Grappling for Position (Against the Cage Book 4) Page 9

  “All right, Mr. Judgmental, who’s your fantasy fuck?”

  “Sorry, not tellin’ you, man.” There was no way in hell Regan was telling his best friend that his fantasy fuck was the dude’s sister. Not. Ever. Gonna. Happen. And thinking of his fantasy fuck, where was Willow, anyway? Shouldn’t she be out here by now?

  “Oh, come on. I told you I want to swipe my granny card on Catherine Bach. Who is she? Do I know her?”

  Regan put his bottle to his lips and began chugging his beer to keep from having to answer. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed to wash the taste of Willow off his tongue. Just thinking about it—about her—writhing in pleasure, his name a broken cry on her lips, had him instantly hard again. Regan tugged on the front of his T-shirt, making sure his crotch was covered. He wasn’t sure what the hell he was going to say to his friend, who was used to swapping stories about the girls they hooked up with and talking shit about the ones they wanted.

  “Do I know her? I do, don’t I?”

  Oh, he knew her all right.

  “Is it that hot redhead that came into the gym looking for Kruze? Man, she was gorgeous. Looks like a firecracker, though. Right up your alley.”

  She was beautiful, but that wasn’t the woman Regan was fantasizing over. Besides, anyone with a pair of eyes could see that Kruze was all over that. He’d practically whipped out his dick and pissed a circle around the woman when he caught Del Toro talking to her. It was the first time Regan had ever seen Kruze get territorial over a female.

  “It’s not her.”

  “Then who is it?”

  “Hey, guys.” Willow stepped into the kitchen, and Regan’s cock shot to attention. Holy hell! What was she wearing? Was she trying to torture him? No bra, her multicolored tube top hugged those delectable breasts to perfection. Not even ten minutes ago, he’d had his face buried in that cleavage and his mouth on those petal-pink nipples. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d left his mark behind, somewhere just below the edge of her top. If that fabric slipped even an inch, she’d have some serious explaining to do, because Kyle would lose his shit.

  Perhaps it was everything they’d gone through and the responsibility he’d taken on in his role as guardian and protector, but realistic or not, fair or not, Kyle was overprotective to the point of irrational when it came to this girl. Then again, Regan wasn’t much better. How many guys had he chased off, letting Kyle take the rap when Willow assumed it was her brother’s doing? Hell, he wanted to kick his own ass for what he’d just done to her. And fuck him if he didn’t want to do it again—and so much more. What a schmuck . . .

  “How was class?”

  Kyle dropped into the kitchen chair, stretching into a lazy sprawl as he nursed his beer. The scent of car grease and automotive oil clung to him. His jeans were covered in grunge. Black smudges marked his arms, his shirt, his face. Regan took the chair at the small breakfast table opposite his friend and tore his eyes off Willow to study the label on his beer as he called his dick to heel.

  “It was fine. Same ol’, same ol’. Can’t wait for this A&P Lab to be over.”

  Yeah, neither could Regan, though for an entirely different reason from Willow’s, he was sure.

  “How’s the rebuild coming? I thought you’d be done by now.”

  “So did I. Getting sick of sharing your wheels, huh?” he teased.

  “It’s all right. At least you have your motorcycle to get you around, so you’re not completely dependent on me. And it’s not like you and Regan don’t have the same schedule at the gym most of the time.”

  “Speaking of, where did you take off to today?”

  Kyle’s gaze cut from his sister to Regan. He looked up from the fascinating Heineken label, careful to keep his eyes off Willow as she bent over in front of the fridge and began retrieving everything she needed to start making tacos. Still, he couldn’t stop his peripherals from enjoying the view of that gorgeous ass.

  “How’d you know I cut out early? You took off right after sparring to go to the shop.”

  The cupboard doors opened, and she bent over even farther to retrieve the frying pan. Oh, for the love of God. He reached beneath the table and grabbed the crotch of his jeans, attempting to rearrange his shit, but it was no fucking use.

  “I got a call today . . . from your old man.”

  The pan clattered loudly when Willow dropped it. It was no secret how badly things had ended between Regan and his father. In fact, she’d sat in the emergency room with him for four fucking hours waiting to get his head stitched up after his dad had broken a beer bottle over it. Her gaze cut to his, worry tensioning her brows. He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t make eye contact and still maintain his composure. She knew him too well, knew the hell he’d endured growing up, the heartbreak of being abandoned by his mother. He couldn’t stand the pity he knew he’d see in her eyes—the same look her parents hadn’t been able to hide when Robert would pick him up at the entrance to the trailer park in the middle of the night, or the tears Sue would fight to hold back when she’d patch him up after his old man had gotten done pounding the shit out of him.

  “Did you talk to him?” Regan asked, not that he wanted to do this in front of Willow, but Kyle wouldn’t think anything of it. They’d all been through hell together—why would he start shutting Willow out now? She already knew the worst parts of him.

  “Not any longer than I had to. Said he tried to call you—that you hung up as soon as you realized it was him.” Kyle took another pull from his beer. His casual tone and relaxed pose didn’t fool Regan. If there was anyone who hated that man as much as he did, it was Kyle. So it surprised the hell out of him when he said, “You should talk to him.”

  What. The. Fuck? “Are you out of your goddamn mind?” he exploded, slamming his beer down with a sharp rap. Willow startled, spinning around to face them both. He knew he should be bottling this shit, but after the day he’d had, that was just not happening. What Regan needed was to get into the cage and blow off some steam. He was too pent up from his make-out session with Willow, too pissed off that, after all these years, his dad would have the nerve to contact him, and too worried about the shit Willow had on her plate with Campoli. Which, by the way, he wasn’t supposed to even know about.

  He felt like a fucking grenade ready to explode. “I am not talking to that son of a bitch! There is nothing he has to say that I’m interested in hearing.”

  “Regan . . .” Willow’s please-be-reasonable voice cut into the shit storm raging inside his head. “Maybe you should just listen to what Kyle has to say.”

  His friend hadn’t moved, watching him with that all-too-perceptive stare, completely unfazed by his outburst.

  “I can’t believe you’d even suggest I talk to him,” Regan raged, then paused as the realization hit him. “You know what he wants, don’t you?”

  “I do. And he made me promise not to tell you. He wants you to hear it from him.”

  “Well, he’s going to be waiting until hell freezes over because I don’t give a fuck.”

  “You’re going to want to hear this.”

  “Who the hell are you, and what did you do with my best friend?”

  Now Kyle’s façade cracked, and he slammed his own bottle down on the table hard enough to fissure the glass. Tension seemed to rip through him as he shot to his feet, looking as pissed off as Regan felt. Willow raced forward, putting herself between the two men, knowing the only thing that was going to stave off this fight was their love for this five-foot-four midge, who had zero business getting between two bent fighters.

  “Kyle, you know he didn’t mean it,” she whispered, trying to soothe her brother’s notorious temper. “Go shower and get cleaned up. Supper’s going to be ready in twenty minutes. Regan’s upset. You can’t blame him.”

  Fixing Regan with the stare Kyle reserved for his opponents at the CFA weigh-ins, he hurled his arm over Willow’s shoulder, pointed at him and growled, “I’m going to pretend you did not
just fucking question my loyalty to you.”

  Muttering something that sounded like “ungrateful prick,” Kyle shouldered past him and headed for the stairs.

  “You never told me your dad called you.” And she’d never told him she was appealing Campoli’s early parole, so he guessed they were even. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, reverting to the same lie he’d told himself and the Scotts thousands of times over the years. “There’s nothing to tell. He called and I hung up.”

  “How long has it been since you’ve spoken to him?”

  “Seven years.” It surprised him that he knew the answer to that question without even doing the mental math. It was as if his subconscious was keeping a running tally of time. “Not since that night . . .” He didn’t need to elaborate. She knew exactly which night he was referring to.

  “What do you think he wants?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care.”

  He didn’t want to talk about his father, didn’t want to waste his fucking breath, not when he could have these few more stolen moments with Willow. The bathroom door slammed shut upstairs, and the shower came on overhead. Regan was still spinning from what had just happened between them. He couldn’t believe how quickly he’d lost control—how close he’d come to taking her virginity. That had not been his intention in coming here today. He hadn’t planned to seduce her. Well, in all fairness, she’d done most of the seducing, stripping in the hall, daring him to do something about it. Oh, he’d done something all right—and he’d almost done a hell of a lot more.

  “I’ll tell you what I do care about, though,” he growled, hooking the stretchy fabric of Willow’s top with his finger and peering down her shirt, stealing a glimpse of those strawberry nipples. There it was . . . the mark he’d left high on the swell of her breast near her cleavage. “I care about what your lab partner wants.”

  “Who? Carson?” She laughed.

  He wasn’t amused.

  “Carson’s harmless.”

  Yeah, Regan didn’t think so. “No man that looks at a woman the way he looks at you is harmless.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re jealous,” she teased, rising to her tiptoes and pressing her lips against his.

  “Maybe a little bit,” he confessed. She didn’t have to look so damn pleased about it.

  “Carson knows I’m not interested in him like that.”

  “Doesn’t mean he feels the same.”

  “And don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, Regan Matthews—changing the subject and trying to distract me.”

  He couldn’t help but take one last taste of his forbidden fruit. His mouth grazed her jaw before traveling to her neck, his tongue tracing down her flittering pulse as she exhaled a sigh he felt all the way to the base of his cock. She tipped her head to the side, giving him better access as her slender fingers slipped into his hair, blunt nails dragging across his scalp.

  As he drew in a slow, deep breath, her scent released a cascade of endorphins, flooding his system. Fuck, he wanted her, and she wasn’t trying to help him do the right thing here. Not. At. All.

  When he heard the groaning pipes shut off, Regan forced himself to pull back. Willow moaned in protest, tightening her hold. She was killing him. “Kyle’s going to come down here and wonder what the hell happened to supper. What can I do to help you?” he asked, reaching up to untangle her arms from his neck.

  “You can chop the lettuce, tomatoes, and onions.”

  That sounded good, anything to keep his hands busy right now. “Grab me a cutting board.” He couldn’t resist giving her one last kiss before letting her go. He dropped into the chair at the table, and Willow handed him the veggies, a cutting board, and a knife. As he went to work, he could feel her eyes on him. Glancing up, he caught her grinning at him from her spot near the stove, her lush bottom lip tucked between those straight white teeth. God help him, each time he saw that smile it made him want to drop to his knees.

  “What?” he asked, feigning indifference as he slipped the knife through the lettuce and laying both sides flat, trying like hell to concentrate on what he was doing before he cut his damn finger off.

  “Nothing,” she answered innocently as she browned the hamburger. “I was just thinking.”

  Yeah, by the look in her eyes he knew exactly what she was thinking about. He chuffed a masculine grunt and shook his head, breaking her stare and focusing on his task. His resolve was like a rabid dog snapping on the end of its leash. “Gotta quit looking at me like that, Willow,” he warned.

  She laughed, seeming to take wicked enjoyment in taunting him, and it was the most beautiful music he’d ever heard. Her voice, that melodic sound of her laughter, always spoke straight to his heart. Despite the sexual tension stringing his body tight with need, something inside him eased. And it was always that way with her, had been for as long as he could remember. When he was with her, it was like his soul had found the missing part of itself and he finally felt peace.

  They settled into comfortable silence as they worked, and he couldn’t help but wonder if changing the dynamic of their relationship would undermine the foundation of the friendship they’d built over the years. Or would it give them a platform to build something stronger—something better?

  Was he making a huge mistake? Possibly . . . It was too soon to tell. In the end, would he ultimately lose the two most important people in his life? He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t, because Regan wasn’t sure he could stay away from Willow. Who the hell was he kidding? He’d been trying for years and look how well that worked out for him. And he had to admit holding her in his arms felt more right than anything in his life ever had before—more right than his friendship with Kyle, more right than fighting. In fact, Regan wasn’t sure there was anything he wouldn’t risk to have this woman, and the realization was a sucker punch to the gut.

  “What the hell? Since when did you become Martha Stewart?” Kyle razzed, shuffling into the kitchen freshly showered and smelling a hell of a lot better than he had fifteen minutes ago.

  “Since I’m starved and someone came home late,” Regan shot back, grabbing the bag of tortillas off the table and throwing them at his friend. Kyle caught them as they smacked into his chest. “Make yourself useful and heat these up.”

  “I’m almost done browning the hamburger. I’ll whip up the guacamole, and we can eat,” Willow said, casting a quick glance over her shoulder.

  And just like that, everyone slipped into their roles with teasing banter and playful smiles. Regan’s father was a distant thought, the conflict with was Kyle forgotten, and this thing with Willow was tabled for the evening as they honored the Scotts’ Thursday night family tradition.

  Chapter 10

  I want to go to Aiden’s after-fight party,” Willow announced to her brother, who was stretched out on the bench press, mid-lift.

  His gaze shot to her, brows pulled tight. Standing a little taller, trying to squeeze out every inch of her five-foot-four frame, she notched her chin defiantly and prepared for battle.

  Kyle hoisted the weights into the metal hooks and shot up, swinging his leg over the seat to face her. “Absolutely not. No fucking way.”

  He must have thought that was the end of discussion, because he rose to leave. “Why not?” she demanded, snagging his arm.

  “Because after-parties are rowdy as hell. Bunch of testosterone-charged fighters getting hammered. Not the place for you, Willow.”

  Getting hammered wasn’t the only thing they did at those parties. “What’s the matter, Kyle? Afraid I’ll cramp your style?” It wasn’t Kyle’s mojo she was worried about. And there was no way in hell she was sitting at home all night imagining those cage-bangers hanging all over Regan.

  “You can’t go, Willow. The party is twenty-one and up.”

  “I’ll be twenty-one in less than two months.”

  “No. End of subject.” Kyle pulled his arm out of her grasp and headed to the one p
lace he knew she couldn’t follow him—the showers.

  It wasn’t the end of the subject, not by a long shot. Unfortunately, it was a twenty-one-and-over party, so she needed someone to get her in. Kyle had been her most likely shot, but if he was going to be unreasonable, she’d just have to put more thought into it. Come hell or high water, she was going to that after-party.

  “Hey, kid, what’s up?” Marcus glanced up from the papers on his desk and gave the warm smile he reserved for only her. The fighters got “Coach,” the barking, scowling hard-ass, but Willow knew she had this man wrapped around her little finger, and she wasn’t above using it to her advantage.

  “Is there anything I can do to help you get ready for Aiden’s after-fight party tonight?” What Marcus needed was an assistant, and Willow would love the opportunity to ditch the sweaty towels and mop for a chance to move up the food chain. She’d broached the subject with him a couple of times before, but she suspected Marcus didn’t want her getting too comfortable here. He was afraid if she became too settled, she’d stay instead of pursuing her dream of becoming a nurse. But she still had two years of college left, and the idea of pushing around a laundry bin that whole time was less than thrilling. Not that she didn’t appreciate her job and everything Marcus had done for her, but she wanted to get involved in the administrative side of the business. And, judging from the mess on Marcus’s desk and the boxes stacked along the wall, he needed her as much as she needed him.

  “Actually, there is. Those boxes in the corner there,” he said, pointing to a stack among the horde. “They need to go to the fourth floor of the Mirage. They’re full of CFA and Miller MMA promo stuff we’ll be handing out at the party tonight.”

  “I can take care of getting it there and setting up,” she offered, giving him her brightest smile.

  “Thanks, kid. I got more on my plate than I was expecting right now. That’ll really help.”

  “Sure. Just let me know if there’s anything else you need.”