His strokes were powerful and fast. Their breathing was harsh between choked cries of bliss. Tabitha stiffened under him; then a shudder seized her entire body as she came with long, surrendering moans of pleasure. He could have held out longer, but hearing her had Wyatt reaching for her beneath the veil of ecstasy. He bit his lip when the coil sprang free, and the warm, tingling feeling of his orgasm spread through his body, taking the last of his tension with it.
When it passed, both their chests heaved. Wyatt leaned his forehead against hers and swept his thumb over her wrist where he was still holding her down. Then he became gentler, placing kisses against her cheeks, her temple, and then down to her ear before he sucked one tender lobe into his mouth. Tabitha was the only girl he knew who didn’t have her ears pierced, and he liked it like that.
Tabitha slipped her hands from out of his steely grasp when it loosened. She ran her fingers through his hair and down his back that was sweaty again despite his shower. Then she wrapped her arms around him, holding on to him tightly. “You make sure you beat this fella you’re fighting tomorrow. I don’t want you getting hurt. Promise?”
He pushed up and gave her a wide smile. “I promise.”
* * * *
Wyatt’s sister came to a lot of the fights, but not all of them. Jules’s life was even more hectic than Wyatt’s. She was competing all the time in judo, working at the sheriff’s department, and in between all that somehow studying for a law degree.
It was little wonder Tabitha and Wyatt’s sister had never hit it off. Jules probably thought Tabitha was the laziest person on earth for simply working at Maple’s and taking care of her mama. The rest of Tabitha’s life sort of revolved around Wyatt. It wasn’t a bad reality. It was what most people did, just lived and loved and got by, but Tabitha couldn’t help but feel unaccomplished when she was around Jules, who was far too ambitious to be human.
Which was the reason Tabitha was very happy the Chicago fight was one Jules had to skip for her own competition in California. It made a far more relaxed atmosphere for all of them. Tabitha went out to eat twice with Clay, Wyatt, and their coaches before the fight on Saturday night. She didn’t get to eat out much, so she really enjoyed it.
Clay and Wyatt’s fights were always like a little adventure for Tabitha. She would’ve likely been one of those people who lived out their whole life without leaving her hometown if wasn’t for Wyatt insisting she was his good luck charm and bringing her along.
Yet, even with the adventure, when it came time to watch Wyatt’s fight, Tabitha found herself sitting front and center, invisible in a sea of drunk, violent hungry men and squealing fight groupies. She had learned to dress simply in jeans and a T-shirt, so she fit in but wasn’t prone to draw attention to herself. She deliberately didn’t wear makeup and tied her hair back in a bun to hopefully detract from the bright color that she knew made her stand out.
She still got some unwanted attention, but Tabitha was good at nothing if not being aloof and silent until the drunk assholes moved on to one of the girls who were a little more outgoing and open to being hit on. She had sat through three fights already that night, and each one was bloody and painful to watch. MMA was very different fighting than boxing. Wyatt and Clay had moved up from the smaller fights that had little rules and were just survival of the fittest to more organized MMA fighting, but even in this arena, the lure was the no-holds-barred battle between two men who knew how to truly hurt their opponents.
Wyatt really was certifiable, and Clay along with him. Tabitha almost felt guilty for being the catalyst that brought those two together as friends. It was the collision of their combined ambitions and testosterone-fueled need to conquer that led to Tabitha sitting in this seat waiting for Wyatt to come out.
His opponent was first, because Wyatt was the more popular fighter. Tabitha studied him once he entered the cage after the fanfare and had to admit this young fighter looked nervous. He wasn’t nearly as big as Wyatt, who had been forced to get into a sauna at a local gym for a good hour and half this morning and then starve himself for the rest of the day when he stepped on the scale in their hotel room and found out he was four full pounds over weight class despite months of dieting. He was always so close he actually traveled with a scale in his luggage.
Wyatt slipped in at a half pound under the light-heavyweight upper limit. How very unfortunate for his opponent. The other fighter was far from being small, but Tabitha knew Wyatt’s body better than anyone, and this man just wasn’t as toned or broad. Plus, he lacked Wyatt’s unbending confidence that was more than obvious when he came out from the other side of the small arena.
The noise the crowd made was insane. She actually winced at it as she stood on her toes to see Wyatt. For some crazy reason, he had donned the persona of the “The Deputy,” and he pulled it off as only a man who was born to perform for the masses could. He played to that stereotype of those scary Southern cops you never wanted to get stopped by.
Truth was, Wyatt let more people off on tickets than anyone. Jules was the deputy these folks should be scared of. She wrote twice as many tickets as Wyatt, and she only worked part-time.
Tonight Wyatt wore a deputy hat and tan shorts to match, but his muscular chest was bare and shiny with oil.
So silly
. Tabitha giggled when she saw him throw up his arms and get the crowds worked up into a frenzy. She covered her face with her hands when he tossed his hat out into the crowd. She knew Clay was somewhere visibly cringing over Wyatt’s antics.
Wyatt threw that hat every time, but it was only the first one that was his real deputy hat. He told Tabitha his father had lost his mind when he found out Wyatt used his uniform hat as a prop for his fighting. Now the hats were just costume hats.
When he walked past her seat in the front row, he grabbed her and kissed her full on the lips. He did it every time, and there wasn’t once that Tabitha’s cheeks didn’t flame in embarrassment. She didn’t know what she was going to do if he did make it to the UFC and started fighting in front of such large national crowds.
“That’s my girl.” Wyatt looked every bit the mean, intimidating fighter he was supposed to be as he pointed to the guys on either side of her. “I better not catch y’all looking at her.”
“Oh my God.” Tabitha rolled her eyes, speaking loudly to be heard over the crowd. “Really, Wyatt?”
Wyatt growled in response, showing his teeth in the same menacing way he had in the hotel room the night before.
Tabitha couldn’t help but laugh and shake her head. “Crazy.”
“You love me,” Wyatt said without remorse.
“I guess.” Tabitha gestured to the cage. “Ain’t ya got a fight to finish?”
“Sure enough!” Wyatt threw up his arms again, and the crowd screamed in response.
He made his way up to the cage, and when Tabitha sat down, she noticed the two men on either side of her had made an effort to sit as far from her as possible. Her cheeks were still flaming, and the nerves about the fight sure didn’t help.
Wyatt flexed his fingers that were covered in fingerless gloves. He rolled his shoulders and bounced in place, suddenly all business now that he was in the cage. The referee walked to the center and then stopped to stand between the two fighters. When he stepped back, Wyatt and his opponent came together, touching gloves and then bouncing back quickly.
They circled each other, reminding Tabitha of something one would see on the Discovery Channel—two big, powerful animals, keeping their distance but waiting for the first one to pounce and fight to the death for dominance. Tabitha wasn’t surprised Wyatt was the one to make the first move. He jumped forward like a viper and caught the other fighter with a hard right hook that made her wince in sympathy. The fighter stumbled but punched back. Wyatt dodged it, ducking low and then catching him in the side.
The other guy jumped backward toward the cage, and Wyatt kicked him, his bare foot barely grazing his chin. There was a kick in retaliation, and Wyatt doubled over, but he didn’t fall. Something about that must have bothered him. He had a perfect fighting record. There had been many fights that had ended in the first few minutes.
Wyatt darted toward the left of the fighter rather than directly at him. Tabitha gasped out loud when he came at the cage with such velocity he was able to jump up, almost appearing to run across it sideways and using it for elevation, before delivering a powerful roundhouse kick to the head that knocked the other fighter to the mat. Then Wyatt was on him, falling to his knees and punching him in the face so hard Tabitha cringed.
The referee had to pull Wyatt back.
The other fighter was unconscious when they did.
Tabitha knew enough about this sort of fighting to understand the significance of a real knockout rather than a technical one. Wyatt would surely be admiring his stats for the next two weeks. The noise level was ridiculous. She had never heard a crowd go so crazy over a fight.
“He used the cage for a roundhouse!” The guy behind her was screaming. “That was un-fucking-believable!”
The hollering in that arena really was earsplitting.
“That was amazing!” The man next to her got in Tabitha’s face, having obviously forgotten Wyatt’s threat. “I’ve never seen anything like that before! Did you see that shit?”
“I did.” Tabitha nodded, unable to help mirroring their enthusiasm. It had been an astounding feat of athleticism. “It really
was
amazing. It was like he walked sideways on the cage! Like magic!”
Now she was sad his sister hadn’t been there to see it. She hoped one of his coaches had someone taping it. They’d taken to recording Wyatt and Clay’s fights to analyze later. It was a wonderful moment in their history and made all the more exciting when Clay ended the last fight of the night in less than four minutes with another knockout.
Both men were still pumped when Tabitha met them after the fight, surrounded by the promoters and fans.
“I ended my fight a full minute faster than you, motherfucker,” Wyatt was shouting over the heads of the people surrounding him and Clay. “You owe me a hundred bucks.”
“Shut up, asshole!” Clay shouted back and then flipped him off for good measure. “I’m fighting guys thirty pounds heavier!”
“That ain’t a lie!” Wyatt threw up his hands and then shouted, “It was an incredible knockout, man. I’m so fucking proud of you!
Tab
!”
Tabitha stumbled back when Wyatt broke out of the crowd and came at her, still fueled on the adrenaline of not just his fight, but obviously rooting for Clay’s as well. He swept her off her feet and kissed her.
“Did you see Clay nail Jayston?” Wyatt’s voice was unnaturally loud, as if all the screaming had made him temporarily deaf. “Man, the second he got him to the mat he had no fucking chance! He’s got a concussion for sure. I’ve felt Clay’s right hook when he’s angry. I know that poor bastard is hurting.”
“It was a great fight.” Tabitha wrapped her arms around him and kissed him again. “Yours wasn’t half-bad either. That roundhouse—wow!”
Wyatt’s smile was wide and pleased. “Pretty badass.”
“Very badass,” Tabitha assured him. “Like a man with a vendetta.”
“Oh, hush.” Wyatt laughed. “You know you ain’t supposed to be talking about my vendettas. Kiss the hero of the hour. Once more.”
“Okay.” Tabitha lifted her arm while hanging on Wyatt, who was still holding her off her feet. “Clay, come on over here!”
Wyatt laughed. “You better not!”
“I did take him to the prom,” Tabitha teased.
“Wyatt,” coach Jasper interrupted them. “The promoters want you and Clay to go out and sign some autographs. You can bring Tabitha.”
“Oh God, that’s not good for your ego,” Tabitha said with a laugh. “It’s already too big to be tolerable.”
Wyatt kissed her again rather than argue and then put an arm around her shoulders. He was still sweaty, but Tabitha didn’t care. She curled into him when he placed a kiss against the top of her head and said, “Let’s get this publicity shit done. Then I need a steak and my girl alone in our hotel room—in that order.”
Tabitha snorted. “Glad to know the steak takes precedence.”
“I haven’t had a decent meal in a week,” Wyatt retorted indignantly and then pulled up short so fast Tabitha would have fallen if he wasn’t holding on to her. “Dad!”
Tabitha stiffened next to him when she found herself tilting her head back to look at Sheriff Conner dressed casually in jeans and a blue T-shirt. The white-hot surge of fear was all-encompassing, and she instinctively pulled away from Wyatt only to be held in place when Wyatt’s arm tightened around her.
“What the heck are you doing here?” Wyatt sounded as shocked as Tabitha felt.
“I thought I’d surprise you. I never get to see yours or Clay’s fights and—” Sheriff Conner’s gaze darted to Tabitha, but he didn’t look that shocked, which meant he probably saw Wyatt kiss her before his fight and had an hour to get over his surprise. “Tabitha, right?”
Tabitha looked to Wyatt uncertainly but then mumbled, “Yes, sir.”
His father looked away for a moment before he turned back to them and shook his head as if still battling with it. “The fights were great. Unbelievable. That roundhouse—”
“Thanks, Dad.” Wyatt sighed and looked behind him, as if searching for Clay, and then huffed in defeat. “Listen, I probably should’ve told you before now that Tabitha and I have been seeing each other. It’s just been a bad habit—keeping it secret, but that don’t mean—”
“How long?” the sheriff interrupted him.
“Huh?” Wyatt frowned.
“Seeing each other. How long’s it been going on?”
“Oh, um—” Wyatt’s eyebrows scrunched as if he was trying to remember. “Like, ninth grade.”
“What?” The sheriff looked genuinely shocked now. His dark eyes grew wide in horror. “You’ve been dating this girl all that time and didn’t think to mention it to me? What the hell, Wyatt?”
“We really do need you out there,” coach Jasper interrupted them and then pulled back with a gasp. “Well, howdy, Sheriff. Didn’t know you were coming.” Then he turned back to Wyatt and Tabitha. “When did y’all tell him ’bout you two?”