Restrained: A Bad Boy MMA Fighter Romance (Warrior Zone Fighters Book 4)
Page 1
Table of Contents
Mailing List
Books by Tia Lewis
Warrior Zone Fighters Series
About the Book
Restrained
Benji
Danielle
Thank You
About Tia Lewis
Restrained
A Bad Boy MMA Fighter Romance
Tia Lewis
Salted Pen Publications
Contents
Mailing List
Books by Tia Lewis
Warrior Zone Fighters Series
About the Book
Restrained
1. Benji
2. Danielle
3. Benji
4. Danielle
5. Benji
6. Danielle
7. Benji
8. Danielle
9. Benji
10. Danielle
11. Benji
12. Danielle
13. Benji
14. Danielle
15. Benji
16. Danielle
17. Benji
18. Danielle
19. Benji
20. Danielle
21. Benji
22. Danielle
23. Benji
24. Danielle
25. Benji
26. Danielle
27. Benji
28. Danielle
29. Benji
30. Danielle
31. Benji
Warrior Zone Fighters Series
Thank You
Mailing List
Books by Tia Lewis
About Tia Lewis
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by Tia Lewis.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
First Published in June 2017.
First Edition.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please contact: info@authortialewis.com. www.AuthorTiaLewis.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of the book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the Internet or any other means, electronic, or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 (www.fbi.gov/ipr/).
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Published by Salted Pen Publications, Minnesota.
Restrained: A Bad Boy MMA Fighter Romance
Edited by: Charity C.
Beta Readers: Jackie & Vickie
Cover Designed by: Kellie Dennis at Book Cover by Design
Sign up for Tia Lewis’ VIP e-mail list to receive new releases, excerpts, sales, and giveaways!
Go to: www.NextBookRelease.com to sign up now or text LEWIS to 31996.
FULL BOOK CATALOG BY TIA LEWIS
Books by Tia Lewis
Redemption: A Bad Boy MMA Fighter Romance
Revived: A Bad Boy MMA Fighter Romance
Reckless: A Bad Boy MMA Fighter Romance
Draw Play: A Sports Romance
Stadium of Lights: A Second Chance Romance
Draft Day: A BWWM Sports Romance
Threat: A Blood Riders MC (Book 1)
Reveal: A Blood Riders MC (Book 2)
Creed: A Blood Riders MC (Book 3)
Diesel: A Blood Riders MC (Book 4)
The Hitman’s Possession: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Book 1)
The Hitman’s Property: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Book 2)
The Hitman’s Duology Series Bundle
Naughty Prescription: A Bad Boy Medical Romance
Dirty Hacker: An Alpha Billionaire Romance
Dirty Money: A Dark Mafia Romance
Misled: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance
Only One You: A Second Chance Romance
Addicted to You: A Last Chance Romance
Bound to You: A Military Romance
Sinful Torment: A Romantic Suspense Novel
Tempt Me: A Second Chance Billionaire Romance
The Journalist: A Sexy Contemporary Romance
Zarak: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (The Mating Games Book 1)
Konkrin: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (The Mating Games Book 2)
Warrior Zone Fighters Series
Redemption
Revived
Reckless
Restrained - Available Now!
About the Book
Now that I’ve had a taste of her, I won’t stop until Danielle Parkman is mine.
I’ve got it all—my MMA gym is booming, the championship title will be mine, and there is never a shortage of women waiting to grace my bed.
But a late-night call from the police station changes everything. Suddenly, I’m a father to a daughter I never knew I had and I'm all she's got. I have no clue how to be a parent…
Officer Danielle Parkman is a natural with my child. On top of that, she is sexy as hell with green eyes that seem even more haunted than when we were kids. Those eyes… damn those eyes… they f*cking call to me, and I don’t know if I have the strength to keep my urges at bay.
And wouldn’t you believe it… no sooner than I come to grips with my new life as a father—tragedy strikes. Will I survive with my family together and my heart intact?
Author’s Note:
Restrained is a steamy MMA fighter contemporary romance novel and it's book #4 in the Warrior Zone Fighters series. It's only recommended for audiences 18+. No cheating. No cliffhangers. HEA.
Benji
“That’s good. Yes, just like that. No, harder. You want to make them feel the punch.”
I wiped the sweat out of my eyes and punched the pad hard, feeling the smack against my knuckles. Though they were protected by layers of padding, I could feel their soreness. My entire body felt like it had been strung out, muscles aching that I didn’t even know I had. But it was worth it.
“That’s good, take a break.”
I hung my head for a moment, drawing in a painful breath. My trainer, Joey, was working me extra hard tonight, but for a good reason. For the first time in my MMA fighting career, I had a title shot. “Geez man, you are fucking killing me.”
“You love it,” Joey grinned as he threw the towel at me. “Take a breather, get some water and we will start on the legs.”
I shot him the middle finger as he walked out of the cage, my body protesting as I attempted to do the same. The gym was quiet, the time approaching midnight and I wanted nothing more than to go home and get in the bed. Collapsing on the bench, I pulled out my water bottle and my phone, checking in on the ballgame I was missing tonight. I was a huge Cubs fan, even holding season tickets but all the
fun things I enjoyed doing had been put on hold during my training. This was likely my one and only shot, working my way through the heavyweights in short order. By day I ran this joint, my brainchild, but by night I fought my ass off.
The phone was ringing as I flipped it over, answering it. “Hello?”
“Benji Lomns? This is the Chicago police department.”
My breath left my body, thinking that any time the police called at midnight if couldn’t be good news. “Um yeah, this is he.”
“We need for you to come down to the station.”
“Now?”
“Yes sir, now.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.” I hung up and gathered my stuff, throwing my t-shirt over my torso as I stripped off my gloves. What had happened? Was it one of the guys? I didn’t have any family in Chicago. My partners in this gym were my family. Right now we were on baby watch, one of the partners, Paul, and his fiancée Sarah expecting their first child any day now. I couldn’t wait to become an uncle. I loved these guys like they were my own brothers, each one of them bringing something to the gym that I hadn’t anticipated.
“Where are you going? Are you already done?”
I looked back at Joey as I zipped up my bag, slinging it over my shoulder. “I gotta go, man. Something has come up.”
He waved me off, and I tore out of the door, hitting the button on my key ring to unlock my sleek, new two-seater roadster. It had been a splurge, but the money from the fights I had raked in had paid for it. For a kid who grew up on the streets of Philly and fought his way to where he was at today, I definitely deserved it. Hopping in the driver seat, I gunned the engine and pulled out onto the street, heading toward the police department. What was going on? Was someone arrested? Maybe that was what it was. Though I was the last of the guys that didn’t have a significant other, but I could see some of them not wanting to call their respective wife or fiancée if they had done something as stupid as gotten arrested. That had to be it.
I arrived at the station in no time and walked in, ignoring the sights and sounds of the station at night. I had spent many a night at one growing up, doing something stupid to get myself thrown in the slammer overnight. Now, I hated even walking into the place. It reminded me of the idiotic things I had done in the past and how I was even lucky to be alive at twenty-eight.
The police officer at the desk pointed me to a room, one of those rooms you see on TV that they use for interrogation. Shit. What had happened?
“Mr. Lomns, I’m Detective Townsend with the Chicago police force. Please have a seat.”
“Do I need a lawyer?” I asked immediately, my nerves on edge. I had been through this too in the past and had learned never to discuss anything without someone having my back.
The detective shook his head and gestured to the chair in front of him. “No, you don’t. Unless you’ve done something wrong.”
Warily, I took a seat, appearing calm on the outside when inside I was a fucking wreck. I didn’t like being here. I didn’t like the way the detective was eyeing me. I wanted out as fucking quick as possible.
“Mr. Lomns, what I’m about to tell you might be a shock but I want you to know we wouldn’t have called you if we didn’t have a complete reason to do so. Earlier this evening, there was a car accident on the north end of town. A young woman and her child were traveling south when a car jumped the median and slammed into them head-on. The young woman was killed instantly.”
I relaxed some. I didn’t know anyone who had a kid nor was I dating anyone currently. With the intense training, I had going on for the title match, I hadn’t had the chance to do so. “And? What does that have to do with me?”
The detective sighed. “We called the next of kin, a friend who came to the scene immediately and identified her and the child. She told us to call the child’s father.”
“The child’s father?” I echoed faintly, a strange sensation coming over me. Oh hell no.
The detective nodded. “We crosschecked the child’s birth certificate. You are listed as the child’s father.”
I sat back in the chair, forcing a lazy grin on my face. “Who set this up?”
The detective frowned. “What?”
I crossed my arms over my chest, some of the worry ebbing away. There was absolutely no way I was the father of anything except that gym. “Come on, who put you up to this? I won’t tell them.” Those fuckers, pulling a prank like this.
The man across from me smirked, shaking his head as he leaned back. “Mr. Lomns. I don’t know what kind of friends you fucking have, but anyone that goes to these lengths to prank you has to be a sick bastard.” He then leaned forward, his forearms on the table. “This is not a joke. There is a dead woman and a child who needs a father. I would be hesitant to use that word on someone like you.”
My grin faded as I saw the seriousness in his eyes. Fuck. This was not a joke. I had a child. “Damn, man,” I started, feeling nauseous. “I thought.”
The detective stood then, opening his folder and pulling out a picture, pushing it across the table. “Do you know this woman at all?”
Swallowing hard, I looked down at the picture, clearly a driver’s license photo. The blonde smiling up at me didn’t even jar my memory, her girl next door look not usually someone I tended to get involved with.
And now she was dead, and I was supposedly a father to her child. This day couldn’t get any stranger. “I don’t know her.”
The detective took the picture and tucked it back into his file with a heavy sigh. “Her name is Marcie Benton. Her child’s name is Amelia Lomns. She just turned one.”
A one-year-old. I had a fucking one-year-old that bore my last name. “Can I see her?” Would I even be able to tell that she was mine? A thousand questions whirled around in my tired brain as the detective nodded. “She’s here, currently with one of our female police officers. Before you see her, I have some paperwork for you to fill out.”
I gave him a nod as he walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him. I felt like I was having an out of body experience, one that didn’t seem real, but very much like a dream. I was in no position to be a father right now. My life, my career was about to bust wide open. What the hell was I going to do with a child?
With a groan, I placed my head on the cool surface of the table. I wasn’t going to walk out or run from this. If, and it still was up in the air, I was this kid’s father, then she was going to be well taken care of. But I had to find out first. Surely no one would hold that against me. I had to make sure that she was my kid and that I wasn’t some unlucky bastard who got chosen out of the crowd.
Danielle
I watched as the golden-haired baby played with the piece of paper, wondering if there was ever a moment in my life where I was as happy as she was with just a simple object. She laughed as she shook it, crunching it with her chubby hand as I gave her a soft smile, hoping that her mind had already forgotten about the horrible day in her life. She didn’t know it now, but years down the road she would wonder about her mom and how she, at one, survived such a horrific crash. By all accounts, the child should have been dead, the car itself nearly unrecognizable from the amount of damage it had suffered. The woman at the wheel had died instantly, but somehow, in some way, this child had survived.
The baby started to put the paper in her mouth, and I instantly took it from her, receiving a frown on those perfect baby lips of hers. She was precious, with large blue eyes and the golden curls that every mom dreamed of for their future children. She was wearing one of those outfits with the ruffled bottom, a perfect pale pink to match her rosy cheeks and I felt the tug on my heart. This poor, poor baby. The suffering she was going to go through in her life. If only.
I stood and picked up the baby, Amelia was her name, and held her close, inhaling her baby lotion scent. I wasn’t going to think about that. This baby had a family, a father who had just been called in that would take care her, love her. In time, she would only remember bits
and pieces of her mom, the sound of her voice, the smell in the air that would remind Amelia of her perfume or her soap. Memories, if she was lucky, would be all that she had.
She tugged at my hair, and I smiled, pulling her fingers away from them. “No, no,” I said gently, touching her nose. “We can’t have you doing that now.”
Amelia gurgled a response, and I felt that familiar pang in my chest again. Would this have been how my life would have been?
A shout filled the hallway, and I walked to the door, a frown on my face. I was waiting for Detective Barrett to finish with the father so we could turn over the baby to him so they could grieve together and apparently, it had taken a while to track him down. Idly I wondered how he had taken the news of the mother’s death, the thought of raising a child alone for a man had to be scary. It would be scary enough for a woman to do it alone.
Opening the door, I jumped back just in time to see a man dart down the hall, with two fellow officers yelling for him to stop, their keys jingling at their sides as they passed. I pursed my lips to hide my smile, wondering what happened. For four years, I had worked for the Chicago police department, after completing my academy training. I loved my job, just a desk cop who missed most of the action on the street, but inside the department, there was no shortage of action, especially this late at night. Case in point the foot chase down the hall that was only going to end in disappointment for the criminal.
Amelia whimpered and then laid her head against my shoulder as if she was starting to feel the effects of the long night. I couldn’t blame her. I typically worked whenever they needed me, sometimes pulling long shifts for the others so they could spend some time with their families. After all, it was just me. I had nothing to go home to except a cat who chose not to speak to me half the time. Mr. Checkers had his own personal agenda, and as long as I delivered the goods in terms of food, we were on good terms.