Unlikely Match, page 3
Twenty seconds too early, I stopped the exercise and reached for the water. “I take care of us.” I sucked down a large gulp then chuckled at his expression. “Don’t look so shocked there, big boy. I might not look it, but I’m twenty-five and a pretty damn responsible adult.”
And I have a trust fund well into the tens of millions that keeps growing as long as the board of directors handles my father’s company right. But that was a tidbit I waited to reveal until later in a relationship. Gold-diggers weren’t confined to just bleached-blonde bimbos. Of the few boyfriends I’d had, several had gotten a very specific gleam in their eyes when they’d seen my home.
Whoa, wait. Relationship? Where the hell did that thought come from?
Clayton hadn’t moved an inch, but something had definitely changed. I tossed the now-empty bottle into the trash a few feet away and cheered inwardly when it landed inside with perfection. I started my next set, completely uncertain how I’d survive it, much less two more. “What?”
“You’re nothing like I expected.” His face was annoyingly expressionless. He shook his head and cleared his throat. “Two more rounds, then we are going to do five laps around the building.”
Every curse word I knew danced on the tip of my tongue and a few more I made up bounced around in my brain. “Make sure you bring your cell to call the paramedics when I collapse.”
He laughed, as though I was kidding, and I stupidly fell in love with the sound. I made a mental note to cause that more often. By the time I left the gym that night, my gut was twisted from my ridiculous fucking attraction to the mammoth creature training me, just as much as it was from the intense exercise I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to.
Chapter Five
Clayton
Stupid hair.
A stray dark lock of Tyler’s just slightly too long hair kept falling onto his forehead and distracting the fuck out of me to a ridiculous level. Who the hell paid this much attention to hair?
“I’ve been in ‘training’ for three days now. Shouldn’t I be learning how to punch and jab or whatever bullshit it is you guys do?” He brushed the offensive strands from his face as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
I ran my tongue along my lower lip. Big personalities in small packages had always been my particular brand of catnip, especially when that came attached to a firm and decisive hand. On reflex, my ass cheeks clenched and my loose gym shorts turned uncomfortable. How long had it been anyway? “Listen, kid. Just like Joey and I told you the other day, this isn’t about kicking someone’s ass. You want to learn self-defense and I get that, but first things first. You need to build up some endurance.”
The guy jumped off the bench he’d fallen onto after I’d made him do thirty seconds worth of lunge jumps alternating with fifteen seconds of rest for a total of five rounds. “My name is Tyler fucking Kirk.” He stood directly in front of me, poking a long, nimble finger into my chest.
I grabbed his hand before he could collide with my breastbone again. A frisson of electricity shot up my arm from where we were joined. His heavy breathing put very different thoughts in my head than training. Tyler’s hot breath skating along my spine, my neck—laboring to pull oxygen into his lungs as he filled me from behind.
Too long. It has been too fucking long.
I released my grip on him, pushing him away from me slightly. “Fine, Tyler fucking Kirk… Here’s the deal. You’re either gonna stop bitching and moaning about the way I coordinate your training and trust me to do what I know is best, or you’re gonna haul your ass to a different gym.”
A moment’s worth of concern raced across his face before he narrowed his gaze and folded his arms. “It doesn’t really look like you can afford to lose the clientele there, big boy.”
It was an insult, and there was exactly zero reason for it to send fire directly to my crotch, but the twitching member barely concealed beneath the thin polyester shorts seemed to contradict my brain. What I needed was a trip to the club that was oh-so-conveniently located just a few miles from the gym—the one my ex had introduced me to, the one that was the only place outside of the ring where I could feel the most like myself and the one where I could find a trusted friend, drop to my knees and do exactly what he told me.
In that moment, however, the only thing I found enticing was kneeling for the glowering creature standing before me—a practical stranger to whom I had an unusual and irrational attraction, one that was off limits not only because he was my client, but also because I was certain he’d never understand my personal preferences. Desires. Needs.
He snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Did you hear what I said?”
No. The answer was definitely no. I debated trying to bluff my way through an answer for a moment, but decided that giving up and calling ‘uncle’ was a much safer plan. “No, sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”
Tyler pressed his lips together and rolled his eyes. “I said that you’re right, okay?” He sighed and held his hands out to his sides for a moment before letting them fall against his lean hips. “You’re the expert and I came here for your help. It’s stupid to be giving you a hard time.”
I was certain my jaw would connect with the thick padding covering the concrete floor. “Come again?”
He shrugged and a light dusting of rose coated his cheekbones. “Listen… I know I can be a bit of an asshole sometimes. It’s basically the only self-defense mechanism I have.” He lifted both eyebrows meaningfully. “I don’t run away.”
Dammit all to hell, why does he have to do this to me? I shouldn’t be having these kinds of thoughts about a kid more than a decade younger than me to begin with. Adding in the fact that he was my client made him a definite no-go. But with four simple words, my respect for him grew and with it, my desire. The two were forever intermingled in my world.
Done. We were done for the day. We had to be. I needed to drop by the club for a long-overdue visit and exorcise some of the demons that had clearly taken control of my libido. “Hey, why don’t you go hit the showers? You put in some good work.”
I did not track the sweat-soaked white shirt clinging to the lean muscles of his back as he walked away from me. But I definitely did take my time putting away all the equipment we’d been using, wiping down the bench and tossing errant water bottles into the recycling bin. By the time I’d dragged out each menial chore, more than fifteen minutes had passed and Joey was leaving.
“I’m heading out, chief.” He scratched the mass of short, wiry curls on top of his head. “It’s just you and the kid here. If you want to let him out the back, I’ll lock up the front.”
“Tyler.” His name came out of my mouth before I had a chance to think. “His name is Tyler, not ‘kid’.”
Confusion shrouded Joey’s face for a moment before he grinned. “Right… Well, uh, you just let Tyler out and I’ll take care of the front.” He winked and lifted a hand.
Shit. Clearly that had been a little too obvious.
“He’s a client,” I lectured myself as I walked into the locker room, intent on washing away the day and thoughts of Tyler, “and a fucking kid.”
Steam from Tyler’s shower still blanketed the room in a dense fog, but the absence of running water made me confident that he’d finished and moved to the changing area to dry off and get dressed. I stripped down, leaving a trail of clothes behind me as I walked into the communal shower with purpose.
Until I found myself standing in a pocket of clarity, my gaze held captive by startled emerald orbs. My mouth turned into the Sahara and my tongue clung to the roof of my mouth.
He was a kid. His paperwork confirmed that he was only twenty-five, a decade younger than me, but the body standing before me with rivulets of water running down it belied the scrawny boy who was always swallowed up by his clothes. Tyler sported lean muscles on his arms and a hint of baby abs forming on his midsection that had been concealed from view until he was nude.
The first day, when he’d taken his shirt off to prove his assertion that he wasn’t a total shrimp, I had been speechless. But I was not prepared to experience a fully naked Tyler.
My breath stuttered on an exhale and my heart stopped. His abdomen was marred by bruises fading from the purple they had been the day after the attack into the yellow and green that signaled the healing of his otherwise-perfect flesh. Without thinking of the consequences, I reached my hand out, traced along an ugly imprint and winced. I’d had far worse myself after going rounds with various opponents—hell, I’d had worse after sparring with Joey—but seeing the marks on Tyler’s creamy skin did something to me, something I wasn’t prepared to think about.
“It’s okay.” His whispered reassurance cut through the thick air and I brought my gaze back up to meet his. He was battered and bruised and trying to comfort me? Someone who barely knew him?
I shook my head, my hand not leaving his side, and I took one step closer. “No. It really isn’t.”
Tyler smirked and arched a single brow. I barely bit back the groan that the innocuous action induced. “You wanna kiss it and make it better?”
He wasn’t serious. Couldn’t be. “Yes.” I was as shocked by the hoarseness of my voice as I was by the answer itself.
There were about fifty reasons why I shouldn’t do that, but as I dropped to my knees and pressed my lips against his heated flesh, I couldn’t seem to remember a damn one of them.
Chapter Six
Tyler
Clayton James was on his fucking knees in front of me. I’d stepped into an alternate universe—or I was having the best damn dream of my life.
When his lips touched my skin, the fire they ignited in every cell of my body was confirmation that I was fully awake. His ink-covered arms fell to his sides as his mouth kissed around the periphery of every bruise.
“Tell me to stop.” His breath whispered across my abdomen, creating shivers down my spine as he spoke.
A strangled laugh managed to escape my rapidly closing throat. “Not a chance in hell…unless you want to.”
He pulled away slightly, met my stare and my heart stuttered to a stop. The sight of this finely sculpted man on his knees in front of me coated my brain in a fog thicker than the one created from my scalding shower. A nearly audible click set everything in place, and for the first time, my chaotic existence righted itself.
Clayton’s crystal-blue eyes were open and vulnerable. “I should. There’s absolutely nothing good that could come from this, but hell no, I don’t want to stop.”
“If you moved your mouth a few inches to the left, something very good could come from this, big boy.” Whenever I was nervous, I made jokes. It had been my coping mechanism for as long as I could remember, but I wasn’t certain it was doing me any favors in this moment.
He dropped his jaw and stared up at me just long enough to make me want to kick my own ass. Then he bit down on his full lower lip and reached up to grip my dick, which was standing at full attention. “Like right about here?” He leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on the tip and I thought I might melt into a puddle right there on the floor.
I would be cool. I would keep myself together. And I absolutely would not let Clayton James see just how much I loved the feel of his mouth around my cock.
Several slow, smooth movements of his lips up and down the shaft with an occasional flick of his tongue across the slit and he pulled all the way free, stroking me with his hand instead. “I know it’s an insult and I know I should be pissed, but it is such a fucking turn-on when you call me that.”
I blinked slowly, trying to achieve some sort of coherent thought through the passionate haze covering my mind. “Call you what?”
Red stained his high cheekbones. “Big boy.”
A warm band wrapped around my chest and tightened. Something about Clayton spoke to me in a way that I’d never experienced before. Familiar, unwanted thoughts appeared out of nowhere. Why the hell would someone like Clayton James, a household name with the body of a fucking Greek god, want me? The biggest thing I had going for me was my bank account, but that was a fact I didn’t let slip too often.
Just as I opened my mouth to assure him we could stop and pretend this had never happened, he devoured my cock again, taking the full length between his lips until his nose bumped against my hip bone. He worked some crazy psycho magic and flexed his throat around the tip. My words dissolved into a deep, guttural moan.
He grasped my thighs as he moved his head up and down. I fought the urge to hold a death grip on it to keep him in place…for about two seconds. Then I caved and dug my fingers into his scalp.
It wasn’t the first time someone had given me a blow job, although, as he slid his hand around to caress my balls, I began to believe it was the best one I’d ever had. And it wasn’t even the first time I’d hooked up with a relative stranger. My freshman year of college hadn’t been a total loss when I’d discovered a bar not too far from campus that let people under twenty-one in and had enough dark corners to encourage quick one-offs with someone whose name was soon forgotten, if it was even their real name.
Nothing about this was unique and, yet, everything about it was. The air between us crackled with an unusual energy. His blue gaze caught mine and the open vulnerability I saw there brought out a possessive and protective monster I’d never known was residing inside me.
The physical pleasure mounting by the second was undeniable, but the deeper connection we were somehow forging was both overwhelming and not nearly enough.
But that and every other logical thought fled when Clayton hollowed his cheeks and increased the suction on my cock. The precipice of pleasure I’d been dangling from crumbled beneath my fingers and I fell into a sea of bliss. I dropped my hand to his shoulder and leaned into it, needing the support to keep me upright.
He gentled his mouth but continued the slow glide up and down until my convulsions stopped. He kissed his way up my front as he rose to his feet and buried his face in my neck. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, but damned if I haven’t been wanting to since you first walked through my front door, dripping with attitude and sass.”
I pushed him away slightly and cupped his face in my palms. “Don’t apologize. That was fucking amazing.” I closed my eyes and took a shuddering inhale. “But why? I’m a scrawny kid who gets his ass handed to him on the regular. How in the hell could you possibly be turned on by me? Want to do…that to me?”
He dropped his gaze to the floor and something flared inside me at his response, needing to see his eyes. “I-I’ll admit I have a type and…there are many of those things that are all you.”
My heart tumbled down ten flights of stairs at his words. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting or hoping to hear, but it certainly wasn’t that he’d sucked me off because I fit the role of the man that he was looking for.
Clayton encircled my wrists, holding them against his cheeks. “It’s not just that, but that was certainly the driving force for the pull I felt the day I met you.” He shrugged slightly. “And this is only our third day of training and the fourth time I’ve seen you in my life.”
The logic of my brain overpowered the hurt in my heart. He was right. Lust was instantaneous. Going deeper than that took time. “So, you’re into skinny nerds with glasses?”
He stroked his thumb along my rapidly accelerating pulse and kicked the corner of his mouth up into a half smile. “I’m into big mouths and strong personalities wrapped up in small packages.” He popped his eyebrows twice. “And clearly I’m a fan of your package.”
Reluctantly I pulled my hands from his face and looked down at my watch. Lolli would already be in bed and Rachel was more than happy to spend as much time as needed until I got home, since her husband worked the late shift and she hated being in her own place alone. This thing—whatever it was between Clayton and me… I wasn’t quite ready to let go just yet and something in my gut knew with certainty that ending things here and now could close off any chance of it happening again.
“Listen… I know this is a little backward, but how about you let me buy you dinner?”
Chapter Seven
Clayton
The diner I’d followed Tyler to was practically empty. The only other patron was an older guy sipping on a mug of coffee and staring ahead aimlessly. I’d spent the entire drive cursing myself up one side and down the other. Not only was he my client and a fucking kid, he would never be able to handle all of what I was.
But I still followed him.
And I still took a seat across the table from him.
And I still couldn’t take my eyes off him for one damned minute.
My hormones and that annoying little flutter in my gut were silencing the very practical thoughts of my brain. I wasn’t certain if I was grateful or terrified.
His gaze dropped to where I was toying with the napkin on the table. “You’re a little fidgety there.” He set the menu in front of him and leaned forward. “Maybe we should’ve taken care of you before we came over here, yeah?”
My aching dick nearly jumped out of my athletic shorts from sheer enthusiasm. It wasn’t just the suggestion of him getting me off. It was his attention to my bad habits, something he could have no idea would mean so much. “No, I—”
My next words—and every molecule of oxygen—were stolen when surprisingly soft skin slid along the length of my thigh beneath the table. Playing footsie I could handle and keep my cool. This was much, much different.
Tyler smirked at me and lifted a single brow. “Everything okay there, big boy?”
In the single second before I melted into a pile of goo, the waitress came over to take our order. I hadn’t looked at the menu and had zero capability to produce conscious thought, so I fell back on an old faithful order, basically the only thing that managed to come to mind—and exactly what I should be eating, since I was in training once again. A burger, no bun and a salad.
