Kicker (DS Fight Club Book 1) (18 page)

Charlotte looked around her new home after the movers brought in the last pieces of furniture and boxes. She felt as if she had consumed a whole magnum of champagne—giddy, light-headed, and maybe a little bit sick to her stomach.

She had completely splurged on this move, the only move she had ever done as an adult. Most of the packing, loading, moving, and unloading were all completed by professionals, but she was going to touch everything in her house and put it exactly where
she
wanted it. She took one more look around and decided to go ahead and start unpacking.

She was in the middle of the third box of bathroom items—how in the world had she ended up with so many scents of body wash?—when a knock came on her door.

Curious, she looked out the peephole to see Em and Bailey on her front porch, grinning and holding up a bottle of prosecco and bags of take-out.

She flung open the door and lunged toward the women, catching them a huge hug.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Charlotte exclaimed.

“Honey, you have a lot of stuff for someone who left a whole apartment full of furniture behind. Let’s have some dinner before it gets cold, and then we’ll help you do some unpacking.” Em gave Charlotte a little squeeze, and all the girls went into the house.

“Oh, Charlotte, this is just perfect. It looks like you’ve been here for years,” Bailey said as she looked around in wonder. “How did you find all this furniture in such a short amount of time? It’s just perfect for the house.”

Charlotte chuckled. “Well, I kind of had a whole storage unit of furniture that I picked up here and there over the years—furniture and pieces that
I
really liked, that were reflective of
my
personality.”

Em looked around the living room. “I didn’t ever imagine that boho chic would go so well with midcentury modern in a 1910 Queen Anne, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t. I love it.”

Charlotte pinked up at the compliments, smiling shyly. “You really do?” she asked, and Em and Bailey nodded enthusiastically.

“Oh, let me get some glasses out. I know exactly what box they’re in, too.”

Bailey set out the take-out on the kitchen table while Em joined Charlotte in the kitchen to help set the table. Em rubbed her hands over the counter tops and cabinet fronts.

“Boy, Ryan and Jason did a great job with these, didn’t they?”

“They really did,” Charlotte said as she opened one of the many boxes that still sat on the kitchen counters.

And then she froze. She took a deep breath and then started pulling glasses out of the box.

“Charlotte? What’s wrong?” Em moved to Charlotte’s side and looked in the box. “Oh, honey. Is it his?”

Charlotte’s face crumpled. “Yes,” she whispered. She stroked the singlet with one finger. “I borrowed it when I went down to Montezuma.”

“Wait—you went down to his hometown? Did you meet his parents?”

Charlotte nodded, then took a deep breath, and told the girls about her trip to middle Georgia and all that happened in the weeks after. And when she finished telling them everything that happened, including Pierce bringing Tig over to the apartment after the fight, Bailey let out a long, low whistle.

“Charlotte, you’ve got to tell him how you feel.”

“I don’t want him to feel pressured. I know he already feels very torn about having to choose his fighting career over the family farm; I don’t want him to feel like he has to choose me over something else.”

“But you care for him, right?” Em’s soft brown eyes were sympathetic.

“Yes,” Charlotte whispered.

Em slapped her hand against the table. “Well, then, go get the idiot. March right into that gym, and take what’s yours.”

“What?” Charlotte looked horrified, and Em rolled her eyes.

“Girl, sometimes you just have to take what you want in this world. Especially when what you want is a goofy man who is scared to death.”

“And this worked for you, I take it?”

“Um, yeah. I, uh, essentially busted into his house and dared him to either kiss me or give me the permanent kiss off.”

Charlotte raised her eyebrows. She could not imagine Em bossing that huge husband of hers around, but then again, they
had
gotten married.

“And what was his reaction?”

It was Em’s turn to pink up. “He told me he was going to eat my cunt until I couldn’t stand it.”

Charlotte’s and Bailey’s mouths both fell open, but Em, while still blushing, just shrugged. “He likes to talk dirty.”

Bailey fanned herself. “Wow. I thought Colin talked hot. Wowie.”

“I need to do this, don’t I? For myself. Not for Tig or anyone else. Just me.”

Em and Bailey nodded, and Charlotte took a deep breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth.

“I’m going to do this. But tomorrow. I gotta figure out a plan of attack first.” Charlotte nodded ferociously at Em and then at Bailey. “But now, tiramisu. Because I can.”

“Yes, you can.” Em and Bailey said, both grinning widely, and the women sat down to dessert-for-dinner, and to plot. Operation Kicker was officially under way.

Tig was hungry, he was horny, and most of all, he was lonely. And all of that made him impatient and in a rare foul mood, and Paddy’s smart mouth was not helping matters at all.
Sweet Mary, Paddy’s obnoxious
.

“Ach, boyo, quick, quick, quick, quick,” Paddy taunted Tig from under his helmet and behind the punch mitts. “You’ve got heavy hands, yeah, but you have to catch them before you can knock ’em out.”

The wiry Irishman, even at almost seventy, was cut and had the heaviest hands that Tig had ever met, as evident from the knot that was forming on his upper arm from Paddy’s demonstration of how Tig was not adequately protecting himself.

“Again.” Paddy barked. And Tig shook his head and began. Again.

As the two men moved around the mat, Tig moved into the mental zone where he did not see anything but the man in front of him, did not think of anything but trying to anticipate what that sneaky Irish sumbitch’s next move would be. He was so far in the zone that he did not notice that the yelled conversations of the other fighters had died down enough to actually hear the Allman Brothers song playing over the loudspeakers.

Paddy put the punch mitts down and bellowed, “What the fuck is going on?” And Tig clocked him, hard, on the side of the head, knocking the trainer down on his ass. Paddy looked at him, mouth slightly open in shock.

“Well, thank fuck, finally, Tig.
That’s
what I’m talking about.”

Tig chuckled and stuck his hand out to help a grinning Paddy to his feet.

Tig began to talk, but Paddy’s grin grew wider, and he held up his hand.

“Boyo, you’ve got a visitor.”

What?

Tig turned around and saw the most likely reason for the quiet.

Charlotte.

The woman that had occupied every spare moment of his thoughts—and some not so spare moments—was standing in front of him, in the same outfit that she had on when he first laid eyes on her.

She looked beautiful. She looked like she was waiting for him to say something.

“What the hell are you doing here? I’m in the middle of training,” were the words that came out of his mouth.

Her mouth dropped open. “Really?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Tig heard Paddy mutter under his breath, and then he felt a strong hand on his shoulder. Tig turned around, reluctantly taking his eyes off of Charlotte.

“You need to get sorted, boyo. We’ve not got time for this shite.” Tig watched Paddy stalk off across the gym until he heard Charlotte clear her throat.

“Hi,” she said when he turned back to look at her again.

Tig’s eyes roamed over her figure, from the top of the sparkly clip that held back her dark hair, down to her red-soled shoes, but he did not say a word.

Charlotte huffed another laugh. “Really?” she repeated. “Really, Tig? Aren’t you going to say
anything
?”

I miss you. I was an idiot. Can you love a broke-ass peanut farmer? Because this broke-ass peanut farmer loves you.

“You look nice today.” Tig fidgeted. “I heard you moved out of that apartment. Good for you.”

“Oh, Tig.” Charlotte stepped up to Tig, getting in his space like he had so often invaded hers. “Is that all?”

“I think it’s good for you. You need to do something that’s just for you, for no one else. I know you haven’t ever done that.”

“Oh, Tig,” Charlotte said, shaking her head. “Honey, you need to take your own advice.”

“What?” Tig blinked at her.

Charlotte stepped closer into him, into his space, close enough that he could smell that perfume that she wore.

“What if what I want to do. . . is
you
?” She stepped even closer to him, and Tig was completely surrounded by her presence, by her scent.

She leaned into him, laid a small hand on his chest, and stretched up onto her toes to whisper in his ear. “On the kitchen table, on the floor in the middle of the living room, under the pergola in my new backyard and in the garden.”

“Holy crap.”

Charlotte laid her hand on his sweet face, nudging him to look at her directly. “Sweetheart, you just need to do something for
yourself
as well. Let me give my love to you. . .because you’ve already got my heart. I’m just going to ask one thing of you.”

“What’s that?” he whispered.

“You’re going to have to give all your love to me, too. That’s all I’m going to ask of you.”

A slow smile spread across Tig’s face. “Easy enough, Charlotte. Easy enough.”

And he bent to kiss her, his arms going around her waist and pulling her tightly to him. Tig could feel her lips curl up into a smile as she kissed him, and he pulled her even tighter to him.

Charlotte broke the kiss. “Why did this have to happen during the Allman Brothers?”

Tig laughed and lifted her off her feet and spun her around. And when they embraced again, hoots and cheering and clapping filled DS Fight Club, at least until a shrill whistle silenced the encouragement.

“Kicker. You have seventy-two hours—make the most of it,” Paddy bellowed. “Now fucking get out of here.”

Tig stood in the entranceway of Charlotte’s new house and grinned. “Now, this is more like it. . . more like you, sweetheart. I love it.”

“You do?”

“I do.” Tig tugged on Charlotte’s hand. “Come here, honey.”

She let him pull her into his arms, and once there, closed her eyes while he stroked the back of her head.

Charlotte could feel Tig’s fingers working into her hair, loosening the complicated braid and removing the bobby pins that secured it to the back of her head. She heard the pins clatter on the tabletop, and she sighed as Tig gently tugged her hair free and combed it with his fingers.

“It’s a wonder you don’t have a headache,” he murmured. “Girl, you got a lot of hair.”

Charlotte chuckled, and she felt Tig press his lips to the top of her head.

“What do you want to do, sweetheart?” he whispered.

Now that he was here, she did not know what she wanted to do, so she stayed in his arms, both of them swaying to silent music.

He hugged her a little closer, a little tighter, a little more urgently, and Charlotte nudged him toward her bedroom. They never let each other go; they just made their way to the bed, almost as if they were still dancing.

Normally she would have been horrified at the unmade state of her bed and her nightclothes strewn all over, but she did not care today. Unpacking was the last thing on her mind when she set off to the fight club that morning.

Tig kissed her once more and gently pulled the cardigan off of her shoulders and folded it neatly. Then he began to untie the pussycat bow at her neck.

He huffed a laugh. “This blouse is so you,” he said, running his fingers over the small pearl buttons as he unfastened them. “It seems so delicate, but it’s silk that’s deceptively strong.”

Tig caught Charlotte’s chin in his big callused palm, nudging her face up so she met his eyes. “You get tied up in silk, and you’re never going to get loose.”

Tig’s fingers danced across her shoulders and back, then fluttered over her neck and cheek, not pressuring her, only reassuring her of his presence. He pressed his lips against her hair once again. “So beautiful,” he murmured against her hair.

They continued to kiss while Tig finished undressing Charlotte. She stepped out of her skirt when it dropped to the floor, and she stood in front of Tig, in that same bra and panty set and pair of high heels that originally took his breath away.

“Goddamn.” Tig whistled low through his teeth. “Man, you are something else, baby.”

Charlotte blushed and flipped the heavy weight of her hair over her shoulder.

And promptly got it tangled in her watchband.

“Holy crap!” Charlotte hissed. “Ouch.”

Tig stood with his mouth open for a moment, and then he guffawed.

“Tig. Help me, you . . . man!”

Tig was still laughing even as he helped get Charlotte untangled. By the time he got her loose, she was laughing as well, but her hair was a snarled mess.

“Where’s your hairbrush, honey?” he asked, wiping a tear from her face while she still giggled.

Charlotte gestured to the bathroom, and Tig made his way there, shaking his head.

He located the brush and huffed a small laugh.
Pink and sparkly. Figures.

“Okay, doll, let me take care of you.”

Tig made Charlotte sit down at her small vanity. He began to brush her hair, first working out the small snarls with his fingers and then brushing it with long, fluid strokes until it gleamed and rippled like a stream of ink.

When he looked at Charlotte’s face in the mirror, he was surprised and saddened to find it tear streaked.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“It was my pleasure,” he said softly, and once again, kissed the side of her face.

Charlotte caught Tig’s arm, and he stayed close to her for a long moment before nudging her to the bathroom where she allowed him to wash her face and give her more kisses.

And then she led him back to the bedroom and pushed him down on the bed.

He grinned up at her, and she realized that she had been parading around, practically naked except for her shoes and lingerie, while Tig remained completely dressed except for his cowboy hat. And she had not thought twice about it.

She grinned back at him and stepped out of one shoe but stopped when Tig’s face crumpled into a frown.

“What?”

“You’re gonna leave those heels on, girl, or I’m gonna be really disappointed.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes—but put her shoe back on—and climbed onto the bed. She leaned down over Tig, whose hands immediately started roaming over her back and ass. “Better, Kicker?”

“Oh, much better.”

*****

The next morning, Charlotte padded into the living room to find Tig sitting on her couch, towel around his waist, cowboy hat on his head, reading the newspaper, and sipping a cup of coffee.

She covered her mouth to stifle her giggle. “Good morning, Tig.”

“Hey, darlin’. Did you sleep well?”

Charlotte nodded, suddenly shy.

Tig glanced down at himself, as if suddenly realizing that his attire might not be exactly what Charlotte was expecting, and then grinned. “I took the opportunity to do some laundry. I hope you didn’t mind. I grabbed a towel out of the dryer so I wouldn’t be sitting bare-assed on your new sofa.”

Charlotte smiled more and shook her head. “Bare-assed would be fine by me.”
Charlotte. I cannot believe you just said that.

Tig grinned broadly and put the newspaper down. “Well, how about that?” And he stood up, the towel dropping off his waist.

Charlotte did not know where to look or not look, so she tried to look at it all, and when he sidled up to her, she automatically put her hands on his trim hips.

“Good morning, pretty lady,” he whispered and bent down to touch his lips to hers. “What did you want to do today?”

“I don’t know.” She stroked his bare hip.

Tig took off his hat and sank to his knees in front of her

“Tig, what are you . . . ?” Charlotte began to ask, but his pulling her panties down rendered her speechless—even more so when he pulled her to him and put his mouth on her mound under her short nightie.

“Oh.”

Tig chuckled as he pulled her leg over his shoulder to better get at where he wanted. He kissed her mound but then pulled his head back. “Is this okay? Can I do this?”

Charlotte nodded, and Tig grinned.

“All right.” And he dove back under the nightdress to return his mouth to her. He pushed her back to the end of the couch, and with a wink, propped her up and spread her legs, making her shriek and giggle.

And when he had finished making her sweaty and squirmy and breathless, he brought her over so completely that all she could do was lay back on the couch, stunned, while Tig grinned up at her.

“Wow.”

Tig chuckled, crawled up on the couch next to her, and cradled her against his chest. When he kissed her, she could smell herself on him, and somehow, that made it even hotter.

Charlotte looked into Tig’s light blue eyes, examining his almost white eyebrows and eyelashes, and grinned.

“Hey.”

“Hey, yourself, pretty lady.”

“Um. That was nice.”

“Sure was.”

“So. What do
you
need?”

“Me?”

“If you could do or have anything right this minute, what would it be?”

Tig’s face grew thoughtful as he traced a finger over her eyebrow. “For just a day, to lose myself in a particular pretty lady and not think about a damn thing other than how I was gonna make her scream my name the next time.”

Charlotte huffed a disbelieving laugh. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. That’s exactly what I want to do.”

She looked at his earnest face that was both so youthful and so wizened at the same time. “Oh, Tig,” she breathed. “What am I gonna do with you?”

“I might have some ideas,” he said with a grin. “How many condoms do you have in that prissy nightstand of yours?”

*****

Tig was sprawled out in Charlotte’s bed, laughing his fool head off at the look of surprise on her face.

“Well, hell, sugar. I certainly did not expect
that
from you,” he said, still chortling. “Jesus. Who would have thought?”

Charlotte pulled the sheets around her and tried to look prissy but ended up rolling around, giggling as well. She shrugged. “I thought it might be interesting to try. . . .”

Tig resumed guffawing. “It was certainly that. You got some tricks up your sleeve, woman.” He leaned over and kissed Charlotte’s bare shoulder and then chuckled some more.

“I’m not wearing any sleeves.” More laughing.

“No, you’re not. You’re not wearing anything except for that beautiful smile of yours.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Oh, man.” He winked at her and pulled her close to him.

Charlotte cupped Tig’s face in her hands. “This has been probably the nicest weekend I’ve ever had in my whole life.”

Hearing things like that made Tig sad—sad that he did not meet Charlotte earlier, sad that she had had so little joy in her life that being given the business by a peanut farmer constituted a notable high point. He pulled her into his chest so she could not see his reaction, and he just held her close for a long moment.

Charlotte’s nimble, curious fingers brought him out of his reverie with a whoop. “Holy shit, Charlotte. Good Lord.”

It was Charlotte’s turn to laugh at Tig’s expression. “What?” she asked, all wide-eyed innocence.

Tig kicked the covers off and pointed at his hard cock. “This is what. How do you do this to me, over and over again?”

“I thought you liked it.”

“Hell yeah, I do, but damn. I guess that’s what they mean about cougars being insatiable.” He scooted out of the way of a swipe.

“I am not a cougar,” she sniffed. “Wait. Am I?”

“I think if you have to ask if you’re a cougar, you probably aren’t one.” Tig leaned over and gave her a kiss on the nose.

Charlotte rolled her eyes and harrumphed at him. “What are you going to do about
that
?”

“Probably take matters into my own hands,” Tig said with a straight face and a tug on his cock.

Charlotte pulled his hand away as she leaned over and scattered small kisses all over his flat stomach and down the small trail of fuzz that led to the area of his discomfort. Tig’s eyes rolled back in his head and he blew out a breath, enjoying the feel of Charlotte’s heavy, silky hair cascading over his torso and her hot, wet mouth on his cock.

“My Lord, you’re good at this,” he murmured. “I like it. A lot.”

Charlotte’s hand snaked up to tweak at his nipple, and Tig pulled her off him and caught her mouth with his. He groaned into Charlotte’s mouth while he spent, and when it was all through, he collapsed back on the bed, rubbery limbed and completely relaxed.

“Thank you,” he said with a laugh.

“Well, you didn’t let me finish what I started.”

Tig opened one eye to see Charlotte pouting at him. “You really wanted me to . . . ?”

Charlotte shrugged. “It would have been fine. Good even. I might kind of want to. . . .”

Tig grinned. “Next round, babe.” He looked at himself. “I think we both need a shower.”

“Nope, we need a bath. I don’t think I can stand up long enough for a shower,” she giggled. “Come on, Tiggy.”

She leaned over and kissed him, and then pulled him out of the bed for the first time in twelve hours.

She bent over the tub, checking on the water, and she heard a strangled gasp behind her. Tig had cocked his head sideways, looking at her.

“See something you like, mister?” Charlotte wiggled her hips and stifled a snort when Tig’s cock twitched.

“Oh, yeah, I do,” he said, walking up to her. “Maybe I don’t need as much recovery time as I thought I did.”

Charlotte sank to her knees on the bathmat and kissed the head of his cock. She stroked his hip and the tattoos that snaked up his thighs to wrap around them.