by Vanessa Vale
Gray wouldn't do shit like that for anyone else. Hell, he'd handed her his balls the day they met last summer, but he seemed just fine with it. Emory was killer, and I didn't say that about too many women, especially the groupies who only wanted to be taken for a ride on an MMA fighter’s dick. They were good for a quick release, but that was it.
The kid was all attitude, no footwork, and I knew Gray wanted me to take him down a notch or two. I'd put him on the ground several times, which only pissed him off. He hadn't even landed a punch, not until after the bell, and he came after me. I was used to guys' egos, but this little fuck? Yeah, Gray wasn't going to work with him, and he'd have to deal with any fallout for Emory with the doctor. I didn't think there would be much because not many people crossed The Outlaw. And if I stood beside him? Yeah, the doc would piss himself.
I was angry about the sucker punch, so instead of hitting him right back—which was what I would have done a few years ago as a punk on the streets—I let Gray deal with him. I walked off, heading to my apartment to shower, to chill with a protein drink and some crappy TV. Not used to anyone being in the elevator—it had only been Gray and Emory who also lived above the gym until last week—I almost bumped into her. Her.
The look on her face stopped me cold better than a fist to the face from any fighter.
She hadn’t been just startled or surprised. No, she’d been fucking petrified. I swore I saw all color drain from her face when she got a glimpse of me. Her eyes had widened, then darted past my shoulder at her only means of escape. A shiver had gone through her as if she’d been exorcised of a ghost. Then, all of a sudden, she pulled herself together and moved past me, fast, lugging a moving dolly loaded with boxes. I'd held my hands up and took a step back, letting her know without words I meant her no harm. It didn't matter. The damage had somehow been done.
I knew I was pretty scary looking. Being six-three, I loomed over people. I had shoulders like a linebacker and tattoos covered my arms. My nose was crooked, and my jaw was a little sore from where the kid sucker punched me.
I’d been told I looked fucking mean. A lot of the time, I felt mean. I was dark on the inside. Angry, dangerous. I wasn’t the asshole I used to be. I wasn’t the fucked-up kid. The army and training with Gray had set me straight. Still, grown men gave me plenty of room on the sidewalk. But this? With Harper—Emory had told me her name—this was different. I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t want someone like her to fear me.
I didn't get on the elevator. I couldn't just ignore the fact that I'd frightened her. I stood there, watched as she walked quickly toward the outside doors. Stopped. She didn't know I was watching her, perhaps thought I'd gone upstairs. She looked down at the ground, her body shaking. Shit. I’d done that to her. I wanted to go to her, grab her in my arms and let her know she was safer with me than anywhere else, but that wasn’t going to work. Not now.
After a few seconds, she lifted her chin, rolled her shoulders back. I could see she was taking deep breaths, and her fingers relaxed around the handle of the dolly.
She was tall and dressed in a t-shirt and running shorts. I couldn't miss her slim shape. Her legs were long, well-muscled. Between the shapely calves and the running shoes, I guessed her workout choice. Was she going for a run now, once she ditched those boxes? While it wasn't even six, it was dark out. Cold, too. While this wasn't a dangerous part of town, it wasn't safe for her to run alone at night, anywhere. So I’d stick around and make sure she didn't do something stupid.
Yeah, that was the reason why I leaned against the wall, took stock of my new neighbor.
Her dark hair was sleek and stick straight, grazing her shoulders. It had to be silky soft to touch. When she'd freaked, I hadn't missed her dark eyes, the high cheekbones, full lips. As she stood there and pulled herself together, I took the time to notice her perfect ass and toned thighs.
I was a red-blooded male, and she was hot. I couldn't help but notice, couldn’t help I had to adjust my dick in my workout shorts. While I liked a woman all feminine in dresses and heels, I also liked one who wasn’t high maintenance. Who took care of herself. Saw fitness as healthy.
Pushing the outer door open, she went out into the parking lot. It was well lit—Gray was more of a freak about safety than anyone I knew—and using a key fob, she popped the trunk on a dark colored sedan. If she hadn't been afraid of me, I'd have gone out and helped because I didn’t let a woman lug a bunch of boxes around, but if she lost it at the sight of me at the elevator, I didn't know what she'd do if I joined her in a parking lot at night. Did she have mace on that keychain?
I watched her put the three boxes away, close the trunk. She went into the gym through its main entrance, not through the side door off of the lobby. I went there and peeked in, watched as she set the dolly in the corner by the gym’s coat rack, gave a shaky wave to Jack at the front desk, then made her way to the row of treadmills that looked out onto the street. Good girl.
My neighbor was skittish as fuck yet smart. She wasn’t running outside.
After stepping on and pushing a few buttons, she started walking, tugging an elastic band from her wrist and pulling her hair back into a sloppy tail. Yeah, she wasn’t high maintenance or trying to catch the eyes of the guys. While those shorts showed off a mile of leg, she was dressed fairly modestly. No tight yoga pants or snug top.
After pressing a few more buttons on the treadmill, her pace quickened. By the time I pushed through the door and leaned against the front desk, she was running at a serious pace. No warm up.
Gray's gym had free weights and exercise machines, treadmills and ellipticals, but he specialized in MMA fighting. This meant a large amount of real estate devoted to all aspects of mixed martial arts; an open mat, separate training rooms, and an octagon with a fence around it, just like the ones on TV. His members were those like Harper who needed a place to get a workout in who had no interest in fighting. Yoga and spin classes were on the schedule for them. Then there were the serious competitors like me. MMA, Muay Thai, BJJ and other fighting classes were filled with those who wanted to compete or at least defend themselves. Gray intentionally kept it from being a total meat market and a straight competition gym. The balance worked, and it was considered one of the best gyms in town.
“I thought you went to shower,” Jack said, frowning at me. He was in college, working the desk in exchange for free membership. While he didn't have aspirations of being the next big fighter, he took all the classes Gray offered. His focus was BJJ, and he'd just gotten his blue belt. He had the physique for the sport, and the time on the mat with more experienced people kept his ego in check.
Manning the desk, he couldn't have missed what happened earlier in the ring with the doc's kid. Gray was in his glass enclosed office talking to the dickhead, who was wiping his sweaty head with one of the gym's white towels. While Gray was chill as he leaned back in his desk chair, the other guy was pissed and waving his arms. Probably spouting some shit about being a great fighter. Whatever.
I glanced back at my new neighbor. Her ponytail swung side to side as she ran. The treadmills faced the front windows. During the day, the street was visible and watching traffic helped pass the monotony of running nowhere. I hated running inside, but bad weather this time of year forced me on them sometimes as part of my workout. No way would I risk injury because of ice.
“Your new neighbor, right?” Jack asked. “She's pretty serious.”
“Serious? You mean personality?” I asked. I picked up a pen, fiddled with it, tried not to show the depth of my interest in her. The last thing I needed was for Jack to think I was a seventh-grade girl interested in gossip.
“Nah, she's cool. Introduced herself the other day. She runs.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” I countered, watching her smooth pace, the way the muscles in her legs moved with each step.
“No, I mean she runs.”
I turned to look at him. “What the fuck does that mean?”
He r
olled his eyes. “It means she came in yesterday before the BJJ class. We talked about stupid shit for a few minutes before she went to the treadmills. Asked me about the classes I was taking. Did you know she's a professor at the university? Teaches some obscure art topic.” He thought for a second. “I don't remember which.” He leaned in. “I have to admit, she's really pretty, and I wasn't listening all that closely.”
I grinned when I saw a flush climb up his cheeks. Yeah, she was pretty. And then some. What guy could process words when a girl like her offered a soft smile? I'd gotten horror, and I was still intrigued.
“So, running?” I asked, getting him back on track. I didn't think it was a safe topic for him to talk about how hot one of the gym's members was, especially since he was on the clock. It was fine for me to think it, but I wasn't going to tell him that.
“She was running like she is now when Paul took over the desk, so I could go into class.”
That meant fast. She wasn't jogging, not like Jimmy, one of the gym regulars, two treadmills over. He kept turning his head to watch her, even pushed some buttons on his machine to pick up his pace, clearly not interested in being outdone.
I knew he did three miles as part of his workout routine, and she made him look like he was hobbling along with a walker. With the faster speed, he was failing quickly, and I had to shake my head.
“She was still running at the same pace when I came out.”
Whoa. I gave him a look, knowing Jack liked to stretch the truth. “Class was an hour.”
Jack grabbed a membership card from a guy who came in, scanned it. Tossed him a towel.
“Longer,” he continued, “because I rolled with Tom for about ten minutes after.”
BJJ was all about defending yourself and submitting your opponent on the mats. It wasn't karate. There were no kicks, only standing up long enough to take someone to the ground. So when two people practiced their ground fighting, they called it rolling.
I glanced back at Harper, impressed. Intrigued. Something.
Since she didn't seem to be afraid of Jack and was completely ignoring Jimmy, I had to wonder why she was so scared of me.
I was a punk, that was why. I also had a dark past. She should be scared of me. We might live in the same building, but we came from different sides of the tracks. Hell, completely different worlds. If she was a professor, that meant she was smart as shit. I barely got my GED, and that had been in juvie. Yeah, different worlds.
Then there was Larry. Larry the Loser who sauntered over to stand beside her treadmill. He was a lawyer and thought he was tough shit. Too bad for him he wasn’t and was trying to bag Harper. We couldn’t hear what they said, but I had to hope her reply to his blatant proposition was “back off, asshole.” Why he thought the middle of her run was when to ask her out only proved he was a total douche bag.
“If Larry fucks with her, I want to know about it,” I told Jack, my tone serious.
He nodded. “Yeah, no problem.”
Gray came out of his office to stand beside us, arms crossed over his chest. The doc’s kid stormed past and out the door.
“If you're good here for a minute,” Jack said. “I'll go get the towels out of the dryer.”
Gray offered him a nod, and Jack went into the back.
“Are you okay?” he asked, eyeing me. His dark eyes were shrewd. He wore fighter shorts and a gym t-shirt, flip flops. Since no shoes were allowed on the mats or in the ring, he only wore sneakers for working out. But no one would take him for anything less than a total badass. Yeah, he had tattoos. Yeah, he had the close-cropped hair, the broken nose, the mangled fighter hands. Yet he was known for being a cowboy. Dressing like one with snap shirts and a fucking Stetson. He’d grown up on a ranch in Wyoming. The place was his hell on Earth, and as far as I knew, he’d never gone back after he left for the army. He had his own spread now, closer. His retreat when he needed to check out for a while. Now, he and Emory spent weekends up there, riding horses and most likely fucking. So yeah, Gray was a killer in a cowboy hat. He wasn’t called The Outlaw for nothing.
I felt like a Girl Scout when I stood next to him. Harper must have met him to check out the apartment, sign the lease, and I hadn’t heard she’d freaked out over him. Somehow, it seemed Harper wasn’t afraid of him, only me.
I put my hand up to my jaw, rubbed it. “I've been hit worse. I assume you're not taking him on.” I was the sole full-time fighter he trained right now, but he did private sessions with many. I got paid to do a few as well. The kid would have had to take me out with more than a punch for Gray to replace me.
He only rolled his eyes in response. “Thought you'd have hit the showers by now.”
I lifted my arm and sniffed. “That's what Jack said. Do I smell that bad?”
When he didn't say anything, just took stock of what was going on in the gym, I added, angling my chin toward the treadmills, “I met our new neighbor.”
“Harper? Is that why you’re standing here? Stalking her?”
I laughed, ran my hand over the back of my neck, felt the dried sweat. “I just ran into her a few minutes ago.” I left out the details. The fact that she freaked wasn't something I was going to tell. I could ask him if he knew her issues, but again, I didn’t feel like being a fucking gossip. I never pulled that shit, and I wasn’t starting now. No, she had a problem with me, and I needed to find out what it was. Yeah, I was pretty fucking scary. An asshole, too. But never to her. She just had to stand still long enough for me to prove it to her.
“Emory texted. Dinner at eight at our place. Harper's invited, too.” He leaned in, sniffed. Grinned. “If you don't want to scare her off, I'd shower first.”
Fucker.
Pushing off the counter, I walked out of the gym, knowing I didn't even need to smell bad to do that.
3
HARPER
“Oh, hi,” I stuttered when my neighbor opened the stairwell door. Since he was tugging on a black puffy coat, I’d surprised him. Again.
I frowned, confused. Where were Emory and Gray? This was the door to their apartment.
He quickly stepped back, and I realized he was doing that to give me room, lots of room, so I wouldn’t freak again. He even put his hands out at his sides, palms toward me, to show me he wasn’t going to grab me. Shame filled me, and I felt my cheeks flush hotly.
I’d run longer than anticipated. Thoughts of Cam, what he wanted, the mortifying way I’d panicked about my neighbor hadn’t faded after the usual five miles. I’d wanted to run away from it all, perhaps metaphorically, so I’d kept going, pushing myself until my muscles quivered, sweat poured down my face, my brain finally numb. When I'd finished, Jack, at the gym’s front desk, handed me a note from Gray. An invitation to dinner. Quickly showering, I threw on a pair of jeans, ankle boots and a dark green sweater. My hair was barely dry before I went upstairs.
While the elevator opened to a central hallway on the floor I shared with Reed, it opened directly into the couple’s apartment on the third floor, so only they could make the third-floor button work with their key passes. That meant taking the emergency stairs and knocking, which was perfectly fine with me although my legs screamed at the effort, even only going up one flight.
Reed offered me a small, tentative smile, and damn, he had a dimple. He'd cleaned up since the elevator fiasco. While he still had stubble on his jaw, he'd changed into a long sleeved t-shirt that matched his blue eyes—how had I missed the striking contrast to his dark hair?—and a pair of well-worn jeans. Wearing boots instead of flip flops, he was a half head taller than me. This time, without the all-consuming panic, I could see that while his tattoos were covered, he still gave off the street fighter vibe, yet his gaze was calm. His stance easy going. There was none of that evil lurking there I'd seen in the men who'd attacked me.
“Okay?” he asked, his voice low. Gentle.
From Gray and Emory’s apartment, music was playing, set low. I didn’t smell dinner, and from where I stood, coul
dn’t see the dining room table set for eating. Were we alone?
I couldn’t slink away and hide with embarrassment, no matter how much I wanted to. If I did, he’d probably think I was scared of him. Again. Still. I owed him an apology, so I nodded. Cleared my throat. “Yes, thanks. I promise not to freak out this time.”
He only gave a quick nod as reply. “I should probably introduce myself,” he said. “I’m Reed.”
“Harper.”
He held out his hand, and when he clasped mine, I could feel the rough callouses, the strength. I should feel afraid because I was well aware how easily he could hurt me. Guys like him weren’t in my usual social circle. Gray was the first professional fighter I’d ever met, and I could only imagine what my mother would think of my new landlord—and neighbor. Either way, I wasn't scared of Reed. Not at all. Perhaps it was because we were standing in Emory's doorway or that I'd run seven miles and burned all my fear away. Perhaps it was because I felt something else entirely toward him—all because of the feel of his hand holding mine. It definitely wasn’t fear now that I took a moment to look my fill. I was attracted to him. Every conscious woman would be. I had no doubt he had women flinging themselves at him.
He wasn’t doing anything but looking at me with those intense eyes. Waiting.
“I'm really sorry about earlier,” I told him as he released my hand. Was his eye color ocean blue? Ice. That was it. They were ice blue.
“Gray said I scare people away when I'm ripe with sweat after a workout, but I hadn’t really believed him before.”
God, he was sweet. He was giving me an excuse to push my earlier panic onto him. No, I'd own up to it. Besides, he hadn't smelled bad. If something had been pumping from him, it was pheromones not BO. While I'd been struck by a panic attack, I'd still picked up on how hot he was. And now, my ovaries were jumping for joy just standing in front of this hot bad boy.
