Fierce Protector: Hard to Handle trilogy, Book 1

by Kane, Janine

  The Texas Rangers were rallying, she found as she returned, slightly jelly-legged, to the living room. Glued to the TV, literally on the edge of their seats, the three men were willing their team to the startling comeback needed to overhaul the Athletics’ early lead. Eva took her seat next to Zack, who smiled quickly at her before returning his laser-beam focus to the game. Please, prayed Eva silently, let some miracle arrive to make everyone except Zack and me disappear. Was there a patron Saint of hot men, she wondered? Or one who brings comfort to women who think they might explode with desire? And how could anyone smell that good?

  She heard the soft ringtone of her cellphone and scooted into her room, but it was Hank – yet again – and she sent it to voicemail and slid the phone into her pocket. He wasn’t due to call for another three days, and being early wasn’t a good sign. She shut out the inevitable worry that he might be in trouble, and reassured herself that he could take care of his own business, as he somehow always managed to.

  “Jesus Christ, come on,” whined Mitch as Jeff Baker struck out. “Two lousy runs, that’s all we need. The fuckin’ money these motherfuckers get . . .” Tyler shot him a look. “Shit, sorry . . .” Zack shot him a much angrier look. “Apologies, everybody,” he chuckled nervously, “I just get a bit too passionate.” There was also the considerable stack of empty cans by his armchair; Trish shrugged it off but Zack scowled at his friend, the closest to chastisement she had seen from him. You ain’t in the bar, knucklehead, the look seemed to convey.

  “Don’t worry on my account,” Eva said to him quietly. “I have a brother, and his friends were over a lot at my parents’ house in Illinois. They could get pretty animated about their video games,” she remembered.

  Zack came at the issue from a more traditional point of view; he had never seen a good reason to allow profanity in front of women. “It’s good that you’re OK with of it, but if we all tolerate behavior that damages people, and it becomes normal, and then where are we?” he asked rhetorically.

  Eva’s text ringtone sounded in her pocket. It was Trish, messaging from the kitchen, and it instantly made her laugh:

  He’s hotter than a heatstroke in hell. Seduce him and be happy!

  “Just a high school friend,” Eva said, without actually lying. Zack smiled and then joined the group in another disappointed groan; the game had begun to slip away from the Rangers. With only a couple of at-bats remaining, they needed two runs to win, and it was hard to see them pulling it off.

  Eva sidled through to the kitchen, escaping the tension and despair of the living room crowd, and found Trish cleaning up. “Look, I haven’t dated a guy for a while,” Eva whispered. “I don’t want to rush into anything.”

  “Who said anything about dating?” Trish grinned as she slid plates into the dishwasher. “I bet he’s just huge . . .” she said.

  “Shush!” Eva squeaked, turning crimson. “I’m just getting to know him. He’s been through a lot, with the Navy and his injuries, and I don’t want to scare him off.”

  “I’m kidding, I’m kidding, calm down,” Trish said, hugging the red-faced Eva close. Trish would have gone a deeper color still had Eva been honest about her afternoon voyeurism. She could still hear the pleading tone of Trish’s repeated requests to be penetrated; her only regret now was that she had been able only to hear, and not to see. She silently rebuked herself for the thought; get a hold of yourself, Missy.

  A wave of depressed complaint emanated from the living room; the Rangers had lost, unable to chalk up the runs needed, even after a great comeback. Zack stretched and then ferried empty cans into the kitchen; Eva loved how helpful and mature he was around the house. Please God, let him ask for my number. Please.

  The group chatted amiably and helped clear up, before it was time for Zack to drag a drunk and inconsolable Mitch to his car and head on home. He stood at the front door, tall and dark and irresistible, his large, muscular hands enfolding Tyler’s in a big handshake, then delicately cradling Trish’s back as she gave him a kiss on the cheek. Eva felt her tininess as he approached her; he was well over a foot taller than her, and although Eva was a slender girl, quite used to men with bodies far broader and thicker than hers, Zack’s body seemed to overwhelm her. He put out his arms and brought her to his torso for a hug, his hands slipping down her back to rest on her flanks, then gently pulling away and letting her kiss his cheek. His amazing scent filled her nose and then her mind, distracting her almost to the point of forgetting to say goodbye.

  “It was really nice to meet you, Eva,” he was saying. All she could think of was kissing his face again. “Listen, I don’t know if you’d enjoy it as much as I do, but I’m involved in a small, informal martial arts tournament tomorrow night and I’d love if it you could be there.”

  “Really?” was her staggered response.

  “With me, it’s not all sitting on the sofa watching sports, you know?” He grinned and promised to text the details to everyone. His hands left Eva’s sides – with a slight but genuine reluctance, she felt – and she watched as he escorted Mitch to Zack’s highly polished Chevy Colorado and pulled away.

  Tyler cleaned the grill while Eva and Trish finished up inside. “Holy Mother of God,” Eva managed. “It’s been a long time.”

  Trish hugged her friend again. “Honey, he’s just a million dollar man. I wasn’t even really talking to him, and still, I’m gonna need to change my panties. Yours must be soaked.” They giggled together for a moment before Eva’s straightened face and twinkling eyes told her friend the truth. “I knew it, you juicy slut.”

  Eva brushed off the mockery. “He’s fighting tomorrow,” she said, still taken aback by the invitation. “Do you think I should go?”

  “Of course I do, air-brain! Watch him kick some ass, then get him to give you a ride.” She grinned. “And ride, and ride and ride . . .” Trish added lasciviously. Eva slapped her ass and made a show of harrumphing her way across the little house to her room. Locking the door, she knew that she would have no control over what came next; her shorts and panties slid down and off, and her fingers sought out the sexy wetness this new, wonderfully mature, unbelievably handsome man had caused. She pictured every part of him, wreathed in his seductively masculine scent: his firm, capable pectoral muscles and the sensitive nipples which she would suck as they moved through the gears of foreplay; his arms – God, his arms – bulging with strength but winningly comforting, as wonderful for a long hug as they were for lifting her bodily into the air while her legs wrapped around him; his incredible legs, trunks of ferocious strength with the firmness to support him as he held her aloft; and his huge, thick, unbelievable cock . . .

  In her mind it slipped inside her, pushed home by a gentle but firm thrust from his rippling abs. The dimensions of it seemed at once far too great for her tiny frame, her slender hips, her inexperienced, tight entrance, and also a perfect fit, sexily snug even as he pushed every inch inside her, Eva’s wet place seemingly made to accept him. She arched her back, let the fantasy develop, felt this lovely man hold her, kiss her, and fuck her slowly and deeply.

  Eva soared on a wave of liquid ecstasy.

  Chapter 5 – MMA

  Sutherland, TX

  Saturday

  “You have seven new messages,” intoned the mechanical voice. Eva hardly needed to listen to any of the message to recognize who had left it, and what he wanted. With increasing frustration – bordering on desperation in the most recent voicemails – Hank was asking for, begging for and eventually insisting on having her help. It was money that he needed, entirely unsurprisingly. He explained at length that there had been a misunderstanding, that something for which he had been responsible had gone missing – and Eva didn’t need more details to understand what that might have been – and that he was now in a degree of trouble which varied from message to message. The most recent one made him sound as though he was expecting to have his door bashed in at any moment.

  Eva took a series of deep bre
aths and called him. “Oh, Eva I can’t tell you how glad I am . . .”

  “Hank, just keep it buttoned for a minute, OK? You need to listen to me.” This was her firmest tone, one which insisted on not being interrupted.

  “Alright, I’m sorry,” he said, unusually obedient.

  She sighed. “You’re my brother and I love you. And the last thing I want is for you to be in trouble.”

  “Thanks, Sis,” he said.

  “Shut it. I don’t have the kind of money your friends are going to be needing,” she said flatly. “I can’t write you a check like before, or go to Western Union like the time before that. I told you to start looking for work. Have you found anything?”

  Silence on the line was exactly what Eva had expected, but the opposite of what she had hoped for. What is it, she wondered to herself, that makes people ignore the evidence of history and go on believing in people? What makes us do it?

  “I tried, I really did,” he said at length. “But I just don’t see myself as a busboy or a construction laborer,” he explained. “It wouldn’t be enough.”

  Eva was losing her cool. She felt cheated, and it showed in her acidic tone of voice. “You’ve got twenty-four hours, mister. I want to hear that you have an interview, at the very least. You hear me?”

  Hank became transformed. Anger poured down the phone in a bitter torrent, a long built-up frustration finally given voice. “No, you’re going to need to hear me, Eva. You don’t get it. This isn’t like before, some minor hoodlums, some street thugs, a dealer with more product than sense. These people . . .” he said, searching for the word, “they’re serious, Evie, they’re gonna hurt me if I don’t get them what they say I owe.”

  “Then call the cops,” Eva said, in full knowledge of how unhelpful it was.

  “You gotta help me, you just gotta. I ain’t asking you now. That’s over. You don’t want to live with the consequences of saying no again, I’m certain you don’t.”

  “Don’t threaten me, you ungrateful spider,” she chastised. “You’ll get nothing that way, I assure you.”

  “Well, we’ll see about that,” he said darkly.

  Eva stood up from the sofa and scowled down the phone. “What did you say?”

  “I think it’s time for a visit from your favorite brother,” he said chillingly. “Then we’ll see how helpful you’re prepared to be.”`

  Eva tried to keep her voice level. Knowing that she was rattled would only embolden him. “You have no idea where I am, numbnuts. I made sure of that.”

  “You made sure of nothing,” he said, half whispered as if to underline the threat. “I know exactly where you are.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “And I’ll be seeing you soon.” The line went dead.

  ***

  By the time everyone had taken a shower and was ready to go, there was only a half hour left before the event. Tyler shooed them out of the door and into Eva’s Pontiac for the short journey to the local gym.

  “If you’ve never seen anything like this before,” Tyler enthused, “you’re in for a treat.”

  “You mean, the treat of watching extremely highly training warriors beating the bejesus out of each other?” Trish asked sarcastically.

  “It’s an art form, honey. That’s why that call it Mixed Martial Arts.” Neither of the women were convinced. “OK, can’t you just be impressed by some seriously sculpted male forms instead?”

  Trish giggled. “That, we can appreciate.” She nudged Eva, noticing that her friend seemed a little withdrawn. Just nervous about seeing Zack again, she reasoned. Any girl in her right mind would be.

  Tyler agreed. “Yeah, you and half the women of Texas. Mitch told me that Zack got quite the ovation Zack last time” he reported. “You’d have thought freaking Ironman had flown in for a visit or something.” Zack’s standing among the local women couldn’t have been higher. The only issue was his extreme selectivity; none of the adoring females he so politely kept at arm’s length had ever succeeded in getting a date with him, let alone enjoying his perfectly toned musculature. It was frustrating for some, a turn-off for others, but for the vast majority it had created a uniquely alluring combination: hot, human and hard-to-get.

  To their surprise, Zack had arranged tickets for them at the front desk, and all three were ringside. Just as they took their seats in the modest, 300-seat arena, Eva noticed Mitch arriving with another guy, assumedly Zack’s other lifelong buddy, Flynn. “I’m just going to say hi, OK?” She slipped between the rows of seating and excused herself around some expectant members of the audience before tapping Mitch on the shoulder.

  “Hey, little lady. You ready to see something special?” Mitch introduced Flynn who had, up to that point, only heard of Eva from Mitch and Zack.

  “Nice to meet ya,” said Flynn with a friendly smile. “Wow, it just goes to show Zack’s still not given to exaggeration.” Eva gave him a quizzical look. “He said you’re the prettiest girl in Texas, and he ain’t wrong, right Mitch?” Flynn took in the sight of Eva’s slender frame and the long, auburn hair which so perfectly framed her face. And what a face.

  “Dude, you can get yourself in trouble with an ex-SEAL martial artist if you want, but I ain’t letting her know nothing that Zack said.” Eva giggled at length, enjoying the social slapstick as these two men acted out a bumbling, Texan version of the Marx brothers.

  “Want to tell me how this works?” she said, eager to defuse their embarrassment.

  “Sure,” said Mitch. “It’s just three knockout tournaments, and they’re all a little different. The first up will be the juniors.”

  “The under eighteens,” added Flynn helpfully.

  “They have their own mini-tournament, and the folks who’s here now are mostly their moms and dads,” Mitch explained.

  “Then there’s the Non-GI tournament,” announced Flynn. Eva arched an eyebrow. “Non-military types,” he explained. “I know Zack ain’t serving no more, but he’s definitely in the GI category. You’ll see why.”

  “After that,” Mitch concluded, “is the GI tournament, during which Petty Officer First Class Zachary Norcross, US Navy, retired,” he said, forming parentheses with his curved hands, “will annihilate at least one opponent in front of a huge, screaming crowd of hot women.”

  “Mitch,” Flynn sighed. “Seriously, dude.”

  Mitch held up his hands. “I’m sorry, but how else can I put it? The place will get packed in the next hour, and by the time the GI tourney starts it will be freaking chaos.”

  “Sorry Eva,” said Flynn quietly. “He still needs to learn style.”

  “Whatever,” said Mitch dismissively. “It’s not like he ever tries to get a phone number or anything, though I guess it’d be just as easy as doing twenty pull-ups, for him.”

  Eva loved their double-act and couldn’t help smiling throughout. They were fiercely protective of their friend, while simultaneously happy to laud his ability to destroy almost any other fighter. Something told Eva that their insistence of Zack’s chasteness in the face of rabid temptation wasn’t simply for her benefit; she knew already that he was, to put it mildly, a most unusual young man. Wonderfully unusual, she thought to herself. A warrior and a martial artist, but sensitive all the same; a good grill chef, and who knew what else?

  Mitch and Flynn excused themselves and headed to the locker rooms to help Zack warm up. Eva returned to her seat, where Tyler filled her in on the rest of the rules. “They fight five rounds, each of five minutes.”

  “The GIs do,” Trish interjected. “The others fight only three rounds.”

  “True that. Anyway, Mitch told me that Mr. Norcross has only fought a couple of times since he was injured, and that he takes it easy if his body isn’t feeling perfect.”

  Eva made a face. “How can he take it easy if he’s supposed to beat the crap out of some guy?”

  “You’ll see,” he promised.

  Tyler got them beers and hotdogs during the initial rounds, in whi
ch teenagers competed while wearing protective headgear and gloves thicker than the standard sets. Eva saw at once how different it was from regular boxing. The ring, for one thing, was not the traditional square, but an eight-sided arena. There seemed to be little in the way of rules, with opponents permitted to hit with their hands, elbows, knees and feet, sometimes seemingly all at once. She watched a seventeen year-old blonde kid with a marine haircut aggressively demolish a slightly younger competitor, who seemed stunned by the ferocity. The same fighter then ass-whipped a more experienced kid in the next round, despite being a year younger and three inches shorter. He won the final in a way Eva hadn’t expected; his opponent, having taken a rain of blows to the head from the blonde fighter’s elbows and fists, seemed to teeter unsteadily and then tapped the matt three times in submission, immediately ending the fight.

  “Don’t they get shit from their friends for giving up like that?” Eva wanted to know.

  Tyler finished his beer, tipping it back almost triumphantly. “Not really,” he said. “Everyone in this business knows that it’s better to know your limits than to stay in the fight and wind up in an ambulance. You know, direction is the better part of value.”

  Trish rolled her eyes elaborately. “Discretion is the better part of valor, you hayseed.”

  “No, it’s ‘erection is better placed in the vulva’,” he quipped, earning a pummeling from his girlfriend which only stopped when Eva arrived with fresh beers. The rounds seemed to whizz past as the three waited patiently for Zack’s turn to fight. Mitch and Flynn were absolutely right about the crowd; it had increased ten-fold since they had arrived, and was preponderantly women in their twenties and thirties, some hunting in packs a dozen strong, others shaking loose men folk who gathered at the bar while their partners crowded as close to the ringside as they could.

  Zack was not the only object of their affection, Eva noted. A sculpted Adonis of a fighter, Garth Needham, had clearly built a substantial following, many of whom had brought banners and air-horns; it made for the noisiest fight yet by far, a short and almost shockingly brutal dismissal of a dark-haired fighter who gave away six inches and a lot of reach. One round plus a minute were enough for the referee to bring the fight to a close.