Raw: Devil's Fighters MC (15 page)

Xavier’s head ached, and it had nothing to do with the fight and everything to do with Alyssa. As far as he could remember, no one could give him headaches like she did.

The more he thought about it, the more he could not believe he’d had to walk away from her for the second time in his life. He also couldn’t believe that he had found the strength to do it, and the fact that he had…scared him. Turning his back on Alyssa had been the hardest thing he ever had to do, harder than the fighting. He thought he would never have it in him to do it again, but as it turned out he was wrong. He wondered what that meant. Could he really be so jaded that he was able to walk away from the woman he loved not once, but twice in one lifetime?

He shook his head and downed the shot of burning whiskey that Greg had put in front of him.

“Whoa. You might want to pace yourself there.”

Xavier snorted. Rick was one to talk; he would down a lot more than one shot after a particularly bad fight. And Xavier considered the one he had with Alyssa earlier that night a particularly bad fight.

“Hit me again, Greg, will you?” he called out in a voice already roughened by alcohol.

The bartender didn’t object. He was used to members of the club coming over to his bar to drown their sorrows. He didn’t particularly like it, but he didn’t complain either. Bennie always made sure no trouble would be brought to the joint, and in turn Greg served them all the alcohol they asked for. It was a win-win situation for all parties involved.

Rick settled on the stool at the bar next to Xavier and eyed him curiously.

“What’s up with you, anyway? You had a pretty clean fight tonight.”

“It’s not about the fight,” Xavier said, downing yet one more shot.

He wasn’t normally a heavy drinker, and he decided right then to stop there for the night—he could already feel himself getting lightheaded from the combined action of the whiskey and the beer he had earlier at Alyssa’s. He couldn’t afford to get drunk. Maybe he was paranoid, but he would much rather remain sharp at all times.

“What’s it about then?” Rick asked, motioning for Greg to pour him a pint.

Xavier arched an eyebrow. “Should you be drinking?”

Rick was doing considerably better, but he was still on a mild dose of painkillers for his cracked ribs.

“Relax, I’m fine.”

Xavier eyed him skeptically, but he knew better than to argue. After all, he wasn’t exactly in the position to dish out lectures on safe drinking.

When the beer was placed in front of him, Rick nodded his thanks and took a hearty swig. Then, he turned his unrelenting attention back to Xavier.

“So,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on.”

Rick arched a dark blond eyebrow at him. “Please. I know you
so
much better than that.”

Xavier sighed. He stared down at his empty glass, as if it contained all the answers when—in fact—it felt to him like no answers could be found anywhere.

“It’s Alyssa,” he said quietly.

It was just Rick and a few other patrons in the bar, and none of the others had anything to do with the Devil’s Fighters, but he still felt the need to be cautious.

“Ah.” Rick lit up, and Xavier had the feeling it wasn’t just because Alyssa had pretty much saved his life.

He narrowed his eyes in suspiciously. “What are you looking so stoked about?”

“I like her,” Rick said. “And by that I mean that I like her for you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You
know
.”

“No,” Xavier said, “I don’t.” But he did, of course.

Rick stared at him. “Come on. I know she’s the one you told me about when we met.”

In spite of his best efforts, Xavier felt himself flush. He was extremely grateful for the bar’s poor lighting. It had come natural for them to swap stories with each other. Like him, Rick had been forced into the rings by circumstances.

Originally from New Orleans, he had escaped the big city and a family whose levels of dysfunction (understatement) put Xavier’s own family to shame. The Big Easy, as New Orleans was sometimes called, had no soft or easy side for Rick, and so he turned his back on it the same way it had turned its back on him, and he went looking for something better. He had found the Devil’s Fighters instead.

Penniless and with his only skills within the field of MMA fighting, it was a matter of a very short time before he was recruited. Just as it had happened with Xavier, Rick’s fighting skills had come to the club’s attention during a bar brawl. Over the years, Xavier had come to suspect that causing bar fights to spot potential recruits was the Devils’ go-to scheme whenever the ranks were low in number. It hadn’t taken much for Bennie Lenday to charm Rick—he was barely in his twenties, he was naïve, and he was desperate. By the time he had figured out what he had signed up for, it was too late.

They had bonded quickly over their no-choice fate, and Xavier had spilled his guts about the decision that had broken his heart…and about the woman who would always occupy a spot there. He had never mentioned her name, but apparently it had been very easy for Rick to put two and two together.

“It
is
her, isn’t it?” his friend asked now—although they both knew it was an unnecessary question.

“It’s her,” Xavier finally admitted. “But it doesn’t matter.”

Rick stared at him in disbelief. “What do you mean, ‘it doesn’t matter?’ She’s back. You have a second chance.”

“She’s only here temporarily.”

“So? All the more reason to act, and to act quickly.”

“Why? It’s not like I can be with her.”

“Why not?”

Xavier looked at his friend as if he had just suffered a blow to the head. “You know why. The club wouldn’t take it well if I got myself a serious relationship.”

Rick took a hearty sip of his beer. “We’re not slaves, dude.”

“Aren’t we?”

Rick froze. He seemed to think about it for a very long time. Then, finally, he shook his head. “No,” he said firmly. “I refuse. They can’t take that away from us too.”

Xavier sighed. Rick was particularly touchy on this subject; he was gay and had been rejected by everyone he had ever known for it. Joining the Devil’s Fighters had delivered the fatal blow to his ever having a chance to express his sexuality—the club would kill him if they ever found out.

“Look, Rick, I wish things were different, but we both know how it works,” Xavier said, trying to reason. He tried not to think too much about the fact that he was really mostly trying to convince himself. “Bennie wants us to focus solely on the fights. A woman would be a distraction.”

Rick gave him the ghost of a smirk. “I read somewhere that sex before an athletic effort can actually improve the performance.

Xavier rolled his eyes. “Where did you read that?”

“Health Magazine.”

He couldn’t help but grin in amusement. “Dude.”

Rick shrugged. “What can I say, you can take the player out of the game…” He winked. “So what happened with your girl? Did she ask for a relationship and you turned her down?”

“No.” Surprisingly, no. Alyssa had not asked him for something he couldn’t give her. Or rather, she had, but there was nothing romantic about it. If he had to be honest, Xavier was a little disappointed.

“Then what’s the trouble?”

Xavier hesitated. He looked around and discovered it was only the two of them in the bar now. Greg didn’t seem to be in a hurry to close up though, and he appeared content as he read a book while sitting at a table in one corner—far enough away that he was almost certainly out of earshot.

Nonetheless, Xavier lowered his voice further as he said, “She says she came back to get me out.”

Rick almost choked on his beer. He fumbled with the glass before he finally managed to put it safely back down on the counter. His hazel eyes were wide. “
What
?” he hissed. There was an appalled look on his still-bruised face.

“Yep.” Xavier looked down at his empty glass and fervently wished it was full. He resisted the temptation to ask for more.

“What did you say?”

“I told her to stay out of it and go back to Canada.” Xavier cringed at his own words.

Rick whistled softly and toasted him with his glass. “Nice going.”

Xavier huffed. “Well, what was I supposed to say? ‘Sure, go ahead, get yourself killed for me?’”

“You’re so melodramatic. Are you sure you’re not gay?”

Xavier glared at him. “You know I’m right.”

“Maybe,” Rick conceded.

And yet it wasn’t enough of a concession to Xavier. “What do you mean,
maybe
?”

“I’m just saying, maybe your girl’s got a plan.”

“She’s not my girl,” Xavier corrected quickly.
Too
quickly. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he allow himself to even go into hypotheticals? “And whatever her plan is, provided that she even has one, I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Why not? It could be your way out.”

“I don’t
want
a way out!” Xavier cringed at the loud sound of his voice then and immediately dropped it back to a near-whisper. “I don’t want a way out,” he repeated. “Not if it comes at the cost of someone else’s life.”

Rick stared intently at him. “What makes you so sure that it’s gonna end that badly? She seems smart. I’m sure she thought things through.”

“Whatever she has thought up, it just can’t be good enough. She doesn’t know Bennie or the club. He’s paid her a visit already.”

Rick scowled in sudden concern. “Bennie’s been to see her?”

“Yes. Almost as soon as she got back to town for her parents’ funeral, too. He knew she’s my weakness.” The admission came easy and unbidden, and Xavier decided to ignore it—just as he decided to ignore the grin that flashed across Rick’s lips. “He told her to stay away from me, or else. In a nutshell.”

His hand had curled into a tight fist, so much so that his knuckles had gone white. The thought of Bennie threatening Alyssa still filled him with a rage so fierce that it was almost blinding.

“That’s not good,” Rick admitted.

“So you see now?” Xavier said. “She’s already on his radar. I
have
to push her away.”

Rick nodded. It was clear that his friend didn’t like it, but then again neither did Xavier. Still, they both knew how things worked.

They stayed at the bar for only a few minutes longer after that. Xavier had known many long nights over the past eight years, and yet this one felt like one of the longest. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t unplug his mind and get Alyssa out of his head. He thought about her all the way home, and he continued to think about her while he got cleaned up and took care of his cuts and bruises. He was still thinking about her by the time he finally went to bed.

Knowing that he wouldn’t get far in his mission to think about something else, Xavier gave in and let his mind wander.

He had not expected her to ever come back into his life, and he certainly had not expected her to come back like this—with the grace of a feather and the force of an erupting volcano. Try as he might to move on, he had never quite stopped thinking about her over the years. He had fantasized about her. He had tried to imagine what it would feel like to be inside of her and have her clenching around him. Now that he knew, she had become like a drug. He dreamed about her at night, and when he did, he woke up with the mother of all morning woods. She was intoxicating, and it wasn’t just about her body.