Off Limits: A Stepbrother MMA Romance (11 page)

Since then, I’d taken
a page out of my father’s book. The less attachment, the better. I
steered clear of the good girls, bee-lined straight for the ones who
wanted to play. I knew a bunch of them, girls who prided themselves
in having the sexual appetite and attitude of a dude, fucking the
whole night then not thinking twice about it the next day. Those were
my kinds of girls.

They weren’t the type
you asked to come support you at a fight. They might get into the
fighting, get turned on by it. But it meant nothing to see them out
there cheering for you. They were just another face in the crowd.

Jewel, though? I
couldn’t wait to look out and meet her eyes. I wanted to win this
one for her.

Up in my bedroom, two
doors down from hers, it was like I was a kid again, horny and
wanting a girl but not having her. I had to let it out. In the
darkness, I let myself imagine how tonight could have gone down had I
not held back. Freeing my cock, I palmed its hard length.

In the car tonight, I
could have leaned down and kissed her, licked her at the hollow at
the base of her throat. What would she have done? Would she have
pushed me away? Or would she have tilted her head back in submission,
offering herself to me, her breasts pressing up against her shirt. My
shaft throbbed as I stroked it, imagining squeezing her breasts,
cupping and kneading until a low moan escaped her throat.

She wanted this like I
did. She’d stood there watching me fuck a girl against the wall. I
wanted to tease her with it, make her admit it. I wanted to take her
nipples between my fingers, pinch them hard and whisper in her ear
her dirty secret, that I’d seen her watching me fuck another girl
against the wall.

She wouldn’t want to
admit it. I could picture her panting, twisting her face to the side,
her eyes closed. She’d feel so embarrassed. I wouldn’t let her
get away with it. I’d make her admit it, working her until her
breath came fast and ragged like mine was becoming as I touched
myself.

I couldn’t wait to
touch her, feel her petals, push a finger up into her sex. She’d be
wet for me, I knew she would. I wanted her worked up, moving her hips
against my finger, pressing against me while I made her admit it. I’d
make her tell me she’d watched me. I wanted to make her frantic,
make her admit she liked watching me fuck.

I was close, my balls
tensing, my cock at its full swollen length, the tip wide and full. I
closed my eyes, imagining her slick, needy pussy, her swollen clit
under my thumb. When I told her to come, she’d come for me, all
over my fingers, quivering and shuddering and screaming, creaming all
over my hand. And I wouldn’t let her off easy, I’d keep at her,
stroking, coaxing more out of her, obsessed by the orgasm crashing
over her entire body again and again.

I came hard, my groan
barely muffled against my pillow. This wasn’t going to last for
much longer. One day soon, it wouldn’t just be my fantasies. I
would get my hands on Jewel. And I would make her come.

Jewel

On Saturday night I
wore my white dress to the fight. Back in my room, it had seemed like
the right thing to do. A no-brainer. I felt beautiful, curvy and
feminine, exactly how I wanted to look and how I wanted him to see
me. I could picture walking in and somehow he’d find me across the
crowded room, looking like a vision of old world glamour and
sexiness. Our eyes would lock and he’d look at me with all that
heat, the intensity of a pent-up animal. Like a drug, I craved it. I
knew we couldn’t be together, not in the way I wanted, but still I
needed to feel this attraction, this pull. I was helpless against it,
drawn, captured.

The white dress left my
shoulders and back bare. I was a lot less covered up than usual. It
was a warm night in L.A., of course all nights were, so I didn’t
even bring a jacket. I drove to the hotel and parked underground in
the garage. My heels made clicks and clacks on the cement as I made
my way over to the elevator, the sound foreign. Flip-flops and
sneakers comprised my wardrobe, but I’d bought something new for
tonight. For Tuck.

I didn’t fully admit
it to myself, that I was doing all of this for him, because of the
growing need deep within me. I could write it off under the guise of
sisterly duty. I should go to his fight to support him. He didn’t
have any other family members doing it. Surely it was the right thing
to do, as his stepsister.

I couldn’t be falling
for him, it didn’t make any sense, I didn’t even really know him.
Was he the spoiled son of a billionaire I’d met before, partying
and tearing his way through women? Or was he the man I’d seen over
the past week, driven and tough as hell?

As I rode up in the
elevator, my heart beat fast and I had no idea what to expect. I’d
never been to anything like an MMA fight. I’d barely attended any
athletic events of any kind. Growing up without a father, we never
had football games on in the house, never listened to baseball as we
drove in the car.

In high school I’d
been a mathlete. I’m not making that up, it’s a real thing. We
had matching t-shirts and we traveled to other high schools to
compete about things like who could solve quadratic equations the
fastest. That’s what I knew about competing.

An MMA fight? Not a
clue.

The elevator doors
parted and I nearly gasped. The lobby teemed with people, cameras
flashing and people laughing and posing, the excitement palpable in
the air. The crowd was dressed up, Saturday night in L.A. how could
you expect anything less, but it wasn’t anything like the kinds of
entertainment industry and charity events my mother sometimes dragged
me to.

This was a freaking
party. The women wore next-to-nothing, I’m not even exaggerating.
Some of them walked around in scraps of clothes, string bikinis and
heels, more makeup than a drag queen. Most of them seemed to have
fake boobs—again, no big surprise in L.A.—but these were on full,
buoyant display with only tiny triangles to barely cover their
nipples. I’d seen a lot of big fake boobs in my life, but here, on
some of these girls, what they had could double as flotation devices.

Had I thought I was
under-dressed? I suddenly felt like a spinster schoolteacher in an
old wool suit, my pantyhose wrinkled around my ankles. These girls
were smoking hot and knew it, throwing their long, styled hair back
in laughter as they offered up their fabulous, huge breasts, their
asses high and tight and perched up atop heels that made my wedge
sandals look like nerdsville.

Back to being a
wallflower, I skulked into the corner, hoping to become invisible.
I’d noticed the women first, but then I realized I was in a room
that had to be about seventy percent men. And these men were huge. A
lot of them looked like fighters, themselves. Or they had the broad
shoulders and arms of men who’d once been fighters, coupled with
the beer gut of those who’d become spectators and fans. Either way,
they were big, occupying a ton of space. I shrunk myself back against
the wall as much as I could.

Holy tattoos. I
realized I might be the only person there without any ink. I felt
like a shy, nerdy virgin. Maybe because I was one.

What had I been
thinking heading there in this virginal dress? Was I trying to be
Natalie Wood in
West Side Story
,
debuting at my first dance with the big kids? A girl walked by me
with huge, glittery fake eyelashes, a pink neon bikini advertising
her XXX curves and clear plastic platform heels. Trashy as hell but
straight out of most guys’ wet dreams.

So this was the crowd
Tuck ran with now? No wonder he thought I was ridiculous, a stumbling
inexperienced idiot. These girls knew more about pleasing a man than
I’d ever learn in a lifetime. And I was sure they were all over
him. A rising heavyweight fighter, fresh on the circuit, they
probably circled him like sharks, vying to be the first to take a
bite. Or have him take a bite out of them. Either way, it was way out
of my league.

The whole scene was,
really. A guy jabbed me with his elbow and didn’t turn around to
apologize. A man in a flashy suit stood under bright lights being
interviewed, the TV camera a couple feet away. Near me a girl dropped
a glass of water on her tank top, plastering the white to her black
bra. She cried in mock flirtatious dismay to the semi-circle of male
onlookers. On purpose, I realized. She was competing in her own wet
t-shirt contest. I’d declare her the winner.

I didn’t know what I
was supposed to do. Was I supposed to go and try to find Tuck? I’d
been too drunk last night to ask him anything. I’d nearly jumped
his bones in the car after he’d driven me home. Thank God he’d
chased me out, but how humiliating. I’d sat there next to him,
leaning closer, lips parted, the buzz from the margaritas fading, but
replaced by something stronger, much more potent. His nearness, his
maleness, his scent. He’d had to beat me off with a stick.

He’d left me a note this morning:

See
you tonight. Your name will be at the door.

That was it. I hadn’t
seen him all day.

Tentatively, I headed
over to the double doors. Huger than huge men stood at them, bouncers
I guessed, and others took tickets. Sure enough, they had my name and
handed me a program. Trying to calm my nerves, the butterflies
fluttering up in my stomach, I walked into the arena.

It reminded me of some
of the large lecture halls at school, only post-apocalypse. Stadium
seating sloped down on all sides into the center: a 30-foot wide
octagonal ring. With black mesh sides, you could still see everything
that went on inside, but it did look like a cage. I couldn’t
believe Tuck would go down in there, all lights, eyes and cameras on
him while he faced down an opponent. My fingernails went to my mouth.
What if he got hurt? He would almost certainly get hurt.

This was a big deal, a
really big deal. It was so outside the realm of my world, I hadn’t
even realized it. This sport was huge, thousands of fans packing into
a hotel to see an amateur fight. I’d had no idea.

“Hey, gorgeous.” I
flinched against the drunk, hot breath of a big man at my shoulder.
“Are you all red?” He pointed down between my legs. The big guy
next to him giggled, a girlishly high-pitched laugh.

I spun away from them
and headed straight for the bathroom. I shouldn’t have come. Hiding
in a stall for a while, I considered leaving. With all the people and
commotion, Tuck probably wouldn’t even notice I wasn’t there. How
could he even see one empty seat in a packed arena? I’d pictured a
handful of people, friends and family of the fighters, their coaches
and teammates. I’d never expected this amount of fans when these
guys weren’t even pros.

But then I thought
about all the time in my life I’d spent hiding out. My nose in a
book, behind my bedroom door. Keeping my head down in the hallway of
my high school, standing off to the side while my mother posed for a
photo. I was tired of it.

Walking out, I put my
hands on my hips and looked myself squarely in the mirror. Lip gloss
and light mascara, hair down and no product, so what if I looked like
a Quaker virgin who’d time-traveled and accidently wound up at a
MMA fight. I was here for Tuck. And, suddenly, I wanted to be.

He needed me. He didn’t
have anyone else in his family there to root for him. From what I’d
seen of his father, he wouldn’t even want Tuck here at all. This
would be considered far beneath him.

I smiled. Good for
Tuck. If there was anything I respected, it was being your own person
despite what people around you expected. Maybe he and I had more in
common than I’d realized?

When I stepped back
into the arena, it was packed. All of the people who’d been milling
about in the lobby had come in and found their seats. The first fight
was about to begin.

I found my way down to
my seat. Five rows back, I’d be just about eye-level with the
fighters. Tuck would definitely be able to see me.

There were a few fights
scheduled before him. Strobe lights flared, sirens and alarm bells
sounded and at first I’d wondered if we were having a fire drill
but, no, it was the first fighter entering the octagon.

“Ladies and
gentlemen!” An announcer’s voice boomed over a loudspeaker and
cheers and howls erupted from the audience, along with the loud, bold
chords of an 80s metal song. “It’s the final countdown!”

A fighter strutted down
the walkway, the cock of the walk, punching the air and looking mean
as hell. The next fighter swaggered in to the beat of Notorious
B.I.G., nodding his head and staring down members of the crowd as if
daring them to get into the cage with him. Everyone around me
screamed and waved signs. They all seemed to know the fighters and
had already picked favorites. The women sure knew which fighters they
wanted and exactly what they wanted to do with them.

“Heat! I want you!”
a woman next to me screamed. She had a full sleeve of tattoos up her
arm. “I want to have your baby! Heat!”

“Slayer! Fuck me!”
another one screamed from behind me.

Once the fighters got
to the cage, they stripped down for the fight. They wore mouth
guards, open-fingered gloves, shorts, and nothing else. Blood started
flying from the second the bell rang and the men attacked each other,
brutal and vicious. My hands flew up over my eyes and I could only
stand to peek from time to time through my fingers.

I flinched as each
punch landed, winced as each kick connected. What the hell had I
gotten myself into? What was Tuck doing, heading into this willingly?
This was mortal, hand-to-hand combat like nothing I’d ever seen.
And these men were tough as fucking hell.

Sweaty, pounding,
baring their mouth-guards like mad dogs, they grappled and locked
each other into chokeholds, took knee blows to the head as blood
dripped down from their eyebrows. The adrenaline, the screams, the
brutality, I felt overwhelmed and, strangely, thrilled. So visceral,
so real, there was nothing staged about this, nothing showy. All the
hype and lights and songs, all that peeled back and you had two men
out there in the cage, all muscle, fighting their hearts out.