SWNOVELS Caged: Chapter 24
“Merry Christmas, baby.”
The smile gracing Maddie’s beautiful face is magnificent. She’s been swaying with Serena in her arms for a while now, while my family gathers in Max and Daphne’s living room, exchanging presents. When I step up behind her and wrap my arms around her middle, she leans back against me, never tearing her eyes off Serena.
“Isn’t she the most perfect thing you’ve ever seen?” The awe in her voice shouldn’t make me hard, but basically everything Maddie does makes me hard.
A fact she notices quickly as I press against her ass.
“Hudson.” She glares over her shoulder, never breaking the rhythm of her sway.
Max moves next to the tree and holds up a champagne flute. “I’d like to make a toast.”
A few of us groan because my oldest brother tends to be a little long-winded when it comes to toasts. But the deliriously happy look that’s been plastered on his face since Serena was born doesn’t budge an inch. Daphne and Serena have definitely mellowed Maximus out.
Daphne carefully takes Serena from Maddie, and I slide my arm up and wrap it across Maddie’s chest, holding her close enough to rest my chin on top of her head.
My nieces, nephews, and little sister all sit in a towering mess of ripped wrapping paper and empty boxes. Some play with their new toys. Others are more interested in the boxes. Maddie can’t take her eyes off them.
And while Max drones on about the meaning of family and how lucky we all are to have ours, I can’t help but feel dazzled by this woman in my arms. “You want one of them one day, Mads?”
“One of what?” she whispers back.
I angle her toward all six kids. “A posse of Kingstons?”
“The only way we’re having six kids is if you’re pushing them out of your body. No way I’m doing that six times.”
Max glares at us as he raises his glass high in the air and finishes his toast. “To family. Merry Christmas.”
Merry Christmas echoes throughout the room, and I spin Maddie in my arms to face me.
“How many do you think you want?” The idea of her pregnant with my baby lights a whole new fire inside me.
“How about we start with one and go from there, King.” She licks her lips, and my cock pulses between us.
“You gotta marry me first, Mads.” I’m gonna wear her down sooner or later.
Scarlet walks by and smacks the back of my head. “Leave her alone, you hornball.” She grabs Maddie’s hand and drags her out of the room. “Come with me, Maddie. Let’s get you a real drink so I can smell the liquor. I’ve got seven more months of this before I can have another drink, and my little brother is already trying to get you to agree to it.” She rolls her eyes, and I hear her muttering to Maddie about traveling and getting as many miles out of her bikinis as she can before she agrees to get pregnant and give her body over to a demon spawn.
Maddie turns her head back to me and mouths help, just as I’m handed a shot of the 150-year-old bourbon Sawyer brought, and the conversations grow more nostalgic. Remembering all the old Christmases we had before Dad died, and all the traditions we still try to carry on today.
Max is right.
Family is everything.
And that woman in the other room is every bit as much my family as my brothers and sisters are. With or without my ring on her finger, she’s it.
The next morning, the alarm goes off at the crack of dawn, and I hit snooze.
Guess there’s a first time for everything because I never hit snooze. Snooze is for quitters. It’s for procrastinators. It’s not for champions. At least, that’s what I used to think. But that was before I was waking up with a boner and a beautiful woman who’s naked in my bed.
I lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself to move.
It’s not working.
I want to slide inside her hot body.
I want to taste her pussy on my lips.
I want to feel her walls clamping down on me.
I want to spend the week fucking her—morning, noon, and night. But we can’t always get what we want. And while Cade can’t tell me no women anymore, he can absolutely tell me no sex. It’s only two weeks. I can do this. I’ve gone without longer than two weeks before, but that was before Maddie.
Before sex became a religious experience. And sweet baby Jesus in the manger, I’ll be damned if I don’t see God when I sink inside her body.
When the alarm goes off again, she drapes her arm over my chest before trying to pull me closer, but I stay stiff. Stay stiff. Ha ha ha.
“I’ve got to get up, Mads.” I press my lips to her spine and groan when she rolls over.
Her perfect tits are begging for attention.
“You’re making this hard, Mads.” Making this hard. I laugh silently again. I’ve definitely got sex on the brain.
She half moans and half snores. “Just a quickie, Hud. It’s the best way to start the day.” One eye opens and looks at me through the blonde hair covering her face.
“No can do, sunshine. You know the rules. No sex until after the fight,” I tease her.
She groans as her hand traces a path over my abs before I stop her.
“No can do, babe.” And idea comes to me, and I figure why the hell not? “Cade said since you’re not my wife, no sex until the fight. But if we were married . . .” I leave the rest of the lie hanging in the air.
Okay. I can cross that attempt off as a mistake when she literally kicks my ass out of bed.
Actually kicks me with her foot.
“Be careful at the gym. I’ll see you tonight.” She rolls away and snuggles back under the covers while I stand up and smile.
I’m wearing her down.
HUDSON
I keep asking Maddie to marry me.
JACE
Why?
HUDSON
Why what?
JACE
Why do you keep asking? Did she say no?
HUDSON
. . .
BECKET
OMFG. She said no?!?
JACE
Dude. Stop. You’re telling me you asked her once and she said no. And you asked again?
HUDSON
She loves me. She just thought we were moving too fast.
MAX
Then try listening to her, shithead, and slow your roll.
SAWYER
Swear to God, Maxipad. You talk like you’re eighty, not forty.
MAX
I’m not forty, shithead.
BECKET
Then stop talking like it.
MAX
What forty-year-old says slow your roll?
HUDSON
Hello . . . Assholes . . . Anybody got any actual advice?
SAWYER
Try listening to her, Hud. Enjoy where you are now and don’t rush it. She’ll let you know when she’s ready.
JACE
In the meantime, I have one word . . . yoga sex.
BECKET
That’s two words, jackoff.
SAWYER
It’s a good thing you’re pretty, kid.
In a lot of ways, the next two weeks fly by.
It wasn’t like my body took a beating in my fight against Mason McGuire, but my mind sure as hell did. So, Cade switched up my training for this fight. We still did the normal things, but he had me do yoga with Maddie for an hour every day.
He wanted me to find my zen. He thought it would help center me.
I guess it did. Once I got into meditating, I could see the draw of it.
The only problem is I’m supposed to be clearing my mind, and every time she wears her tight little booty shorts and sports bras, then leans over my body to adjust my posture, my zen goes flying out the fucking window while all the blood working to keep it where it’s supposed to be rushes to my cock.
Even now. Maddie and I are in the warm-up room in Las Vegas, waiting for them to give us the ten-minute warning so she has time to get to her seat before the fight, and she’s working me through my breathing. Definitely different. Not bad though. I kinda wish I’d thought to do this for my earlier fights.
There’s a knock on the door before Cade pops his head in. “Ten minutes, King. Sawyer is out here waiting to walk Maddie to her seat.”
I nod, and he gives us a minute alone.
She stands in front of me in her tight black dress, sky-high heels lacing up her ankles, and her hair, that I fucking love, in fat curls around her shoulders. She’s my every wet dream come to life, and I can’t wait to win this fight so I can go back to our hotel room and fuck her brains out.
“You gonna be my prize again tonight, Mads?” I wrap a curl around my finger and smile.
“I’ll do you one better, Kingston. You win this fight, and I’ll marry you . . . tonight.” She cocks one brow in challenge.
My heartbeat picks up speed. “What?”
“We’re all here. Well, most of your siblings. My brother. Carys and Chloe. Win the fight, and we’ll find an Elvis to marry us.”
“In one of those white suits with the sparkles?” I joke because she can’t be serious. “Don’t joke with me, Maddie. Because I’m going to win this fight.”
She takes a step back. “I know.”
“Why now? What’s changed?” I need to know.
“Marriage is a piece of paper to me, Hudson. But you . . . you’re everything, and it matters to you. So, win the damn fight, and let’s get married.”
Championship fights are five rounds, five minutes each.
I took my own five minutes after Maddie left to get my head in the fight, as Cade likes to say. Visualizing the fight. Pumping myself up. Preparing myself to step back into that cage. Knowing that I want to win, but I need the overall outcome to be different this time.
I need to destroy this fighter.
I need to dominate him.
But I need him to walk away.
When I walk through the door and join Cade, Cooper, and Jax as the first chords of Avenged Sevenfold plays over the roar of the crowd, I picture the takedown. I feel the ref holding my hand in the air. I will the fight into my submission.
I’m going to win.
Round 1
Spider comes out swinging as soon as the bell rings.
I’ve always said he projects every move before he makes it, and tonight’s no different.
His frustration grows visible with each punch I dodge.
And when I smile after I block his kick with my knee, his confident facade cracks.
That’s when I strike.
I hit him with a straight left jab to his nose and draw blood, knocking him off-balance.
“That all you got, King? I bet that girl of yours hits harder than that,” he sneers, and I see red.
“She does hit harder than that, asshole. And she wouldn’t be scared to knock your ass out, you piece of shit.” I throw an uppercut, looking to knock him out cold and end this joke, but he dodges it with blood still dripping from his face.
“Shame I didn’t get to taste her before you got in my way that night at Crucible. She’s a pretty little thing, teaching that yoga class.” His words catch me off guard, giving Spider the opportunity to land a kick in my ribs before realization dawns.
This mother fucker broke into the gym.
He’s who went after Maddie.
And my vision blurs with a raging fury unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.
I go for a double-leg takedown.
Slam him to the ground.
Then from behind, I wrap my legs around his waist, and one arm slides down underneath his chin, squeezing off his oxygen. “You went after the wrong girl, cocksucker.”
“It was supposed to be you,” he wheezes while trying to break my hold.
But I got my answer and squeeze tighter until he starts to lose consciousness and taps my forearm. I ignore the tap, his beg for mercy, until I’m ripped away by the referee and declared the winner.
Once the announcement is over, Cade opens the door of the cage, and Maddie is the first to run in. I lift her high in the air, then bring her down and press my lips to hers. “Looks like I won, sunshine. You gonna give me my prize?”
“I’m gonna give you everything, King.”