Chasing What’s Mine by Ava Gray
Dax
Every time I walk down the tunnel, the world shrinks to the size of a cage. There’s nothing and no one besides me, and the guy I’m taking down. I wait for the opening notes of DJ Khaled’s “All I Do is Win” to play me in, and the show begins. Tonight shouldn’t be any different. But for the first time ever, I’m not alone in this tunnel. Yeah, my team is with me, and Miles is at my side as always. But that’s not the part that’s unsettling me.
It feels as though my head is somewhat shrunk instead of the rest of the world, making it much too small for everything going on in there. Gemma, Riley, Stash—all of them are swirling around in there, clamoring for my full attention. As we pause by the mouth of the tunnel, Miles with his arm around my shoulders, I feel like I’m being pulled in all directions.
“You got this,” he says under his breath. It’s as if he can sense what’s going on with me, and even after ripping me a new one in that locker room a few minutes ago, he’s still number one in my corner.
I take a breath and shake my head to try and empty it of all the unnecessary stuff. I have to get a grip, if for nothing else than for Miles and all the work he’s put in. I owe it to the old man.
Chuck comes up and starts massaging my shoulders, muttering the key points of the fight strategy to me. I nod my understanding but forget his words as soon as my intro music comes blaring through the system. As if by reflex, my feet move me out of the tunnel and into the deafening cheers and applause.
Once inside the cage, I usually take time to rile up the crowd and either get them behind me or piss them off. Tonight, I’d much rather stay put and try to get my focus on. I slip the guard into my mouth and check my cup. Straps are secure. Shoulders loose. I look over to Oggy, my opponent for the night, and he’s doing a much better job at putting on a show for the crowd. They’re loving him.
Then, without warning, my eyes begin to scan the arena, the one thing I didn’t want to do. And that’s when I see her—Gemma. She’s sitting in the front row to my left, with a pretty brunette who I’m guessing is the friend she told me about before. So many times, I’ve looked into a crowd and seen whichever girl was mine at the time, but never have I felt like this. Like I’m ten feet tall and the king of the world.
That feeling fades fast, though, because right beside Gemma are her brothers. With their girlfriends. I turn my back on them and try to shake off the instant tension that’s tightened up my frame. Aiden, I don’t care so much about, but Riley and Ciara are the ones who immediately cause my anxiety to spike.
Not exactly the best way to go into a fight. And it’s when I turn and try to get my head straight again that my eyes find Stash sitting with all his buddies.
Well, this is just great.
The ref calls Oggy and me to the middle of the cage to go through his pre-fight routine. I let him talk, but I hear nothing because the whole time he’s doing it, I can feel Stash’s sickening glare burning into me, that stupid smirk on his face. Which is how I know he’s spotted Riley with Ciara. I wish he were the one in here with me, instead of my sparring partner. At least then I’d have some decent motivation to really bring it and kick some ass.
The first round begins and I’m immediately on the back foot. Oggy comes at me with a quick double jab, then swings right and hooks me square across the jaw.
The loud groan from the audience acts as an emphasis for the pain shooting through my head. I blink the stars out of my eyes and try to gather my focus. This fight was set up so I can give the world a taste of what they’ll see when I get into the cage with Menendez. So far, they have every reason to bet against me.
Oggy’s wearing this half-smile as he taunts me to come at him. All those hours spent training; he knows better than anyone that I’m off my game. He also knows every trick I have in the bag. This was the reasoning behind Miles’ decision to have it be him in the cage with me. He’s always saying I’m my biggest competition, and because of our close training program, Oggy is as close as I’ll get to fighting myself. The only difference is he’s got everything to gain from this line-up, whereas I stand to lose much more. And I can see it in the way he’s moving—playing to the audience and lapping up his fifteen minutes.
He comes in swinging, but I duck and lunge for him. If I can get him to the floor, I’m sure I’ll regain the advantage. While his feet might be lightning fast, I know for a fact that Oggy lacks in the grappling department. But he knows it, too, and of course has been primed to spot my intentions a mile away so he can avoid it.
Oggy moves faster than I’ve seen him do at the gym, grappling out of my hold in under two seconds, and manages to land a knee to my chest in the process. It’s a crushing blow that sends me staggering, and although the pain isn’t bad, the surprised gasps and groans from the crowd are an insult to the injury I don’t need right now.
I glance over at Gemma, who unlike everyone else is sitting quietly and chewing her nails, wearing an expression of outright nerves.
“Where’re you going, man?” Oggy says, calling my attention back to him.
On a night when he’s supposed to be my opponent, he’s still trying to get me back to do what I came here to do. I respect him for that. I roll my neck, loosen my frame, and give Miles a nod. He’s standing ringside and has been screaming things at me that haven’t landed before, but I’m hearing them now.
“Don’t think I won’t quit on you,” he says. “I swear to God, I’ll walk out right now, and you’ll never see me again!”
I turn down the Miles dial in my head almost instantly. Here I was thinking he was giving me instructions, but all he’s doing is having a hissy fit next to the cage.
And just as I’m regaining my composure, Oggy doubles forward and takes advantage of my slipping guard. I steel my abs to take the pummeling he’s laying into me, his fists like wrapped blocks of concrete. But there’s a reason he was picked to work with me over everyone else in my sparring team, and I crash to the floor.
The crowd goes wild, Miles is still screaming, and all I can do is try to execute cover moves as Oggy lands on top of me, trying to get me in a submission hold. Thankfully, the round ends, and he’s pulled off me to go back to his corner.
My team is inside the cage and dragging me up before I can even catch my breath. There are too many voices coming at me, people landing slaps to my arms and face, and the whole time all I can think of is the fact that Stash is seeing me like this. He’s probably getting a real kick out of it, too. I don’t even want to look over there, or anywhere in Gemma’s direction. How the hell am I going to convince people I’m worthy of that title if I can’t hold my own in a friendly?
The only silver lining to my public humiliation is that I lasted five rounds. But a loss is a loss, and the press isn’t going to be interested in anything else. The night was a complete waste, showcasing my lack of form and technique instead of my dominance in the cage the way it was set up to do.
So, I skip the afterparty. I know it’s a big night for Oggy, but I just don’t have it in me to celebrate him. That would be like celebrating the fact that I couldn’t get my shit together for just a few minutes to do what had to be done.
Miles left without saying a word to me. I skulked off to the locker room, got changed, and snuck out the back. By the time I walk into my penthouse suite at the Bellagio, every part of me is aching and I feel more tired than I’ve ever felt in my life. I know it’s more to do with my head than anything physical. I could fight twenty rounds and still be good to go. But when I came up against that mental block in the cage tonight, it was like I was flung back to my teen years, fighting on the streets of Chicago.
My fingers move up to the medallion around my neck and brush over the deeply carved symbol. My counselor always told me it was good to remember the past, but not to dwell on it. Use it as fire to keep moving forward, not as an anchor holding you down. I can’t ever go back. I can’t lose what I’ve literally fought to achieve.
A shrill ringing echoes around the empty suite, and I slip out of my jacket before I answer. Standing in front of the huge mirror in my bedroom, I see Oggy’s damage for the first time. Open cuts on my cheekbones and eye, and the bruises on my ribcage are already starting to bloom.
“Hey, Ma,” I say, answering the call. I knew it was her without even looking at my phone because she calls after every fight. And after every fight, it’s always the same thing.
“Are you okay?”
She means physically, so at least I don’t have to lie to her. I always hated lying to her.
“Yeah, Ma, I’m fine.”
“Tell him he took a beating tonight,” my dad says, probably talking over my mom’s shoulder the way he usually does.
I just shake my head and sigh. He’s talking like I wasn’t there for all of it.
“Your father says to tell you—”
“I heard, Ma.”
“Oh. He says he heard, Jacob. Well, wasn’t that August with you in the ring?” she asks.
I flop down on my bed and move down slowly until I’m backed up against the pillows. I wince through the pain in my left shoulder and try not to make a sound that’ll set off my mother’s concern all over again.
“Yep.”
“I’m so disappointed,” she says. “We had him over for Thanksgiving last year and everything.”
I chuckle softly to myself. “Nothing’s personal in there, Ma. He’s still the same Oggy.”
“Tell him that my boy was going easy on him.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a direct call from my dad, and yet he’s never out of things to say when my mom’s on the line.
“Enough, Jacob. You got something to say, you tell him yourself. Have you been sleeping?” she asks me. “You look like you haven’t been sleeping.”
“I’ve been sleeping, Ma.”
God, I wish this call would end already. We’ve now entered into the sleeping, eating, vitamins part of the conversation.
“You look like you haven’t been sleeping,” she says, as if she didn’t hear me just say that I have been.
She does that. She makes up her mind about something, and nothing I say can change it. Like now, she’s decided I haven’t been getting enough sleep. Short of me taping myself sleeping through the night and showing her the proof, I’m fighting a losing battle.
And I’ve had about enough of losing for one night.
“I was actually turning in now, Ma,” I say, not hating that little lie too much.
“You can’t very well go to sleep without eating,” she says. “Have you eaten?”
“Tell him that a good diet is half the fight won.”
I clamp my jaw down tightly to keep my frustration from spilling out. The last thing I need is to hurt her feelings by taking it out on her.
We’ve always been a team, my mom and me, and when everyone called it a day, she was the one person who never gave up. She never stopped pushing me to turn things around, to get off the streets and get better. And she never missed a visit when I was locked up. My dad, on the other hand, was none of those things to me. It was more comfortable to parent me from behind my mother. Which, I guess, is part of the problem between us.
I start to say something my mom can tell my dad, but luckily the muted ding of the elevator opening on my floor stops me in my tracks. I’m better off not rocking that boat anyway, and I take the opportunity to end the call before it gets that far.
“Hey, Ma, I have to go,” I say, getting up and going through to the living room.
“Alright, but make sure you eat something. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I slip my phone into the pocket of my sweats and psych myself up for the talking that I’m about to get from Miles. He looked mad as hell when he stormed out of the arena without even looking at me. Not that I can blame him. All week he’s been on my case to get my shit together, and the fact that I couldn’t do it cost me big time. Like he said it would.
“Hey.”
I’m frozen to the spot, blinking stupidly at Gemma, who’s standing in my living room. She’s definitely not Miles, and my brain struggles to switch gears.
“What are you doing here?”
Her brows furrow together slightly, and only then do I realize how abrupt I must have sounded. This makes me feel even worse, when a moment ago I didn’t think that was possible.
“Sorry, I just—I wasn’t expecting to see you,” I say, approaching her.
At least she doesn’t flinch away from me. That’s something.
“I know I probably shouldn’t have come,” she says, her voice soft. “But I was worried about you.” She reaches out a hand to gently touch my face, a deep-seated concern in her eyes as she assesses the damage. “Jesus.” It comes out in a shaky whisper.
“You should see the other guy,” I say, jokingly.
The feel of her skin against mine is like a salve from the gods themselves, and I find myself warming to it, the angst of the past few hours melting away. I hate that she had to see me like that, at my worst, and if she were anyone else, I’d be too embarrassed to face her so soon after that catastrophe. But having her here with me feels like just what I need.
And when I look into her eyes and see the way she’s looking at me, I know that there’s nowhere she’d rather be, either. That of all the ways she could’ve ended the night, being here was the only option for her. The energy between us is all-consuming.
“Which way to the bathroom?” she asks.
“What?”
“We should get you cleaned up.”
She doesn’t wait for a response and starts making her way down the hall, peering into the kitchen and then the linen closet.
“The bedroom,” I say.
She turns to look at me, her face a storm of emotion, before continuing on to my bedroom. By the time I get there, she’s already in the bathroom and unpacking the generic kit that comes with the suite.
“Have a seat,” she says, without looking up from where she’s laying out the cotton pads, alcohol swabs, and an array of other things on one of the fluffy white towelettes.
Hers is an order I follow easily, and I go to sit on the side of the bathtub where I patiently await my treatment.
This is normally a job for my medic, but he never got the chance tonight after I made tracks out of that arena. I got a few missed calls from him on my way home, but he gave up after the fourth attempt.
“Is it as bad as it looks?” I ask, as Gemma sits on the toilet and starts to clean the cuts on my face.
It stings, but it’s a pain I’m used to and I barely feel it anymore.
“I don’t know yet.”
I can tell that my lack of reaction surprises her. She watches me closely, wincing on my behalf every time she touches a swab to my face.
“You’re good at this,” I say, smiling at her.
The concern in her eyes dissolves and is replaced by something else I can’t quite make out. Something softer.
“Yeah, well,” she says, swapping out the used swab for a clean one. “My mom was never the fix-it type, and I fell off my bike a lot as a kid. Out of trees.” She gets this cheeky grin that lights up her face. “And my brothers are completely oblivious to this kind of stuff. I was usually the one patching them up, too.”
“Is there anything you can’t do?” I don’t mean to make her feel uncomfortable, but I can see that’s exactly what I’ve done. I place my hand over hers to get her to stop nursing me for a second. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s not what you said, it’s just—people think that I’m this together kind of person.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but—I guess what I’m trying to say is—” She drops her eyes and fidgets with her hands in her lap, my treatment forgotten. “Thing is—once people start looking at you like that, like you can’t do no wrong, it becomes taboo to put a foot out of line. Unheard of. And not messing up is exhausting.”
When she looks up at me, her eyes have misted over. She sniffs and leans forward to finish my face.
“I’m sorry you have to live with that kind of pressure,” I say. “I know a thing or two about that.”
She smiles. “I guess you do.”
“Yeah, except mine’s just flipped. While people don’t expect you to make a mistake, I have the whole world waiting for me to screw up. They know it’s going to happen, it’s just a matter of when.”
“Well, not everyone thinks that” she says, touching the medallion around my neck. “You have people who don’t always believe the worst about you.”
I’m thankful for her in this moment and the fact that she came into my life when she did. What started as an irresistible physical attraction is quickly growing into something much more. I can feel it coursing through my very veins.
“Where did you come from?” I ask, and almost mean it quite literally.
She shrugs and dips her head shyly. “I’ve always been here,” she says.
And she’s right. Except now she’s not the kid hanging around in the shadows whenever I went to visit her brother. Or the angsty teen who couldn’t make eye contact when I so much as said hi to her. She’s all grown up, and God, what a job of it she’s done. Filled out in all the right places, with a face that could stop the world turning.
Overwhelmed by an urgent need to kiss her, I lean in and wait for her to pull back. To tell me she has to go. That her friend is waiting. But she does none of those things. Instead, she grabs a hold of my t-shirt and pulls me further into her, pressing her lips to mine. It starts out slow, the kiss, growing deeper and more crucial with every passing moment until I’m burning with desire for her. For more of her.
Aches and pains forgotten, I take her hand and lead her back into my bedroom, where I go to sit on the edge of my bed with her standing in front of me. I pull her close and she wraps her arms around me, burying her fingers in my hair as I push my face into her belly. She smells like sweet jasmine blossoms in the heart of spring.
My hands creep under her dress, grazing her soft thighs as they travel higher and higher. Brushing my thumb over her pussy, I’m surprised to feel the fabric is still damp from before. When I look up, her eyes are closed, and she looks like she’s in her own world of ecstasy. I stroke her through the dampness, moving my thumb all the way to her entrance and back again. Her fingers grip my hair as she moans into the feeling, and soon there’s fresh juices seeping through the flimsy panties to coat my finger.
I love that I’m doing this to her, that I’m the reason her body is doing this.
By now my erection is straining inside my pants, aching for some kind of release. I slip my fingers into her panties and pull them down. I watch her swiftly lift her dress over her head, her milky breasts bouncing free and just begging for me.
Gemma steps closer to me again, and taking my head in both her hands, she guides my open mouth to her stiff nipple. The moment I latch on, she arches against me, a primal moan vibrating from deep within her. I hold back on sucking to flick her taut bud with my tongue and watch as she throws her head back in pleasure as I go at it, over and over. Then I suck her back in again, and this time the sound that comes out of her throat is enough to drive me crazy.
The ache in my cock is starting to become painful with the wait. But I want to take my time with her. I want this first time to be something that’ll blow her mind. And after I’ve taken care of her, I’ll take what’s mine.
I let my hands glide over her naked body, trying to commit the feel of her to memory. I grab her ass, pulling the cheeks apart so I can slide my finger through to her slick, pulsing entrance. She gasps when I make contact, clenching her tight muscles around me as I push deeper inside her, pumping in and out of her dripping pussy with ease. I can just imagine how she’ll feel wrapped around my hard cock.
“Oh God, Dax,” she says, breathing the words in a thick, husky whisper.
The sound of it sets my skin on fire. I turn my attention to her other breast, sucking her in while still finger-fucking her the way she so clearly likes. Her body starts to tremble and shake in my arms. I feel her knees give in, but she rights herself by placing her hands on my shoulders for support. Then she’s pushing me back. I look up questioningly, but immediately recognize the look in her eyes.
I shift on the bed and lie back as she follows to straddle me. I glance down at the way her pussy glistens as it hovers over my twitching cock. I want to taste her so badly, but I also want to bury myself inside of her. I want that way more.
And it looks like she wants it, too, because she wastes no time in ripping my sweatpants down to just under my ass. I guess it’s the important part she’s after, so why bother taking it off all the way?
I’m so fucking hard, my cock is practically flush against my stomach and Gemma has to coax it upright. Her eyes lock with mine as she wets my tip by sliding it up and down between her wet folds. I work hard to hold it together but can feel every muscle tensing up in anticipation. Her grip is tight around my throbbing shaft as she finally guides it to her entrance and let’s go.
Still looking at me, she edges her knees even wider on either side of me, and then she sinks down. It’s painfully slow, the way she takes in the length of me half an inch at a time. She brings up her hands and starts to fondle her breasts, tugging at her nipples. It’s too much. I’ve waited too long.
I bury my fingers into the soft flesh of her hip and push her down. At the same time, I buck my hips and thrust into her as deep as I can go. We both cry out from the sweet satisfaction, and after taking a moment to adjust her position, Gemma begins to rock and grind against me.
Her motions start out clumsy but soon even out and she gets a steady rhythm going. Her inexperience turns me on even more, and I know that I’m not going to last very long. I start to thumb her clit, stroking it firmly to bring her to the edge. She quickens her pace then, riding me as though her life depended on it.
I feel a rising warmth in the pit of my stomach that snakes down into my thighs as my balls tighten. I’m so fucking close. A strangled moan escapes her lips, and she presses her palms flat on my chest to support her as the rocking of her hips grows more urgent.
“Oh, fuck, I’m coming!” Her words are a throaty mixture of strangled arousal.
Ignoring my tired muscles, I flip her over so that she’s on her back, and then I pin both her hands above her head with mine. She squirms delightfully under me, welcoming the weight of my body on top of hers, and lunges forward to kiss me. I crush her lips at the same moment I drive my cock further into her, deep and hard. The sound of her moaning into my mouth, the feel of her body quaking beneath me as she starts to come undone, it’s all too much for me.
I speed up my plunging motions, feeling her sheath clench and pulse around me as I go. She cries out, the most beautiful sound to come from her—raw and animalistic—and that pulsing contracts in rippling waves all around my shaft. Her orgasm goes on and on, and I don’t stop either.
“You’re so fucking tight, I can’t take it,” I say, burying my face in her neck.
My climax comes at me like a rolling wave, and I bite down into the soft flesh of her neck to keep from screaming out as it crashes through me, ripping me to shreds as I shudder and shake on top of her. Out of breath and trembling, I stay inside her until every last drop of me is spent. When I move to pull out, I feel her hands on my back, holding me in place.
“Not yet,” she says, a desperate moan in her voice.
And I feel her muscles tighten around me again as she rocks her hips to rub up against me. She’s ready to come again. And what my woman wants, she gets.
I quickly pull out of her, paying no attention to her disappointed sigh because as soon as my mouth makes contact with her clit, she’s on cloud nine again.