Tap Out

by Michele Mannon

  Caden froze beneath her. Sophie opened her eyes and peered over her shoulder. Sure enough, a man dressed in blue shorts and a blue shirt stood at the hood of the Aston, his gaze toward the sky. His sedan’s flashing blue light in the background. Busted by a Nevada Highway Patrolman.

  Caught like two horny teens. Not good. Not at all. Jeez, she probably looked a wreck. Or worse, like someone who’d just done the dirty in the bucket seat of a James Bond mobile. Her thighs shook, from mortification and from the cramp in her right leg from straddling him. Luckily, her skirt covered them enough for Caden to disengage and readjust himself. He smoothed her skirt over her legs. Then, he pivoted and climbed out of the car with her in his arms.

  The officer was still looking at the sky. No question he knew exactly what had transpired. Sophie had never done anything so rash. So downright dirty. So against her moral code of what was proper, and what wasn’t. This clearly fell into the latter. So mind-blowing she might have considered another round a few miles up the road.

  She glanced up at Caden, expecting a broad smirk. But his lips, still moist from being locked with hers, were pulled into a tight, thin line. So serious. His gaze met hers. So pained, like he’d led her toward a life of crime, or something worse.

  He tensed, then set her on her feet next to him.

  It felt as if dark, ominous clouds rolled overhead, sending chills up her spine. Caden nodded his head, a slight gesture. What was he telling her?

  The officer peered into the car, then gave a low whistle. “This is some set of wheels. Lordy, isn’t this the car from the James Bond flick?”

  “Yep. An Aston Martin DB5,” Caden confirmed, his tone completely devoid of emotion.

  “Yours?” the officer asked, more curious than with any sense of duty. Sophie could tell by the gleam of admiration in his eyes. At least it took his attention off of what had gone down in the Aston—literally.

  “Rental.”

  “Didn’t know you could rent a car like this. Next time, I’ll tell the wife a plain ole Mustang won’t do. Can I see the rental paperwork?”

  “Sure.” Caden retrieved the rental agreement from the glove box and handed it off to the officer. She should have felt reassured by his presence next to her. The officer was being kind, too. But a sense of dread billowed up within her. She couldn’t breathe. Her throat had dried up quicker than a raindrop on a cactus bloom.

  “Who was driving the car?” the officer questioned, as he scanned the documents. “Hard to tell, under the circumstances.”

  Caden spoke up. “I was driving. I’m completely responsible.”

  The officer shook his head. “Out here, it might be a long spell before you see folk. Still, it’s a risky move performing lewd acts in a vehicle on a public road.”

  Lewd? Sophie gave a mental groan. What the hell had she been thinking? If this cop recognized her...She tucked her chin down, hoping for the best but anticipating the worst.

  Caden frowned and shook his head slightly. For a fighter, he seemed to have run out of steam.

  “I can always issue a ticket and court appearance. You don’t seem like bad folk—horny perhaps, getting it on in a bucket seat. Need your driver’s licenses.”

  Before she could explain how she lacked identification, money...morals...Caden tugged his license out of his expensive leather wallet, and handed it to the officer.

  She shot him a questioning look.

  He ignored her.

  The officer whistled and then grinned. “Caden Kelly? You the mixed martial arts fighter? Headed to Tetnus, huh?”

  Caden nodded. Sure the situation was awkward. But he was acting funny—not at all like his sarcastic self. And if any situation ever deserved to be mocked, this was it. Still, Caden seemed to have withdrawn into himself. It gave her the chills.

  “The fellas at the station are big MMA fans. See this?” He showed Caden his knuckles. “This is from messing around in one of the guys’ basement. Mimicking your moves—trying to perform a perfect guillotine. Man, why’d you quit like that?”

  “It’s a long story,” Caden responded. “If you want to know the details, you’ll have to check out Sophie Morelle’s documentary. She’s gotten an exclusive interview with me, and has all the shit.”

  The officer glanced from Caden to her and back to Caden. “Sophie Morelle? Isn’t she that foul-mouthed woman who was thrown off national television because she knocked you out with her camera? That woman looked like she was trouble.”

  Ah, trouble is standing right in front of you. Yep, she could tell he was a big fan.

  Caden grunted.

  “Okay, Caden. I’m going to let you and your female friend off with a verbal warning. Your loose cannon of a brother would have my head if I issued you a ticket.”

  Sophie wanted to laugh. That was it, a warning? Caden’s fame—and his brother, a cop out here in Nevada? Go figure!—had come to the rescue. She was glad the officer hadn’t connected the dots and recognized her. The infamous Sophie Morelle would have warranted a naughty reporter caught-with-her-skirt-up ticket and a court subsequent court appearance.

  She shifted in her heels. Close call. If the boys at her former network—or God forbid, the public—heard what she’d been doing...

  Maybe that’s what the dark, invisible cloud of doom was all about?

  As the officer scribbled out the warning, he added, “I’m not writing down the details because I’m a big fan of yours, and want to see you win Tetnus.”

  The silent man next to her nodded.

  The officer continued, “Next time you decide to get it on in the sweetest ride to hit this neck of the desert, make sure you don’t get caught. Heck, man, didn’t you see my lights a mile away? Not like there’s anything else to look at out here.”

  “Next time, we’ll be more careful, officer.”

  Sophie glared at Caden. Great, his humor had been restored.

  The officer shot Caden a grin. Subtle male, non-verbal communication—which is to say it was anything but subtle. A silent high-five, acknowledging how he didn’t see anything wrong with a bit of kinky fun out in the Nevada sunshine.

  “Think I can get an autograph?”

  Caden shook his head and held out his hand as the officer handed him a scrap of paper he’d dug out of his pocket.

  A welcome breeze kicked up. Even in the higher elevations, the sun was relentless.

  The bit of paper caught the breeze, sailed through the air, and landed a few feet away. The good-natured officer chased after it.

  He bent, stooped over, and paused. “Um, Caden. You’ve got a flat over here.”

  “Shit,” Caden muttered. Something in the tone of his voice caused a tiny shiver to roll up her spine.

  “Pop the trunk and I’ll give you a hand,” the officer continued.

  Caden didn’t budge. “You know my brother Bracken’s deal, right?”

  The officer frowned, his gaze running from Caden to the trunk. “The best undercover narcotics agent we’ve got. Shame how I.A.’s been giving him such flack for not following protocol. What’s going on, Caden?”

  Surely the Aston Martin had a functioning spare tire? Yet, the man next to her was as tense as he’d been earlier, when he’d revealed more than he’d intended about his heartbreaking past.

  When she’d realized just how much she’d fallen for him.

  Sophie Morelle involved with a mixed martial arts fighter and former Ultimate American Male model. A man who took her breath away with one bat of his eyelashes.

  Dang-diggity, she was in love with him.

  “Let her call a cab, okay? You know how it is, with ladies looking for a quick celebrity ride. I picked her up in Phoenix, her bags are in the back seat. I rented the car, I was driving, I’m responsible for everything,” Caden told the officer, his voice lo
w but clear.

  She gasped, but no sound escaped from her tightening throat. Like someone had kicked her in the stomach, then squeezed her esophagus so she couldn’t cry out.

  The last time she’d felt like this, the good citizens of Hawley were pressuring her not to testify.

  That’s what Caden had just done, pulled a Hawley on her. The...traitor! A groupie? An insignificant fuck out here in the desert?

  “I know you’re doing your job. But, in a few seconds, I want your promise that you’ll call my brother. He’ll confirm everything,” she heard him say, his tone hoarse and deadly serious.

  At the officer’s nod, Caden headed around to driver’s side, opened the door, and reached in and popped the trunk, the angry noise of the metal lock filling the air.

  “Don’t stand there. Call a cab. Have them take you to Vegas,” he told her in an unemotional voice.

  “A cab?” she whispered. She felt lightheaded, a sudden case of heatstroke but worse. Her heart was breaking. She hadn’t seen it coming—any of it.

  The officer shuffled forward and ducked his head into the trunk. Through the dead silence, she heard the sound of a zipper being unfastened.

  Caden quietly moved closer to him, stretched his arms out in front of him, and crossed one wrist over the other.

  “Darn gone it!” the officer exclaimed. “Bracken’s bent the rules before, but this beats all. First thing we’re gonna do on the way to the precinct is call him in. If I find out you’re a doper or dealer...”

  “She’s good to go, right?”

  The officer nodded. “But I’m warning you, you’re gonna be fighting a whole different battle in jail.”

  Sophie felt her legs carrying her forward. She looked into the trunk, and gasped. Clear bags of unfamiliar green pills overflowed from an oversized duffel. Her gaze faltered as she spotted several plastic syringes sticking out of the bag as well.

  “I take full responsibility. She had no knowledge of this. She’s just a groupie, that’s all.”

  No knowledge. No knowledge. The words echoed off the hot asphalt and burned into her head. No knowledge of what? Drugs? In the trunk of the Aston? Oh. My. God.

  The two men moved toward the police car. Sophie was frozen in place. The duffel bag looked familiar, like the bags Jaysin Bouvine...

  “For fuck’s sake, Sophie. Call. A. Cab,” she heard Caden shout, his voice sounding so far away, already.

  The patrolman pulled out his cell phone, and handed it to her. She looked down at it dumbly. Listening to the officer address Caden. Listening to him addressed the playboy who’d just made love to her, who then chalked it up to a meaningless fuck. A man who had drugs stashed in the back of his Aston rental. A man she thought she’d fallen fall, and ended up flat on her face.

  The patrolman’s words sounded like a raging wave just at the point when it crests. “Caden Kelly, you better not be lying. Or I promise you’ll be placed under arrest for possession of illegal, performance-enhancing drugs quicker than this sweet car can burn rubber.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  CUT MAN: The person in a fight most likely to break your heart

  Three different drug tests, two nights in a jail on the outskirts of Las Vegas, and one wild story fabricated with his brother’s help, and Caden was released without facing a single charge.

  Caden had woven the first part of his story exactly as it had happened. How he found the bag of pills in the trunk. How he thought about dumping them or turning them in to local police, but had instead called the only cop he trusted—his brother.

  Bracken had assumed complete responsibility by giving the excuse that his baby brother was doing him a favor by transporting evidence in the form of the duffel bag stuffed with steroids to him. He’d had covered for him just like he’d always done.

  Though Caden didn’t doubt for a second that Bracken would have to answer for his lie. Fuck, if he’d only picked up the goddamn phone, returned his calls, Caden would have made sure he hadn’t been kept in the dark.

  Or “fucking blindsided,” as Bracken had quietly, but emphatically, put it.

  The fact that his brother was a credible Nevada DPS narcotics detective helped. And, in typical Bracken style, he’d turned the whole situation around to one that was mutually beneficial. Caden’s brother saw this as a way into the underbelly of ultimate fighting, where rumor had it that illicit drugs—stuff worse than steroids, even—were being sold like hard candy. Headquarters had been pestering him to make a bust, and fast. Had him deep undercover for good part of the year. For the most part, they ignored his wild card ways because he produced results.

  Until Internal Affairs pulled rank, threatening to pull him from his assignment and tie him to a desk job while they’d reviewed his too-numerous-to-count Code of Conduct violations. “Fuck-all politics. A slap on the hand for breaking the rules,” he’d informed Caden. Bracken at a desk job was like putting a bull in a flower shop.

  Man, if Internal Affairs caught wind of how far Bracken had just bent the rules on his behalf...

  “Shit, wish I’d taken your calls. Couldn’t.” A stream of muttered curses followed, as his brother finished signing some paperwork.

  Caden rolled his eyes. Bracken’s curses were his hugs. He didn’t know how to be soft. Soft wasn’t a word in the Kelly brothers’ vocabulary. Soft was the equivalent of death. And, if there had ever been any softness, it had vanished when the news came that Mikey had been killed in action. Caden would take Bracken’s kind of mothering any day.

  “Goddamn paperwork.”

  He grinned. Every officer in the precinct was probably thankful his brother was still on the streets and not one cubicle over. His brother’s hard ballbusting ways were notorious. No wonder his sergeant had been so easily convinced of this plan.

  Opportunity had come knocking with the appearance of the duffel bag. Bracken was headed to Tetnus with him, posing as a biker interested in becoming a fighter. Ironic, because if anyone could knock him around, it was Bracken. Caden would save him some time by providing him easy access to the behind-the-scenes shit—the locker room, the sparring facilities set up for practices, and anywhere else he’d need to infiltrate. With any luck, he’d make the biggest drug bust to hit Vegas in years.

  The assholes involved with ruining his sport were going to have to deal with Bracken’s kind of justice.

  Bottom line—Caden had inadvertently provided the narcotics division with a lead in toward a bigger bust. Bracken was raring to go. And Caden was still in line to fight.

  He studied his brother while he finished the last of the paperwork.

  Although the same height, Bracken had at least forty pounds on him. All muscle, even his neck was thick, the size of a small man’s leg. He was darker, with jet black hair that hung ragged about his face. A matching beard gave him a wild, sinister look. And his demeanor was more somber than the T-shirt and jeans he wore in spite of the sweltering heat.

  “We’re gonna have a long fucking talk on the way into Vegas, bro.” Bracken ground out, interrupting his thoughts. “Shit, good thing Serge has a hard-on for having his crew be the ones to beat the Feds in making a major drug bust. That, or he’s so fed up with my shit, he’d do practically anything to get me off his back, and miles away from here.”

  Caden snorted, knowing the truth was probably a bit of both. “So? Let’s bolt. How many forms do you have to fill out when nothing has really happened yet, besides me showing up with the duffel bag?”

  Bracken stood and grabbed the stack from his desk. “One too many. Follow me.”

  After a quick stop at the front desk, where Bracken tossed the pile of papers onto the chair, they headed out into the blistering midafternoon heat.

  A new day. A new start. With no one the wiser, not even the press.

  Except for the people who
really mattered. Except, the one person who mattered the most.

  Sophie.

  Caden grimaced. She hadn’t said a word to the media. No on-air appearances recounting what went down. No public statement to the press. No private calls. Nothing. He hadn’t heard a peep from her.

  Calling her a groupie after what had gone down...shit. He’d humiliated her in front of a state trooper. He was lucky his mug wasn’t plastered on every news channel from Vegas to New York.

  What did he expect?

  He wasn’t sure anymore. There was something about her that just did it for him. Big time. Unlike any other woman, she was the whole package.

  So much time had been wasted. Tetnus wasn’t about the money. It was about him, and his fucking neurosis. Winning the championship bout was his way of moving on. Proving to himself, once and for all, that the fucked-up kid who’d been abused and passed on from family to family was in the best shape of his life. Mentally and physically.

  He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the image of Sophie’s shining eyes, bright with laughter from their word play. He got such a kick out of her—being with her, leaving her those videos...was she watching them now, wondering if it was all a lie?

  Wants and needs, sometimes they’re not the same beast, he reminded himself. A future with Sophie just wasn’t gonna happen.

  His future was fighting. Fortunately for him, Tetnus was still on.

  “First it’s baseball. Then, basketball. And now MMA. What are athletes saying, that hard work doesn’t count? Pop a pill so an unnatural Superman-like strength will win you the titles and glory? Everyone’s looking for a shortcut. I’m going to end up watching golf, or something, if this keeps up,” Bracken grumbled, as they headed back to the precinct parking lot.

  Though a huge fan of golf himself, Caden didn’t disagree. It pissed him off that the playing ground wasn’t level, and that guys put all sorts of shit into their bodies. The exact opposite of sportsmanlike conduct. But less obvious, more devious. It all boiled down to winning, no matter what the consequences. Great message for today’s youth.