“Spoilsport,” I answered, but didn’t push my luck. She squirmed around a little to get comfortable, and the cheeks of her arse brushed against my already painfully hard cock, making me groan. I rested my forehead against her head and tried to remember that this was about taking care of Em, not twisting her around and bending her over the bath so I could take her wet, soapy curves from behind. Shit! No! She seemed a little less vulnerable now so sex was pretty much the only thing I could think about.

“Think about the national anthem,” she said, tapping my leg.

“How come you’re not as frustrated as I am?” I complained.

“Because I get to watch you all hot and sweaty in training then come home and touch myself,” she admitted, and I swear to God I dropped the motherfucking sponge. The image of Em lying in our bed, maybe wearing my wraps and touching herself was burned on my retinas. After dropping that little bombshell, she started humming my go-to song for telling my cock to stand down.

“You know, one day I’m gonna fuck you to that song,” I warned her.

“Promises, promises,” she said and I smacked her arse as she climbed out of the bath. When she was safely covered from head to toe in my navy bathrobe and I had thrown a white towel around my hips, I pulled on her lapels to turn her around to face me.

“Seriously, Sunshine. I don’t want you putting a brave face on this. What happened tonight was all kinds of fucked up and, I’ll be honest, going to America and leaving your here feels wrong,” I admitted to her.

“I won’t tell you I’m fine,” she told me. “It’s probably going to take years of counseling before I can ever get to the stage where I’m not messed up about what happened. But I’ll get there. Knowing that he’s dead, though, feels like I’ve been let out of prison. I’ve wasted the last six months on Frank, but the next six belong to us.” I smiled, because I knew that there was nothing about being a fighter that this strong woman couldn’t teach me.

Chapter 25

I was the last of our group to mount the stairs leading up to the plane. The sudden snow that covered half of London was slowly melting, and we were finally on our way to America, much to Earnshaw’s relief. He’d worked hard to get me this fight, and I’m not sure that his stress levels could have taken it if I’d gone through with canceling it.

My hands were buried deep in my jacket pockets, and despite that fact that I had the fight of my life ahead of me, I still hated the idea of leaving Em behind. The night before a test, when she was going through her notes, I always made her tea and toast with chocolate spread. It was kind of becoming a tradition, but who would do that for her with me gone? I swear I worried about the stupidest shit whenever she was away from me. But that stupid shit was marriage. Always worrying about the other before yourself.

I nodded to the flight attendant as I ducked to walk in through the door. We dominated the space as they directed us toward our seats, and all of us looked cocky and confident, as we tried to hide the fact that none of us had been on a long-haul flight before. Hell, most of us hadn’t ever been on a plane before. Even Danny went back to Ireland by ferry. Earnshaw had that relaxed, bored look about him that said he’d flown a thousand times. Tommy managed to hit practically every passenger down the aisle with his duty-free bag, then argued with Liam when he went to put it in the overhead locker.

“What is all this shit anyway?” Liam asked, opening the bag.

“Stuff to do on the flight,” he answered.

“Like what?” Liam replied. He opened the bag, and we all peered in. Inside was Tom’s weight in chocolate bars and a hardback copy of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.

“What the fuck is this?” Liam asked, pulling out the book.

“Em read it and told me it was really good,” Tommy explained. We all looked at each other wondering what it was about chick lit Tommy thought he’d enjoy.

“Jesus, Tom, I think you’re actually becoming a bird by osmosis. You’ve shagged so many women that estrogen is actually being absorbed into your skin,” Liam told him.

“At least it’s got words instead of pictures. Be thankful it isn’t a coloring book,” Kieran added with a smirk as we settled into our seats.

“Oh, I have one of those,” a pretty girl in the seat behind Tommy said, holding up an adult coloring book. Her friend leaned over the seat in front of her and pointed to the book Liam was holding.

“I love that book. Have you seen the film?” she purred sexily at Liam as she spoke and leaned farther forward, giving him an eyeful of her rack. I chuckled as I sat back on my seat and closed my eyes. She was in for a long flight if she was hoping to seduce Liam. Tommy grinned and wiggled his eyebrows at us all. Apparently the female attention he was getting totally vindicated his choice of reading material. If he flashed about that chocolate later, he’d be attracting women like magnets.

As it happened, he was barely in his seat for most of the journey. Like some kid with ADHD, Tommy could never sit still for long. Kieran kept me company for a few hours, watching movies on the screen in front of us, until a kid started kicking the back of his seat. He gave me a look that said he was about to murder him before addressing the mother. “Excuse me,” he said in his politest, most charming voice. “Your son is kicking the back of my seat, and it’s getting really annoying. Do you mind stopping him?”

The bitch looked completely pissed off at been interrupted in the middle of whatever she was reading on her Kindle. “This is a family flight, and if you wanted more distance between the seating, you should have paid for a first-class seat.” Even I turned around to look then.

“You’re seriously going to let that little shit keep doing it?” Kier asked. She didn’t get a chance to respond before he started talking directly to the kid. If this had been any of the gym kids, I knew what I’d do. Then again, I like to think they were too respectful for that. This little shit, who must have been about nine or ten, wore the smirk of a brat who always got what he wanted.

“Next time you kick my seat, kid, I’m gonna take my bottle of water and splash it all over your crotch. Then when you go to the bathroom to clean up, I’m gonna ask everyone to clear a path because my kid brother’s had a little ‘accident.’ For the rest of the flight, you’ll be the kid who pissed himself. You want that?”