by Cindi Madsen
“Brooklyn? You here?” Dad’s voice broke through the sound of our kisses and heavy breathing.
“Shit,” I said as Shane dropped an F-bomb.
“I saw your car in the parking lot when I drove by, and I don’t like you being here this late at night all by yourself.”
Something told me he wouldn’t feel any better about me being here this late not alone. I leaped off the desk and straightened my clothes the best I could before turning to grab the soda I’d left on top of the mini-fridge.
I prayed Shane had made an equal move, one that wouldn’t make us appear as guilty as we were.
Dad rounded the corner, and I shot him a big smile. “Oh, hey. I was just grabbing a soda and Shane came in to give me crap about how bad it is for me.” I cracked open the tab, took a gulp big enough to burn my nose and throat, and then gave an exaggerated, “mmm.”
Dad glanced from me to Shane, who’d somehow made it around the other side of the desk, thank goodness. He slowly turned to face Dad, and I couldn’t help discreetly checking to see if the raging erection he’d had pressed against me had calmed down. A relieved breath fell from my lips—the situation was under control.
“Yeah, I heard her in here grabbing the sugary death drink, and thought I’d let her know I was about to leave, and so should she, for the exact reason you pointed out. I didn’t want her to be here alone.”
“He’s always insisting we leave together,” I said, and then panicked it sounded bad and Dad was going to discover we’d crossed so many lines—a few of them in this very office—and oh, holy crap. “I mean, leave out the back door together to go to different places, obviously…” I inwardly smacked my palm against my forehead. Shane’s widened eyes asked me why I hadn’t stopped talking already. I didn’t bother sending a look back, because I had no earthly clue. “I was also thinking of grabbing Chinese for dinner, so I was asking him if Mai’s is still the best spot for that.”
I hoped Shane would read between the lines. I’ll meet you there, we’ll grab dinner, then we’ll go to your place and continue the devouring, both of food and bodies.
“It is,” Dad said, “and I’m starving. Come on, I’ll take you both to dinner. My treat.”
I couldn’t imagine a more stressful scenario, and I assumed this would be where Shane made his excuses and bowed out. But Dad didn’t give him the chance. He clapped him hard on the back, and I tried to figure out if that meant he knew Shane’s tongue had just been doing very wicked things to mine. Were we busted? Did he want to murder one of us? Or possibly both of us?
“It’s been a hard week,” Dad said, his fingers curling around Shane’s shoulder. “I won’t take no for an answer.”
Shane glanced at me, and where there should be a hell no, this can’t happen expression like the one I wore, amusement tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Sounds good.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Shane
Dinner. With Blake Roth and his daughter, who I couldn’t stop imagining naked and underneath me. What could go wrong?
Sure, there’d been a part of me that’d thought: Oh, now he cares about Brooklyn being alone at the gym late at night?
But we’d had that conversation about how many people would kill to go to dinner with him, and I wanted to talk to him outside of training camp drills and the gym. Wanted to solidify my position on the team. And you just don’t say no to a guy like Blake “Bring the Wroth” Roth when he tells you he’s taking you to dinner.
Even if it makes the woman you’re crazy about look totally panicked. I figured I could also be here for moral support, although I wasn’t sure how I was going to show it without her dad seeing it as well.
The hostess led us to a tiny table that only accentuated his and my size, but since that meant I could easily press my knee into Brooklyn’s thigh, undetected, I marked it as a win. I tapped my foot against hers, letting her know I was here.
Our eyes met for a brief moment, and it was enough to send warmth through me. She was going to be my undoing, no doubt, and I cared a lot less about that than I probably should.
Blake addressed her, pulling her attention to him. “So, how’d your visit with the boyfriend go this weekend?”
Despite knowing how it’d gone—and that she’d ended up at my place, in my arms and in my bed—the mention of him still had me clenching my fists.
“Fine,” she said.
Blake nodded, clearly at a loss for what to bring up next. Here’s the thing. I was the king of not bothering to say anything when I’d already detached from someone. I could tell Brooklyn was most of the way there, and yet she couldn’t fully sever that thread of hope that still tied her to him. While a lot of the people who’d tried to get me to open up through the years were merely going through the motions, I could see her dad genuinely wanted to connect. Obviously, he just didn’t know how. I didn’t know, either, but I could try to help smooth the pathway.
“Didn’t you say you’re working on a new painting?” Over the past couple of days, during the way-too-short minutes I’d talked to her, I’d seen the paint on her fingers and forearm, and her entire face lit up whenever she talked about how good it felt to be wielding a paintbrush again.
“My dad’s never been interested in my art. I think the exact words were ‘waste of time.’”
Damn, remind me never to get on her bad side. Come to think of it, I started on her bad side. Eventually I’d changed her mind, though, and if I started thinking about that, my thoughts would get off track and go gutter diving.
I looked to Blake, daring him to say he didn’t feel that way—or hell, something.
“I’ve rethought a lot this past year,” he said, “including what I spend my time on. I’d, uh, like to know more about what you do.”
Her first instinct was to keep it bottled up and safe from his judgment—another move I’d made enough to recognize, especially now that I knew her ticks and tells. I nudged her foot again. And earned a darted glare.
But then she sighed and picked up the paper-wrapped chopsticks. “This past year, I’ve been trying a new medium. I take pages from old novels, ones that people are throwing out or getting rid of, and paste them onto my canvas. Once they dry, that becomes my new canvas and I paint my subject over it. I know it sounds messy, but it works really well with this sort of dripping effect I use, and it gives the pieces more dimension. Anyway, that’s the hope.”
She nudged my foot in a move I took to mean there you go, but you should know I’m not exactly happy about giving in.
“I’d like to see those paintings sometime,” Blake said.
“Yeah, maybe.” Her tone was cautiously monotone.
The waitress came over and jotted down our order, and talk turned to what we knew best—all things MMA. We speculated about Cyclone Jones’s odds, rehashing several of his fights before agreeing he had a good chance at regaining the belt, and it was going to be twice as awesome to be there to see it in person. I still could hardly believe I was going to get to fight at the same venue, and when I voiced that, talk drifted to my upcoming bout.
Blake waved a hand in front of Brooklyn to gain her attention. “Hey, you think they’d let you into the gym to see Conrad? Then you could find out more about what type of training he’s doing these days. If you go over under the pretense of telling him you’re glad he agreed to the fight, I’m sure they’ll let you hang around for a while.”
I tensed as quickly as she did. “She’s not going anywhere near that asshole again. I don’t need to find out what kind of training he’s doing to beat him.” Thinking of the way he’d grabbed her sent heat through my veins, and I couldn’t wait to get in the cage, where I could channel my pent-up anger at the perfect target.
Blake turned his steely gaze on me. Guess that meant I couldn’t make fun of Brooklyn for her rambling explanation about us leaving—but to go to different places—in his office earlier. We were showing our cards left and right.
Didn’t matter, though. I
wasn’t backing down. “I don’t trust the guy. The asshole grabbed her and jerked her around that night at the bar, and I refuse to put her in that kind of position again.”
She looked at me like I’d grown a unicorn horn. Then a slow smile spread across her face, and it hit me square in the chest.
“Underestimating your opponent is a big mistake,” Blake said. “Lots of fighters make it, and I hoped you’d learned your lesson.” Implying that I’d underestimated my opponents before, and that was how I fell from grace.
“My situation was different. I was going through personal shit”—I barely resisted saying, like I told you when I came to you and asked you to train me—“but it’s under control now.”
“Personal feelings are another thing that can get in your way. That shit can’t enter the cage.”
“Might as well stomp out all feelings while you’re at it, right, Dad?” Brooklyn asked, her words dripping with sarcasm. “That makes for better soldiers who just bark ‘yes, sir.’”
His nostrils flared, and as he gripped the edge of the table, a vein in his forehead popped out. I didn’t want to go head-to-head with the guy in a Chinese restaurant. Or anywhere for that matter. He was a fucking brick wall, even if he’d be slower now than he used to be.
Luckily, I was as experienced in de-escalating situations as I was at detaching. Unless it was fighting in the streets, but that was a different story, a different version of me. “I didn’t mean any disrespect.” I lifted my hands so he’d focus on me—if he yelled at Brooklyn right now, he might lose her for good, and while she would undoubtedly insist she didn’t care, I knew she would. “I agreed to do things your way, and if we need to find out more about his training, fine. But don’t rope Brooklyn into it. If that means it’s not happening, fine. I’ll just watch hours and hours of film. I’ll find a way to win that fight, I swear.”
“We need that win, son,” he said, and it came out firm but with a raw, desperate edge that made me suspect there was more at play here.
Just what I needed. Even more riding on this fight.
…
I was tired; Brooklyn was tired. But I couldn’t just say good-bye to her and head home. Our time together was limited, and the hour I’d wanted to steal for us had ended up spent in a Chinese restaurant with her dad. They say all’s well that ends well, but I’d spent the rest of dinner tiptoeing around, and Brooklyn gave up on talking altogether.
I parked my motorcycle and then leaned against it, watching and waiting.
The familiar turquoise Mustang turned into the parking lot, and it was all I could do to not fucking skip over to her. Instead I strode over, opened her car door, and pulled Brooklyn into my arms. My lips sought hers, the kiss immediately diffusing the tension that’d taken up residence in my neck and shoulders.
Keeping her tucked tightly to my side, I walked her up the stairs, unlocked my apartment, and pushed inside.
She ran her hands up my arms and peered deep into my eyes. “I told Finn I was going to see an old friend and warned him I might be home late, but I know you’ve got an early morning, and I wouldn’t be surprised if my dad takes it upon himself to personally train-slash-torture you tomorrow.”
“Are you telling me that I need to make it quick? Because you’ve taken some jabs at my endurance before, and—”
She cut my words off with a hard kiss. “I’m saying I worry about you, and don’t make a big deal about it, or I’ll take it back.”
I don’t think I’ve ever grinned so wide in my life. “You worry about me? You, the hardcore girl who doesn’t care about cocky, self-entitled fighters? The very same girl who once accused me of being a thug and topped it off with telling me she wasn’t interested in my magic penis?”
She shoved me. “Evidently you missed the part where I told you not to make a big deal about it. I’m about to take it back.”
I caught her arm and tugged her closer. “You can’t. It already sank in and my head’s getting bigger by the second.”
“Oh, great. You’re going to be impossible to deal with now.” She shook her head and her light, joking demeanor changed, sobering as she studied me.
“What is it, baby? Is my head actually growing before your eyes?”
Her forehead smoothed out as that amazing smile of hers returned to her lips. “Not that I can tell—yet.” Her features softened and she placed her hands over the center of my chest. “You… You told my dad no. And when he gave you his charging-bull face, you didn’t back down. Do you know how few people have ever done that?”
I shrugged. “There’s a lot I’d go along with, but I meant what I said. I don’t want you near that prick. I can’t believe your dad would put you in that position.”
“He doesn’t know how bad it was, I guess,” she said, and her eyes widened when what I presume was a murderous expression crossed my face. “Whoa. I’m not saying—”
“What did he do? Tell me. Then I’ll make sure he never touches you again—that he never touches anyone again.”
“Hey.” She wound her arms around my neck and met my gaze. “I need you to calm down. Let’s rewind to the part where we were getting ready to tear off each other’s clothes.” She tipped onto her toes and kissed me, and I wanted to deepen it and forget everything, but I’d never been great at letting things go.
“I’m all for tearing off your clothes, and trust me, we’ll get to that, but I want to finish up this conversation first. What did he do to you?”
She lowered herself to flat on her feet and wrapped her arms around herself in a protective way that made me want to do something completely irrational, like find Conrad “Croc” Rochenski and skin him alive. Suddenly five weeks from now didn’t seem soon enough.
Chapter Thirty
Brooklyn
Shit, what was I thinking, opening my big mouth? Easy, I wasn’t thinking. I’d been so stunned Shane had stood up to my dad, and then there’d been kissing, and I really wanted to get back to the kissing. Clearly he wasn’t going to let it go. I sorted through the truth, trying to pick out what parts of it I should tell him.
“He was…temperamental. And before his fights, the mood swings were worse. I wrote it off as him being driven, especially since after he won and his stress-level went down, things were mostly good again.” I told Shane how I’d taken a gap year because Conrad said he needed me with him to reach that next tier on the ranking ladder, the one where guys started making real money and becoming household names. “Since it meant having me around to take care of all the admin stuff, my dad was thrilled. Of course, my art got pushed to the bottom of the priorities pile and I began to feel really restless. I submitted a couple of pieces and got into a small, local show—my very first that wasn’t sponsored by the high school. That week, my disgruntled boyfriend, my brothers, and my dad went to Vegas to get ready for the bouts, and the same night as the fight, I had my first showing. I’ve never felt so alone.
“Until afterward, when I found out that Conrad had slept with one of the Vegas ring girls to celebrate his win. We’d abstained for those few weeks prior because he was exhausted, dropping weight, and prescribed to the theory it’d give him that extra edge, and when we had our big blow-up, he berated me for not being there and told me my absence was to blame for his infidelity. Apparently after going without that long and then having all that extra testosterone and adrenaline from a win, it’s impossible not to trip and fall into some girl’s vagina.”
I smiled at my attempted joke, even though it didn’t land, and Shane was far from laughing. Conrad could be a complete ass and often was, but back then I’d mistaken passion for intense, infinite love, and factor in the part about him being my first, and the betrayal made me question everything and was hell on my self-esteem. “He told me it didn’t mean anything, but it did. It meant that he and I were over, something he had a hard time understanding.”
In that after period, Conrad would park outside my house, and if I was out with anyone but my brothers, he’d threate
n them, threaten me. It scared me, and then I felt weak, and I didn’t want to admit to my family that I couldn’t handle it, especially since they’d always been crazy overprotective and Finn had nearly landed himself in assault territory over the situation already.
Right when I was about to loop in Liam, Conrad backed off. Then I moved several hours away, and that seemed to solve all my problems. But I didn’t dare tell Shane any of that, since intent-to-maim was written in the tight set of his features already.
“I should’ve seen it coming,” I said, putting lightness I didn’t feel behind the words. “I should’ve ended it before any of that happened, but I was young and naive and optimistic. That was when I believed the MMA lifestyle didn’t have to take over everything. That I could be a part of it and do my art as often as I wanted to, and there could still be a happy ending.”
That was when I’d realized where my mom was coming from those years she’d clung on, hoping somehow things would change despite having so much evidence to the contrary. Sometimes I thought I should’ve moved to Arizona with her after they divorced my junior year. Then I never would’ve even met Conrad.
Naturally, Dad’s infidelities only made it harder to believe guys who traveled a lot could be faithful, something I didn’t want to delve too deeply into right now, standing across from a guy who was on the verge of doing exactly that.
Shane had gone from angry to…I wasn’t sure. “It doesn’t have to be that way. It doesn’t mean you can’t have the best of both worlds.”
“I’m afraid it does. Every single time my family missed my events for theirs, it made me bitter. I don’t want to feel bitter toward my brothers. I didn’t want to feel bitter toward my dad, but that ship’s sailed. I’ve accepted it.” The words scraped my throat on the way out, making an accidental liar out of me. “I’m working on accepting it, anyway.”
