Page 96 of Falcon

I shake my head. “You. You’re mine. You’re mine while I’m with you and I’m yours. I don’t want to think about you being someone else’s.”

“Something you should know unequivocally is that I was never Jennifer’s. Ever. She’s a typical belt rider, and I never wanted anything but a quick way to get off. I know that’s harsh, but it’s true.”

“What’s a belt rider?” I sit down on the edge of the bed. “Do I even want to know?”

He walks over to the small desk on the other side of the room and pulls the chair out, spinning it around so he can sit and face me. He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees with his hands linked in front of him.

“A belt rider is essentially a groupie. They follow the fights and sleep with the fighters who win. That’s what they are known as in the fighting world. Jennifer is like a ringleader of sorts, and she thinks she can do and say whatever she wants because of her last name.”

“Can she? It certainly seems like it.”

“Not with me, she can’t.”

“But she can. You have slept with her, more than once. She felt like she was superior to me down there because of that. It made me feel things I don’t like feeling. I hate being jealous,” I tell him.

He uses his feet to walk himself and the chair across the room until our knees are touching.

“Faith, look at me.”

I look up into his eyes just as he reaches for my face. He doesn’t touch me though, not until I nod letting him know that it’s okay.

But when his hands cradle my cheeks, I instantly relax and nuzzle into his palm without even realizing it, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“You have no reason to be jealous of anyone, especially someone like Jennifer.” He runs his thumb over my skin and I shiver at the contact. “You’re special, baby. You’re different.”

“How am I so different?”

“You want me for me, not for what you think I can do for you. You laugh with me and talk with me. I want to be around you, sex or no sex. I crave your presence, Faith. I’m addicted to you. To your smile and your touch. To your laugh and your body. You. Are. Different.”

A knot forms in my throat and I swallow to keep it at bay.

I rest my forehead against his. “I’m sorry.”

“What in the world could you be sorry for?” he asks, pulling me onto his lap. I wrap my limbs around his large body like he’s a tree and I’m a tiny nymph who wants to live on him.

“For reacting that way. I had no right. I swear, I’m not this way. I’m not a crazy jealous person.”

“You think I’m angry that you’re jealous? Fuck, Faith, it makes me feel…all kinds of ways that you’re jealous. While I don’t want you to feel bad ever, I would be lying if a part of me didn’t think it was hot that you wanted to claw her eyes out.”

I lean back so I can see his face. “Do you even like this girl? How could you? She seems like she’s the worst.”

He rests his hands on the curves of my body. “No, I don’t really like her, however…at the time, she was a quick conquest. A sure thing.”

“And that’s what you wanted at the time? Quick and sure?”

“When you say it that way, it sounds gross, but in a way, yes. I didn’t want a relationship. I didn’t want the hassle of a girlfriend or anything serious. My life is in that Octagon. I travel a lot. I train a lot. Casual is better.”

“Then why am I so different?” I ask, and I’m not sure I even want the answer because, what if I’m not different? What if I’m just his consistent sure thing for these few weeks?

“Because you’re…you,” he says simply, as if me being me is the ultimate answer.

“That’s all it takes? Just me being me?”

“Yeah, that’s it. When it comes to you, I’m a goner.”

Falcon

The buzz of the press readying their cameras and chatting amongst themselves, as they wait for the weigh-in to begin, simmers to a dull roar just a few feet from where we are standing.

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