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"Oh, I've heard your name a few times. Or your fake name, as it turns out. What is your real name? Wait, no. Don't tell me. If it's something lame like Dylan or Bryce or some shit, it will completely ruin it for me. At least Niro is a sexy name."
"It's Pagan," he replied easily, making me stiffen.
"No shit?" Benny asked, smiling huge, obviously loving that information.
Pagan?
Pagan?
Who the hell had a name like Pagan?
"No shit," Pagan agreed, looking amused by his reaction.
And even breaking through the disappointment about Ethan, and the shock of his strange, demonic little name, I realized I really liked how he interacted with Benny. It was my personal opinion that how a man responded to another man who liked men (and maybe even flirted with them a bit) said a lot of them as a person. Pagan didn't seem offended or, worse yet, grossed out, by Benny's attention. He didn't do that condescending thing that Ethan did when he called him a lady. He just treated it like it was no big deal. And it was no big deal, but in my experience, not all men felt that way.
I found myself really liking that about this practical stranger whose fingers I was better acquainted with than his brain.
"On paper and everything?" Benny pressed.
"Not originally," Pagan admitted, then shrugged, "but now, yes."
"You changed your name to Pagan. Is that a biker thing?"
"It was an underground fighter thing," he countered.
"I knew that wasn't just a rumor. I told you it was real," Benny said, accusing me.
We had totally talked about something he heard about an underground fighting ring in Navesink Bank. I had insisted that it was likely something like a bunch of teenagers watched Fight Club a few too many times and got some ideas.
Apparently, I was wrong.
I didn't quite know how I felt about that.
I mean, any idiot in Navesink Bank knew there was stuff that went on beneath the radar. The Henchmen were a prime example. We had a compound full of gun runners right on the main drag in town. Then there was that weird military or survivalist camp thing up on the hill. There was Third Street with their hookers. And, growing up on the side of town I grew up on, I had heard some rumors about the family who owned a bunch of other businesses, but most notably, Chaz's, being actual, real life loan sharks. Knee-cap breakers.
But things like underground fighting sounded a little too far-fetched to my ears.
I guess you learn something new every day.
"I have a fight tomorrow night if you want tickets," Pagan offered, but did so to Benny who he simply knew was the bigger sucker.
"Oh," Benny said, looking over at me. "We are so going."
"You can go," I offered. "I need to wor..."
"Oh, woman," Benny scoffed, shaking his head, grabbing the appointment book which showed a big fat nothing after six PM the next night. "And don't pull that 'what if someone drops in' crap either. You need a night out. You need about half a dozen cocktails and an excuse to put on something pretty."
He wasn't exactly wrong.
I needed a distraction from all the stress.
But I was pretty sure going to some underground fight where Pagan was going to be in the ring was not the kind of distraction I needed. Besides, cocktails cost money, and while I did have a small little bit of 'mad money' laying around, I had planned to maybe buy some new higher-end hair products for the shop with it.
"You're going. If I have to drag you." For many, that was an empty threat. For Benny, it wasn't.
Apparently, I was going to an underground fight and wasting precious money that would end in a stomach ache because I had a feeling his cage fights would be just as bloody as his fight at the compound.
"I'll put your names on the list," Pagan offered. "Just park at the old school and follow the crowd," he told Benny before finally turning fully toward me.
No, he didn't just turn toward me.
He turned, let his eyes move over me in a way that was so intense it was practically like they stroked over every inch of skin they inspected. Which, well, made me feel flushed all over, made my chest start to get tight, made an unmistakable tightening start between my legs.
But then he wasn't just looking at me; he was walking toward me.
It was a slow, deliberate gait, like a lion stalking its prey.
I had never felt so much like prey in my life.
But my instinct wasn't to run.
Oh, no.
It was to let myself be caught.
To let him sink his teeth in.
Oh, God, yes.
"Like that look," his voice said, low, quiet enough to keep it between the two of us though Benny was only a few feet away. Before I could even think to respond, if there even was an appropriate response to that, his lips crashed down on mine.
