Trust Me: Matty and Kayla, Book 1 of 3 (The McDaniels Brothers) (4 page)

And, frankly, if she knew anything about MMA, she’d have known that. I’d left 1984 feeling guilty about my plan to make her think I was a bum so she’d quit, and had almost convinced myself to give her a chance, but now I was regretting the change of heart. I should’ve stuck with plan A.

“Not true.” She tipped her chin, and met my gaze unapologetically. “What about Willie Martin? Or Zac Venzetti. He’s an up and comer too, and he’s a better fit for you right now. That’s a fight we can win and we want to start like we want to finish. As winners.”

I stared at her, but, judging by the innocent look on her face, she had no clue that she’d just insulted me. “Meaning I can’t beat Claus,” I said flatly, waiting for it to sink in.

She looked away, cheeks going pink as she tapped her fingernails lightly on the file folder in front of her. “I didn’t say that.”

“You kind of did.”

“Okay, maybe I did. But it’s the truth.”

Mild annoyance expanded into full blown irritation and I shoved back from the desk to stand. “I’m done. Tell Mick to call me if he wants to talk.”

I strode through the door of my tiny office and crossed the deserted gym floor. Once I let her out and locked up again, I’d have the rest of the night to myself to soothe my wounded ego and figure out a way to get Mickey to listen to reason. There had to be another manager out there who-

A sharp kick to my side sent me off balance and I stumbled.
What the fuck?

I wheeled around to face Kayla who stood in fighting stance, her little skirt hiked up to mid-thigh, her high heels lying on a blue mat a few feet away.

“What are y-?”

Her hand snapped out from her side and she punched me square in the jaw. Not hard, but hard enough that my head snapped back. I stared at her like she was fucking nuts
— and, at that point, I was thinking she was— but she just shrugged.

"That's going to happen to you over and over again. You think Claus Nicholson is going to see that wide open space you leave between your hands all the time and not punish you for it? You're out of your mind."

She rolled her shoulders and stepped back, leaving a few yards between us. It was hard not to notice that silky tank top pulling tight over her breasts, but I managed to keep my eyes locked on hers out of self-preservation.

Who knew if she was going to flip a switch and pop me in the jaw again?

"Look, I think it's great that you’re taking some kickboxing classes at the Y or whatever. But this isn't my first rodeo, and-"

Her foot swept out like a fucking mongoose and she checked my thigh hard with her shin.

I frowned at her and finally put my hands up. "I'm not going to spar with you, Red. First of all, it's ridiculous because it has no bearing on what would happen in a fight, and second of all, because you're going to get yourself hu-"

This time, she went balls out and whipped off a neat roundhouse kick that, even though I dodged at the last second, hit me pretty square in the kidney.

She tossed her hair back and grinned. "Talk is cheap, McDaniels. You got something to show me that I didn't see in your tapes, let's see it."

The pulse in her neck was beating
so hard I could see it, and although I'd barely moved a muscle, I could feel mine ramping up in time.

This girl was nothing but a pain in my ass, but some twisted part of me must have liked trouble, because she got my juices flowing.

I stepped back and eyed her, considering. If I said no, she was going to keep badgering me. If I said yes, she could actually get hurt no matter how easy I went on her. I outweighed her by a solid eighty pounds, and even a misplaced punch coming from her end could wind up causing her injury.

She took the decision out of my hands when she came at me, full bore, with a lightning combination. Two quick jabs that skimmed my jaw and an uppercut that I was pretty sure would have actually hurt if she connected clean.

Instinctively, I fell back into my stance and faded the next two shots and then leveled a quick cross her way, tapping her chin in warning. She blinked in surprise, and then a saucy grin stretched her lips.

"I like," she murmured before taking the offensive again, skipping across the floor in a flurry of open-handed blows.

Despite my best effort, a solid half of them landed and I grunted as the last one found its mark, straight to my diaphragm.

"Nice," I admitted, realizing right then that this was no YMCA-level training. She was clearly a serious martial artist
. Tae kwon do, from what I could tell, and fuck if that didn't send both my respect and my dick on the rise.

A chick
who could fight? Hot. So fucking hot, and now all I could think about was wrestling with her in the sheets. Knowing she could take whatever I had to give and more and then turn around and serve it right back.

Her chest was heaving
as we circled one another, cheeks flushed, hair a wild tangle around her shoulders, and it was hard not to stare.

"I'm impressed," I said, voice gritty from all the carnal thoughts roiling around in my head.

"You should be," she responded, dipping in for another quick jab to my side before feinting back again.

She was so quick, so light on her
feet, it was like watching a ballet dancer.

A ba
llet dancer who was intent on bringing the pain.

"But I want
you
to impress
me
. If I'm going to go to gyms and meet with guys and sell you, I want to know what I'm selling, Matty. Come on, surely that's not all you've got."

I don't know if it was the challenge in her eyes or the fact that, for some reason, I didn't want to let her down,
but it finally got to me. I shook off the last of my hesitance and faced her like the worthy opponent she was.

We sparred for a full five minutes, and with every passing second, I realized more and more exactly how skilled she was. I let a few chances to end it pass because I wanted to see what else she could do
, but when she attempted a crescent kick, I used her momentum to lay her flat, going down with her to cushion the fall.

"Now I'm impressed," she
said, her voice breathy as she stared up at me.

"You hurt?" I asked. The words were terse and sounded choked, but fuck if I could help it. Her breasts were crushed against my chest and I could feel her stiff nipples through the cotton of my T-shirt. My cock had never been so hard and I was running on what few brain cells hadn't spontaneously combusted out of sheer lust.

She shifted beneath me and shook her head. "I'm okay. You?"

Was I? I went for brutal honesty, too far gone in my lusty stupor to do anything else.
"Nope."

"Did you twist something?"

I shook my head and took her hand in mine, dragging it between us until she cupped my dick.

She wet her lips and I followed the path of her tongue with my eyes.

This was bad.

Real bad
. This girl was Mickey's protégé, and that meant she was as much my enemy as Mickey himself, didn’t it?

But what was that old sa
ying? Keep your friends close…

"We don’t like each other much, do we?" she asked, her eyes locked on my mouth, her hand closing tighter over my cock, melting every
thought in my head.

"Not much, no," I admitted. But that was a lie. In another place, at another time, I would have liked her a lot. I would have liked her all night
long, and halfway into the morning if she let me.

But like or not, the longer we stayed in that position, the more I had to wonder if she’d let me…

***

Kayla

This shouldn't be happening.

That thought played over and over in my head even as one hand squeezed his massive erection and the other clutched at his back, holding him closer to me.

He’d just admitted he didn’t like me. It should’ve been easy to walk away, but for some reason, that made it harder.

"You want this,
Red?" he muttered, his breath coming harsh and fast in my ear. "If you want it, it's yours. If not, you need to give me some fucking space."

He released my wrist that he’d imprisoned between us and I knew I should pull away.

Instead, I couldn't help but trace the hard contours of that long, thick ridge in his pants again. He let out a low hiss and stayed stock still.

"Jesus Christ."

He rolled away and then shot to his feet and I wondered if he was going to be the one to walk away. A second later, though, he pulled me up to join him, dragging my body against his, grinding his hips against mine, letting me feel every hard inch of him.

How long had it been?
Years since I’d slept with a guy, and that time had been as underwhelming as all the rest of the times. I’d long since given up on sex. Way less disappointment to avoid it altogether than to get my hopes up.

What was it about
Matty McDaniels that had me wanting to give it one more, old school try?

It was like he could read my mind because he leveled me with a lethal grin before dipping his head to kiss me.

Maybe kiss wasn't the right word, because at first, his lips didn't even touch mine. He traced the shape of them with his tongue, so gently, it was almost like a tickle, then he pressed in deeper, tasting the tender flesh inside my bottom lip before touching his tongue to mine.

He let out a muffled groan
, and I realized that I'd been gripping his cock tighter with every slide of his tongue and had him in an iron grasp now. He didn't complain, though. He backed me into the wall until I was pinned and took my hair in his hand, tugging my head back.

"I had a dream about you last night," he said, pulling back far enough to gaze down at me. His pupils were so dilated that the black of them had almost swallowed all that green.
"This hair of yours. I was lying on my bed and you were between my legs, sucking my cock. Your hair was spread out over my thighs, sliding across them every time you moved. I woke up at three AM, my dick was so hard, I couldn't stand up. I jerked off and came inside of thirty seconds."

Maybe I should've been offended, but I was anything but. Even as the doubts that seemed flimsier by the second nipped at my subcon
scious, instinct took over, and the most primal part of me never wanted to stop. Every memory of every kiss...every touch before this evaporated from my mind. It was like I'd gone careening off the earth and landed on a new planet where everything was different. More intense. More desperate. I wasn't hungry for him, I was starving.

Rather than squelch the dark urges building inside me, I embraced them,
jamming my hands beneath his shirt, needing to feel his bare skin. I traced his lean muscles, running my fingertips over his abs and around to his back, exploring the dip of his spine, raking my nails over his shoulders.

"Let's go upstairs," he muttered against my mouth.

"No, here. Now." If we moved from this spot, I'd have a second to think it through, and that would ruin everything.

He didn't fight me
on it, and wedged his knees between my legs until I was grinding against his thigh as a shudder rocked through me. He yanked up my shirt and tugged my bra aside until one breast thrust forward toward his waiting mouth.

His low grunt of sat
isfaction right before his lips closed over my nipple made me want nothing more than to strip the rest of my clothes off. He drew on the stiff bud, softly at first, but then harder as my gasps turned to moans. His thigh was wreaking havoc between mine and the two motions combined were driving me mad.

“I don't even have a rubber,” he rasped,
pulling back to look at my face.

Tears of frustration pricked my eyes and I wanted to scream. He was right, we couldn't-

"Wh-what are you doing?" I asked, shuddering again as his fingers trailed over my abdomen and lower.

"You don’t want to come upstairs, and I don’t have a condom.
Let me take care of you. No reason for us both to suffer.”

He was so wrong. I was suffering something fierce when
his fingers slid up my skirt and between my legs. It would be like it always was only worse because it was so close…I could almost taste it, the elusive end to the want that hung like a juicy, red apple just out of reach.

"What about you?"

The breath sawed in and out of his lungs and his throat worked as he swallowed. "What about me?"

"What about that?" I eyed the erection jutting out of his pants like he was trying to smuggle a baseball bat from the room.

"Truth?"

I nodded and wet my lips, unable to look away from it.

"I'll wait until you leave, get in the shower and jerk off thinking about what just happened."

His words sent a lick of fire from my head to my toes. "That hardly seems fair," I murmured.
I wanted to tell him I would take care of him too, but I didn’t want to make a promise I couldn’t keep. Once he realized I was broken, it would probably all end in an awkward mess of excuses and muttered apologies anyway.