The F King:A Bad Boy Romance(33)

"Sorry, man, did you see that, though?" asked the young fighter.

"Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Skylar."

I gave a weak smile and looked at the screen, where Austin "The Killer"  Aquila was getting to his feet in the middle of the cage. There wasn't a  mark on him, but his opponent was still on the ground.

Aquila was a crowd favorite, who had made some truly talented fighters  look like circus clowns over the past couple of years. He would have had  a title shot by now, if not for those few surprise losses along the  way.

With those looks, he's my favorite too. He could-

I cut off my own thought before I could let myself go down that path,  fighting off a blush. As much as I tried to tell myself that the way my  dad used to terrorize me about boys and dating as I was growing up was  wrong, I couldn't shake my past. No matter how good I tried to be,  nothing was ever good enough for him.

If he was to be believed, I was going to bring about the apocalypse with  my whorish ways, even though I'd been too scared to even let a boy kiss  me. I wore a purity ring in an effort to appease him. I even meant it  when I promised to abstain until marriage, but the second I wore a skirt  shorter than halfway down my calves or went outside without a sweater  in the middle of summer, well, the whiskey came out, and sooner or later  so did the belt. And the maniacal screaming.

One time a boy had practically signed my death warrant by coming to our  door and having the gall to ask for permission to take me out on a date.  Even now, miles away, I still felt that self-loathing that had been  beaten into me every time somebody showed an interest in me, or every  time I even fleetingly entertained the thought of any kind of intimacy.         

     



 

"You look whacked. Go ahead and take fifteen," said Gordon, nodding at the door.

I blinked and shook my head, tearing my eyes away from Austin and  bringing myself back to reality. This wasn't something I wanted Gordon  to notice.

"No! I'm fine, there's so much to do, I … "

Gordon pulled the needle through the fighter's scalp, then held up his  hand and shook his head to cut me off. "Go ahead, there'll still be  plenty to do in fifteen minutes, you've been great tonight."

I could almost taste the ice-cold water from the watercooler and the fruit I'd packed for myself.

"Well … "

"Go."

"OK, I guess. I'll be back to help soon, though."





Skylar





Crunch!

I was about ten minutes into my break, and the apple was going down  good, when Gordon's head popped in the door. He looked desperate.

"Hey, sorry about this, but can you take care of something for me?"

I swallowed the mouthful of apple and bolted to my feet. "Yes! What can I do?"

"Team one is down a lot of people with the flu that's going around, they  need somebody to help out. Henry said Aquila needs a massage."

When the name came out of his mouth, it was like somebody with a tiny  defibrillator zapped me on my spine, and I startled before my heart  started thundering in response.

"A …  a mas …  me?"

"Yeah, sorry about this, there's just nobody else I can spare. He's not  injured or anything, just needs to work out some kinks before the  post-event press conference. Can you head over now? Tell them I sent  you."

"I …  well …  of c-course, I'll do my best," I said.

"Thanks for that." Gordon was gone before he had even finished the sentence.

I felt like I was sitting inside my own head watching a movie play out  as I dropped the remains of my apple in the trash and headed towards the  Tier-1 fighters' area. Uncle Malcolm wasn't here to show me what to do.  All I had was less than a year of study and a general appreciation of  massages to rely on. It would have to do.

The Tier-1 wing had a guard at the door who looked mean enough to  actually fight for NHBFC, but he let me through when he saw my uniform  and heard that Gordon had sent me at Henry's request. The hallway behind  said door was just as chaotic as the ones I'd just left, but for a  completely different reason.

With a smaller group of fighters to look after, and an already smaller  staff diminished by illness, it was the MMA groupies making the most  noise over here. Clusters of some of the most stunning girls currently  in the city hovered around their favorite fighters' doors, giggling and  talking loudly. It wasn't official of course, but the guard knew only to  let in the best of the best.

The intensity of their beauty only served to make me feel  self-conscious, as I awkwardly nudged my way through them to Austin's  door. Most of them were taller than me and the tops they wore made  absolutely sure to show off their breasts, at my eye-level, to maximum  effect.

They made me feel like a potato in a diamond display case as I  sheepishly knocked on the door. A few moments later an older guy,  Austin's coach, snatched the door open.

"I told you bitches he isn't ready yet!"

"Uh, Gordon sent me? Henry said you-"

"Oh, right, yeah. He's just in the shower-"

The groupies in earshot all squealed and started talking at once.

"You come in, he'll be ready in a second, I'm stepping out. Lock it  behind you. Which of you girls wants to do me a special favor so I put a  good word in for you with The Killer?"

I squeezed past him as a chorus of "I do!" "I will" rang out behind me.  One of them said "How come the cleaning lady gets to go in?" Another  said, "I'll deepthroat your-" just as the door clicked shut.

Stepping into a Tier-1 dressing room after working on the other side for  so long was like stepping into first-class on an airplane after only  ever flying coach. They had all the same stuff that we had, but instead  of bare concrete, there was actual paint on the walls, a permanent  massage table, a brand new heavy punching bag hung from the ceiling on a  chain. Plenty of bells and whistles.

Steam poured out of a cracked-open door and I could hear a shower  running. I walked over and paused by the door, before knocking even more  tentatively than I had on the other one.

"Austin? I'm here for the-"

"I told Ross to tell you I wasn't ready!" he yelled out.

"Uh …  no I'm not …  uh …  I work here? Henry said you needed a massage?"         

     



 

"Oh, yeah. I'll be right out."

The sound of running water stopped and I caught a flash of movement in  the steamed-up mirror through the opening. Quickly, I turned and faced  the other way, ashamed at the flush of excitement that came unbidden and  made me bite my bottom lip without thinking about it.

After a couple minutes I felt the waft of air as the door was pulled  open behind me, and turned to face him. Standing there, wearing only a  towel, with beads of water dripping down his neck and torso from his  hair, was fan (and my) favorite, Austin "The Killer" Aquila.

That perfectly sculpted body looked like it was made from granite by an  artist with an eye for sin, then decorated with ink in designs that  curled all over. His thick arms had contours that drew my eyes up to his  broad shoulders, and then sent them down across his pecs and over each  and every bump of his abs.

His lower abdominals formed lines that narrowed as my eyes roamed lower …   lower …  lower until the visual ride was abruptly cut off by the towel,  which he held up by one hand.

I looked up and heard my jaw click shut when our eyes met. I only hoped  I'd closed my mouth before I drooled. If I was looking at him like a  piece of art, he was looking at me like a piece of food, and it took all  my willpower not to find a plate to climb on to.

All heavyweights have a certain presence. It would be hard not to when  you're a tank that has briefly assumed human form, but Austin had  presence that almost seemed to make the air crackle between us and  around him. His eyes, they were looking at me in a way that would give  my dad a stroke. That brought me partway back to reality.

"Um …  over there?" I pointed at the massage table.

"You sure you work here?" he asked.

"Yeah, I …  I normally work in Tier-2 … "

Austin closed the distance between us and leaned down towards me. My  heart tried to jump up my throat to get a better view out my mouth at  all that solid muscle so close to me, and my ability to breathe be  damned.

"Because, if you're another girl that stole a uniform just to get in here …  well, I'll have to do to you what I did to her."

A drop of water fell from his head and landed on my ear, making me  flinch. The scent of soap and the faint musk of him filled my lungs as I  took a deep breath to offer whatever reassurance I could.

"I promise I work here," I squeaked.

I'd been around men before, I'd seen Austin on TV before, but I'd never  felt anything like this. I'd always been able to keep what my father  called my evil nature shut up in a box, but something about this was  different.