RecklessAttraction Vol. 3

by JJ Knight

  “What!” Joe cries. “What happened to being vegan? The slaughterhouses? The cholesterol?”

  “I am not as tough a man as I thought,” he says, leaning down to kiss her hair.

  “No discipline,” Jo says. “You’re not as tough as I thought.”

  “Okay, vegetarian. But I need some cheese.”

  Jo laughs. “It’s fine. We haven't ordered yet.” She nudges me. “Told you.”

  Chapter 13: Hudson

  The evening with Chloe went better than I thought it would. We had pizza, made fun of Colt for not lasting a week as a vegan, and laughed a lot. We all parted ways a half-hour ago.

  I pass Chloe's door, pausing to listen for sounds. The shower is running. I picture her naked in there and have to force myself to head to my own room. It's been a long day for her. She got stuck in the clothes she’d been wearing since last night.

  I head into my room, two doors down from hers, and lie on my bed. Jo and Colt's bedroom suite, along with the nursery, is downstairs and far from this upstairs section of the house. We can’t hear each other.

  I run through thoughts of last night in the hotel room, and the one the week before. And I have no doubt that I’ll be unable to stay away from Chloe tonight.

  I don't know if she’ll feel the same. I’ll have to judge the situation on the fly.

  I force myself to wait ten minutes, then I jump in the shower myself. It's the second one for me today, but I could use it to cool off and gain some control. My hands sting in the flow of water, and I examine the cuts on my hands from last night. It might be a good thing that I have a couple days off from training. Let them heal a bit before I start punishing them again Monday.

  Hell of a weekend. But when I think about Chloe, it’s completely worth it.

  When I'm out, toweled off, and wearing a pair of loose blue shorts, I head down the hall. Her shower is off. I wait a few more moments, straining my ears to see if I can get an idea of what she's doing. Then I rap lightly on her door.

  “Just a sec!” she calls.

  When she opens the door, I have to take a step back. She’s wearing this barely-there tank top and tiny boy shorts that cover hardly anything.

  She lets out a startled “Oh!”

  “Expecting someone else?” I ask.

  She looks me up and down, and I'm gratified to see the extremely visible nipples beneath her shirt tighten into buds.

  “You knock exactly like your sister,” she says.

  “Do I?”

  “You do. That quiet, ‘am I bothering you’ sort of knock.”

  “Huh.” It's not the first time someone has said Jo and I have similarities, even though we didn’t grow up together.

  She opens the door wider. “I assume you want in?”

  No way to hide my answer in these shorts.

  She glances down and then back up to meet my eyes, her brows raised. “Come on in. It's a nice room.”

  “Jo gave you the best one,” I say. “Note that they did not give it to me.”

  She laughs. “You're just family.”

  Chloe doesn’t sit on the bed, but on a padded bench beneath the window. She seems comfortable there, and I wonder if she spent part of the afternoon in that spot.

  I choose the bed. “I hear Bear loves his Auntie Chloe.”

  “He did, I think. As long as a slobbery gnawing on your arm is a sign of affection.”

  “Bear’s highest honor.”

  Our distance is a clear departure from how we’ve acted all the other times we were alone. I get it, though. She's in my sister's house. And no doubt she's aware that she has not been a popular topic of conversation in the past.

  I don't know how to reassure her.

  “It's a nice house,” Chloe says.

  “If you like mansions,” I say.

  “I don't know why anyone wouldn’t.”

  We fall silent.

  I need to figure out a way to make her comfortable, but I'm not sure how.

  “You were a great back-up this morning,” I tell her. “You circled that guy like you were deciding his rightful end. I was impressed.”

  She brushes her hand along the surface of the padded bench. “I never found myself in a tough situation like that before. It's nice to know that I don't panic.”

  “You’re awesome.” I scoot down to the corner of the bed closest to her. “We were a real team.”

  “You really think they’ll come after me again?” she asks, pushing a long piece of golden hair behind her shoulder. God, she’s killing me.

  I shift again, leaving the bed to sit beside her on the bench. It’s not large, so our thighs touch.

  “They know that my family is involved now. They'll back away and take a more diplomatic approach. I expect there will be some sort of meeting between The Cure and The General soon.”

  “Will I have to be there?”

  “I doubt it.”

  I take one of her hands in mine and run my thumb along the inside of her palm. She shivers, and by now, I know that that is a very good sign.

  “I guess I knew this job would have its rough patches,” she says. “I just never dreamed I would walk into my apartment to find my roommate being held hostage by someone angry about an action that I took at work.”

  “MMA fighting is not corporate America,” I say. “We have our own system of justice.”

  “I see that now.” Her thumb moves along with mine, a dance of light touches.

  It's a good start. The thought of having Chloe so close to me full-time is intoxicating. I’ll get to see her every day. Mornings. Evenings. I’ll be able to look across the breakfast table and see her. It's what I want. I already told Zeba how I felt. But maybe it’s not the right time to say it directly to Chloe.

  When she lifts her chin to me, I lean in and press a kiss on her mouth. Something about this time is different from the others. There's no craziness, no wild collision. It's just the two of us, touching each other like everything is new.

  I slide my hand beneath her shirt and take her breast in my palm. Each time I touch her is like the first time. I’ll never get enough.

  She gasps against my neck. I ease her shorts down and slip my fingers inside her panties. Her little sounds fuel me, and I’m dying to be inside her again.

  There's a tenderness between us tonight. I don't know if it's a closeness coming after a dangerous experience. Or if it's just the time that’s passed, and the way we’ve gotten to know each other more.

  But when we move to the bed, and I take her body as mine, there's more than just physical pleasure coursing through me. I want to protect her, hold onto her, make sure she never comes to any harm. I want her to be happy. I want her to smile. And as important as my career has been, at this moment, it pales in comparison to the future that I see in her.

  Chapter 14: Chloe

  Hudson spends the night in my room, and I have a feeling that this is the way it will be while I stay here. I'm not opposed to it. Having access to him like this is heady and exhilarating. I want to be with him every hour of the day.

  Even though we’re in the home of one of the biggest fighters in MMA, as well as his wife, who was a fighter in her own right, I don’t feel out of place. On Sunday, no one speaks of training or fights or anything that would cause disagreement between us.

  Colt makes pancakes, and Bear runs wild through the house, sometimes without clothes. Jo and Hudson tell me about Hawaii. It's an easy, happy day. But as evening approaches, I enter the kitchen to find Colt and Jo and Hudson huddled over the bar, talking quietly. I pause by the doorway, waiting for them to notice me.

  Hudson looks up first, concern all over his face. Colt and Jo stop talking.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  Hudson heads over and takes my hand. “Every Sunday we have a family dinner at Colt's dad's place.”

  I prickle instantly. “You mean that terrible man who called me a pussy?”

  “That terrible man is Colt's dad,” Hudson says.
r />   “Thankfully Colt doesn't take after him.” I want to stop my angry mouth from saying these words. Colt and Jo have been nothing but nice to me. But his father is another thing entirely.

  “I totally get you,” Jo says. “The first time I met him, he called me a bruised cherry.”

  “Gross,” I say. “I bailed out of the limo.”

  Colt walks up and puts his arm around Jo. “So did my wife. On the highway.”

  Jo smacks his arm. “Just a surface street.”

  “What?” I say. “You jumped from his moving limo?”

  Jo shrugs. “I couldn't take him one more minute.”

  “That’s exactly how I feel.”

  Hudson squeezes my fingers, but I have to check myself from pulling away and storming out. They can’t defend that man to me. He’s horrible.

  “I understand you, totally,” Jo says. “But here’s the thing. I did come around. The Cure is a complex man. He's very protective of his family, and if you’re outside of his circle, you can often find yourself in the crosshairs of his cruel and condescending manner.”

  “I’m quite sure I’m outside his circle,” I say.

  Colt shakes his head. “I wouldn't be so sure. If Pop admires anything, it’s someone who’s strong enough to take him on. And you are totally doing that.”

  “But I'm getting his fighters put in jail,” I say.

  “Yes and no,” Colt says. “You’re busting the illegal fights. It's not the same thing as, let's say, trying to prevent legitimate ticket holders from getting into an actual paid fight. Stepping on The General’s toes will probably get you cred with The Cure.”

  “I did not have any cred with him the first night we met,” I argue. “That would be why he called me a pussy.”

  “She's not wrong,” Hudson says. “He was trying to warn me off her. Said she was trouble.”

  This whole conversation is pointless. I’m not going to be convinced that The Cure is a saint.

  “What is this about, anyway?” I asked. “Were you thinking of dragging me to this family affair tonight?”

  “We were discussing it,” Jo says. “On one hand, like you say, you and The Cure have not seen eye-to-eye yet.” She spots Bear attempting to dash out of the room, picks him up, and traps him on her hip without so much as a pause. “We just think that perhaps the two of you being around each other a little more might make him more conducive to helping you with this problem with The General.”

  Hudson puts his arm around me. “Is he not on board?”

  “That’s apparently up for interpretation,” Colt says. “Hudson here is his next big project. And if Hudson makes it clear that he and Chloe are a package deal, The Cure will have no choice but to come around. Same as he did with me and Jo. Until then, I'm not sure how far he’ll go to resolve this matter with The General.”

  Hudson pulls me closer to him. “Well, we’re together. End of story.”

  Colt gestures toward us both. “Then it sounds like we’re all going to the family dinner.”

  Bear wiggles down from Jo and takes off for the playroom. This time Jo lets him go, and she and Colt follow him.

  I turn to Hudson. “Is this a good idea? Should I refuse to go?”

  “I say let's give it a shot,” Hudson says. “If The Cure is a total jerk to you, we’ll leave.”

  “But you’re his current project,” I say.

  He presses his lips to my forehead. “Then I guess we’re both putting ourselves on the line here.”

  We head upstairs. Apparently there’s something else he needs to tell me, because he has that pinched look on his face that I’ve come to recognize means he has something he doesn't want to say.

  “So what is it?” I ask. “What else?”

  “It's about the dinner,” he says. “They’re really formal.”

  Great. In our rush to get out, I only packed the things I thought I would need for work and hanging out. I didn’t bring anything fancy.

  “Will I think that settles it,” I say. “I don't have anything to wear.”

  Hudson glances at his phone. “Arrival time is roughly two hours. We can run by your place, or see if Jo has something you can wear. Neither of you are very tall.”

  “I don't want to borrow anything from your sister,” I say. Panic threatens. “I don't have an athletic build like her.”

  “Should I take you to your place?” Hudson asks.

  I think for a minute.

  “How formal is formal? Formal as in nice dress? Or formal as in ball gowns and tiaras?”

  He squints his eyes for a second as if he’s trying to picture something. “Jo doesn't dress up that much,” he says. “If you want to follow her lead with shiny pants and a shirt, I'm sure it will be fine.”

  “What about the other women? The ones who aren't the mother of his grandson?”

  “They’re pretty fancy,” he says with a grimace. “Sparkly long dresses.”

  I groan. “I don't have anything like that. Not even a prom dress.”

  This is the worst. I feel completely outclassed. For a dinner I don't even want to attend among people who stand for everything I despise.

  I feel naïve and incompetent and irrelevant.

  I want my dad.

  Jo appears at my bedroom door. “Hey,” she says, “the dress code at these dinners is absurd, but if you want, Eve can have something sent. All the boutiques in town absolutely fall at her feet to do favors.”

  I’m humiliated that she even knows this is my problem. But then, she's the one who said she couldn't afford ramen noodles before she met Colt. She gets it.

  “It's a Sunday,” I say. “Who could make that happen?”

  Hudson and Jo both say at the same time, “Eve.” Then they laugh.

  “Gotta love Eve,” Hudson says.

  Jo backs away. “I'll make the call.”

  And sure enough, not an hour later, the doorbell rings. A woman rolls in a rack of beautiful, incredibly fancy gowns that I could never have hoped to touch, much less wear.

  She pushes the rack into Jo and Colt's bedroom rather than try to get it upstairs. Hudson sits outside the room on a bench while I try things on. The woman helps me. There’s an incredible array of dresses. A form-fitting sparkling, ruby red number. One in shimmery ice blue with a halter top.

  But I really fall in love with a velvety black gown with a square neckline. It’s ankle length with slits up to my knees on both sides. Elegant and classic, it fits like a dream.

  When I come out to show it to Hudson, he agrees. “That's the one,” he says.

  I spin in a poor example of a runway turn and flash a length of leg through one of the slits.

  Hudson grabs at me, but I dash back to the lady to let her know this is my choice.

  “You can leave it on,” she says. She places the red and ice-blue dresses on a hook on the back of Jo's door. The rest she zips back up into the cover on her rack.

  “Aren’t you taking those?” I ask.

  The woman shakes her head. “I was instructed to leave behind anything that you seemed to like.” She rolls the rack out the door.

  Okay then. I guess I have three new dresses. I will have to thank Eve for the gift. I admit to being very curious about the woman who could be married to The Cure. I remember reading about him, and wonder if this is the woman he had the affair with. I seem to recall his first wife had two daughters and the mistress had a son.

  The son is Colt.

  Colt doing MMA is what led us all to where we are tonight.

  I’m really getting in deep now.

  Chapter 15: Hudson

  Chloe's face reveals all the uncomfortable emotions she is feeling as we drive over to The Cure's house. I wish none of us had to go through any of this. But who we are is completely tangled up in what has happened. If she hadn't gone to bust the fights that night, we never would've met. And if she hadn't been determined to bust them a second time, we wouldn't be here now.

  Colt and Jo drive behind us with B
ear. I drove separately to give Chloe a sense of control, so we could leave whenever she wanted. At the front and back of our little caravan are security cars. Whatever’s going on, they feel it’s serious enough to warrant extra men.

  As we approach the family compound, Chloe fidgets with her dress. She looks fantastic. I hope she feels a small measure of confidence in it. She’ll love Eve. Everyone loves Eve. I just hope that Colt's father will play nice tonight. You never can tell with that man.

  When we pull up to a red light, my phone rings. I answer it with the hands-free system.

  “Hudson? It's Colt. We have a problem.”

  “What's going on?”

  “We’re being followed. Looks like the showdown may be tonight.”

  Chloe glances over at me, her eyes wide.

  “I assume it's The General and company?”

  “Yes, it looks like they intend to follow us to Pop's.”

  “Are we going to lead them there?”

  “I haven't gotten hold of Pop yet. We’re to drive slowly and await instructions. That comes from security.”

  I tap the steering wheel. “Do you think they're already in the compound? Is that why your dad isn't answering?”

  “Not sure. I doubt it, though. That place is like Fort Knox.”

  The light turns green, and I move forward. I glance in my rearview mirror, to see if I can spot whatever the security guys are assuming is The General.

  I don't see it right away, but as we make a right turn, a white Cadillac closes in behind our last security car.

  “What are we going to do?” Chloe whispers.

  “Sounds like we may be having a meeting tonight,” I say.

  “Hey, I've got Pop,” Colt says. “I'll report back in a sec.”

  I continue driving toward The Cure's house, following the now much slower lead security car.

  “It feels like I'm in a presidential parade,” Chloe says.

  “I hear ya.”

  “Do you think we’ll still go to his house?”

  “Probably. Security will control who can actually get into the house.”

  “This is crazy,” Chloe says.