Shay stepped out and closed the door. He looked…excited. There was a spark in his eyes that made it clear how much he loved this. And had it been just for the fun of it, for the competitiveness, I would’ve relaxed. All my life, I’d been an adrenaline junkie, and to see that Shay got off on that thrill too was an immense turn-on. But at least the times I’d jumped out of an airplane, I’d worn a parachute.
“Do you get this excited when you face brawlers who fight dirty?” I asked.
He quirked a brow before he snorted in amusement. “You mean at the underground club? There’s very little space for anyone to fight dirty. They check you for weapons and stuff before you enter the cage.”
How fucking reassuring, but I’d been talking about hits to the throat, balls, and head.
I took a breath and just barely managed to shove aside the worry and irritation that flared up. “You don’t need a rusty shank to kick someone in the back of their head, boy.”
Shay thought that was an invitation to mock me, and he puffed out his chest and widened his arms a bit as he spoke in a darker voice. “And I don’t need to be good at martial arts to disarm those slow motherfuckers, boy.” At my hard stare, he deflated and smiled and hugged my bicep. “You’re sweet to worry, Daddy, but maybe you should come to a fight and see for yourself. The men I fight in those cages are nothing but juiced-up morons with anger issues, and if you’re as good as you say you are, you know whose moves are the easiest to predict.”
Of course. Fighters who acted on emotion, but that wasn’t the point. Actually, it was worse.
“That’s worse,” I repeated out loud. “A hundred idiots to lower your guard, and then a single trained fucker comes along and dropkicks you before you can blink.”
To my frustration, his smile only widened.
“You may be trained, and you may be a fucker, but you’re not single.” He grabbed my hand and dragged me off the porch. “Come on. Dropkick me before I can blink. I dare you.”
That little son of a—
I sighed aggravatedly. And I cursed myself for letting it go. But he could trust me to circle back to this subject another time when we weren’t about to face each other in a fighting cage.
“Speaking of single,” he said, threading our fingers together, “how come you and River don’t date outside of kink? I mean—for love and stuff. You just want the BDSM component.”
I’d never said that to him, and I could bank on River never having said that either, which meant Shay had talked to others about us. It had been true in the past, though not out of some principle. We’d just grown comfortable in the presumption that we’d never be that interested in anybody.
“That’s not a rule, sweetheart.” I noticed he wasn’t making eye contact. It was usually for a reason. “What made you ask?” I halted my steps before we came within hearing range for anyone else, and I cupped the back of his neck.
If he gave the slightest indication he was interested in more, I’d pounce right away. Fuck River and his advice to “pace ourselves a minute.”
Shay shrugged and kept his gaze on our feet. “I think we should make the fight more interesting.”
I thought we should stay on topic and discuss dating, aka slapping cuffs on his wrists and shackling him to us for the foreseeable future. If he could also tell me that he’d developed a sudden hatred for living in DC, I wouldn’t complain.
“Interesting how?”
He cleared his throat and shrugged again, and his squirming was so fucking cute that I wanted to squeeze him to me. He was about to make my day again, wasn’t he? I could feel it. He was a smart man, and he couldn’t be blind to our chemistry. He wasn’t typically afraid either. It was one of the many things I loved about him.
“A bet, of course.” He lifted his gaze to my chest. Progress, I reckoned. It split me into two, which was normal around this boy. There was always a battle between the comforting Daddy and the hell-raisin’ Sadist. “If I win, I can take you and River out on a date.”
My chest swelled and seized up at the same time. “And if I win?”
His timid stare shifted a little higher, and he chewed on the inside of his cheek. “If you win, you and River have to take me out on a date.”
I dipped down and captured his mouth with mine. Best bet I could ever agree to. “You’re on, little fighter.” I deepened the kiss after that and brought his hands around my neck, then hugged him to me and reveled in the feelings he’d awoken in me.
This boy had changed everything.
“You deserve a reward for taking that initiative,” I murmured. Fuck, I had to stop kissing him. The others were waiting. “Maybe a session with the Sybian and some nipple torture.”
Shay shuddered and nodded quickly. “Yes, please.”
The Sybian would get interesting, and nipple torture was a given. Nipples, ass, and balls were his most sensitive pleasure points.
I’d become obsessed with studying him and learning his zones.
I bet I could get him off just by squeezing and rolling his balls in my hand.
“Are you ready to fight Daddy?” I reluctantly ended our kiss after tasting him once more.
“I, um, I guess so.” He drew an unsteady breath and pushed back his hair. “Now I’m all hard, though.”
I grinned. “You’ll have some time to calm down before we begin.”
“What, like a thirty-second-long minute?”
I let out a laugh.
* * *
Mere minutes later, we stuck our bare feet into the proverbial shoes of community leaders, and River and I stood in front of the cages with Shay kneeling between us with his eyes downcast.
In the flickering flames from the torches, he was an unearthly vision. An
