.”
A shiver ran through her body, but she did as he asked, and he took a moment to drink her in, from the light, filmy blouse that teased a man’s senses to the short, dark skirt that had ridden up her thighs, baring the swollen lips of her cunt.
He kissed lightly down her throat to the vee of her shirt. She thrust up her breasts, offering them for his nuzzling pleasure.
“Who’s in charge here?” he murmured.
“I’m not sure. Not much is happening.”
“A lot is happening.” He unbuttoned her shirt and shoved her bra up over her breasts. “This is happening.” He drew a rosy nipple between his teeth and licked and sucked until it peaked.
She drew in a sharp breath, and he turned his attention to her other nipple, one hand gently squeezing her soft breast. “And this.”
Her cheeks flushed with pleasure, and he pushed her skirt up to her waist. Although the windy trail below would give them fair warning if anyone came this way, he didn’t want to take the risk of leaving her exposed.
Moonlight glinted off the scars on her legs, and he fought back a wave of nausea at the thought of how she’d suffered, how hard she must have worked to get to where she was now.
“You are so fucking strong.” Without thinking, he leaned down and kissed one of the scars.
“Zack. No.”
He could hear the pain in her voice, but he couldn’t stop. He hadn’t been there for her when she needed him, but he would spend the rest of his life trying to take her pain away. Gently, he kissed his way along the length of the worst scar and then down along the next. Her legs trembled, and when he looked up, he saw tears glistening at the corners of her eyes.
“They’re hideous,” she said. “For the longest time, I wore leggings under my fight shorts. But then one day, I decided I wasn’t going to let him affect me that way. I’d passed all my security guard training. I was licensed to use a gun. I was feeling confident about my fight skills. Why should I be embarrassed about my scars? Most of the Redemption fighters knew my story about falling down the stairs. So one day, I took off the leggings and let them see.”
“That took courage.” But then his Shayla had always been brave.
“I was worried for nothing. The fighters at Redemption are like family. They knew it was the one thing I wasn’t ready to laugh about.”
His fist clenched involuntarily on the blanket, and his mouth watered in anticipation of the moment when he had her tormentor at his feet.
When he’d kissed every inch of every scar, he worked his way up the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, breathing in the scent of her arousal.
“Spread your legs for me, sweetheart. Show me your pretty pussy.”
“You’re dirty talking makes me hot,” she said, her voice thick with desire.
“Because you’re a dirty girl.” He pushed her legs apart and positioned himself between her thighs. “A very dirty, very naughty girl. I think we need to get you clean.” He settled himself between her thighs and licked up through her folds and right over her clit. She sucked in a sharp breath, and her legs tightened against his shoulders. Still sensitive from before. Just how he liked her.
Gently, he spread her labia, exposing her clit, and sucked it into his mouth. She cried out, her body jerking so hard, he had to put a firm hand over her stomach to hold her in place. He licked up one side of her clit and down the other, over and over until she was trembling all over, ready to come again. All it would take was just one lick.
He pushed back and studied her as he fought to get himself under control. She was all lean, hard muscle, and yet the softness was still there in her breasts, the curve of her hip, and the dip of her stomach. He wanted to lick his way along each of the muscles that had brought her back from the brink, trace every dip and swell with his tongue, taste the salt on her skin from a day of training and the nectar between her thighs after a night of loving.
Shayla gave a grunt of disapproval. “If you want to move along to the fucking part of the evening, I would be on board for that.”
“The fucking part of the evening, as you so delicately put it, is a long way off.” He leaned over and pinched a rosy nipple, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger until it peaked. “You forget I hold the world record in restraint. You can’t imagine what it was like to be with you and not touch you when I had all those teenage hormones raging through my veins.”
“Um…yes, I can, and I’m not waiting anymore.” She wrapped her legs around him in a closed guard position, trapping him between her thighs as she ground her wet pussy against his erection. If he hadn’t been so close to the edge, he would have laughed. He hadn’t considered the down side to becoming intimate with an MMA fighter. Closed guard was used to control larger, more powerful opponents, and if he hadn’t restrained her hands, he might have been in trouble.
“Do you really think that was a good idea?” he warned, sitting up. If they’d been in the ring, she would have been vulnerable to a strike. But there was only one thing she wanted, and when she arched her back and thrust both her knees into his chest, opening her guard, he was powerless not to give it to her.
Ripping open his fly, he freed his cock and positioned himself at her slick entrance.
She licked her lips and grinned, her gaze locked on his shaft. “It appears that was.”
With a groan, Zack grabbed her hips and plunged into her, straight to the hilt. She cried out, and her arms came up as if to touch him, but he was too close. One touch and she would set him off. He lowered his voice to a warning growl. “Hands over your head.”
Her pussy clenched around him, and her reaction made him harden even more. She was so wet. So hot. So fucking tight. Holding her gaze, he started to thrust, burying himself deep inside her. He wanted to stay here forever, connected to her, balanced on the edge of pleasure and pain.
He had planned to love her face to face, with his body covering hers, but holding her like this felt right. She was a fighter and a lover, at once vulnerable and strong. She had opened herself to him, yielded her control, and yet the legs she had wrapped tight around his hips were more than capable of pushing him away.
He widened his knees, braced himself, and slammed into her until her thighs quivered and her pussy tightened around him. But he wanted to draw this out, drive her so high, she could think of nothing but the need to come.
Releasing her hips, he slowed his rhythm, breathing deep between strokes to control his own arousal. With one hand around her hips, holding her in place, he teased her swollen clit, slicking her wetness up and around but never where she wanted him to go.
“Zack. Please.” She groaned, her body shaking with need.
“Everything I ever felt for you is still there,” he said. “No matter how long it takes for you to come back to me, I’ll be here. I want to ease your pain, Shay.” His voice cracked, broke on her name. He leaned down and kissed her softly as he stroked inside her as if his cock wasn’t painfully hard and he could last all night. “I’ll try to make good everything that bastard did to you. Starting with justice and ending only when you feel safe and whole again.”
“It’s not your responsibility. I forgive you, Zack. The choices I made after you left were my own.”
“It’s what I want.” He couldn’t stand it any longer. He pulled out and then thrust into her again. “You are what I want.”
“Don’t stop. Please.” Her legs dropped from his hips, and she opened for him completely.
Whether it was the permission or the plea, he finally broke. With one hand on each of her knees, he spread her wide and surged forward, pounding into her so hard, the blanket slid across the grass.
“Take me deep, sweetheart.” He had his rhythm now, a fierce hammering accompanied by the percussion of panting breaths that shattered the silence of the night. His brain fuzzed with the pleasure of her slick, wet sheath. He slid his fingers over her clit and rubbed a firm circle, then over the top.
“Come with me.”
Shayla groaned and her pussy clamped around him as she came. Zack followed her over the edge, pleasure shooting down his spine as his cock throbbed and pulsed inside her.
When he had ridden out the last wave of his orgasm, he dropped forward, holding his weight with his elbows, and brushed a kiss over her lips. She sighed, and when she seemed content, he withdrew to yank his jeans back on.
After she had straightened her clothes, he lay down beside her and pulled her over his chest. “We missed out on this last time.”
“I thought you were happy with hot, quick, and dirty sex,” she said softly.
“I like anything that involves you naked.” He stroked her hair, ran his hand lightly over her curves. She fit perfectly against him, felt right in his arms.
“I guess that means our relationship isn’t going to be purely professional.”
Zack didn’t know what it meant. But he knew he wasn’t leaving her. Never again.
* * *
Zack showed up at Redemption the next morning ready to fight for the first time in four years.
“Okay. Let’s go.” He held out a pair of fight gloves to Torment and gestured to the practice ring. “I’m going back in the ring again.”
Shayla, who had warned him against approaching Torment at this early stage in his training, hissed in a breath and took two steps back, pivoting like she was ready to run.
“Good for you.” Fresh off the treadmill, Torment wiped himself down with a towel.
When Torment made no move to take the gloves, Zack frowned. “Let’s do a few rounds in the ring.”
Torment laughed. “In this gym, you don’t get to fight me until you’ve beaten everyone else.”
“You’re kidding.” Zack looked to Shayla for confirmation that Torment was pulling his leg, but she wasn’t laughing. “Even just to spar? I thought that rule was only about real fights.”
“I don’t waste my time with amateurs…or retirees,” Torment said. “I only fight the best, and I only spar with people I think are worthy.”
“I’m no amateur.”
Torment tossed the towel in the laundry basket with the flare of an NBA star. “Four years out of the ring says you are.”
Zack bristled at the challenge. He may not have fought for four years, but he still trained, still kept up with new advances and techniques. No doubt, he had a long road ahead of him to regain his skill, but he could damned well hold his own against the fighters at Redemption.
“So I pay for a piece of you by defeating all your fighters?”
Torment laughed. “You can earn the right to spar with me. If you’re good, you may even get the privilege of fighting me. I don’t fight everyone who asks.”
Arrogant bastard. He reminded Zack of himself when he was at the top of his game. Well, if that’s what it took to prove to himself that he could keep control, he would do it. Every day that Shayla’s ex walked the earth, thinking he had gotten away with his crimes, was one day too many. Zack wanted him to suffer. But he didn’t want him to die. Jail held little appeal when he’d just found the woman who made his heart beat again.
“Fine. Who’s first?”
“Newbies corner is over there.” Torment pointed to a practice ring in the far corner of the gym. “I don’t expect they’ll put up much of a fight. The real challenge will start with the midlevel fighters: Homicide Hank, Doctor Death, and Blade Saw. If you beat them, then you’ll have to face Renegade, Sadist, and the Predator. And if you beat them, maybe I’ll let you fight me. But I promise, you won’t win.”
* * *
The next few weeks passed quickly. Zack trained in the early morning and late at night and coached Shayla during the day. Although it was a struggle to maintain the boundary between personal and professional, especially when they were rolling on the mats, her training progressed at a rapid pace, and they worked off their passion every night while sharing a bed.
Respecting Shayla’s obvious reluctance to have another discussion about their relationship or what the future might hold, Zack didn’t raise the subject again, but as the days passed, he couldn’t help but worry that forgiveness wasn’t enough to completely bridge the gap between them. Had there been more to her decision to marry Damian than loneliness and vulnerability? Had he broken something that could never be repaired? His concerns translated into an increasing reluctance to second-guess her decisions, even when he began to suspect that she had still not overcome her aversion to risk. He had taken her choice away from her once; he wasn’t prepared to do it again.
When she wasn’t training or teaching her class, Shayla helped him prepare for his fights after he’d decimated the ranks of the junior team and graduated to Torment’s midlevel fighters. He started with Harry “Homicide Hank” Carter, a middleweight with long, stringy red hair, a lean, lanky body, and a gaggle of red-haired kids who swarmed around him wherever he went.
“He spent his early childhood watching staged TV wrestling,” Shayla warned Zack. “His signature move is to climb the ropes, scream, and drop on you from above. It’s the scream that really gets you. Triggers that first fight-or-flight response that freezes you in place, and that’s when he drops.”
Zack wore earplugs for the fight. He caught Homicide Hank midflight and took him to the canvas, easily submitting him with a triangle choke that made it impossible for him to breathe much less scream again.
He was much easier on good-natured, by-the-book Blade Saw, allowing the fight to run a full thirty seconds before taking him down. Zack almost felt bad at the win. Blade Saw’s sorrowful eyes and hunched shoulders made him want to throw the fight just to see the dude smile again.
Zack wasted no time with Doctor Death, who had been a thorn in his side since the first time he caught him staring at Shayla’s breasts. Although he wanted to make the dude suffer, he reminded himself he was going through these fights as a means to practice cultivating emotional control. And he did just that. Even when he floored the agile fighter fifteen seconds into the fight with a submission that made him scream. That last parting shot to the nose? Totally controlled.
“You hit him after he tapped out,” Torment remarked as Zack exited the ring. It hadn’t been lost on Zack that Torment had watched every one of his fights, including his bouts with the juniors, just as Zack had been watching him train.
“Must have slipped.”
Zack wiped down with a towel, glad that Shayla was at work and hadn’t been around to see him toy with Doctor Death. “Renegade is free tomorrow evening,” he said to Torment. “Can we set up a fight?”
“Isn’t Shayla fighting in the TVA event tomorrow?”
Zack shrugged. “It’s early in the afternoon.”
“Is she ready?”
He felt a warning niggle at the back of his mind and pushed it away. She had upped her game over the last few weeks, although not as much as he had hoped. If a fear of risk had been holding her back, it hadn’t affected her in the underground fight or during their training sessions, and he wasn’t about to make the mistake of assuming he knew what was best for her again.
“She’s trained hard, and she’s confident about the fight.”
Torment gave him a sideways glance. “What do you think?”
“I’ve seen a huge improvement in her striking over the last few weeks. She’s putting herself out there, taking risks and reaping the rewards.” He tossed the towel and picked up his gym bag as he waited for a response, his skin prickling at the uncomfortable silence between them. “I’ve suggested she still lean on her defensive game,” he added.
“Part of being a coach is giving your fighters messages they don’t want to hear,” Torment said quietly. “Gordon is a very strong striker. She can do a lot of damage to a fighter who isn’t on the ball.”
“And sometimes you have to let your fighters make their own choices and learn from their mistakes.”
“Don’t confuse the personal with the professional.” Torment folded his arms and leaned against the ring. “What she needs to hear from her coach is not the same as what she needs to hear from her man.”
Zack could feel the vein on his neck pulsing, and he clenched his hands into fists. “Don’t tell me how to do my job.”
“I’m just making sure you know what your job is.”
“She knows the risks.”
Torment raised an eyebrow. “You of all people should know a fighter can be blinded to the risks by the size of the reward.”
And there it was. Out in the open. He would never be able to leave Okami behind. Everyone knew Okami’s coach had tried to stop him from fighting, but Okami was determined to go on.
Shayla was not Okami. She had been cleared for the fight by the CSAC doctors and had no lasting effects from her concussion. She felt good about the fight and was excited about the prospect of a professional contract if she won. Although Zack had reservations, he wasn’t going to interfere with her decision. He hadn’t given her the respect she deserved back in Glenwood, but he was giving it to her now.