Shadowboxer (30 page)

She didn’t say anything, but her breathing had gone shallow and fast. She wrapped her hands around the wheel, as tightly her thighs were clutching my hand.

“Two?” I knew
what she wanted. What she needed.

Silently, she lifted her hips, giving me the room to slide two fingers into her snug wet slit. I groaned as they bottomed out inside her, flexing them before I retreated and sank in again. Her body clasped me and she hit the gas, rolling through a light just before it turned red.

“You little lawbreaker.” I bit her neck and she moaned, gyrating her ass. I rubbed the side of my thumb over her clit and she whimpered. “You’re turned on by this, aren’t you? That’s why you’re so wet. So wet for me, baby.”

“Tray. God. Don’t stop.”

“Never.” I glanced out the windshield. “Turn here. Signal first.”

She did, grumbling under her breath. Then I rubbed her clit, hard, while surging my fingers deep
. She shattered, her hot arousal wetting my palm. She bucked and clamped her legs around me, keeping me in place while she rode out her orgasm. Still quaking, she tapped the gas just hard enough to get us to the next light.

“Beautiful.” I kissed her shoulder and eased back, hating to leave her warmth as much as she protested my exit. “Turn here. Go left.”

After going left, she cut me a glance. I chose that moment to slip my index finger into my mouth. “Mmm.”

“God, Tray
.” She trembled. “You’re so bad.”

I grinned. “Admit it. You like it.”

She gave me a hint of a smile as she refocused on the road. “Yeah. I do.” She cast a quick glance at my lap. “Guess I’ll have to return the favor later. If you’re good.”

“So what you’re telling me is I’ll be one-handing it tonight?”

Her laughter was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. Each time, I wondered if it would be the last. I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I blinked, we’d be over.

I didn’t want to think like that. I wasn’t a pessimist by nature, the past few months of discontent aside.
But as happy as Mia made me, she also made me more terrified than I’d ever been in my life.

The possibility of losing her—of being left to wonder what we could’ve been—was more than I could face. So I didn’t.

Instead I savored her flavor on my tongue as we shared a private grin. And I fought to hold on, harder than I’d ever fought in my life.

When we walked up the hall to her apartment, hand in hand and juggling bags, we were too busy laughing to notice who had camped out in front of her door.

“Yo. Not a-fuckin-gain.” Kizzy jumped to her feet, jostling precariously the covered cake pan she held. “I’m sitting here waiting with a cake I slaved over all day while you two were out engaging in pleasures of the flesh?”

“I engaged in no pleasures,” I said soberly, only to have Mia stomp on my toe.

“Then why does she have a sex glow?”

“I do not. God.” Mia pulled out the key, jammed it in the door
, and headed inside.

I motioned to Kizzy to f
ollow. “She’s lying,” I said in a deliberately loud whisper. “She absolutely has a sex glow.”

Kizzy slapped Mia on the ass.
“I knew it. You’re such a shameless skank.”

Except Mia
wasn’t smiling anymore.

Neither was I.

I watched Mia carefully set her bag on the counter. Too carefully. Her face had closed down like an under baked cake sinking in on itself. Her eyes had shuttered. Sex glow—gone.

Kizzy was her usual oblivious self, stomping around the kitchen and rampaging about glitter sprinkles and pudding filling. Mia put things away and didn’t reply to Kizzy’s tirade. Then she excused herself and went to the bathroom while I stared up at the ceiling and wondered what the hell to do.

I didn’t know how much Kizzy knew, so I couldn’t tell her to watch her mouth. For that matter, I wasn’t supposed to know anything myself. Mia had never mentioned telling me anything again after that moment in the locker room and I definitely hadn’t pushed it.

Besides, how could I be sure she’d intended to tell me about the kidnapping? Maybe she’d planned to tell me about her and…those guys. Damn that bartender at Vinnie’s for pantomiming Mia’s back room activities and putting that picture in my head. I really didn’t need to know. It wasn’t going on now—it couldn’t be. So none of that was important, unless she wanted to tell me.

But the skank comment had hit home for a reason. Either because of that fucker who’d imprisoned her or because of the men she’d…serviced. I didn’t know. I could make her come, but I couldn’t figure out how to fix the broken places inside her. I wasn’t even sure where they all were.

“She didn’t even look at my cake.” Kizzy dropped the thing on the counter and yanked off the lid.

“I’m sure she’ll be right out.”

“Probably brushing her teeth.” She stuck her tongue in her cheek in an obvious imit
ation of a blowjob and grinned.

I didn’t grin back.

“Hey, what’s wrong? You guys seemed cool when you came down the hall.”

“We were.”

She drew her brows together. “Then what’s the problem?”

I sucked in a breath and swallowed all of it—the regret I couldn’t make it better, the recrimination I hadn’t already told Mia what I knew, the helplessness. Especially the helplessness. “She’s sen
sitive about certain things. So you know, if you could not make the skank comments, that’d probably help.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You know about that?”

So those guys and the blowjobs were a real thing. Down deep, I’d hoped otherwise. “Not exactly. Just rumors. It doesn’t make a difference to me. What happened before doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.”

We both looked up guiltily as Mia stopped on the threshold of the kitchen.

“It matters that I can’t take a joke. It matters that my…someone I’m seeing has to wonder what he’ll hear about me next. And that most likely, it’ll be true.” She rubbed her wrist over her mouth. “But I can’t take any of it back. It’s who I am.”

“No, it’s not. It’s part of your past, but it’s not you.” I couldn’t stop myself from going to her. Sometimes it felt like there was a cord between us, and if she stretched too far, I’d snap back. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of too—”

“Have you ever given someone oral sex for twenty bucks?” she asked in
a dead voice. “Have you let a guy come in your throat and then rushed to the clinic to make sure they didn’t give you something that would cost a hell of a lot more than a Jackson to fix?” When I didn’t answer, a corner of her mouth lifted. “No, Fox. You haven’t. But I have. Over and over again. Don’t worry though, I don’t have anything. I’m clean.” Her equally dead eyes met mine. “If you can believe me.”

“I believe you.”

“Why?”

I didn’t want to be having this discussion in front of Kizzy. Absolutely did not. That didn’t mean I could walk away from it. “Because I don’t have a choice,” I gritted out, wishing I could pull her close and shield her from all of this. “People make mistakes every day. Tomorrow you get up and you try again. The people who care, the ones who matter, will stick by you.”

She stared down at her feet. She’d taken off her shoes and socks and her bare unpainted toes made her seem horribly vulnerable. “Why? Why would anyone stick with me? All I do is push people away. I hurt them.” She lifted her head and stared me in the eye, unflinchingly. “I hurt you.”

“Because we love you,” Kizzy
said hoarsely, blinking too fast. Still not dispelling the sheen in her eyes.

T
ears weren’t all that far away for me either. Mine gathered in my throat, swelling into a fist that blocked my airway.

And from Mia, nothing. Just a blank stare
.

Mia turned and gripped the counter. “We bought wine,” she said, sounding distant. “I don’t want Carly to have too much, but it’s her eighteenth birthday. She should have fun with her friends.”

I looked at Kizzy, who was gazing at me. Neither one of us had a damn clue what to do.
Call Carly
, she mouthed, but I shook my head. I couldn’t drag her into this mess, not on her birthday. We’d dug this grave, so somehow we would figure out how to draw Mia back out of that silent, scary place she’d retreated into.

Yet again we were slapping
a patch on the wound, but it would have to do for now. She had a fight tomorrow, and I’d be damned if she got hurt because we forced an issue she wasn’t ready to face.

I wasn’t sure I was ready either. Maybe I wouldn’t ever be. How could I be ready to listen to her talk about being hurt? How could I ever let her put her mouth on me and not think she was imagining a money transaction afterward?

“Oh my God.”

Both Kizzy and I
glanced sharply at Mia. Eyes wide, she clutched her throat. “Kiz, you said you were going to make her a cake.”

“I—I did.” Kizzy took a deep breath and pushed her fingers through the ends of her hair. She’d tied it back with a scarf and it still sprung in every direction. “It’s delicious.”

“Oh my God,” Mia said again.

I slung my arm around her waist. “What’s wrong, babe?”

“Look at this cake!”

At first glance, I couldn’t see the problem. Yes, it was a little long, but Carly was inviting over her friends and I’d invited Slater and Emerson too so we’d need a bigge
r than average one. Two little round ball things topped one end, crusted with those bejeweled sprinkles Kizzy had mentioned. More of the sparkly things rimmed the round part at the other end.

“It’s a freaking
penis
.” Mia shook her head. “With supersized nuts.”

“Huh.” I angled my head, studying it some more. The balls were definitely out of proportion to the shaft, but yeah, I guess I could see it.

Mia ground her palms into her eyes. “Dammit, Kizzy. I wonder if I can get a pre-made cake somewhere this late? Maybe the bakery down the street?”

“My cake is fine.” Kizzy sounded indignant. “I ate a piece off the tip to be
sure it tasted good. She’ll love it.”

Mia bowed her head, shoulders shaking. For a second, I thought she was crying. Then her laughter rang out, clear and bright.

“You ate the tip of your own penis cake. That’s why it’s so stubby.”

“It is not stubby. They’re not all the same, you know.” Kizzy looked to me for confirmation. “Tell her, Foxy. They come in all shapes and dimensions, right?”

I cleared my throat to keep from laughing. “Sorry, I can’t claim to have looked at a big selection.”

“I have.” Mia pointed at the cake. “And none of them looked like
that
.”

Yet again an instant of silence reigned. Then we were all laughing, and Mia moved into my arms of her own free will. I actually believed it might be okay. That
we’d
be okay.

Then, I still believed.

Chapter Thirty-One

Mia

My sister loved her bedazzled penis cake.

Carly lopped off the balls with glee, declaring them hers as the birthday girl. Watching her as she filled her mouth with cake, I felt every day of the t
hree years that separated us. Had I ever been that young?

I would die to protect her innocence, because mine had been stolen from me more times than I could count. First by the man who’d imprisoned and raped me. Then by the news media that turned my daily life into a spectacle. They’d made running my only choice. I changed my first name and I’d dreamed of changing my face, until I settled for people pounding on it until I didn’t recognize the features greeting me in the mirror every morning.

That was my reality, and sitting in center of a party in my crappy apartment didn’t change it. I looked from face to face, even familiar ones, and I saw strangers.
My
face belonged to a stranger.

I shifted and relaxed as warm arms tightened around me. Tray had pulled me on his lap an hour ago and he hadn’t let me go yet. A few others had gotten up to dance, Carly among them, and he’d just lifted my hand and separated my fingers, examining them as if they were the most fascinating things he’d ever seen. I sensed in him what I
couldn’t bring myself to mention aloud.

Tomorrow, after the fight, h
e thought I was going to run. And he had some misguided idea that he could stop it, that he could love me through the inner torment that compelled me to keep hurting myself, over and over again.

I’d found him out of blind luck, when I was searching for a way to get enough money to leave. Or looking for an opportunity to die. I’d latched onto his Greek God face with the zeal of a missionary in church. It was his ilk that made fun of me, that rightfully shut me out of their world.
Perfect, clean, proper people with pristine lives. I was dirty, damaged goods. His parents had known that right away and had acted accordingly. By the playbook in my head, he should have shunned me as a worthless tramp, not given me his jacket and kept coming back for more like a golden puppy who craved the steel-toed boot breaking apart his ribs.

The memory came with devastating swiftness, taking me back against my will.

“Do you know why I picked you? Why I followed you when you walked home from school? I knew you weren’t happy, Amelia. But I could change that. I could share my money with you, and my lavish home, and my body. I could offer you pleasure. I saved you.”

“Wanna dance?” Tray laced his fingers with mine and brought them to his lips. “You’ve never seen me do the Macarena.”

My heart wasn’t in it, but I needed to keep up the charade. It was all we had. “You were a little kid when that was popular.”

“So? I still remember how to do it.” He winced. “It’s actually the only dance I know.”

“Wait a second. Sexy, swaggering Fox Knox doesn’t know how to dance? How can this be?”

“I fight and I fence and I fuck. Those are the only coordinated movements that interest me.” He shrugged, his sulky mouth forming that pout that always made me want to kiss him.

Everything did. I wanted to curl up inside him and never leave. He’d keep me safe. He’d love me until he willed me whole again.

And if someday he grew tired of patching together the holey quilt that was my psyche, if he decided he’d screwed up by getting involved with me
, he would take what was left of me with him.

Darren hadn’t killed me, but Tray surely would.

There were calculated risks in life. Odds to be played. If I’d been a different woman, I could’ve taken the chance. But the girl who was barely clinging to the shreds of sanity couldn’t put the bullet in the chamber one more time.

I’d tried to keep him at arm’s length. I’d fought with all my being, but he’d simply strong-armed me into giving in, much as he had in Kurt’s Superette this morning. I was still a challenge for him. Still that unknown variable. When he pegged me for sure and saw that all my numbers were crazy eights, he’d move on in that affable way he had, and I wouldn’t hold it against him because he simply hadn’t understood what he was getting into.

I’d hold it against
me
, because I’d never wanted someone so much and never been more certain that I had no right to keep him.

“Hey, bitches, it’s time for presents.” Kizzy hopped up on the coffee table and waved the bottle of champagne she held in one hand and the gift-wrapped box she clutched in the other. “If you didn’t bring a gift for the birthday girl, get your ass out and find your free eats somewhere else.”

I couldn’t help laughing. Thank God Kizzy had taken over most of the party planning. I sucked at this kind of thing. My dark mood wasn’t exactly helping either. The fight was tomorrow, and then Tray had surgery, and I had to start making some serious decisions. I couldn’t keep playing happy couple or whatever the hell I’d been doing with Tray much longer. The rent increase notice I’d received that morning had put the exclamation point on that.

But that wasn’t for tonight. I’d spent enough of my sister’s day wrapped up in myself. The rest of the night wa
s for Carly—and then for Tray and me.

I faced him, feeling the familiar quiver beneath my breastbone. “You don’t have to leave if you didn’t get Carly a gift,” I said under my breath.

He arched a brow. “Think I’m a cheap date?”

“No, of course not. But you haven’t known her that long and you’ve already done enough.” He’d helped pay for today’s shopping trip, though I’d practically begged him not to. I didn’t want to take advantage of him, ever.

“It feels like I’ve known you both forever.”

I didn’t argue, because I agreed.
My life before he’d strolled into it seemed colorless and indistinct. My past was a dark, endless void I feared getting sucked back into more with every passing moment.

“Not only did I get her a gift, I got you one too.”

“Oh no. No more. Tray,” I protested softly.

“I missed your birthday.”

“Yeah, like three months ago.”

Shrugging, he drew me closer as Carly grabbed Kizzy’s gift and ripped open the wrapping paper. She had a wine glass in her other hand
, and I’d seen her sipping a lot over the last couple of hours. I didn’t want her to get drunk, but I also didn’t have the heart to ruin her good time.

Some guardian I was, contributing to the delinquency of an underage drinker.

“Oh yes. Just what I wanted.” Carly giggled and brandished a silver pan. “Penis cakes for everyone.”

“Jesus,” Tray muttered.

“They belong in every kitchen,” Kizzy announced, earning a round of laughter from Carly’s new gym friends and even Slater and Emerson.

Slater had been dancing with Carly all night, but they had a brother-and-sister vibe going. Besides, Tray said Slater had a live-in girlfriend. And he absolutely hadn’t looked at her like he wanted to swallow her whole, unlike some other people who were not at this party and wouldn’t be allowed near Carly for the next fifty years.

I’d expected her to demand that I invite Giovanni, but she hadn’t. Maybe Tray’s speech about what kind of man Costas was had actually affected her.

“Here’s mine.” Tray dug a box out of his pocket and held it out to Carly. “If you hate them, Slater helped me pick them out.”

“I have no fuckin’ clue what he’s talking about.” Slater grinned.

“You’re such a sweetheart.” She leaned forward and kissed Tray on the cheek with an easy familiarity I envied. She tucked a glossy red nail under the wrapping paper and dug out the blue velvet box inside, popping it open with a gasp. “Diamond earrings?”

“Let me see.” I shot a narrow-eyed glance at Tray, who blinked with feigned innocence.

“Oh my God, these are so gorge
ous and perfect. Thank you!” My sister gave Tray a one-armed hug and then did the same to Slater before plopping down in his lap to pry out the earrings.

She put them on and shook back her hair as she grinned at me. Though I hadn’t gotten a good l
ook at them yet, they sparkled from even a few feet away. “Sis, your man has excellent taste.”

“My
man
is in trouble.” I elbowed Tray in the stomach.

He laughed.
“Does that mean you need to punish me?” he asked loud enough for everyone to hear. Including Carly, who giggled like she was completely trashed.

I made a face at him, which he
took as an invitation for a kiss. His lips were warm and flavored with the berry wine we’d had with dinner. More laughter spilled around us as he licked his way between my lips, spreading warmth through my chest. Not desire—well, not only desire. Not embarrassment. Plain ol‘ happiness.

Carly sorted through the gifts from her friends, opening a couple of brightly colored boxes that contained fluffy sweaters, a pair of jeans
, and even a rock band T-shirt from Slater. She dug through everything with a joyful smile until she held up a small box wrapped in ivory paper with a gilt-edged tag.

She frowned. “When did Aunt Patty send this?”

“Yesterday.”

Carly hadn’t spoken much to Aunt Patty after she’d fled her house with little warning, so I’d been surprised and pleased when I’d found her g
ift in the mail. I had a distant relationship with our dad’s sister, but I didn’t want the same for Carly. Hopefully they’d find their way back to each other.

She tore off the paper and unearthed a delicate cross on a gold
chain. And stared.

“It’s pretty, Car,” I offered quietly. Unable to help thinking that for some of us, maybe it was too late to repent. Maybe our chances of reclaiming our inner purity and holiness were gone.

If I’d ever had any to begin with.

“Too late there, right?” One of her new friends elbowed Carly and they shared a grin. I didn’t particularly like the gleam in their eyes. Maybe these girls weren’t the best influence.

Carly tucked the necklace back in the box and set it aside. Then she grabbed my present and shook it, smiling. “Did you get something tiny and fill the box with newspaper like you did when we were kids?”

“Open it and see.”

She peeled off the paper, laughing as the tape stuck to her fingers. Then she pulled off the lid and went still. “Oh man. No way.” She pulled out the purple boots, her eyes filling. “God, Ame. I love you.” She shoved the box aside and ran over to me, dragging me off Tray’s lap with a sniffly laugh. “You’re the best sister ever.”

“If you so much as scuff
them, I’ll kick your ass.” I grinned and hugged her back.

“Oooh, you got Uggs?” One of her friends squealed, drawing Carly back to her boots.

I perched on the arm of Tray’s chair for all of five seconds before he pulled me back down on his lap. “Fluffy purple boots,” he murmured. “Softie.”

“She w
anted them.” I shrugged and fought not to squirm. Already the telltale flush had started heating my cheeks.

He toyed with the buttons on my shirt, his lips curving in that seduc
tive way that practically incinerated my panties. “I want something too.”

“Uh-
huh.” I gave in to the urge to cuddle against his chest and breathed in deep to savor his cologne and my plain Jane soap on his skin. Sometimes the rightness of being in his arms overwhelmed my fear and all I could do was thank God, even if all of this ended tomorrow. My terror over that very eventuality helped me to never take him—or us—for granted.

I’d never stop being grateful that I’d been part of an
us
. That I’d known the pleasure of a first date where we had a fancy dinner in a place with real linen tablecloths and candlelight. That I’d held his hand while we waited in line to see a Sandra Bullock movie, and I’d noticed people staring at me with envy. I’d snagged the hottest guy. One who looked at me as if he lo—

No
. That wasn’t the point. Cherishing the moment was. Just soaking myself in it until I couldn’t breathe from the fullness between my breasts

I closed my eyes, relishing the solid, strong feel of his long body under mine.
Another snapshot for my memory banks. More fodder to keep me warm…
after
.

I’d grown to hate that word with a passion.

“Go ahead. I’m here,” he breathed against my temple.

For the first time in forever, I could trust someone to keep me safe.
I didn’t have to keep watch, because he would. He’d never let me fall.

“Ame.” Carly nudged my shoulder. “Wake up.”

I blinked and lifted my head from Tray’s shoulder, glancing around at the party still in progress. “I fell asleep?” That never happened so easily. I was the type to toss and turn all night. Guess it depended what kind of pillow I had beneath me.

Speaking of pillows, I glanced at Tray, who was having a hushed conversation with Slater about whatever his buddy was doing on his phone.

“Apparently. Y
ou haven’t even been drinking much.” Carly hiccupped and held out her cell. “Aunt Patty wants to talk to you.”