Chapter 9
Skylar
Everyone starts movinginto a loose circle, and I know the fighting is about to happen. Adrian turns and looks at me, and the smile he gives me has this heat spreading through my body.
I’ve never felt anything like this before, and I don’t want it to end.
Some guy hops atop this overturned barrel I just now notice, and the crowd of people goes wild. Their hands are raised, their beers sloshing over the rims of their plastic cups. Their voices are so loud and in unison it’s earsplitting.
This is definitely a shock to me. Never have I been in such an atmosphere. The parties I went to in high school were nothing like the crazy experience I know I am about to have.
The people that surround me are like a different breed. They keep chanting for blood, broken bones, and violence. They keep screaming for the fight to start, that they need it.
Through the parting people—swaying as if they were a living ocean—I see Adrian off to the side.
“Well, look at all you assholes waiting for some violence,” the guy on the barrel shouts. The crowd goes wild once more, and I am pushed forward from behind. There is a string of screams from the crowd. “The ladies ready to get wet, and the guys ready to get hard from the aggression about to go down?”
I am shoved forward once again, this time so forcefully I fall forward and land on my hands and knees. A hiss of pain leaves me, but I right myself. I back up until I am several feet from the crowd. The crowd surges forward once more and I have to brace myself or I would have fallen again. I am pushed forward once more, and this time knock into the guy in front of me.
He turns around, his face a mask of anger, probably because he is being pushed around. But when he looks at me his expression softens. Maybe he sees how freaked out I am? He grips my arm to steady me.
“Shit, you okay?” I pull away from him and nod. “I about clocked you, thinking you were some drunk running into me.”
“I can’t hear you,” the guy on the barrel shouts again.
The crowd screams.
“Are you ready to see some hardcore, bare-knuckle, dirty ass fighting?”
“Hell, yeah.”
“Bring it.”
“More blood the better.”
The comments are being yelled out in all directions.
My heart is pounding a frantic beat. I am so out of my element here.
I look through the crowd and spy Adrian. He is shirtless now, bouncing on the balls of his feet, clearly trying to get worked up.
“I’ve never seen you here before,” the guy who I had run into said. He moves a bit closer to me. “You new to this scene?” He is shouting to be heard over the yelling.
I just nod. There is no point in me shouting too, I don’t even know if he’d be able to hear me.
“Let me hear some fucking noise.” The “announcer” drags out the last word. Like the crowd needs to be even more intense.
And then I watch Adrian step into the center of the circle. The guy who he is clearly fighting against isn’t as tall as he is, but looks stockier.
And then they go at each other.
Punches are thrown, blood is spilled, and all the while the crowd roars out for more.
I feel like I am holding my breath the whole time.
I don’t know how long the fight lasts, but I doubt I will have any fingernails after the fact. And then I watch as Adrian rears his arm back, swings it forward, and hits the guy right on the side of the jaw. The other fighter goes down like a bag of cement.
Shouts, hollers, and screams surround me, making my ears ring, and my very bones vibrate.
I am frozen in place as I watch someone hand Adrian a towel. He wipes the blood and sweat from his face and chest, but his focus is right on me. He moves forward, and the crowd parts for him. Some people slap him on the back, and the congratulatory comments are being thrown around.
Adrian is right in front of me and I picture what I’ve just seen. It has been violent, slightly frightening, but above all it has been … arousing.
And then he reaches out, cups the back of my head, and kisses me right in front of everyone.
He kisses me until I am breathless, until the flavor is engrained in my very cells.
He kisses me like he owns me right now, and in this moment I don’t want anything to consume me aside from what is happening.