Down and Out

Early morning sunlight pours into the room as my eyelids peel open, feeling gritty and sore as pain radiates through my body. Memories of the night before come flooding back, and I remember why it feels like I’ve been hit by a truck: three a*sholes jumped me as I left the gym last night.
I didn’t recognize any of those douchenozzles, but I know who’s behind it.
Kerrigan.
I’m gonna kill that motherf*cker.
He knows he can’t beat me in the ring, so that p-ssy waits until the night before the fight to pull something like this? Big mistake. Jimmy’s not gonna stand for stacking the deck like this.
A soft sigh to my right has me painfully turning my head, and I see Savannah sleeping next to me. She spent the night by my side?
Guess the Ice Queen has a soft spot after all.
My fingers reach over and brush her hair. It hurts like a bitch and sends shooting pain up my arm and down my side, but I don’t care. This is one of the few chances I’m going to catch her without her guard up. I have to take advantage of it.
She stirs by my side and groggily opens her eyes. “Declan?” Almost instantly, she’s wide awake.
Her hair fans over her pillow, and I touch the golden-brown strands. “Hey, Kitten.” Just seeing her makes me smile.
“Look who’s up.”
Blake’s voice in the doorway surprises us, and I immediately drop my hand. He’s cocking a brow at the exchange, and I return his curious stare with a glare.
Savannah glances back and forth between me and my brother, then climbs off the bed. “I’ll, uh, go make us some breakfast,” she says, slipping past him.
“Your girl seems nice,” he says, coming to sit on the edge of the bed.
“She’s not my girl, she’s my employee.”
He cocks his brow. “You call all your employees ‘Kitten’ and let them shower at your place?”
At my scowl, he smirks. “Didn’t think so.” He looks over his shoulder at the empty doorway, then lowers his voice. “Is she good in the sack? ’Cause she’s got these perky little—”
“Don’t make me get up and kick your ass, ’cause you know I will.” I’m still pissed he saw her naked, and him describing her funbags to me is like a swift kick in the balls.
He pauses in the middle of gesturing a pair of tits over his chest and stares back at me, dumbfounded. “Since when do you not kiss and tell?”
I roll my eyes and rest my head against the pillow. I stopped telling Blake about my sex life when I was fifteen. He’s the one who can’t bag a chick without telling the whole world about it. “There’s nothing to tell. Honest to God, I haven’t seen her naked.” Although technically I have been inside her. . .
A slow grin spreads across his face. “You’re trying to get with her, though, right?” At my unmoved stare, it vanishes. “Declan, tell me you’re trying.”
Sighing, I stare up at the ceiling. “I’m her boss, Blake.” I should at least try and not cross that line. Well, I should try harder not to cross that line.
Although at this point, let’s be honest—that smart little mouth of hers gets my dick harder than any other girl’s body ever could, and when you factor in that she’s smokin’ hot too?
I don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell.
Damn it, I like her. Like really like her.
“So? I’m telling you, Declan, seeing that body was like—”
“Dude. Salt, wound.” I don’t need to hear how great her body is. From what I’ve seen, it’s phenomenal. Believe me, I know.
My sides feel like they’re about to split open as I try and sit up. That might have something to do with the Ace bandage wrapped around my ribs.
Blake helps me rearrange the pillows behind my back, his face turning somber. “You know who did this to you?”
“I got a pretty good idea.”
He scans my injuries and says, “Well, whoever tried to work you over didn’t do a very good job. Aside from what’s probably a few broken ribs, it’s mostly just bruising.”
I nod as things turn quiet. It’s surreal to have awkward conversational lulls with Blake. If you’d told me ten years ago that our relationship would devolve to this weird stalemate, I’d have called you a liar.
He clears his throat, and I can tell he’s just as uncomfortable as me. “I’m glad she called me last night.”
I don’t have the heart to tell him he wasn’t my first pick—that Marcus had been the first one to pop into my head, until I somehow managed to remember he had his kid last night.
Blake rubs his chin and says, “She tried real hard to get me to take you to the hospital. Told her it was a no-go, and when she asked me why. . .”
He won’t look at me, which isn’t a good sign.
“What’d you tell her?”
“Nothing, but she knows something’s up now, so. . . Just a heads-up.”
Savannah chooses that moment to return, holding two big plates of food. Her eyes dart back and forth between me and Blake, and it’s obvious she knows we were talking about her. I just hope she didn’t hear what we said.
“Am I interrupting?” she asks, still watching us both cautiously.
Blake stands. “Nope, I was just leaving.”
Savannah frowns as she walks around to my side and hands me a plate. “Are you sure? There’s plenty of food.”
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks, though.” Blake salutes us as he leaves, and a few seconds later, the front door opens, then closes.
This french toast smells amazing, and makes me realize just how hungry I am. I dig in, practically shoveling it into my mouth, when I notice she’s looking at me weird. “What?”
Taking Blake’s spot on the bed, she shakes her head. “Nothing, I. . . I’m glad you’re okay.” She steadfastly avoids my gaze as her fork aimlessly pushes around the food on her plate. “It would’ve sucked if you weren’t.”
“Whoa, calm down, Kitten. Don’t get so emotional.”
She looks up at me under those mile-long lashes, her mouth twisting into a reluctant grin. “I’ve never worried about anyone but myself before. I’m not good at it.”
“So you were worried about me.”
She frowns, murmuring, “I was terrified.”
You have to care about someone in order to worry about them, but I’m not about to point that out to her. Savannah seems like the type to spook easily, and the last thing I want to do is scare her off.
I set my plate on the nightstand. “You know, I really could use that hug right now.”
Savannah sets her fork on her plate and leans in, about to wrap her free hand around my neck when I say, “Are you seriously trying to one-arm hug me right now?”
She freezes. “Yes?”
Wow. I have so much to teach this girl.
“Uh-uh.” I take her plate and set it next to mine. “Both hands.”
“What’s the difference?”
The corner of my mouth lifts. “You’ll see.”
She rolls her eyes, but her face is alight with humor as she wraps her arms around my neck. I hug her to me, powering through the pain lancing down my sides.
Our bodies fit perfectly. Like she straight-up melds to me, and that’s not a word I go around using.
I even bury my face in her hair.
After several seconds, when it ceases being a hug and starts venturing into “I’m just holding you now” territory, I let her go. She pulls back, blinks, and drops her eyes to my mouth.
Yeah. . . I’m thinking the same thing, Kitten.
“See?” I say, brushing the ends of her ponytail.
She nods, keeping her eyes down. I swear her cheeks turn a little pinker.
Reaching up, her fingers graze the huge blue-black mess covering my chest. “I don’t like these.” She purses her lips and trails her fingertips to the right, across the blue, yellow, and white swirls inspired by Van Gogh’s Starry Night that stretch across my shoulder. “The only color on your skin should look like this.”
A tiny laugh leaves me, and I immediately regret it. Every muscle in my torso screams in protest as I wince and clutch my sides.
Savannah pales as her frantic eyes look me over. “Declan? Are you okay?”
My head strains back into the pillows behind me as I nod, and the grimace twisting my face has my bottom lip feeling like it’s about to split apart.
She gets up and leaves, but I’m in too much pain to ask where she’s going. I hear the water running in the bathroom before she comes back in and sits next to me, placing a cup on the nightstand next to her.
Sweat has started to sprout on my forehead as I struggle with managing the pain, and as she dips a washcloth into the cup and wrings it out, I realize what she’s doing.
I still as she brings it up and dabs my forehead, her eyes soft and almost tender as she works. I wince again as she touches a sore spot on my eyebrow.
“Sorry,” she murmurs, frowning as she jerks back. “You have a pretty nasty cut there.”
Ah. That’s why it stings something fierce.
Bringing the rag to her lap, she searches my face, her eyes lingering over what I’m sure looks like hell. “What happened last night?”
I stare back at her, unwilling to share this part of my life. The less she knows about it, the better. “I tripped and fell.”
She glares at me and moves to leave. My hand shoots out and catches her wrist, anchoring her to the bed.
“Don’t go.”
Her mouth presses into a hard line as she jerks out of my grip. “How dare you make a joke about this. When I found you last night. . .” She shakes her head, her eyes growing shiny.
Shit. It had to have been a grisly scene, judging from the blood splattered across her clothes. “Kitten, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t.” Her bottom lip trembles as she fights to hold back her tears. “Tell me what happened, or I’m leaving.”
I sigh and say, “I got jumped when I left. They must’ve been waiting for me, ’cause I didn’t see it coming.”
She frowns. “Do you know who did it?”
“I didn’t recognize any of them, but I have an idea who’s behind it.”
Her eyes watch my lips as I speak. “Who?”
“The guy whose ass I was supposed to kick tonight.”
At her confused stare, I say, “I’m the top fighter in an underground organization called The Pit. I was supposed to fight this guy named Kerrigan tonight, but. . .” I gesture to my currently battered state. “It looks like that’s not gonna happen.”
Savannah looks mad enough for the both of us, which only makes me like her more. “So that’s it? He just gets away with it?”
“Hell no.”
This seems to mollify her. “Good. I hope you tear off his limbs and beat him to death with them.”
I chuckle, forgetting it’s a huge pain in the ass, and flinch. My head strains back as I start to sweat again, and Savannah brings the cold rag up to my forehead, running it down my cheeks and neck. She’s closer than before—only an arm’s length away—and I study her face.
She has these cute little heart-shaped lips and a delicate nose with a smattering of barely-there freckles across the bridge. I have the sudden urge to kiss every single one.
As the washcloth passes over my forehead again, I catch her eyes. “I could get used to you taking care of me.”
That barely-there pinkness is back to her cheeks as she sets the rag aside. “Do you always say what’s on your mind, or did the filter from your brain to your mouth get broken last night?”