Steel Read online

  “Get naked and put your hands back on the window.”

  “You want me naked in the window? Can... anyone see us up here?”

  “Not up here.”

  She wasn’t so sure of that. “Steel...”

  “Kat,” he said, which sounded like a warning.

  She sucked in a breath, removed her hands from window and unfastened her jeans. She shimmied them down, shoving her panties along with them and over her bare feet. When they were clear, she kicked them to the side. The whole time she watched his reaction in the reflection.

  He had stepped back a couple steps to watch her, but his face remained neutral.

  Crossing her arms in front of her, she snagged the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head, tossing that aside, too. Then she grabbed the bottom of her sports bra and ripped it up and off, her breasts finally free of their constraints.

  Her nipples were already pebbled and the cool air in the suite made them pucker painfully even more. She was tempted to touch them herself. Instead, she stepped again to the glass and saw her own naked body mirrored back at her.

  She tried to see herself through Steel’s eyes.

  Her short dark hair, layered in a way that kept it out of her face but was still cut feminine. Her muscular shoulders. She had worked hard to develop and keep the muscle needed to win fights.

  Her sculpted arms. They weren’t manly but they were still defined.

  Her breasts, now aching. Not huge, but no longer “mosquito bites” like the boys used to say in school to flat-chested girls. They had a little weight and a nice shape when they weren’t confined.

  Her waist had a noticeable taper but it wasn’t narrow due to her developed obliques and her just visible six-pack. Even so, her abs weren’t nearly as defined as Steel’s. Her hips and thighs weren’t thick, but solid.

  She was in no way what a man would call “curvy” or “luscious.” Toned and muscled, yes. Soft with an hourglass figure, no.

  While she liked the way she looked, a lot of men didn’t. They didn’t find it attractive and weren’t afraid to tell her so. As if she asked. She never understood why men—and even women—had to voice their opinions to her when her body didn’t affect them one fucking bit.

  She didn’t give a shit if she wasn’t attractive to them. Or her body style wasn’t acceptable in their eyes.

  But it seemed as if Steel didn’t mind. He actually seemed to like it.

  Maybe even preferred it.

  She in no way wanted to look like a man, even though some have accused her of it. She just wanted to be strong. Successful. Confident.

  She had that. So, fuck everyone else.

  But it wasn’t everyone else who stepped up to her again. Not touching but close enough to feel him, his strength, his power. Though, she felt at a disadvantage. She was naked. He was not.

  A shiver slipped down her spine and then again when his tongue—just the tip of it—touched a spot at the top of her neck at her hairline and traced the line of her spine, down her neck, where he sucked her skin. His short beard would occasionally scrape her as he moved lower. He licked her from the top of her back, and used her spine as a path between her shoulder blades, to the small of her back. To the top of her crease.

  And then even lower.

  When her breath rushed out of her, she hadn’t even been aware she’d been holding it. Until he was close. Right there. Not quite touching but so, so close.

  His lips replaced his tongue as he moved back up, following the same path until he reached, once again, where her back and neck met. There, his warm breath blew over her heated skin before he sank his teeth in.

  Fireworks exploded through her and she groaned as everything in her body went electric. He sucked her skin where he bit her, his tongue drawing circles over the bite. She doubted it was deep enough to leave a mark, but she still felt it and would for a while.

  She watched him in the window’s reflection, his large hands finding her hips, gripping her there as he slid kisses from his bite up her neck once more.

  Then he nuzzled his nose behind her ear. The only thing she could hear was his breathing and her own. And just that alone, made everything inside her clench tight.

  When she dropped her head forward, he curled his hand around her throat and pulled her head back up.

  His only word filling the space around them was a rough and raw, “Watch.”

  She forced her eyes to remain on the reflection of the two of them. Him much taller and broader. Her shorter and, for once, looking delicate. For once, even breakable.

  His thumb pressed for a moment at the thumping pulse in her neck, then his hand moved lower while his other slid up her ribs and they both met at her breasts. Cupping, squeezing, tweaking.

  She bucked against him, wanting and needing more than what he was giving her. So much more.

  She was losing her patience with how slow he was going. And from what she felt, how hard he was, she couldn’t imagine the man behind her had all the patience in the world, either.

  “Steel,” she forced out when it got caught in her throat.

  “You wanted me to do whatever I’d like. Are you backing out of that?”

  “You like to go this slow?”

  “What I like is watching you, watching your reactions to my touch. Watching you discover yourself. Watching you give yourself to me.”

  “Is that why you’re not naked?”

  “We have plenty of time for that.”

  She wasn’t so sure about that. She was ready to crawl out of her skin. She was ready to defy him by taking her palms off the window, turning and tackling him. Even though he’d probably overpower her once more.

  “I want to touch you.”

  “You will,” he murmured into her ear.

  “Now.”

  “No.”

  “When?”

  “Later. Patience, Kitty Kat.”

  She didn’t have any more patience. She was fresh out. But she dug deep, blew out a breath and shut her mouth.

  “You wet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Show me.”

  She had no idea how. She was facing the window with him plastered to her back.

  “You have ten fingers, Kitty Kat. You only need one.”

  “You said not to move my hands from the window.”

  “You have a one-time exemption.”

  She slipped a hand between her legs and drew one of her fingers through her soaked folds, gathering the proof of how badly she wanted him right now. And once she did, she lifted her hand up to show him.

  His back pressed her almost into the glass as he leaned forward and took her slick finger into his mouth, his tongue swirling around it.

  Holy shit.

  She squeezed her thighs together when she almost came. A trickle of wet slipped out of her and a low groan rose from deep within her chest. She had not only felt him suck on her finger but she had watched it in the window.

  Every time he did something to her she never expected, it bothered her even more that she’d missed out on all of this. This pleasure. This intimacy.

  She had spent years working on pushing her father’s doubt out of her head. She should’ve done the same with sex.

  “Kat, stay with me.”

  His murmur drew her out of her thoughts. Back to the room. Back to him.

  “Again, Kitty Kat. Show me how ready you are for me again.”

  She repeated running her finger through her wetness and offering it to him.

  He accepted it, releasing a low growl. After her finger was once again clean, he said, “Now, I want to watch you come. Show me how you do it when you’re alone.”

  What?

  She wasn’t alone. Why did he want that?

  “Whatever I’d like,” he reminded her.

  That’s right.

  That’s right.

  That’s right.

  She could do this.

  He took her hand, the one with the wet finger and slid it down
her belly, over the strip of hair, and drew that finger through her folds once more, this time with him guiding her.

  He stopped at her clit and pressed her finger there, circling it once, twice.

  “Now you,” he whispered, pulling his hand away.

  She took a shaky inhale as he pressed his cheek to the side of her head, cupped her breasts once more and rolled both nipples between his fingers and thumbs. She groaned and fought closing her eyes, what she normally did when she took care of her own needs.

  Her fingers moved automatically to his encouraging words which became a blur of sound.

  Soon she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer and she let them close, concentrating on what both she and Steel were doing.

  “Kat... eyes open. I want you to watch yourself come.”

  She couldn’t. She never watched herself before. Usually it was late at night when she was in bed, the lights off. She never had a desire to watch.

  “Kat,” he whispered. “Watch your face when you come. That’s what I see. And this is why I take my time. I don’t want to miss any of this.”

  His fingers were rolling and tweaking hard, sending bolts of lightning to her core as she moved her thumb faster while sliding two fingers inside. Wishing it was Steel there. Anxious to feel him inside her again.

  Before long, she was there. Falling. A strong arm held her up and against him as everything in, on and around her rippled intensely. She would have collapsed to the floor if he wasn’t holding her.

  She was semi-aware of him murmuring, “That’s it, baby. That’s it. Just let go.”

  Was he breathing as hard as she was?

  Was that him struggling for breath?

  He pulled her hand from between her legs and pressed it to the glass once more. “Don’t move.”

  Fuck, she’d do anything he said right now.

  That should scare her.

  It should.

  It didn’t.

  He stepped back and in the window she watched him pull out his wallet, dig in it and drop it to the floor. The unmistakable sound of his zipper sent a shudder through her. Then a rustle before the tearing of a condom wrapper.

  He didn’t get undressed. No. He only dropped his cargos slightly before pushing her head forward until her cheek also pressed to the glass. An arm hooked her hips and yanked them back, encouraging her to tilt them slightly.

  Though, no encouragement was needed.

  Then the head of his cock was sliding up and down through her slickness. Once. Twice. And once more before catching.

  He drove inside her to the hilt. Where he could go no further. His fingers dug deep into the muscles of her hips, securing her just where he wanted her. And then he began to move.

  He no longer was taking it slow.

  Hell no. He took her hard, deep, fast.

  Their skin slapping loudly as he slammed into her. Over and over.

  On almost every breath he said her name like a chant.

  She might have said his, too. But she lost track of how long it went on. She lost herself in the pleasure he was bringing her.

  The pleasure he was taking himself.

  He liked to watch her reactions.

  She liked to watch his, too.

  Their eyes met in the window’s reflection and held.

  One beat. Two beats.

  Until his face began to change. To twist. His breathing stuttered and he powered even deeper, if possible.

  And knowing he was about to lose it sent her quickly spiraling toward her own brink. She hovered there, waiting, knowing. Oh so ready.

  “With me,” he grunted. “With me, Kat.”

  And on a long, deep grunt, he drove forward once more and she went with him, free-falling down those forty-five stories.

  Chapter Twelve

  They both laid on their backs, their breath and hearts pounding, slick with sweat. Trying to recover from their latest bout of exertion. This seemed to be a common thing with them. Whether fucking in bed, or sparring and grappling on the mat. Or even both.

  Which was the current situation.

  Their attempt at a four-hour workout session this morning was thwarted when after only two hours of grunting, sweating, punching, kicking and tackling, he took her to the ground and pinned her to the mat, not giving her any quarter that time.

  So, she tried another tactic.

  By licking a bead of sweat that rolled down his neck, then sucking the damp skin of his throat.

  She quickly became pinned in another manner. And their practice turned quickly to naked grappling.

  But now, with both of them totally exhausted, they needed a shower, a protein shake and at least an hour in the two-person Jacuzzi tub in the insanely enormous suite bathroom.

  She’d have to suggest that.

  However, neither seemed willing to move, even Steel who had rolled off the spent condom, tied it off and tucked it into a nearby towel temporarily.

  They laid there quietly for several minutes, staring up at the ceiling, sexually sated, side by side, until Kat, curious, asked, “Why do you fight?”

  She knew it wasn’t for the money. They were paying him five thousand a week plus expenses for him to be her bodyguard. A few hundred or even a thousand for winning an underground fight was nothing.

  And being a bodyguard seemed to be less damaging on the body.

  It took him another long moment before answering, “Because I have to.” But before she could question that, before she could dig deeper, he echoed her question. “Why do you fight?”

  She echoed his answer. “Because I have to.”

  “You have something to prove.”

  “In a way.” She thought about why she had decided to begin training and competing. She wondered how much she should reveal to him. “I’m proving I can break the cycle of the women in my family. My father told me I couldn’t.”

  “You’re proving you can.” He ran his fingers over the tattoo on her ribs. When they say you can’t, prove that you can. Words to live by. She only had two tattoos, one on each side of her ribs and both had meaning.

  “Yes. But by doing so, I alienated them.”

  “What do you have to prove that’s worth losing your family over?” He tipped his bearded chin down to study her.

  She avoided his searching gaze. “I haven’t exactly lost them, but until I give up this ‘foolishness,’ they want nothing to do with me. When I’m ready to ‘toe the line,’ I’ll be welcomed home.”

  Toe the line. The exact words her father had said to her before hanging up the phone the very last time they talked. Which was almost ten long years ago.

  Ten years of not speaking to her father or mother. And occasionally, her sister. But even those rare conversations were strained.

  Her sister had followed her mother’s path by becoming a wife and mother fresh out of high school. Now she had three little ones running her ragged and a very demanding husband who struggled to provide for all of them.

  More proof that life was not Kat’s destiny. She really wondered if having three children and an over-worked husband at twenty-four was her sister’s dream. Kat doubted it, though her sister would never admit it.

  “What do you have to prove?” she asked him.

  “That I’m alive.”

  Kat sucked in a breath.

  She could easily prove Steel was alive. But there was a deeper meaning beyond the surface of his words. And a lot of that had to do with the dog tags he wore and the tattoo he bore on his back.

  She wasn’t wrong.

  “I’ve seen the light stolen from people’s eyes. I’ve held them while it went out. I’ve also been the one to take that light. To extinguish the light of someone’s father, brother, son... I’ve been judge and jury. That is a power a single fucking person should not hold. No one should.”

  Did what he had to do in his past, his present and maybe his future pull at his psyche? How could it not? No one was immune, were they?

  “But you do what you have
to do. You do what’s necessary.” She didn’t pose it as a question, because she hoped that was true. She doubted the man on the mat with her just killed people for sport, because he enjoyed it.

  “Kill or be killed. Or kill one to save many. Sometimes the choice is removed.”

  “You saved people.” Again, she hoped that was true, because there had to be a silver lining somewhere when forced to take someone’s life. Even if that silver lining was tarnished.

  “At the expense of others.”

  He ran his finger over the black script on the left side of her ribs. Strength is what we gain from the madness we survive. “This quote fits me, too,” he said softly. “The world can be complete madness. How we handle it determines how well we can survive.”

  “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” Kat murmured the cliché, more to herself than him.

  “I can attest to that.”

  “When I fight... When I’m on the mat sparring, when I’m in the cage fighting, everything else around me disappears. I understand how you feel when you said you fight to feel alive. It’s the same for me. I forget everything but what’s in front of me, which is my opponent. I focus on her and her alone. And I have one goal.”

  “To win.”

  “To win,” Kat echoed. “Every win proves to me that I’m following the path I was meant to be on. Not the one expected of me.”

  His body jerked just slightly when she said that last part. A second later he asked, “What about your losses?”

  “Every loss proves I need to work harder.”

  “You’re hard on yourself.”

  She thought back to her parents’ reaction when she wanted to start competing as a teen. At first, they found it amusing. Something to bide her time like field hockey or volleyball, the sports her female classmates were involved in. Then as she began to get more serious, when her chosen “sport” became more expensive, more time consuming, they were no longer amused.

  In fact, her father had put his foot down. Outright told her that she was on the wrong path. Women weren’t fighters. They were the weaker sex for a reason. He told her that she needed to put those thoughts out of her head. Settle down. Find a man. Because no man wanted a woman who was muscular or even aggressive.