Bastian's Storm

Chapter Three

The announcer called the dude in the orange shorts “Brutal Brutus,” which I thought sounded absolutely ridiculous, but it did seem to fit. He didn’t waste any time going after the next guy who walked into the cage with him. This one was a little older than college-boy, who was nursing a bloody and probably broken nose over by the bar. The new opponent was a muscular guy with biceps about as big as mine, but he also sported a lot of gut and very little hair.

Brutal Brutus wasn’t impressed with Muscles. He avoided the guy’s lame attempts at a left hook with ease. As big as he was, Muscles obviously didn’t have much fighting experience, and he went down quickly. The short fight still gave me enough opportunity to observe Brutus’s fighting style.

He favored his right way too much, and it left him unbalanced. He also stuck to very basic patterns that left little to the imagination. Right-right-left, right-right-left. He was predictable, which made him vulnerable.

“Does anyone else dare to face Brutal Brutus?” The MC-slash-announcer walked around the ring, pointing his finger at the audience. “There’s a hundred dollars to anyone who can stay up for three minutes, five hundred if you can take him down!”

I didn’t give a shit about the money, but I approached the edge of the ring and caught the MC’s eye.

“Looks like we have a challenge!” he announced, and the crowd began to cheer.

One of the bouncers led me back to a small room that served as a locker room but looked like it was supposed to be a large custodial closet. The smell was nearly enough to make me gag, but I breathed through my mouth and went inside. The bouncer dude pointed out a shelf with a few pairs of shorts on it, and I grabbed blue ones. He politely stood facing the door and away from me as I removed my shirt, dropped my jeans, and pulled on the trunks.

“Ya ready?” he asked.

“Just about,” I said. I rolled each shoulder around, stretched my arms and chest a bit, and then nodded to him.

The bouncer brought me back out to the edge of the cage and opened the chain door. As I stepped into it, the MC leaned toward me.

“What are ya?” he asked. “Six-three? Six-four?”

“Six-three,” I replied.

“Weight?”

“About two-twenty.”

“What’s your name?”

I paused for a moment.

“Daniel,” I said.

“Got it!” The announcer cracked his knuckles as he looked me over a bit more.

“Here we go again, everyone!” he called out. “Next into the cage is Dangerous Daniel!”

I rolled my eyes. The chick in the referee bikini took my hand by the wrist and held it over her head as the MC went over my stats.

“He’s six feet three inches tall, and weighs in at two hundred and twenty pounds of solid muscle! Ladies, keep your eyes on this one!”

I glanced out over the audience and listened to the hollering coming from the women in the bar. A warm tingle went up my spine as the familiarity of the situation relaxed me and I focused my attention on what was to come.

Looking over at Brutus, I gripped my hands into fists and took a deep breath as the chick referee pushed a mouthguard between my teeth.

This was where I belonged.

Brutus walked up, danced on the balls of his feet, and waited patiently for me to make the first move. Knowing he would start with his right, I moved into his space to give him what would appear to be a clear shot. The slight grin on his face told me he had fallen for it before he took his first swing.

I dodged to the right, ducking and slamming my fist into his kidney as I went past him. He grabbed at his side for a second but recovered quickly and came at me again, his eyes narrowed. He swung again, missed again, and lost his footing briefly.

When he regained his composure, he took a step back and watched me carefully. He had realized I wasn’t going down easily and was going to take his time now. Assuming he thought I would go with another ploy, I went straight at him, diving against his body and punching him rapidly in the gut and side.

He returned the favor though his blows weren’t very hard from that angle. His arm twisted around mine, and he brought his free hand up high before slamming it into my temple.

The blow sent me down and backward, but I didn’t fall. In fact, it just pissed me off. I leapt forward, diving at his body and sending us both to the ground. We rolled, both of us punching at each other’s sides until we hit the edge of the cage. My head bounced against the chain link, and Brutus pushed away from me, standing again.

I followed suit, jumped up, and readied myself. I watched him closely as he danced from left to right, then came at me with his predictable pattern. I dodged right, turned swiftly, and locked one of my legs behind his. I grabbed his shoulder and pulled his back to my chest.

With one leg wrapped around his torso, I threw him to the mat. I tightened my arm around his neck, wrapped my other arm around his head, and slammed his face into the ground twice. I pulled one arm back and elbowed him in the shoulder as hard as I could. He continued to struggle under me, trying to get his arms under him enough to push me off, but his efforts were wasted.

I turned my head to the side and spit out the mouth guard.

“You gonna tap out, or should I go ahead and kill you?” I snarled.

I felt the pressure of his Adam’s apple under my forearm, but he couldn’t actually swallow as I flexed against his throat. His hand flew out, and he slammed it three times against the mat.

I paused just a little longer than I needed to before tossing him to the ground. He lay there gasping as everyone in the bar started to cheer, and the post-violence high swept over me.

I was elated. With wide eyes and what probably looked like a crazed smile, I looked over the crowd and felt my heart pounding in my chest. I could feel blood—hot and sticky—on my knuckles. The crowd continued to scream as the chick in the referee-styled bikini held my arm up as high as she could. She looked up at me with raised eyebrows.

“Nice job,” she said with a smile and a wink. “I don’t think Brutus is going to forget that anytime soon.”

“He better fucking not,” I replied, wriggling my eyebrows at her, “or I might have to come back and remind him.”

She laughed. As she released my wrist, she ran her hand up to my shoulder and squeezed it a little before she wrapped her arm through mine.

“All right, folks,” the announcer said as he waved his hands at the crowd, “that’s it for tonight! More fights next week! Don’t miss ‘em!”

The bouncer who had taken me to the locker room knelt down next to Battered Brutus and hauled him out of the cage while the referee chick escorted me through the screaming patrons. They reached out to me, patted me on the back, and yelled out various forms of congratulations as we made our way to the locker room so I could get dressed.

When I came out, the ref was still there and still dressed in nothing but the skimpy bikini. She was all smiles as she took my arm again and led me over to the bar. She handed me an envelope full of cash, which I didn’t bother to count. The guy standing behind the bar with an empty beer glass in his hand reached out to give me a high-five.

“Buy you a drink?” the referee asked. She leaned against the counter, which hiked up her boobs to put them more on display than they already had been, and motioned to the bartender.

For a moment, I almost accepted her offer out of habit.

“Nah, I’m good.” I shook my head and looked out at the people milling around. Most of them were looking at me with bright eyes, and many were leaning in to talk to their friends with hushed voices and nodding in my direction.

“You sure?” Referee chick tilted her head and smiled up at me.

“Yeah, pretty sure,” I gave her a half smile back.

I should have picked up on her vibe right away, but I was still in the zone from the fight and I wasn’t thinking straight.

“I’m Andi,” she informed me as she leaned forward again.

“Daniel,” I said.

“I heard that…Dangerous Daniel.” She giggled. “I think it suits you.”

“Sometimes.” I smirked back at her.

She pushed off the bar and took a step closer.

“I like dangerous guys,” she said as she placed her hands on my chest. Her eyes followed the movements of her fingers as she took inventory of my pecs and shoulders through my shirt.

“Doesn’t seem very smart,” I observed. I took a half step back, feeling a little uncomfortable. As my violence-induced haze began to fade, I realized she was coming on to me.

It was a strange feeling. A chick hadn’t hit on me since Raine and I had returned from our little exile. When I’d been living on my ship, I’d usually been the instigator of any contact with the opposite sex. Still, as long ago as it had been, it felt familiar.

Not just familiar, but right.

This was what was supposed to happen after a fight. Fight, win, sex. That was the natural order. As if it were ingrained somewhere deep inside of me, my body began to react to the situation.

I was instantly hard.

Andi’s hands were running from my chest to my abs, and she was standing close enough for me to feel the heat from her body all around me. She reached around and placed her hands at the small of my back as she pressed her body against me. There was no doubt she could feel how affected I was—my dick was right up against her stomach.

Then panic set in.

What the fuck was I thinking? This wasn’t a normal tournament fight, and I wasn’t a single guy. I had Raine back at our condo, probably freaking out, wondering where the fuck I was, and my dick was reacting to some random chick in a bar.

I grabbed her wrists and pushed them down.

“Sorry,” I said with a shrug, “I really ought to go.”

“It’s not that late,” Andi said. She twisted her wrists in my hands and looked up at me with a twinkle in her eye. “I don’t live too far from here.”

“Maybe another time,” I said quietly. A lump in my throat formed, and I had to swallow hard to get past it. I took a step back and dropped her hands. “Thanks for the offer.”

I turned and got the fuck out of there.

Back at my bike, I sat down and tried to regain a little composure. I closed my eyes tightly and took a few calming breaths. My stomach was churning, and I felt like I was going to puke. I’d let that girl run her hands all over me, and I hadn’t even been thinking about Raine at all.

You didn’t do anything wrong.

No, I didn’t, but damn if my dick didn’t want to.

I slammed my foot against the kickstand and started up the bike with a roar. It was nearly three in the morning, and I kept the motorcycle at the speed limit through the streets, down the highway, and back over to Miami Beach.

I needed the time to think, but it didn’t help that much.

I was still sweating as I headed up the stairs. I wanted to blame it on the humidity, but I knew that wasn’t it. I had no idea what I was going to walk into when I got up to the condo. Were Nick and Lindsay still going to be there? Would Raine be waiting up for me, pissed off and ready for a fight?

A mental image of her sitting at the kitchen island smoking my cigarettes and drinking scotch came to mind. It was a ridiculous notion, but the vision wouldn’t go away as I quietly slid the key into the deadbolt and opened the door.

The living area was empty. There was one dim light still on above the stove, but that was it. The whole place was quiet.

Was she even here?

I swallowed hard. My skin began to crawl at the thought that she might have left. I tiptoed to the bedroom, terrified of finding the room empty. The space beyond was dark, and the door was partially closed. I pushed it the rest of the way open.

I could see Raine on the bed, lying down and breathing steadily, her shape clearly outlined by the light slipping through the blinds. A breath escaped from my lungs, and my shoulders dropped in relief. She didn’t move as I carefully and quietly slipped off my T-shirt and jeans and ditched them in a pile by the laundry hamper.

Slipping into bed as silently as I could, I shoved my legs in under the sheet. Raine didn’t stir as I maneuvered myself behind her and snaked my arm around her waist. I relaxed against her, let out a long breath, and closed my eyes. For a moment, I thought I was home free.

“You going to tell me where you’ve been?”

Ah, shit.

I opened my eyes though I couldn’t really see much in the dim light from the balcony door. My throat seized up on me, and it took me a second to find my voice. I tensed my fingers around the fabric of her shirt and gripped it tightly, like I was afraid she’d try to get away from me if I wasn’t holding on.

“Just took the bike out for a ride,” I claimed. I swallowed a couple of times and licked my lips.

“For seven hours?” Raine rolled over and looked into my eyes. Even in the dim light, I could still see the shine in her beautiful, red-rimmed brown eyes. She’d been crying, and I felt like a total asshole.

I kept my grip on her shirt as if I could keep all of this from happening just by holding on tightly enough.

“I just needed to…to get away for a bit.” I looked down her bare arm and dropped my head against her shoulder. I rubbed my forehead against her skin and felt myself relax further when she didn’t push me away. “Those people were driving me bat-shit.”

“Those people,” Raine snarled, “are my friends!”

Yeah, there I went again—making shit worse by opening my big fat mouth.

“I didn’t mean it like that…I mean…ah, fuck it!” I started to push away from her, but my arm got wrapped up in the sheet and held me back. Maybe it was because my fingers wouldn’t initially loosen from her shirt—whatever. I fought with it for a second, finally freeing myself, and sat up.

Raine sat up beside me, glaring.

“Well, what did you mean, then?” she asked.

I had meant exactly what I said, but I wasn’t about to admit that. There was no way I was going to come out and say I hated them being in the condo at all, even if they did keep their mouths shut, which of course they didn’t. She was already pissed off at me enough, and I had to figure out a way to make it better, not worse.

“I just…I don’t like people.”

Raine stared at me for a moment.

“Why?” she asked.

My mind began to race. I wasn’t really sure how to answer the question. I never considered myself a people person, but I never really thought about the reason for that. It was just the way it was.

“I just…don’t.”

Apparently, Raine wasn’t going to let me off the hook and prodded me to give her a better answer.

Tensing, I tried to come up with a decent answer that didn’t make me sound like an ass, but I couldn’t think of anything. As I struggled inside to come up with the perfect words, the turmoil inside of me increased and eventually overflowed. Closing my eyes tightly, I opened my mouth and let shit run out of it.

“Because I don’t have anything to say to them!” I blurted. I covered my face with one hand and slammed the back of my head ineffectually into the pillow. It didn’t help.

“What does that mean?” Raine’s voice was soft as she propped herself on one elbow to look down at me. A small amount of my tension ebbed.

“When people are around, they end up asking me questions,” I said as I shoved myself off the pillow and sat up. I wrapped my arms around my legs and put my chin on my knees. “I don’t have any answers for them. I don’t have anything to say.”

“Will you give me an example?” Raine asked, her tone going soft.

“What the fuck am I supposed to say?” My voice rose in pitch as my throat constricted. My gut churned as if a little tornado were forming inside of it. “What am I supposed to talk about? About how I was such a fucked up kid that my own parents dumped me? Should I tell them about how every foster home I was ever in kicked me out? How about my time in juvie? There’s a fun topic. Or the best question of all—‘what do you do for a living?’ How am I supposed to answer that? Oh, you know, I made a shit-ton of money killing people, but I’m retired now.”

Raine’s face scrunched up, and she squished her lips together. She let out a long sigh through her nose before opening her arms and pulling me back down to the pillows.

“I never thought about it that way,” she admitted. “I can see where that would be difficult. You are right—the kinds of things people usually ask would be difficult for you to answer.”

With a shudder, my body relaxed, and the whirlwind inside dissipated. I wrapped my arms around her and held her against my chest in silent appreciation of her understanding.

“But, Bastian,” Raine continued, “even though you might not be able to answer the questions people ask, that doesn’t mean you get to blow up at them and storm out, leaving me to try to explain and defend you. You can’t do that.”

Well, yeah, obviously I could. I had in the past, and I’d probably do it again in the future.

“You think I should just stick around and tell them to fuck off instead?”

“No,” Rain said with a loud sigh. “There are other options, you know.”

I took a deep breath as the anger inside me began to bubble again at the thought. There was one option I had considered but didn’t take.

“I didn’t think you’d appreciate me hitting him,” I said.

“You’re right,” Raine replied. I could hear the tension rising in her voice again.

“It’s better if I just leave,” I rationalized.

“Maybe for you,” Raine agreed, “but what kind of questions and comments do you think I get when you do something like that?”

I hadn’t thought about it. Once I left, everything that happened afterward had never really concerned me before. I wondered what Lindsay and Nick had to say after I took off and how Raine responded.

“I spend enough time trying to get them to understand you,” she said. “When you do something like that, I can’t defend your actions. It just gives them more justification when they start telling me I ought to get rid of you.”

I secured my grip on her clothing as a wave of panic crashed over me. It was just one more thing my selfish ass hadn’t considered. Of course Lindsay would be telling her to dump me, and Nick would be right behind her. They probably had another guy already picked out as a better suitor for Raine, and he probably hadn’t killed anyone lately.

“What did they say?” I growled. She had known Lindsay since they were kids. Raine was bound to listen to whatever advice Lindsay had to offer. The thought kick-started my paranoia.

“It doesn’t matter,” Raine said. “I’m not going anywhere, Bastian.”

I relaxed slightly, but the idea of Raine with someone else continued to terrify me.

“That doesn’t stop them from saying I should, though. When you behave like that, it makes it a lot harder to explain to them why I love you.”

The tension inside me began to build again, and I fought against the desire to tell her all the reasons she shouldn’t have anything to do with me. Her friends were probably right, but I felt like I was looking out over the proverbial cliff, and if I opened my mouth to say what I was thinking, I was going to fall.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered instead.

Raine moved her hand up into my hair and held my head against her shoulder. Closing my eyes, I tried to understand the shit that was going through my head, but as usual, I couldn’t make anything of it. My brain just didn’t work right, which I realized was the problem.

“I know there’s something seriously wrong with me inside,” I said quietly. “I can’t deny it.”

“Bastian-”

“Let me finish,” I said quickly. If I didn’t get it out now, I never would. “This isn’t about not being worthy of you or whatever—there’s more to it than that. There is something wrong with me, and don’t tell me you don’t know that.”

I paused, but she didn’t interject.

“I don’t know that I can control those…those urges. There’s a need inside of me to lash out. It’s so fucking deep, and I can’t explain it; I just know it’s there. As far back as I can remember, it’s always been there.”

“Sometimes you do okay,” Raine said. “You do all right when John Paul is around.”

“That’s different. He doesn’t ask those kinds of questions.”

“So you feel comfortable around him.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Most of the time.”

“Why is that?” she asked.

Well, fuck if I knew. It just was.

“He’s…he’s always been there for me.”

“And what? You don’t think Lindsay and Nick care?”

“They care about you, not me.”

“That’s not fair,” she said. “They’ve both tried to get along with you. You aren’t very receptive.”

“It’s fake,” I said. “They do it for you, not me. It’s kinda hard to take their shit seriously when it’s all an act.”

“How do you know that?”

“I can just tell, okay?” I snapped. “It’s like knowing when a chick is faking an orgasm; if she’s not clenching down on my cock, she’s not coming.”

And just like that, I was back to being a dick again.

“Being crude and obnoxious doesn’t help,” Raine growled. “It’s just me here now, so why don’t you stop the shit?”

Raine almost never cussed, so it usually caught my attention when she did. Recognizing it didn’t even change my behavior though. When push came to shove, it was always the same for me—get the fuck out. I shoved myself off of the bed and away from her, grabbed my smokes, and went to the balcony.

Raine followed.

“You can’t just walk away from the conversation,” she informed me.

“I dunno,” I said, still in pissy-mode, “I’ve done it before.”

I knew I was being a jerk, but I also thought if I came right out and told her that I’d love to send Nick flying off this balcony, she would like that even less. I wanted to say or do something to make it all right again, but as usual, I was clueless.

I turned toward her, and the small light near the top of the balcony door shone over my face, making me squint. Raine narrowed her eyes, and she took a step closer to me. Her fingers brushed over my cheekbone, and though I tried not to, I flinched as she touched the bruise on my face. Her eyes went wide.

“What happened to you?”

“It’s nothing,” I said.

She straightened up and leaned forward to get a better look at me. With her hand on the side of my face, she tilted my head into the light and glared a bit.

“What happened?”

“Just a little tiff,” I said with a shrug. “Seriously, it’s no big deal.”

“You got in a fight? With who?”

“Just some dude,” I shrugged again. “I went riding, stopped for a bit to walk it off, and then ran into a guy who wasn’t all that pleasant. It’s all good—he got it worse than he gave.”

“Is that really all you have to say about it?”

I took a slight step back but was stopped by the balcony door. I looked off into the distance and watched the waves slipping back and forth over the beach.

“I guess I’ll take that as a yes,” Raine mumbled.

“Pretty much,” I replied. I looked back to her. “I’m fine.”

“If you say so.”

“Don’t be pissed.”

“It’s kind of late for that,” Raine sighed. “I just don’t know what to make of you sometimes.”

“I’m a dick,” I said. “You already know this.”

“Not usually.” Raine reached up and ran her fingers through her hair. I tried not to get distracted by the way the dark strands lay against her neck and shoulder. “When you are, I usually understand why, but not with this. I don’t understand why you don’t realize Nick is trying to be your friend, and I don’t understand why you react to it by going out and beating up someone else.”

“He was asking for it,” I said quietly.

“Nick or the guy you beat up?”

I wasn’t really sure myself, so I went back to the ever-present and noncommittal shrug.

“You’re really trying my patience,” she said.

I looked back at her, realizing how angry she still was. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do or say—all this relationship shit was a mystery to me. I never said the right shit, and I certainly didn’t do the right shit. I was probably the worst match for my gentle Raine as I could possibly be, and that just made me want to cling to her, so I did.

I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around her. I pulled her close to me and kissed her gently on the forehead.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“For what?” she asked.

“Everything I do wrong,” I replied. “I’m a shitty boyfriend, you know that.”

She took a deep breath and blew the air across my shoulder as she laid her head against my chest. Her arms came up around my neck.

“You are my hero,” Raine said. “You’ve always been that to me. My savoir, and despite your flaws, I still love you. I just wish you’d tell me what was going on in your head in a way I could understand.”

“My head is fucked up,” I told her. “I don’t know how much of that is fixable, babe.”

I leaned back a little and looked down into her eyes.

“Seriously,” I said. More tension flowed through my body as I tried to choose the right words. “If…if your father was still alive, do you really think he’d approve of you being with me?”

I felt Raine tense in my arms. Bringing up her father might not have been the wisest thing to do, but it was the best way to get my point across. After all, I was right there when he was tortured and murdered, and I didn’t do a damn thing to stop it from happening.

I hadn’t known Raine then and had no idea who her father was other than being a small-town cop in the wrong part of the big city at the wrong time. Why he was there I didn’t know, only that once he was discovered, Landon’s crime boss, Joseph Franks, wasn’t about to let him live. Everyone in the area who was considered a threat to Franks and his organization was rounded up, brutally tortured, and eventually executed.

I had watched it all, unable to intervene.

I shifted my eyes back to Raine’s face and observed her far-away expression. Tightening my arms around her, I pressed my lips to her shoulder. I hadn’t meant to upset her by bringing up her deceased father, but I needed to make the point.

“He wouldn’t want you dating me,” I said.

Raine flicked the tip of her tongue over her lips.

“I don’t know,” she said softly. “He wouldn’t like what you used to do, obviously, but neither do I. I think if he got to know you—really know you—I think he might have been okay with it.”

I snorted through my nose at the ridiculousness of her statement.

“I mean it,” Raine said. “I don’t know if I can honestly say he would have liked you or wanted to hang out with you on the weekends, but I think if he saw how you are with me, I think he’d understand.”

“You’re crazy,” I muttered. “What exactly do you think he would see? Me snapping at you for no fucking reason? Running out on you when I get pissed off? What do you think he’d like more—the chain smoking or the bike?”

I laughed dryly.

Raine turned to look at me. She stared into my eyes, and I watched her expression go from annoyance at my harshness to something softer. She reached out and ran her finger from my elbow up to my shoulder.

“Sebastian,” Raine whispered, “when you look at me, I can feel how much you love me. Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming—like a tidal wave—and it can make me feel like I’ve been turned inside out. I can feel it in my skin and in the pit of my stomach. When you look at me like that, I can feel your love for me in my soul. When you wrap your arms around me at night, I can feel your desire for me, and I don’t think there is any woman alive who has ever felt more wanted than I do when you’re close to me.”

She touched the side if my face.

“Dad would have seen that in you, too.”

Her point was made. At least for now, I wouldn’t argue with her.