Chapter 5

CHAPTER

FIVE

RUST

After dinner, the storm quiets down some, and Mary goes to her room. I do calisthenics in the living room: a core and arm endurance circuit. I try to work up a sweat most days, even if I'm not actively training. After that, I check my phone. I've got a text from Marquis— You better be relaxing — and a missed call from Brad.

I swallow, guilt slamming into me, not because I don't deserve it. It's too much to handle. This is new to me, too, this gnawing feeling that I'm doing something wrong. Life was far easier when I was a cold bastard.

Sitting on the porch, watching the rain lash across the darkness, I call Brad.

"Hey? Rust?"

"Yeah, I'm here. It's pretty stormy, so the signal isn't great."

"Wait, I got you. I'm walking around on the hotel roof. Room signal is terrible."

Usually, I'd probably chuckle here, maybe my only laughter for the entire week, like a quota only my best friend can fill up.

"How is everything?" he asks. "Mary doing okay?"

I bite down, remembering the private plane, the bathroom, and the fierce surge of come burning up my shaft. "Yeah, all good. Her car broke down, so I gave her a ride from the motel. How about you? How's your old man?"

"Don't tell Mary, but I'm here to bail him out. Apparently, he tried to break open a slot machine."

I sigh but say nothing.

"What?" Brad prompts, knowing I'm holding something back because he always does and always has been able to pick up on these things since we were kids.

"He keeps pulling stunts like this. A few months ago, it was drunk driving. Now this. Sometimes, people aren't worth saving."

"My dad was a police officer. He was a good man. Mom's death broke him, that's all, but there's some good in there. It's different."

He doesn't need to explain why it's different. He's talking about my dad, who actually is an irredeemable monster. After my mom passed from lung cancer, Dad drank himself into a hole. Only after I got some success did I begin hearing from the leech again.

"You're right. It's not the same."

"But everything's okay?" he says.

"Yeah," I reply.

"Getting into the right mood for the fight?"

Usually, I'd sit on this porch for hours, listening to the rain and simply being in the moment. I'd close my eyes and consciously walk through the fight a thousand times, imagining all the different scenarios. Now, when I close my eyes, I only see Mary.

"Yeah," I tell him, a lie.

That's going to be a problem. When my training camp starts, my mind has to be clear . I can't have any thoughts about Mary or her body or her lips or her laugh or her smile or her fear or just her , dammit.

"Good," he says. "Speak soon."

I hang up and try to zone out like I usually would. The rain picks up again. Then, more lightning and thunder crash above. It hammers the sky. I go into the house, up the stairs, thinking of my woman, my eighteen-year-old girl, still feeling the effects of the night her mother passed.

Standing outside her bedroom door, I try to convince myself to turn away. It doesn't matter if she's frightened. Even if she's in a crumpled ball on the bed, consumed with fear, it's not my problem. I should leave now.

I knock on the door.

"Yeah?" she calls over the sound of another thunderclap.

"Can I come in?"

"Uh… yeah?"

I open the door to find her lying in bed— in bed . She hastily pulls the sheets over her body to cover herself, but the flush creeping down her neck hints at the nakedness underneath. What if she's completely naked under there? I could tear off the sheets and see her perfect naked tits. I could kiss up her thigh and taste her juices.

"Are you okay?"

She tries to roll her eyes, but then fate works against her. A lightning strike causes her to shiver, ruining the effect. Fuck. I can't stop thinking about how her body would shake each time the shock moved through her. I can't stop imagining her pink, needy nipples begging to be sucked.

"Y-yeah," she stutters.

"Y-yeah?"

"Don't tease me."

Fuck, there's something hot when she pouts like that, but then I think of my dad. Why so pouty? It ruins the moment, but there shouldn't be a moment. So that's a good thing, should be a good thing. I shouldn't give a damn about any moment being ruined, but it does. That thought. My dad. The prick.

"I'm not very good at teasing," I say.

"It's silly," she snaps. "I'm a grownup. Thunder shouldn't scare me."

She's a grownup, sure, but just . I've got so much more experience than her. One of us needs to be the mature one here. Maybe this is all one-sided, the hunger in me, the never-ending howling need. My rod is getting hard just standing here.

"I'm studying in the living room," I tell her, "if you want the company."

Even that is too much. I turn and leave her there before I fully give into the urge and tear the sheets away, pounce on her, let her feel how badly I need her, how hungrily. I'm starving, and she's the only one I want.

Back in the living room, I click play on the video I was watching. It's a Jujitsu breakdown comparison of two armbar submissions at a recent tournament. I don't expect Mary to join me—lying to myself that it's for the best and what I want—but a few minutes later, she shuffles into the room and walks to the armchair, pulling a blanket over herself.

She's wearing thick pajamas like she wants as much fabric between us as possible. Maybe she can sense how easily I could snap and claim her. Even if she can, it wouldn't make it right. She's too damn young and innocent. She was in braces last year.

"Is that your plan? Break his arm?" she asks.

"You make it sound savage."

Savage . There's a word. It fits this new, sudden feeling perfectly, the hot blood pumping through me. I should think of Brad and try to imagine what he'd say, but there's too much in me trying to pull toward her . It's like instinct in a fight, a slip I didn't plan, just a reflex. I'm slipping for this woman and into obsession.

"It is, a little," she laughs awkwardly.

"Cain's a good wrestler. In the last fight, he took me down and held me there, landing some decent enough shots. If he takes me down this time, I'll make him pay."

"You can do it," she murmurs. "All you do is train, recover, and train. That's what Brad says anyway."

I almost flinch at his name. I wonder if she's sensing my desire for her, subtly trying to warn me off.

"It's true. It's all I've done since I first entered the boxing gym at twelve years old. The only thing that makes sense to me is chaos and fighting. It brings a sense of control."

"I think it'd just terrify me," she murmurs.

Stop, stop , but the voice in my head is way too quiet. I'm supposed to be the mature one, making the right choices. Instead, I lean forward and let my gaze sink into Mary, her knees tucked up, the blanket hiding the goodness beneath.

"Maybe I should teach you some," I say. "Jiujitsu. No striking," I add quickly.

"Like that?" she asks, pointing at the screen.

A grappling match can look odd to an untrained eye. Right now, the competitors are sprawled on their sides, intertwined, as they each compete to rip the other person's foot off.

"It seems…" she trails off, biting her lip in that hot-as-fuck way. I don't know if she knows how captivating she's being.

"What, Mary?" I ask, silently praying for her to tell me to back off, to leave her alone, hoping she'll do the right thing so I don't have to.