Sleeping With the Opposition (Bad Boy Bosses) (15 page)

Before she could turn back around, Julie took her wrist and ushered Bria into the little office and closed the door. It was quieter inside but the sound still filtered in. In fact, it vibrated through the floor right up her legs.

“When you texted me earlier, I never imagined that you were going to drive all the way down here,” Julie said. “I could have met you for lunch tomorrow or something.”

Bria twisted her hands together. “No, it had to be tonight. I would have chickened out by tomorrow and canceled on you. Besides, I didn’t want to take you away from time spent with Dez.”

“You really helped last night at the hospital. Thank you.”

“How is he doing today?” she asked.

“He was conscious this morning for a good couple of hours.” There was a thread of worry in Julie’s voice, overriding the positivity of her words. It was apparent that the road to recovery was still going to be a difficult one.

“If you need anything…” Bria offered.

“Thanks, but what is it that I can help
you
with?” That was a dismissal if Bria had ever heard one.

Bria followed Julie’s distracted glance out the big windows to the club floor below. There was something going on in the boxing ring now. Actually, it looked like a fight was about to start. One of the opponents had climbed in and was walking around the perimeter with his arms outstretched, presumably to get the crowd riled up. Tattoos crossed his shoulders and traveled down his spine to the waistband of his black shorts. His hair was buzzed short to his skull and so blond, his head looked bald.

“Are you sure this isn’t a bad time?”

“It’s just…” Julie grimaced. “You didn’t know that Leo was here tonight, did you?”

Alarmed, she swung around. “Here?” she croaked.

Julie kept looking back out the window, her gaze wary and apologetic. “Bria, just don’t worry. He’s going to be fine…”

“He’s
what
? What do you mean, he’s going to be fine?” Her heart started racing, pounding in her chest so hard it seemed to echo in her ears. Leo only boxed at the gym. Not in glorified bar fights while a couple hundred people cheered for someone to get killed. “Is he…
fighting
?”

She turned back to the window, her gaze drawn directly to the center of the room. The second opponent had arrived. He stood at the edge of the ring, bending to duck under the ropes. Her breath caught as he straightened.

Leo
. Leo naked from the waist up. Leo in the middle of a boxing ring, standing there cracking his neck from side to side in the opposite corner from a muscle-bound meathead twice his size, who sneered at him like he couldn’t wait for the bell to ring so he could jump over there and tear his face off.

Bria bolted out of the office. She almost tripped and went tumbling down the iron stairs in her haste but grabbed on to the handrail in time to right herself. As she raced past the bouncer still standing guard, Julia called down over Bria’s head. “Get Mac!”

He pulled out his walkie-talkie again, but Bria didn’t stop. He reached out to restrain her, but she jerked away. Julie yelled, “It’s okay, just
get Mac
.”

The crowd closed in tightly against her, a wall of arms and legs like vines crawling up out of the floor to keep her away. The bell rang, and she stopped short. She was too late; the fight was starting.

Someone took her arm. She whirled around. It was Mac. She sobbed, and surprisingly, he put his arm around her shoulders and drew her in tightly to his side. He leaned down. “Why don’t you come back to the office with me until this is over?” he yelled into her ear.

She shook her head. She should. She didn’t really want to see this, but she couldn’t just turn around and walk away. Couldn’t. She squeezed Mac’s arm. “Get me up there.”

He grimaced like he doubted the wisdom of her request, and he was probably right, but she didn’t care. “You don’t want to see this—”

She pushed herself free of him and struggled to get ahead. “I have to.”

She heard his muttered “Fuck” behind her but then he took her hand again. She stubbornly stood her ground, and finally, he nodded and moved them forward. He kept one arm around her and used the other to sweep aside the bodies yelling and cheering in front of them, until the stage was right in front of her face.

Mac stayed glued to her side. She felt him sway against her as someone jostled him, but nobody else touched her.

Her first glimpse of Leo in action was him feinting to avoid the wide swing of his opponent. He countered as he was still righting himself again, with a swing of his own. Tattoo guy managed to avoid it.

The crowd was more like a mob now, the kind that gathered to watch a hanging. It swelled and bulged with avid glee when the first hit landed. It was Leo. He’d caught his opponent with a hard clip to the chin, following that up before the guy could recover with a direct shot into his gut. It bowled him over and back a few steps, but he came up quickly and lunged for Leo with a chilling roar of fury.

Leo managed to avoid the first swing, but the second caught him hard in the ribs.

Bria screamed; she couldn’t help it.

Leo immediately swung around and she jammed her fist into her mouth, but it was too late. He’d seen her. His gaze widened in shock, and he took a step forward.

“Watch out!” she yelled. Beside her, Mac tightened his grip on her shoulder.

Leo turned back to face his adversary, but he still took a hit to the face, and his head snapped back so hard, she swore she heard the
crack
from where she stood. She groaned and her stomach leaped into her throat, but she refused to cry out again, worried about distracting him.

Tattoo guy pressed his advantage. He was quick and strong, and pushed Leo back into the ropes. He started hitting him with both fists in the ribs as Leo put his arms up and tried to block.

Why would he put himself through this? What had possessed him to lock himself in a square cage for the sole purpose of being pounded on?

Of course she’d always known that Leo liked to box; she’d picked him up at the club often enough over the years. She’d seen the bruises and the scraped knuckles…but that was exercise. This was…

This was punishment.

Chapter Thirteen

The hits kept coming, but all he could see was Bria’s horrified expression. Why was she here? How had she known?

He hadn’t even known what he planned to do until he’d walked through the door earlier and demanded that Julie arrange a fight with whoever was on the docket for the night. She’d balked. He hadn’t been in the ring for a real fight in a long time, and tonight’s fighter was Nelson—the biggest, meanest dude she had on the list.

Mac had seen the manic tension in him and tried to talk him into taking out his frustrations on a speed bag instead, but Leo wouldn’t listen. He’d climbed into the ring with every intention of staying there until he was completely empty. Empty of this feeling of defeat and the heart-ripping agony tearing him up inside.

He grunted and jerked as Nelson got him with another hard shot to the ribs. This wasn’t going well.

“Leo!”
Bria screamed his name. He opened his eyes. She was there, looking worried. She winced as he took another punch, and another. Looking so small standing beside an unrelenting Mac in the crowd, but she wasn’t lost in the throng. He would always be able to find her, no matter how thick the crowd, how dark the shadows, how murky the waters.

He blocked the next shot and fought to get out of the corner, away from the ropes. He hit back, strength coursing through him. Suddenly, he just wanted this over. He met Jared’s every punch with a harder one of his own until he could sense the bigger fighter’s strength waning. Leo’s last shot put the man down.

He stood back and waited for Jared to get back up, but after a tense moment, the guy spit out his mouth guard with an oath and shook his head.

The bell rang to signify the end of the match, but Leo was already across the mat and ducking under the ropes.

He jumped down in front of Bria and nodded his thanks to Mac as someone handed him a towel and Mac shoved it at Leo before stepping aside.

Leo hesitated before touching Bria, expecting anger and disgust and maybe even fear, but she threw herself into his arms, her purse thwacking him in the back of the head as she did. He closed his eyes and buried his face in the fresh, clean scent of her hair, but the crowd was closing in on them both, and he couldn’t bear for any of them to touch her.

He pulled her with him across the club and through the double doors leading to the back rooms. Mac was following them, but he stayed behind when Leo took Bria into the fighters’ changing room.

She stopped as soon as they were alone, pressing her hand to her chest and breathing heavily. He stopped himself from pulling her into his arms again, aware that his hands were still trapped in his boxing gloves and the sweat had yet to cool, leaving his skin slick.

“Jesus, you shouldn’t have seen that. What are you doing here?”

“How long have you been doing this?” Still-damp tear tracks marked lines on her cheeks, and her voice cracked, making him wince. “The fighting. How long?” she repeated.

“This was the first time,” he admitted with a sigh, tearing into the tapes of one glove with his teeth.

“Why?”

Shit. “Why do you think, Bria?” The fight was supposed to give him an outlet for his frustration and pain, but it had also been a way to atone for his failure. He flung the glove into the open locker where he’d stashed his bag earlier and started on the other.

She stepped closer. She put her hands on his arms. She whispered his name. His gut tightened with need, and it had nothing to do with the adrenaline still surging in his bloodstream.

“Don’t.” He clenched his eyes shut and took a step back, although it killed him to retreat. It killed him to admit that he’d failed in the most important fight of his life—the fight for his wife. “After this morning, I finally get it, okay?” he bit out. “You’ve made your feelings crystal clear this entire time, and I didn’t listen. You accused me of needing to win at all costs, and you were right.”

This was the time. If he didn’t get this out here and now while he was still winded from the fight, he might not be able to do it later. Pride or self-preservation would get in the way. “I owe you better than that, so I’m listening now.”

“You are?” she whispered.

“I want to give you what you need. I want to give you the ability to heal and move on.” The words tasted bitter and got stuck in his throat. “And I’m willing to accept that you have to do it without me, but you’ve got to stay back, or all this restraint I’m fighting to show you is going to be for nothing.”

Her gaze widened. “You’re giving up?”

“Fuck, Bria. You haven’t given me any damn choice. I can’t keep being the
only
one here standing up for us, fighting for us.”

“Is that what you think you’ve been doing?” she snapped, crossing her arms. “Because the way I see it, you’ve been fighting so hard…not to keep me with you, but to push me away.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? I needed my husband by my side. Instead, I got a robot, and every time I tried to reach you to prove that I wasn’t alone feeling what I was feeling, I felt the wall go up. Why? What are you so afraid to show me? Whatever it is, it shouldn’t be easier to get into a boxing ring and have the crap beat out of you than telling me how you feel.”

He threw a glove, and they both winced at the startling leather
smack
as it hit the wall. “I’ve done the best I can to be strong for you through this ordeal. I thought that’s what you needed. Why do you keep pushing? Why do you want to see me unravel so fucking badly?”

She frowned. “Oh, Leo. That’s not what I want at all. This is not about me rejecting your strength or trying to make you fall apart just so I’m not alone on this nightmare roller coaster.” She wanted to reach for him but couldn’t, not until they did this thing, not until she tried one last time. “I get it; you’re a rock. But, Leo, rocks are hard and cold. I don’t need a rock. I need a man.”

His jaw tightened. Moisture beaded across his brow, and she didn’t think it was from the fight. She realized that this conversation was ten times more difficult for him than any boxing match, but she still didn’t understand why.

“When I realized that our little girl would never call me Mama, or scream with laughter as you blew raspberries into her belly, all I wanted to do was talk to you about how beautiful she would have been,” she whispered, her voice breaking on the word “beautiful.” “I wanted you to tell me that she would have had my hair and eyes, and your stubborn nose. I wanted the two of us to experience the joy of knowing her, together…even though we never would.”

He jerked back and shifted to move past her, but she grabbed his arm. “Please don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t leave me here alone again.”

He stiffened. “Bria,” he rasped, his hard mask crumpling.

She squeezed her fingers into his clenched fist, forcing him to release the death grip he held on himself and hopefully on his emotions.

“I’m sorry I was so hard on you,” she said. She’d expected trust and vulnerability from him, but hadn’t admitted that his strength and dedication also had worth. “But I want to understand. Can you trust me to help ease your pain, like you’ve helped ease mine?” It was true. As withdrawn as he’d been, she’d always known that he loved her, and she’d always known he would climb mountains for her. She only worried that they were on separate mountains, moving farther away from each other.

“Bria, I…” He took a deep breath and clutched her hand tightly. “Every day I imagine our little girl growing more and more like you. She’d have deep brown eyes and a laugh like sunshine. I can see her standing on one of the kitchen chairs to reach the counter, trying to bake cookies with you, and I can feel her soft breath on my face as she jumps into bed with us in the morning to wake us up.”

She closed her eyes to see it all and couldn’t help the sad smile pulling at her lips. “I can almost hear her begging you to come seek as she hides behind your desk in the office, and tearing around the house like a whirlwind. She would have been a holy terror. I probably wouldn’t have been able to keep up with her.” Bria leaned against him, her soul settling as Leo’s arms came around her. Not strong and still like a statue, but shaking with the depth of his emotion.

His gray eyes were glossy with unshed tears, and when he spoke, the words were so low, she felt the rumble of them through his chest rather than heard them. “It hurts to know that she’s gone, and I couldn’t save her. I was her father, and I couldn’t do what all fathers are supposed to do—keep their little girls safe and protected.”

He paused, his heart pounding beneath her hand. “When my father died, I knew it was my job to be the man of the house, but I couldn’t do it. I let out all of my grief and rage on whatever happened to cross my path. It didn’t matter who or how or why.” He started slowly, his voice low. “It wasn’t until it was almost too late that I realized how much my lack of control was hurting the one person I had left—my mother. She was already dealing with a devastating loss, and my selfishness had only escalated her pain.”

He leaned back and looked into Bria’s eyes. “When we lost our baby, I didn’t want to do that to you. I thought if I stayed in control, stayed strong, then I would make things easier for both of us. Even after you begged me to open up, I couldn’t do it. I was sure that you would take one look at all the darkness lurking beneath the surface, and it would scare the hell out of you, and you’d be gone.”

…

Leo held his breath, waiting for that exact thing to happen, but Bria didn’t run. She didn’t look at him like he was weak or broken.

She dropped her purse at her feet. Then she kissed him.

He leaned back much the same way he would have had to dodge an opponent in the ring and held her by the shoulders. He didn’t have it in him to make it through another episode like last night and this morning.

“I’ve seen what’s in your heart, and there’s no darkness there. Only love. You could never scare me,” she whispered in thin syllables.

Just when he thought the last of his hope had died, the look in her eyes pierced his soul. And when she slowly came closer to kiss him again, he couldn’t resist—how could he possibly resist?—crushing his mouth to hers with a shattered groan.

She was all over him. Her hands wringing another drop of blood from his heart with every caress.

He had to force them both to slow down. “There’s no lock on this door. I bet Mac’s keeping his eye out for us, but anyone can walk in at any time.” Either Jared was still out there letting the girls lick his wounds, or Mac had redirected him to the private facilities that were supposed to be for employees of the club, and not fighters.

“I don’t care,” she murmured, pulling her shirt up over her head and dropping it without a thought. Her eyes glittered, and her mouth parted. Her perfect breasts filled out a silky pink bra and she fumbled with the belt buckle of her jeans. “I need you,” she pleaded. “The only thing that scared me was seeing you up there with that guy punching you. I need to feel you, to know that you’re okay.”

With a groan, he cupped her cheeks and kissed her with every ounce of love and passion that had been a part of him for the last four years. He shoved her back against the closed door as an added deterrent if someone should decide to try to come into the room.

“I never wanted to do anything but love you, sweetheart,” he promised. “If I could take back everything—”

She pressed her fingers to his lips. “I know.” She tugged the towel he’d forgotten was still draped around his neck and discarded it just like she’d done with her shirt. Her belt hung open from the loops of her jeans, and she shimmied them down over her hips and kicked them aside before he even had time to blink and register what was happening.

His delicate-looking, soft-voiced, gentle wife stood before him in a public place dressed only in her bra and panties.

They could still hear the roar of the crowd on the other side of those doors. The room was dark and dingy. The fluorescent tube lighting even flickered, highlighting layers of grime and sweat.
He
was covered in grime, sweat, and even drying blood. It was all very coarse and vulgar. And yet none of that actually mattered, because Bria was pure. She was his sunshine, his ray of hope. She’d had the strength to come to him despite her fears, and she’d fought for
him
, stripping away his defenses and showing him the freedom and release in sharing his soul with her.

“Bria, love. Jesus, you’re going to be the death of me.” He touched his forehead to hers and pulled her as tight to him as he could. He needed every part of her body against him. He was still wary, half convinced that she was going to stop and remember that she didn’t really want this, didn’t want him. “As much as I want to pull your legs around my waist and bury myself in you right here…I don’t have any fucking condoms.”

She froze, and his fears were materialized. But then she kissed him again. Hard. Deep. Like she wanted to talk herself into not caring about the risk, but the hell of it was he knew she did, and he knew she would hate him and herself if they lost control. He wouldn’t ever make that mistake again.

“I have condoms,” she said, pointing to her purse on the floor. “I honestly didn’t plan to be using them, but I didn’t want to chance being caught without if we lost control—”

He didn’t let her finish. He kissed her hard and deep enough to swallow her whole. The fact that she’d stocked condoms even when her expectations had been low gave him hope that somewhere down deep she had never written the two of them off completely.

He couldn’t see her nipples through the padding of her bra. As nice as it was to look at, he liked Bria’s breasts more, so he slipped the straps off her shoulders to her elbows until she popped out of the cups. Her luscious form squirmed against him, but he kept her back braced against the door to the change room and lifted her legs around his waist just like he’d promised.

Bria’s taste had always done ridiculous things to him. It got him worked up like no amount of adrenaline could. As he bent his head and took her breast into his mouth, using his tongue and teeth to play with the tight puckered nipple until she was crying and squirming in his arms. The rush was so intense he physically shuddered with it.