Page 1 of The Fighter

ONE

Conrad

The large man sitting in the corner of the bar was more shadow than human, a hulking form that bled into the rest of the darkness. My curiosity took over my better sense, and I kept glancing his way to see if he’d moved. If someone joined him. To get any sort of clue about who he was, why he was there, and whether he’d welcome company.

I usually avoided clubs and bars like this, preferring to meet my temporary partners through websites where preferences and kink were laid out like a menu.Order up. But Benjamin had recently purchased Collar, a once popular gay nightclub that was past its prime, and he wanted my opinion on which improvements required priority.

As I shifted my weight and my shoes stuck to the floor, sticky with unknown fluids, my first inclination was to burn it down and start over, an opinion I didn’t think he’d appreciate. I sighed and looked around for my friend, but he was nowhere to be seen. Probably back in his office, christening it with that bartender he’d been making eyes at all night.

I took a sip of my whiskey, grimacing at the watered-down taste since the ice had melted an hour ago. The music was more trance than house music, and the bodies on the floor around midnight were well on their way to not remembering a damn thing. I was sober as a teenager. I’d come from my office where I’d been working late and still wore my suit and long coat to combat the Michigan winter. I’d been here an hour and still hadn’t taken it off because removing my coat seemed like an admission I planned to stay, and I didn’t plan to stay. Well, I hadn’t, until I’d spotted the man in the corner.

He remained very still as he hunched over the end of the bar. A shot sat in front of him, untouched. Getting laid was not on my agenda tonight, but something about the man’s posture, his presence, drew me to his side, my whiskey left behind on the scarred bar top. Heading his way wasn’t even a conscious decision on my part. I was minding my business alone, and then suddenly I was at his side, my body angled to his.

I didn’t touch him, unsure he wanted to be touched, although I felt like hedid. Maybe I was imagining it, but something in his posture felt needy.

His shoulders were massive, his large hands clasped in front of him on the bar. I let my eyes drift down, to his tree trunk legs. His knees were bent, large, booted feet propped up on the rung of his barstool.

The tension poured off him in waves, nearly sending me into a second-hand anxiety attack. A smarter man would walk away, leave him to sit in his dark, brooding corner. But I couldn’t take my eyes off his sharp cheekbones, his heavy brow and jutting jawline covered in stubble. God, he was half-Neanderthal, and what I wouldn’t have given right then to mold that power beneath my hands.

His biceps pulsed, and while I was thinking about how they were the size of my head, he turned his, meeting mygaze with a powerful intensity. There was a light behind me, and it illuminated his face. I couldn’t see his eyes at first, his prominent brow throwing them in shadow, but then he lifted his chin slightly, and I was struck by the uniqueness of his eyes. They were two-toned — one pure brown, the other one a lighter brownish green. His hair was dark brown, way due for a haircut, and a couple strands brushed the pale skin of his forehead. Long, dark lashes blinked once.

“What’s your name?” My own question surprised me, because typically,Wanna fuck?would have been first, but something in my gut craved to know who this man was. A muscle in his jaw ticked, and he began to turn his head away from me. My hand shot out, nearly without a conscious thought on my part, and I grasped his chin, hard, and wrenched his face back toward me.

The man could have strangled me with his bare hands or crush my skull with one swipe of a massive paw. This was a risk, but I couldn’t seem to walk away, and I needed this man’s attention. His focus.

He didn’t pull away, he didn’t struggle, but his nostrils flared, his eyes wide, the whites showing around those two-toned irises. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched his hands curl into tight fists on the bar top.

“What’s your name?” I said again.

His lips parted, and I thought he was going to tell me to fuck off, to go to hell. I thought he was going to punch me in the kidneys so I’d be pissing blood for a week. Instead, he said one word in a voice so low, it was a rumble in my gut. “Tav.”

Later, much later, I’d think about that decision, for him to tell me his name. I’d think about what kind of courage that took, the trust he’d placed in me, a stranger.

For now, I took it as a gift. “Tav.”

He didn’t answer me, his eyes shifting to take in my face.

“I’m Conrad.”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. His entire body was trembling, but he still hadn’t pulled away from where I gripped his face.

I let my eyes shift down, slowly, so he could see where I intended to look. And even in the dim light, the bulge in his jeans was unmistakable.

I leaned forward, my own cock straining in my pants. His body swayed back slightly, as if he was unsure what I planned to do. I placed my lips at his ear. “My car and driver are out front. A gray Bentley. I’m going to go out there now, and I’m going to wait. If you join me in the next ten minutes, then I will take you to my apartment. And if you come back with me, you’ll be on your knees for most of the night either with my cock in your mouth, or in your ass. You will beg and beg, and you will come when I allow it.”

A shudder wracked his huge body and the side of his thigh pressed against the front of my pants, as he widened his legs.

“And when we’re through,” I continued, “My driver will take you home.” I pulled back from him, dropping my hand from his face. I glanced at the clock over the bar and repeated. “Ten minutes.”

I turned on my heel and walked toward the front door of the club. With every step, I wanted to turn around, check to make sure he was following me. I wanted to go back and beg him to come with me, to tell him that I’d changed my mind, and he could have more time.

But even in those couple minutes I’d been in Tav’s presence, I knew he didn’t want a man like that, one who changed his mind, one who wavered. He’d liked how I’d gripped his chin, how I made him look me in the eye. He’d liked the demands I’d made. So I walked out into the cold Detroit night, not looking over my shoulder once.

Nik sat in the front seat of my Bentley. I knocked on his window and he lowered it, his dark blonde eyebrows raised expectantly, ice blue eyes steady. My breath puffed white in front of my mouth. “We’ll leave in ten minutes,” I said, “With or without a guest.”

He gave no reaction other than a nod.

Nik Alenin was more than my driver. He was a cold, loyal, Russian bastard, and I loved him for it. He knew me better than anyone, sometimes even better than Ben, who’d I’d known longer.