But tonight...tonight, I could feel just a hint of it. Just a touch of that fire in my shoulders and chest, from swinging punches. Just a little throb in my fists where they’d connected with those bastards faces.
It felt good. I tried to tell myself it was because I’ddonegood, because I’d saved Sylvie. But I knew it went deeper than that.Fightinghad felt good.
It was the first time I’d raised my hands to anyone in over a year. The first time I’d let myself be myself, instead of a locked-down, hooded nobody.
And something else had felt good, too. Her. The sight of her; the touch of her. I squeezed my hand shut, remembering the feel of her soft skin against my calloused fingers. The scent of that long dark hair when it had passed close to my face, like walking through a fucking meadow filled with blossoms.
I turned off the shower and toweled myself dry. But the memories didn’t stop.
The way her ripe breasts had pushed out the top of that pink t-shirt. The curve of her, from breast to waist, sculpted just perfectly for me to grab her and lift her and push her up against a wall.
I hit the light and flopped onto my bed, naked. It was way too hot for clothes. I lay there in the darkness with a faint breeze blowing in through the window.
Her back. That feline curve that ran from between her shoulders all the way down to the top of her ass. It made me want to strip her naked and run my palm down it. Maybe she’d gasp a little as the heel of my hand rubbed against that soft, tan skin, my fingers trailing along each sensitive vertebra.
Her legs. Those fantastic, sculpted calves and thighs, the tight denim hugging every smooth curve, leading up to—
I could feel my cock rising now, unbidden.
Her ass. Those tight, tight globes, high and firm and sticking outin just the right way. Just the right size for my hands to cup and squeeze. She’d groan. And then, with her on all fours, I’d gently part them….
My cock was pointing at the ceiling, now, throbbing.No. For feck’s sake!I wasn’t going to jack off to her like some teenager.
Her lips. Pink and full and sosoft.Pressed together, a lot of the time, like she was worried about stuff. I wanted to take that away. I wanted to see her smile. The closest I’d seen was that little sigh of relief when she’d finally gotten her soda, and her lips had parted to show shining white teeth. It was burned into my memory: the little beads of sweat on her forehead, the way her lips had trembled when she paused her drinking and panted in air.
It was easy to imagine her on top of me: head thrown back, that long, silky hair flowing down her naked back and spilling over my hands. I’d be stroking her all the way from her ass up to her shoulders and my cock would be buried inside her, her thighs clamped around me. She’d pant and beg as she spasmed around me—
I snatched my hand away from my cock, thumped the pillow in frustration, and turned over on my side.
There was no use fantasizing about what I couldn’t have. The worst thing in the world for Sylvie would be to get mixed up with a monster like me. I liked her—feck, I was hard as iron for her.
So I’d have to steer clear of The Pit.
For both our sakes, I’d make sure I never saw her again.
10
SYLVIE
There was a cab ride,paid for with the cash I dug from Alec’s pockets. Then the blinding fluorescent lights of the hospital. Alec on his back on a gurney and doctors shouting questions at me as I ran alongside.
What happened?
Was he attacked?
Do you want us to call the cops?
And me lying and making up a story about him getting mugged in an alley and the guy taking a crowbar to his leg.I didn’t get a good look at him. It was dark. Please, just help him.
I saw them looking at each other and at the cuts on Alec’s knuckles—some new, some old. They didn’t believe me. He wasn’t the first bare-knuckle fighter to be brought in.
They talked about hemorrhaging and swelling and needing to relieve the pressure. One of them, before the others could stop him, demanded to know why I’d waited so long before bringing him in. I burst into tears.
They took him into emergency surgery, leaving me with a wad of forms to fill out. I went through them methodically, one by one,which took my mind off the horrors happening in the operating theater. Then I stared at the wall and tried to figure out how everything had gone so wrong, so fast.
After five hours, they said I could see him. Everything above his eyebrows was swathed in white bandages. When I saw the tube down his throat and the papery hiss and pump of the ventilator, I wanted to scream. His eyes were closed, but it didn’t look like any sort of peaceful sleep. His brow was furrowed, as if he was having a nightmare.
One he couldn’t wake up from.
