by Tara Wyatt
Taylor dropped down into the seat beside Alexa, a beer already in her hand. Her leather jacket creaked against the chair as she leaned toward Alexa. “Hey, you,” she said, poking her in the leg. “How you holding up?”
Alexa flashed her a quick smile and then glanced down at her lap, where her hands were clenched together. The waitress passed her a beer, and she took it, grateful for something to hang on to. She hadn’t expected to see Taylor tonight, and she found she was having a hard time looking her in the face.
She’d had smoking hot sex with her friend’s ex. She glanced at Taylor, and the vision of Zack above her, moving inside her as she came, seared through her. Blood rushed to her cheeks, and she took a big swallow of beer.
“Hey, you okay?” asked Taylor, leaning forward, her forearms braced on her legs.
“As okay as I can be, I guess. Yeah.” She took another sip of beer.
Taylor stared at her, her head cocked slightly. She narrowed her eyes, and Alexa fought the urge to squirm. Taylor’s eyes swept down Alexa’s body and then widened. “You had sex!”
Sweat broke out on Alexa’s upper lip as she glanced down at her body, wondering what the hell Taylor could see. “What? What are you talking about?”
“I knew there was something different about you. You seem…I dunno, relaxed, despite everything going on. Your eyes are bright. You looked so damn sad last time I saw you, but now…you’re glowing, babe.” Taylor nodded wisely. “I know the signs of good dick when I see them.”
Alexa opened and closed her mouth once, twice, a panicked guilt sitting like a weight on her chest. “I didn’t…There’s no one…” She stammered, her face hot.
Taylor threw an arm over Alexa’s shoulders. “You’re too cute. I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”
“I’m not.” She shook her head, her throat burning.
Taylor’s mouth fell open, and she leaned closer, dropping her husky voice to a whisper. “Is it someone here?” She glanced around. “Carter? Ian? I bet Ian would be good. All that intensity. Mama.” Taylor gave a little shiver.
“Um…aren’t you newly married?”
Taylor eased back, a playful smile on her face. “Yep, and I’m disgustingly happy. But that doesn’t mean I’m suddenly blind or without imagination. And nice dodge.”
“I’m not dodging anything. I think you’re projecting all the, um, good dick you’re getting onto me.”
Taylor threw her head back and laughed. “I can’t believe you said ‘good dick.’ I’m finally rubbing off on you.”
Colt sat down beside Taylor. “I don’t know what you’re doing to her, but leave poor Alexa alone. Her face looks like it’s gonna burst into flames,” he said, shooting Alexa a wink. She didn’t know Colt at all, but in that moment he was pretty much her favorite.
Carter sat back down beside Alexa, a bottle of water in his hands. As he was officially on duty tonight, there’d be no beer for him.
“I’m nervous,” she said, her gaze roaming over the packed arena, the flashing jumbotron, and the official-looking people standing together in clusters near the octagon.
“You’ve come to his fights before, right?”
She nodded. “Yeah. But none of them were this big.” And the last time she’d seen him fight was before everything had changed between them. Something deep inside her clenched as she remembered his last fight and the way he’d landed a hard punch, his gloved fist slamming into his opponent’s face and sending him crumpling to the ground, blood gushing from his nose.
Sure, he could rip someone apart in the octagon, but there was a sweetness, a tenderness in the way he touched her, the protective way he held her. Brutal when necessary, but not a brute. All that power restrained until the exact right moment. All that controlled strength in her service. She wasn’t sure if she should be embarrassed at how much it turned her on.
She’d seen how hard Zack worked, how much all this meant to him. And now that she understood just how huge tonight could be for his career, more than anything, she wanted to watch him kick some serious ass.
* * *
Zack fucking De Luca.
From his cushy leather seat in his private box in the Los Angeles Memorial Arena, Jonathan stared out over the crowd, a crumpled piece of paper in his fist.
He’d known that motherfucker had looked familiar. And it was because he fought in Monsters of the Cage, the MMA promotion partially owned by the Golden Brotherhood.
It had been a long time since Jonathan had come to the fights, but he was damn glad he’d come tonight.
He hated being lied to, and his mind seized up. For several seconds he held perfectly still aside from the twitch in his cheek. As the arena’s lights dimmed, he pulled his phone from his pocket and searched for Zack De Luca. The first hit was the Virtus Security webpage.
Zack De Luca was a bodyguard.
Alexa had lied about hiring a bodyguard. Alexa had brought someone into his house who’d lied to his face, and the reasons behind it could only be bad.
He dropped the crumpled list of fighters with their pictures, stats, and short bios to the ground. He’d deal with Alexa and her lying, her snooping, her whatever the goddamn fuck she was doing, later. Right now he wanted—no, needed—to crush De Luca like the insect he was. De Luca had no idea who he was fucking with. No one lied to him and got away unscathed. No one.
Jonathan scrolled to a number on his phone and dialed, then calmly raised the phone to his ear. Elijah and several others sat in the box with him. He had to handle this, and as quietly as possible. Always in control.
“Yeah?” the league’s president answered.
“It’s Fairfax. I want to make this title fight interesting.”
A pause. “Interesting how?”
“Scratch Diaz. Put someone else in. What about Ferreira? Is he here tonight?”
“He’s here, but he’s a heavyweight, and he’s suspended for steroid use.”
Jonathan smiled. “Sounds pretty damn interesting to me. Put him in. Let’s see what De Luca’s made of.”
Another pause. “Yes, sir.”
“And you tell the ref to let them go. I’ll pay a bonus if there’s no stoppage.”
Oh, it was going to be fun watching that lying bastard get beaten to a pulp. Ferreira was a roided-up maniac and had a good fifty pounds on De Luca.
“So you want De Luca to lose?”
Not just lose. Suffer. Bleed. “Make it happen.”
Chapter 18
Zack sat on a bench in the busy locker room, adjusting his gloves and then taking a small sip of water from the bottle beside him. The roar of the crowd filtered through the cinder block walls, rushing over him, and his skin prickled hotly. He pushed off the bench and flipped his hood over his head, antsy to start his warm-up. To move. To burn off some of the nervous energy tensing his muscles. Other fighters worked with their trainers, shadowboxing or stretching throughout the locker room.
Jenks nodded at him and pulled on a pair of punching mitts. “Let’s go, kid. Start with a one-two,” he said, holding his padded hands up in front of him. Slipping into a loose orthodox stance, Zack threw several light punches, concentrating on his form. Nervous adrenaline pumped through him with each beat of his heart, but he knew from past experience that he needed to stay out of his head and focus on the physical. Punch, duck, weave, breathe.
Again.
Again.
If he let the mental take over, he’d lose control of the physical, and then awful things happened. Like getting knocked out with a kick to the head.
Jab. Hook. Elbow. Breathe.
Again.
He was grateful that he’d fought enough times now to know that the prefight nerves were normal. Part of the process. Because he knew that as soon as he got into the octagon, the nerves would vanish, and it would be go time, all that energy channeled into an intense focus that had seen him through sixteen professional MMA fights.
Jenks held a pad up, and Zack kneed it, imagining driving h
is knee into Diaz. Hitting him with punches, elbows, kicks. Pouring everything he had into the fight. He pushed away the bigger picture, not letting his mind wander down the road of what this could mean for him and his MMA career, and narrowing his world to his body and the pad, the only image in his mind Diaz and everything Zack was going to do to him.
Punch. Knee. Kick. Elbow.
Again.
Breathe.
“De Luca.” Jim Donaldson, the referee for Zack’s fight, stepped into the locker room, and Zack paused his warm-up. It wasn’t unusual for the ref to chat with both fighters before they hit the octagon, but Zack knew Jim, and he had a strange, unreadable expression on his face. “Got some news for you.”
Jenks lowered the pads and frowned. “What kinda news?”
“Still a championship fight, but it’s catchweight,” he said, using the term referring to matches between fighters of different weight classes. It was sometimes used when one of the fighters didn’t make weight.
“No, it’s not,” said Zack, stepping toward Donaldson. “I’m two-oh-five. I made weight.” He shook his head, confusion sending his mind racing in a way he didn’t need right now.
Donaldson shook his head. “You’re fighting Manuel Ferreira. President of the league made the decision just a few minutes ago.”
“No, he’s fucking not,” said Jenks, throwing the pads down. “Ferreira’s two fifty and was busted for juicing last month.”
“He was reinstated,” said Donaldson, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable with the situation.
“When?” Jenks spit out the word.
“I don’t know. But he’s cleared.”
Jenks turned to Zack. “You don’t gotta take this fight. This is bullshit. We’ll file a complaint with CSAC. They won’t stand for this.”
“What happened to Diaz?” asked Zack. This didn’t make any sense.
Donaldson shrugged, heaving a sigh. “Don’t know. But he’s out.”
“You don’t know much, do you?” said Jenks, his lip curled in disgust.
Zack dropped back down onto the bench, his heart sinking as disappointment settled over him. He could feel everything he’d worked for slipping through his fingers. The championship. The shot at a career. The chance to prove to everyone—to himself—that he could be the best at something, for once in his life.
He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t walk away. Not now. The Zack from a year ago might’ve walked away, but things were different now. He was stronger. Smarter.
And it was Alexa. She’d opened his eyes to what he could have, had shown him that he was worthy of the things he wanted, if only he was willing to fight for them.
“No,” he said, his voice calm and steady. Even though he might get the shit kicked out of him, he knew it was the right call. “I’ll fight him.” He met first Jenks’s eyes and then Donaldson’s, who nodded curtly.
“I was offered a bonus if I let the fight go as long as possible,” said Donaldson.
Jenks got right up in Donaldson’s face. “That’s illegal! You can’t do that.”
Donaldson took a step back. “And I won’t. I told you that to give you a heads-up. I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but something’s up. I’m not going to let it turn into some kind of massacre out there.”
Zack snorted and stood from the bench. “It won’t. Ferreira’s big, but he’s slow and stupid. I can take him.” He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince himself or the other men in the room.
Donaldson sighed and then shrugged. “It’s your funeral, kid.”
* * *
“What’s going on? Who’s Ferreira?” asked Alexa as she returned to her seat from the bathroom.
Taylor shrugged. “No idea. They just announced the change.”
Colt looked up from his phone. “Fuck me. Apparently this Ferreira dude’s two hundred and fifty pounds.”
Alexa let out a small gasp. “What? I thought he had to fight someone in his weight class. Zack talked about how he had to weigh in at two hundred and five pounds this morning.”
“I guess it’ll be a catchweight fight,” said Carter, crossing his arms over his chest. “Between weight classes.”
Colt shifted in his seat, leaning forward. “Damn. Two fifty. That’s fucking huge.” He tipped his chin at Carter. “You’re the biggest dude in here. What do you weigh?”
“About two forty.”
Alexa’s eyes roved over Carter’s massive frame, and her stomach twisted. The guy Zack now had to fight was even bigger than Carter, apparently.
Oh God. They’d broken his “no sex before a fight” rule last night, and now the odds were stacked against him. She sat there, staring at her feet, paralyzed with worry and guilt. Clenching her hands into fists, she laid them in her lap.
“What’s going on with you?” asked Taylor, and when Alexa looked up, her blue eyes were filled with concern.
“Just thinking about all the shit with my dad,” she said, which wasn’t completely untrue. She seemed to be dealing in a lot of half truths these days.
Taylor looked as if she was going to say more, but then another fight started, drawing her attention away. All Alexa could do now was wait and worry and sit with her guilt.
* * *
As the opening strains of AC/DC’s “T.N.T.” echoed through the arena, Zack hopped from foot to foot, tapping his gloves together and huffing out a hard breath before starting his walk toward the octagon, the crowd screaming, the cheering swelling and washing over him, fueling the focused, intense excitement pumping hotly through his veins. He was here to fight, and to win, and it didn’t matter who the powers that be put in front of him. Even if his opponent had fifty pounds on him.
He pushed his hood down around his shoulders as he approached Donaldson, then pulled off his hoodie and T-shirt in one swift tug. As Donaldson checked to make sure Zack’s mouth guard and cup were in place, Jenks smeared a thin layer of Vaseline over his brows and cheekbones to help prevent the skin from splitting open when hit. Given the size and power of Ferreira, chances were good he wasn’t walking away from this unscathed. His heart throbbed in his ears in time with the music, and he bounded up the steps and into the octagon. He jogged to his corner, then jumped on the spot to keep his muscles warm and to give his pent-up energy an outlet.
“You goin’ night-night, pretty boy,” taunted Ferreira from the other side of the octagon, tapping his massive fists together. Zack didn’t say anything, merely stared and stretched his neck from side to side. Ferreira’s head was huge and slightly misshapen, with a heavy brow and protruding jaw. He was about the same height as Zack, but built like a fucking Sasquatch. About as hairy and ugly as one too. With only the space across the octagon separating them now, Zack sized up his opponent, watching him. He smiled at Ferreira, not saying anything, bouncing his back against the cage.
“What you smilin’ at, you male model–lookin’ son of a bitch? I can’t wait to fuck that face up.”
Zack just kept smiling at him, not breaking eye contact, stretching his arms out to the sides and eating up Ferreira’s taunts like a fat kid at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Despite his size advantage, Zack knew Ferreira was chirping because he was nervous. He probably hadn’t trained much since his suspension and hadn’t been expecting to fight tonight.
Donaldson signaled for the men to move to the center of the octagon and touch gloves.
It was time.
* * *
Alexa had to remind herself to breathe as she watched Zack and Ferreira charge at each other from their corners the second the referee signaled the start of the fight. Right away Zack landed a hard kick against Ferreira’s side, the snapping crack of shin hitting ribs loud and visceral. Ferreira countered with a hard punch, connecting with Zack’s face. He absorbed the impact and hit Ferreira with a right-left combination, sending him backward a few feet. Her heart leaped up and settled somewhere around her throat, fluttering in a rapid rhythm.
For the ent
ire first round, they traded punches and kicks, circling around each other and stalking each other across the octagon. Zack’s movements were fluid and athletic, his sleek muscles flexing powerfully as he executed punch after punch, kick after kick. Brutal yet graceful. Powerful yet controlled as he dodged out of Ferreira’s way time and time again. Sweat gleamed on his tan skin under the arena’s bright lights.
The horn sounded, signaling the end of the first round, and Zack and Ferreira retreated to their corners. Jenks crouched in front of Zack, offering him a bottle of water while Jamie held bags of ice against him, one on his chest, the other on his back, rubbing them back and forth. Jenks shook out Zack’s arms and legs, loosening him up. Zack listened intently as he spoke, nodding occasionally between small sips of water. A red mark was emerging on his cheek where Ferreira had hit him, along with a few red welts on his legs where Ferreira had landed kicks.
The welts might as well have been on her skin, because she ached just looking at them.
“It’s Zack, isn’t it?” Taylor’s voice was quiet as she leaned toward Alexa.
She whipped her head around, her hair fanning out as she moved. “What?”
Taylor arched an eyebrow. “The good dick. It’s Zack.”
Alexa sucked in a breath, and her throat thickened. She blinked furiously and stared down at her lap, shame tingling over her.
“Hey.” Taylor gently laid a hand on Alexa’s arm. “What’s wrong?”
Alexa looked up, forcing herself to meet Taylor’s eyes. “I’m so sorry, Taylor.”
Taylor’s eyes widened. “Oh shit. You think I’m mad?”
Alexa nodded, and Taylor threw her arm over Alexa’s shoulders and pulled her in for a side hug.
“Honey, I’m not mad. Zack and I are long done, and I’ve moved on. I want you to be happy. I love you.”
“But he hurt you, and you’re my friend. I should put that first.”
Taylor shook her head. “Zack and I are good. Clearly he wasn’t the one for me.” She glanced over at Colt. “But maybe he’s the one for you. You know,” she said, easing back into her seat, “I can see it. You guys would be good together.”