WAR BABY

A Novella

BY:

DAYA DANIELS

CONTENTS

Copyright

Dedication

Playlist

Quote

Round One

Round Two

Round Three

About the Author

Copyright@ 2017 by Daya Daniels

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any way, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or any other means without the explicit written permission of the author, except for brief quotations of the book when writing a review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents, and even facts are the product of the author’s imagination. Wait a minute...especially facts. Any resemblance to actual people—alive, dead, or someplace in between—is completely by chance and likely in your head.

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission.  Holy hell, this is important. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Let’s not forget! All song titles in this book are the property of the sole copyright owners.

To all the fighters.

PLAYLIST

Click SPOTIFY to listen to songs inspired by this story

“Killing Strangers” – Marilyn Manson

“O Mio Babbino Caro” – Maria Callas

“I Wanna Be Yours”- Arctic Monkeys

“Let It All Go” - Birdy + Rhodes

“Under Your Spell” – Desire

“To Me” – Chet Faker

“The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain.”

-Karl Marx

WARNING: This novella contains strong subject matter, strong language, and strong sexual content. If you are sensitive to explicit sex, then this isn’t the book for you.

You have been warned.

ROUND ONE

Pierce

“I quit.” The deep voice interrupts my early morning phone call.

I spin around in my chair, away from the New York City skyline I’d been admiring and uncross my legs. A mass of unruly honey-blond hair that desperately needs to be cut comes into view before the owner’s piercing blue eyes meet mine.

“I’ll have to call you back,” I mumble into the receiver before hanging up, slowly.

A humorless smile spreads across my face as I drag the scrap of paper with two fingers from across my desk he’d put there and pick it up. Scribbled across the crumpled yellow note which looks like it’s been torn from an old Chinese takeout menu, in pencil, are the words I quit. He hadn’t even considered typing it out like a professional would which leads me to believe either he has no clue, or he simply doesn’t care. Likely, it’s both.

Standing, I round my desk and step closer examining the black eye that one of the firm’s best associate lawyers, Xavier Benedict, seems to be donning this morning like it’s a fucking badge of some sort. He stands straighter—shoulders high and chin hard, when I step into his personal space with narrowed eyes taking in the sight of the angry bruise around his left eye—shiny and bright like the surface of a plum.

The gorgeous young man clears six feet but still I’m at least two inches taller. I shove the scrap of paper towards him, my hand crashing into his chest and the sore ribs that likely linger there under the white Oxford shirt he wears. He groans in pain and avoids my eyes when he breathes through his agony nice and slow. I only stare at the disaster in front of me.              

In the last few months, Xavier had come into work with broken fingers, black eyes, busted lips, cuts, gashes, scrapes, bruises, and missing teeth that he’d of course have fixed right away. The ridiculous list went on.

The kid loves to fight.

Xavier had earned his nickname War Baby in the underground fighting ring. Here, he’s called Xavier. Out in the New York City streets, they call him just Baby mostly. He’d worked for me for the last three years after graduating from Yale with a law degree. He’s smart but he isn’t focused and he doesn’t give two shits about being a lawyer. He’s just another trust fund kid doing what his parents expect of him. I’d seen it too many times before having lived through the same mess myself.

With a grimace, I look him over. Tall, muscular (think MMA fighter’s build), blue eyes you could get lost in, and a beaming white smile—when he wasn’t missing teeth—that would make your boxer briefs disintegrate, and gay. Only no one would believe it. He’s constantly hit on by women, men, and even the male higher ups in this firm have a thing for him.

I’d never known Baby to date anyone, not seriously anyways. He kept his personal life private, as did I. But I knew he was gay and many others did too. It wasn’t something he was hiding.

He’d endured the typical teasing and taunting growing up, only now Baby kicked the asses of even the toughest straight guys who gave him shit, I’d heard. They didn’t fuck with him—no one did. The guy has a chip on his shoulder the size of Africa.

He’s young. He’s tough and he’s crazy. And although he doesn’t care for it, he’s good at his job and is one of the best associate lawyers I know. An “exceptional” talent, I had highlighted in his last work performance review that earned him a hefty bonus and a comfortable pay raise.

I cross my arms and nudge my chin in the direction of the lounge area in the corner of the large room without saying a word. Baby makes a face and ambles across my office like a child about to be scolded and eases down into the leather sofa. I spin around and head towards the bar and fill two tumblers with Macallan 25 along with two ice cubes—the breakfast of champions. I pick up the remote and point it in the direction of the stereo. “O Mio Babbino Caro” sung by Maria Callas sounds beautifully from the speakers.

Baby plops down in the sofa, so far down he might as well be lying in bed. I’m certain he always sat at the back of the class in school, in that same position. A hand runs through his thick hair which he ruffles with a sigh. He sits with his arms crossed and his legs spread wide open. I approach him, passing him the tumbler which he gratefully accepts with a “thanks.”

I give him a nod and take a seat opposite him, appreciating the view in front of me...of the Chrysler Building in the distance. Casually, I sip my drink enjoying the burn of it as it coats my throat. Baby takes a few sips, his face twisting into some sort of fucked-up expression that forces me to swallow down a chuckle with my next gulp. He doesn’t drink. At least, I’ve never seen him drink anything besides Gatorade and water.

We sip our drinks. I shut my eyes, sinking into the haunting song. It finishes just when we’re both nearly done and the volume lowers just as it’s set. I place my glass on the coffee table between us meeting Baby’s blue eyes.

“Did you enjoy that?”

His tawny brows cinch as he thumbs over his shoulder. “The music?”

I nod.

“Yes. Yeah, it was nice—not something I’d listen to but it’s okay.”

I suck my teeth and take a deep breath, glaring at the decoration which surrounds his sapphire left eye, that’s dark enough to be mistaken for a hole in Baby’s face. The damage possibly from some disgruntled ex-lover out for revenge. Or, the work of some madman he owed money to. Anyone who didn’t know he’d fought in the underground rings, which are illegal, would assume all these things. I’d grown tired of explaining all of Baby’s injuries away to the higher ups in the firm. Being partner myself helped a bit but there’s only so much I can cover up. Baby and his escapades were beginning to get under my skin in more than a few ways.

He didn’t think about the risk or the position he might be putting himself in if he were to mistakenly kill someone in the ring. He’d be disbarred and possibly even jailed. There’s also the very real possibility he could end up being seriously injured himself.

Kids.

Glancing at his marred appearance that’s no less striking, three words come to mind.

Immature. Incredible. Wild.

Baby

It’s ten in the morning and I’m sitting here listening to fucking opera. My boss—the high and mighty Pierce Baron Carlisle—sits in front of me. Tumbler clutched in hand, legs crossed, exposing his expensive pink socks which are likely cashmere, and custom dress shoes.

The wall on one side of this apartment-sized office is covered in expensive replicas—Picassos, Chagalls and Pollocks. The other side of it is made up of floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the Hudson River.

He’s thirty-four years old, recently divorced and is one of New York’s most eligible gay bachelors. In the three years I’d worked for him, I didn’t even know he was married, since I’d never actually seen the husband and Pierce never spoke of him—which told me the marriage had been long dead before it was actually over.

This man exudes confidence. His powerful aura feels like it takes up the entire room. He’s a brilliant lawyer with a Harvard education, who lives on the upper east side in a sprawling penthouse, alone—with not even a cat or dog. The only thing the two of us have in common is that we’re both trust fund babies from wealthy families and have parents who have high expectations of us.

I look this stunning princeling over, taking in his chiseled features.

This man is exceptionally good-looking—male-model attractive. For a moment, consider the very unreal possibility as a what if, of course, that Henry Cavill and Matt Bomer had a son together. Yeah, exactly. You catch my drift. That’s Pierce Baron Carlisle.

Power. Creed. Respect. Admiration.

His nose looks like it’s been broken once or twice but I can’t be sure. He gives me a brilliant smile, exposing every single one of his straight white teeth and I avert my gaze forcing myself not to stare. Something really pisses me off about this guy.

His inky-black hair is perfectly coiffed and his grey eyes nearly burn a hole in me as he scans me from head to toe. I’d come in this morning to quit and for some ungodly reason, I’m still here.

Why am I still-fucking-here?

He keeps my gaze when he grabs his glass again, swallowing the last few drops of watered-down alcohol and sets it on the table in the middle of us.

“Did you wake up this morning and just decide to quit?” he asks.

I nod.

“So, five years of Yale and putting time in here at Carlisle, Meyer, & Atchings is worth nothing to you?”

Hesitantly, I open my mouth to speak. “That’s not it. I just see another path for myself.”

He presses his full lips together and adjusts his dress pants at the knees to lean forward. He’s a large fucker. At least six foot three, two hundred thirty pounds. He’s not a dude you’d want to be in a brawl with but I’d taken down bigger assholes in my day.

Is he intimidating? Yes. Does he scare me? Absolutely fucking not.

He runs his finger around the rim of his glass, watching me watching him. “No trust fund concerns, Baby?” he asks, his voice deep and honeyed.

I swallow back a chuckle both at his question and the fact he’d called me Baby. No one called me that here. The nickname is such a stark contrast to my government name—Xavier Arthur Benedict III.

God, I hate that fucking name.

I’m twenty-six, covered in scars and ink and I have a name which would have most people assume I’m a fucking priest or some shit. I’m a walking contradiction. A savage in a suit. An animal who has the daily nine-to-five, tailored appearance of being a proper gentleman. I’m anger personified. Rebellion, my middle-fucking-name.

“You’re asking me if I’m worried that my parents will cut me off?”

He cants his head forward a few times.

I run a hand over my jaw and sigh. “A little but not really.”

“And you’re considering quitting law to take up a full-time job in the underground fighting ring?” he asks, his top lip turning up into a snarl as though he smells shit.

I nod again.

“Well, from the looks of it, I’d say you need to work on your defenses.”

I huff and give him a huge grin.

Pierce sits even farther forward, pinching his lips. “The problem with the youth today...” He sighs. “Is that they aren’t willing to work for anything. They don’t appreciate the opportunities given to them and they don’t think about the future.”

Inwardly, I roll my eyes. This guy talks as if he has twenty years on me.

To him, I’m the youth. The bane of society, gradually taking the world’s future down the shitter with my lack of focus and commitment.

I’m wild. Have no direction. Think I have all the answers. I’m irresponsible. Disrespectful. Ungrateful. Impulsive. Reckless. And guess what? He’s right. I’m all those things and much, much more and I make no apology for it.

“The purpose of the fight is to win, yes?” he asks, slanting his head in my direction.

“Of course.”

He extends his large palms open my way as if asking me to explain. He doesn’t blink the longer he keeps that penetrating gaze on me.

“I was caught off guard.”

Pierce laughs. “War Baby,” he scoffs.

“Yeah, that’s what they call me,” I growl. “War Baby. I’ve earned it. I’ve won nearly every single underground fight I’ve been in. They respect me on the circuit.”

“More than they respect you here?”

“Yesss.”

“So that’s what this is about?” He groans, checking the one-hundred-thousand-dollar Patek Philippe platinum watch on his thick wrist.

My brows cinch when it dawns on me what he’s doing.

Deflecting. Accusing. Dismissing.

“I’ll give you time to go home and think about this, Baby.” He stands and heads across the room. “I’ll allow you three days to go home and heal.” He laughs while adjusting his vest.

I shoot up from the sofa, fists balled ready to fight. “I’m done here, Pierce. I won’t be coming back,” I say. raising my voice. “And for the record, I don’t need time to heal. My goddamn eye is fine.”

He chuckles and bobs his head and flips through the iPad on his desk still with his back to me. “You sound like a child throwing a tantrum.” His tone is amused.

I stride across the room, facing him. His head is still down, while he scrolls through his agenda for the day.

“I’m not coming—”

“Oh yes, you are,” Pierce says. His head lifts, exposing his flawless face to me. “Oh yes, you are because this is your path, Baby, whether you like it or not. This is why you were hired to work here to begin with, not because of your talent and acumen. It’s because that is what my father promised your father, many years ago and this is the way things work in our world. You know this, Baby.

“The two men have been good friends most of their lives.” He smiles. “No one really gives a shit if you want to go and take out your frustrations after dark in some fighting ring, but that’s extra-curricular. Where you stand now, is your career. Your life. And if you throw it away, you’re throwing everything away.”

I run a hand through my hair while he takes a seat on the edge of his desk.

“You’ll thank me for giving you the opportunity to go home and collect your stupid thoughts before you make a decision you’ll regret,” he coos. “I can hardly imagine you giving up your penthouse that overlooks Central Park in exchange for a boarding room in a hostel.” He laughs.

His words cause my ears to become itchy and now I fear I have a rash.

Fuck.

“I admire you, Baby. You want to walk to your own beat, live your own life, set your own path and all that good shit but it isn’t realistic. But...” He pauses. “There’s a pay off at the end, when you get to where I am one day, which you will. You can do whatever the fuck you want.”

I grit my teeth so hard I’m certain my jaw will crack.

“You have to pay your dues, Baby, and you’re not there yet.”

He approaches me filling my space with him. I inhale the crisp, spicy scent of the cologne he wears. His jaw is clean-shaven and his hair is perfect since he appears to get a haircut at least every two fucking days. Who does that?

This man’s presence is intimidating and he knows it but I don’t back down. I never back down. I didn’t get the nickname War Baby for nothing.

His nose is an inch from mine while he takes in my expression. His arm lifts and a finger rakes through my hair. It’s the first time I’ve seen his perfectly symmetrical features up this close and they’re even more intriguing. His nose—it’s definitely been broken before. Maybe twice like mine.

“How many rounds do your fights usually go, Baby?”

I narrow my eyes at his bizarre question. “Five,” I announce proudly. “And that’s if I’m just fucking around.”

He laughs. His minty breath laced with the remnants of expensive scotch puff against my lips. “You’re tough. I’ll give you that.”

He’s amused. Intrigued. Maybe even turned on and I’m not entirely sure I like it.

If I know anything about Pierce Baron Carlisle it’s that he gets everything he wants and I can see why men give it all to him willingly. He’s mysterious, charismatic, smart, and fine as hell. This man has the ability to drive a dude to the nut house. I can feel it on him. I can sense his commanding presence that takes up all the oxygen in this humungous room and constricts my airways making it difficult to breathe.

He laughs, which is something he rarely does and thrusts more of his fingers into my hair giving me a curious smoky gaze while teasing my strands. Goose bumps erupt all over my skin at his touch and blood rushes to my face, causing my half-shut eye to throb even more and my cheeks to heat.

For a moment, we’re stuck in some sort of eye-fuck I try my best to ignore, but it’s there. The raw attraction. The undeniable pull to each other. Monster and man. Predator and prey. Captor and captive. Hunter and little rabbit. Only, I’m not certain who is which.

This man sneaks up on you and digs into your soul like tenterhooks, settling himself there.

I dip away from him, forcing his hands out of my hair feeling like I’m about to freak the fuck out. I brush my hair down while he stands a foot away from me with his hand still in the air as if I disrupted some intimate moment he was having with my strands.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he says with a loud inhale, shoving his hands into his pockets.

He stands confident looking me over. I sense an undercurrent of irritation in his demeanor. But, when isn’t he annoyed in my presence?

I wait, curious about his offer.

“If you win, I’ll work out something better for you here, remarkably better.” He grins. “You’re an exceptional lawyer.”

Win?

I nod, appreciating the compliment and my brows shoot to my hairline but I try my best to temper down my excitement.  “How—” I begin to say but he cuts me off before I can finish.

“I do what I want. You don’t need to worry your pretty little head about that.”

I hate the way this guy talks to me!

“This is my life, Pierce. It isn’t a game.”

He spins away from me and heads across the room, his large palm still up in the air as he speaks with his back to me. “So, now you’re concerned about your life?”

A loud sigh leaves my mouth and my shoulders slump. I suppose he has a point.

“If you lose. “He points his index finger to the sky. “You finish your three years here and no more underground fighting.”

I give him a blank look and lift a shoulder, uncertain of what shit street this is all heading down. “I don’t understand.”

“But this deal comes with one condition.” He gives me a cryptic smile, turning around to face me.

“And what is that?” I question, looking at him out of my good eye.

“You’ll have to fight me for it.”

Pierce

Baby laughs and continues to laugh, until he’s almost choking with humor, which eventually morphs into side-splitting, eye-watering chuckles. The sound of his amusement, the way his head bobs, and the boyish grin that spreads across his face makes me smile.             

He runs a hand through that messy yellow hair of his and lets out a loud sigh, before finding my eyes again.

“I think you have a deal, Pierce Baron Carlisle.”

I give him a once-over, curious about the toned body that lingers beneath the expensive threads he wears but I’m pretty sure I know what’s there. If I could guess his weight, I’d say Baby’s pushing at least two hundred pounds.

He stands tough most of the time, as if he’s always ready for a brawl to break out, even when we’re sitting in client meetings, and he’s left handed, which means I’d have to watch his sneak attacks coming up on my right. I know he has a mean upper cut but it isn’t anything I can’t handle.

He’s still laughing as I flick through some pages in the manila folder in front of me.

Baby’s arrogant demeanor inflames me. His view on the world is unrealistic. This guy is more than just self-assured. He’s pompous. He’s glib and he thinks he has no limits. I’ve dealt with men like this my entire life. They’re a dime a fucking dozen.

Tough guys like Baby think everyone should kiss their asses and that the world owes them something. I might’ve been a rich kid, trust fund brat but I’d earned my place at this firm, after spending what felt like decades in school and working for my father. It would’ve been a miracle for someone like Baby to imagine that maybe I’d gotten to where I was because I’d earned it.

Prick.

He runs his hand over his stubble-covered jaw that needs to be fucking shaved and a few of his tattoos on his neck edge over the collar of his shirt. I recognize the markings as being new and scoff in disgust. The last thing clients want is a lawyer, no matter how good he is, to be covered in tattoos and fresh bruises, like they’d just traveled through the meat grinder.

My secretary, Gwyn, sticks her head in the door. “Mr. Carlisle, your eleven a.m. is here,” she announces, right before her eyes widen when she spots the sight of Baby across the room and his shiner.

I grab my suit jacket, shrugging it on.

Baby has promise, which is something his father spotted in him long ago. He had his choice of firms and even more so now that he’d had a few years under his belt and had built up a stellar reputation for himself. So, I never did entirely understand why the decision to work here. It wasn’t important enough to ask and frankly at the time we hired him, I didn’t really give a shit.

I fiddle with my cuff links and pop a candy in my mouth, savoring its sweet taste. Baby’s still laughing. It’s a laugh he should enjoy, so I don’t stop him.

Checking my watch, I smile. “How is eight o’clock tonight, seeing that you’re adamant you don’t need time to heal?”

He stands straight. “Eight is fine.” He grins.

“Meet me at 31st and 6th. You know the place.”

“Isn’t that one of yours?”

“Yes. It is.”

He nods. “Eight it is then.”

“Take the rest of the day off,” I tell him, before heading across the room and disappearing through the doors. “At least go to the doctor and get that fucking eye checked before you go blind.”

Baby said his fights usually go five rounds. I could guarantee him, this one would be over in three.

ROUND TWO

Baby

Inhaling the crisp October air, I stand just outside of an old brownstone. The name Carlisle is stamped in gold across the bronze plaque set into the stone on the front, confirming the building belongs to the Carlisle family. I don’t think there’s a building in New York city they don’t own.

The Carlisle family are powerful. I don’t know much about Pierce’s upbringing, but I know he’s a fifth-generation Harvard graduate and that his great grandfather founded the firm we now work for and had built it up to what it is now—a heavy hitter law firm that had a stellar reputation for winning most, if not all, its cases. The Carlisle name holds weight in this city. It means business.

Despite the fact that Pierce’s father and my father knew each other well, the Carlisle and Benedict families rarely spent time together and whenever they did Pierce wasn’t around. I can’t forget he already has eight years on me in age, which in his eyes makes me a toddler.

I take the steps and hit the intercom. I don’t get the chance to speak into the receiver. The lock disengages almost immediately and the door pops open with an irritating buzz. I step inside. Pierce is already here. Heading down the narrow hall, the scent of sawdust fills my nostrils. A few more feet in, I spot machinery and tarps strewn everywhere. This building is under renovation it seems and is being converted from an old boxing gym to an office location of some sort.

Running a hand through my hair, I dip inside of a large dimly lit room. A boxing ring raised five feet above the floor is in the center of it. Pierce is at the opposite end of the large space fiddling with a stereo. He’s barefoot and shirtless, wearing a pair of sweatpants which drape at his waist. His dark hair is slicked to his scalp, since he’s covered in sweat, telling me he’d already been warming up.

He’s more muscular than I thought, each layer clearly defined in his chest and back.

“You’re here,” he says in his deep voice, without turning around.

“Yep, couldn’t bear to miss the opportunity to change my life.”

He laughs that irritating laugh again and twists around, when I drop my duffel bag on the floor with a thud. My forehead furrows and my jaw tightens when I spot the massive cross tattooed across his entire chest with Jesus Christ nailed to it—the fucking crucifixion! His abs are ripped, almost as defined as mine, if not more and his hands are already wrapped with tape. He’d obviously already spent time going at the punching bag in the corner of the room.

He strides towards me and stops at about two feet away, to stare. I follow his eyeline when he looks at the old clock on the wall which confirms it’s getting up to eight thirty. He grimaces and I suppress a laugh. Pierce had always been one for keeping time. It’s important to him that someone make time. It’s a show of consideration to the person waiting for you. According to him if you’re late, you’re silently telling the person waiting for you they’re invaluable and somehow your time is worth more than theirs.

I’d seen Pierce walk out of meetings, giving no explanation even to clients who were late, which was hilarious.

A second glance at the clock makes me wonder what other appointments he has for the night. He steps away without looking at it again.

“Gloves or no gloves?” he asks.

I chuckle, stripping out of my jacket and boots. “I’m a bare-knuckled fighter.”

“Right,” he says in a hushed tone. “Bare.”

I nod and get prepped. The music cuts on, something loud and vicious as it pounds through the walls, fucking up my focus. I recognize the song as “Killing Strangers” by Marilyn Manson.

I blow into my hands warming them up a bit, after I’d finished taping them, and hop into the ring, ready to take this fucker down.

Pierce

Baby dances in front of me, showing off footwork that could only be learned in the ring. I’m less show and a little more action.

The words Only The Dead Have Seen The End of The War are inked on his back in intimidating bold block letters. It’s a Plato quote and it’s fitting for what this man seems to want—death.

We’re both covered in sweat. I’d taken a few shots to the chin but I’d delivered them back, clean, hard, and precise, to the beautiful face standing in front of me.

He heaves for breath and ducks left from my right as I charge towards him. I spin around out of the way of a deadly roundhouse kick that’s about to connect with my ribs. Taking a few more steps forward, I connect with his face three more times, delivering a combo, careful to avoid his left eye.

A small mercy.

We bob and weave almost in a dance.

He grunts as I land each blow and then focus on beating him down at his ribs, as we fall to the floor with a loud bang which runs neck and neck with the volume of the music.

The boy can take a punch, I’ll give him that. Most of what I’ve thrown at him would’ve put most grown men down but not War Baby. I can see how he’d earned the nickname.

Our sounds and frantic grappling fill the air. I resist the urge to simply bite him to get out of the submission hold he has me in, even though I’m on top, straddling him, his back against the floor.

He punches me in the chest hard, just as a strange sound rips from his mouth. It’s a hiss mixed in with a growl and it dawns on me he’s pissed. His face is in a permanent scowl, blue eyes blazing and his white teeth are on display in a rabid snarl.

When he hits me again with the swift thrust of his hand, I lose focus, my eyesight becomes blurry and I struggle to catch my breath.

We roll across the length of the ring and somehow Baby ends up on top of my back. His forearm snakes up beneath my throat and his powerful legs wrap around my middle, squeezing, nearly cutting off my circulation. I military crawl across the floor determined not to give up, while he attempts to choke me out.

“Tap out, you fucker,” he growls right into my ear.

I laugh through my labored breathing and work to make it to my feet again. This bastard is strong! His legs squeeze tighter, his heels digging into my kidneys. His elbow hits the center of my back three times, eliciting a few painful grunts from me.

I push up to my feet with the heavy weight of him still on my back and roar like the unstoppable force I am. We’re both covered in sweat and grunting like animals.

This truly is barbaric but there’s something exciting about it too that I’m truly understanding in this moment. The fight. This is what Baby must chase each night when he tapes his hands up and moves to stand inside of that chalk circle. The adrenaline that courses through your blood when you’re defending your life. The rush of it all. The primal instincts that kick in, propelling you to fight. To win! To remain undefeated at all costs.

Baby’s forearms squeeze harder around my neck. I stumble in circles, until I make the foolish decision to simply fall backwards and we go crashing to the floor with a slam which causes the floor of the ring to dip and jump, as if it’s caught in an earthquake.

Our limbs flail and tangle after the fall breaks the hold he has on me. Baby crawls away, letting out a few swear words, a grimace etched across his face, his blond hair everywhere. He’s a gorgeous fucking mess.

“That was fucked up,” he growls, steadying himself to finally stand straight.

I’m certain his back is screaming but he only shows a brief moment of pain. Then, it’s gone.

I only smile, desperate to get rid of my glittery vision. We dance for a few seconds, both of us trying to get our shit together.

He steps forward, swings and misses. I’m yanked into a clinch I shrug violently out of. I bounce around a little, staring at his bare chest covered in tats and cut with muscle. Beads of sweat cascade down and over his tanned skin and gather in the middle of his stomach to pool at his waistband.

Baby cursing jolts me out of my daze. He spits his mouth guard out. I laugh and do the same.

“Fuck this,” he hisses, right before he charges for me burying his head in my stomach, forcing me against the ropes.

I land a slew of punches into his sides, while he attempts to grapple with me, locking me in a hold. We go crashing to the floor, with a loud thud.

I roll away and crawl on top of him, crushing him with my weight. I inhale the fresh scent that lingers on his strands, enjoying the useless struggle beneath me for a moment, before he punches me in the eye and scrambles back to his feet.

“I’ve taken down big bastards before,” he grates out, keeping his head low and his eyes trained on me a few feet away.

“Yeah.” I smile, taking my position again, shaking out my legs.

“They don’t call me War Baby for nothing.”

I laugh again and trudge forward in his space. His knuckles connect with my jaw, right before I pull him down and knee him in the ribs three times in a row. He bowls over with a hiss and backs away.

I allow him a little air and a chance to catch his breath.

“You’re pretty good,” he compliments.

“Yeah, I know.”

“How?” he asks breathlessly.

“You’re not the only one that can fight, Baby.”

He nods and brushes his blond strands out of his face. I spin away from him, gripping the ropes and when I turn something unexpected happens. A fist makes contact with my nose and an elbow with my temple.

He’s trying to kill me!

He crawls up the height of me as if he’s King Kong scaling the Empire State Building, until he’s perched at my shoulders.

I’m disoriented and pissed.

The air is cut from my throat when he wraps his arms around it. I get a good hold and take a dive to the center of the ring, hard again.

The decision isn’t smart. I’m certain this will be the last time I can pull off this move without breaking my own spine. And I’m not in the mood to end up in the intensive care unit for the sake of kicks.

Baby writhes on the floor in pain.

I maneuver myself on top of him, flipping him over. “That was dirty,” I rasp out, using my forearm to secure his neck, pressing his face into the filthy mat. “That was fucking dirty.”

“You don’t like the smell of the shit you shovel out yourself.” He grunts.

Rising up to my knees, I punch him in the ribs on his right side at least twenty times until he’s docile, defeated and nearly tamed. I’ll have to watch my back. He’d had the opportunity to finally take me out and he’d fucked it up. He could only blame himself for that.

Our panting mixes together, along with the music on replay and drives my excitement.

Shoving my forearm harder into the back of his neck, I succeed in keeping him pinned. Dipping down and looking at his smooshed face, I whisper, “The problem with fuckers like you is that you need to be taught a lesson.”

Baby chuckles, clearly amused. “What can you teach me, Mr. Carlisle?”

“Well, for starters I can’t teach you how to stop being a prick,” I say through gritted teeth, reaching beneath him to untie the string at his waistband.

He bucks underneath me, attempting to push my weight off him. Yanking at the plush material, it slides down exposing his tanned ass cheeks, already covered in bruises (no tatts) that I want to bite.

“That’s what you’ve wanted all along, huh?” he hisses, attempting to glance over his shoulder, when I pull him up to his knees releasing my death grip a little.

“It’s what you need.”

He laughs again. “Really?”

“Yeah,” I say about to fucking explode.

I shove my sweatpants down with one hand, pulling my already hard cock out.             

I press a kiss into his ear, licking along the shell of it, tasting his salty sweat and breathing in the natural scent of his skin I want all over my own flesh.

“One thing about guys like you—the dominants. They like to be controlled.

“You’ve never been conquered, have you, you little prick?”

“Naaa, not my thing.”

A deep laugh rumbles through me, when I spread his cheeks, giving me an enticing view of his tight, little, freshly-waxed asshole, which I’m about to fill, and his manicured cock and balls.

“Beautiful,” I whisper.

Baby chuckles. “I’m told only you married men rock the dick-froes.”

I laugh, focusing on my cock in my hand and the sight of his bare ass in front of me that rocks back and forward. “I think you’ll find my garden trimmed,” I hiss.

“You want to fuck me but you haven’t even kissed me yet,” he jokes.

“Sometimes the fucking comes before the kissing.”

I allow my fingers to dig into his fleshy cheeks, kneading and massaging them until he’s hissing and groaning beneath me. I spit into my hand, coating his tight muscle with my fingers, touching the warm skin there.

Baby moans and eases while I massage him for a while. A simple nudge is all it takes.

I release the hold I have on the back of his neck a little and dip a hand under his waist. He’s already hard. I stroke him a few times, feeling the precum already gathered at the tip of his thick cock. I rub it over his tight hole.

“I would let you see mine but I think if I do, you’d run,” I mumble against his ear.

His tight hole opens, right in front of me, glorious and begging to be filled. It’s an invitation. A sexy-as-fuck plea.

“You think?”

“Yeah, I’m sure of it,” I say, positioning myself a little better, looking for the most advantageous angle.

I rake my fingers through his thick blond hair and tighten my grip in the strands at his scalp, yanking his head back, exposing his sweaty throat. His back dips and his ass rounds even more, making my cock hard as fuck. I massage my hands over his tight pink balls and down the back of his warm thighs. A low keening sound escapes his throat when the broad head of my cock brushes against the hot wet spot of his entrance. I land a slap to his right ass cheek, staring at the red print left there when I pull my hand away admiring my work.

“You’re a sick fuck,” he grates out with a hiss when I do it again.

Maybe.

A few more whacks have my balls tightening in anticipation. His ass cheeks are pink and shiny, covered in sweat and saliva. A hella masterpiece.

A startled grunt leaves his mouth right before it opens in a silent scream, when I slide the dripping head of my cock into his tight heat, immediately settling into a rhythm which has us both moaning.

Baby

The sexy fucker behind me runs his large hands over the sweaty skin on my back, as he settles his cock deep in my ass. His hand clutches my neck, when he vaults me forward with a grunt. I spread my palms wide against the dirty mat and stare at the stains on it for a while, which I’m certain are old blood.

Pierce groans and the vibration spreads straight through his chest and lands in mine, causing my dick to become harder than it already is. I take everything he has to give. He’s fucking me like he’s trying to carve a tunnel to my throat. He’s fucking me like he hasn’t gotten any in the last century. His stroke is deep, personal and fucking deliberate.

I guess it’s possible he’s been dry for that long, with the divorce and all.

I chew on my bottom lip, as he slides in and out of my tight passage, grunting loudly as he does it, digging his fingers into the skin on my ass. He’s big and I’m taking every inch of the monster I haven’t had the glory of seeing yet.

I suck in a breath while he goes to town, whimpering and saying things I can’t really make out. Spitting in my hand, I reach down and wrap my hand around my achy cock and stroke it in the same rhythm he fucks me with.

He slows, letting out a hoarse sound and leans over me, catching his breath. “God, you feel fucking good,” he whispers, continuing his labor.

I work myself feverishly, balls tight, ass filled, eyes watering and chest full of fucking lust. I’m ready to come and by the sounds spilling from Pierce’s mouth, so is he.

I’ve reduced myself to allowing this man to fuck me on a dirty mat. How’d this happen?

I bite back a high-pitched cry when my cock twitches in my hand. Pierce picks up speed—all two hundred and thirty pounds of him blasting into me from behind. He pounds and he pounds and he pounds. I groan and grunt at the feeling of my flesh opening wide for him, feeling bereft each time he pulls all the way out and filled to perfection again each time he pushes back in.

“You belong to me, Baby. You may not want to but after this...” he breathes out. “You’ll belong to me,” he moans with a hiss that falls from the tip of his tongue.

I knew it wouldn’t take much for me to come. I’m already teetering on the edge just waiting to fall to my demise.

He makes a kissy sound with his lips and runs his fingers lovingly over my ass cheeks, muttering something about the view he has. His hand grips my cheeks when he kisses each one.

It’s tender, as if he’s admiring me like I’m a pretty doll that deserves to be placed on a shelf not to be touched—just for display.

His grunts fill the air and drops of his sweat land on my back, sliding down my sides to drip on the mat beneath us, when he settles back into a hard pace.

“That’s it, stroke that cock, Baby,” he commands with a raspy grunt.

I lift my head, jerking myself off like some virgin, desperate to come and bust a nut. I take in the sight of the two of us in a mirror across the room. His large frame settled behind mine. His muscular chest covered in sweat and his face pained, eyes half-mast and his mouth hangs open in pleasure. The sight of it turns me on even more. Our eyes connect across the room and I feel exposed, violated, dominated. This is more than sex, more than fucking. This is intimate. This is me making a connection with someone else, in a way I never thought possible and it chills me to the fucking bone.

His stormy eyes cloud my thinking, so I shut mine, listening to the baritone of his voice when he speaks and tells me how I feel beneath him, how I feel around his cock. A savage growl leaves his mouth when he stops, allowing me to feel the jerk of his dick that’s about ready to come. He can’t hold it back, which is clear in his facial expressions. He runs a hand over my lower back, breathing heavy and hard behind me.

Is this the lesson he planned to teach me? If it is, I think I might be teaching him one too.

Pierce speeds up, blasting into my asshole, making noises he’d be too embarrassed for anyone to hear. I wouldn’t want anyone to hear them, since I think they’re only for me.

“You belong to me, Baby,” he whispers over and over.

He continues his stroke slow and watches me from across the room, working my cock from root to tip with my hand. He growls and grips me tighter. His cock jumps and throbs, right when a shudder rolls through me when I come, soaking the dirty mat beneath me in thick white streams of my cum.

The beautiful man behind me collapses on my back, resting his cheek there. I drop my head low, looking at the mess in front of me. I’m exhausted, sated, and fucking bewildered.

He pulls out slowly, leaving his cum to dribble down my thighs. He’d come inside of me. He’d marked me—somehow made me his. I shift around. My eyes flicker up to his grey ones and his pink cheeks. The same twisted expression paints his features I find on my own face when I look at myself. I absorb the sight of him naked still on his knees with his sweatpants pushed down. His huge wet cock is still out just hanging there hitting the middle of his thigh. The monster—the size of it similar to my own.

I pull up my pants, stand and reach down to offer him some help up. He slaps my hand away while I stand there frozen for a moment. He drags his fingers through his hair and avoids my eyes.

I jump out of the ring and head to my bag. Shrugging into my T-shirt, somewhat pissed off, I pull my hoodie on, tugging it down to my waist. I toss another glance over my shoulder, just as I finish dressing, and see Pierce throwing a blue sweat top on over his head.

“Later,” I sing out.

He throws two fingers up and nods.

Asshole.

I make my way down the hallway and back out into the frigid air. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I head down 31st Street thinking about how everything had changed in the last three hours. Then I realized, I hadn’t been paying attention to the most important part.

Who on earth had won the fight?

Pierce

As soon as I step inside of my very empty penthouse, I toss my car keys on the console table and head into the den. My answering machine blinks incessantly like a warning sign, silently telling me I have forty-five messages. I know I’ve no desire to check them—half of which had to be from that cunt Andrew—my ex-husband, who I should’ve never married.

Andrew had lost his man pass and nuts many years ago. I didn’t understand him. He always said I could never open up. I could never give. I was incapable of love. In-fucking-capable? Closed off. Shut down. Stonewaller. Gaslighter. Cruel. Manipulative. A monster.

The last description came after months of useless marital therapy. After a while I began to think the sessions were only being held for the therapist’s own sadistic amusement.  A year into my marriage with Andrew and I was ready to call it fucking quits. It was too stressful. Too many feelings. Too much compromise. Too much everything.

A man like me doesn’t belong with anyone. I only break hearts. I don’t mend them. I’d yet to meet a man who could survive me and something tells me maybe Baby can but he already seems to be broken. Only I don’t know why. So broken, even he can’t see it and I don’t want to break him anymore, if I can help it.

Baby really is a baby.

He wears his emotions on his sleeve and seems determined to let out all his frustrations on whatever opponent he faced for the night, only to wake up in the morning feeling the same fucking way.

It did nothing to rid the demons. It only marred him, leaving him with scars and bruises and the pain he loved. He’s a fighter. A man who loves war and for some bizarre reason I admire that he’s willing to fight for what he wants, whereas I...I give up every single time. I’m a quitter who hates quitters.

Maybe I’m the one who has something to learn?

I sigh and turn on a few lights and hit the stereo. “Let It All Go” by Birdy + Rhodes sounds from the speakers.

It’s Friday night. Staring out at the city lights, it all reminds me of why I love this city—full of life and awake and alive at all hours. I’d just left one of my buildings where I’d just had one of the most fantastic fucks of my life.

The giver gives and the taker takes. It’s always so simple, only this time it left me feeling a little more confused than ever and that choking feeling of loneliness suddenly seems like it’s wrapping around my throat and squeezing with a little more force than usual.

Heading over to the bar, I pour myself a drink and plop down on the sofa, shutting everything off so only the hue from the city outside and the moonlight fill the den.

I should shower but I don’t want to. He’s all around me, on my skin, in my mouth, still wrapped around my dick. Everything Baby is here, except for his physical presence. Slumping against the back of the sofa, I let out an exhale emptying my lungs of every single event of the day.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

Baby

“Oh, you’re here,” my father, Xavier Benedict II, grumbles as he stands in the foyer of my penthouse the next morning.

Last night I’d been so restless. I returned to my apartment first and then hit the fight club after two in the morning, desperate to empty my chest of the heavy weight that felt like an anvil resting on top of it crushing me.

He shoves the key he holds in the pocket of the black Burberry wool coat he’s wearing and checks his Rolex, smashing up his face. He tugs the mauve cashmere scarf that’s wrapped around his neck off and folds it in his hands. I’m certain he has better places to be instead of coming here to torment me.

I wipe the sleep from my eyes and head for the kitchen desperate for coffee.

“Yes, I’m here. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t use your key before calling to see if I’m here first.”

His blue eyes roll followed by an exhausted sigh. “I don’t know what to think when you don’t answer the phone, son. I know it’s possible you could have an injury that’s left you unable to get to the phone.”

Jesus. Fucking Christ.

“I doubt it, Dad. I think you just like to come here unannounced, throw your weight around. You know, the usual.”

He laughs. “Your mother worries about you.”

I shuffle around my kitchen looking away from my father’s judgmental stare. “Or, do you mean you worry about me?”

“We both worry about you.”

I hate my parents—both of them. There are no in betweens, no maybes and no buts about it. I hate them—plain and simple.

Hate. Hate. Hate.

They’re affluent, wealthy, and their only concern is what people think about them. Image is everything. What’s on the outside matters exponentially more than what’s on the inside. My father is a powerful man in his own right. He’s a senior partner in his own law firm he’d taken over from my grandfather. I’d elected not to work there for obvious reasons since we didn’t get along, never did.

Xavier Benedict II is a brute. A bully. A tyrant.

When I told my father I was gay, he beat me to a pulp while my mother stood there and watched. To this day, they’ve never apologized for it. I was fifteen when he last tried that shit and by then it had been going on for at least two years.

I was a helpless scrawny teenager and he was a man. A six-foot tall, two-hundred-fifty-pound man with a mean left hook. He loved to punch me in the stomach, leaving me heaving for breath on the floor much of the time after our encounters.

Not long after that, I learned how to fight and I haven’t stop fighting since.

If he’d had the senseless bravery to put his hands on me now I’d likely fucking kill him. I used to dream about him dying in some freak accident or catching some unfortunate disease that would render him bedridden and unable to speak—at least until he died which for me would’ve been a blessing.

Hate. Hate. Hate.

I have two younger sisters who I adore and they adore me. They don’t get nearly as much attention as I always had, being the only boy of the family. My parents’ focus always seemed to be on me, since I’m their only son. The only man in the family who could carry on the Benedict name. My parents control my life, my future and nearly everything I do—even now, since I won’t have access to my trust fund for another four years.

My mother is a socialite. Her only concerns had always been her clothes, her jewelry and her stupid fucking award-winning Siamese cats. My father had religiously cheated on her from as far back as I could remember. My mother could never figure out who the women were but something always told me deep down she knew exactly what was going on. Much of the time she ignored it, but often there were fights.

Wars.

I’d always felt like I’d grown up in the middle of a war at home. They’d fight. They’d fuck. And then they’d do it all again. Usually, I’d move to protect my mother from the explosion that was Xavier Benedict II which often led to us both being beaten beyond recognition. My mother would heal and forget and go back to her normal routine of champagne and brunch while I seethed only waiting for it to happen again. She was a weak bimbo and she made me sick. She still does.

According to my mother, everything within our perfect family is and always has been fine.

“How is career in law coming along?”

“It’s the same old, same old, Dad. Nothing’s changed.”

He nods, when I start past him heading for the den. Plopping down on the sofa, I grab the remote and click the 4K TV on scrolling through all the channels until I get to the news.

My father lingers. “I will give this back to you next month,” he explains, referring to the key in his hands which goes with my penthouse apartment. “I figured since you’re doing everything we expect of you, you’re allowed your privacy.”             

You think?

Inwardly, I scoff.

He leans against the wall looking in my direction. “Are you still dating?” he questions.

“What do you mean?” I mumble.

“I mean, are you still dating men, Xavier?”

“Yes, Dad, no change. It’s not like the common cold, you know—being gay that is. You don’t just catch it and then somehow it goes away. It’s not a sickness or a goddamn disease.”

My father only growls but doesn’t push any further. “Okay, son, but I’d just rather you kept the dirty shit you do in your spare time under wraps.”

Hate. Hate. Hate. Murder!

I exhale and keep my eyes trained on the morning news.

“How has working with Pierce Carlisle been, since I need to be more specific?”

“Good.”

I glance at my father, meeting his hard gaze.

He knows. Or, at least he assumes. He always did know how to read me.

“I don’t exactly care for your choice of lifestyle, Xavier, but I don’t want you to get hurt.” He sighs. “Pierce Carlisle is an animal. He eats men for breakfast—in and out of the boardroom.”

I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing that live and direct.

“I want you to keep away from him, Xavier. No personal relations, strictly business, please. You can’t afford to get close to a man like that. He’ll hurt you. Anyone but him,” he goes on. “His ex-husband is/was in the mental hospital.” He hesitates to say. “They say Pierce drove him crazy. The ex-husband, Andrew, tried to kill himself or something during the middle of their divorce.”

What-the-fuck?

I take a deep breath and sip my coffee. “I can handle Pierce Carlisle.”

“Can you?” he asks with a bit of a chuckle.

“Of course.”

“Okay, son. Just be careful,” he adds as he heads for the door.

“You know you’re always welcome to come and work for me at the firm.”

No, thanks.

I shake my head and continue to flick through the channels without responding.

“I love you,” he mutters.

I don’t respond. My father always managed to say those three little words with such ease but I was yet to actually feel them.

Then he’s gone.

Pierce

“Do you want me to come over?”

“No,” I say gruffly into the receiver, kicking my feet up on the coffee table.

“Oh, you don’t sound good,” Ravi says through the phone.

“I’m fine.”

“If you change your mind, you know you can always call me, Pierce.”

“Yeah, I know.”

It’s three in the morning on a Saturday night. After Ravi insisted for the third time tonight, I had to decline his offers to come here and give me a blow job—as much as I wanted/needed one.

Ravi is delicate. He’s around five feet tall and weighs probably one hundred pounds. I had no problem fucking him but the last time he left here he was covered in bruises and markings from my handling. I need something tougher—more durable, like a pair of Doc Martens.

Besides, I had no desire to fuck anyone else besides Baby. Fuck.

Another loud breath escapes my lungs while I run my hand over my hair crossing the room. I lift a hand and place it on the cool glass admiring the view I have of the city.

I always used a condom when I fucked other men. With Baby the other night, I hadn’t. I berated myself for being so careless. It wasn’t something I did...ever.

I pull off my beanie and hoodie and toss it all on the sofa and bend over to unlace my boots. When I finish, I plop down in it and stretch my arms and legs out wide.

It had been an exceptionally frosty night tonight, and even colder once you start heading under the city. I’d spent the last few hours watching Baby fight, tucked deep in the thick crowds as they shouted his name causing a deafening sound to explode through the tunnels beneath an unfinished building in the East Village.

“War Baby! War Baby!” His name a chant on their lips, as though they worshipped him.

The crowd surrounded him, while he stood in the center of the concrete circle, barefoot, shirtless, and wearing nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs. All tanned skin, cut muscle, and sweat galore on display for everyone’s greedy eyes, including mine. His hair had been cut, the strands soaked with angry sweat making them look darker than they really were. If I wasn’t mistaken, he’d gone to my barber on West 65th Street for the new do, which made me smile.

Baby had taken down two men tonight—one with a vicious elbow to the face and the other with a powerful kick to the ribs. He fought like an animal, like a man trying to expel his rage but failing. He fought like his life depended on it.

He moved differently from how he’d fought me only one night ago, telling me he’d been holding back. The realization only made me seethe. He’d fought me with the intention of losing—with the intention of staying to work for me, even though it was clear he could do better and maybe even deserved better. It had dawned on me that maybe he’d even wanted to fuck that night.

Is he playing my game?

Clicking on the stereo, “Under Your Spell” by Desire sounds from the speakers.

Checking my phone, I scroll through the messages expecting to find one from Baby. I’d anticipated some disgruntled message about how I’d dismissed him the other night, after we’d fucked. Scrolling through the messages, there are texts here from everyone from my mother to my secretary, Gwyn, but nothing from Baby.

Laughing, I drop the phone on the cushion and shove my hand down my pants, gripping my cock that has been hard most of the night. Especially hard when I watched Baby tonight in his first fight, kick the piss out of a man two times his size who shouted “faggot” in his direction, before the amateur referee dropped his arm between them signaling it was time to fight.

Spitting in my hand, I stroke my cock. I shut my eyes and envision the sight of Baby’s ripped chest and the way the carved muscles in his back flexed and bunched with each lunge he made towards his opponent and each punch he landed tonight.

I work my cock viciously from root to tip, remembering how he felt wrapped around it the other night as I tunneled deeper into his tight passage. It was as if I was searching for something then, perhaps even trying to find myself.

The sounds that spilled from his mouth. The vision of my eager fingers wrapped in his magnificent thick head of blond hair.

I hiss when my cock jerks hard.

Slow and steady, I run my hand up and down the shaft, tugging at my balls every now and again with my other hand. The sound of slickness fills the quiet den. I breathe hard and relax, listening to my own sounds and how they propel my orgasm along with my imagination of something I want more of so badly.

Sitting forward and tugging at my dick like a teenaged boy, I spray my cum into the hoodie I wore tonight with a few labored growls that could’ve possibly woken my non-existent neighbors. When I’m certain I’ve expelled every drop of tension, I rest against the back of the sofa, waiting for my breathing to return to normal and think.

After a moment, I let out a loud exhale.

I’m so fucked.

Pierce

The entire week had gone by and I avoided Baby like I did the sale racks at Neiman Marcus. I had back-to-back meetings on most days and client lunches. I only accepted dinners if they didn’t break into the time I needed to go and watch him fight like a creeper in the night.

Last night, he’d lost and tears filled his eyes when his body hit the concrete with a thud. His features were painted with more than just physical agony. It went way deeper than that.

Defeat. Disappointment. Derision.

He’d left nearly every night after the fights, alone, when I’d followed him. He limped and hobbled from whatever injury he’d incurred from the brawls, through the subway station that was usually empty at that hour. When he’d finally found a seat on the train, he often cried, burying his face in the side of his hoodie.

In that moment, I had an overwhelming, innate desire to hold him.

Protective. Possessive. Proud.

Yet, still perplexed.

Lately at work, Baby had been given all the plum assignments from the other partners, so he was occupied much of the time, as was I.

It’s early in the evening. Scrubbing my face with my hands while sitting at my desk, I hit the speakerphone button when it sounds again.

“Baron,” the woman’s soft voice says on the other line.

Only one woman in my life addresses me on a regular basis by my middle name.

“Hello, Mother,” I greet with a sigh.

“Hello, darling. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.”

Miranda Carlisle is the olive in my dirty martini. She’s a good mother and being an only child, I’m her baby. I’m a grown man and she still treats me like a child.

“You don’t sound well, Baron. You have this sadness in your voice.”

“I’m fine, Mother,” I breathe out.

She chuckles and it warms my chest. “Have you talked to your father lately?”

“No, I’ve been busy. Meetings.”

“Oh.”

Miranda and my father, Benjamin, had been divorced now for nearly twenty years but they remained friends. They were probably closer now than they were when they were married. My father’s interests remained elsewhere now but he’d always be in love with my mother.

“But you know I don’t buy that, Baron.” She goes on. “Has Andrew’s condition improved?”

I run a hand over my jaw. “I don’t think so, Mother.”

“Shame.” She sighs. “You know he was always unstable.”

Yes, he was.

“Yes, I know. There isn’t much I can do about it.”

“Have you been dating? Any boyfriends?” she asks.

I shift in my leather chair.

“I can tell there’s something, Baron. You can’t lie to me. Even through the phone.”

I chuckle. “You know I don’t kiss and tell, Mother.”

The yapping of her Yorkshire Terrier in the background fills my ears. “Okay, then,” she says softly and I know she’s about to break out in speech. “I want you to find love, Baron. I really do.”

Love?

“Yes, Mother.”

“Baron,” she whines. “You’ve always been a smart boy, maybe even too smart.”

I laugh.

My mother always did have a way with me. She’d been one of the best mothers ever growing up and we are still close—as close as I am with my father. She’s sixty now and still a socialite. She hangs in the same circles as Baby’s mother—attending every charity event and fundraiser put on in the city. Everyone in the New York City social circle knew each other. The rich stuck with the rich.

“Something’s tugging at you. I can hear it in your voice.”

“Maybe there is something,” I respond.

“That’s better but since you don’t want to tell me about it, if I tell you two simple words, will you follow them?”

I drop my hand on the desk and huff. “I suppose, Mother.”

“Stop fighting,” she whispers. “Stop fighting it, Baron.”

Baby

“Burning the midnight oil, huh?” senior associate Ben Reed asks, leaning into my office. His brown eyes go wide, when they spot the leftover Indian food on my desk. “You finished with that?” he says, pointing to the Styrofoam container.

Laughing, I nudge my chin in the direction of the food, letting him know it’s cool if he has it.

He claps his hands and steps into my office, bobbing his head.

I found Ben already here when I started at this firm and in the three years, he’d gotten married and had three kids. His life happened at breakneck speed and now all he does is complain and ask me about what’s going on in mine. 

“I didn’t realize it was already ten,” I mumble.

He nods and wanders around the small room, until he’s standing in front of the one floor-to-ceiling sliver of a window that overlooks the city below. “I see Mr. Carlisle is still in?”

I shrug. “Is he?”

“Yeah, I swear that guy never sleeps.”

I smirk and retrieve a book from the shelf next to me, filled with real estate case law.

“I read your notes on the Malting versus Poe case.” He smiles. “Impressive.”

“Thanks,” I breathe out.

“You’re good. I’m surprised you don’t work for your father.”

I laugh and flick through the pages of the book. “It’s a preference.”

He takes a seat in one of the chairs opposite my desk and digs into the food. “The door to Mr. Carlisle’s office is closed. It’s been closed all week.”

“Oh.”

He takes a deep breath. “You know my brother-in-law is gay.”

I exhale. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

I stand and head over to another book shelf, not interested in where Ben might be taking this conversation in the least.

“I don’t know, Xavier. You don’t look gay,” he squeaks.

My eyes cut to his. “What exactly does gay look like?”

Ben stands and joins me in front of the bookshelf that we scan together. He gives me a blatant look. “I don’t know. I guess delicate, you know feminine, fuck I don’t know, Xavier.” He laughs.

A smile spreads across my face. I’m amused because I truly think he’s trying to figure it all out as if he’s been given some sort of complex code to work through.

“You just don’t fit the cliché,” he adds.

What cliché?

“I’m just me, Ben. I don’t try to be anyone else.”

His brown eyes narrow when he comes in close and whispers. “You ever been with a woman?”

“Yeah,” I respond without elaborating.

In my college years, I’d tried the girl thing but in the end, it just didn’t work out. I knew I was gay long before but still I tried to fight it, forcing myself to date women. I’d enjoyed the sex but there was so much missing from the experience that I couldn’t put my finger on and a pussy isn’t nearly as tight as an asshole. This one girl Lana I’d dated for a few months in college was one of my earlier experiences with women. We fucked a few times. It was all hot and heavy but usually I had a hard time coming. Then when she told me she was into anal sex I became addicted until it was all I wanted from her. After that I didn’t even need to see her face anymore. I was constantly fucking her up the ass until she couldn’t take it anymore and broke up with me.

Boom!

At that point and for a slew of other reasons, I was certain I was gay.

I’ve never been in love but I’m certainly in something now.

“I mean, fuck, man, you must get hit on by both all the time.”

“I do,” I rasp out, reaching the top shelf finding the legal edition I’m looking for.

“Are women surprised you’re gay?”

“Sometimes,” I say plainly.

Ben claps his hands and rubs them together as though he’s just found the secret to life. He leans into me. “Lately, Mandy has been asking me if we can explore some more?”

I run a hand through my hair and head back over to my desk, not interested in talking to Ben about his wife.

Narrowing his eyes, Ben shuts the door and removes his glasses cleaning them off with a handkerchief. “Yeah, I’ve done the whole two girls thing.”

My brows hit my hairline.

“Yeah,” he says with a big smirk. “But now Mandy wants to do it more, you know. Like all the time with a woman. Just sometimes, I’m not allowed to join. I’m only allowed to watch.”

I suppress a chuckle, worried Ben might have a budding lesbian on his hands, only he doesn’t know it. “Well, go for it. I guess.”

“You think?”

I laugh out loud. “Yeah, happy wife happy life, right?”

He laughs and checks his watch. “Shit, I have to go. I’ve been rooting for you, War Baby,” he whispers. “I won some money on your last fight. I have a few of my friends dropping cash in the pot for your next fight.”

I nod, still holding my pen in my hand.

Ben gives me a thumbs-up and heads for the door. He freezes when we spot Pierce in the distance walking in stride and talking with one of the partners for a moment. Ben shuts the door in a flash nervously. His eyes go wide with his smile. “I think he has a thing for you,” he whisper-yells.

“Who?”

“Pierce Carlisle.”

I remain expressionless. “What makes you think that?”

Ben sighs. “I don’t know, man. The way he looks at you. He respects you. That asshole doesn’t respect anyone in this firm, not even the other two partners. I’ve been trying to get promoted since forever and it still hasn’t happened yet.”  He adjusts his glasses. “Sometimes, I wonder if he has a heartbeat.” He snickers. “That guy, I swear sometimes is the goddamn devil.”

He bobs his head still laughing and yanks on the door. When it opens, he disappears out of my sight.

Pierce’s tall frame heads in the direction of the elevator bank. There isn’t one dark strand of hair on his head out of place. The overhead lights accentuate his angular jawline and sharp features, making him look more like a sculpture than a human.

A man made of stone.

Unfeeling. Concrete. Impenetrable.

His large hand runs over his jaw in a frustrated gesture and after three years of working with him, I can tell that something has gone very wrong with his day. He’s upset about something. I make eye contact with those grey orbs. There’s no wave. No smile. No hello from him.

He pops the collar of the wool coat he’s wearing over his tailored black suit. I shift in place and simply stare. The coat I want to set on fire with him in it. The neck tie, I envision cinching up to his neck and choking the life out of him with it and the briefcase he’s holding, I’d connect with his skull.

Pushing the violent images out of my head, I find myself lingering, staring, waiting, watching. Hoping. I can barely breathe when I look at this man, especially now.

Hurt. Hurt. Hurt.

I take a deep breath and focus on the outline of the back of him—clean lines, cut form. I fix my eyes on his powerful shoulders that hold so much strength in them. My cock grows hard when I remember the way he held me. The natural scent of his creamy skin. The way his breaths were a light tickle on the back of my neck. His weird obsession with my hair. The way his teeth sank lightly into my skin with every thrust he made deep inside of me, claiming me, making me his. I’ve let him take my power. Wanting, maybe even needing to be tamed.

Vulnerable. Sensitive. Broken.

 All my life all I’ve ever known is violence. Hurt + violence. Hurt = violence. Violence in. Violence out. It’s a vicious cycle with no end.

Maybe I’m addicted to the pain? I’m growing so tired of the pain.

But something about Pierce Carlisle makes me not hurt so much and that feeling warms my insides. It makes me want to be wrapped in his arms. I want those pretty grey eyes on me indefinitely, but this man is dangerous. He has the ability to break me and he knows it. If I’m not careful, I’d crack. I’d splinter into a million pieces at his feet like busted glass and from there he’d crush me even more, pulverize me down to nothing.

I meet that penetrating gaze of his and close my door, almost in slow motion, listening to my own unsteady breaths and turn the lock.

Shutting him out. Barricading myself. Wordlessly telling him to-fuck-off.

I’m still hard. I head over to my desk and plop back down into my seat. With annoyance, I attempt to shake off all the lust dust on my skin, that one long look from him seems to have mentally sprinkled me with.

Massaging myself, I accept that this fucking thing isn’t going to go down. I want to jerk off but all I feel right now is rage. It’s getting up to eleven o’clock. When I finish up here, I have plans to hit the fight ring and kick the shit out of someone tonight.

ROUND THREE

Baby

The last four weeks that had gone by were a little less than normal. My nights were filled with more underground fights. Today’s marking on my flesh is a split brow.

My days were filled with meetings, reading depositions and fetching coffee for Pierce—a job I was certain was Gwyn’s. I never complained. Only waited for the day for him to tell me I’d be promoted with no strings attached.

Just the idea of it now, sounds more ridiculous than ever. Promoted. Yeah, right.

Did I even win that fight?

I’d not only agreed all those weeks ago to that fight, but I’d also allowed him to fuck me—which wasn’t part of the plan. Now, he acts as if I don’t exist which I find amusing.

Since then, I’d felt different—maybe even somewhat exposed like a wound that had been cut open and it hadn’t healed. It’s only festering, becoming infected with anger, rage and rejection. And somehow, I know the only person who can sew it up and heal me is him.

Does that make me a pussy?

As usual, Pierce had been standoffish, pretending not to know me, ignoring my existence. It seemed like I’d either need to be bleeding from the neck or on fire for him to even acknowledge I was a living, breathing human being. To him, it’s possible I’m nothing at all. Thinking about it only pissed me off. I was subdued in the office by day but at night, I took everything out of my next victim in the ring, practically beating each opponent half to death before the night was out. But no matter how many fights I’d been in, I didn’t feel any better.

It didn’t matter how many knockouts, how many injuries I’d inflicted or how many times the thick crowds screamed War Baby, the ache was still there. The sinking feeling I’d been used, maybe even mind-fucked and there was nothing I could do about it.

I’d been dropped inside the maze that was Pierce Baron Carlisle and I didn’t know if I’d find my way out. It’s possible it’s this way by design. Maybe you aren’t supposed to get out?

It’s just after four o’clock and the sun outside is setting. I have a spectacular view from my tiny office of the city. Staring at the stack of orange files that rest on the corner of it, I realize before the night is out I have a case to discuss with Pierce.

Fuck.

I hadn’t seen him all day and was dying to keep it that way.

I take a deep breath, checking my watch again. This place had sucked so many long days and nights away from me. Much of the time, I left here in my suit and went straight to the ring like I would tonight. Pushing up to stand, I snatch the files and head down the hallway to find the double doors to his massive office already open.

The fireplace is lit and low music echoes throughout the room. It’s something catchy and light I recognize as “I Wanna Be Yours” by Arctic Monkeys. I scan the room to find Pierce standing near the built-in shelves holding a book in his hands.

“Please come in,” he calls out, without making eye contact. “Shut the doors behind you and lock them.”

I do as he says and head over to the lounge area, placing the files in the center of the coffee table. I remove my suit jacket and take a seat.

Pierce mumbles something to himself, flipping through the pages.

He’s dressed impeccably as always. He’s wearing everything besides the jacket which goes with his three-piece blue suit—a white Oxford shirt, vest, navy-blue dress pants and brown shoes. His tie has been removed and the shirt he’s wearing is undone two buttons from the top.

In these last few weeks, I’d had a haircut nearly every week. I shaved every morning and made my best effort to keep my injuries at a minimum. I didn’t know why the fuck I now even cared.

He shuts the book with a loud clap and heads in my direction still holding it, his shoes loud against the shiny wooden floors.

He tosses it down on the table and takes a seat on the sofa next to me, the thick air between is filled with the delicious scent of his cologne that feels like poison in my lungs right now. I ignore his presence that swallows up all the available air in the room, reach forward and flip open the file to pull out a few papers.

“After reading through the file and meeting with the client a number of times over the past week, my recommendation in the Banks matter is...”

Before I can get a word out, warm lips touch mine and a greedy tongue laced with sweet bourbon searches my mouth. I allow myself to be wrapped up in his kiss for a long moment before expertly sliding out of his grip, scooting to the edge of the sofa.

Pierce sighs and wipes his mouth.

I turn to the next page in the file and clear my throat.

“I see you’re still fighting. I thought you promised you wouldn’t anymore.”

I laugh without meeting his hypnotizing eyes. “I guess I’m not the only one around here who doesn’t keep my word.”

Pierce chuckles but doesn’t elaborate on his thoughts. I continue to outline my recommendations on the Banks case, while he keeps the attention span of a two-year-old. A heavy hand rests on my thigh, inching up towards my groin.

I shift away from him and continue flipping through the pages.

“Baby,” he says, his deep voice endearing and soft.

I jerk my eyes up from the file to meet his. “What?”

He palms my face with his large hands. “I don’t mean to make you feel this way.”

I only laugh and give him a hard stare. “And how would that be?”

He sighs. “Used. Forgotten. Misunderstood.”

Fucker.

“What makes you think I feel anything?” I ask, quirking a brow in his direction.

Protect yourself at all times—number one fight rule.

He removes his hands and runs one over his jaw. He relaxes against the back of the sofa next to me and crosses his legs at the knee, while he stares in the direction of the fireplace for a long moment. “When I was a boy, I had a bird—a canary. I used to watch it for hours, day and night.” He continues. “It used to jump and sing, desperate to be freed from its cage. I was scared stiff to release it, terrified it would run away and I’d never see it again.”

I give him a blank look, while he stands and heads over to the bar, filling two glasses with something that looks a lot like gasoline. I plan to fight tonight. I can’t drink.

“I loved that little bird,” he says looking off to the right of him at nothing.

Huh?

“So, one day I let it out. And do you know what it did?”

“No,” I deadpan, completely uninterested in this fucking riddle.

He snickers, picking up the glasses and heads back over to where he’d just sat next to me, bringing the full bottle of whatever he’d poured along with him. He shoves a glass in my direction, before setting the bottle down. Reluctantly, I take it.

Easing down into the leather seat, he sighs. “Well, I opened its cage and let it out.”

“And.”

“It remained by my side.” He laughs. “It never left me. It hopped and flew a little. Some days, maybe even a lot, but never too far from me.” He shakes his head amused.

Then, he downs the contents of his glass in one long gulp. I focus on his Adam’s apple that bobs with the swallow and the gold pinky ring that remains on his left hand. He pours himself another drink and nudges it in my direction, silently asking me to join him.

I wrap my hand around the cool tumbler, feeling the condensation gathered on the outside of it—cold, like how the man sitting next to me is sometimes. Right now, he’s open and talkative. Less like a block of ice. Now, he’s more like the embers that crackle and pop in the large fireplace across the room—burning hot.

I finish my drink with a loud exhale and keep the glass in both hands, staring at my shoes on the floor.

“I know why you fight, Baby.”

I lift my head and narrow my eyes at his words. Even I don’t know why I fight. Or, why I’m addicted to it. Why sometimes it seems to control my life, rather than the other way around. Having an opinion about something I did and claiming to know me better than I knew myself were two different things entirely.

Is he trying to get a rise out of me?

He smiles that smile of his that, at first glance, appears endearing when it really is only arrogant. Presumptuous. Fucking superior.

Warm fingers drag over my jawline and then through my hair, making it messy, his lips only an inch from mine. “Pent-up rage is never healthy, Baby.”

“And multiple personalities are?”

He laughs again, dragging his lips over mine, nibbling on the top one and sucking it into his mouth.

“Don’t try to get in my head, Pierce. You won’t like it there,” I mumble.

“I understand you,” he says before he plunges his tongue deep into my mouth. “More than you think.”

I fall into the kiss, breathless and hard as hell after the last few weeks of not being touched. And for some reason not wanting to touch anyone else but him. His weight is on top of mine. His hard cock brushes the inside of my thigh. Our heavy breaths and masculine scent mixing, filling the air with the crisp, spicy scent of cologne and aftershave and the natural scent of sweat. Deft fingers unbutton my shirt frantically to the fourth button pushing it off my shoulders. Warm lips wrap around my nipples, sucking each one slow and hard, leaving wet patches where those supple lips had just released.

“You like power, Baby, but so do I,” he whispers. “I live for it, but I want to give you some of it back.”

I’m breathing heavy, panting hard, my cock threatening to rip through the 100% cotton of my BOSS boxer briefs. He undoes the zipper of my dress pants and kisses me hard.

I moan but it’s mushed by anxious lips and tongue that assault me, sucking me into a desperate kiss. A rub over my dick with his large hand is followed by a squeeze. Another rub, until he slides his hand into the slit of my boxer briefs and his open palm glides over my hot flesh. His other hand splays against my chest, easing me back against the studded leather sofa.

Taking a deep breath, I fall deeper into the cozy spot, widening my legs and allowing him in between them when he descends to his knees in front of me. With curiosity and hunger in those stormy grey eyes, he pulls my cock out, massaging my balls.

“This thing is fucking exquisite,” he says, admiring it.

I’ve never had any complaints.

It stands at attention between us, the head of it pink and swollen, already dripping with precum.

His hand strokes me slow and I growl when his mouth sheaths my swollen length, taking me deep, allowing it to snake down his hot throat. The sight in front of me is spectacular. I run my hands through his freshly cut hair, while his head bobs in my lap, sucking and licking at my flesh, making a slow trail along the shaft from base to tip, causing it to twitch and jerk in his grasp until I’m whimpering like a little bitch.

Heavy lidded and stroking his chin with my thumb, I smile at the sight in front of me. I feel worshipped. The powerful king—Pierce Baron Carlisle—at his knees in front of me in supplication with his lips wrapped around my meat...willingly, giving it the royal treatment as if it’s made out of fucking gold.

One of his hands grips my thigh while the other works feverishly in sync with his mouth along my cock. A series of labored grunts leave my throat, when I come loud and hoarse, appreciating the release. He makes no move to release me. I jerk and throb hard, flooding his mouth with a wave of my cum.

Things go quiet when I focus on his face that’s flush and the dribbles of cum that coat his swollen pink lips. Pierce smiles and then he swallows every drop.

He exhales and pulls a white handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his face. Then, he stands and looks down at me while I rest beneath him with my dick still out, still breathing hard. He folds the used handkerchief into a neat square and reaches into a drawer next to us, tossing me a clean one.

He heads off in the direction of his desk, without saying anything. I bang my head against the back of the leather twice and straighten myself, unable to understand exactly what just happened and begin to fix my clothes.

Standing, I follow. When I get close he gestures for me to sit in the chair on the opposite side of his desk. I swallow thickly and meet his big eyes that look somewhat sad in this moment. He’s posed in his leather chair, legs crossed at the knee and his chin perched up on the knuckles of a closed hand. He holds an envelope in his hand—crisp and white—and slides it across his desk.

I take it. He nods when I make no move to open it. Reluctantly, I slit it with my fingers and slide the typed letter out, reading it to myself.

I fight the smile that threatens to split my face, as my eyes skim the offer letter made out to me. “Partner at Wolster, Brash, & Puck—two hundred and fifty thousand in annual salary, a one hundred thousand dollar signing bonus, housing allowance, company preferred shares, use of the firm’s private jet, forty-five vacation days...” The shocking list of perks goes on.

“You’ll start in thirty days,” he states flatly.

I lift my head from the page to meet his gaze again. “I thought you were holding back with this?”

He sighs. “I’m a man of my word, believe it or not.”

But a new job entirely?

“I don’t understand.”

“Clearly, you have a choice to make, Baby. You can take the offer—new job, new position, more money etcetera—or you can stay here. It’s your decision. This is my end of the bargain. You did win that fight. I hadn’t forgotten that.”

“I didn’t win,” I say emphatically, suddenly feeling as if he’s throwing me away again.

He laughs softly. “Obviously, I’d like you to make the right choice—the best choice for yourself.”

I shake my head in anger and lift an arm in the direction of where he’d just sucked my dick. “What was that just now?”

He nods with a smile and flicks two fingers up in the air. “I can’t explain, but clearly, if we’re going to be doing that often, you can’t work here any longer. It would be unethical.”

Riddles! Fucking riddles!

I sit dumbfounded, stupefied and at a loss for words. It’s morgue quiet for a few minutes, while we stare out of the floor-to-ceiling windows ahead that overlook the city.

“I’ll take the job, Pierce,” I say.

“You should. It frees you, at least a little from your family obligations. You’re a brilliant lawyer. You’ll do well. The partners there are very good friends of mine.” He nods. “They’ve promised to take very good care of you. You’re an asset here, Baby, and you’ll be an asset to them as well, once you get there.”

“Thank you,” I whisper, looking at the paper.

His eyes widen, while he waits for my next words which feel like they won’t leave my lips. I’m about to speak but he does before I get a chance to. He stares at his fingers for a beat, then runs them over his dark hair, with a sigh. “I.” He swallows. “There’s a lot I want you to know about me, Baby.” He shifts in his seat and cants forward placing his elbows on his desk. His large hands wipe over his face and if I’m not mistaken he’s nervous about something.

Another sigh leaves his mouth. “I have a poor track record, Baby...when it comes to men.”

I only nod.

“And, not one has ever made me want to try.”

“Okay,” I whisper.

“To give,” he clarifies. “You make me want to give.”

I keep a stone expression but I think I understand.

“And my age,” I say, fiddling with the non-existent wrinkles in my dress pants.

He laughs softly. “It isn’t a concern.”

I’m inclined to say more but I don’t. I only stare as he rises to his feet and shrugs into his suit jacket. “I have a meeting in a few minutes,” he says. “Friday—my place, at six.”

Invitation or demand?

I bob my head a few times and remain in my seat as I watch him saunter away.

He stops at the door. “If you don’t show, then I guess you’re free.” He smiles.

This man is twisting me, confusing me, baiting me in. Maybe, now I’m his little canary in a gilded cage, unable to leave my master even when given the chance to set out on my own.

Tapping the folded pages against my hand, I consider my options. The offer contained in this letter is for the job of a lifetime—a dream I never thought possible but for some sinking reason, I’m having second thoughts about no longer working for Pierce Baron Carlisle. But I had to leave. I had to take this opportunity.

I’d now be able to free myself from the shackles of Xavier Benedict II until I had access to my trust fund, or at least until he dies...whichever comes first.

Pierce

Baby stands in front of the glass in the den, with his hands in his pockets staring out at the view of the city.

Friday couldn’t have come soon enough. I’d been going out of my mind all week, since I’d last seen him in my office. Later that day, he’d packed up all his belongings from his tiny corner office and told everyone at the firm good bye. He was gone for good and somewhere deep down I worried I’d never seen him again. At least not in the way I so desperately wanted.

But here he was.

It’s the middle of November. The sun is setting. turning the sky into an orange expanse of fire in the distance. It’s spectacular and the light filters into the room turning it a little warm.

“To Me” by Chet Faker plays on the stereo.

Baby runs a hand through his thick blond hair and twists around just as I approach, extending a glass of red wine to him. He wiggles his toes against the plush cream carpet beneath our feet.

“Thanks,” he mumbles.

I nod and take a long gulp, unsure if any cheers are in order yet. I move to stand next to him savoring the view.

He takes a deep breath. He’s free of his usual bruises which makes me curious, since I’d given up on following him at night, deciding it was a monumental invasion of his privacy, even though I’d known I’d become oddly obsessed with him long ago—not to mention his hair.

“You’ve stopped fighting?”

“A little. I don’t know. I haven’t wanted to lately.” He gives me a smile, exposing every single one of his pearly whites, blinking those pale-blue eyes at me. “I’m ready to give it all up,” he admits.

I exhale. “Good. Because you don’t have to fight anymore, Baby. I don’t want you to fight anymore.”

Bobbing my head, I inhale the woodsy aroma of the pinot noir in my glass, before taking another sip.

“This is a nice place,” he says, looking around.

“Yeah, thanks. I’ve lived here for a few years now.”

“Oh,” he says, taking a few steps across the room to stare at the lit fireplace and the pictures that rest above the mantle.

He looks them all over curiously and picks one up. “Let me guess. This very beautiful lady is your mother.” He laughs. “I don’t know her well but I know what she looks like.”

“She’s wonderful.”

The Benedict family were a private bunch. I never quite knew what it was exactly, but I’d always thought they were somewhat odd. I was never a fan of the father. I’d only met him twice. His eyes were shifty and his hands were always cold. There was something about Xavier Benedict II that was off. He was a horrid businessman who’d had countless stories behind his name about how he’d cheated and swindled people right here in his own city. I couldn’t wait to see the day that bastard fell from his golden pedestal. But I’d keep that to myself.

“Are you close with your mother?” I ask him.

“No,” he answers, jerking his gaze away from mine without elaborating.

He finishes his wine and sets the glass on the coffee table behind us. I stand and continue to look at the pictures, as though I’ve never seen them before. Baby approaches and removes the glass slowly from my hands with his warm ones and places it on the table next to his.

He stalks towards me, his blue eyes wide and his mouth set into a hard line. His loud breathing mingles with the crackling of the embers in the fireplace. A hand slides up the back of my neck, when he plants a punishing kiss to my lips and plunges his tongue deep into my mouth.

My fingers thread through his thick hair, as his hard chest crashes against mine. I taste the red wine on his tongue and inhale the spicy cologne that dusts his jawline. He undresses himself as quickly as I remove my own clothes, kissing and tasting each other, our bodies moving languidly towards the bedroom down the hall. I cup his face in my hands and simply stare admiring his surfer boy features that are somehow hardened at the same time. His lips are pink and his blue eyes blaze when he looks at me.

A broad smile spreads across his face when he realizes I’m savoring him.

“You like what you see?” His defined pecs heave as he asks the question.

“Of course,” I say, kissing him and crushing him against the wall allowing our lips to fuse. His hard cock presses into my thigh and I couldn’t be any more eager to have it.

His fingers grab at the waistband of my pants, yanking them down with the force of a gorilla, boxer briefs and all. He descends to his knees, shoving me against the wall, running his warm hands over my ass cheeks and squeezes.

A grunt escapes from my throat and my hands rake through his hair when he grips my cock, taking it deep into his mouth. I place my bare foot on his propped-up knee, while he works the length of my dick with his hand and hot mouth, sucking on my balls and nibbling on the inside of my thighs.

“Baby,” I whisper.

The song on replay fills my ears and I’m close to coming. Baby moans into my skin, working my cock slow and hard. My features relax and my mouth helplessly falls open, letting out a loud wail, when I come, that fills the wide hallway.

He allows my cum to dribble around his mouth, coating his neck and chest. He stands and shoves his jeans down frantically. His fat cock bounces out hard and ready. We scramble to the bedroom, limbs twisting, lips locking and eager hands everywhere while breathing heavily. In my post-orgasmic daze, he nudges me inside until the back of my thighs hit the bed. He approaches stealthily, looking like a blond Norse god ready for the kill—all ripped muscle and toned legs and ass. I ease down onto the white comforter and spread my legs when he crawls onto the bed.

Reaching down, I run my hand over his cock. He brushes it away, taking a violent hold of my thighs wrenching them farther apart. He gathers up the warm cum from his skin and coats my asshole with it using his thick fingers. Then quickly, he rubs lube there, the kind that turns your skin warm. He edges closer, placing a kiss to the inside of my right knee and grabs my other leg pulling them both over his powerful shoulders.

I’m vulnerable in this position. It’s a position I usually only put men in, never to find myself actually in it. I want to give Baby this. For once, I’d be the one to give in.

In anticipation, my lips part as I watch him work the fat head of his cock into my tight passage and wail softly when he fills me inch by inch. He grits his teeth when he’s all the way in and then slowly he settles into a stroke that has me becoming a moaning monster beneath him.

Baby

Fuck, this man is beautiful.

His dark hair is a bit messy and his muscular chest is covered in sweat. I stare at the tattoo of Jesus Christ inked there, trying desperately not to come yet.

Pierce’s grey eyes blink slowly as he watches me intently. His dark brows are furrowed and his pink lips are parted. I dip down and plant a punishing kiss to his mouth, tasting everything him. Dipping lower I suck each one of his nipples into my mouth, eliciting a growl from him. He cups my face with his large hands, kissing me back hard.

I feel pleasure but I also sense unease. Something tells me this isn’t a position he allows many to put him in. His legs are parted and his cock is hard, bouncing everywhere with each powerful thrust I make into his tight hole. I move slow and hard feeling his inner muscles clench and squeeze my dick, milking it of precum.

I run my hands over his powerful thighs, feeling the strength in them.

Our euphoric sounds mix together and an embarrassing whine leaves my mouth, when I pick up speed. Pierce jerks himself off, his teeth gnawing into his bottom lip like he’s trying to draw blood.

I fuck him hard and long and with purpose.

“Baby,” he rasps out.

I stare at all nine inches of my thick flesh as it slides in and out, out and in, enjoying the feeling that shoots straight to my balls when my cock slips into the tight hole.

His cock explodes, while his hand works the length of it. Cum streams everywhere. I open my mouth to taste it just as I come, digging my fingers into his thighs like a Neanderthal. I still completely, breathing hard, groaning each time my cock jerks, dumping cum into his asshole.

I collapse on top of him, sweaty and breathless. My lips find his while he wriggles out of the pretzel position he was previously in. We kiss for a while trying to find air. I stroke the face of the beautiful man beneath me.

He grabs his T-shirt and wipes up the mess between us and pulls the sheets back, gesturing for me to join him underneath them. It’s quiet for a while as I snuggle against one of the pillows. He comes close and wraps his arms around me—his chest to my back. His fingers stroke through my hair lovingly.

I didn’t think I was tired but for some reason, it feels like sleep is near.

Night has fallen outside and the only thing filling the room is our breathing. We snuggle deeper into the comforter.

“Thank you for that,” I mumble.

His groan in response vibrates against my back.

“I want to be with you,” I honestly say, intertwining my fingers with his.

He hums into my ear, closing his fingers around mine and presses a kiss to my shoulder. “Yeah, me too.”

It’s quiet for a moment.

“I could love you, Baby,” he whispers.

“I could love you too,” I admit.

“Please stay tonight. I want to make you waffles in the morning.”

I exhale and smile. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” He laughs.

“Waffles,” I say, lifting a brow.

“You aren’t close with your father, are you?”

“No,” I whisper, knotting my brows at the abrupt and odd change of subject. “He told me to stay away from you. In fact, he nearly begged.”

“You don’t say. I can only wonder why.”

His sarcasm doesn’t escape me.

“He’s cruel,” I add.

“How so?” he pushes.

I let out a breath, desperate not to talk about any of this right now. “He’s always had an issue with my sexuality.” I shift and roll onto my side so I’m facing him. I brush my lips against his, nibbling on the bottom one, while running my fingers through his soft hair.

His forehead is furrowed. “What do you mean?”

I sigh. “I mean he’s never liked the fact I’m gay, Pierce. He used to beat the shit out of me for it. I don’t talk about it, Pierce. I’ve never told anyone.”

“Whattttt?” he hisses, palming my face. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah.” I sigh. “But I don’t want to talk about this—not right now anyways,” I beg.

He shakes his head vigorously. “My father is gay.” He sits up a little leaning over me while I rest on my side. His face is still twisted as he stares off into the semi-darkness ahead, under the moonlight that filters into the room.

“How do you know that?” I whisper, skimming my fingers over his full lips.

“Benjamin Carlisle is gay.”

“How do you know?” I repeat the question, pushing up to rest on my elbows.

The air is thick, while I take in Pierce’s confused expression that seems as though it’s laced with anger, disbelief and maybe even disgust...at something.

His pretty mouth hangs open and his eyes have morphed into slits, as he begins to speak again. “Because, Xavier Benedict II has been fucking my father since the nineties.”

Motherfucker!

-THE END-

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lover of words. Poetry glutton. Cynic. Idealist. Art collector. Lip gloss addict. Wife. Mommy. Music fan. Book whore. Beach bum. Self-confessed NERD. Madwoman. Water rat. Wine drinker. Bermudian. Las Vegas resident-wannabe. Hopeless romantic.

I'm an independent author who had this crazy idea during one very, very hot summer to start writing books and I haven't stopped. I'm loving the ride and I appreciate all the readers who take the time to enjoy my stories.

I live on the small sub-tropical island of Bermuda in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with my husband and two children. If you can't find me here on the beach, you can bet your G-strings I'm in Las Vegas!

Love is what keeps the world spinning! XOXO

Follow me on Instagram @ authordayadaniels

Email: dayadaniels@yahoo.com

OTHER BOOKS BY DAYA DANIELS

Finders Keepers Series

Part I

Part II

Stand Alone Novels

An Education in Calcutta {A Period Novel}

The Space Between Rachel and Evie

COLOR-BLIND

Once Upon a Time {A Dark Romance Novel}

In the Eyes of Adeline {A Period Novel}

If Only {A LGBT Romance Novel}

Murphy’s Bedfellow

Stripped {A Dark Romance Novella}

Midnight Special

Mouthful {A Novella}

Words Left Unspoken {A Novella}

For Her {An LGBT Novelette}

Crocodile Tears {A New Adult Romance}

In Loving Memory of Isobel

Blue {A Love Story on the Bermuda Shores}

I Wanna be the Girl... {A Lesbian Romance Novel}

I Hate You/I Love You

Hard Labor {A Novella}

Becoming Benjamin {A Gay Coming of Age Story}

Breathe {A Lesbian Romance Novel}

Non-Fiction

It Could Be Arranged

Coming Soon!

Stand Alone Novels

Letters to Olivier

Playmate {A Western Romance}

Sweet Tea

New Adult

Running Interference

Series

Inferno Series – Part I

Finders Keepers – Part III