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Get yourself together, Dawn!
“Are you a personal trainer or something?” I ask, but don’t wait for him to respond before firing off another question. “Are you only able to work out at night because of your work? What do you do?”
“This and that,” he says turning around and heading for his kitchen.
“Hey, that’s not an answer,” I argue, following behind him, all my reservations about being in his space forgotten. “Wait, you aren’t a criminal or something, are you?”
He snorts as he grabs a bottle of water and chugs half of it. He offers me one, but I shake my head, too invested in this mysterious man’s life. “I’m not criminal, kitten. I’m just training for a fight.”
My eyes widen to saucers. “What kind of a fight? Don’t tell me . . .”
“What?”
“Don’t tell me you take part in those illegal cage fights too,” I whisper eagerly, excitement rocking my chest. I’m not supposed to know about the underground fight club, but recently, my friend from school, Mila, and I reconnected, and she told me everything that’s been going on in her life lately—everything from her money-hungry stepfather to her retired MMA fighter boyfriend, who was forced to fight for her at a club run by the mob in an old factory. It’s like a whole other world I never knew existed.
“How do you know about the cage fights?” my sexy neighbor asks, and my eyes shoot up to meet his. Sweet Jesus, he’s awfully close to me. I didn’t hear him move.
“Nothing,” I say quickly. Mila swore me to secrecy, and I won’t sell her out to this stranger whose name I am yet to learn. He could be a cop for all I know.
Damnit, now I can’t help but imagine him in a uniform carrying a gun and handcuffs.
Would I let him arrest me? Pin me against the wall and read me my rights as he thrust his hips against my ass? Perhaps he could search me with his large, calloused hands, make me strip down for him just to make sure I don’t have anything on me.
“Why are you breathing so hard, kitten?”
“Am I?” I choke out, my heart hammering as he draws closer to me, backing me up against the kitchen counter. “I . . . it’s just cold . . . I mean, warm . . .”
“Which one is it?” he rasps deeply.
“Hot,” I gasp, my eyes moving to his mouth, and I swallow hard. His lips are firm and just like the rest of him, carved to perfection.
“Is it?” he asks, taking the last step that brings his mouth so close to mine, I can practically feel his breath brush against my skin, and it makes my core clench with need. I long for him to draw me into his arms and take my first kiss, but he remains stoic, staring down at me with his perfect green eyes.
Say something, Dawn! Anything to break this tension.
“Your name,” I whisper. “I don’t even know your name.”
“You can call me Rocky.”
Christ, why does his voice have to be so throaty and deep? All it does is make me want to lean in and kiss him, but that would be wrong.
I can’t kiss my neighbor. I just met him! There has to be an unwritten universal rule that forbids neighbors from kissing the first time they meet. or at all. Even I know that once I make that move, then there is no coming back from it.
After all those times we passed in the lobby, how I’d hidden when I saw him coming so I wouldn’t embarrass myself . . . kissing him sounds like the best damn idea in the world.
I bet he kisses with the same confidence he seems to do everything else.
“Is Rocky really your name?” I ask, my gaze dropping back to his sensual mouth.
“It’s Rockwell, but no one calls me that anymore. I became Rocky the second I started boxing before switching to MMA professionally.”
Oh, he’s a professional fighter. That makes so much sense. I can see it in his body and in the way he carries himself. Beneath the cockiness, this man moves with a power and grace that’s unlike anything I’ve seen before, and a part of me wants to bask in that.
This is a bad idea, I remind myself for the umpteenth time, but when I feel the soft caress of his fingertips drag up my leg, I forget everything. His green eyes stay locked on mine, wiping all sensible thoughts from my brain even as he trails his hand further up my bare leg to the edge of my shorts.
“Do you have any more questions for me, kitten?” he rasps, his hot breath fanning over my skin, sending a tremble through my body.
“I . . .” My brain is shot, and for the life of me, can’t conjure a single coherent thought that doesn’t revolve around this man and the way he makes me feel.
