“You know the ink on my back?”
“Yeah.” Her brows knit together and she frowns. It’d be cute as fuck if I didn’t feel like I could vomit at any second.
I look around the dark night. She won’t be able to see shit out here right now.
I hold out my hand to her and feel my breath stutter inside my chest. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”
“How did this happen?”
Tears drip shamelessly down Kennedy’s cheeks as she stares at my back. I can see her reflection in the mirror in front of me, and it’s the one expression I’ve never wanted to see on her pretty face.
Horror mixed with pity.
“A belt,” I answer. “At least I think it was. Bastard clocked me with a bottle as soon as I walked in the door. Took me by surprise and almost knocked me out. While I was on the floor, before I could get to my feet, he started screaming about the same stupid shit he always did, and began whipping me. I passed out after the first few lashes.”
Her face twists. “There are over thirty lashes here.”
“Forty-two,” I whisper. They’re hidden beneath the ink. The tattoo artist I went to, once they healed enough to cover, was a fucking magician. And all of them itch and burn right now as I see her lift her hand, hesitant to run her fingertips down the length of them.
“Did you go to the hospital?”
I shake my head. “Nah. Once he passed out, I got in my car and just drove. Ended up outside a fucking gym in Chicago.”
I clench my jaw shut, hating this part—the part where I have to admit that at any time I could have called her for help and she would have been there for me, just like we were always for each other.
But between the night we’d just had, the terror that it had forever altered our friendship, and the worst beating I had just taken from my dad—despite the fact that I was twenty years old and had forty pounds of muscle over my old man—I couldn’t turn to her.
Not then.
And by the time I finally pulled my head out of my ass and wanted to reach out to Kennedy and make things right…too much time had passed.
I knew she’d never forgive me.
As if she finally understands, I feel her fingertips skim my back up to my shoulder blades and then she begins tugging on my shirt, which I’d lifted up to my shoulders.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” she whispers, dragging her eyes from my back to meet my gaze in the mirror’s reflection.
I swallow thickly, needing to fight back the urge to pull her into my arms and hold her close. We’re not there yet.
But I also don’t want to think about all of this heavy shit anymore, either.
She takes a step back and licks her lips. “So that gym…is that how you got started fighting?”
I nod and turn around, facing her. “Yeah. Ran into this guy TJ that night when I went in to fight. I just needed to punch something, but my back was all fucked up. He cleaned me up, though, and let me start taking classes and do some training. Gave me a job cleaning at night and a room in an apartment above the gym. Guess he saw something in me, because after a few weeks of me mindlessly pounding on the heavy bags for hours at a time, he hooked me up with Rodney.”
“Your coach now.”
I smirk. I can’t help it. She’s been following my career closely to know the name of my coach. That’s not told at every televised fight.
I don’t point that out to her.
Based on the pink coloring her cheeks, I figure she knows what I’m thinking.
“Are you tired? We can get some food ordered up and talk more if you’re not.”
Her hand falls to her stomach and she smiles. It’s faint but it’s there. I’ve never needed that smile more.
It’s one that fills me with hope of forgiveness.
Something I don’t necessarily deserve, but crave all the same.
“I could eat.”
A soft whimper pulls me from the final dredges of sleep and I open my eyes.
The crick in my neck tells me I slept like this all night long. My arm wrapped around Kennedy’s shoulder. Her head on my chest. My head tipped to the side, resting on the back of her head.
It’s uncomfortable as shit. Both of my legs have fallen asleep from being propped on the coffee table all night long. We came inside when goose bumps covered the skin on her arms last night, even though she insisted she wasn’t tired.
We talked for hours—something I never do, or have never done with anyone besides her.
She’s always been my home.
This time, though, I have her back in my arms, my dick half-hard because it can’t be flaccid when she’s this close to me.
Talking to her last night, once I finally got her talking, was the best night I’ve had since I can remember. I told her more about fighting in my first gym with TJ. When I met him, he spent most of his time teaching jujitsu to kids and kickboxing to bored, stay-at-home moms.
After he hooked me up with Rodney, fights came quickly, and I gained a lot of traction by winning in exhibitions. To date, I haven’t lost more than one match per year.
It’s unheard of.
It’s also because I have nothing else. The life of an MMA fighter only lasts so many years, and I’ve been working on my fallback plan for as long as I’ve been scrubbing sweat and blood off TJ’s floor mats. Fuck if I’m going to end up back in Braxton, changing oil like my old man and being shunned for the rest of my life.
Instead, I’m banking all the winnings I can so I’m set whenever I’m forced to retire. My crew is small and trustworthy; my trainer costs a whack, but he’s the only major cost I have and he gets his cut before I do. But I’m setting myself up to make something of myself—make someone of the cursed Legend name.
Someone that Kennedy can actually be proud of.
Another soft whimper falls from her parted lips. Her hand on my stomach flinches and then tightens.
I run my hand through her brown hair. It’s soft and silky, something I never took the time to notice with the many women I’ve been with.
And there’s been a lot. I’m more of a hit-it-and-quit-it kind of guy, typically. Between my training schedule and then my travel schedule, there hasn’t been the time for a decent relationship even if I wanted one. The cage-bunnies keep my bed warm when necessary.
Just one more reason I should say goodbye to Kennedy: I’m still not good enough for her.
She deserves the four-bedroom home with an outdoor pool and a yard that goes on for miles. I’ve never been that guy.
“Morning,” I mumble, when I feel her shift and tighten against my chest.
She mumbles something back that I can’t decipher with her lips practically pressed against my chest.
I feel every small movement and vibration, though. My dick likes the way it feels, too, because it jumps in my shorts.
I shift, hiding the slight tenting, and tug on Kennedy’s hair. “Time to wake up.”
She shakes her head against me and my hand cups the back of her neck. She’s always been so soft. Everywhere.
It’s like a drug. Nothing about her is fake, like the women I’m used to. Not her smile, or her laugh, or her body.
I wish I could curl up with her, take her to my bed, prove to her how much I meant it when I said I really did miss her, that I really do want to fuck her—over and over again until I’m so deeply embedded inside of her that she can’t ever leave me.
That’s how much of a selfish prick I am.
I want her, knowing I could ruin her.
She pushes off my chest until she’s sitting up. My hand falls from her neck with the move, and I feel the loss of her warmth instantly. She doesn’t look at me, but she brushes her tangled long hair out of her eyes and covers her mouth with a loud yawn.
“Sorry,” she grumbles, her hand still over her mouth.
“Need some coffee?”
She nods, still not looking at me. An ache stings inside my chest when her cheeks change to a light pink.
She’s embarrassed to be with me. Probably embarrassed she fell asleep lying all over my body.
I’m not complaining. My dick certainly isn’t.
“Come on, then,” I say, rising to my feet, ignoring her blushing and avoidance.
Pushing out my hand, I wait for her to put her palm inside mine. When she does, after staring at it like I might hit her with it first, warmth shoots up my arm to my shoulder. Pushing the feeling away, I pull her to her feet harder than necessary.
She stumbles and has to brace herself with her other hand against my chest.
Her fingers dig into my pec before she tries to push back.
I don’t let her. I wrap my other arm around her waist and hold her close.
She fits perfectly. I don’t even care if she can feel my semi-erection in my athletic shorts.
“Don’t pull away from me,” I whisper, leaning down so my lips are by her ear. She smells like sweet sugar and I fight the urge to taste her. “And don’t be embarrassed around me, Kennedy.”
She turns her head, pushing her ear against me so I can’t do what I’m dying to do. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
I squeeze her tighter. “I’ve never slept better.”
Then I let her go, giving her a moment to process the truth in my words.
I’m halfway to the kitchen, hearing her shuffling behind me, and can’t hold back my grin.
Kennedy started drinking coffee when she was fourteen years old. She was way too young, but she claimed her parents fighting kept her up too late at night. She’d be a zombie at school if she didn’t have a to-go mug with her at all times.