Groping him through the cotton, I drew a low, needful groan from his throat. "Touch me," he ordered. "Take out my cock and touch me, Bee."
Hearing him speak so roughly made the slick heat between my thighs grow even damper. Kelly seemed curious to see how he affected me because his fingers abandoned my clitoris and gently probed my wet depths. I arched my back as he penetrated me with one finger, easing it inside me so gently and with such care.
With one finger buried inside me, Kelly worked his thumb across my throbbing clit. Hands trembling, I managed to finally free his cock from its fabric prison. I used both hands to stroke and fondle him. Marveling at the steely hardness of him, I worked my hand up and down his shaft.
"Harder," he urged and pumped his hips. "I'm not made of glass. You can be rough with me."
I gulped at his frank instruction but followed his advice. My fingers tightened around his cock. Using more pressure, I stroked him faster. The rumbling groan that vibrated through his chest assured me I was doing everything just right. He pumped his hips, pressing the blunt crown of his penis against my palm in search of more stimulation.
Our tongues dueled wildly now. Kelly's skilled hand masterfully manipulated me. Deep inside my belly, that shuddering pulse began to build. The coil tightened and tightened while the panicky flutters moved like vibrating fingers through my core and into my chest. Tearing my mouth away from his, I cried out his name as the first spasm of ecstasy ripped through me. "Kelly."
"That's it, sweetheart." His excited breaths tickled my throat as that wicked hand of his made me buck and rock my hips. He buried his face in the crook of my neck and kept rubbing my clit until I seriously saw stars. The blissful sensations crashing over me were so good my stroking hand fumbled and lost its grip.
Kelly didn't seem to mind. If anything, he seemed so wrapped up in giving me pleasure that nothing else mattered. He made me come and come until I just couldn't take anymore and reached down to force his torturous hand to stop. He curved his hand over my pussy in a protective, possessive gesture and made love to my mouth with such sensual eroticism that it left me boneless and limp.
His cock throbbed against my thigh, reminding me that he hadn't yet found his release. Wanting to see him come undone, I shoved on his shoulders and coaxed him onto his back. Straddling his thigh, I tugged his jeans down even lower, dragging his boxers with them. Using both hands on him now, I leaned down to capture his mouth while caressing his shaft.
"Bee." He growled against my mouth, the rough sound eliciting excited shivers from me. To know that I could have so much power over a man like Kelly did wild things to my heart. It stuttered in my chest as I watched his face with awe. When I flicked my tongue against his lips, he groaned and tangled his hand in my hair, pulling me down for a kiss that left me dizzy.
His harsh, quick breaths heralded his climax. My clit throbbed incessantly as I waited for him to come, the very act of touching him like this arousing me to the point of desperation. Proving he could read me like a damn book, Kelly slipped his hand between my thighs and found my aching clit.
Hips rising off the bed, he thrust his cock against my hands and grunted softly. At the first spurt of his blazing seed hit my belly, I followed him over the edge, tumbling head-first into the wicked sea of ecstasy with him. Panting and shuddering together, I milked his cock for the very last drop, gliding my hand up and down his hard, quivering shaft until he fell back to the mattress.
Reaching for me, Kelly pulled me on top of him and hugged me tightly to his chest. His lips drifted across my forehead. Still breathing heavily, he started to laugh. The rich, baritone sound filled the room and made me smile. "What's so funny?"
"What the hell were we waiting for, Bee?" He wiped a hand down his face. "We could have been having this much fun together for years."
I traced one of the tattoos on his chest. "I was starting to wonder what it was going to take to make you see me."
"I've been seeing you that way since you were in high school, Bee."
That revelation surprised me a bit. I began to understand the guilty feelings he'd harbored. "When that barbecue happened, the one with the sparklers, I was already eighteen and a high school graduate, Kelly. It wouldn't have been illegal or skeevy. You were, what, twenty-three?"
"I was twenty-four. Illegal and ethical aren't the same thing." He skimmed his fingertips along my arm. "You were so young and had so much potential. The last thing you needed was some Marine boyfriend holding you back while you were at college."
"You're not holding me back now."
Kelly didn't reply immediately. Eventually, he said, "I'm not so sure about that, Bee."
I rose up on my elbow so I could peer down into his face. "Why would you say something like that?"
He pushed wayward strands of hair behind my ear. "Bee, I barely finished high school. If it hadn't been for Jeb, I never would have made it through chemistry or physics. College degree or not, you're already a certified genius."
I rolled my eyes. "I don't care about your high school transcripts, Kelly. I care about you."
"And I care about you," he murmured. "That's why I have to be realistic. What the hell can a washed-up Marine like me offer a girl like you? I don't know anything about writing code or making billion-dollar business deals."
"Kelly, I can hire people to help me with those things. Lawyers, programmers, minions—they can all be had for the right price."
"Minions, huh?"
"They're extremely useful." Tapping his chin, I added seriously, "The one thing I can't buy is love and support. I need someone in my corner who cares about me. Not the company or the money or the notoriety. Just me."
Kelly dragged me down for a soulful kiss. "I care about you, Bee. Only you."
"I know." Trying to suppress the giddiness threatening to overwhelm me, I snuggled up against Kelly. Here inside this master suite, we could pretend we were just like any other couple. Unfortunately, it was impossible to ignore the very real threat of my crazy stalker, two loan sharks and the Albanian mob. "How did your meetings go?"
"As well as could be expected," he said, playing with my hair. "Besian agreed to terms we can accept. Tomorrow we're meeting with Hagen."
The urge to offer him money again was strong but I smothered it. "Do you think you can win this tournament?"
"Honestly?"
I glanced up at him in time to catch the barest hint of fear reflected in his eyes. "Yes."
"No."
"Oh."
"Sergei is unbeatable. There's a reason Nikolai Kalasnikov trusts Sergei to guard and protect Vivi." Kelly wound my hair around his scarred finger. "Everyone else? I can beat. It'll be hard but I'll win those rounds. Unless some unexpected fluke puts Sergei down, he'll be in the final. If I make it that far, the odds are highly against me."
I couldn't imagine what kind of balls it took for Kelly to walk into a cage knowing that he was probably going to get the living shit beat out of him. The thought of him being badly hurt made me want to vomit. I couldn't let him do this. I really couldn't. There had to be a way I could make everything okay that wouldn't require him risking his life.
"One of the Russians is going to train me."
I perked up at that bit of information. "How did you swing that? I figured they all stuck together."
"They do. Vivi persuaded Nikolai to pull some strings to help me. I owe her a huge thank you over this one."
The mention of the hauntingly beautiful artist caused my gut to twist with jealousy. "You're lucky to have a friend like that."
Kelly must have heard something in my voice that made him curious because he shifted our position so that we were both on our sides and staring eye-to-eye. His eyebrow quirked at an odd angle. "Are you jealous of Vivi?"
"No."
Kelly grinned. "Yes, you are."
"No, I'm not." Irritated that he could read me so easily, I tried to squirm away from him, but there was no escaping his strong hands. Kelly held me in place an
d forced me to meet his intense gaze.
"You are a terrible liar."
"I wouldn’t know. I've never had much practice."
"You better ask Yuri for pointers because you're going to have to learn how to bluff in high-stakes meetings, Bee." Slanting his head, he studied my face. "Why in the world are you jealous of Vivian?"
Like a petulant child, I pouted. "You took her out for dinner and dancing."
"Bee, those were group activities. We have friends in common. It was never a one-on-one thing."
"You've never taken me out like that. When I tried to kiss you and you shut me down, I thought maybe it was because of her. She'd just been kidnapped and all that so I thought—"
"I see." Kelly nuzzled my neck in that way he had discovered made me tremble with need. "You have nothing to be jealous about, Bee. Sure, I think she's beautiful—but we're only friends. That's it."
I swallowed hard as he sucked on my neck and grazed his teeth over the spot before laving it with his tongue to ease the small hurt. "Just friends, huh?"
"Just friends," he whispered and then skimmed his lips along my breast. "You can rest assured I've never done anything like this with her."
"Why not?"
As his hand slid along my inner thigh, Kelly turned that piercing gaze of his on me. "You know why."
I inhaled a shaky breath when he gently probed my slick folds. "Tell me."
With a lascivious grin, he murmured, "I think I'd rather show you…"
Chapter Seven
Kelly considered himself to be in excellent shape, especially with Lev's physical fitness requirements for all LSG guards and Jack's training regimen, but—God help him—Alexei was going to kill him.
Slinging sweat from his eyes, Kelly rubbed the back of his sparring gloves across his forehead and hopped from foot to foot, keeping his weight properly shifted as he awaited his partner's next strike. Alexei had brought four fighters with him, men he trained on the side at Ivan's warehouse, and they were whipping his ass.
The first mock fight had gone well, with Kelly winning it easily. Alexei seemed to have used it as a rubric. The rounds had gotten more intense and more brutally violent. The Russian trainer had insisted on proper sparring equipment so at least he was being spared the worst of it. Even with his shin guards and helmet, Kelly would be sporting bruises tomorrow.
Alexei had been rotating his men out halfway through every round. Facing a fresh foe every few minutes forced Kelly to exert himself in ways he hadn't since the long, hard slog of war. The former fighter's point wasn't lost on Kelly. If he couldn't win multiple sparring rounds in the safety of the ring, he was going to get his damn neck snapped by Sergei.
If he was lucky.
From the corner of the sparring mat, Alexei's voice boomed at him. He snapped directions in Russian but Kelly couldn't understand them. Uncertain if Alexei was speaking to him or the guy throwing punches, he glanced to his left—and gave his opponent just enough of an opening to land a killer fucking kick right to his thigh. It knocked him off balance and the blast of pain radiated right into his stomach. Before he could recover, his opponent hooked his foot around Kelly's ankle and took him down to the mat.
Stopping the round, Alexei stormed onto the mat in utter disgust. "What did I say? Huh?"
Kelly pushed aside the guy trying to put him in a hold, shoved to his feet and spit out his mouth guard. "I can't fucking understand you. Speak. English."
Alexei smacked Kelly's face with such speed and force that his head snapped back. He heard his brothers' gasps of outrage from the sidelines but they didn't intervene. "Did you understand that?"
Getting up in Alexei's face, Kelly pushed down the rage and frustration boiling in his gut. Through gritted teeth, he answered, "Yes."
"Are you pissed at me?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to hit me?"
"Yes."
"Good." With a growl, Alexei shoved him back into the center of the ring. "Pretend he's me—and watch that leg."
Rolling his neck, Kelly shoved his mouth guard into place. Jack clapped two wooden blocks together, signaling they could go at each other again. Alexei continued to shout pointers from the sidelines but he did it in English most of the time. The remainder of the sparring session went fairly well, but by the time Kelly finished his cool down, he feared his jelly-like legs were going to collapse at any moment.
"Get cleaned up," Alexei ordered. "Come join us when you're done."
Dragging ass, Kelly made his way to the men's locker room and showered the sweat from his ragged body. Every muscle in his body ached as he dried off and got dressed. The knowledge that tomorrow morning would feel even worse and the next morning after that ten times as bad as this made his chest tighten.
"Suck it the fuck up, man," he hissed to himself. He'd survived so much worse than this. Explosions, firefights, the Taliban, Iraqi insurgents—he'd beat them all. He'd get through this. Three weeks of training. Two nights of bloody battle. He could do this.
Because he didn’t have a choice. His father's life, the gym, Jack and Finn's livelihoods—they all rested on his shoulders.
Leaving the locker room, he found Alexei talking seriously with Jack. He joined the pair just as Alexei asked if Jack had any sledgehammers.
"Sledgehammers?" Jack glanced around his gym. "This look like a Home Depot to you?"
Alexei actually laughed. "I'll bring my own—and tires too."
"Tires?"
The Russian nodded. "It's an old training technique but a good one." He glanced at Kelly. "How are you feeling?"
"I'll live."
Alexei considered him for a moment. "You're not bad."
Kelly figured that was the best compliment he was going to get from the trainer. "Thanks."
"Your defensive techniques are shit." Alexei practically sneered the words. "You take too much punishment. You're too focused on powerful hits and kicks. You need to think about stamina. That's the only way you survive four fights in two nights, understand?"
Kelly was starting to get it. He trusted that Alexei knew what he was talking about so he nodded. "I understand."
"If you can't knock a man out in the first minute, you've got to change tactics. You have to wear them down. Look for those openings. Then? Strike!" He slammed his fist into his palm. "Tomorrow we work on take-downs, okay?"
"Yeah."
"I want you here at five in the morning. Jack and I have agreed on your morning conditioning and strength training regimen. I gave your other brother," he gestured to his leg, "the rules of nutrition I want you to follow. You've got to eat clean. You need to fuel your body."
"Okay."
"I'll be here at six tomorrow evening to start our night session. All right?"
"Yeah."
Alexei clapped his back a few times. "You're a good fighter, Kelly."
His final compliment paid, Alexei left the gym. Jack grasped the back of Kelly's neck and massaged his tense muscles. Concern darkened his face. "You sure you want to do this, bro?"
"I've done it before," he reminded his oldest brother.
"That was different. You were fighting one guy a night, maybe two in a month. This is four guys in two nights. The money in the pot is huge. Every mobster and criminal in Houston has a piece of this action. These guys are fucking animals who are out for blood."
Exasperated, Kelly shook off Jack's hand. "What the hell else are we going to do? Huh? You want to stand by and let the Albanians kill Pop? Or maybe you'd like to take on the mob? And all this?" He gestured to the building. "It's gone if we don’t win enough cash to pay back whatever the hell Hagen wants."
"I'd rather go bankrupt and live in a fucking box on the street than watch my baby brother get killed."
Irritated, Kelly chafed under his worrying. "Don't be so melodramatic. No one is going to die. Not me, at least. Am I going to get hurt? Yes. I'll be lucky to make it through the first night without breaking something—but I'll heal."
Jack
turned his back and sifted his fingers through his black hair. Kelly noticed Finn standing nearby, watching them and mashing that cinnamon gum he liked between his teeth. Finn had always been the calmest of them. He liked to watch and listen and had more patience than any man Kelly had ever met. It was one of the reasons Finn had excelled as a sniper.
"You two about done?" Finn strode toward them. "Because Kelly needs to go home and rest, and you've got to be up here before five to get the gym open for him."
Jack narrowed his eyes at Finn. "Yes, Mother."
Finn shot him the finger. "Get the keys and lock up. I'm beat."
"I don't know how the two of you work together without killing each other," Kelly remarked.
"I pray. A lot," Finn added with a smile. He motioned to the entrance across the gym. "How is Bee handling her new living situation?"
Kelly lifted the strap of his gym bag a little higher on his shoulder. "She's adjusting well. I don't think she even realizes how much danger she's in yet."
"She's always been sort of—"
"Watch it," Kelly warned as his brother searched for the right word to describe his sweet Bee.
"Idealistic," Finn offered. "She's a dreamer, Kelly. I won't say that she's naïve. God knows she's seen more than her fair share of death and sadness and the cruelty of this world—but she's also lived inside an insulated bubble for years. Even now, she's being protected and coddled."
"Coddled? Some fucking asshole broke into her house, stole her panties and jacked off on them! You can call it coddling if you like but I'm not about to let a psycho like that get close to her."
Finn held up a hand. "All right. It was a bad choice of word."
"You're damn right it was."
"What are you two arguing about now?" Jack had caught up with them in the parking lot.
"Nothing," Kelly said with a wave of his hand. "We're fine."
Jack glanced from one brother to the next and finally shrugged. "Go home and take some anti-inflammatories. If you feel like you need to ice, do that. I'll see you in the morning. You might want to go easy on breakfast—unless you plan to mop my floors after your workout."
"I'll take it under advisement." Before he broke away from his brothers, Finn reached out and patted his arm. He accepted the silent apology with a nod. "I'll see you guys later."