The fighter an mm romanc.., p.14
The Fighter: An MM Romance, page 14
Con’s breath hitched, and his hands came up, hovering near my face before he dropped them to his side. His exhale wafted across my face, minty with a hint of coffee. “I’m sorry—”
“Because this is your fault!” I shouted now, right in his face, and he didn’t stop me or push me away. “It’s your fault that I can’t sleep. That I can’t eat. That someone calling me ‘Husk’ makes me want to tear off my fucking skin.” I raked my other hand down my chest, fingers curled into claws. The pain centered me, and only then did my energy flag. I loosened my grip on his throat, unable to take my eyes away from his reddened skin, the consequence of me losing my temper. I let my hand slip down to grasp at his shirt. I couldn’t shout anymore. My throat felt like it’d been carved with razor blades. My head pounded, and I was pretty sure I was two seconds away from my knees buckling. Needles pricked at the back of my eyes. Was I about to cry? I hadn’t cried in years. I couldn’t look at Con anymore as I said the last thing I needed the say. Because surely he’d kick me out now. “You made me remember Tav. You made me miss him. You made me want to be him again just so I could be with you.” I heaved a breath. “I wish I could hate you for that.”
My voice cracked just as the muscles in my right thigh decided to give out. I would have hit the floor on my hip if Con didn’t reach out and wrap me in his strong arms before lowering both of us to the floor. And as he shoved my face into his neck, he spoke in that confident Con voice that only held a bit of a tremor. “I’m sorry. I’ll never call you that again. I’m so sorry.” He spoke into my hair as he dropped kisses along my temple, my ear, and the side of my neck. I shook in his hold, unable to process this emotional whiplash with my bruised brain. “I’m sorry. You’re still my Tav. You’ll always be my Tav.”
Tav. All the fight left me. My body was heavy, so so heavy, like I could sink through the floor. “I don’t understand.” I whispered.
With strength I didn’t know he had, Con lifted my weakened body from the floor and arranged me in the bed, carefully lowering my head onto the pillow. His gentleness confused me. When my body was situated how he wanted it, and the blanket covered my naked lower half, he sat down on the edge of the bed near my hip. He ran his hands through my hair, over my face. Light, so light, just brushes of his fingertips.
Then he bent down and touched his lips to mine. Gently, so as not to hurt my lip, he kissed me. My heart beat, pumping hopeful blood into my veins, and for a moment I forgot all about the pain I was in as his lips played with mine. He licked inside my mouth, slowly and patiently. I’d never been kissed like that. There was no driving force, no wandering hands. This kiss wasn’t foreplay, it was a message. A statement. He was telling me something with this kiss, something that couldn’t be said through words alone. And that message scared the shit out of me. I didn’t dare let my mind even go there, too terrified that I was wrong.
When he pulled back, he cupped my neck, his thumb rubbing under my chin. “I’m saying you’re mine, Tav.”
My defenses were obliterated. I couldn’t even pretend to hide from him right now. “I belong to someone else.”
His eyes flashed pain, and then he closed them briefly. When he opened them again, they were blue-tinged steel. “Husk belongs to someone else, but Tav belongs to me.”
I squinted at him. “Maybe I don’t want to be anybody’s, Con. Did you ever think about that?”
His jaw shifted, like he was tonguing his teeth. “I thought a lot about you. Since you last left my apartment, I thought of nothing but you. And I don’t really believe that. I think you do want to be somebody’s. I think you want that very much. But it’s like the rope thing, right? When I tied you to the bed?”
I didn’t respond as emotion clogged my throat.
“So I think, it’s like that,” he continued, his fingers carding my hair and nails lightly scraping my scalp. “You want to belong to somebody so badly, but it has to be your choice.” He was doing that thing again, the same thing he did at the bar. Where he looked right through me and could see how brain worked. Of course I always wanted to be somebody’s. I didn’t know if that was right, or healthy, or even sane. But I did. More than anything.
His eyes searched mine. “Am I right?”
I was tired, oh so tired. I probably knew from the very first time Con touched me that I wanted to be his. “I don’t know how this will work. How can I give you Tav when Husk is how I survive?”
He watched me for a while, then lowered his head again, tasting my lips. His body shifted as he deepened the kiss until he was lying beside me, and then his hand slipped down my chest, over the bandage, down to my rapidly hardening shaft under the blanket. “Con,” I mumbled against his lips. I had nothing to hide behind, absolutely nothing. This was Tav on his bed. Only Tav.
Con placed his forehead against my temple, and I closed my eyes when his lips touched my ear. “I’ll take care of it. Trust me. Just let me have it.”
He was talking about more than my orgasm, I knew, and what a master he was, because all I could was nod. He stroked me, his rhythm perfect and just like that, I was already close.
When I came, it was silent, my mouth open, my neck arched. I barely even registered the protesting pain in my abused ribs. He kissed my face and my eyelids and nuzzled my lips with his. I couldn’t open my eyes, but his lips continued down, to the cooling cum on my lower belly. Then there was tongue, lapping, suckling, cleaning my release from my skin. I raised my hand and blindly felt around until I touched his head. His hair was soft on my calloused palms.
And then he was back, kissing me so I could taste my cum on his tongue.
“Open your eyes, Tav.”
It took me a minute to obey.
He smiled. “I need you to be honest with me when I ask you this next question. This is your choice. Just like the ropes, remember, this has to be your choice.”
I stayed silent. He knew now that my silence was confirmation.
“Do you want to be mine, Tav? Do you want me to be yours?”
I wanted to belong to someone, it was a need inside me I’d never shared. I’d never found a man who I wanted to give myself to, not ever.
Not until Con.
But there was so much he didn’t know. So much he couldn’t understand. I wanted to give him everything, but Tav hadn’t kept me alive all these years. Husk had. I couldn’t let go of him, even though my heart told me to trust Con, I couldn’t. I clung to Husk stubbornly, like he was a knife under my pillow. “It has nothing to do with what I want.”
He stared at me for a long time, long enough that I squirmed.
“Forget about everything outside these walls,” he cupped his hands around the outside of my eyes, like horse blinders, so all I could see was his face. “All your responsibilities, the rest of your life. If only your life in my apartment existed, do you want to be mine?”
Silence had always been my friend. My defense. When in doubt, don’t speak. I’d learned that from a young age. But Con wanted an answer here, and after all he’d given me this morning, I wasn’t sure I could refuse him. I didn’t want to refuse him.
But the words jammed in my throat, as if Husk was inside, holding them in his fist and refusing to let them go. So I bypassed him and nodded.
I had thought Con would smile at that. I thought he’d kiss me again. Maybe let me suck him, but if anything, his expression darkened and the skin around his eyes tightened. It wasn’t anger, but it was… something else, something I couldn’t read.
His hand sifted through my hair one more time before finally his expression softened. “We have a lot to talk about but just relax for now. Watch TV, chill, and heal. Can you do that for me?”
That sounded nice. Amazing. My check-in with Chen wasn’t for hours. I deserved to relax for now, right? And in Con’s apartment, with his steady, dominating presence, I could almost believe it would last.
SIXTEEN
Conrad
I stood starting blankly at the oven. Inside was the leftovers of a breakfast casserole my chef had made. It had been too sweet for my taste, a French toast thing, but something told me Tav would love it. A bowl of cut up fruit sat on the counter, and two steaming mugs of coffee were on a tray, ready for me to deliver to Tav.
But I needed a minute. I needed a whole lot of minutes.
The weight of the last day was finally catching up to me. The fighting. Tav’s attachment to Devlin. The way Tav hid behind Husk to survive.
If all I wanted was a fuck, I’d go out and get one with a hell of a lot less complications.
This was true. Tav might be a dream, but his life outside this apartment was a million red flags, and I was a bull charging through all of them. Complications be damned.
Today wouldn’t be easy. Tav and I would have to talk. He was going to have to tell me things, and I was going to have to reciprocate. It was going to be hard, and it was going to hurt. But at least he was here. He was in my apartment, safe, and with me. Everything else we could handle in due time.
The way he’d reacted when I’d called him Husk… that would haunt me forever. I’d lashed out, sick over this entire situation, and had only succeeded him hurting him more. I regretted it, but I didn’t regret what came after. Because when Tav’s anger burned out, he’d been so beautifully open with me.
I had never been the type of lover who wanted to take care of someone. I liked domination in the bedroom, but outside of it, I was independent, and I preferred my partners to be the same. But Tav was different. I wanted to hand feed him grapes. I wanted to tend to his wounds. I wanted to wash his big body with a soapy loofah and suds up his hair with shampoo.
When the casserole was sufficiently heated, I dumped a massive helping on a plate, placed it on the tray with the rest of the breakfast, and carried it into the bedroom.
Tav glanced up from where he was propped up on the bed with about three pillows stuffed behind his head and back. The TV was playing where it hung on the opposite wall. Some old movie he’d found.
I raised my eyebrows at him.
“I don’t—didn’t have streaming services at my apartment,” he said sheepishly.
His face looked awful—a mass of bruises and cuts. I had a hard time looking at him without wincing, without feeling that inner rage that almost had me marching to find that Shock fucker and ripping his throat out.
But my murderous thoughts fled when Tav’s face lit up as I dropped the tray on his lap. He ate like a starving animal, scarfing up the whole casserole and all the fruit while sucking down lava-hot coffee like it was ice water. Pleased sounds rumbled from his throat in between talking along with the movie. I sat down next to him, stealing a few strawberries and sipping my own coffee. When I asked him what movie was on, he stared at me, his mouth open and full of food. “It’s Bloodsport.”
I stared back.
He chewed and swallowed. “Bloodsport,” he said again.
“Yeah, I heard you the first time.”
He waved his hand in front of my face. “B-but you had no reaction.”
“And what reaction am I supposed to have?”
He blinked, then squinted his eyes and pinched his lips. When he spoke, it was in a mock low voice. “Ah, Bloodsport. Yes, my Tav, of course. How could I be so silly not to recognize Jean-Claude Van Damme in what’s considered his finest cinematic masterpiece?”
I stole a stray casserole crumb off his plate. Yeah, still too sweet. “Do I really sound like that?”
He threw up his hands and turned back to the TV. “I’m sorry, this isn’t going to work out.”
I ignored that remark. “Jean-Claude Van Damme—wasn’t he in that Under Siege movie?”
His jaw dropped in horror. “Holy shit, stop talking.”
“Why?”
“That was Steven Seagal!” Tav’s voice had gone up an octave. His outrage was genuine, but I found it hilarious. My lips were twitching. I didn’t do lip twitching. I wasn’t sure I really did smiling. Or banter with a lover. Or whatever the fuck we were doing.
I poked at his dimple. “You’re still gorgeous when you’re mad.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” he huffed. On the TV some man punched another man with—were those nails on his knuckles?—while Tav smiled at my compliment.
“What movies do you like then?” he asked when the bloody fight was over and his empty tray was on the floor beside the bed. He’d practically licked the plate clean. “Please don’t tell me documentaries or something.”
“Are you calling me boring?”
Tav grinned, and that dimple was back. “You’re far from boring, Con.”
I flicked him on the arm in a spot that wasn’t bruised. I settled lower. “I like dumb action movies. The dumber and more ridiculous the better.”
His eyes lit up, and his smile grew impossibly wide. Fuck, he looked so young and carefree like this, if I looked past the bruises and cuts. “No way.”
“Yes way. Like The Fast and Furious.”
“Those movies are totally genius. How dare you call them dumb.”
I gave him a look. “Tav, they pulled a bank safe through the streets with cars.”
“Have you ever tried it? How can you say it wouldn’t work?”
I laughed then, appreciating the way he quipped back at me. “Soon as you’re better, let’s rent a car, rob a bank, and test out the theory.”
“Great, I’m driving.”
“Oh, so I’m the passenger princess?”
It was his turn to give me a look. “Con, you have a driver.”
We traded favorite movies back and forth for a little while until Tav shut up so he could watch the closing scenes of Bloodsport. Which I had to admit was entertaining.
I finished my coffee and was about to get another one, when Tav spoke again. “Used to watch this all the time when I was a kid. Had the DVD. Plastic cover was all marked up, corners peeling. But I carted that damn thing to every fucking foster home we went to.”
He was giving me something right now. A little bit of Tav, and not just his body. I didn’t move, worried he’d flinch and bound away like a startled deer. “Do you still have it?”
He took a noisy sip of his coffee. “Nah. It got stolen before we aged out of the system.”
So many questions. “Who’s we?” I asked quietly.
Tav kept his eyes on the TV. “My sister.”
I didn’t want to ask the next question. I feared it, but I had a feeling this sister had something to do with why Tav fought for Devlin. Call it instinct. “And where is she now?”
He fidgeted with the blanket. “She’s alive but hates my guts. I don’t hate her, though.” Finally, he looked at me. “Tattooed her on my back.”
The angel with the long, dark hair. “She’s beautiful.”
“Yeah.” His voice shook. “Yeah, she is.”
Although I wanted to ask more questions, I knew he was done for right now. So I took his empty dishes out to the kitchen while he watched the rest of his movie silently. No more humor in those eyes now. It’d been nice, that one glimpse I had. I’d get more. I’d get them forever.
When I finished cleaning up from breakfast, I checked on Tav. He was asleep, the credits rolling on the TV. I left it on, the soundtrack playing softly in the background, and closed the door to the bedroom.
I walked directly to my office and shut the door. I dialed his number, and Nik answered after the first ring and spoke first. “Found it.”
I exhaled with relief, glad I had a back-up plan. “Don’t tell me. I’ll get it out of him.”
Nik grunted but stayed silent. It was wrong to know Tav’s full name before he chose to tell me. What I was about to do next was enough of a betrayal. “He has a sister. Alive. That’s all I know. I want everything you can find out—name, occupation, history, address, what she fucking had for breakfast. Everything.”
A sound in the receiver. Nik was smoking. “Yep.”
“And you know the drill. She can’t know.”
“Yep.”
“There’s a connection to Devlin, you find that out, and I’ll buy you a fucking yacht.”
Nik chuckled in that husky way he had. “Don’t need a fucking yacht.”
“What do you want then?”
A pause. “What I want isn’t yours to give.” And then he hung up the phone.
“Cryptic fuck,” I muttered.
In the bedroom, Tav was still sleeping. I slipped under the covers, sitting with my back against the headboard. I picked up my paperback. Work could wait. Without waking, Tav curled into me, snuffling in his sleep, his head against my hip. He slung an arm around my legs, his hand on the opposite thigh.
I touched the scars on his knuckles, now that I was aware what they were capable of. That woman at the fight had said he was undefeated, hadn’t lost a fight. Dead in the eyes. I’d seen it for myself, who Tav turned into when he had to be Husk. And I hated it. How he’d managed to survive and still to be able to save a bit of himself, enough to sit in this bed with me and joke about a movie, was a miracle.
Everything he did proved to me he was the strongest man I knew. Much stronger than me, and I considered myself a hard man.
I had been reading for about an hour or so when the hand on my thigh flexed. There was movement at my hip, a hot breath through the thin material of my pants. Tav’s body rolled, falling between my legs in the same position I’d held him in months ago when I’d brought him home from Collar. He looked up at me with those two-toned eyes still a little blurry from sleep and mouthed the outline of my quickly hardening shaft. He was asking without any words for what he wanted, those lips dampening the fabric, those eyes pleading.
