Submission Moves: An MMA Romance (16 page)

“That’s was fucking awesome. Let’s do that again.” He took his half-mast cock in his hand and stroked, getting himself ready.

Her eyes widened in alarm.  “Oh my God. You’re kidding.”

She wanted him all rough, primal, and out of control. He was going to give her that. “Sweetheart,” he grinned, “that was just round one.”

CHAPTER 16

Her eyes fluttered open and she checked the clock on the bedside table. It was nearly noon. Rose didn’t usually need breakfast but her tummy grumbled loudly, demanding to be fed. A night of marathon sex did that to a girl, and Nick had kept her up well past dawn.  

The room was dim, the only light coming from the gap between the blinds of the floor-to-ceiling window of his bedroom, but she could make out his body, lying with his back to her, completely naked. They both were. She never slept in the nude. It made her feel ridiculously wild and raunchy, like the kind of women she imagined Nick usually picked up in clubs and took home.
 

Finally, she got to study his tattoo at the back of one shoulder up close—a shamrock entwined with a red rose. It was a common enough Irish symbolism. She suspected it had to do with his fight name rather than her. She wasn’t
that
presumptuous. She planted an impulsive kiss on it, grateful despite herself that it wasn’t some girl’s name he had permanently inked on his skin.

He woke up with a start but relaxed as Rose kept on pressing small kisses on his sleep-warmed skin. “I’m sorry I woke you,” she said, suddenly feeling shy. She was so worn out by the time he finally got done that she had no choice but to stay over. But she didn’t know the protocol of hooking up with Nick Rossi. Should she have slipped out while he slept? Should she get going now? She did none of those, deciding to play it by ear.
 

“I got that one night nearly four years ago, after getting stupid drunk with my brothers,” he said in a husky, just-woken-up voice. Rose didn’t know how he could tell that she’d been studying his tattoo. “I was so shit-faced. They said I threw up on the artist before passing out completely. When I woke up, there it was.”

“It could’ve been worse, I guess. You could’ve picked a really douche-
y
design, like ‘YOLO’ or something,” Rose said. “Do you regret it?”

“Throwing up on the artist?” he joked before pausing to consider her question. “Nah, I really like it. Do…do you like it?”

She couldn’t see his face as he spoke, but Rose thought he sounded a little anxious, which didn’t make sense. The truth was she didn’t like tattoos. Nor coarse, overly-muscled, brassy men. But that was her brain talking. Her body had other, better ideas. She leaned in to trace the swirly design with her tongue.

“You can be so sweet,” Nick said with a soft moan, pressing back into her. After a while, he turned to face her and gave her a sleepy smile. “You feeling sore?”

“I am, actually,” Rose admitted, flexing her limbs and feeling the cricks and aches. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”

Nick smiled at that, looking pleased and so damn handsome. “It would be a shame to let this go to waste though.” He took her small hand and wrapped it around his warm, rock-hard cock. It grew even harder at her touch.

She laughed and gave him a small, shy nod of assent. “Then let’s not.”

“I’ll get you ready first, don’t worry.” He broke away and took out a foil pack from that same box of Monster Condoms on the nightstand. As he motioned for Rose to lie on her back, he caught her still looking at the box.

“Monster’s one of our most loyal sponsors,” he explained. “They send us boxes and boxes of that stuff all the time.”

“Yeah, I figured. I remember the box you had in your room in Vegas. And another one in the bathroom.”

“Is that why you freaked out that night and ran away? You thought I was fucking my way around Vegas or something?”

“One of the reasons,” Rose admitted as she watched Nick curl his glorious body beside hers.

“Huh,” he huffed and nodded, looking as if he finally got an answer to a question that had been nagging him a long time.  

He reached between her legs, groaning softly as he dipped his finger inside her and found her slick and warm for him. “I want you. I can’t wait,” he whispered urgently, rolling on top of her. She welcomed him, hugging her thighs to his waist and scratching her nails down his backside. He was just about to roll the condom on when Rose stopped him.  

“Nick, someone’s here,” she whispered.

He heard it too, the unmistakable churning sound of the blender coming from his kitchen. “It’s just Angelo,” he assured her. “He comes by every day to stock up my fridge and cook for me when I’m in camp.” There was absolutely no reason they couldn’t proceed as planned. Angelo and his protein shake could damn well wait.

But Rose was still trying to push him off. Nick relented, his cock throbbing angrily at the interruption.

“Should I hide in the bathroom?”   

He gave her a funny look then burst out laughing. “Why would you do that? It’s time I fed you anyway,” he added with a sigh of disappointment. “Let’s go out there and have the chef make something nice for you and something bland and fat-free for me. Then we can stay holed up in here the rest of the day.”

He got up and grabbed a fresh pair of T-shirt and shorts from his closet. Rose picked up her clothes from the floor and headed for the bathroom.

“Come out when you’re done there, okay?” she heard Nick say from behind the door.

She took a quick shower and put on last night’s clothes, minus her fishnet stockings, which were a bit excessive for daytime, and her underwear, which Nick had ruined. She smiled slyly at the memory. She gave her damp hair one last vigorous rub before heading to the kitchen where the conversation was coming from.

She hadn’t had a chance to admire Nick’s apartment last night, but he’d told her it was a two-bedroom, with the other bedroom converted into a gym. She could tell it was professionally designed, a veritable bachelor’s pad, and it was huge. Rose’s whole apartment could fit in his living room.

She found Nick perched on one of the stools of the breakfast bar while Angelo stood behind the counter, ragging him about missing his morning training. She hung back and watched them, feeling shy and uncertain. When Nick spotted her, he stretched his hand out and gave her a beckoning smile.

“C’mere,” he said.

Rose took his hand and let him tug her closer. But the ready greeting she had for Angelo died in her throat when she spotted another man seated on the other end of the breakfast bar, previously hidden from her view.

He looked from her to Nick, his face mirroring her own surprise.

“Hello, Rose,” Angelo said, casting a meaningful glance at Nick. “We didn’t know Nick had company.”

“Rose?” the older man said with a smile full of mischief. The resemblance to the two younger men was unmistakable. “I didn’t know there was a Rose in the picture. Nicky, you’ve been keeping things from your old man?”

“Rosie, this is my dad, Lorenzo. Dad, this is Rose,” Nick said in a tone that gave nothing away.

Despite the shock, good manners kicked in and she stepped forward to shake Lorenzo’s hand and offer a proper greeting. She gasped in surprise when he took her by the elbows and studied her closely, a small smile on his lips. Normally, Rose would feel insulted at being inspected so blatantly, but this was a father and she was a strange woman he found in his son’s apartment, and so she submitted to it. She knew her place.

Lorenzo released her and broke into a broader grin. “Good to meet you, Rose.”

“It’s nice to meet you too.” Her voice was strained and high-pitched.

“Are you Italian?” he said, “You look Italian.”

“Uh…”

“She’s Irish,” Nick offered, watching their exchange with amusement.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Lorenzo said, though he was still smiling. He returned to his seat, eyes still on her.

Rose had this insane urge to apologize. But why did she even need Nick’s dad to like her? Why should she care? Why was she suddenly wishing she were Italian? She sat on the stool Nick pulled out for her without another word.   

“Hey Rose, I have a feminist joke. You wanna hear?” Angelo said over his shoulder as he took out a tray of eggs from the massive sub-zero fridge.

“Sure, why not?” she said with apprehension. In her experience, feminist jokes were rarely funny and often offensive, but she was helpless against Angelo’s disarmingly goofy smile. Besides, she’d grab at anything to dispel the awkwardness and Catholic guilt that was creeping up on her, brought on by nearly having sex with Nick with his father just outside.

“Do you believe there’s a gender wage gap,” Angelo asked, taking out a chopping board from a drawer, “or is that just a myth?”

Rose sat up straighter in her chair. She could go on for hours, and often did, about this issue. “Wage discrimination is definitely not a myth—”

“Shut up and go make me a sandwich,” he snapped, cutting off the rest of what she had to say.

She blinked at him, open-mouthed and too stunned to react.

Angelo doubled over, laughing. “That was the joke. Don’t you get it?” he demanded when he noticed Rose wasn’t laughing with him. “I wasn’t really telling you to shut up or to make me a sandwich. See, I’m making
you
a sandwich,” he explained. “Well, technically, I’m making turkey and avocado paninis for everybody. Except for you, Nick,” he said with mock severity. “For you I’m making an egg white omelette.”

Lorenzo groaned and shook his head at his youngest son. “Is this why you can’t get a girlfriend, Angelo?”

Angelo sputtered. “What do you mean? It was funny! Tell him, Rose.”

“You have very good comedic timing,” she offered neutrally.

“You’ll have to excuse my sons if they act like they were raised by a pack of wolves sometimes, Rose,” Lorenzo said with a rueful smile. “Please don’t take it as a reflection on their mom. She worked two jobs while I stayed home and raised these knuckleheads, so I take full responsibility.”

“You were a stay-at-home dad?” she said, ears perking up. “That’s very interesting.” She wouldn’t have guessed. He was in his mid-fifties, Rose estimated, still very handsome, with salt n’ pepper hair and a trim physique. He was the very picture of a traditional working-class, Italian-American manly-man-
ness
, so far removed from her idea of what a progressive male looked like.

Lorenzo nodded. “My wife and I decided it was for the best. The boys needed someone at home and she was earning more than I was anyway. I used to work construction, but I got into this nasty accident and broke my back pretty bad. It took months for me to fully recover. During that time, their mom was taking care of me and three kids under the age of seven,
and
working full-time as a bookkeeper.”

“Wow,” Rose breathed, a little awestruck. Her mom stayed at home to raise her and her five stepbrothers too, but she had full-time nannies and housekeepers to help her. She couldn’t imagine how Nick’s mom managed at all. “Your mom sounds amazing,” she said, turning to Nick.

“Our dad’s not so bad either,” he replied before throwing an affectionate smile at the older man. Lorenzo clutched at his heart dramatically and pretended to wipe a tear from his eye. Nick and Angelo laughed. It was such a cozy tableau, Rose felt her heart swell with genuine fondness and maybe something more.
Oh dear.
She looked at Nick. He looked back at her, smiled, and pulled her face in for a quick, tongueless kiss. Rose’s heart stopped and restarted in a rapid rate. He kissed her. In front of his family. In front of his dad. Why? What did it mean? And why did her heart feel like it could burst with joy?

She was suddenly very uncomfortable and she couldn’t bear to look anyone in the eye. She couldn’t bear to see how they would react to that open display of affection. She kept her gaze trained on Angelo’s busy hands.

“Their mom
is
amazing. You should meet her,” Lorenzo said. “Why don’t you come to our house for dinner tonight?”

Angelo paused in the middle of dicing a large tomato and rolled his eyes at Lorenzo. “Very smooth, Dad.”
   

Nick didn’t say anything, but Rose could sense him holding his breath, waiting for her answer. He reached over and gave her knee a squeeze.

“My wife Lena and I would love to get to know you. And you should see the house Nick bought us. It’s too big for just me and his mom, but maybe if someone finally gives us grandchildren, it won’t seem too big. Do you like children, Rose?”