But that is far more dangerous for us than lust could ever be.
* * *
I try notto think about it as I meet up with her to train at the gym the next afternoon. With Cayde and Dean having told me they’re going to allow her to fight, training has taken on a whole new aspect. This isn’t just about Athena getting fit. It’s about her being able to hold her own against other fighters, dirty fighters, men who won’t pull their punches, and who won’t care that she’s a girl. Men who, if they know who she is, might actually want to hurt hermore.
It adds an intensity to our training session that hasn’t been there before. Athena fights hard, not stopping even when I suggest that she take a breather, and by the time we’ve gone ten rounds, we’re tied for ones that she’s won versus ones that I have.
“You’re doing good,” I tell her, taking a step back and wiping sweat off of my forehead with the back of my arm. “But it’s going to be harder in those rings. Rougher. They’re not going to fight fair.”
“So don’t fight fair either.” Athena blows a sweaty piece of hair away from her eyes. “Come on. Give me all you’ve got.”
Fuck, I wish she hadn’t said it like that.The last thing I need is a boner right now. Iwantto give hereverythingI’ve got, every last hard, thick inch, stuffed into every hole in her body until she’s filled with my cum and wrung out from orgasms on my tongue and fingers and cock.
Christ, Jaxon, get your shit together.
I take a deep breath, refocusing. “Alright then.” I square up, forcing myself not to think of her as Athena Saint, someone I would never in my entire life do anything to physically hurt. Thinking of her as just another fighter, someone I need to train to hold their own in the underground ring.
This time, she goes down hard, her lip bruising and swelling, and a bruise already blackening on her shoulder. But she’s up again immediately, shaking it loose, holding up her fists. “Again.”
I lose track of how long we go at it, but by the end, I’m so physically exhausted that I don’t know if I could have gotten it up even if she’d pushed me down and straddled me then and there. She glances at me as we both exit the ring, her mouth twitching as she seems to consider whether or not to ask me something.
“Spit it out,” I say tiredly. “Whatever it is.”
Athena hesitates. “Can you give me a ride home? I know I usually walk, but—I don’t know if I can, today.”
I’m surprised by the request—she hasn’t asked for a ride in months, not since I caned her in the study. But I just nod. “Sure,” I say, shrugging. “Just let me shower off real quick. You do the same if you want. I’ll be out in fifteen.”
I reach for my sweatpants, left in a heap by the ring when I stripped down to my boxing shorts beneath them. As I grab them up, my wallet falls out of the pocket, sliding across the floor and something falling out as it flops open.
Athena grabs it before I can, holding it out to me. “Here you go,” she says helpfully, but I see her gaze flick to what fell out, and I see her expression change as my heart sinks.
It’s a polaroid photo of Natalie from high school that I keep in my wallet still—why, I don’t know, maybe because I like fucking torturing myself, maybe as a constant self-flagellation for my perceived fault in the whole thing. But what Athena can’t possibly fail to notice is that—
“She looks like me,” she whispers, her blue-grey gaze fixed on the photo. “Alotlike me. Is that—is that your ex?”
I snatch the wallet and photo out of her hand, feeling my muscles wind tight, every part of my body going rigid at the painful memory and the idea of Athena asking questions about it.
“It’s none of your fucking business,” I snap before I can stop myself, shoving the wallet back into my sweatpants pocket. “Don’t fucking mention it again.”
I turn away from her, stalking towards the locker room without a backward look, assuming that will be the end of it. But I’ve only just walked inside, throwing my stuff angrily down onto one of the benches, when I hear footsteps behind me.
For a moment, I’m stunned that she even followed me in here. I hadn’t thought she would have had the balls to do that. But she stalks into the locker room, her eyes flashing, still red-faced and sweaty from our workout.
“How the hell do you think you can talk to me like that?” she snaps, glaring at me. “I just made an observation; you didn’t have to bite my head off. But then again, that’s what you do, isn’t it? Just snap at me whenever you aren’t ignoring me these days.”
I feel something shift inside of me, something tight and angry breaking loose as I look at her. I’ve already taken my shirt off just before she walked in, and I see her gaze flick down to my muscled chest before she looks back up at my face.
“I’m not the one who fucked two of my best friends right in front of me and everyone else on this campus,” I growl, advancing towards her. “But I bet you don’t use that tone with Dean or Cayde, do you? I bet if you did, there’d be consequences. But not with me, right? I’m just the least of them, the lowest rung on the ladder, the one that you can talk to any way you damn well please, right?”
Athena’s eyes have gone wide in her face, her mouth dropping open in shock.Good,I think venomously, backing her against one of the rows of lockers, all of the resentment and anger that I’ve been bottling up flowing out of me, too thick and heavy to hold back any longer.
“If they can punish you, so can I,” I snarl, and I grab her shoulder, wrenching her around so that her face is pressed against the metal locker. I rear back, bringing my hand down on the tight spandex covering her ass, and Athena cries out in surprise, wriggling in my grasp as I spank her again, hard, in the same spot.
“Jaxon!” she yelps, and the sound goes straight to my cock. I’d thought I was exhausted, thought that I couldn’t have gotten hard if I’d wanted to. Yet suddenly, I’m rock-solid and throbbing, my cock tenting my boxing shorts as I pin her to the locker, bringing my palm down on the other cheek of her ass.
“I’m not less than them,” I hiss, smacking her ass again. “What should I do to you after I’m done turning this ass red, do you think? Shove you to your knees and demand you suck me off? Fuck you in the ass against these lockers? You don’t know how many times I’vedreamedof doing that. But you like that, don’t you? You like what Dean and Cayde do to you. I’ve been the one looking out for you, but maybe it’s time I show you just how merciless I can be when I reach the end of my rope.”
Athena writhes in my grasp, jerking around just as I bring my hand down again so that I end up striking her hip instead of her ass. She flips around, looking up at me, panting with wild eyes. As I try to spin her around again to keep spanking her, it’s her that rears back this time, slapping me hard across the face before I even see it coming.