In the Ring (BOXER Book 1) Read online

  “Fuck. Like you don’t know. I can’t have Michael touching me any more like that.”

  “So the double date went well?” Dev asked, and I pictured him slavering over my bones, gloating at the demise of my non-love life.

  “Great. Fine. Yeah. Just tell Michael he doesn’t need to get his hands dirty with me or whatever.”

  The phone dropped onto the sink counter with a clatter, Dev’s voice finally muted.

  I shaved and showered. I dreamed about over-easy eggs and crispy bacon, sugary-sweet black coffee while I shoveled down protein, protein, fruit, and shake. The only thing that made me smile was Tyrion the Imp’s superb one-liners in my dog-eared copy of A Clash of Kings. Before I left the suite to meet the reaper—otherwise known as Michael—I made sure I’d set the DVR for the next episode of GoT that week.

  #

  I had one of the gym jocks wrap and tape my hands. Michael was late. He was never late so that meant he was . . . yeah . . . probably still in bed with Wade. I took it out on the punching bag.

  I put my entire body into each blow until the bag swung like a hundred-pound metronome, and the rafter it hung from creaked. Nothing felt better than the burn of my muscles and the ability to forget every blessed thing when I was in the zone.

  Unfortunately, Michael appeared, right in my zone. I halted just before splatting him to the floor and caught the swinging bag in my arms before he caught it in his face.

  Blowing across the sweaty hair on my forehead, I watched him step away. He didn’t look like Yay! Had sex all morning! In fact, he glared at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You know what.”

  Again with this?

  “You want to reassign me?”

  Ooooh . . . that. “Not because you’re not good enough.”

  “Damn right.”

  Because I can’t have your hands on me knowing I’ll never have you, how about that? Does Mikey like that? Backtrack, backtrack. “I don’t want to be this big thing between you and Wade.”

  “You’re not.” Blond curls, cool gray eyes, his hurt stare came back at me.

  “No, no, I know that, man.” Of course I did. What was I but a big lug; a bruiser, no contender at all, not for his heart at least. “Look, I’m sorry if I made things awkward last night, that’s all.”

  “You didn’t. Wade did.” He patted my cheek in an oh-so familiar gesture.

  I wanted to purr into it like a big contented cat.

  Withdrawing his hand, he said. “It’s not easy for him with me traveling all the time.”

  “Sorry about that, too.”

  “Don’t be. It’s not your problem. Besides, I don’t want to bring my personal life to work.”

  I didn’t want to hear about it much either. “So we’re good?”

  “Sure. But I’m still massaging you. I don’t trust anyone else with the aftercare, so you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

  I frowned, rubbing my fingers over my jaw. “Yeah. Okay.”

  “Come on. Let’s go.” He walked down the corridor, pulling his shirt off as he went.

  Muscles rippled all the way down to his ass and beyond. I hung back, mostly to enjoy the view. “Where are we going? I thought you said you were gonna beat my ass today.”

  “Sure did.” Michael swung around. “Yoga first.”

  “That’s how you’re gonna whup my ass? Pathetic.” I hustled after him.

  An hour later, I shouldn’t have questioned Michael. He was limber, bendy, stretchy, and hot. So goddamn hot. His face flushed pink along the crest of his cheekbones. His chest—those deep carved muscles on muscles—pumped in and out with his relaxed inhales and exhales. His legs, long and thickly muscled, covered in that fine blond fuzz, were almost always in my direct line of sight.

  Getting down with Buddha while sporting a boner made keeping a pretzel-pose damn near impossible, but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. God, I love yoga.

  Next we were in the ring, one that was well used, spotted with rusty bloodstains soaked into the mat. With this being Mikey’s old stomping grounds, his crew came out in full force, egging him on as we pounded each other from corner to corner:

  “Get him, Mikey!”

  “The Irish Blight ain’t got nothin’ on Mikey’s Might!”

  We grinned at each other.

  Then Michael let fly with his fists . . . and his mouth, “That’s for the sorbet.”

  BAM. He got me in the gut.

  “This is for the steak.”

  Boom! Right in the ribs.

  I staggered back, laughing. “Hey, that steak was awesome. Worth every blow.”

  We danced around each other. Shuffling side-to-side, ducking, punching, landing snap-fast strikes. He grinned from ear-to-ear. Gorgeous.

  After pivoting away from his high-speed fist, I swooped up behind him.

  With his neck clutched between my bicep and forearm, I taunted, “You forgot about the sundae earlier in the week, Mighty Mike.”

  When I spun him free, he came charging right back at me with his head down and aimed at my midsection. I treated him like a bull on the loose, swiveling out of his way then snapping my fist to the side of his jaw.

  Crunch!

  Sean turned up, a spent cigar lolling between his lips. He hung over the ropes in the corner. “Take that soccer pussy to the mat, Bruiser!”

  Jeers and boos and cheers rose up in one solid voice.

  Locked in a standoff, our faces close and our mouths closer, I smiled. “Want me to take you down, Mikey?”

  “Not in the ring, champ.”

  We broke free of each other, panting and sweating. Before I had a chance to consider his words, he sailed at me. I undercut his feet, came up behind him, and torqued his arms behind his neck in a one-armed non-regulation move. Slapping him face-first to the stained mat, I pinned him down.

  He scraped his head to the side. “That’s wrestling.”

  “WWE, babe.” Oh, fuck me! Babe? How did that slip out?

  “Babe?” he asked.

  “I meant newbie.” Moving my weight down his back, I kept his neck in a tight grip. “Don’t you ever forget I’m a dirty fighter.”

  I slapped his ass like he had mine.

  Releasing my chokehold—still relishing the feel of him beneath me—I leaped to my feet.

  Sean whistled through his last remaining front teeth. He grabbed my arm and marched me around the ring as if this was the biggest fight of my life. But the biggest battle was yet to come. It might not even be in the ring.

  Michael shook the hair from his eyes and clapped my hand, drawing me to his chest. “That’s exactly how you should play it with Reggie.”

  “Going dirty?”

  “It’s in your arsenal, use it.”

  In the quiet locker room, we straddled a bench, our hands between us. Michael lifted mine, slowly unwinding the tape and wraps. The soft gauze pulled from my wrist, my palm, from between my fingers. Flames of fire heated up my spine with every one of his slow motions uncovering my skin.

  Hard breaths tugged out of me. It felt like his tongue dipped into the crevices of skin between each of my fingers. I wanted to grunt and groan. I shifted closer until our knees touched. His scarred, mine bruised. One long length of gauze fell to the floor like a coiled apple peel, then the next.

  Michael didn’t know I was gay, he couldn’t, but he touched me so right my needy hole puckered.

  “Your turn,” I said.

  I used my teeth to bite through the tape, getting so close to his skin I smelled his sweat and musk and heat.

  After his fingers were bared, he leaned forward.

  He stroked up my inner thighs, almost under my shorts. “Thank you.”

  I inhaled and closed my eyes, soaking in the feel of Michael touching me, so close. He moved away, leaving me with a cold wash of air in his wake. Around the corner, a shower turned on, and when I looked again, Michael was gone. His discarded clothes sat on the bench in front of me. />
  I hated this feeling, this vulnerability and insecurity inside. Everyone expected me to climb higher, do better, be bigger—never weak. I wanted to be less than what I was for just one minute. More than I was, in someone else’s eyes.

  I padded naked to the showers. There before me was Michael, back-to, soaping up. Foam ran down his traps, delts, glutes, quads.

  Michael spun around. Suds, chest, cock, balls. “You checking me out?”

  “I’ll go.” I turned to leave, but he grabbed my arm.

  “Don’t.” He slinked forward, and every effort I’d put into shutting this unwanted thing down melted away as his hand curled around my bicep.

  My body was on fire for him. “Michael—”

  “Don’t,” he repeated, running a hand down my bare chest.

  My heart skipped, and my cock surged. Sensation weakened me, the sheer sexiness of his wet touch swirled inside my tummy, gripped my groin like a fist.

  I stepped inside, under the hot rain of multiple showerheads. My erection leaped to my belly, big, hard, unmistakable. Diamond droplets of water slid off Michael’s hair, dripped into his eyes, and ran down his chest. Down below, the torrent gathered in his curly golden pubes that circled the base of a shaft that reached upward. Pink, wrapped in pulsing veins, the entire picture of his cock was so much sexier than any man I’d ever fucked or any porn I’d ever watched.

  “You are gorgeous, you know that, right?” Michael stood so close his heat clung to my skin.

  “I . . .”

  Tilting my chin, he brushed his knuckles against the black stubble on my jaw. “Liam, are you just curious—or gay? Because this”—his fingertips drifted down my abs which jumped on contact—“is really dangerous.”

  My skin burned from his touch. Heat scorched down to my cock. “No.”

  “No what?” He reached low.

  His thumb rubbed just beneath the flared head of my dick.

  I shook my head, then nodded, trying to get closer to his reddened lips. To feel them on mine.

  “No, you’re not gay? No, you’re not curious?” His tongue darted to my earlobe.

  My hands clamped onto his biceps.

  “No? You’re in denial?” His thick whisper trailed along my neck.

  I wrapped one hand around his hip, slick and wet, and the other into his hair. “Kiss me if you wanna find out.”

  Michael gasped. His lips parted and found mine. Not like a girl. Nothing near a woman. Stubble, rough mouth, harsh groans, all man. But for all the force our bodies contained and all the months of desire coursing through me, our first kiss was sultry, liquid, languid.

  “Ahhh.” I leaned away to look at him.

  Licking my lips to savor his taste, I groaned in frustration as the shower washed it away.

  Another slow unhurried touch of slick lips. When his tongue touched mine, it burned away the last of my restraint. Our necks craned. Our mouths slammed together. Tongues reached inside and discovered. My hands went to his waist, around his ass, pulling him to me. Our hard bodies made impact, no longer fighting, almost fucking.

  Michael’s thighs parted, and I lifted him up, then his cock was right there. Right against mine. My fingers dug into his glutes, trailing lower. He buried his tongue in my mouth, groaning. We grinded together, the boiling need to come driving me harder against Michael.

  Reaching his hands back, he fumbled behind him.

  Lube, condom, yes, whatever.

  Then the water went frigid.

  That glacial rain slapped me in the face.

  Coldness climbed into my heart.

  Michael reeled away from me, slipping on the wet tile. “Shit! Fuck! This is a mistake.”

  His rejection stung worse than any blow in the ring.

  I fell back against the wall.

  The squeak of his wet feet was the last sound I heard as he scrambled out.

  #

  Twenty minutes later I hit the hotel running. I skipped the elevator and took the stairs three at a time carried by sheer shameful adrenaline. I slammed into my suite and threw handfuls of clothes into a duffel bag.

  I made it to the toilet just in time to puke. All I kept seeing was Michael’s horrified face.

  I brushed my teeth, gargled, too, and threw my shaving kit together. One call to the car rental company, one text to Devlin, and a scary glare to my bodyguard detail who turned up outside my door as I was leaving, and I was out of there. Goodbye to Chicago and my guilty desires.

  Goodbye to Michael.

  A big black SUV waited curbside for me. I tossed my shit inside and climbed in.

  Man, it’d been so long since I’d been behind the wheel of a car, and never one like this. A top of the range Infiniti. I almost forgot I didn’t have to hotwire this ride.

  The open road winged past. I rolled the windows down, letting warm spring air glide inside.

  The freedom of being on my own didn’t do a goddamn thing to erase my humiliation, ease my disgrace. My hurt and stupidity.

  Check. All of the above.

  Because let’s face it. I was always on my own.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cin City

  I DROVE AIMLESSLY FOR a few hours before I gave in to that wandering need to go home. Not my apartment in Tribeca, but the home I’d grown up in, East Price Hill, Cincinnati.

  Arriving after the five-hour drive from Chicago, I pulled up to the house and shut off the engine. Our street resembled those around it—a lot of plain Jane houses and chain-link fences. Those were the “nice” ones, the yards with a patch of grass out front instead of a slab of concrete. It certainly wasn’t the suburbia of white picket fences and overflowing window boxes.

  Our house was worse than I’d remembered, and I hadn’t remembered all that much good about the place to begin with. Peeling paint, neighbors so close you could hock a loogie at them from the side windows, and nothing but a bald patch of dirt in the front.

  And didn’t this crumbling sight cut right through all my whiny bullshit, because even though I’d left, my ma, my brother, and sisters hadn’t, couldn’t.

  I’d disconnected my phone after Dev’s first wha da fuck text, and for the moment, Michael was the farthest thing from my mind. I locked that bitch of an iPhone inside the glove compartment and stretched outside of the SUV.

  At exactly six thirty in the morning, Ma flew out of the house. With her head down, her hair tied back in a kerchief, she didn’t see me until she was almost on top of me.

  Her eyes shot up. She gasped behind her hand before throwing herself into my open arms.

  “Liam!”

  “Hey, Ma.”

  She wacked me on the head with her purse. “Don’t you hey, Ma me, young man. After two years, you just show up on the front stoop?”

  “I missed you, too.”

  Dropping her purse—a ten-ton heavy weapon—she returned to my embrace. Her tears fell, dampening my shirt.

  “I watch you whenever I can. It’s one of the reasons I took that extra night shift at Rovers bar.” She lifted wet eyes as blue as mine. “I’m just so proud of you, son.”

  “Ma, what happened to the money?”

  “I . . . he . . . your da, he . . .”

  “He’s betting it, isn’t he? And drinking it.”

  “He can’t help himself, Liam.”

  Unable to bear the pain in her expression, I cupped the back of her head and pressed her against my chest. “I know.”

  It was the same excuse I’d grown up with.

  Dawn peeked from beneath heavy gray clouds. Those first rays of sun touched the long black curls trailing down my mother’s back. With her pale skin and icy eyes, we were so much the same.

  “How long are you here?”

  “The weekend.”

  Stepping out of my embrace, she pressed her fingertips to her mouth. Those hardworking hands were red and chafed from the bakery.

  “You look great, Ma.” I spun her in a circle.

  Her starched uniform and apron bar
ely shifted.

  “I can still dance a jig.” Her face lit before she frowned. “Who’s feeding you? You’re skinny as a scarecrow.”

  I snorted. Only a two hundred-plus fighting machine could be called skinny by his mom. “I’ll drive you to work.”

  “No. You stay. Catch up with your brother and sisters.”

  She started down the road.

  “Ma?”

  “What, son?”

  I carried so much guilt inside me, and shame for what I should’ve been. A nice smart boy who stayed in one place, got married, gave his mother grandkids and got her out of this shitty life.

  “I’m sorry I’m not what you wanted.”

  She paced back quickly and clasped my face in her hands. “You are perfect, Liam.” Her smile, for once unfettered, was prettier than the sunrise. “I know who you are and how you are, and our God may judge, but I do not. Yours is an honest heart. I hope the right person loves you for it someday.” She patted my cheeks.

  I tried to swallow, gulping instead. I sniffed and nodded. The right person, not the right girl.

  She knew. Ma understood.

  “Hey. Would it be okay if I took the kids away for the weekend? Since they’re on break?”

  “Just as long as you don’t bring them back anything less than exhausted.” Ma backed away. “Sunday dinner. I expect everyone to be here.”

  I kicked my boots against the concrete steps to knock off any mud. We may have been broke as shit, but my ma did not allow one speck of dirt to darken her doorway. I used the key I kept tucked far inside my wallet to let myself in.

  In the front room, on the La-Z-Boy recliner he’d won off our neighbor Jack McKinnon back in 1995, Da snored with his mouth gaping. An open bottle of Jameson’s, almost drained, sat beside him on the folded-down gateleg table. The old TV droned on and on. It was one of those boxy RCA sets with the VCR combined. At least there wasn’t an overflowing ashtray at his elbow. Maybe he’d quit or finally decided to smoke his two packs a day outside.

  It tore my heart seeing this old house. Everything was the same: the shag carpet, the turd-brown sofa with sunken springs, peeling linoleum to match the peeling, discolored wallpaper. But no matter how shabby it was, it smelled of lemon wood polish, and Ma’s china cabinet with her family heirlooms was intact, looking so completely out of place with tiny teacups and hand-painted plates.