Page 9 of Coming for the Champion
He walked backwards, away from the soft concern in Malcolm’s tone, until he was outside again with the frigid wind blowing away all the memories. Instead, the wind brought a perfume of the woods, a welcome relief.
“I thought I had it bad.” Malcolm’s whisper wasn’t aimed at him, or maybe it was. He needed to leave, land and coal be damned, because he couldn’t face his own demons. He wasn’t brave enough, and he was utterly foolish to have even contemplated it. It’d been easy when he was standing in Mardin’s sumptuous office at The King’s Book Club, far removed from reality, to think this might be possible.
“Come inside, lad.” Malcolm’s friend had a similar gentle tone and it was all too much. Rory bent over double, hands on his knees, trying to breathe and steady himself. The roar in his head thickened until he felt Malcolm’s arms go around him.
“You are shaking. Come on, let’s get you warmed up.” As if the cold was the problem...
He managed to stand and nod and allow Malcolm to bustle him into the main hotel building.
“Gloria will make a bed for him. It’s the best thing for a shock like that. A good warm bed, maybe some soup.” The friend’s competent tone and the way Malcolm held him made Rory feel safe. Slowly, with each step away from the training building, the buzz in his ears reduced and the tension in his shoulders released. Malcolm guided him up some stairs and he hated how weak his legs were, and how he needed a breather on the landing, leaning up against the wall and trying to remember how to breathe again.
The Black woman from earlier, who obviously ran the hotel, hustled past. “Room seven, Malcolm.” A couple of maids followed her and then Malcolm guided him along the hallway to follow. With each step, he improved and by the time they arrived at the room, Rory was left with only the feeling of foolish pride. He couldn’t believe that he’d overreacted like that. It was just a room with boxing equipment: once upon a time he’d loved places like that. They’d been his source of joy and energy and he’d been a winner. Now look at him, ridiculous and pathetic and unable to cope. Heat traversed up the middle of his chest, a growing nasty fire that he tamped down before he lashed out at everyone who was trying to help him. He didn’t want their help. He didn’t want to be ... like this.
Rory tightened his fists, letting his fingernails dig into his palms, because the last rational part of his brain still recognised that these people weren’t the problem. He couldn’t let this energy, this hatred of himself, explode around them, not when this was his fault, his issue, his cowardice. And so he stood there in the middle of the room, barely breathing, as the air crackled around him, like the unleashed energy before a thunderstorm and he waited until he could scream or something.
“You look like you are going to punch something.”
“What?” He’d never thrown a punch in anger, was far too disciplined a fighter for that. “No.”
Rory faintly understood that Malcolm was hustling everyone out of the room, but the buzz in his skull was too loud, too overwhelming for him to focus on anything else. And then, suddenly the door slammed shut and he whirled around.
“One boxer to another, Rory, what do you need?” Malcolm turned the key in the door, willingly locking himself inside with Rory’s explosive energy. The softness in his big brown eyes broke something inside Rory. He paced towards Malcolm, who, foolishly, held his ground, and Rory’s body vibrated as the air thickened and stung, as if bees were attacking his skin.
“Rory—”
Rory cut off the rest of Malcolm’s words with a hard kiss. His fists unfurled and he wrapped his hands around Malcolm’s head with his short hair rubbing against his palms. This was exactly what he needed, exactly what he’d needed since he’d first seen Malcolm. They stood together as the two greatest boxers of their eras. Unbeaten champions with only each other to know what that glory felt like.
Malcolm rested his hands gently on Rory’s hips, too gentle, so Rory deepened the kiss. He pushed into Malcolm’s mouth with his tongue, begging to be kissed in return, daring Malcolm to take all this energy inside him and do something with it. And just as common sense seeped into Rory’s mind, just as he began to wonder if he’d done something terrible, forcing himself on Malcolm, he kissed him back. Hungrily. Malcolm’s grip strengthened and he glided his hands up Rory’s spine.
Rory arched into the touch as the noise in his head turned from a noisy buzz into the ragged sound of his own breath. The kiss was hot and dirty and better than anything Rory had had before. It was tough and competitive, and Malcolm’s lips were utterly perfect. His tongue even better. The man tasted like Christmas and pleasure and a little bit like the metallic taste of blood in his mouth during a fight.
“You like this?” Malcolm asked.
Rory could only groan. He wanted more. Kissing Malcolm reminded him of the best parts of a fight, the physicality of it, the to-and-fro of it, the mixture of pain and pleasure. Of how it had been before he’d stepped into the ring with Johnson that fated day. He slid one hand down Malcolm’s spine, grabbed his ass, and squeezed hard. The answering moan was everything and the way Malcolm’s cockstand jerked against Rory’s thigh was even better.
“More.” He wanted to be fucked by Malcolm. He wanted his immense weight to cover him. He wanted to be pinned by him and to fight back and to be fucked. Hard. Malcolm’s eyes flashed with heat, his gaze intense and his nostrils flared.
“How much more?”
Rory answered by pushing Malcolm away. He kicked off his boots, glad he couldn’t afford Hessians, then stripped off his jacket and shirt and threw them aside, all the while keeping his gaze firmly on Malcolm’s face. Malcolm didn’t budge. Rory slid his trousers down his legs and tossed them away and still, Malcolm didn’t move. His skin darkened and his gaze intensified, flicking down to Rory’s cock then back up again to his face. Rory’s heart thudded in his chest, loud and erratic, and yet, Malcolm waited. Rory lifted his chin and slowly traced one finger down his own chest.
Malcolm took one step closer.
“What do you need, Rory?” The raggedness of Malcolm’s voice was punctuated by his shallow breaths.
Rory wrapped his fingers around his own cock and Malcolm hissed, leaning closer but not close enough. Rory stroked himself, lightly because he didn’t want to come just yet and he was barely holding on. There was something about doing this in front of Malcolm and his hot gaze that made Rory feel like a king. He’d fucked people in the aftermath of winning a matchand it’d been glorious, but this ... this was beyond the scope of his imagination and experience.
“Are you just going to watch?”
“You haven’t told me what you need.” How could Malcolm be so calm? Except when Rory glanced up, Malcolm licked his lips, his pink tongue darting across his plush mouth. Rory groaned and gripped his cock tighter.
“What do you need?”
Rory didn’t know. “You.”
Chapter 8
Malcolm wasn’t going to let Rory be so vague. A man couldn’t go from shaking with fear to this desperate display of bare skin and desire without knowing what he needed to soothe away the problems. It was tempting, too tempting, to simply push him onto the bed and fuck him, especially given the display he’d been treated to just now, but he couldn’t.
