Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 43879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 219(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 219(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
I need the punishment of being knocked out. I deserve it for not being everything she needs. If I’d known she existed sooner, I would have been more prepared. But I didn’t. I didn’t know my beauty was out there, so I had nothing to offer when the time came. And it all happened so fast. It happened so fucking fast. One second, I had the world in the palm of my hand and the next, I’m looking for a way to darken that world. A way to make everything dark around me. Shut off my mind. Shut off everything.
I’m in the ring now at the Hellmouth fighting this guy I’ve beaten before. It’s not a challenge. But I want two seconds of peace from the tortured screams in my head, so I let one of his punches slip through, the crack and spray of blood from my nose doing nothing to satisfy me. This isn’t working. I’m the sum of the pain in my heart. I can’t even register anything on the outside anymore. I can’t do this. I really don’t think I can get out of bed every day and pretend like I don’t want to die. If it wasn’t for Tulip, I’m not sure what I would have done by now.
I’m not what Grace needs.
I can’t make her happy.
Obviously her father said something that made her realize that.
And honestly, why would she want someone who her father looks at with such derision? That’s her family. The people she’ll be spending holidays and milestones with for the rest of her life. If I’m by her side, she won’t have them. Did I expect her to give them up for me? To trade her own flesh and blood for a brawler with a walk-up apartment and no hope of an education like hers? The only currency I have are my fists—and I don’t even want to use them.
There’s no fire in me to fight anymore. Fight for what? What is there? I can feed Tulip and keep a roof over her head with money I earn at the Hellmouth, but I’m not fighting at the Garden. I can’t find the fucking motivation. I don’t even think I’d make it to the arena without collapsing into the gutter and expiring from the razor-clawed agony that ravages my insides, never stopping, the intensity never lessening. It’s constant. A man can’t survive like this.
A memory of Grace running up the stairs of my building and launching herself, laughing, into my arms sets off a bomb in my throat and I roar, throwing a right cross at my opponent, sending him stumbling back several feet. “Come on,” I beg him, my voice guttural. “Hit me. Hit me! Knock me out. Please.”
Slowly, the guy lowers his fists. “You need to go home, man.”
The rushing in my ears slows down momentarily and I realize the entire Hellmouth is silent. Watching me. There’s no money exchanging hands or shouting or revving up the fighters. It’s the stillest and quietest I’ve ever seen this place. They have sympathy for me—it’s obvious. Right there on their faces. And that pity is like lighting a match and dropping it into a bucket of kerosene, blistering my skin. “Find me a fucking challenge for tomorrow,” I bellow, ducking out of the ring. “Find me a killer. Someone better than me. Do it.”
I snatch up my bag on the way out, blood still dripping from my nose. Layer upon layer of sweat running down my bare torso and soaking into my shorts. I don’t bother putting on clothes or wiping myself down on the way to the car. It’s parked beneath the overpass as usual, traffic rumbling by overhead. I move for the driver’s side, then hesitate, memories of Grace bombarding me. Memories of that first night when she rode home in my passenger seat, so angelic and wholesome and pure and trusting. Of me.
She did trust me once, didn’t she?
That wasn’t a dream?
Instead of climbing into the driver’s side, I find myself stumbling to the opposite side. Opening the passenger door and falling on my knees, half inside the car and half out, burying my face in the center of the seat, begging it hoarsely for the scent of her pussy. “Please. Give it to me. Give me something. Please.”
Maybe I imagine it, maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I swear I catch a hint of her cherry cola scent and my cock starts to harden, a harsh sound falling from my mouth, muffled by the leather seat. For the first time since she walked away. I lunge for the chance to be with her in some small way, even if it’s just the memory of her in my car, the barest hint of her beloved scent haunting my nose. My brain.