FORCE: Alpha Badboy MMA Romance (5 page)

She was too smart for her own good. Cameron hadn’t even told Asher what he was doing out there, just that he was training and doing okay and not to worry.

“Maybe.” He saw that flicker in her eyes; he knew she would need a push, but it was there, and he needed to light that fire so there was no way she could turn back.

“Maybe? Right. I know you. You come walking back in here after six months; you’re harder and thicker than when you left. There’s only one reason you went to Boulder instead of a thousand other places. I’m glad you’re back.” The golden flecks in her eyes looked like embers ready to spark.

With the tip of her finger on the string of his hoodie, Cameron felt like a heavyweight hit him with a throat punch.

“Come on. Let’s take a walk.” Cameron was done playing.

It was now or fucking never, and if he didn’t start moving, there would be no way to hide the thick shaft gaining momentum under the fabric of his jeans. He needed to tame that beast, but there was no way he could take a man break right now.

He would just have to try to walk it off.

6

Victoria couldn’t decide how mad she was at him or exactly why. He was a grown man, what did it matter to her that he decided to take a break and live eight states away without even a goodbye?

He looks taller. He smells really good. Shut up, what’s wrong with you? He smells good? Jeez, I’ve lost my damn mind.

Victoria felt like kicking him in the shin and hugging him around the waist until he picked her up and carried her off somewhere.

As far back as she could remember, even when Roger was at his best, it was never all that good.

Some days at the gym — when her mom was off working nights and weekends to keep milk in the refrigerator because Roger enjoyed his Jack Daniels and the thrill of a sure-to-lose bet more than his family — he expected a little girl of six to fit into the world of a fighter’s gym and when she didn’t, he was free with the belt and short on understanding.

Not Cameron. He always seemed to be there, lurking in the corners, those crazy blue eyes darting away as soon as she caught him looking.

Her first vivid memory of Cameron still raised the hairs on her arms, wondering how her life would have changed had he not been there that day.

Roger must have lost a huge bet and probably topped that off with a few too many shots of his amber colored medicine, because he was particularly inattentive that day to his little daughter.

Victoria knew no better than to keep her mouth shut and toddle along behind the grumbling man.

He dragged her silently behind him to the gym, dropping himself into the chair behind the desk and ordering her to do the rounds and pick up dirty towels and drop off clean ones to the members as needed. It was something a little girl could do, but whether or not she should be doing it, was another question.

It wasn’t a time or place where you did background checks or even asked questions. When someone came to the gym, they gave their name, an emergency contact and $20 a month. That was it, no other questions. What was there to ask? You want to fight and you got $20 a month? Good, you’re part of the brotherhood, welcome, come on in.

Victoria dragged the broken white plastic laundry basket behind her. As it filled with the damp, sweaty towels, it quickly outweighed her slight form. There was no reprieve, no asking for help. Any questions or complaints to her father were answered by a cruel word and a variety of red marks and bruises.

There were six short years between them, but Cameron seemed so much older. His soul smeared with age from a life playing father to a younger brother and bobbing and weaving around Larry as his version of child rearing included a belt and not much else.

“Come ‘ere.”

Victoria looked up to see a mountain of a man, his eyes dark and his lips curved to show off the few teeth he had managed to keep.

She didn’t know his name. The grunting, sweating men came and went every day, and she did her best to be invisible.

Over the years, some faces became regulars; men she recognized and some gave her a kind glance or word as she toiled under her father’s instructions. This man was not at all familiar.

The white basket slowed her down as she walked toward the giant, his eyes never leaving her face.

“I got dirty towels back ‘ere…” He pointed to the back corner of the gym behind the line of heavy bags swaying slightly.

“Okay…” Her tiny voice barely made it upward to the giant.

Victoria felt the muscles in her shoulders pull as the basket made a scraping sound on the faded, chipped linoleum floor.

As she moved, so did he. Even a child has a sixth sense, a danger monitor and Victoria could feel the fear creeping up inside.

Her heart beat faster; she felt funny.

The men usually ignored her, and that was the safest way. This one — with his strange accent and torso scared and tattooed with fancy letters and a picture of a lion across his rippled belly – looked down at her with eyes like a snake, narrow and penetrating as he glanced behind them with each step.

“Right here. Follow me.” He stepped to the front, his red silk short shorts moving past her face as he worked his way behind the heavy bags and toward the back hallway.

A riot of fear was already rising inside Victoria, she turned around to try to catch someone’s eye. For once she wished her father might actually be concerned about where she was or what she was doing.

But, the gym was almost empty. The soft sounds of a couple fighters sparing in the opposite end of the cavernous space were the only other noise besides the shuffling of their feet and the scraping of the basket.

“Where are they?” Victoria could hear her blood rushing like whitewater through her ears.

“Over ‘ere, a pile of ‘em, just down the hall. I don’ know who left them back here, I’ll help you pick them up, there are too many for you. Your basket is already getting full.”

The hallway light was off, the red on his shorts began to soften in the dim light with each step forward. Her eyes squinted in the darkness for a pile of white, something to focus on, to let her know that the fear that was rising up in her was unnecessary.

Even with her young eyes squinted, she could see there were no towels. Before she could summon the courage to turn around, the giant’s hands were over her mouth and around her neck.

“Ssssshhhh…I’m a friend. But, if you tell anyone, I will kill you. Do you understand? I could kill you right now.”

Like a wrench cranking down, his fingers tightened around her tiny neck. Her body shook uncontrollably, and all she could think of was her stuffed rabbit left in the backseat of her daddy’s Buick and how badly she wished it was with her right now.

“Did you hear me? You’re not going to tell anyone are you? I’ll kill you, and then I’ll kill your Dad if you tell. Nod your head if you promise not to tell anyone and you promise not to scream.”

Victoria smelled the same sour, sweet smell her father had after he had been out at the bar. The stink of the giant’s breath warming her cheek as he leaned down and whispered his threats into her ear.

For a moment, Victoria thought about what it would be like to die. How would it feel? Who would cry for her if she were gone?

Even as she pondered the thoughts that should never cross the mind of a six year old, she nodded. Her desire to live inherent and the animal with its paw around her neck seemed as real as a lion with its jaws clenched into the jugular of a baby gazelle.

“Good girl.” The lion’s fingers loosened.

She knew she should take a breath, but none would come. Victoria felt like she was floating, disappearing, and suddenly, the only sound she could hear was the racing of her heartbeat. Her skin felt like hot, as though someone had doused her in scalding water.

“Pretty girl. You like it…trust me. It will feel good…open your mouth…” The monster’s Russian accent thickening as he voice lowered.

Her eyes focused on the red silk shorts and as the hand of the monster pulled down the thick white belt of elastic. He stepped closer, moved her small body to stand in front of him. His one hand reached inside his shorts as Victoria felt her belly come up in her throat.

She thought about her bunny, how scared it must be in the backseat of the car all alone.

She closed her eyes; something horrible was going to happen, she did not know what it was, but she didn’t want to see.

Just as the darkness overcame her, she heard the heavy, deep breathing coming from above and his instructions once more.

“Open your mouth…”

Everything was dark, and she winced, ready for whatever was about to happen. She opened her lips and she tasted the salty tears as the man moaned from above.

“ARRRRRRRRRR!!!” A scream tore through the dark hall.

Then, the blinding, fluorescent lights flicked on.

There was no time to think, the silence shattered by the roar of a battle that exploded just an inch from her face. Victoria’s small hands shot to cover her ears as the blur of someone screaming and attacking the hulking predatory beast in the red satin shorts took over the confined space.

Victoria’s knees crumpled, she buried her head like they taught you in school during a tornado drill.

“Get the fuck off!” The monster growled to the black ninja that wrapped around him from out of the darkness.

“
I’ll kill you, I’m going to fucking kill you
…” A familiar voice, but Victoria kept her ears covered and her face buried.

She prayed to be somewhere else, anywhere but here.

Cameron was outweighed by the Russian beast three times, but it wasn’t something that even demanded a split second of consideration.

He knew she was supposed to be around, picking up towels but when he went looking, she wasn’t where she should be and even at twelve years old, his radar went off, and he was on the hunt to be sure she was safe.

In one bright flash of hallway lights, he pounced onto the back of the muscled, sick bastard. Tearing into him with a choke hold fit for a man a decade older and at least 200 pounds heavier. Cameron saw the red shorts held low, his other hand guiding something toward Victoria’s open lips and he came completely undone.

The thick layers of muscles on the man shone with sweat, in one twist of his arm, he tossed Cameron, slamming him into the wall, shaking and flickering the buzzing lights that hung from the tall ceiling.

Red and white stars flashed in Cameron’s eyes, but the impact did not lessen the fury.

With the reaction time of a jack rabbit, he broke the mother of all unwritten rules between fighters — sinking his fingers between the legs of the beast, gripping down like a vice onto the soft, vulnerable flesh, digging his fingernails tight until they met on either side of his balls.

“JESUS! FUCK!”

The red satin shorts and every part attached fell to the ground like a felled tree. Cameron mounted him like a warrior and laid his fists into his face until he heard bones crack, and the red on his shorts quickly matched a spray of slick warm blood from his shattered nose.

Cameron didn’t stop, his fists balled into cannon fire, smashing into the already crunching bones of his face. The Russian regained a breath, then in one powerful motion, back handed Cameron off of him and into the floor.

“You want to fight little boy? Yeah??” He rose up, swiping the back of his hand across his face and smearing the flowing river of crimson across the silver scar that ran from his ear to just under his nose.

Victoria looked up for only a second, Cameron was on his feet almost before he hit the ground, his fists and the monster’s chest covered in the same red of his shorts. She buried her head into her knees, interweaving her fingers behind her neck and pressing her arms over her ears.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!!!!”

Cameron didn’t care, in the second that Roger’s voice caught the Russian’s attention, he was back on him, his fists finding contact points, slapping into the deep, indigo ink of the lion that wrapped around his midsection.

He rose only to the level of the Russian’s chest, but fear wasn’t something Cameron ever remembered feeling. At least not since that night when his father turned and Cameron saw the gray face and empty shell of the only person he had ever loved in his life.

“CAMERON! STOP!” Roger was on him, his hands coming up behind and locking the boy down in a half-nelson as the rage shot flames from his eyes.

“That boy come up behind me! Jump me…” The Russian said.

“NO!!! You fucking know what you were doing! You fucker!” Cameron felt every muscle shake, lock down and strain against Roger’s hold.

“Get out of here!” Roger shouted toward the bloody face of the Russian. He strained to control the Tasmanian devil in front of him. “Get the fuck out.”

“Yeah, I come back. I come back for him one day.” The giant pointed toward Cameron and stomped away leaving a trial of red dots behind.

All Cameron could imagine was what would have happened if he didn’t come looking for her.

Who else would have been here to save her, to take care of her? No one, he knew it was true. If he weren't here, all would have been lost.

“Let go.”
Cameron slammed his head back, connecting the top of his skull with Roger’s face.

“JESUS! Fuck, Cameron, what the fuck is wrong with you?? You can’t jump on customers like that. You’re gonna get yourself a trip to juvi like that real fast. Probably where you need to be. Fucking kid. Something’s wrong with you…That guy gonna come back for you and I won’t be here next time. It’ll serve you right too!” Roger released his grip, his hand rubbing his nose where Cameron’s rock hard head connected.

Cameron flung himself away from Roger, his chest heaving, and got down on his knees. His hand settled soft and secure on her back.

“You’re okay. He’s gone.” Cameron whispered to the huddled form on the floor.

Victoria felt the warm imprint of her savior’s hand through her dress. Then, the sound of feet shuffling away and the familiar knock of a cane across the dirty floor as Roger turned to leave without even a question.