Against the Cage (Worth the Fight #1)

by Sidney Halston

  “Come on. Follow me home. I have a spare key,” said Jack.

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. He’s like a brother to me, you know that. He has a spare key to my house too.”

  “Oh, okay. Where do you live?”

  “Same place.”

  “You mean you still live with your folks?” she said incredulously. Her face was full of judgment and pity. That had always been her thing—she was judgmental as hell. He didn’t remember caring so much about her judgments eleven years ago, but he sure as hell cared now. In fact, he was suddenly angry, and he wasn’t even sure why he felt a need to correct her.

  “No, Chris. I don’t live with my folks. I bought the house from them before they moved to a retirement community a few miles away.”

  She took a step forward, closing the gap between them, and poked his chest with her index finger. “Do. Not. Call. Me. Chris! And it’s great that you bought the house. It was just a question, so relax. I didn’t mean anything by it. You don’t have to be so moody.”

  He grabbed her finger with his big hand. “I’m not moody. You’re just so judgmental.”

  “I wasn’t being judgmental,” she answered. He looked at her in disbelief, and her shoulders slumped. “Okay, maybe I was being a little judgmental. Seeing you reminded me of that girl that you and Slade used to push around, and I guess it made me defensive. I’m sorry. Look, it’s been a terrible day. I just need a long hot bath and a good night’s sleep so I can go to Slade’s arraignment tomorrow morning and bail him out.”

  “Okay, let’s go. Come on. Follow me home.” He waited for her to get into her car, then walked back to his police cruiser.

  A few hours earlier, he’d been called to a bar fight, where he’d had to wrestle four guys into handcuffs. He was at the tail end of a very long shift, and all he’d wanted to do was go straight home, drink a nice cold beer, and sleep for the next twenty-four hours. Dealing with a speeding driver was the last thing he’d had in mind. But his sense of duty had gotten the best of him, and he had stopped her—not knowing that a pair of smoldering blue eyes waited for him in the driver’s seat. He found himself adjusting his pants a few times on his way home, and it wasn’t from the punch to his balls.

  She was gorgeous. The once insecure, slightly overweight, frumpy girl was now a confident, voluptuous, well-put-together stunner. He was glad she still wore the glasses. On anyone else, the thick black frames probably would’ve looked goofy, but on Chrissy, it gave her that naughty-nurse look men fantasized about. As he drove, his mind drifted to Christine, the naughty nurse, who wore a short white dress—tight on the top, accentuating the swells of her overly-large-for-her-small-frame breasts—giving him just the teensiest preview of the garter from her stockings, and a little white hat that contrasted severely with her pin-straight inky black hair. Jack could picture her bending over to check his reflexes and reaching up to his mouth to put a thermometer in, and of course she would be a good and thorough nurse and ask him in the softest, shyest voice to please pull down his pants so that she could examine …

  Get a fucking grip, Daniels! Did you just make little Chris a porn nurse? What is wrong with you, dude? Snap out of it!

  She wasn’t even a nurse, she was a doctor. The last he’d heard, she’d been overseas volunteering her medical services in third-world countries. She was so out of his league, he couldn’t even see the field. But hell if he wasn’t completely turned on by her unexpected attitude. She hadn’t been like that before. She had always been smart and goofy. But feisty and sultry? Nope, never feisty, and never ever sultry. She would do something Slade and Jack didn’t like and they’d scold her and she’d just take it, never rebelling. Yet she’d still follow him and Slade around like a little puppy. He hated when she would hang around his and Slade’s friends. They were all hooligans and he damn well knew it. She had no business being a sidekick in their troublemaking schemes. But then the last few months before she left, she had avoided him like the plague. He had always wanted to ask her why, but she’d been gone before he ever had the chance.

  Chapter 2

  “Christ, has he always been so … so … There are no proper words. Male! That’s the word! I can’t believe I punched him in the nuts. How humiliating!” Chrissy gave herself a self-deprecating thump to her forehead. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”

  Growing up, Chrissy had always had a crush on Jack, but his jerkiness overshadowed the crush. In fact, it crushed the crush. Every time she found herself swooning over Jack, and she had swooned often, he’d do something to remind her of what an ass he really was.

  Slade had always ignored her and pushed her away. But whereas her brother completely overlooked her, Jack never did. He was always the one who brought her straight back home when she snuck into one of their backyard cage fights. He always scolded her when she did something he considered to be reckless, like joining the girls’ basketball team. He told her: “You’re gonna get hurt, Chris. You’re a munchkin. What do you know about basketball?” Or like that one time, senior year of high school, when she wanted to go to a party hosted by the head cheerleader. The plan had been to sneak out of the house after her father went to bed. Her best friend, Veronica, had lent her some clothes and helped her with her hair and makeup. Chrissy even decided against glasses that night—it didn’t matter that she couldn’t see two feet in front of her. She had been so excited. It was a cool-kids party, and she and Veronica were going to flirt with Roger and Nick, some wrestlers on the varsity team. She was sure Roger would finally notice her; she was, after all, wearing a tiny denim skirt. That night she had planned to indulge in her first kiss, and Roger was the target. As soon as they arrived at the party, they noticed the crowd cheering around a table where a game of beer pong was under way. One of the teams the crowd was chanting around was none other than Slade and Jack.

  After gulping down big red cups of beer, Slade and Jack glanced sideways and saw Chrissy. Both guys glared at her. Slade rolled his eyes, annoyed, and said something along the lines of “go home.” She shook her head and stomped her feet. Yes, stomped her feet. Just like a toddler. Jack didn’t even bother to talk; he grabbed her by the wrist, dragged her into his car, and drove her home, all the while lecturing her on why she shouldn’t and couldn’t be at the party. The excuses mostly centered on how she’d cramp their style while they tried to get laid. The worst part was that Veronica, her best friend of six years, completely stopped talking to her after that night.

  Lots had changed since then. She wasn’t the same naïve and defenseless little girl any longer. She was a woman. A woman who’d been through a lot. She had lived in the worst parts of the world and survived. She’d been through hell and back in her personal life and survived. That stupid love-struck teenager was gone, and now every time Jack gave her one of those panty-dropping dimpled smiles, she’d remember how mean he had been to her growing up and how he’d ruined her relationship with her best friend. How he’d never seen her as anything other than Chris the Priss, a dorky little sister in need of a protective big brother. How he had stifled her and never let her do what she wanted. But she had managed just fine for the last decade, and she didn’t need a man to watch over her like that now. If Jack thought he could swoop in after eleven years and push her around like he used to, he was totally mistaken.

  I am woman, hear me roar! Roar!

  She had riled herself up, and only snapped back to reality as she approached her house, Jack still driving his cruiser in front of her car. “He’s an ass. Keep chanting that to yourself, Christine. Don’t let the gorgeous looks confuse you. Ass. Ass. Ass …”

  God, she wanted to see that ass.

  Naked.

  In her bed.

  No, wait! That’s not right.

  A few moments later she pulled into the driveway of Slade’s house and he pulled into his.

  “Were you talking to yourself?” he hollered from across the lawn as she got out of the car.

  “Huh?”

  �
�I couldn’t see too well since it’s dark out, but I thought I saw you in my rearview mirror talking to yourself. You’re animated when you talk, and your hands were flailing around, like you were having a conversation with someone.”

  She laughed, though to her ears it came out sounding a little hysterical. Humiliation seemed to be the theme of the day. “Just singing. I sing sometimes,” she lied.

  He looked at her questioningly for a moment, but apparently decided against commenting. “Come inside. I have to look for the key. I haven’t used it in years.”

  She leaned against her car. “It’s okay. I can wait here.”

  “Don’t be stubborn. Just come in.”

  She pushed off the car, let out a breath, and walked—well, hobbled, since she was missing one heel—across Slade’s front lawn to his. Jack opened the front door of his house and moved aside to let her inside first.

  “Do you mind if I take my shoes off? It’s hard to walk with one four-inch heel and one flat shoe.”

  “Sure. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.”

  Chrissy couldn’t stop stealing glances at him when he wasn’t looking. She couldn’t believe how different he looked after all these years. He had always been tall, and that hadn’t changed—she estimated he was at least six foot three now—but he’d been leaner back then. Skinny, actually. And whereas he used to have long dark blond hair that, when he didn’t have it tied back, would always annoyingly fall into his face, now his head was shaved—not completely bare, but almost. Only the slightest stubble of hair adorned his head, and she imagined it felt like prickly sandpaper. It was the kind of bald head that made women want to rub it. She was certain it was shaved purely for esthetic purposes, probably to add to his bad-boy image.

  He was extremely bulky, and she was sure there were muscles on top of muscles hidden under his uniform. Wide shoulders, wide neck, and thick biceps. The smooth lines and boyish features of his face had disappeared and been replaced by harder and more defined lines that came only with age. To someone else, his dark brown eyes and chiseled cheekbones would seem intimidating, but not to her; she knew he was all bark and no bite. Well, maybe a little bite. Plus, on those rare occasions when he smiled, the glorious dimples on his face softened his overall I’m-a-badass-so-beware look.

  He was currently sporting a five o’clock shadow that matched the short length of hair on his head. It made her imagine how it would rasp against her inner thigh. Where did that thought come from? In addition to his khaki shirt, his police uniform also consisted of ugly khaki shorts. However, they were far from ugly on him. The shorts strained against his burly thigh muscles. My God, one of his thighs was almost as wide as her entire body. Okay, not quite, because she wasn’t exactly petite, but standing next to him made her feel tiny.

  As he made his way up the set of stairs, Chrissy took off her shoes and looked around. The layout of his house was identical to that of her old house right next door. But it wasn’t exactly as she remembered. Jack’s mom had decorated the place on the kitschy side, with knickknacks everywhere and not a single inch left undecorated. But now Chrissy stood in a simple and warmly decorated bachelor pad. “Warm” and “bachelor pad” could have been an oxymoron, but not in Jack’s home, she noted. Even though it lacked a female’s touch, the furniture was nice and airy, typical of Florida beachfront properties. The television was huge but didn’t take up the entire wall the way most men’s electronics usually did. And instead of it hanging on the wall with a lawn chair planted in front, it was set atop a nice wooden hutch opposite a white linen sofa with blue decorative pillows. Closer to the kitchen, there was a round wooden dining table with matching chairs. She turned the corner and walked into the kitchen, which had been redone. There were brand-new stainless-steel appliances surrounded by dark wood cabinets with granite countertops. Everything was simple and tasteful. The wall that faced the ocean had been replaced by windows. If it hadn’t been night, she would’ve been able to see the ocean from the living room. She stood by the window and squinted. She could faintly hear the ocean and see the outline of the sea oats and sea grape plants that gently swayed with the ocean breeze.

  “Hungry?” The gruff voice startled her.

  She turned around to see Jack leaning against the doorframe. “No, I’m okay. Just looking at the view. Trying to, at least. It’s too dark. Your house is lovely. You did all this?” She waved her arm around.

  “I did.” He nodded proudly. “When my parents moved away, I got rid of most of my mom’s leopard-print chairs, gold-plated vases, and anything and everything pink and zebra-striped.”

  Chrissy laughed. “She always did have interesting taste.”

  “She still does. You should see their apartment. It’s awful. I don’t know how Dad puts up with it. Anyway, I went on a shopping spree and basically bought a display that was already color coordinated and combined. ‘Island Chic,’ it was called.” He air-quoted the name. “So I didn’t have to think too much. It was all already done for me at the store.”

  “Well, still, you have good taste. You could’ve chosen something like ‘Space-Age Chic,’ but instead you went simple and classy.” She giggled nervously. All of a sudden she couldn’t seem to get a handle on her nerves.

  “Is that a compliment? I think that’s the first time in twenty years I’ve heard you say anything nice to me.”

  “Well, it’s hard to say something nice to someone who’s always being an ass.”

  He looked a little sorry, which made her feel guilty for having insulted him—yet again. She’d never been in this situation with Jack before. It was unsettling. He slowly stalked over to her, and her heart started to beat faster. His eyes looked down toward her mouth, and Chrissy began to think he was going to kiss her. That was the last thing she wanted. Don’t kiss me. Don’t kiss me. She could feel his breath by her neck as he reached over a few inches above her head and to the right and flipped a switch, then stepped back. Damn it, why didn’t he kiss me? He nodded toward the window, and she turned around.

  “What I really wanted to do was make sure I could see the ocean from the house at any time. That’s the whole point of living by the ocean, isn’t it?”

  “Wow, Jack. That’s amazing. It’s beautiful. You did good. Real good.” She couldn’t help but smile. With the outdoor floodlights on, she could see the beach. It was eerie to see it deserted. She was used to the action-packed beaches of Miami. But this was different. There was a boardwalk that went from his backyard over small sand dunes and sea grass to an empty beach.

  The fact that Jack was merely inches away unnerved her, so she quickly took a step to the side and changed the subject. “So about that key?”

  He gave her a wary look and held out a shoebox full of keys. The box jingled. “It’s one of these.”

  “Shit.” She plopped down on the chair right in front of her.

  “I know. There are a lot of keys in here. Let’s go next door and try them one by one.”

  “I don’t want to put you out. Are you still on duty?”

  “No. I was on my way home when I pulled you over.”

  “Well, I’m sure I’m interrupting some sort of date or something. I can do it myself.” She reached for the box, but he pulled it away.

  “It’s no trouble. The only plan I had was to make myself a sandwich and plop in front of the television with Drogo for the next forty-eight hours. But if you don’t mind waiting, I’d love to take a quick shower first. I’ve been on duty for twelve hours now, and I feel grimy.”

  “Drogo?” she asked, her brow furrowed.

  “My Chihuahua,” he said. He opened a door and out came the smallest dog Chrissy had ever seen.

  “Oh my goodness!” she squealed, and clapped her hands together. She loved animals and instantly reached for the tiny little dog with the spiked collar, but Jack quickly scooped up the pup with his palm before she had a chance to touch the little guy.

  “He bites. He’s a quarter pit bull,” Jack said matte
r-of-factly.

  “Oh, please. How can that tiny little beauty bite?” Chrissy went to reach for the dog again, but Jack moved the animal behind him. His hand was larger than the dog. “You must be kidding about the pit bull thing.” Chrissy laughed.

  “Trust me. He bites and growls. The whole nine yards. He has a Napoleon complex. Thus the name Drogo.”

  Chrissy looked at him quizzically. “Uh … sorry. I don’t think I know what or who a Drogo is.”

  He waved a hand. “Don’t worry ’bout it. It’s just the name of a character, Khal Drogo, from a show I watch. The guy is big and tough, and I was watching the show one night when this little thing came to my doorstep barking and growling at me like the character. I opened the door expecting to find a German shepherd.”

  “Hmm. Not a lot of television in the places I visit overseas.” She put her hands behind her back and moved forward a little to speak with the tiny black dog with huge bulging eyes. The animal looked so at odds with its big owner. “I’ll make you love me. Just you see, little Drogo,” Chrissy cooed.

  Jack laughed. “Don’t call him little, he hates that. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. He’s bitten several people. All of whom underestimated him. Including your brother. Actually, he bites your brother a lot,” he snickered as he set the dog down.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll be careful. Go ahead and take your shower. I’ll make you a sandwich while I wait.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Of course. Still like ham, cheese, and butter, or did we finally graduate to mayo, mustard, lettuce, and tomatoes?”

  “Nope. Still the butter. Vegetables are for girls. Ham and cheese is man food,” he said with a raised eyebrow. “I can’t believe you still remember.”

  “How could I forget? I made you sandwiches every day the entire summer before my junior year of high school, so you and Slade could beef up and kick ass in the ring.”