Trust Me: Matty and Kayla, Book 1 of 3 (The McDaniels Brothers) (5 page)

He let out a pained laugh and shrugged, "What's f
air in this world, Red? Nothing."

May
be so, but it didn't seem right, and even weirder, I felt compelled to touch him. Compelled to see him lose control as much as I yearned to lose control myself.

"But-"

"Shut the fuck up for once, would you?" he growled and then slid two fingers deep inside me.

My body bowed nearly in half at the
welcomed invasion. This wasn't how it worked. Guys told you lies and bought you things so you would make
them
come. This was unprecedented. Even if it didn’t turn out the way he hoped, I had to give him credit for the try.

My thoughts scattered as his digits plunged forward again, delving deeper each time, with the pads of his fingertips massaging against a secret spot inside me I didn't even know existed until now. I wanted to scream every time he touched it and scream again every time he stopped.

"You're so tight. Jesus. All I can think of is my cock inside you right now. Come for me so I can dream about it."

His words sent another rush of wetness between my thighs and he ground the heel of his hand against my clit. "
Matty, I can’t.”

But maybe I could. Blood pounded in my ears as the pressure between my hips grew. After all this time, maybe-

“Fuck.”

That was only the first in a litany of curse words that came out of his mouth as he pulled away and righted my skirt. One second his hands were all over me, his mouth at my breast, fingers working some kind of voodoo and the next, gone.

Hot tears of frustration sprang to my eyes. Did he have any idea what he’d just done? How close I’d been to finally, really letting go for the first time in my life? Was this some sick game to him?

“
Mattie, what…”

The sound of a car door slamming dragged me back to earth and I realized someone was coming.

And in the cruelest twist of all, it, once again, wasn’t me.

Matty

"
That's
your new manager?" Reid asked, letting out a low whistle as the door slammed behind Kayla.

I shifted my weeping cock in my pants and stared up at him from behind the front desk, where I’d planted myself seconds before he’d walked in. How I’d even heard him pull up through all the blood rushing in my ears, I couldn’t say, but thank god I had or he’d have gotten front row seats to the best show in town.

Kayla James coming on my fingers.

I squeezed my eyes closed, glad there was a desk between me and my youngest brother,
not just for camouflage, but also because I wanted to break him in half right now.

"Yeah."

"Dude." That was all he said, but his face said a lot more.

"Look, I didn't have much of a choice in the matter. It wasn't like I got a vote, believe me."

This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have right now. Not when I was suffering from blue balls and wracked with guilt. I thought of Kayla, her pink cheeks, her unfocused, glassy eyes, her trembling legs…what a terrible way to leave a person.

For the fifth time in as many minutes,
I considered calling her up. Offering to go over her house and finish the job I’d started, because leaving her hanging didn’t sit right with me. Then I thought better of it. The second she’d left and gotten her senses back, she’d probably come to the same conclusion I had.

That w
e’d both just side-stepped a land mine.

Sex with her was the worst idea in history. If only my lower half would get on board, I’d be golden.

Reid set his duffel bag on the floor and planted his ass on the corner of the desk. "I'll tell you what, if I got a vote, I definitely would've picked her. She's smoking hot."

Like I was blind or something? I scowled at him. "I knew you when you were still
peeing the bed. Now you’re giving me advice?"

He ignored the bait and stuck
to the topic like a bloodhound on the scent. "I'm just saying, I think I'd be at the top of my game if that girl was watching me. Wouldn't want to feel like a chump logging an “L” with her there to see it. All that pressure would be good for me."

But not for me.

I'd warned my other brother Bash about this when he'd first gotten together with his girlfriend, Olivia. Having chicks around while you trained was the kiss of death for young fighters like us. It was the power of the pussy. Like a sickness. It got in your head and then you couldn't shake it. Wondering what it would taste like, wondering if it was sweet and tight, and soft. Usually once my curiosity was satisfied, I could concentrate better. The only girls I'd ever been whipped on had been girls I hadn't had yet.

Which was obviously why thoughts of Kayla were fucking with my mind even worse now. It probably had nothing to do with her specifically. It was just, now that I'd touched her, now that I'd tasted her, now that I'd felt the way her body would fit mine? It was literally all I’d be able to think about. Could have happened with any girl.

An ugly seed of doubt sprouted in response to that though
t, and I shook my head like I could shake it away.

I had a job to do, and needed to practice what I'd preached to my brothers their whole lives.

Eye on the prize.

And this time, the prize was a pretty big one. Sticking in with Mickey Flynn for the next year of my life as his new golden boy fighter so that
me and my family could get out from under his thumb. If I screwed it up? If Mick sensed for even a second that I wasn't giving him my all, he was going to go back on his promise to find Bash a lucrative fight to replace the one he’d had to withdraw from because of a broken hand.

Any excuse for Mick to lock on tighter. To sink his teeth into my jugular and hang on like a pit
bull, he’d take it, and I wasn't about to give it to him.

"You've got a problem. I can see it on your face, so talk to Dr. Reid and let me see if I can help." He bent low and pulled two water bottles from the mini-fridge and tossed me one.

"Not likely," I said, catching the chilled plastic with one hand. Reid knew the deal I'd made with Mickey, but he was the only one. I still hadn’t worked up the nuts to tell Bash. He would've felt responsible for the situation if I told him, and after the couple months he'd had, that was the last thing I wanted. Olivia and he had never seemed happier, and she was even growing on me. She planned on moving in soon. They were on their way to a good future, and I wanted him to get a chance to enjoy it for a while.

I'd only told Reid because I wanted to make sure someone knew I'd gone to see Mickey to make the deal in the first place, just in case I didn't come back. It was one thing if the motherfucker killed me, but I sure as shit didn't want him getting away with it.

Mick was a businessman though, and at the end of the day, a dead me was a lot less valuable than a live one. To Reid's credit, he'd kept his mouth shut so far, but that was dicey too. Soon, I was going to have to cop to the truth, and it wasn't going to be fun, but for the time being, I got to see Bash totally, straight up happy for a while.

It was worth whatever came next.

"There's no point in talking about it. I’m stuck with her until Mickey says different.” I met Reid's perceptive gaze and marveled at how much he looked like a man now.

He was growing up right in front of me and it was eerie as shit. It seemed like yesterday that we were in the park and I was showing him how to throw a baseball. He was only a little less than three years younger than me, but he'd managed to keep his innocence
for a lot longer than me or Bash had. Taking a part in preserving that might have been the only really good thing I'd done in my life.

I spent a lot of years listening to
him talk endlessly about kickball games at school, or his favorite teacher, or why Godzilla would beat any Transformer in a fight. And when he brought home some stupid macaroni necklace, or a shitty little bud vase that looked more like a dildo, I was the one who made a big deal out of it, proudly displaying it on the plywood bookshelf in our shared bedroom.

It probably also helped that my mother had been a little easier on him. I was mostly convinced it wasn't because she'd mellowed or because
he was a better kid than either me or Bash. She was just fucking tired. Beating the shit out of kids all day for years on end really took it out of a person.

I pushed back that sick feeling that always came with thoughts of her and folded my arms behind my head, refusing to get sucked down that ghetto-ass, pothole-filled Memory Lane again.

Reid was shaking his head, a bemused smile on his face. “If the way she bolted out of here with her face on fire and your expression when I walked in are indicators, I’m thinking Mickey will be able to see why this is a bad idea.”

And maybe he would. It really would be for the best.

But then my thoughts flipped back to the sparring we’d done. I hated to admit it, but she was right about one thing. I’d spent a lot of my time managing the gym and trying to stay on top of Bash and Reid’s developing careers. So much, that maybe I hadn’t been putting enough into my own. There was a hole in my defense, and a fighter like Claus Nicholson would exploit that every chance he got. I’d managed to stay undefeated so far because the guys I’d fought weren’t in his class. To assume the competition would stay this easy when I was trying to break into the elite was foolish. A manager who could see that and wanted to take measures to fix it was a manager I wanted in my corner.

Now if I could just get past wanting her in my bed, there was a slim chance in hell this could actually work…

Two hours later, I found myself sprawled on the couch in front of the TV not watching an infomercial about some protein supplement when my phone rang. I hadn’t been lying when I told Kayla I was going to jerk off in the shower, but it had been a sad, desperate affair that was totally unsatisfying and only succeeded in putting me in an even shittier mood.
So when I saw her number, I almost ignored the call. I was in no shape for productive, rational conversation.

Then c
uriosity got the better of me. “Hello.”

A long silence before a brisk voice came on the line. “I got us a meet up with Carmine Rossini next Saturday at three. Can you make it?”

I leaned back into the cushion and flicked off the television, stunned into silence. Carmine was big shit in the Northeast, and that he wanted to meet with me this soon, before I’d really even landed any major fights, was huge.

“How did you manage that?”

“I called him an hour ago. I sent him some artfully edited video of you and he likes your style. He wants to talk about setting something up down the line. So are you in?”

Her tone was clipped and all business, but there was an underlying sense of desperation there. Like she was waiting for me to steer the conversation elsewhere and the thought scared the shit out of her.

“I can do that. What did Mickey say about it?”

That was my pathetic attempt at finding out if she’d contacted her boss after our near-miss earlier. If he knew we’d been messing around, the status of our business relationship might be taken out of our hands. Everybody knew it was risky to dip your pen in the company ink.

“How many times do I have to tell you, Mickey gave me free rein? I’ll give him a schedule when we have one and that’s that,” she snapped.

I shifted the phone to my other ear. “Okay, take it easy.” Apparently I wasn’t the only one who was still a ball of fru
stration after our grappling. It was a herculean effort not to tell her that I could make it better if she wanted me to.

“So yes or no?
I’ve got to call him back.”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll come by the gym on Thursday…during the day time,” she added in a breathless rush, “and we’ll talk about our approach with Carmine, go over strategy and you can show me your training regimen.”

She didn’t say goodbye but a second later, a dial tone sounded in my ear.

“Okey doke, sounds good. Nice talking to you, too,” I muttered into the receiver before tossing the phone onto the couch beside me.

I’d known Kayla James for four days now, and somehow she’d managed to work her presence into every one of them. Whether we were sparring verbally or sparring physically, trying to tear each other’s clothes off in real life or in a dream, she was taking over half my waking thoughts and all my sleeping ones.

And that shit? Had to stop.

Kayla

"Matty, meet Carmine Rossini. Carmine, this is Matty McDaniels.”

I gestured between the two guys with a sweep of my hand and put on my most winning smile.

“He's the middleweight coming up through the Boston circuit that we talked about last week. We're hoping to match him against one of your guys. After some discussion, Matty and I decided Willie Martin would be ideal. We think it would be a great fight for both of them, and they'd both stand to gain lots of new fans."