Free Shadowboxer by Cari Quinn Page B

heart thumped in my head, a primal drumbeat that spurred me to fight harder, to make each twist of my body count. I threw out an elbow, kneed whatever part of his flesh I could reach. He grunted, but he didn’t release me. I redoubled my efforts even as my vision blurred.
    I wouldn’t live through this again.
    “Goddammit, stop it. Mia . Mia, baby, stop it. It’s just me.” He enfolded me in his arms, hauling me straight off the ground and into his arms while my legs pumped and slashed through the air. “It’s Fox. I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
    When his words finally cut through the mist of terror in my brain, I went slack in his hold. As limp as a damn baby. He didn’t let me go, just kept whispering soothing words that would’ve caused me to weep if I’d had any tears left to cry. Instead I sagged against his chest while shame burned through me like lava.
    “Where did you go?” he murmured, lips to my temple.
    His warm exhalations made my eyes close. The alcohol on his breath was vaguely sweet, and he’d kissed me with passion and tenderness, not demand couched in concern. I wanted to soak up every bit of that passion and let it plug up the holes inside me. So many holes.
    “Who hurt you?”
    I jerked back and stared up at him as if he were a stranger. Because he was. I didn’t know him. I’d seen him fight like the devil himself had a pitchfork to his throat. I’d felt his lips pressed against mine. I’d held his cock, tested its power and ferocity through denim. And I’d asked him to do the one thing that had kept me going for months, only to fall apart in his arms and nix my chances.
    He didn’t see me as a valid competitor now. Not that he had before. How could he? I’d tried to get him off—and not very well, obviously, or he wouldn’t have stopped me—and then I’d gone to pieces during a fight with someone who no longer existed. Darren was dead, and I still struggled against him every time a man put his arms around me. His voice echoed in my head. The promises, the lies. The praise I’d grown to crave, in hopes of avoiding the pain.
    Out of everything I’d done, wanting Darren’s approval shamed me the most.
    “Mia?”
    Fox brushed my hair out of my face, his fingers as gentle as the falling snow on my bitterly cold cheeks. The frigid air had seeped into my bones and I felt like I’d shatt er if he so much as blew on me.
    “Baby, let’s go inside.”
    I wasn’t anyone’s baby. I didn’t want to be.
    Steeling my shoulders, I pasted on a smile and trailed a fingertip over Fox’s jaw. I wasn’t giving up. Not when I was this close. “Sorry, I have an early day tomorrow. Thanks for the walk.” I winked at him, though my face felt like it would crack from the effort. “Think about what I said. I’ll be in touch.”
    Moonlight glided like transparent panes of ice over his gorgeous face. “That’s it? You rub my cock until I’m about to come and have a breakdown in my arms, then you just walk away?” The shutters came down on his eyes.
    H e was almost as adept at cutting himself off as I was.
    “I would’ve finished but you didn’t want me to.” I shrugged and lowered my gaze to his throat. Such a vulnerable place. I’d nearly kissed him there before he’d shoved me away. “You could’ve had my hand or my mouth. I’m up for anything.”
    He cupped my chin an d dragged my face up to his. “How about if I take you inside and lay you out on my bed and make love to you until you scream?” He stepped closer and spoke against my mouth, moving my lips with his. Puffing his breath into me and making it mine. “And then, when I’m finished, what if I spread your legs and lick your sweet little pussy until you’re begging me to slide into you again? You up for that , baby doll?”
    I w as so shocked I couldn’t even work up a sneer at the annoying endearment. That was the only reason I could find for what I said next.
    I’d live to regret s aying it, that was for