“Are you ready?” he asked finally, staring at the crowd. The excitement in the basement increased tenfold, the cheers of women throughout the room joining the shouts of the men. “He’s the man who needs no stage name! The man who was born in the darkness and wears it marked on his skin.”
“SCAR!” a woman screamed nearby, jumping up from her seat to push on the cage that surrounded the ring itself.
“I said, are you ready?!” the announcer asked, his voice raising to a shout that echoed through the speaker system.
“Let me be your prize!” another woman shouted, earning an uncomfortable chuckle from Sadie as I leveled a glare at her.
What the fuck had I been thinking, coming here?
But Sadie had maintained I wouldn’t want to miss the fight, and there was something about the aftermath that no woman should ever miss out on when she had a man who made money throttling other men.
“Ladies,” the announcer said, seeming to recognize that most of the excitement surrounding him came from the females in the crowd. “I give you, SCAR!”
He stepped around the corner from the hallway, the hood drawn up to cover his face and his body covered by a simple black robe. The others had robes with their stages name on them. They danced like peacocks as they stepped into the ring, soaking in all the attention for their minute of fame.
Scar walked the same as he always did, with a cocky swagger, but barely paid his captive audience any mind. I watched him, lost to the restrained movements of his body.
“This was why Franco took him in,” Enzo said, leaning into my side. Calix listened intently on the other side of me, glancing around me to look at the other man as he spoke. “Even when he was a boy, he knew how to fight. Franco exploited that for the Underground. Trained him. Made him a machine.”
“Why would Scar agree to this? It doesn’t seem like something he particularly enjoys,” I said, watching from the corner of my eye as the announcer spoke. He announced another man, one who paraded like he loved the attention.
“He likes the violence, but Franco had something he wanted. This was how he worked to get it,” Enzo said vaguely, turning his attention back to the arena to signal the end of our conversation.
Scar reached up with tattooed and scarred hands, drawing back his hood to the sound of women’s screams. Whatever he’d wanted from Franco had to have been important for him to tolerate the objectification he dealt with in the ring.
The moment the fabric was clear from his head, his eyes landed on mine. They sparkled darkly, his focus on me intent even from our distance and the people who sat between us.
My pussy clenched, the violence coating the air heightening the sensation as he reached down and untied his robe. Never taking his eyes off mine, he slid the silk off his shoulders and tossed it to drape over the chair in his corner.
Nothing existed but his eyes on mine and his sculpted body gleaming in the spotlight. His hands were wrapped in tape, his waist tucked into a pair of loose basketball shorts that hung to his knees.
They did nothing to hide the hardening of his cock as he stared at me. He raised a fist, touching his palm to his chest directly over his heart as he held my gaze.
Then he spun, our moment severed as every woman in the place turned to stare at me.
“He doesn’t acknowledge women,” Enzo said, nudging my shoulder with his arm until I tilted to the side toward Calix. “They’ve never been…”
“More than a quick release in a condom-covered cock with no other physical contact and no names? I’m aware,” I said, hating to think of all the faceless women who might have had even that part of him.
How many of them in that arena wanted a second spin?
A growl vibrated in my chest, making Calix chuckle at my side. “She’s a fucking Regas all right,” he said.
The other fighter was equally large, his fists the size of my damn head as he turned to Scar. Something nervous pulsed within the man as they faced each other and bumped their fists together in a move designed to dismiss any hard feelings.
All was fair in the Underground.
“Throttle him, Scar!” a woman screamed as the announcer signaled the start of the fight.
“Make him your bitch, and then I’ll be yours!”
That one made me snort despite the jealousy consuming me.
“Sorry ladies,” the announcer chuckled. “Scar would like everyone to know he is officially off the market.” His knowing eyes turned to me, a smirk curving his lips.
I smiled, finding joy in the fact that Scar knew me better than I knew myself. He’d somehow known what I would have to deal with, what I’d listen to and witness. He’d done his part to stake my claim on him without ever having to say a word.
He’d settled the monster inside me, but it still lurked at the bottom as Scar’s opponent threw the first punch. Scar evaded, the strike barely skimming across his stomach as he returned it.
The two men moved in a flurry of punches, while my heart was in my throat and my body too distracted by the heat pooling between my thighs every time Scar successfully landed a brutal punch, for me to follow.
It quickly became obvious that every hit his opponent landed was because he allowed it, the pain grounding Scar in the way cutting myself did for me.
He moved so quickly there was no chance of him being caught unawares, no real fight. The crowd knew it as well as I did, watching and waiting for him to stop toying with the other man and end it.
A fist slammed into Scar’s face, his head snapping to the side as everyone froze. His eyes raised to mine, the darkness in them glimmering as he slowly turned back to face his opponent. He licked his lip, the trickle of blood coating his tongue as everyone in the arena went silent in anticipation.
I didn’t even see him move, the blur of his arm moving through the space between the two men so quickly it was over before I could follow. His opponent dropped to the mat like a ton of bricks, hitting hard as the crowd cheered their support.
Scar spun, his gaze pinning me to my seat as the announcer grabbed his hand and raised it. His words were lost to the screams of the crowd surrounding me, the people who all seemed to be between me and the man I wanted to climb like a fucking tree.
I shouldn’t have been turned on from watching him knock a man out with a single blow, and yet, here we were, my thighs clenched together as if it could relieve the ache that only he could take away from me.
His mouth moved, a single syllable that sent a hush through the arena. Everything in me clenched, understanding the command in it even with the distance between us.
“Now.” I could feel the growl in it, the demand as I rose to my feet and moved to the aisle between the rows of seats. I descended the concrete stairs slowly, making my way to the door to the cage where it touched the hallway. Calix followed at my back, a silent sentry keeping me safe until I was with the man who would die before he’d let anything happen to me.
Scar ignored everyone else, leaving his robe discarded as he met me at the gate and shoved through it. The moment he reached me, he lifted me into his arms.
My dress raised up my thighs as I spread my legs, circling them around his waist as his hands went to my ass to support me. I crashed my mouth down on his, craving that intimacy that was mine. The part of him that no one but me had ever had.
Shocked silence descended on the arena at the sight of him with a woman as he growled into my lips, hiking me higher as he strode through the hallway. Nothing existed outside of the feeling of Scar’s lips against mine as he carried me through the halls and to the changing room he’d claimed as his earlier in the evening.