Beast: An MMA Stepbrother Romance (13 page)

I have to pause on the stairs and compose myself as memories of getting spanked by Caleb flood back into my mind.  If Caleb realizes that I’ve been thinking about it ever since I left his office yesterday, he’s going to try and go for round 2, and that can’t happen.  If we get any more brazen, we’re going to be feeling each other up in the break room, and I for one don’t feel like losing my internship just because my sex-starved body can’t control itself around Caleb.

God, it wasn’t just the spanking, though.  It was the way his hand felt, pushing between my thighs like nothing could stop it from feeling the wetness in between my legs.  Fingers curling ever so slightly, ready to slip inside…

Maybe I should head back up to the bathroom and take a long, cold shower before I head downstairs.  I tried that last night, though, and it didn’t exactly help.  I had to touch myself just so I could get to sleep because I was so worked up.  Thankfully, Caleb was right about my romance novel getting super dirty halfway through, but it wasn’t exactly Tristan the knight I was thinking of as my hips bucked up against my knuckle and my eyes rolled back into my head.

Finally, when I think I’ve gotten myself under control, I take my travel bags and set them by the door.  That’s when I see Caleb in the kitchen, shirtless and looking ridiculously sexy eating a bowl of oatmeal. 

After a few seconds, Caleb catches me looking, and I whirl around, diving for my bags and trying to look busy.  I can hear him laughing from the kitchen.  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come, sis?  I wouldn’t want you to get lonely on your big road trip.”

“You said it yourself:  you need to stay here and train.  If you’re going to win that prize money, you need to be in perfect shape.”

Caleb gets up from his oatmeal and steps into the entrance hall, spoon in hand.  “I’m already in perfect shape, Sis.  Can’t you tell?”

I shoot Caleb a death glare, but it immediately loses all of its power as my eyes shoot down to the place where his abs end and his hips form a perfect V.  He’s wearing his gym shorts really low on his waist.  When I bring my eyes back up, Caleb’s smirking, judging me.

“Damn, Emma, take a picture while you’re at it.”  Caleb’s thumbs hook into his black elastic waistband, and my stupid horny eyeballs jump right back down to look.  “Want to see what’s underneath?  Just say the word.”

“You’re disgusting.”  I roll my eyes and looks out the window, silently begging for Gina’s car to show up and get me out of here.  I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be able to hold out.

“
I’m
disgusting?  Then I guess that makes you the dirtiest fucking girl on the West Coast for wanting me so bad.”

Come on, Gina, what’s taking you so long?

“This is why it’s good that we’re spending a week apart.  We’ll have some space, clear our heads, and then, the next time we see each other, we won’t be so…”

“Hot for each other?  I fucking doubt it.  If anything, a week of not seeing you is just going to make me want to peel your panties off even more when you get back.”

So much for quietly waiting our here for Gina.  I guess I’ll just get something to eat so I can distract myself from Caleb.  I push past him, my hands lingering for an annoyingly long time on his inked-up abs, and I head for the kitchen.

“Please tell me that’s not the last of the oatmeal.”

“I finished the box, but there’s another one above the sink.”

Caleb dips his spoon into his steaming oatmeal as he watches me stretch up to the cereal cabinet.  I’m just barely tall enough to reach it, but I’m not about to ask him for help.

“Hey, you should do what I did,” Caleb says, between bites, “I cut up some grapefruit into the oatmeal and added raisins.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

“Want to try it?”

I head over to Caleb, but he gets up from the kitchen table and meets me halfway, spoon full of oatmeal in hand.  Before I can tell Caleb that he didn’t need to get up, he slips a spoon full of oatmeal into my open mouth.  It’s really good, the perfect mix of sweet, sour, and mushy, but Caleb feeding me oatmeal is not what I had in mind to help me get my mind off him.

Caleb swirls the spoon around in my mouth, and I scrunch my nose and punch him in the arm. 

He just laughs and stretches his spoon back to the bowl of oatmeal on the kitchen table.  “What’s that?  You want another bite?”

“Stop!  Let me make my own!”  I try to pull myself away, but Caleb has an MMA death grip on my arm.  Then, right when his second spoonful is inches away from my mouth, there’s a knock on the door.

“That’s probably Gina.”  I chomp down on the oatmeal and take the spoon with me as I move into the entrance hall and open the door.

It’s not Gina.

“Are you Emma Grant?”

A tan, stern-looking woman in a pantsuit stands in the doorway.  Slowly, I pull the spoon out of my mouth and hold it behind my back.  “Yeah, that’s me.”

The tan woman nods, and then pulls out a badge.  “Kim Woods, Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Is your stepbrother home, by any chance?”

Not good.  Not good at all.  I was just starting to feel like Caleb’s MMA ring was the kind of illegal no one really cared about, but this person definitely looks like she cares.

“Hey guys, what’s going on?”

I turn around and see Caleb standing behind me, still shirtless.

“I take it you’re Caleb Matthews?”

Caleb shrugs.  “In the fucking flesh.”

I want to kick Caleb, but I don’t dare.  That’s no way to talk to a federal agent!  Agent Woods’ eyes linger on Caleb’s torso full of tattoos and her brow furrows.  “Could I come inside?  I’d like to ask you a couple questions.”

“Absolutely, come in.”

Caleb leads Agent Woods into the kitchen, where he’s set out a grapefruit and a box of raisins on the kitchen table, and started to cook a pot of oatmeal on the stove.  “Emma and I were just eating breakfast.  Help yourself to some oatmeal, by the way.”

Agent Woods flashes a forced smile.  “Thanks, but I already ate.”

Caleb shrugs.  “Alright.  It’s there if you change your mind.  So, what brings you up this way?”

Agent Woods sits at the head of the table and motions for Caleb to sit across from him.  I get the sense that maybe they want me to leave, but I’m definitely not leaving Caleb alone with an FBI agent.  If I do, he’ll probably invite her to his next match or something.  Instead, I head over to the pot of oatmeal, stirring it and pretending to make breakfast while I listen in.

  “I’m not interrupting you, am I?  You look like you’re dressed for the gym.”

Caleb looks down at his shorts and shakes his head.  “You’re fine.  I’m always dressed for the gym.”

Caleb!  Stop being Caleb around the FBI agents!

Agent Woods smirks.  “Well, clearly, it pays off.  Emma?”

I turn to look at Agent Woods, trying to look as friendly and welcoming as possible.

“I changed my mind.  Could I get some of that oatmeal?”

Agent Woods seems a little friendlier now, a little more like a human being.  I don’t think that’s a good sign.  I spoon some oatmeal out of the pot, pour it into a bowl, and hand it off to her.  It’s steaming hot, just off the oven, but as Agent Woods turns back to face Caleb, she starts eating it without giving the slightest indication that it’s too hot.

“So what do you do with all those muscles?  Do you play any sports?”

Caleb and I share a look.  Thankfully, he seems as on edge as I am.  She’s definitely not getting invited to the tournament.

“I play the craziest fucking sport in the world:  business.  I’m a manager at my dad’s company, and by the time I’m his age, I want to be bigger than he is.  Do you know my dad?”

“The FBI uses Poodle just like everyone else, Mr. Matthews.  So you’re telling me that that body just works a 9-5 job and nothing else?”

“I keep myself in perfect physical shape to help me get what I want in the business world.  Being the best-looking guy in the room is a serious advantage.  Of course, it’s also so that girls won’t be able to keep their hands off me.”

Caleb looks over at me for a fraction of a second.  Before I turn red enough for the Agent Woods to notice, I grab the grapefruit off the table and start cutting it up.

“So, you’ve never seriously pursued any combat sports, then?  Wrestling, boxing, MMA?”

Wow.  We’re
so
going to jail.

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, for the past six months, my partner and I have been investigating an underground MMA fighting ring called California Kings.  There are illegal rings around the country, but California Kings is one of the biggest.  Normally, our policy is to leave fighting rings alone, because they’re good at bringing more dangerous criminals out into the open when they attend the fights.  However, over the last couple of years, California Kings has gotten so big that its matches are turning into networking events for street gangs, biker gangs, and organized crime.”

Caleb pops a raisin into his mouth.  “That’s not good.”

“No, Mr. Matthews, it’s not.  The more criminal groups that attend these matches, the more likely it is that some of them put aside their differences and form alliances, making them much harder to bring down.”

Agent Woods reaches across the table and pours a bunch of raisins into her hand, looking over at me like she’s trying to read my body language.  Don’t mind me, I’m just over here cutting this grapefruit into smaller and smaller pieces.

Agent Woods smirks.  “We’ve been trying to find a participant in this league, preferably one of the fighters, who might be able to tell us more.  But so far, all we have is a guy who claims he’s been to one of the fights.  He didn’t know the fighters’ names, but he did provide descriptions for us.  There was a guy named Chainsaw, whose name we actually found thanks to hospital records, but who left the country shortly after the fight and hasn’t been heard from since.  And then there’s his opponent, Beast, who was described as a tall young man with a pretty face and a body covered in animal tattoos.”

Caleb looks down at his tattoos, and then back up at Agent Woods.  “So…you’re here because I fit the physical description.”

“We’re here because the local police department received a couple of complaints recently about a young man covered in tattoos doing combat exercises in the middle of the night at the basketball court down the street.  Punching the air, pacing around, and acting like he was getting ready for a fight.”

“Yeah, that was me.  I do that shit to clear my head, but I’ll stop if the neighbors don’t like it.”

“Okay, but you’ve never taken part in anything like the fighting ring I just described?”

“You might be confusing me with my brother.”

“Zane?”

Caleb’s knuckles are so white around the handle of the spoon that it looks like he’s about to break it in half.  “Yeah.  He fights.”

Agent Woods nods.  “He certainly does.  We found his records while we were running a background check on you.  He’s been busted for street fighting a couple times, but his tattoos were photographed at his booking, and he doesn’t have any animal designs.”

“Maybe he got some.”

“Well, we haven’t officially named you a person of interest yet.  We wanted to come by first and see if you had any information that might be useful to us.”

Caleb shrugs and shakes his head.  “Wish I could help.”

Agent Woods leans onto the table.  “We’re not trying to bust the fighters, you know.  We’re trying to use them.  Right now, all we have is circumstantial evidence that you’re the person we’re looking for, but if you are, we could make any charges you might face go away in exchange for your help bringing down the guys who run the ring.”

Caleb nods.  “Want any more oatmeal?”

Agent Woods shoots Caleb an intense look, and Caleb shoots it right back.  “No thank you.  Unless you have any more questions, I think I’m going to go.”

“Nah, I’m good.  Hope you find your guy.”

Agent Woods starts getting up, and I take the opportunity to sit down at the kitchen table with my bowl of oatmeal.  As Agent Woods heads out of the kitchen, she notices the suitcases piled up by the door.  “Going somewhere?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ve got all those suitcases piled up by the door.  You’re not planning to leave town, are you?”

“Actually, he is.”

Agent Woods turns to look at me.

“We’re about to go on a road trip.  We’re hitting the road in about an hour.  That’s why all those suitcases are there.  We’re going to Portland.”

Agent Woods is quiet for an uncomfortable amount of time.  Then, she flashes a small smile.  “Portland, huh?  Have fun.”

I smile at her.  “Thanks!  We will!”

A few awkward bites of oatmeal later, and they’re out the door.  I let out a huge breath that I didn’t even know I was holding in, and Caleb jumps up from the table with a huge grin on his face.  “I knew you wanted me to come.  I’ll go get my shit.”

Caleb seems pretty calm, considering that the FBI was just here.  He’s running around packing like he doesn’t even care.  I mean, that woman
knows
that Caleb is Beast, but I can hear Caleb in the living room, throwing his stuff into the gym bag without a care in the world.

And this is exactly why I want Caleb on the road trip.  I absolutely don’t trust him not to go right back to training in all the same spots the second I leave, which means that if I take off with Gina, I’m going to be spending the entire time worrying about Caleb getting arrested.  If he comes with us, he’ll train in different places, and I can keep an eye on him.

It’s too bad this road trip was supposed to help me keep my eyes
off
him.

Caleb comes back into the kitchen, wearing a tight white t-shirt that shows off muscles that I didn’t even know he had.

“You still have that bathing suit I got you, right?”

“Caleb, the only reason I invited you on my
girls only
road trip is so you wouldn’t get arrested by the FBI.  The situation has not changed, so you’d better not get any ideas.”

“Oh, it’s too late for that.  I’ve got all kinds of ideas running through my head right now.”