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A couple of scrapes were one thing. A pair of busted lips, messed up eyes and a full complement of cuts and bruises probably qualified as over the top. With a little more makeup I could’ve covered up most of it, but naturally I’d been low on concealer too. Lately my luck ranked solidly around zero, with occasional detours into negative territory.
Blowing out a breath, I brought my gloveless fingers to my mouth. My knuckles were screaming so I probably couldn’t have pulled taps all afternoon anyway. See, I could find a positive side. This wasn’t a complete crisis. I could find another job like Vinnie’s in the neighborhood. I’d just have to put more effort into my appearance. Most of the females who worked in these joints caked it on and I could too. The lack of preplanning wasn’t ideal, but I’d dealt with much worse.
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I was more worried about Friday’s fight. That afternoon’s sparring session had left me more banged up than I’d anticipated. I had a few days to rest up—well, around my training schedule anyway—so I’d handle it. Even though the locker room tricks had worked my last nerve, I’d grown adept at swerving around roadblocks.
Okay, so maybe adept was an overstatement. At least I was used to them.
But coming face to face with Fox, the man I intended to convince to fight me next month, had thrown me for a loop. Or ten. Fox trained at The Cage, the roughest, rowdiest gym in all of Brooklyn. They had top of the line equipment and physical therapists on site, along with classes in most of the martial arts. The Cage hid its ties to the underground MMA community, though anyone with two-fifths of a brain could figure out they were connected. Even so, people in this neighborhood took care of their own, and they didn’t want their weekend entertainment to get closed down.
Not while blond, blue-eyed, clean cut Fox kept whaling on guys twice his size and winning.
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sp; Those fighters didn’t have to bribe guys to watch their bouts by promising them they’d get to see big tits, long nails, and maybe some blood too, if they were lucky. But women fighters didn’t work out at The Cage, though, technically, the gym catered to both sexes. To say the environment was somewhat hostile to the so-called fairer sex was an understatement.
Considering women weren’t encouraged to train on the premises to fight each other, they sure as hell wouldn’t be encouraged to fight a man. Especially the one everyone wanted to take a nice juicy bite out of lately.
Fox was good, no doubt about it. I’d been studying tape of him long enough to know. I was just better. Faster, leaner. And I wanted it more. No, needed it. The urgency burned on my tongue, saltier than any mouthful of blood.
The money I could win from a fight with Fox would get Carly and me out of New York. We’d find a safe place, somewhere I’d never have to use my hands or mouth to pay for our future again. Carly could go to college and be part of the same kind of small town we’d grown up in. Not exactly the same, but close enough.
When we’d tucked ourselves away in Happyville, I’d put my online design classes to good use. Maybe I’d even change my identity entirely, so I could finally stop living in fear that someone would recognize me and figure out why I’m running.
Footsteps approached behind me, too heavy and too close. I whirled, lifting my fists. The snarl that left my lips at the sight of the guy who’d owned my thoughts for months wasn’t planned, but I liked the way it stopped him in his expensive boots. My lip curled at the sturdy designer footwear keeping his toes dry and warm while my own feet were freezing and almost numb in holey tennis sneakers.
“You looking for Armani? If so, you’re out of range. Manhattan’s behind you.”
Fox smirked, his obvious surprise fading into amusement. He’d been blessed with a face made to smile. Seductive lips, high cheekbones, and blue eyes that edged closer to aqua added up to a hell of a shock when someone stepped into the ring. With his patrician features and white-blond hair, he didn’t look like a fighter. More like a model. Or maybe a yachtsman, who sat on the bow of his ship with a cigar in his mouth and sneered.
He was exceptionally good at the whole sneering thing.
“Thanks for the directions. Actually, I was looking for you.”
I gave myself a moment to collect my thoughts. They scattered like the fluffy snow under his feet as he came closer and got right up in my personal space. “That so?”
“Yep.” His hands were tucked in the pockets of his leather jacket, but his fingers poked against the weathered material. He was probably fisting those hamhock-sized paws of his. I had the same habit, when my knuckles weren’t so sore I could barely move my fingers. “How do you know the name Fox?”
Despite how he towered over me, I craned my neck to meet his gaze. I never missed a chance to assess an opponent’s expression. Just because we were on a city street instead of inside a cage didn’t mean we weren’t adversaries.
“Why, you’re famous ’round here.” I let the hint of Southern creep into my voice intentionally, to throw him off. Other than the slight enlargement of his pupils, he didn’t react. Since it was almost dusk, even that might’ve been a trick of the light. “Aren’t you?”
The smirk returned, and this time he added a tilt of his head. If he was trying to figure me out, I wasn’t about to make it easy for him. “Statement or question. Can’t you make up your mind?”
His lazy drawl rankled. He didn’t normally speak so slow and easy. Usually he didn’t speak much at all. I’d been to his fights a few times, usually staying in the back and out of sight, and he wasn’t one of the trash talkers. He employed a good stare—with those deceptively light eyes, he had to put a lot of power behind it—and that sneer, but that was it. His moves did the talking.
The world tilted and for a moment, he appeared above me, his strong arms braced beside my shoulders. His curled lips hovered dangerously near mine. Close enough to kiss. And bite.
God, I didn’t want that picture in my brain. In fact, I immediately pictured my own bloodied face from less than an hour ago to scrub it out. But the image remained, in such sharp relief that I blinked at the realization we were still standing on the sidewalk while snow streaked from the slate gray sky.
“Cat got your tongue?”
Twice in one day now I’d been teased about my silence. It made me want to scream to show them they were wrong. I had plenty to say. Too much. The ironic part was that I had so many words in my head I didn’t have enough voice to get them all out.
I turned my back on him and started to walk. Not only was I freezing from standing in one place in my thin coat and thinner sneakers, I also didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t ready to mention the fight yet. I wanted to pick my moment. Maybe if I left now, he would’ve forgotten me altogether when I approached him in a few weeks .
If I got really lucky, perhaps my face would even be intact for the meeting.
