As I was gently stretching his arm and teaching him how to carefully rotate his shoulder to rebuild strength and test its elasticity, he winced in silence. Not a single rude, snappy comment. Not a single name-call. He was a dutiful patient for the first time ever.
“You’re quiet today,” I remarked cautiously, still nervous about provoking him.
He tried to shrug, only to flinch at the movement in his left shoulder. “Look, I wanted to apologize for what happened last time,” he grunted. I could tell it took all his self-discipline to manage those words. He was not a man who apologized often - or ever. My heart swelled a little bit at this, even though I knew it was absurd. Of course he should apologize. But still, coming from him…
“I don’t know what got into me. I mean, you’re a beautiful girl, obviously. But it’s…” his voice trailed off as I stood there blinking at him, taken aback. There was a very tense, long moment as we sized each other up. Marc’s honey-brown eyes looked me up and down, then settled on locking with mine. His undivided attention made my skin prickle, a shiver traveling down my spine.
God, he was attractive.
But he was also a douchebag. I had to remind myself of that, especially since he was trying on this brand new nice-guy act. Remember when he grabbed your ass like some creepo at a bar? Yeah, focus on that, Gemma.
“I just wanted to ask if maybe we could, I don’t know, start over? I’m not used to being the victim and I’m kind of at your mercy here, and it sucks. Sorry for being an asshole. I just want to get better,” he concluded, clearly pained by this show of humility. Something told me he wasn’t just talking about improving the movement and strength of his body. He wanted to be better in other ways, too. I knew it probably took a lot out of him to admit his wrongdoing. He was accustomed to talking with his fists, not his words.
I couldn’t help but smile. “I understand. Let’s just pretend it didn’t happen, okay? We got work to do.”
Marc nodded and the softest twinge of a smile pulled at his mouth. He looked so charming and shockingly boyish. It was remarkable how such a subtle change in expression could alter his whole demeanour. It was like watching the beast transform into a prince.
Careful, Gemma, I told myself. Keep it professional.
The rest of that session passed by uneventfully, the two of us working together in quiet cooperation. When it was over, I was almost sorry to see him go. But as soon as he left the room a wave of relief washed over me. I couldn’t comprehend how conflicted he made me feel-- both exhilarated and on edge at the same time. I wondered if this was what it felt like for lion tamers.
After all, that’s what he was: a wild animal used to roaming free and presiding over a kingdom of weaker, inferior prey. Marc Montoya was an alpha male predator, and he was a stranger to feeling weak. And now he was injured, a limping lion with his mane dragging along the ground. For probably the first time in his life, he required the help of someone he would never have thought twice about before: me.
I remembered a story my mom read to me when I was very young-- something about a little mouse who had to help pull a thorn from the paw of a lion. I was that mouse. Any other day, Marc would have scooped me up in his gnashing jaws, chewed me up, and spat me back out like I was nothing.
But here, in the physiotherapy room at The Fighting Chance, he had to rely on me.
And it was hard for him, learning to be patient, to come to terms with his own inevitable weaknesses and to accept help even though it felt totally foreign to him. Marc Montoya, like most MMA guys, was composed of ninety-percent raw bravado. Once that was stripped away, I think he struggled to figure out what else was left of him.
I almost started to feel sorry for him. But I know that would’ve only pissed him off.
I spent the rest of that day quietly doing paperwork and researching more methods for helping him improve his reach and mobility. I was determined to prove myself to not only Danny and Trina and everyone else at the gym. I needed Marc to respect me, for real.
So when he came in a couple days later for the next session, I was all ready to start him on some new exercises I read about. I knew there was a chance they’d be exceptionally painful for him at first, but since he was used to pain and unwilling to admit it when it got to be too much, I figured he would probably handle it okay.
He walked in looking like a fitness model, his enormous height and his broad shoulders taking my breath away for the millionth time. No matter how often I saw him, I never seemed quite able to get past how incredibly hot he was. Part of me longed to touch his strong arms and run my fingers down his sculpted abdominal muscles, in a way that did not suggest a totally-professional patient-therapist relationship.
Every time I laid my hands on his hip or his shoulder to massage the muscles and relieve joint tension, I wondered if he would pick up on the desire in my touch. Could he tell? Could he read my mind?
I hoped not.
“We’re going to try some new exercises today,” I announced as he walked into the physiotherapy room. He raised an eyebrow and cocked his head dubiously.
“Uh oh. Painful ones?” he asked, catching on.
“Possibly, yes. But I’ll talk you through it,” I offered. It was something I did with former patients all the time, distracting them from the pain by asking personal questions, shooting the breeze. It helped keep their minds off the stress of the moment.
He sat down on a bench I’d dragged into the middle of the room and we got started. I gave him the stretching equipment and told him to start squeezing. I rolled his wrist open and closed while moving his arm up and down, then rotated his arm in a circular motion. He only winced at first, but then after a few reps he had to close his eyes tightly and clench his jaw to hold back the pain. Pity made my heart ache for him.
“So,” I began, “what made you get into the sport?”
It was an innocuous question I often asked of my patients, just to get them talking. Without even opening his eyes, he growled, “I like fighting. Always have. Used to do it for, uh, fun when I was a kid. Then when I got older I realized it might be better to fight guys who agree to it rather than doing it for survival.”
“So which was it for back then: fun or survival?” I asked, unable to stop myself.
He opened his eyes and gave me a somewhat mournful, warning look.
“Some of both,” he replied darkly.
“Where’d you grow up?” I asked quickly, changing the subject.
“New Mexico.”
“Oh, not from around here, then. I’ve heard it’s beautiful down there.”
He sighed. “Not the part I was from.”
“How… how do your parents feel about your career? I bet your mom worries about you a lot, doesn’t she?” I pressed on, trying to keep the topics a little lighter.
But he only said, “I don’t have parents. Just my grandmother. She raised me.”
“Oh,” I answered weakly. I was failing miserably here at the small talk.
“She was a saint, though. Great lady. Never gave up on me even though god knows she probably should have a million times,” he added. I was shocked to hear him speak so candidly. He never struck me as the talkative type by any means.
“Yeah, my mom died when I was young, so it was just my dad and me and my sister forever,” I said. If he was open to sharing, then it was only fair that I do the same.
“He still around?”
“Uhh, no. He died a few years ago. Just me and Alice now,” I murmured. He winced as I forgot to release his clenched wrist for a moment too long. “Oh, sorry!” I added, letting go.
Marc gently pulled free of my hands and let his left arm rest against his side as he looked up at me. Those gorgeous, expressive amber eyes struck me and I felt a little weak. What was happening to me? Where did the sensible, no-nonsense Gemma go? One look from this bear of a man and suddenly I couldn’t function anymore? This wasn’t me at all.
CHAPTER 9 - MARC
I had to admit, the last
session left me in a pretty good mood. I don’t know whether it was just my trying to reach out and treat Gemma with a little respect or something Gemma felt differently earlier today, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what the next few weeks with her were going to be like.
It may have been a rocky start, but I figured I could make it work. There was one thing that was nagging at me, though.
The more I tried to train myself to keep from staring at her body, the harder it was for me to keep from doing just that. When she wasn’t stiff and on the defensive against me, there was something incredibly natural to the way she moved, the way she handled herself around my body. Even with the memory of her prodding me back painfully all those times, I found myself appreciating what I was finally recognizing as her expertise.
All of that amounted to a fairly good mood for what was coming at me that evening.
“A nightclub?” I repeated.
“Yeah, come on, Marc!” Selena urged me, tugging my arm as she sat cross-legged on my couch. “You haven’t come to Haze since you got hurt, and everyone misses youuuu! I’m going to be going anyway, I can’t afford to miss an appearance like you can, you know? Come on, you keep saying that therapy is doing wonders for you, so I want to see it in action on the dance floor!” She bounced her eyebrows with a grin. “It’ll look good to the cameras that you’re making such a quick recovery, especially if we show up together.”
I tossed the idea around in my head a little, and I could feel Selena’s grip tugging on me meaningfully. I knew I was going to end up going whether or not I really wanted to, but honestly, clubbing was another one of the things I really was enjoying about big city life. Back home, the closest thing we had to a nightclub was the parking lot behind a run-down gas station we cleaned up to have a few parties with the beer we had someone’s older brother buy for us.
But Vegas? Vegas was a city that knew how to party unlike any other.
“Alright, fine, let’s get ready,” I said with a grin to her, and in an instant, she sprang up and headed to the bathroom to start applying her makeup for the evening.
* * *
“...and Brittany’s new boyfriend doesn’t even pay attention to her when she wears that fancy silver getup her sponsor got her. I’m telling you, she and her fucking thigh-highs need to find a new piece of eye candy to hang onto, you know?”
“Sounds like it,” I mused, only somewhat paying attention. I wasn't as half sharp on the social scene as Selena was, and I didn’t know how to handle conversations about the intricacies of the social norms and slip-ups that could be career-making or breaking for the people who ran in her circle.
“It’s ridiculous. That’s something I like about you, Marc. You’re easy to figure out, and even easier to manage.”
I cocked my eyebrow at Selena as we drove down the road in my dark blue Mustang. I wasn’t sure whether I liked that remark very much.
“What was that supposed to mean?”
Selena tched and waved her hand dismissively. “I’m just talking about how it goes with the modeling crowd, nothing personal. It’s a compliment, really.”
I rolled my eyes, pushing it out of my mind as we pulled up at the club.
Haze was a big place with a dark exterior and even darker interior, save for the flashing lights that kept the place pumping well past midnight. This was a few notches above the usual clubs though, even by Vegas standards. Haze was the kind of place you only got into if you were ‘on the list.’ For our crowd, that meant mostly people who had some kind of sports or ad media presence. The somebodies of our world.
Selena and I were both ‘on the list.’
We made our way past the bouncer, who just gave us a nod. He knew us both well by now; Selena had me out here at least once a week when I was fit and healthy. She most likely dragged me out here tonight so I wouldn’t miss a second week.
Inside, we were greeted by a rousing cheer from the people inside who saw us. Most of them were Selena’s friends, and in a matter of moments, we were swarmed.
“Oh my god girl, where have you been?”
“Just taking care of this big lug, haha, hi Jen!”
“Selena you bitch, get over here for a shot!”
“Please tell me Brandi texted you last night?”
“What? Okay, hold on, let’s take care of these tequila shots first.”
I made my way to the bar with them, chuckling to myself as they swapped the latest gossip, but the real reason to get together was to get photos for social media marketing. There really was a science to what they did, I noticed. And science, like everything else they were doing tonight, was dead boring to me.
Preferring to distance myself from the crowd of women doing tequila shots, I slipped down the bar a ways to order a beer. As I got it and turned around at the bar to check out the club, I felt watched.
From the moment I’d walked into the club, I had felt eyes all over both of us. We were the kind of people who really drew attention in a crowd, me especially, given my height. I was wearing a tight-fitting red shirt and black jeans, all designer clothing that brought out my amber eyes and black hair. My shirt was tight enough to show off the muscles I hadn’t allowed to atrophy in my short downtime, and my jeans outlined a firm ass, powerful thighs, and impeccable calves. I was proud of my body. I had every right to be. Part of my job was to draw attention.
And once I was a few feet away from Selena, that attention seemed to double. There were dozens of ambitious models just like her haunting Haze that night, and I could feel eyes roving over me.
Part of me wanted to let my eyes rove right back to meet them. Hell, at least it beat waiting around for Selena to finish her photo op with the girls. But Kenny’s advice was in the back of my mind. There was something else, too, that seemed to make me unable to feel interested in flirting around tonight, but I couldn’t quite place what it was.
As my eyes scanned the club, my gaze fell on a man seated on one of the dark leather couches on the other side of the room, and there was a woman on either side of the couch beside him.
My eyes would have passed right by him if he hadn’t been waving at me, trying to get my attention. I was surprised at first, and I furrowed my eyebrows questioningly. But the man kept gesturing for me to come closer, so I shrugged and started moving towards him.
As I walked, a few women on the dance floor tried to make their way closer to me and start putting on their moves, but I ignored them. The guy beckoning me was... a sight, to say the least.
“Hey hey hey, there he is! Man of the hour! Big bad brawler from New Mexico, getting back in action and down on the club scene already!”
His skin was pasty, and even though he was sitting on the couch, I could tell he was short. He had the kind of face that just told me he was a fast-talker, a trait that you could usually see reflected in someone’s eyes, but this guy was wearing cheap silver-rimmed sunglasses despite being in a dark room, and I knew damn well he wasn’t blind. His hair was black, but the tips were bleached and spiked straight out, making him look like a bolt of electricity. He wore a short-sleeved button-down that was dark blue, and his jeans were stark white. Despite the strange and cheap getup, he had a number of articles of jewelry on him, from rings on his fingers to the gold chain around his neck. There was a smattering of facial hair on his chin that he rubbed as he grinned at me, standing up briefly to extend a hand.
“Welcome back to the nightlife, dude!”
I almost visibly winced at the word ‘dude.’ “Do I know you?” I asked gruffly, already wanting to kick this guy’s ass.
“Straight and to the point--that’s what I like about you. Been watching you since you came in, Marc. I was going to get in touch with you sometime this week, but look at this, you’re already up and in partying condition! Hold on, hah, I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Nick Dewsbury, co-owner of High Octane Energy Drinks!”
I blinked before realizing he had stuck his hand out to shake mine, a wide grin on his face. The man wa
s speaking at a mile a minute. I glanced to the side to look at the women; both of them looked bored out of their minds, and I knew immediately they’d been hired to be arm ornaments for the night. I felt sorry for them.
“Aha, I see you like the ladies,” he said, bouncing his eyebrows and grinning even wider, if that were possible. I can’t express how badly I wanted to punch his stupid face in, but instead, I gave a grunt.
“Actually, I’m -”
“Of course, you and Selena are tight as a knot, gotcha. Well hey, have a seat, why don’t you? I’ve got an offer that’ll knock you back onto that fighting ring floor!”
Game On (A Bad Boy Sports Romance) Page 22