Me:No, training late.
It’s not a lie, but it’s also not the truth.
I do train a lot leading up to a fight, but not this much.
I toss my phone and go back to shadowboxing.
“Care to share what’s got you so worked up?” Lucian asks.
When I don’t respond fast enough for his liking, he adds, “Or you know, just keep knocking out all my fighters.”
He shrugs, and I glare, but it doesn’t faze him in the slightest. Because Lucian is the only man, aside from Dominick and Lorenzo, who isn’t afraid of me.
I’ve spent the past week training every second of every hour that I’m not working. My excuse is that I have a fight coming up, but Lucian’s spent enough time with me to know there’s more going on.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say, continuing to shadowbox since I knocked out the last guy and nobody else wants to spar with me.
“Okay.” He bends under the ropes and gets into the ring. “Then,let’s spar.”
“I’m not sparring with you.”
“Well, you have two options: talk or spar.”
He knows damn well when I’m like this, I won’t spar with him. Maybe years ago, when he was younger and in shape and could kick my ass. But not now.
“Fine.” I huff. “Then, I guess I’m leaving.”
I unwrap my hands and duck between the ropes while Lucian calls my name, but I don’t stop, unable to have a conversation with him and refusing to stay and disrespect him.
But before I can make it out of the gym, my brother steps inside.
“Going somewhere?” He quirks a brow.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, my tone harsher than intended.
“You’ve been MIA since your birthday, and I’m worried about you.”
“Oh good,” Lucian says, interjecting himself into our conversation. “Maybe he’ll talk to you because he sure as hell won’t talk to me.”
“You called my fucking brother?” I bark at Lucian.
“Someone had to do something,” he says. “I couldn’t watch you spend another minute training yourself to death.”
“Let’s go,” Dominick says, using his boss tone.
“I have shit to do.”
“Yeah, go with me.”
He turns and walks out, knowing I’ll follow.
I make sure to shoot Lucian one last glare before I leave, but he only grins and shrugs.
“So, what’s going on with you?” Dominick asks once we’re in his car and he starts driving. “Lucian says you only get like this when you haven’t fought or fucked in a while. And since you’ve been fighting down there every day …” He glances at me. “Do you need to get laid?”
I think about the last time I had sex. It was with Dani, anddespite her not being experienced, she took me repeatedly all night long, handling my stamina like she’d done it a million times.
Because of my emotional dysregulation, I have times when I need to release my pent-up aggression, and I’ve learned over the years that the combination of fighting and fucking works well. Fighting relieves the muscle tension and tires my brain, and the fucking releases hormones that calm me and reduces my stress, so they’ve become my outlet when I have moments like this. And they usually work … only the fucking can’t happen. Because the only person I’m craving is off-limits—and she happens to be the person who’s causing the stress in the first place.
