Knockout

by J.C. Valentine

  “Didn’t I say they were hot?” Spence waggled his eyebrows. “Come on. Let’s go introduce ourselves before some moron snaps them up.”

  Only if they have a death wish. Finishing off the rest of his beer, Jami grabbed four more, passed two to Spence, and went in for the kill. As he wove his way through the crowd, his focus was glued to his target. If Spence’s knack for remembering names was to be trusted, Ally was one incredibly hot female. She was dressed like most of the women there: short, slutty dress, shoes with heels high enough to add several inches to what was normally a pretty petite frame. And pretty she was, in that classic Joey from Dawson’s Creek kind of way.

  This wasn’t your typical lay ‘em and leave ‘em girl. There was something different about her, and when he came within a few feet of her, and she turned her head, catching him in her sights, he knew instantly what that something was. There was intelligence in her pale green eyes.

  “Ladies, you made it,” Spencer said, laying on the charm as he handed off a drink to the one he assumed was named Liv. He went in for a hug, placing a kiss to her cheek and eliciting a high-pitched, not entirely manufactured, giggle.

  Only half of Jami’s brain was paying attention to what was going down around him. The other half was entirely preoccupied with what was happening right in front of him. Locked in a staring contest that had his heart palpitating in his chest, Jami knew he needed to say something, but his tongue felt swollen in his mouth.

  Watching him watch her, Ally bit down on her bottom lip, and when she released it, Jami’s eyes zeroed in on the glint of moisture left behind. He wanted to run his tongue over that lip and see if it tasted half as good as it looked. Gracing him with a soft smile, she extended her hand. “Is that for me?”

  It took a moment for his brain to reboot and the meaning of what she had just said to make sense. He looked down, seeing the sweaty bottles clenched in his hand. “Shit, sorry,” he said, handing her one.

  “Thanks.” He watched, rapt, as she brought the bottle to her pink, glossy lips and took a long pull. Both of her eyebrows shot up at the first taste and she licked her lips, smiling. “Interesting flavor.”

  By the way she said it, Jami knew she didn’t mean interesting in a good way. “We have other sh—er stuff to drink if you’re not feeling that one,” he said, censoring himself. He reached out and took the bottle from her, his fingers brushing over hers. An instant bolt of heat shot up his arm and made a beeline for his groin. Interesting. Tilting his head he said, “Follow me.”

  Ally passed a meaningful look to her friend and brushed by him. Jami turned to follow, but not before he caught Spence’s curious look. Guiding her up to the bar, Jami rattled off the list of beverages on hand, making sure to point out some of the more fruity drinks he knew girls tended to go for. But this one surprised him when she said, “I think I’ll just have another beer, but none of the flavored kind,” she rushed to say.

  “Not a fan?” Jami asked, twisting off the cap of an ordinary bottle of lager. He passed it off to her, paying mind not to let their fingers touch this time.

  She rolled the bottle between her palms, looking thoughtful. “The flavors are artificial. I like the real deal. It’s criminal to tamper with perfection.”

  “Criminal?” He chuckled. “Well, I hope the police don’t raid the place because there’s an awful lot of criminal activity going down right now.” And he wasn’t only referring to the choices of alcohol. Half of the people here had come in high and only seemed to be getting higher as the night wore on. That’s the way these things went, though. He supplied the drinks and the music, while they supplied everything else.

  Ally seemed to understand his meaning, her eyes scanning the room and everyone in it. She took a sip of her beer, and Jami watched, too mesmerized by the movement of small muscles moving in her neck as she swallowed to look away. Sensing him staring at her, she glanced up and smiled shyly.

  Jami blinked. Shaking himself out of his mental stupor, he reached past her to grab himself another beer. Their chests brushed together, and Jami heard her soft gasp. He resisted his smile, because that was the second time they had made contact and the second time he’d felt the shock of it radiate throughout his body. Who the hell was this girl? He was used to inflicting those types of responses on women, but never experiencing them himself. He gave himself a mental shake, reminded that she was only here for a good time, just like everyone else. She would be out the door by morning.

  “We weren’t officially introduced. Spencer said your name was Ally?”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly, and her lips twitched. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  Jami grinned, though he wasn’t sure why. It felt like he was missing something, but what? “Should I?” Had he met this girl before? Had they slept together? He racked his brain, mentally flipping through each hotel room in every city they had passed through over the past two years. As he looked into green eyes the color of milky jade—light, nearly pale, with darker flecks of green around the pupil—Jami felt a niggling of something familiar about her, but he couldn’t place it. His senses went on high alert.

  Setting her drink down, Ally took the two steps to close the distance between them. Chest to chest, Jami felt his heartbeat quicken, and when she rested her hands against his biceps, the heat from her touch scorched him. Looking up at him through a row of thick, dark lashes, Ally’s eyes searched his. “Remember when we were kids? We used to be neighbors, and you used to crawl through my bedroom window at night.”

  Jami’s eyes widened, and he sucked in a startled breath. No fucking way. “Little Ally Blake?”

  Drawing her bottom lip between her teeth, Ally bit down—a nervous habit he now recognized—before pushing it back out. “I’m not so little anymore.”

  ***

  How could he have forgotten her, even for a minute, when she had never been able to forget him? Alyson had to remind herself that they hadn’t seen each other in years; otherwise, she knew her feelings would be in danger of being hurt. Instead, she forged on, reminding him that they weren’t as much strangers, but old friends. Confidants. The only difference between then and now was that she was a grown woman, and Jami was all man. She liked what she saw, and even better, she could tell from the way he watched her, his dark eyes firing with wicked intent, that he felt the same.

  Unwilling to give him the space she could tell he needed, Alyson kept her hands wrapped firmly around his biceps, their fronts touching from chest to thigh, and watched as he tipped his head back and polished off his drink in a few deep gulps. Even looking a little pale, he was still the most gorgeous boy she had ever laid eyes on.

  “I need another drink,” he muttered, stepping back and severing contact. But he didn’t go far.

  Alyson turned in the direction he did, intent on getting more time with him before he skittered off. “Jami,” she said softly. Wrapping the hem of his shirt around the top of another beer, he twisted, but the cap didn’t budge. His face turned red as he tried again, seemingly flustered. Reaching out, she took the bottle from him and used the bottle opener sitting on the counter to pop the cap off, and took a small sip before handing it back with an amused wink.

  “Thanks,” he said warily, then looked anywhere that she wasn’t.

  “Welcome.” Turning her back to the bar top, Alyson leaned against the polished edge and focused all of her attention on him. Not wanting to scare him away, she searched for something easy, something light to say that would—hopefully—engage him long enough to get him to let his guard down. “I didn’t know you were into boxing,” she said, deliberately using the wrong term.

  Jami’s gaze darted back to her. His voice stiff he said, “It’s called MMA, not boxing.”

  Alyson had to focus to restrain the smile that threatened to reveal itself. Men were too easy sometimes. “Oh, well, what’s the difference?” she asked, playing coy.

  He sighed, as though he’d had this conversation many times before, and considering all
the plastic, bleached, and perfectly coifed women in attendance, he probably had. The IQ level in the room was so low she’d have to dig to find it. “Boxing is all about punching and footwork. It focuses more on offensive and defensive strategies,” he explained.

  “Ah,” Alyson nodded. “Kind of like Ali’s float like a butterfly, sting like a bee speech?”

  “Something like that,” Jami said with a crooked smile, looking directly at her now. All these years later, and he was still as charming and mesmerizing as she remembered. “MMA combines all of that with martial arts.”

  Alyson grabbed onto his words and ran with them. “I think I remember the announcer guy mentioning something about you doing judo?”

  Jami’s head moved side to side. “Jiu-jitsu, and yeah, it’s where the focus of my training lies.

  “Well, for what it’s worth, I think it’s paying off. I swear, when you had that guy in a chokehold, for a minute there, I seriously thought you might pop his head off his shoulders.”

  Jami’s smirk nearly sent her to her knees. She wondered what he would think if he realized that not only had she had a major crush on him when they were kids, but it was blazing hotter than ever now that they were adults. “Yeah,” he said, tilting his head down and scrubbing a thumb across the hint of scruff on his chin. “Danny’s pretty good at what he does, which is why he’s the champion, but when it comes to the mat, I’m better.”

  “Clearly.” She leaned in, whispering conspiratorially, “I don’t know if you know this, but he’s not the champion anymore. You are.”

  A grin split across his face. “What do you say we take our drinks and go find some place private so we can catch up?”

  FOUR

  After checking in with Olivia to make sure she could handle being on her own for a while, Alyson followed Jami back to his bedroom, away from the party. Opening the door, he stepped aside, sweeping his hand out in a grand gesture for her to go first.

  Alyson passed by him and shot him a thankful smile. “I see you’re still every bit the gentleman I remember.”

  Booting the door shut, Jami crossed the room to open a set of double glass doors leading out to a thin balcony. Cool air drifted in after him, bringing with it the classic smoky scents and sharp sounds of city life. “There are some who’d beg to differ.”

  Alyson made a slow perusal of the room, trailing her finger over the top of a small corner desk piled high with empty food cartons and various items he’d accumulated since his arrival. She spotted a shiny silver watch poking out from beneath a stack of papers and picked it up. “Would those people happen to be women,” she inquired, turning the watch over in her palm. It was a skeleton watch, made to look old fashioned, but was around the same age as her and Jami.

  She felt Jami come to a stand behind her. Reaching over her shoulder, Alyson suppressed a shiver when the underside of his arm skimmed her exposed skin. Taking the watch from her hand, Jami studied its crystal face with an intensity that brought back more than a few memories for Alyson and not all of them good. “It belonged to my father,” he said, his voice a deep rumble.

  Pivoting to face him, Alyson joined him in looking at the tiny piece of their joined history. “I remember.” She swallowed, and then asked the first question that popped into her head. “How is your dad?”

  A dark emotion flickered in his eyes and a muscle jumped in his jaw, while Alyson waited patiently for his answer. “He died in prison last year.”

  Shock registered first, and Alyson’s arms shot out before she could stop them, wrapping around his thick shoulders and clutching him close to her. “Oh, Jami, I’m so sorry,” she breathed, pain for him creating an ache deep in her belly. “How did it happen?”

  Jami, standing rigid in her arms, grunted. “He was killed by another inmate, but it doesn’t even matter,” he rasped, grasping her upper arms and gently but firmly pushing her off him. He spun around and strode to the open door, peering out into the night. “He was a piece of shit criminal. As far as I’m concerned, he got what was coming to him.”

  Alyson stood there, staring at his back, at a loss for what to do. Her instinct was to fall back on habit and go to him to offer comfort, but she could tell by Jami’s reaction that he wouldn’t be open to it. He was shutting down on her. Shutting her out. Sinking her teeth into her bottom lip, she made a slow approach, choosing her next words carefully. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Refusing to look at her, Jami’s gruff response was, “No, there’s nothing to talk about.”

  A note of guilt assailed her. This wasn’t how she’d expected their time together to go. When Jami invited her to his room to talk, she thought they might spend some time catching up with everything that had happened in their lives over the past few years. She thought that with a little luck, he might even let her into his world enough that they could rekindle the bond they used to share, pick up where they left off, and with a lot of luck, maybe something more. Now she felt as though she might have screwed it up before they even had a chance to get started.

  The subtle breeze kicked up a notch, fanning its cool fingers over her flesh. Nestled on the eastern face of the hotel, on one of its topmost floors, Alyson took a moment to collect her thoughts and appreciate the view. City lights twinkled below, the distant sound of cars honking and the steady whir of traffic creating a soothing backdrop to the tension she felt building in her muscles. Leaning against the doorjamb, Alyson looked out across the night sky.

  “I bet the sunsets up here are amazing,” she said dreamily, staring up at the blanket of darkness overhead.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Jami murmured, “but the sunrises are killer.”

  “Still have trouble sleeping?” she asked, glancing up at him.

  Their gazes caught, and Jami slowly nodded his head, a deeper understanding passing between them. And just like that, it felt like they had fallen back into a familiar pattern. A comfortable silence settled over them as they stood together, side by side, soaking in the serenity of a moment spent with someone who understood them on a deeper level than anyone else would ever dare to dig.

  The thing was, Alyson knew a lot about Jami, and Jami knew everything about her—secrets and shames that neither one of them would ever trust to another soul. That kind of trust wasn’t dealt lightly, and as a result, Alyson had always looked upon Jami in a light that no one else could ever see him in. Looking at him now—tall, dark, and deadly as he was—he was even more than she ever imagined him being. She was blown away by him, by his confidence, his charm, his drive, and determination. To her, he had always been an incredible person, but now he was simply amazing.

  “So, five years,” he mused, breaking into her thoughts. “What happened after I left?”

  He didn’t need to clarify for Alyson to understand his meaning. Five years had passed since the night Jami was arrested—the night that things had jettisoned past bad and straight into nightmare territory. Sparked by his question, flickers of memories that she had worked so hard to bury played across her vision. Shouting. Crying. Sirens and flashing lights. Blood. So much blood. Head swimming, she reached behind her and gripped the door to keep her knees from buckling.

  “Ally? Hey, are you okay?” Jami’s concerned voice barely registered.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, Alyson attempted to banish the unwanted memories with a trick her therapist had taught her. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Focus on bringing your heart rate down. You’re safe now. He can’t hurt you anymore. Opening her eyes, Alyson found Jami standing directly in front of her, his big hands cradling her face as he watched her, his own face a mask of concern. “I’m okay,” she assured him.

  “Are you sure? You were breathing funny, and for a minute there, I thought you were going to faint.”

  “I’m sure,” she promised, then turned her head to kiss the center of his palm. The tenderness with which she kissed him was automatic, but Jami’s reaction spoke for itself.

  Jami’s eyes turned molten, and with a h
iss, he dropped his hands and backed away. Several minutes passed in which all they did was stand there, watching each other, guessing at what was going on inside one another’s head. Jami was the first to reveal his thoughts. “You were thinking about what happened that night,” he stated.

  Alyson tipped her head. Despite all of her efforts, no amount of therapy was able to completely rid her of that night. With even the slightest provocation, it could be called up in a snap, and other times, when she was sure it was coming, nothing would happen. How did people prepare themselves when they couldn’t predict the trigger? The answer was simple: they couldn’t. That’s why attending the fight that evening had been so nerve-wracking for her. With all the violence happening around her, she kept waiting for the meltdown that never came.

  “Do you want to talk about it,” Jami queried, turning her question back on her.

  Alyson shook her head. This night and this time for conversation had turned heavier than she could have expected, leaving her torn as to whether she should stay, or go.

  She should go. “It’s getting late,” she told him. “I should probably go find Olivia before she gets herself into too much trouble.”

  “Bullshit,” Jami murmured, his voice stern but yielding. He pegged her with a hard stare. “The night is still young, and you just got here. I still want to talk.” When Alyson lifted a skeptical brow, Jami raised his hands. “Nothing too heavy, promise.”

  Taking hold of her hand, Jami walked across the room, forcing her to trail behind him. He sat down on the bed, arranged the pillows, and scooted back until he was settled against the headboard. He looked at her expectantly and patted the space beside him.

  Alyson regarded the spot warily. Should she stay and see where the night led them, or go and put the past behind her once and for all? Her feet made the decision for her. Kicking off her shoes, she climbed onto the bed and crawled over Jami’s extended legs, never more aware of her skimpy clothing than she was in that moment. She didn’t miss the heated look in his eyes, which stirred a little heat of its own in her. Her face burned as she settled in beside him. Attempting to show a little more of her reserved side, she crossed her bare feet at the ankles, tugged the short skirt down another quarter inch, and folded her hands in her lap.