Chapter 2

Dmitri

Violence pumps in my veins and if I don’t exorcise it, I fear I’ll become a mindless animal. I’ve put off going back in the cage for months, but the aggression riding me lately has become unbearable.

I get it from my mother. She was a nasty bitch whose temper could have made Satan piss his pants. I also got my dad’s patience and precision.

Which means I’m a deadly combo of my parents and it terrifies me.

Waiting two weeks for this night has been pure Hell. Every second that ticks by is slower than the last. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t fuck.

Hopping on my Ducati, I slither through city traffic like a snake. The fights have already started. I’d have been there earlier but couldn’t leave work until I was sure it was safe to. As head of security at the Monarch Club, the most elite sex club in the tri-state area, my job is to make sure our guests play safely. Tonight, we had an incident. Some dumb fuck thought coercion was the same as consent.

I taught him otherwise.

I’d allowed myself one hit.

One .

Fortunately, that’s all it took to knock the bastard out. And now that I’ve had a taste of fresh blood, I’m a shark circling, desperate for more. If I don’t get this aggression out of me fast, I’m scared I’ll lose my head.

Violence is like a drug to me. A high. A release. A poison I’ve suffered from since I was a kid and now have a craving for.

After I took care of the now blacklisted member, I quickly rushed down to my dungeon and busted my knuckles on a punching bag. When that didn’t come close to taking the edge off, I cut my thigh with a knife. Still didn’t help. But I knew better than to go back and be around the club’s offender. I’d kill him. So Ryker and Vault hauled his unconscious ass out of the club while I tried reeling in my control to no avail.

And going to a cage fight tonight is going to open pandora’s box again. If Ryker and the other’s find out I’m doing this… Shit . If only the shame I should feel for my actions was strong enough to make me turn around.

But that’s not going to happen.

I have no shame.

Look, I know Ryker would fight me if I asked. We’ve thrown a lot of punches over the years, for various therapeutic reasons, but this isn’t one of those times where a split lip or concussion can fix me. I need more.

I need blood to pour and bones to crack. Even if it’s my own.

Ryker, Vault, or even Knox would never take it that far. Trust me, I’ve begged.

Cage fighting in an underground club I’ve belonged to since I was sixteen is the only way to get what I need right now.

Pulling up to the abandoned warehouse dubbed the Scrapyard, I turn the engine off and immediately hear the riotous hollers from inside. Storming in, I head straight for the cage in the center, tearing my shirt off as I go. It smells the same as it always has in this run-down joint. The coppery scent of blood, musky sweat, cold metal, and wet concrete—along with booze and smokes—it’s the smell of my extremely short childhood.

I’m home .

Jerking the cage door open, not giving a flying fuck about the two fighters already swinging, I lock onto the first man I reach, and smash my head against his. He stumbles, dazed. The other guy jumps on my back and punches my side.

Cute.

I spin around and smash him against the fence. He barks a bunch of nonsense in my ear, and I pry him off my back, flipping him over my shoulder before slamming him against the floor. While he’s busy trying to catch his breath, I punch his face over and over and over and over and ov—

Someone peels me off the poor, limp bastard.

I rip out of their hold and go for the second guy in the cage again. I can’t hear the crowd. I can’t feel my legs. I can’t think straight. Everything’s a red haze and I’m getting tunnel vision.

I square up and stare at my opponent. “Hit me.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. His left hook lands square in my jaw, snapping my head to the side. Fuuuuck that felt good. “Again.”

He hits me in the gut this time.

“Again!”

Roaring with anger, fear, or, for all I know, frustration, he barrels into me and drives me backwards until my spine hits our enclosure. The cold steel does nothing to soothe my burn. He jabs me in the ribs, the gut, the face, and kicks my thigh. It hurts.

It also awakens.

“My turn,” I growl, sucking in ragged breaths. My opponent doesn’t stand a chance against me. It doesn’t matter if we’re a match in weight and height. It doesn’t matter that I’ve given him plenty of free shots. He doesn’t matter.

Fury blooms in my veins. I jab him in the kidneys, the face, the head, his spine. We’re a tornado in the ring and I don’t let up until several men peel me off his limp body. They back off me once I go willingly, and they leave the cage in a hurry.

“Who else?” I look around the Scrapyard for another willing opponent. I’m sure I look like a lunatic. I definitely feel like one. Finally, after so long, I feel alive again. I’m myself.

And I’m not done yet.

“Who else will fight me?”

A bulky man steps up to the challenge. The crowd roars and blood swishes in my ears. We circle each other, and he gives me a run for my money. The numbness and detachment I’ve lived with for years starts subsiding as my red-hazed world comes into crystal clear focus. I drive him back. Land a few jabs. He spins out and puts me in a headlock, his fist making my face its only target. He hits the bullseye several times. Each blow echoes in my skull.

We tear into each other until I finally wrestle him to the ground and put him in a body lock that forces him to tap out.

They have to peel me off him, too.

“Who else?” I stumble back onto my feet and blood pours from my mouth. My ribs hurt. I can’t see out of my left eye. “ Who else ?”

No one rises to my challenge.

No one else enters the cage.

“There’s none left,” Old Man Silas says. “Dmitri, you took them all out.”

“How many?”

“Seven.”

I just fought seven men? I only counted three. Dread consumes me as reality sinks in. I lost time. Half this fight has fallen into the black hole of my mind.

“You did well, son. Real well.” Silas has been running these underground fights since before I was born, and he knows praise doesn’t do shit for me. Never has. He points at the boarded-up office that was converted to a bedroom when I was seventeen. “She’s upstairs.”

“ She ?”

“I know how you are, Dmitri. When you said you were coming tonight, I made arrangements for you.”

Just like old times.

Swiping the blood from my nose and mouth, I storm out of the cage with a new target to take my aggression out on.

My prize.

“It’s good to have you back!” Silas yells as I beeline through the crowd of wannabe fighters and heavy gamblers. A few motherfuckers try to pat my back, but I smack their hands off. No one touches me without consent.

Taking the stairs a little slower than I prefer, I hold my side and spit blood on the steps.

Silas knows that after a hard fight, I like a harder fuck. He’s always found a willing, consensual partner for me. I guess I should be grateful he went to the trouble tonight, but I know it’s likely just a ploy to get me back in the ring as a regular. I’ve made him a lot of money over the years. He probably thinks taking care of me tonight will lead to more of the same energy from me later.

It won’t.

It can’t.

Tonight’s fight is a one-time thing.

Aw fuck, why am I lying to myself? I’ll be back again, and Silas and I both know it. No matter how hard I try to give this up, I can’t do it. I’m too weak. Too hooked. Too broken.

My dick is hard as steel, and I haven’t even seen my prize yet. Opening the door, I’m nothing more than a hot-blooded feral animal as I prowl over to the woman chained against the wall. I’m too mindless to take note of her beauty, and her chains are a given.

I have a type, and Silas knows it.

Looming over her, I suck in heavy, labored breaths. “Are you here of your own volition?” Blood drips from a cut in my cheek as I wait for her to speak. “Answer me.”

“Yes.”

Her tone strikes a chord I don’t care to consider.

“Call red if I’m too much.” I yank my belt off first and shove it in her mouth. “Bite down.”

Her pearly whites clamp onto the leather strap, and I barely make out what she looks like as I tug my jeans down and snag a condom from the pile on the floor by her feet. Sheathing myself, I lift her thighs and drive into her.

No introductions. No foreplay.

I’m not in the mindset of good manners, which makes me so fucking dangerous.

She grunts in my ear. I bleed all over her tits. Her thighs quiver under my grip. My dick rams into her hot cunt. Every thrust brings my crazed mind more peace.

“You’re doing so good,” I manage to grit out.

She doesn’t respond because she’s still biting down on my leather belt. And as long as she keeps that thing in her mouth, she’s not calling red, which means I can keep going.

Her body takes what I give it. My brutality. My length. My frenzied thrusts.

Her pussy makes a lot of wet noises while I drive into her, and I focus on that while chasing my release. It hurts to breathe. I can’t see out of my left eye. The other one is blurry. My face throbs. My muscles scream. My bones ache.

I come hard, filling the condom.

The woman dangles from her chained wrists and when I let go of her, I finally notice her legs have been wrapped around me this whole time. Her hazel eyes blaze with wild desperation. Her nostrils flare with each ragged breath she takes.

I try pulling away, but her thighs tighten around me, keeping me right where I am. This girl is an anaconda. My ribs and bruised torso scream in protest under her pressure. It makes me want to fuck her more. I don’t think she came yet, and damn me for not giving her pleasure before stealing my own. I never would have done that if my head was on straight.

Then again, I wouldn’t be here at all if my fucking head was on straight.

“I got you.” Rubbing her clit with the pad of my thumb, I rock back and forth inside her, praying the condom doesn’t bust while I do this.

The woman spits out my belt and says, “Harder.”

She has the voice of an angel.

My hips turn to pistons, and I rub her clit more. The chains clanking from her shackles sound loud in my ears, and my gaze lifts to her wrists. Shit, her skin is red and cut up from the cuffs.

“Hang onto me, babygirl.”

Her legs tighten around me more, robbing me of breath. Grunting, half in pain, half in arousal, I press her flush against the wall for stability and flick the safety locks on the cuffs to free her.

She immediately wraps her arms around my neck. “Harder,” she begs again, but her eyes shine with unshed tears.

This woman’s a dark beauty.

“Please.” Her fat bottom lip is cracked and dry. “Please give me more.”

How can I say no to that?

With my dick still buried balls deep inside her, I shuffle us over to the bed. My blood is all over us. We both look down at the mess I’ve made on her sweet skin at the same time.

Unfazed, she swipes her fingers over her tits, smearing my blood, and then shoves them in my mouth.

Where did this woman come from?

My dick jerks in her cunt. Her eyes roll back when I suck on her fingers and drive into her again. I move slower, with better precision, to hit her deeper pleasure points. She’s stunning, all bloody and pale and perfectly limp under me. I want to taste her.

Pulling out, I sink to my knees and eat her sweet pussy like a victory meal.

“Oh my god.” She runs her hand over my buzzed hair. It makes me want to grow it out so she can pull it by the roots.

Sinking two fingers inside her, I hit her g-spot and let my Dom side out to play. “Don’t come until I tell you, babygirl.”

“Daelyn,” she pants. “My names is Dae… fuck… Daelyn.” Her head tips and back arches as she succumbs to the pleasure.

I relentlessly hit her g-spot until she screams with her release. Her voice cracks. Her body shakes. Her pussy clamps down on my fingers like she doesn’t want to let me go.

“That’s a good girl.” Happy to have given her a little release, I place a soft kiss on her swollen clit. Her cheeks are pink and flushed. There are dark circles under her eyes that I can see even with my blurry vision and the concealer she’s wearing. “Do you want more, Daelyn?”

“No.”

I shove inside her, hooking my finger to hit her g-spot again. “You sure?”

Her eyes flutter. She likes what I’m doing. I do too.

Daelyn gyrates against my hand and opens her pretty little mouth. “Red.”

I pull out immediately. There’s blood on my hand and I have no idea if it’s hers or mine.

“Shit.” I spread her thighs to make sure she didn’t tear.

“Stop.”

I back off and put my hands up. “Sorry, I was just making sure you’re not bleeding.”

“If I am, it’s fine.” She clamps her legs shut and covers her tits with her arms.

My cell goes off in my pants that are still down around my fucking ankles. Whatever bubble of pleasure I thought we were in pops. Ripping the condom off, I toss it on the floor and yank my jeans up.

My cell won’t stop ringing, damnit. Digging it out of my pocket, I see why. It’s Ryker. “What?”

“Where are you?”

“I’ll be back soon.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I know. But I’m not ready to tell him I’ve gone back to the cage. “What do you need?”

“For my fucking security to get back to work. Unless you’re…”

“I’ll be back at the Monarch in twenty. Just stepped out for some fresh air.”

There’s a long pause. Ryker can always tell when something’s up with me. He’s been on my ass for weeks because he senses I’m not doing well anymore but hasn’t pushed me for answers.

“Okay,” he says cautiously, then hangs up.

Turning around to find where the girl went, I catch her over by a chair in the far corner of the room. Something close to guilt has me opening my mouth and saying, “I can give you a ride home.”

“I already have one, but thanks.” She snags her dress and pulls it on, then drops into the chair and slips her feet into a pair of well-worn black combat boots.

Realizing I’ve come full circle and am right back to my old ways, in this room, with a random woman to use for my pleasure, makes me feel sick.

As she hurries to get dressed and likely hightail it out of here, I sit on the edge of the squeaky bed and stare at the puddle of blood on the floor over by the chains dangling from the wall.

I don’t notice until the door slams shut that she’s left.

Good. At least one of us can escape me.