I’ve been boxing and fighting since I was a teenager. But lately, I’ve thrown myself into it more and more, trying to exorcise it all on the bag, all my demons, all my pain, the driving lust for Athena that seems to haunt me night and day. And it shows. I can see one girl on the edge of the crowd, a tall girl with dyed black hair and piercing green eyes, a diamond septum piercing twinking in the bare-bulb lights above the ring, wearing a fishnet crop top with nothing but black X pasties underneath it and low-slung ripped jeans watching me. Her eyes rake over me, down the ripped, chiseled length of my chest and abs, over the tightly wound muscle of my arms, and I know she’s mine for the taking if I want her.
Maybe I do.
I could fuck her from behind, grab a handful of that silky black hair, and pretend that she’s Athena. If I don’t see her face, if I tell her to shut the fuck up, I could close my eyes and imagine Athena squirming under me, pleading with me to make her come, taking every inch of my rock hard cock.
She winks at me, and I feel my cock throb as I rake my fingers through my hair, tying the part that’s long on the top back so that it won’t get in my way when I fight. I see her eyes flick to my hands in my hair, and the desire on her face is easy to read. She’d be easy if I made up my mind to have her.
Since Natalie, sex has been about keeping me from going insane with need. I’m nineteen and exactly as horny as any man my age—more so, probably. It’s not about love; it’s about primal, instinctual lust, a driving force that seems to consume my every waking thought sometimes.
So why does thinking about fucking the girl with the fishnet top and septum ring make me feel like I’m betraying Athena?
“Jaxon King!” I hear my name shouted as the winner of the last bout exits the ring, his opponent carried out. I see the girl stick two fingers in her mouth, whistling loudly above the screaming fray as I walk in, pumping my fists overhead as the crowd shouts my name.
My opponent, a tall, heavily muscled man with a tattooed face named Marcus, grins at me, showing a glimpse of a gold tooth in the light. “Jax King. It’s been a while, brother.” He slaps my shoulder, laughing. “Ready to take a beating?”
I grin in return. “I was about to ask you the same question. Let’s fucking go.”
This is what I need, I think as we start to circle each other, both of us already glinting with sweat. The rest of the world begins to fade away as I zero in on Marcus, on the fight ahead of me, on what I need to do to get out of this, not just the winner, but with all my bones and teeth intact. Marcus and I might be cool outside the ring, but I have no illusions he’ll take it easy on me. He’ll beat me to a bloody pulp if I don’t watch myself.
I don’t look for the fishnet girl. I can’t afford the distraction, especially when she makes me think about Athena. And not just Athena, but another girl with black hair and a nose piercing, a girl who didn’t wear fishnets but who would come and watch my fights, standing on the edge of a crowd that she didn’t belong in, ignoring the comments and taunts thrown her way,
My girl. My Natalie. She’s gone now, and she won’t ever watch one of my fights again, won’t ever leap into my arms and kiss me again after a win, ignoring the blood and sweat for a taste of my lips. She won’t ever let me take her out to that spot on the cliff again, laying her down on a blanket and fucking her with all the triumphant victory of a man who’s just won something. She’s gone forever.
I won’t let what happened to her happen to Athena.
I won’t.
My advantage with Marcus is that while he’s heavy and hits hard, I’m lighter and faster. He’s built like a powerlifter, and I’m all tight corded muscle, chiseled down to very little body fat. I don’t want to take even a single punch from him, but I know I’m going to. It’s inevitable. I just have to keep off the ropes and not let him get me down on the ground, where I won’t be able to get out from under his bulk until he knocks me out.
The punch to the gut sends me staggering back, a sharp pain lancing through me, telling me that he hit a rib. I don’t ignore it, but I don’t let it set me back either. Instead, I take the pain, the hot throbbing that spreads through my chest, and turn it into something else. Pain, anger, lust, need, resentment, I take all of these things, and I channel them, feeling them flow through me, into my muscles, into my fists, and when I hit Marcus in the chin, I see blood fly.
After that, it’s a blur. Quick and lithe, I move like a cat, taking his blows and then redoubling them back on him. I can feel my knuckles bruising under the wraps, bleeding through the fabric, but I don’t care. The physical pain almost feels good, better than that internal ache that never seems to go away, not when I’m awake or asleep, not for any moment of the day, except for when I’m hitting the bag—or in this case, another person.
Marcus grunts, stumbling backward as I land a kidney strike, and I push forward, uppercutting his chin. His head snaps back, teeth gnashing together, and I land another blow to his jaw, sending him reeling sideways towards the ground as blood spews from his mouth.
He goes down to his hands and knees, and I hear the count start. For a second, I think he’s going to get up, but then he sags downwards, and I know I’ve won.
The victory feels hollow. It wasn’t about winning, it was about the fight, and now that that’s over, I can feel that pit opening up in my stomach again, threatening to drag me down.
“You should come to the afterparty,” I hear a voice behind me say as I step out of the ring, taking a wet towel and wiping it over my bloodied face. “I’ll be there.”
I know it’s the girl in the fishnets before I even turn around. She’s even prettier up close, with a sharp, angled face that looks nothing like Athena or Natalie, now that I’ve gotten a better look at her. Her hair is stick-straight, and she pushes it away from her face, grinning up at me. “Jaxon? That’s your name, right?” She holds out a hand. “I’m Pixie.”
There’s no fucking way that’s her real name, but I’m not going to argue. “Nice to meet you, Pixie.” I start to unwrap my hands, wincing as the fabric comes away from the bruised and split skin. “I don’t know if I’m up for partying, though. That was a hell of a fight.”
She glances down at my hands. “How about just back to my place, then? I’ve got something for those hands.” Her gaze flicks over me. “And then maybe something for the rest of you, if you play your cards right.”
Truthfully? I don’t want to. My body does. My cock is already hardening, filling out the front of my boxing shorts as I look down at her pretty face, her bright green eyes, her black lipstick, her small breasts with their nipples covered with black X’s. She’d be a good fuck; I can tell that already. She probably deep-throats, she’d be a screamer, she’d ride me all night. I could fuck her as many times as I wanted. Hell, she probably takes it in the ass.
But she’s not what I want. She could only ever be a shadow of substitution, and truthfully, despite how used I’ve gotten to treating women as disposable, I know she deserves better than that. Better than my careless cruelty, which is all I have to offer anymore.
“I shouldn’t,” I start to say. Suddenly she’s up against me, going up on her tiptoes, her hand pressed against my slick, sweating chest as her mouth presses against mine, her tongue licking at the rings in my lip as her other hand slides between us to squeeze my aching cock.
“I think you should,” she says, her lips still very close to mine. “Come on, I’ll drive you.”
It’s not until we’re in her car, a small and cramped hatchback, that she speaks again as she turns it on, the engine complaining the entire time. “Jaxon King, hmm?”
“Yeah.” I don’t elaborate further. Now that I’m away from the ring and in the car, the physical pain is a lot more evident, and I’m pretty sure Marcus cracked one of my ribs.