Untamed (70 page)

Slowly, his manhood inches into me, and I grip onto him as if for dear life as he fills me up, makes me feel so unbelievably, fantastically full.

I moan into his ears, only for him to hear because I know he loves it. He bites my shoulder, licks a stretch of skin up my neck, and then he pulls his hips back and thrusts all the way into me.

I dig my nails into his skin, moan louder into his ear, and he starts to fuck me standing. Our bodies slaps wetly together, and he guides my forehead to his so he can look into my eyes.

It’s a struggle to be quiet – we have to be discreet – and he’s making it so damn difficult.

“Duncan,” I breathe, wrapping my arms tighter around his neck, pushing his face down against my breasts. I feel his tongue in between, and then he bites me.

“Your fight’s starting soon,” I say.

“I don’t want to leave you.” He thrusts more forcefully into me. I tighten up in pleasure, grip onto his waist harder with my legs.

“Lean back,” he says, and he supports my weight with his arms, and I hold onto his neck with just one arm, lean back in his grip so that there’s space between us.

“Come for me,” he says. I know an order when I hear one.

I send my free hand down in between us, start rubbing my clit while he fucks me.

“Moan for me.”

I moan for him, rub myself, bring myself racing to the edge, love how he makes me feel.

“You are so fucking sexy,” he growls at me as I moan, let my eyes fall shut in bliss. “I love how tight your little pussy is around my cock. You make me feel so good.”

He senses my nearness, thrusts harder and faster into me, and my thighs tense and that spring coils tighter and tighter, and then I’m right on the edge again, so, so, so close…

“Duncan,” I breathe, bunching up my face.

He leans forward, takes my lips in his just as I climax, and I moan into his mouth, crest hard and tight and intense, so intense it almost hurts.

I shake and tremble. White hot bliss sears my senses, and I’m in heaven, and I never want this feeling to end.

He drives me through it, makes it last, and I’m limp in his arms, wracked by pleasure, barely able to hold on anymore.

I feel so damn good, so close to him, so intimate with him. Just me and him, alone.

And then I’m passed the peak, panting, sweating, clinging onto him.

His thrusts slow, and we stop moving, and he holds me tight against him, his cock still hard inside me.

He holds me for ages, refuses to let me go. His breathing slows, and he smells me, kisses me beneath my ear.

His lips find mine again, but this time the kiss is gentler. Our tongues dance, and I wish this didn’t have to end.

I shudder as he slides himself out of me, and sets me down onto my feet. My knees are wobbly, weak, and I have to stand against him, lean my bodyweight onto him. He holds my face in his hands, looks into my eyes.

“Are you okay?” I ask, panting, stroking his face, feeling his stubble against my hand. “You seem different tonight.”

Duncan shrugs. “Something feels different tonight.”

Our intimacy seems to crack. We step apart from each other. I smooth my skirt, my top, fix my hair. Duncan pulls on his compression shorts.

He’s still hard as an iron bar, and it’s going to take quite a few minutes for that to slowly go way.

There’s a silence between us. This happens before every fight, but this time… it feels more pronounced.

“Don’t get too beat up,” I tell him, taking my phone out of my bag quickly and checking it. “I can’t stand watching you get hurt.”

“I promise,” he tells me. I go to him, let him wrap me up in his arms, and I hear him say to me, “I really want to know what you were going to tell me.”

I feel a pang of guilt, but know I can’t distract him during his fight with his toughest opponent yet.

“It’s nothing,” I say. I know it’s a lie but it’s the best thing to do. “I’ll tell you afterward. I promise.”

He nods, accepts what I say, doesn’t push it any further. I love that about him… he knows when to push, and when not to.

He presses his forehead to mine, runs a thumb over my lip. “You are amazing,” he tells me. There is only sincerity in his voice. “The best thing that ever happened to me.”

Then, as if unable to stand that moment of gushiness, he separates from me, and walks around the changing room stretching. He begins his breathing exercises, thumps his shoulders and chest with closed fists, starts to psych himself up for the fight.

I find my underwear on the sofa, pull it on quickly, and then share one last look with him. He nods at me.

Already I can see the fire in his eyes, and that stony expression on his face. He’s getting into his acute zone, that mental realm where he can beat a man to within inches of his life and not have it affect him.

To this day, I don’t know how he does it. Duncan’s never
not
returned from that realm, even if he sometimes gets a little punch-drunk.

“I’ll be watching,” I tell him.

“Then that means I’ll win.”

“Why’s that?”

“Can’t lose in front of the most beautiful girl in the room.” He smirks playfully.

“Groan,” I say, rolling my eyes. “But you better win. Don’t get hurt, okay?”

“I won’t.”

I leave him then, pick up my bag, and go back out into the fray.

The same three girls who were trying to get in to see Duncan mill about, shoot death-stares my way.

I ignore them, don’t have time for that bullshit.

Duncan’s all mine, anyway, and that’s never going to change.

He’ll now do his final warm-ups, and take his electrolyte-cocktail drinks that he mixes up himself. Fast-acting supplements to prevent cramping, boost overall oxygen uptake, get his balance of minerals right so water isn’t pulled out of his blood and muscles and into his bladder.

He’ll do his stretches, put heating strips on his major muscle groups to dilate the blood vessels there. He’ll do breathing exercises, controlled hyperventilation to saturate his muscles with as much oxygen as possible prior to the fight, to prevent the initial burst of lactic acid build-up that comes with the start to every fight; they go zero-to-one-hundred in under a second in the cage.

I know it all by heart. I’ve researched the biochemistry, helped Duncan to formulate his cocktails. We’ve consulted with nutritionists, doctors, trying to find the perfect balance for Duncan’s body.

His metabolism blazes, and he burns through energy reserves quickly. At just five-percent body-fat, he doesn’t have enough free energy on his body to truly last him through a fight without him feeling fatigued, and we can’t let his blood-sugar levels drop.

There’s no stoppage in underground fighting unless there’s excessive blood. There are no rounds, no breaks. It’s fight until one falls, plain and simple. That means no rehydration. That means no fuel-uptake.

It’s more complicated than the pros, in that respect. You have to get your body
more
prepared. In the event of stoppage because of too much blood, usually by then it doesn’t matter anymore. If there’s that much blood, somebody needs to go to the hospital.

Duncan will take some slow-release glucose pills to keep his sugar levels up. He’ll take beta-alanine to keep his muscles working efficiently and combat natural fatigue.

But really, in the end, these are all just the small bits that, from the outside, we
can
control. Most of the work toward winning a fight will be the physical work, something that can’t be band-aided by supplements.

Duncan’s simply going to have to fight better than Manic. I’ve seen the videos of Manic with him, scouted Manic’s fighting style with him.

It’s going to be Duncan’s toughest fight yet. I hate to think it, but there is some flicker of doubt in me that he’ll win this fight.

It’s highly possible that this will be his first loss.

Losing is part of it, he knows it and I know it. This
Cinderella
run he’s been on has been fantastic and entirely to his credit, but he’s going to have to lose someday.

I’m worried about how he’ll take it.

It will be a shock for him if he does. I know, psychologically, he can weather that storm. But to say he won’t be bruised would be to say that he wasn’t human.

And he’s very, very human.

I make my way through the stands, go to the table where Dad and Frank sit with the other mob bosses. He beckons me to him, whispers into my ear, tells me he needs to speak to me privately.

“The fight’s about to start,” I say to him. Duncan’s already walking out of the back, and the gaggle of girls are now around him, screaming and screeching, cellphone flashes blinding.

But Dad’s expression is hard. He looks pissed about something. He gets up, excuses himself from the table, and pulls me by my elbow out of the bleacher-stands.

I cast a look over my shoulder, see Duncan walking around the cage. Any moment now he’s going to look for me, but he’s not going to find me.

God damn it, fighting is about routine! Dad is going to fuck this all up. Every fight has to be the same, same ritual. That means Duncan has to find me in the crowd. We
have
to meet eyes. He
has
to see that I’m there supporting him.

Duncan
needs
me.

“Dad!” I cry, trying to shake my elbow free of his grip, but he just holds me harder, and pulls me roughly toward an empty portion of the hangar, behind the bookie’s table, and into a back room where all the betting money is collected and kept under-guard.

“Hey!” I cry, but his eyes shoots daggers at me. He whistles at the two guards, and they leave, shut the door behind them.

Now that we have some privacy, I let loose. “What the hell is wrong with you, Dad? Why are you being such a fucking prick tonight?” I rub my elbow. His grip was hard. “You hurt me, you know!”

He ignores what I say. “Is there something you want to tell me?” he asks, hands on his hips. He’s huffing. His face is red, and I know the look of anger in his eyes when I see it. His gold teeth seem to glint a darker shade.

Inside my head, bomb sirens start to wail. I look around the room, see briefcases tagged, ordered, stacked on shelves. Duffel bags, paper envelopes. I spy one brown envelope with Frank’s messy scrawl on the outside. His fifty-grand bet on Duncan.

“No,” I tell Dad.

Dad pinches his brow, then rubs a hand over his gleaming, sweating bald dome. He’s really worked up.

“Deidre,” he says, his voice barely in control. “Don’t lie to me.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t lie to me, Deidre!” he snaps, smacking his fist against the wall. I wince, step backward reflexively.

“Dad,” I say, shaking my head. “What the hell is wrong with you? You’re scaring me.”

He takes a deep breath of air before asking in a low voice, “Are you pregnant?”

I swallow. I haven’t told anybody, not even Duncan.

How the hell does he know?

Chapter Twenty Eight