Before - Bethan-Kris Page 0,9

those plush, silken lips of hers. He didn’t even think about it—just did it. His tongue swept out to take a taste, and she answered it back with a shuddering breath that stuttered with her surprise. The sweet heat of her mouth only made him want more.

It was a good incentive. After all, he wouldn’t be tasting that again tonight if he didn’t walk out of this ring with a clear head. Everything he did had a purpose.

As fast as it had happened, he pulled back.

Still wide-eyed, she let out a soft laugh.

“Guess I’m sticking around,” she said.

Lev winked. “Hope so, woman. I might want to do that again.”

“You better.”

Well, then ...

Lev turned to finally face his opponent.

Like he thought, he didn’t recognize the bull of a man stripping down to boxer-briefs on the other side of the makeshift ring. Three minutes. That’s what Andino wanted, huh? The whys didn’t really matter—cash in his hand at the end of the night did.

Lev sized up the guy.

He could make Andino’s demand happen in two.

• • •

Lev got that knockout with ten seconds to spare.

Yeah.

He’d been counting.

It was easy, all things considered. Southpaws like him were rare in a ring, and a lot of fighters who stepped up against him didn’t even know he was one until it was too damn late. One of the few benefits of fighting occasionally instead of making it a regular thing like some of these guys did. The second his opponent’s head hit the floor and the guy’s eyes remained closed, Lev’s bruised fists raised high. He stepped back from the prone body. Keep it clean. He never liked a win to be questioned.

It cut into his money.

Simple as that.

As the ropes of the makeshift ring bit into his tense back muscles, he felt the small hands that wrapped around his arms and slid down to the crook of his elbows. As though with her strength and touch alone, she might be able to hold him right there, and he wouldn’t go forward into the middle of the ring again as men started to climb into the space with the fighters.

Except those men didn’t come near him.

They all went for the one on the floor.

“Are you okay?” he heard Gigi ask in his ear.

Her breath tickled the back of his neck. The distinct scent of her perfume—a burnt pineapple and vanilla mixture—soaked into his lungs with every heavy heave of his chest. Shit, yeah, he’d put a hell of a lot of his power into two minutes to get the knockout done. More than he usually would. Had he let the guy play with him for any longer than a few minutes and then tried to get the fight finished, it might not have been as easy to end.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he assured, still watching the men check the guy and attempt to wake him up. It wasn’t working, and Lev had to consider if that last punch he landed to the guy’s temple had unfortunately finished the job for good.

In these fights, that shit happened. It was always cleaned up—no hard feelings when it went down. Still, it didn’t feel great all the same.

What was his name again?

The announcer said it.

Then, the ref.

Didn’t matter, Lev decided.

What was done was done.

Those soft hands of Gigi’s traveled around the large bands of muscles in Lev’s arms that jumped at every single one of her touches. She didn’t seem to mind the sweat dotting his spine when her fingertips made silky lines down to the dimples in his lower back, and despite the roar of the bar and the chaos all around him, the only thing he found himself thinking about all of the sudden was how those hands of hers might feel wrapped around his cock.

Fucking hell.

“Lev!”

His head snapped to the left until his gaze nailed into the familiar man approaching the side of the ring. The strands of Gigi’s wavy dark blonde hair fell over his shoulder when she flattened her chest against his back and leaned over a bit to see who was calling for him. She seemed content to be there and frankly, he also didn’t want to move.

Andino Marcello pointed a finger at him from outside of the ring, a pleased smile curving the man’s usually stone-cold features. It was almost unsettling to see him grin but at the same time, it felt true. “I knew I was right—a pleasure doing business with you tonight. Thank you for saving me a lot of