Never Choose Flight (A Fighter Romance Novel) (3 page)

Once those words had left my mouth, he stepped down even harder on the gas. We were going twenty, maybe thirty over the speed limit. And he was not going to slow down.

He stayed off the freeway. Stayed on the back roads. Bumping over the curb. Driving like a madman.

“You need to understand,” he said, “that this isn’t going to be a relationship. Nothing like that. We aren’t going to start dating because of this.”

I was holding onto the sides of my seat, constantly bracing for an impact that never came. “I understand.”

“I’m just going to use you,” he said. “But you can use me too. We can use each other.”

I nodded, but he didn’t see me. I was glad though - I did not want him to take his eyes off the road.

Eventually we were off of Terminal Island, tearing through some neighborhood I’d never been too. It was still mainly warehouses and manufacturing plants. I think I saw a slaughter house. But then, in the middle of it all, was an old house. Almost a mansion. Between one huge steel building and another was one house. I guess the original owner didn’t want to sell or something, so it stayed the same as the land all around was bought up and industrialized.

“Here we are,” he said, slamming on the breaks. The car bumped into the curb and then it was off, as was his seat belt. The keys landed in my lap and then the next thing I knew he was holding my door open for me.

I dropped my keys into my purse and then stepped out of the car. I closed the door behind myself, and then I guess he decided that I was moving too slowly. I felt one arm at the back of my knees, another across my back, and then I was in the air. He carried me like a fireman. Kicked his front door open. I hardly got a chance to look around the place before we were in his bedroom and he tossed me onto the bed.

Once I was there he paused for a second. Looking down at me. Staring me up and down.
Me
. Earlier today I thought I wasn’t attractive enough for
anyone
to want me. And now this model man, this Adonis, was taking me in like a piece of meat.

“You sure?” he asked.

I lay on his bed and looked up at him. Standing over me. “I’m sure,” I said.

His hands were on my hips, then his fingers slid into my belt loops. He pulled down my pants, and my panties went with them. He tossed them aside and then looked at me. Looked at a part of me that no one had ever given much attention.

I thought he was just going to drop his pants and go for it. I looked down and saw a bulge - so he was definitely
ready
. But he didn’t. He licked his lips. Then he pulled me too the edge of the bed and got onto his knees.

My feet dangled above the ground and he got to work. It was rhythmic. It was wet. His head moved up and down. He wasn’t going fast. He wasn’t rushing. But what he was doing, he was doing perfectly. Hitting the perfect spot in the perfect way again and again and again.

He felt like an unstoppable force. He wrapped an arm around one of my legs, hand landing on my curvy hip, and he could feel the pleasure waving through my body. But he didn’t let it affect him. He was set in what he was going to do, and there was nothing that I could do to stop him.

So I joined in. Moving my hips up and down, I began to grind his face in the same rhythm that he was licking. His range increased, and it felt so good. My quick shallow gasps slowly turned into full-on moans. Noises that I hadn’t made in years. No one ever made me feel this good.

I couldn’t believe this was happening. With a stranger. A man I’d met meer hours ago. A man who could have any woman he wanted. He was taking me. He was making
me
feel good. And I loved it, even if he wasn’t the kind of man I’d ever want to date. This wasn’t about dating. This wasn’t about love at first site. This was about feeling good. And damn did it feel good.

I felt his hand crawl up my inner thigh, and then two of his fingers were inside of me. The feeling was so much that I couldn’t keep up with the grinding. My back arched and my hands stretched out to either side, gripping the sheets tightly.

He curled and uncurled. Rubbing the part of me opposite where his tongue was. And then I could feel it building. I could feel the pleasure building up. One by one, the muscles in my body started to tense up. It was almost painful.

First it was just the extremities. My fingers and toes curled. And then it moved in. My arms. My legs. And then every muscles in my body was tense, right down the my innermost core.

He did not stop. He did not slow down. He kept on lapping with his wide, wet tongue. And then it happened.

There was a blinding, pulsing moment of release. A wave spread through my body that left every muscle much more relaxed than it had been in the first place.

He could tell it had happened. I’d been vocal about it. More vocal than I thought I’d be comfortable with, but he really hadn’t given me an option. There was no way I could have stayed quiet during that.

He stood up and grabbed a towel. Wiped off his face. And then he dropped his pants. And pulled off his shirt.

Every single part of him was
rock hard
. He must have had, like, two percent body fat or something. I could actually see all six parts of his six pack. I’d never been with a man who looked anything like him. He slid on a condom.

As he got closer I saw more. I saw scars, all over him. Big ones and little ones. Scratches and stabs. There were still several fresh bruises on his skin, I can only assume from recent fights.

He pushed me down the bed, so my head rested on his pillow. He planted his hands firmly on either side of my curvy body. I felt it brush against me, and then press, and then all of the sudden it was inside of me. He went fully deep - filling me up and make my eyes roll back in my head.

I was still wearing my shirt, but he pulled it up as he began thrusting. He unclipped my bra and touched me - I’m so sensitive there.

We stared into each other’s eyes and I bit my lip. It was almost too much. What he’d done to me before, and now this. Him. Inside of me. Every inch of his body as hard as a statue. The same fluid, expert motion that he’d performed on that punching bag. But now the mission wasn’t destruction. It was pleasure.

I could feel his arousal growing inside as he stared down at me. He started going so fast. I didn’t mind - there was plenty of wetness. He muscular body had no barriers in this regard. He didn’t need to slow down or take breaks. He pumped away at full speed, letting the pleasure build up inside as I writhed and gasped beneath him.

Then it began. Throbbing at first. And growth. I didn’t think it was possible for him to grow anymore, but then he did. And again. And again. Stretching me wide open inside, reaching parts of me that had never been touched before.

Suddenly his body began to convulse. And for the first time, his rhythm faltered. It was too much. It felt too good for his pace to remain perfect. The throbbing sensation turned to pumping, as he pressed himself as deep into me as possible, the final culmination of our agreement sending shivers down my spine.

He held himself deep inside of me for a moment, and then looked down at me with a smile. He looked different. Satisfied. All that pent-up energy that he’d been left with after the short fight had been used up. He was finished.

He managed to get up and pull off the condom, grab a pair of boxer briefs. The last thing I remember of that night was watching him pull them on and thinking that he looked exactly like an underwear model.

* * *

I woke up the next morning to his arm around me. The light shone in from the window, and a truck rumbled by loudly. I was still wearing only my shirt, under a thin blanket that I guess he’d pulled over me. I really had slept like a log. I hadn’t had a night like that in… ever.

A morning of cuddling sounded fantastic, but then I realized what day it was. Monday. I quickly glanced around, but I didn’t see a clock anywhere. Who doesn’t have a clock? Fighters, I guessed.

He was still entirely asleep, and I tried to slip out of bed without him noticing. I grabbed my purse and pulled out my phone. No missed calls or texts or anything. But then I saw the time.

Ten fifteen.

I start work at nine every morning, Monday to Friday. My eyes darted around the room. I saw my panties and pants in a pile in one corner, and my bra on the floor next to the bed. I pulled on the bottoms, then went for the bra. Snapped my boobs into place, and then he spoke.

“Leaving already?”

I looked at him, and he was still pretty unconscious. “Yep,” I said. “Gotta go. I’m late for work.”

“You can’t go like that,” he said.

I glanced at myself in the mirror. He was right. My hair was insane. That’s what I get for not brushing it before bed. And my makeup was smeared all over the place. “Could I use your shower?” I asked.

“Sure thing,” he said. “It’s just down the hall. Use all the hot water you want.”

“Thanks,” I said. I quickly walked down the hall, freeing my breasts once again and dropping my pants. I peed.

The bathroom wasn’t the cleanest I’d ever been in, but it wasn’t bad for a man who lived on his own. I got up and looked at myself in the mirror. Naked. Exposed. All of my curves and rolls there for the eye to behold. But for some reason, for the first time in a very long time, I thought I looked good. Damn good. I was sexy. The curves weren’t gross, I thought. They were womanly.

I got into the shower. There was a solitary bar of soap with which to clean myself. I turned the water on, almost all the way hot, and I let it run down my body. Every part of me felt amazing. Like my whole life now took place in a jacuzzi. The room steamed up, and I let my hair get soaked. That was the only way to deal with it when it got this wet.

The water felt so good on my body. I had a shower every morning, and it never really felt like anything special. But this time it felt different. Maybe it was the fact that I was in a stranger’s bathroom. Or the amazing sex I’d had the night before. Or maybe the water was hotter. All I knew was that it felt good. Just a regular shower felt good after what Malcolm had done to me.

I rinsed myself off, soaped myself up, and then rinsed off again. I stepped out onto the dry mat and grabbed a towel. Dried myself off as well as possible, and then got dressed. I wiped the steam off the mirror, and looked at myself. Something really was different. My eyes looked wider. My smile looked happier. I walked out of the bathroom, on my way to my car.

But then I walked past the kitchen, and there he was. Still wearing nothing but the boxer briefs. Standing over the stove top, where a few eggs were sizzling. The toaster was buzzing feintly. He turned to look at me. “Stay for breakfast?” he asked.

That answer should have been no. I should have said no and then walked out, and driven to work. Hopefully getting there less than two hours late. But instead, and maybe it was because of the sexy, scantily clad man in front of me, I said, “Sure.”

I put my purse down and sat at the table. It was a horrid yellow color, and I saw that his plates and cups were all made of plastic. He served up a couple eggs tossed on a bit of salt, and then spread some strawberry jam on the toast and tossed it down in front of me.

“Something to drink?” he offered.

“Yes,” I said, biting into the toast. “Coffee please.”

He inhaled sharply. “Shit. I should have known you would say that.”

I stared at him. “Do you not have any coffee?”

“Nope,” he said. “I don’t drink it. And I don’t entertain much.”

“Bullshit,” I said.

“Seriously, no coffee.”

“I meant the other part.”

“What?”

“You must bring girls home all the time.”

He looked at me. He sat down across from me. “What makes you say that?”

He sat comfortable, almost entirely naked. He wasn’t ashamed of any part of his body, and it made sense. He had nothing to be ashamed of.

“A guy like you,” I said. “I’ve known you for twelve hours, and I’ve seen how many girls hit on you.”

“And how many of them did I bring home?”

“One?”

“Zero,” he corrected. “You didn’t hit on me.”

“So you’re telling me that you don’t bring home a different girl every night?”

“Fuck no,” he said. “Pardon me. No, I do not bring home a different girl every night.”

I just kept looking at him while I ate my eggs.

“I mean, I used to. For a while. A few months. It’s true, I don’t have any trouble finding someone who’s interested in coming back to my place. But it was never any good.”

“Unlucky?”

“No, I mean there wasn’t ever anything between me and whoever it was. No real connection. We didn’t care about each other at all. And so the sex was just, like, a really complicated way of masturbating. That often ended in bad feelings. Unrequited love. That kind of thing.”

“So you think we have some sort of connection?” I asked.

He stood up, having already cleaned his plate. “Maybe. Sure felt like it. And that’s why I was scared. Scared to confirm that feeling.” He stood by the sink where he tossed his dishes. “So you should probably go.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t you say you had a job?”

“Oh, right.”

“The paper isn’t going to sell itself.”

“I guess not,” I said. I finished up what was on my plate, then stood up to leave.

“Look,” he said. “I know I’m sending mixed messages here. And I’m sorry about that. But the simple fact is, connection or no, we can’t be together. You need to leave, and you shouldn’t come back. And I need to take your business card and tear it up, just so that I don’t have your number anymore. Because I’ll call you if I get the chance.”

“But why?” I asked. I know it was what we agreed to, but it still didn’t feel quite right.

“I’m not a lover,” he said. “I’m a fighter. And I don’t want you to get dragged into this. It isn’t safe for someone like you. Especially if people start seeing you around someone like me.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” I asked.

He paused, then simply said, “You’re late for work.”

“Right,” I said. “Well, goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Jessica.” He said it in such a fatalistic way.

I walked through the house, out the front door, and then down the stairs to the road. I got in my car and drove off. Towards work. I spent the whole ride trying not to think about him. Trying not to think about what he’d done. It worked out horribly. Every memory I tried to blocked replayed itself in vivid, erotic detail. The sensation of his tongue between my legs. The feeling of him throbbing, deep inside of me. I swear I almost crashed a couple times just from the memories.

By the time I got to work, it was eleven o’clock and I was horny all over again. I wanted more of it. More of him. But I had heard what he said. We couldn’t be together. I needed to stay away. It wasn’t safe for us to be together.