But now, standing here, staring up at the champion MMA fighter filling her doorway, something clicked into place, and Katie couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t another reason her Uncle Marcus hadn’t called in his favor and sent this imposing man to live with her. She wouldn’t put it past him. Katie wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about her uncle’s meddling. Did Cole know more about her past than he was letting on? What had Uncle Marcus told him about her?
“You okay? I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“I’m fine. I just . . . wasn’t expecting to see you—upright, that’s all. Where did you get those?” She crossed the room to the water dispenser, pulled a cone cup out of the holder, and filled it for him. “Here,” she said, walking over. Cole leaned more heavily on the right crutch and held out his left hand. She dropped the pills into it and he popped the tablets into his mouth before washing them down with the cup of water.
“Thanks.” He handed the cup back to her. “The crutches were leaning next to the supply closet. I left mine back home. Figured they’d be a pain in the ass to travel with, especially on the plane.”
They would have been. It made sense he’d leave them behind. “Well, these are definitely not the right size for you.” She gave him a quick head-to-toe. Even hunched with these ill-fitting crutches, Cole was an impressively large man. “How tall are you?”
“Six-four.”
A whole foot taller than she was. At five-four Katie was used to guys towering over her, but Cole was huge. Carter hadn’t even been this big. “I’m not sure I have a pair that tall. I might have to order them in. Let’s go check.” He stepped aside to let her pass, and she gestured him forward. “You go ahead. It’ll give me a chance to assess your gait.”
He cocked his brow and gave her a crooked grin that made her pulse quicken. “I don’t know,” he said, skeptically crutching into the hall. “I think you’re just looking for an excuse to check out my ass.”
An unexpected bubble of laughter burst from her throat and she quickly slapped her hand over her mouth to cut it off. When his own deep, throaty chuckle filled the hall, she couldn’t resist joining in. How long had it been since she’d truly laughed? So long she couldn’t remember. How sad was that? “You caught me,” she confessed, rolling her eyes. What he didn’t know is that she’d already checked out that ass—bare—this morning, and since then she’d had a difficult time thinking of much else.
As she followed him into the gym, she tried to keep her mind work-focused—watching the steadiness of his gait, the fluidity of his movements, and the weight distribution of his steps. But time and again her gaze kept straying to the white CFA lettering printed across the ass of his red nylon gym shorts.
He moved surprisingly well, especially for having poorly sized crutches. His steps were a bit slower, more purposeful, but that was to be expected. “How long have you been walking?”
“A month.”
“Are you having any numbness?”
“Some. It’s hell on my balance.”
She could see it. He was having more trouble lifting his left leg than his right. But still, he compensated well enough. His progress truly was amazing. With the right therapy plan and diligent rehab, Katie was sure she could get him back into fighting condition.
“That may still pass with time,” she encouraged. “We’ll get your prescription filled on the way home. I really think the Relafen will help. I don’t want you doing therapy anymore without having taken something for pain.”
Cole chuckled and cast her a backward glance as they entered the gym. “You know what your uncle would tell me if he heard you say that?”
Katie rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help smiling. “I can only imagine.” Then, unable to resist, she asked, “What would my uncle say?”
“He’d tell me to leave my vagina at the door and get my ass in there and train.”
Another burst of laughter bubbled up inside her. Wow, who would have guessed the grumpy, hard-as-nails fighter had a sense of humor? It felt good to laugh, and despite the undercurrent of sexual tension passing between them, she was finding she rather enjoyed Cole’s company. Perhaps it was his connection to Uncle Marcus, but she felt surprisingly comfortable with him considering the short amount of time they’d known each other. Sure, she had her anxious moments, but that was nothing new. “What an inappropriate and totally Uncle Marcus thing to say.”
“Oh, believe me, he’s said worse.”
“I’m sure he has,” she said, still laughing at the imagery of her uncle busting Cole’s balls.
She followed him into the gym, and they weaved around equipment as they made their way toward the ortho closet in the back.
“What’s that?” he asked, nodding toward the elliptical and harness as they passed by.
“It’s for walking therapy. We’ll use it to strengthen and retrain the muscles in your legs. The sooner we can get started, the greater your chance of regaining full function again.”
When he stopped abruptly and pivoted, she almost ran into him. “Then what are we waiting for? Let me on this thing.”
Katie laughed. “Well, one day isn’t going to make a difference. As much as I can appreciate your enthusiasm, I need to finish your testing first.” Getting him away from that elliptical was like trying to pry a new toy away from a little kid, and he looked just about as pleased, too. “Okay, Cole, I tell you what. Give me another half hour to finish with you, and then after my four o’clock is done, we’ll let you on it and see what you can do.”
Her acquiescence earned her a smile that warmed Katie to her core and woke the long-dormant butterflies in her stomach. She turned away and headed for the closet before she melted into a puddle on the floor, grumbling, “Do women ever deny you anything?”
She wasn’t sure he’d heard her, but then he replied, “That depends on if you’ve changed your mind about that kiss.”
It’s beyond me how Margaret ever found anything in this closet.”
“Who’s Margaret?”
“The woman who retired just as I was getting hired.”
Cole stood in the closet entrance, leaning against the jamb, silently thanking Margaret for her disorganization. Katie had spent the last five minutes bent over a pile of ortho equipment, searching for a pair of crutches that would fit him. The lacy imprint on her cheeky panties showed through her thin cotton scrub pants. He bit back his amused grin as he unabashedly enjoyed the view. He’d never thought himself an ass man, but Katie was making him a convert. Holy hell . . .
“I keep meaning to get this closet cleaned out and reorganized, but I haven’t found the time,” she continued to grouch, clearly irritated at not finding what she was looking for.
“There’s a pair over there.” He pointed to the crutches in the corner, half buried beneath a stack of knee braces. The path to them was blocked; she’d have to reach for them. Oh, darn . . .
Katie braced her knee on a box and kept one foot planted on the floor as she stretched her arm forward. The hem of her scrub top rode up, flashing him a glimpse of her lower back. A sculptor couldn’t have shaped a more beautiful woman. The way her narrow waist curved to the gentle flare of her hips . . . His pulse spiked with a familiar stirring of lust. The beat of his heart seemed to be centered in his groin.
He felt like a bit of a lecher, standing there, gawking at this woman’s ass and getting hard as granite over the view. But the twinge of guilt wasn’t enough to spur his conscience into looking away. “Is that a tattoo?” he asked, catching a glimpse of ink on her low back peeking out from the waistband of her scrubs.
Katie gasped in surprise and immediately slapped her hand over her back, fingers splayed over the rounded curve of her ass. The sharp crack of palm against flesh reverberated straight into the base of his cock, sending a deep groan of masculine appreciation rumbling in his throat.
“Cole Easton! Are you standing there staring at my ass?”
The corner of his top lip tugged up in a guilty boyish
grin.
She tugged the hem of her shirt down and removed her hand long enough to snag the crutches. Scrambling back over the boxes, she turned around to face him. He chuckled at her mock affront, not believing for a second she was actually mad at him. She didn’t strike him as that touchy. Unable to resist teasing her, he arched a brow. “Let me see it.”
“What? No. I’m not showing you my ass.”
“Not that.” Though he certainly wouldn’t have any objection if she was so inclined. “The tramp stamp. Let me see it.”
“No.” Pretending to ignore him, she focused her attention on the crutches in her hand, located the height range, and then began ripping the cellophane off the pair.
“Come on,” he goaded, watching her as she leaned a crutch against a stack of boxes and turned the other upside down. “Now I’m curious.”
“Well, don’t be,” she grumbled, pushing in two buttons and extending the crutch length as far as it would go. “I did it a long time ago, when I was young and dumb.”
He chuckled and took the crutch she handed to him, propping it under his arm to test the height—much better. “So what, now you’re old and wise?”
“Yes, I am,” she answered matter-of-factly. “Wise enough to see through your charming tricks.”
“Ouch!” he laughed, splaying his hand over his heart. “Cynicism doesn’t become you. Come on, Katie, let me see your tat, you wild rebel.” Taking the other crutch, he adjusted his stance, filling the doorway.
He knew he had her when she cracked a grin as she took the other pair of crutches from him and turned away before he could totally see her full-on smile that did funny things to his chest and other more lurid places. She hung the crutches on an empty hook, probably the only thing in this storage closet properly in its place.
“You really want to see it?”
“Yes, I do. I’ll make you a deal. You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”
Her delicately arched brow rose in question at his flirtatious remark. “Ha, you’re a dirty liar,” she teased back with mock offense. “You don’t have any tattoos.”
The moment the words left her tongue, her mouth snapped shut, and a guilty crimson blush stole across crossing her face. Folding his arms over his chest, he cocked his brow and smirked triumphantly. “Oh, really? You seem awfully sure of that fact. I’m curious to discover how you’d know.” He really shouldn’t give her such a hard time, but damn, teasing her was fun.
Rather than answer him with what he suspected was the truth—she’d seen a hell of a lot more of him this morning than he’d realized—Katie exhaled an exasperated sigh, muttering “Fine . . .” as she spun around. Presenting him with her back, she hiked up her scrub top, bent forward, and hooked the drawstring waistband with her thumb, tugging her pants down to reveal not only her tattoo, but the top of her delectable ass crack.
The air froze in Cole’s lungs at the sight of her creamy flesh, starkly off-setting the black ink centered low on her back. He hadn’t been expecting her to flash him that much skin, but in her haste, she’d overshot the bare necessitates, displaying the top curves of a bottom he would very much have liked to see more of. With a great deal of effort, he dragged his gaze back to her tattoo. The design looked tribal, with symmetrical curves and flourishes intersecting and twisting. As he looked at it, a picture began to take shape in the design. It was a pair of wings, he realized, with the words Alis volat propriis written above it.
“What does it say?”
“‘She flies with her own wings.’ I got it after graduation, right before I started college. Like I said, I was young and dumb.”
“Why do you say that? I think it’s an inspiring and courageous message.”
Katie laughed, but the sound held no humor, only bitterness and resentment, though he sensed her scorn was not directed at him. She straightened and tugged her scrubs back into place. “Perhaps. If it were true. But then what did I know about the harsh realities of life? When you’re eighteen you think you can tackle the world.”
She clicked off the closet light and moved to slip past him, but he caught hold of her arm, stopping her. “Being courageous doesn’t mean you win every battle, Katie. It just means you never give up.” Whether she was more surprised by his words or his touch, he couldn’t be certain. She looked comfortable with neither. “You’re still here. That’s what matters, right?”
Yeah, he should probably let her go now, but damn if he couldn’t seem to make his fingers uncurl from her bicep. He liked Katie—more than he ought to, probably. It wasn’t just her beauty that attracted him. She had depth, and substance. And she was the first woman he’d been around in . . . who in the hell knew how long, who wasn’t throwing herself at him.
“Spoken like a true fighter,” she conceded.
He released her and reached up to cup her cheek. Damn, her skin was soft . . . like the delicate petals of a flower. She tensed but, to his surprise, did not pull back, though he sensed a part of her was telling her to do just that. “Not just a fighter. A survivor,” he corrected. “Just like you, I suspect. We all have our battle scars, Katie. Some are just more visible than others.”
She nodded, his words seeming to resonate with her. Katie broke his gaze to seek the safety of the floor. God help him, he wanted to kiss her. There was something about Katrina Miller that provoked his protective instincts. She just looked so damn fragile, so utterly beautiful . . . His thumb brushed across her cheek, dangerously close to that bottom lip he desperately wanted to taste. The urge to pull her into his arms was a wicked temptation nearly too strong to deny—and he might have caved to the desire had a deep male voice not filled the gym.
“Hey, Katie . . .”
She startled, her eyes briefly locking on his, her cheeks flushing hotly. Had she been hoping he’d kiss her? Despite her earlier refusal, the look in her eyes told him she might have been contemplating changing her mind—until they’d been so rudely interrupted, that is. Cole made no attempt to let her pass. If she wanted out of this closet, she’d have to squeeze past him to do it.
“Hey, Katie Bug, you in here?”
Cole’s brow arched in question. Katie Bug? Who in hell was this guy? The unexpected spark of jealousy caught him off guard. Tamping down the unwelcomed reaction, he donned a shit-eating grin. Before he could give her a hard time about the nickname that conjured mental images of red beetles with little black spots, she hissed under her breath, “Don’t you dare start, Cole Easton.”
“Hey, I didn’t say anything,” he smirked, holding up his hands defensively.
“Yeah, well you’re thinking it.” Then louder, she called out, “Hey, Tom, I’ll be there in a minute.”
When he didn’t move out of her way, she crossed her arms over her chest, drawing his gaze to the wealth of cleavage visible from the V-neck of her scrubs. “Are you going to let me out?” She stared up at him expectantly.
“Do I have a choice?” What would she do if he slipped his hand around her waist right now and kissed her? Would the guy in the next room see them? At the thought, he found himself hoping the answer would be yes, which was ridiculous, because he had no claim on this woman. So why in the hell was he getting all territorial?
“No. You don’t. That’s my four o’clock. Your time’s up.”
“Already? Aww . . . Katie Bug, I thought we were just getting started.” He flashed her a flirtatious grin that had gotten him laid too many times to count.
Despite her effort to appear otherwise, her blush confirmed she wasn’t immune to his charms, after all. “Sorry. You thought wrong. As you can see, I’m in high demand,” she quipped glibly, moving forward to squeeze between him and the door frame.
As she slipped by him, his hand shot to her waist, stopping her. She tensed, her gorgeous green eyes widening in surprise as he reached for the hemline of her scrub top that was still flipped up and showing a sliver of bare stomach. He’d be damned if he’d have her walking out there looking like this. When he unfolded
the hem and put her top back to rights, his fingers accidently grazed the flesh stretching over her hip, sending a jolt of lust flooding his veins. Raw need gripped him hard. Holy fuck, never in his life had he felt this kind of a reaction to touching a woman—accidentally or deliberately.
Time momentarily stopped, as did the air in his lungs. He froze, unable to pull his hand away, the heat of her flesh scorching his fingertips. Cole’s gaze shot to hers. Did she feel it too?—the shift of energy in the air?—the headiness of desire that seemed to suck all the oxygen from this room?
Cole was painfully aware of just how fast his pulse was racing. With every hammering beat, he seemed to grow painfully harder, the pressure in the base of his spine coiling tighter. Lust never felt so good, nor did it hurt this damn bad. He was paying the price of his cock’s repeat performance—without a grand finale. If he didn’t figure out a way to bring the rebel to heel, he’d be sporting a severe case of blue balls before he knew it.
A startled gasp broke the silence stretching between them. Hell if he knew who it came from—her, him, or the guy that just stepped into his periphery.
“You okay, Katie?”
The protective note in the approaching guy’s voice lit the spark of Cole’s testosterone-fueled temper. It also effectively shattered the connection between him and Katie. She startled, pulling away from his touch, and damn if letting her go wasn’t one of the hardest things he’d ever done. There was no denying it—something was brewing between them, something visceral, and it was about all Cole could do to stand there and watch it slip through his fingers.
She mumbled a hasty “Thank you” for his poorly executed attempt to straighten her clothes, and finished slipping past him. At least she realized what he’d been trying to do. It wasn’t until her own hands lifted to check her hem and verify everything was in place that he realized they were shaking.
Was she nervous? Had he scared her? Or was she as overwhelmed by this startling attraction as he was? He would have liked to explore the question more, but with her four o’clock glaring daggers at his back, that obviously wasn’t happening.
Win by Submission Page 8