again, little one.”
Cobra dives on me as soon as I step in. I am done with his ass. Over. Time to be quick and dirty. I have a girl to talk to.
“Lights out, motherfucker,” I say before pushing him off me and hitting him with a right hook that is fueled by need.
I turn and look at Hendrix as they count him out. “Fuck the bell, he’s out.” As my brothers run to me, Hendrix has Tatiana’s elbow, dragging her behind.
I grab her and lift her so we are eye to eye. “You’re gonna be okay.”
“How do I know that?” she asks with a slight tremble.
“ ’Cause I said so. That’s why.”
After the money is exchanged, Tatiana, Kid, Shaw, Hendrix, Morrison, and I exit out the back. Kid pulls up with Shaw. I am high off my win as I get in the back of Shaw’s SUV and wave goodbye to Hendrix and Morrison, Tatiana at my side.
I look straight ahead, avoiding eye contact because I can’t be fucking trusted. However, I do feel the weight of her eyes. Then her hand grips my thigh.
“Good touch,” she whispers with a smile giving off false confidence. I’m a rule breaker, but this is not a rule I’m going to break.
I should move it, push it away, but I don’t. “When will you be eighteen?”
“Three days,” she says, and I nearly break my neck from the speed I turn toward her.
Her eye is swollen, her lips bruised, and she’s a mess, a beautiful mess.
“In three days, you better know what’s coming for you.” She better know what’s coming for her.
Her hand rises higher on my thigh. “Good touch.” She’s fucking killing me here.
“The fucking champion.” A hint of a smile brightens her eyes, and I shake my head. “You should run, little one.”
“I did, and I ended up here.”
When her hand rises again, threatening to brush up against the tent I’m sporting, I place my hand over hers, stopping it.
“You sure you know what you’re asking for?”
She nods. “I’m not a little girl. I know what I’ve had in life and what I want in the future. Good touch.”
“Fuck me,” I groan as I lean back, take her hand, and hold it to my chest.
Chapter 10
Tatiana
I shouldn’t want him. I shouldn’t be with him. I can’t stop myself, though. I want his touch. I want his safety. I want anything and everything he can give me. Something in the power exchange of the fight has me on a high. I am not comfortable with the violence, but there is a certain energy in the atmosphere that feeds on everyone in the space, including me.
Cobra brought me to the fight tonight. He told me to stay out of sight. However, when Jagger was fighting him and seemed so angry, I needed to do something. I needed to be a comfort. After he knocked Cobra out, I should have stayed. I should have stayed to make sure my friend was okay. As much as Cobra warned me he is a bad man, he was nice to me. It still scares me that he could hit his girlfriend, a woman he claims to love, but he didn’t hit me. He could have harmed me in all sorts of ways, but instead he gave me a safe haven until I could get to Jagger. There is something between us. Some unknown pull that keeps driving me back to him no matter what.
He thought I was sleeping with Cobra. He says he didn’t sleep with Missy. We definitely need to communicate better. I have never felt jealousy before. Truth be told, I have never felt anything but fear…until Jagger Caldwell. Now I have so many emotions I am dizzy trying to sort them all.
He makes me feel like a woman and not a child. He makes my body burn from the inside out. He makes me want things I have only read about in books. He makes me want to give in to wild abandon when I grew up afraid of my own shadow. How can one person do all of this to me when I barely know him?
Jagger certainly seems to be ready to leap tall buildings and save the damsel in distress. We get to the front of Caldwell’s. Jagger leads me to his car.
“Buckle up,” he says, pointing to the seatbelt, and then opens the glove box
Sonya Sones
Jackie Barrett
T.J. Bennett
Peggy Moreland
J. W. v. Goethe
Sandra Robbins
Reforming the Viscount
Erlend Loe
Robert Sheckley
John C. McManus