Fighter

Kit Tunstall, writing as Kit Kyndall, reserves all rights to FIGHTER. Any resemblance to people or places is a coincidence. Please respect the copyright by not sharing this work. Permission of the author or publisher is required to copy any part of this work. All sexually active characters depicted in this work of fiction are 18 years of age or older.

© Kit Kyndall, 2017 (Previously published under a different pen name and title.)

Cover image: Depositphoto

Cover design by Amourisa Designs

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Fighter

Kit Kyndall

Blurb

I’m a fighter.

I fought to survive on the streets after running away at seventeen. I did what I had to, and I make no apologies for it.

I fought and clawed my way up from illegal street fighting to a UFC contender.

I fought my fear and came back to this wretched place, where Dirk made me so miserable eleven years ago.

I could fight how much I want Mia, who’s suddenly all grown up.

I could fight to keep my secrets hidden.

I could fight.

If I wanted to…

Couldn’t I?

Chapter One

Paxton

Acid churned in my gut, making my solar plexus feel like I’d taken a punch that hadn’t been properly guarded as I walked up the pretentious driveway of the sprawling estate that was my stepfather’s home. I would give anything to turn around and go back to my 1969 GTO, restored by my own hands, but I couldn’t just leave my mother there alone to die.

Even with the heavy thoughts weighing me down, I couldn’t help noticing with appreciation the kneeling form of the girl tending the flower beds. Apparently, Dirk Gaithway had engaged a more beautiful garden service than I remembered him having eleven years ago.

The hot little honey-blonde in front of me was crouched over, short shorts barely grazing the crease where ass met thigh, and wearing a cropped shirt that had flipped up in the back to show a tempting expanse of golden-brown flesh. In seconds, I was harder than I had been for a long time, and it was gratifying to know that at least something still worked on the suffocating grounds of the Gaithway estate. After the past I’d left behind here, it amazed me I could get even the tiniest of erections, let alone a raging hard-on for some girl whose face I hadn’t even seen yet.

Pausing beside her, I loomed just a bit over her, flashing my sexiest grin as her head lifted. I took off my aviator shades and tucked them into the neckline of my tank top and winked at her, certain she was swooning by now at my chocolate-brown gaze. Yeah, I could be a conceited motherfucker, but having a following of groupies could do that to any man. It swelled a head—the one above your shoulders and below your belt. Hey there, beautiful.

She stood up slowly, revealing a tight, but curvaceous, figure in that skimpy outfit. Honey-blonde hair fell down past her waist from a ponytail she’d used to confine it, and when she ran a hand through her hair to shove it off her sweaty face, she left behind a streak of dirt. I guess it should have turned me off, but it was damned adorable. Without thought or permission, I reached up to wipe it away with my thumb before dusting the digit on my tight faded jeans.

A tentative smile broke out, and suddenly she was in my arms. I embraced her automatically, thinking to myself that the girl moved fast. I half-expected her to rub up against me in an enticing fashion, and it wouldn’t be the first chick who had tried to dry hump me as I squeezed out through a crowd, though these circumstances were different. The last thing I expected was her dulcet tones that rang with familiarity and doused my arousal like an ice water bath for my cock.

Paxton, I’m so glad you’re home.

I recognized that voice. It was the same one that had frantically reached out to me three days before, after she had worked her way through an entire entourage of my underlings, the people who guarded my privacy and shielded me from the crazy fans. Somehow, she had persuaded them to put her through to each person in the chain, and it wasn’t hard to imagine why if she was as sweet-sounding as she looked.

Hell, I had spoken to her briefly, only long enough to believe her and promise to come, and I’d been charmed by her sweetness in that brief amount of time. It was startling to realize the little girl who’d been ten years old the last time I saw her was now a gorgeous young woman, standing in my arms.

Fuck.

She had made my dick hard enough to pound nails.

I wanted to fuck my stepsister.

Fuck, was I in trouble.

***

She led me into the house, acting as though I hadn’t been gone for eleven years. Other than a brief moment of impatience with me on the phone the other night, when she had assured me testily that she was in fact Mia Gaithway, and I was her long-lost stepbrother, she had been nothing but charming and welcoming.

Even when she had broken the news that my mother was dying, with not much time left at all, and wanted to see me, she had been sweet and sympathetic. I couldn’t help contrasting in my mind how that sweet voice would sound as she uttered the dirtiest shit imaginable. Dammit, my cock was waking up again.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view—and mine was unfortunately, because I loathed the man—Dirk Gaithway stepped out of his study as we headed up to the second floor, where I planned to stow my bag in the room that used to be mine before going to sit with my mother.

He drew to a halt, a fierce frown on his face. It pleased me to see eleven years had softened him somewhat, adding wrinkles and at least a good twenty extra pounds. He no longer seemed so large and intimidating, and he wasn’t the behemoth my memory had made him out to be.

Or maybe it was just because I was so much bigger now than I had been then. I’d taken up working out in a big way, especially after being discovered by Lila to fight in the underground circuits. I couldn’t be a fighter if I didn’t have the body or the stamina for it. Considering what I’d been doing before that, illegal street fighting was a like winning a goddamn lottery, and I had done everything necessary to make it work and excel.

I kept my expression neutral as I looked at him dismissively. I didn’t bother to speak to Dirk, though he looked like he might have wanted to say something, but his mouth closed with an audible click as I turned away from him and went up the stairs.

It might have been eleven years, but I still remembered how to find my old room, and to my surprise, it hadn’t been turned in to anything else. Oh, someone had remodeled it into a bland, nondescript guestroom, but it wasn’t a game room or perhaps a torture den to meet Dirk’s sadistic needs. Of course, he’d never been overt about his dark side around his daughter and my mother.

I hope this will do for you, Paxton. I’m sorry all your old things are gone.

I turned to her with a charming grin, determined to ignore the mewling little wuss inside me that wanted to curl into a ball after having faced Dirk Gaithway, though we hadn’t exchanged a single word. Hooking a thumb in my belt loop, which I knew dragged my jeans down a good two inches, I was gratified to see her gaze slip to my navel and drift lower.

I wondered what she’d do if I dropped trou and whipped it out for her. I’d known a lot of skanky girls over the years, and some of the groupies had made my former clients seem like well-bred ladies, but I couldn’t imagine her reacting the same way as them. Most of those girls would drop to their knees and beg for the gift of my cock in their mouth, but I had a feeling she would probably knee me in the balls instead.

With a blink, I forced my attention back to the topic at hand. "Dang. You mean my Bourbon Crow and Devourment posters are all gone? What about the Divinity Destroyed CDs? Please tell me you at least kept my Symphony In Peril signed T-shirt? They disbanded the year after I got that." I grinned at her. I couldn’t care less about shit that was gone that I hadn’t seen or needed in eleven years. However, I cared a great deal about seeing my mom, and that thought instantly changed my mood from flirtatious to somber.

As though she’d read my mind, she stepped up beside me, threading her arm through mine casually, as though we were actually siblings who were close, rather than stepsiblings who hadn’t seen each other in eleven years. Come on, I’ll take you to your mom.

She led me down the hall, past the master bedroom, to my surprise. I darted a glance at the door and sent her a questioning look.

Her face looked a little tight, and she seemed embarrassed. My dad decided Laura would be more comfortable in a room of her own.

And the selfish fucker made her move out of the master bedroom instead of moving his ass down the hall?

Mia’s arm dropped out of mine, and she withdrew slightly, looking defensive. You don’t have to be so mean.

I snorted. "Honey, I’m