Brutal Boxer by Naomi Porter

21

Aspen

Cabin fever hit with a vengeance. I wasn’t allowed outside. We didn’t have electronics to watch movies or listen to music. I’d already read all the books Sugar had bought. All I had to occupy my time was a deck of cards, Jill and Hollywood.

I was going out of my mind with the walls closing in, thick tension swirling in the air. I feared for my life and the lives of everyone I’d inadvertently put in Casso’s path. I was beyond guilt-ridden. If I could surrender myself to save the rest from any harm, I would.

But the Knight’s Legion MC wouldn’t hear of it. I wasn’t entirely sure why other than I was Jill’s best friend, which I didn’t feel was enough reason for all the turmoil I’d brought.

Since coming to the safe house, we were totally in the dark about Casso. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t shown up at the cabin with an army of men.

Was it possible he’d just let me go? Washed his hands of me and moved on to someone else? I knew better than to hope.

Where would I move for a fresh start? Maybe a tiny coastal town in Florida. Nah, hurricanes. I could go up to Maine. I loved thick, chunky sweaters. Wherever I went, it wouldn’t be a big city.

And no way would I stay in Minnesota with Jill, no matter how much I loved her and had missed her. Not with Zach and Libby in the same state. That growly, salty… stupidly handsome man was getting on my last nerve.

I drummed my fingers on the table as I checked the time on the clock hanging on the wall. Zach would wake up soon. I only saw him for thirty or so minutes, twice a day, in the morning when his shift guarding the cabin ended and in the evening before it began. He pretty much made himself scarce.

Since the day I walked in on him naked, he’d been cold as ice. I wasn’t sure what it was all about, considering he’d flirted with me. But then, he had an old lady, so he shouldn’t have behaved that way.

The guy’s moods were erratic. Perhaps it was all the stress he was under, all because of me.

Still, he didn’t need to be an ass. It wasn’t like I wanted to be cooped up with him in a shack. I’d asked to flee the country. Begged to leave, so Storm and everyone else wasn’t forced to deal with my deranged ex.

I hated this just as much as Zach, if not more. My resistance toward him was weakening. I’d gotten used to seeing him daily. Old feelings stirred inside me. I hated it. I didn’t want to feel anything but contempt for him. But just being around him, catching him staring at me, breathing the same air, had reminded me of how we used to be.

And it hurt.

Tremendously.

When I went to bed, I smelled him on the pillows. Why couldn’t he just use one? The jerk just had to taint both with his intoxicating scent. Of course, I could’ve refused to sleep on them, but I didn’t. I held one pressed to my body and breathed him into my lungs all night. I felt pathetic and weak. Another reason to get the hell away from him as soon as possible. Why torture myself, seeing him with his old lady?

“Dammit,” Hollywood grumbled, cracking his neck from side to side.

“You okay over there?” I’d been keeping him at a distance when Jill napped. He watched me a lot, so I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.

Hollywood was young and cute, and had a surfer look about him. Dirty blond hair, a golden tan, and blue eyes the color of the ocean. A guy from Missouri who always wanted to be part of an MC. No idea why a nice guy like him would want to run with a rough crowd like the Knights.

Maybe I was judging them too early. I hadn’t gotten to know many of them, except for Lynx and Hero.

If I’d met Lynx at another time and somewhere else, I’d give that man a chance. He was charming and sexy, but nothing would ever happen between us. The same went for Hollywood and me.

“Sleeping on the couch isn’t comfortable. I think I have a pinched nerve.” He massaged the spot. “Can you rub it for me? Gimme some relief.” He flashed an adorable grin.

“Excuse me?” Boxer growled. “What did you ask Aspen to do?”

I rolled my eyes. The growly bear had woken.

“Massage his neck, for goodness sake. He has a pinched nerve.” I stood from the chair to help Hollywood. There was nothing worse than your neck being out of whack.

Boxer stepped in front of me, glaring like a ferocious beast. “Sit back down.”

I tilted my head, placing a hand on my hip. “Oh, please. He has a pinched—”

“I said sit the fuck down.” His ice-blue eyes bored into mine, his nostrils flaring.

I straightened my spine. “Or what? Are you gonna handcuff me to the chair?” I glowered back, ready to finally have it out with him. It’d been brewing in me all week.

“I’m not playing with you, Aspen.”

“Clearly.” I rolled my eyes again, sensing he hated when I did that. “You aren’t the boss of me, Boxer,” I called him by his road name for the first time. It felt weird rolling off my tongue. Sort of dangerous and sinful. “I can do whatever the hell I want.”

If steam could make its way out of his ears, it would’ve. All the rage rolled off him in waves. “Don’t you touch him, Aspen.” Disdain dripped off every syllable. “And don’t call me Boxer.”

I snorted at his ridiculousness. “Seriously? You’re acting juvenile. For one, he has a kink in his neck. I’m sure you’ve had one. They suck. And two, Boxer is what everyone else calls you. Stop power-tripping. You don’t have any right to tell me what to do.” I stepped around him.

Big mistake.

He grabbed me by the arm, putting his face in mine.

“You haven’t earned the privilege to call me Boxer. And I have every right. I’m in charge!”

“What’s going on?” Jill yawned, groggy with sleep.

We both shouted, “Quiet!”

“No, you lost the right when you broke up with me!” I yelled in his face, tugging my arm out of his grip.

“The fuck you say?” He seethed, a murderous glint in his startling ice-blue eyes.

“Oh shit.” Jill got between us, “Guys. Please. This isn’t the time to drudge up the past.”

“Move, Jill.” He shoved her out of the way. “Repeat what you just said,” he barked, his right eye twitching like he was about to lose his mind.

I backed up toward the kitchen counter, my heart racing as he moved like a lion ready to pounce on his prey. Maybe I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

“I said to repeat it!”

I jumped at his booming voice. “You lost the right when you ghosted me,” I told him in a trembling voice.

“I. Didn’t. Ghost. You,” he growled through gritted teeth.

Trapped by this brutal man, I teared up, bumping into the counter. “It was a long time ago. You probably forgot how it all went down.”

Jill came to my side. “She’s right, Box. Memories get muddled.”

Zach didn’t take his eyes off me. “I. Didn’t. Ghost. You.” His jaw twitched in time with his right eye. I’d never seen him this way before. “You ghosted me, you heartless bitch!”

I gasped, shaking my head, completely floored by the hate burning through his retinas. I turned toward Jill. “Tell him.”

“Tell me what?” he roared, face red, eyes still locked on me.

I elbowed her. “Jill, tell him.”

Wolf entered and slammed the door, but it didn’t faze Zach. Wolf and Hollywood watched us, their sick curiosity seemingly getting the better of them. An audience was the last thing I needed.

“I don’t remember,” Jill whispered.

Zach glanced at her, then back at me. “I wrote to you. I called you dozens of fucking times!”

My eyes blurred. I didn’t want to do this right now, but it seemed I didn’t have a choice.

Stay strong. Fearless.

“You did not write! Why would I take your calls when you planned to screw your brains out while away? It wasn’t like your girlfriend ‘would ever know.’” I made air quotes, repeating the very words Jill had overheard him saying to another new recruit the day he was sworn in.

He reared back like I’d slapped him. “How do you know that?”

“Yeah, shocked I found out, are you? Jill told me she heard you bragging about all the pussy you’d get being a big, bad Marine. So much for the promises you made. The lies about being mine. All that bullshit about marrying me when I graduated. Loving me forever and ever. You make me sick!”

I pushed past him, running to my room. Why did he have to go there in front of so many people? It was humiliating. Personal. Painful.

I went to shut the door, but Zach’s massive body was in the way.

“I don’t want you in here. Please get out.” My body shook as adrenaline pumped through my heart. I refused to discuss this any further. It was pointless. Futile. It hurt too fucking much.

He entered, slamming the door shut. His chest rose and fell in a heavy thud. Seeing him this way frightened me.

“Boxer!” Jill banged on the door. “Don’t do this.”

He locked it.

The action reminded me of Casso. Terror speared down my back. I went to the opposite side of the bed, as far away from him I could get in the tiny room. My hands trembled, my heart hammering in my chest. At this moment, I feared him more than I ever had Casso.

“I wrote to you when I got there just like I promised. Every day I scribbled out a letter. I got them all back with a ‘return to sender’ written in permanent ink.”

“What?”

He rounded the bed, contempt in his eyes. “When I got phone privileges, I called you weekly to find out why the fuck you were ignoring me!” His voice boomed, rattling the walls. “But you wouldn’t accept the goddamn collect calls.”

I shook my head, pressing my back into the wall, wishing it would swallow me up.

“I never imagined my sweet Snow could be such a mean bitch. You destroyed me.” He spat the words like poison.

The tears I fought to hold back streamed down my face. Zach slashed through my heart, gutting me from the inside out. “I never got any letters,” I cried.

How could he accuse me of returning letters I never received?

“Liar!”

I couldn’t take the hate in his eyes. I shook my head, wholly undone. “It’s the truth. Every day, Jill said nothing came.” When Zach had left, my dad was looking for a new home to rent. I didn’t know where we’d move to, so I told him to send the letters to his house so Jill could give them to me.

He heaved in buckets of air. I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head.

I placed my hand on my chest as I remembered what Jill had told me. “A couple of weeks after you left, she confessed to overhearing you brag about all the sex you’d get. She said it was better to just forget about you.” I couldn’t breathe, recalling it all. “I was so heartbroken. Totally devastated, so I refused the calls.”

He dragged his hands down his cheeks. “But I did fucking write. Every goddamn day I wrote to you.” Why did he repeat himself? Did he think it mattered after cheating on me?

“In between screwing girls, no less!”

“Fuck!” He grabbed my face firmly in his hands.

I held back a scream and closed my eyes, refusing to let him break me. Why was he pushing this? So much time had passed, none of it mattered anymore.

“Look at me.” He stepped closer. I felt the heat radiating off him as I inhaled his intoxicating scent. “I didn’t mean any of that. It was just stupid talk. Guys being guys. I’d never cheat on you. I loved you. We were engaged to be married.”

A sob ripped from my throat. “No, Jill said—”

“I don’t give a fuck what Jill said. You fucking shattered me, baby.”

“No, you shattered me.”

Wait.

He just called me baby.

“Please let me in,” Jill shouted, jiggling the knob. “I’m so sorry. Boxer, I couldn’t let you cheat on her. She was my best friend.” She banged on the door. “Don’t you get it? You were too young to be in love and talk about marriage. Aspen was supposed to go to college with me.”

Zach and I stared at each other in disbelief. It was as if Jill had sucked the oxygen from our lungs. My mind whirled like a funnel cloud, trying to process what this all meant. The look in Zach’s eyes, sadness and anger, they made my brain stumble over itself.

Jill was relentless, knocking on the door, “Please let me in!”

Zach and I were apart all these years because of Jill?

He relaxed his hands on my face but didn’t remove them. His gentle touch slowed my racing heart, wiped away my fear. “You never got the letters I mailed home?”

“N, no.” My body shook, my lips trembling. “Not one of them.”

He pressed his forehead to mine. “Jesus Christ. If you’re telling me the truth. All the years I spent hating you. Not being with you, fuck.”

Jill whimpered at the door, “Please, let me in?”

Wolf muttered something, but I couldn’t make it out. “Take all the time you need, brother,” came next in a severe tone.

It was quiet.

Only our breathing mingled between us. Tears rolled down my cheeks. Our bodies were so close, I wanted Zach’s strong arms to hold me. He was different with a beard, strong eyebrows, and hard lines on his face. Handsome as always, maybe even more so now as a mature man.

I felt awful for hurting him, for hating him, just as he hated me. My mind struggled to process how none of it had been necessary. We’d both been wrong. Misled by Jill. I couldn’t draw in a full breath, my chest aching, too overcome with anguish.

How could Jill do this to me… to us? I placed my hand on my stomach, feeling faint. Maybe I was in shock.

He ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “I’ve wanted to taste these more than I’ve ever wanted anything else.”

“Zach, I—”

His lips descended on mine, his hulking arms wrapping around me. I melted into him, welcoming his affections as my heart sputtered. He kissed me softly. His beard rubbing my chin, his tongue curling with mine. He tasted the same as I remembered. Not minty or sweet from what he ate, but only Zach. His unique taste.

I inhaled his scent. Relished the feel of his hands on me.

Everything about him assaulted my senses, overloading my emotions. A warmth of desire moved through my body, wetting my panties.

The arousal felt glorious.

The love I’d felt for Zach rushed back as if released from the iron box I’d locked it in.

He should’ve been mine. We should’ve gotten married, had a family, and living our best life like we’d planned.

How would our lives have been different?

No heartache or hate.

No Casso Campbell.

No Libby.

Libby.

My heart seized when her pretty face flashed in my head. Zach had a woman in his life.

“Stop.” I pushed him back. “This can’t happen.”