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Dex shouts at me to close it, but I ignore him and focus on my opponent dancing closer.
Come on, you hyper fuck, take the bait.
The second I feel his leg connect with my ribs, I catch it one-armed and hold it hostage. Sweeping his left leg with my right one, I slam him down onto the mat before immediately beginning ground and pound, hitting his face with punishing elbow after punishing elbow.
Nate doesn’t defend a single blow, leaving the ref no choice but to call it, pulling me off the limp, bloody mess that was my opponent.
Less than a minute. Not my fastest KO but not bad.
First thing I do is seek out Dex. With a roll of his eyes, he holds my phone up, screen toward me.
Kota’s serene face is a welcome relief after this bloodbath. Soon it’ll be right where it belongs—next to mine.
After tightening my hair in its high ponytail, I leave my bathroom. Khaos was asleep when I got up to shower but is now sitting upright, elbows on his knees as he rubs the back of his neck.
As promised, I felt him slip into bed beside me not too long after our talk. Holding me tighter than normal, he whispered sweet nothings into my hair that made my insides turn to molten lava before entering me from behind and fucking me so slowly and quietly and…ardently, I could’ve written it off as a dream had I not been staring at my nightlight the whole time to ensure it wasn’t.
Now, hours later, the light from the bathroom bathes his shirtless form in yellow hues, making every hard muscle of his appear to glow.
“How’s your neck?”
“Tight as fuck.”
“Do you know what from?” I ask as innocently as possible. It’s probably my pillows but I don’t want to say anything to make him dislike our current sleeping arrangement.
Devilish grin in place, he says, “Diet.”
I replay the word in my head multiple times, still not entirely sure what he means by it. I have no idea how diet could affect your neck muscles. He seems confident in his answer though.
“What kind of birth control are you on?”
“The pill,” I say, sitting on the edge of the bed to put on my socks and shoes.
“Have you ever missed one?”
“At least a few. I sometimes forget when I’m traveling for comps.”
“Did you forget at Nationals back in April?”
“No. Why?” I glance over my shoulder at him.
His neck forgotten, his attention’s zoned in on me.
“I was just wondering how you were ovulating when we first met if you were on the pill. Isn’t it supposed to stop you from ovulating?”
Did he do some research? He didn’t even know what ovulating was when we met.
“Oh. That. Yeah, it does.” I relocate my gaze to the wall above his head. “I lied.”
“About which part?”
My grimace is almost painful. “The part about me ovulating.”
“So you weren’t?”
“No.” Lowering my eyes to meet his, I admit with a shrug, “I was just horny.”
He smirks. “Bad, bad girl.”
