by Cari Quinn
She's in for the fight of her life...with the man who only wants to be her lover.
Fighter Mia Anderson has faced the dark side of life and survived. But just getting by is no longer enough. To fund her new life with her baby sister, she’s determined to beat the reigning king of the male fighters in New York’s underground MMA circuit, Tray “Fox” Knox.
Tray refuses to fight a woman, until he learns Mia’s tougher than anyone he has ever known. He soon realizes he wants more from her than blows and blood, and he’s willing to hit below the belt to get it. He’ll fight her, but if he wins, she spends the night in his bed. All night long, his rules. No tapping out.
Mia agrees, certain that he’ll lose. What she doesn’t realize is that Tray loves to fight dirty…and that this match may end up being the most important one of their lives.
Warning: please be advised this book contains content some may find triggering (past sexual trauma) and also contains graphic sex and language.
Dedication
To Taryn Elliott, who cheered me on all the way for this book—and every book.
To my Mom, who thinks I’m Superwoman (without the tights.)
To Tessa Bailey, who encouraged me to keep swinging when I wanted to walk away.
To Christa Desir, thank you for helping me stand back and let go.
To Fiona Apple, who released an amazing song in the mid-nineties that made me want to write a story. Almost twenty years later, now I have my own “Shadowboxer.”
To Sara Bareilles, who helped Mia and I to be “Brave.”
And to anyone out there without a voice. Don’t hold back your truth. I promise someone is listening.
Chapter One
Mia
I was bleeding again.
Red-tinged water trickled down the drain of the shower at Mark’s Gym, flowing over cracked tiles and years of grime no cleanser could touch. I tended to do a weird kind of tap dance while I showered, because I didn’t like the idea of all that filth seeping into my unprotected skin.
Tipping my head back, I winced at the stabbing sensation under my left eye. Scalding hot water didn’t help to soothe my wounds, at least the external ones. But sore muscles responded well to the heat, and I loved ducking my head under the steaming spray until nothing existed but my quivering, straining body and the blissful exhaustion awaiting me.
I soaped myself with my no-name soap, inhaling the cleansing scent. No flowers or fruit for me. My shampoo smelled just as nondescript. I didn’t have a reason to smell sweet. No man to entice, no women to compete with. I’d fashioned my body for one thing.
To fight. And to win.
Now that I was finally making money in the underground MMA scene in Brooklyn, I’d almost reached the point of walking away for good. I’d spent months preparing for an upcoming battle with perfect, blond Fox Knox, a man who probably didn’t know I existed. I’d given up one form of making money with my body for another, but soon enough I’d drop this one too.
All I needed was that payday from fighting Fox. That was my—our—ticket out.
I got out and toweled off, then hurried to my locker. Due to the day’s unexpected snow, the locker room was much less crowded than usual. Only my trainer, Kizzy, and a couple others had showed, and our practice sparring session had gotten a little out of control. The real fight Friday night would be extra special now, since I was already hurt.
I yanked open my locker and smiled at the tattered photo I’d hung up with a magnet so it wouldn’t get damaged by tape. Carly’s bright blue eyes stared into mine, filled with the joy reflected in that gap-toothed smile. Her cinnamon freckles went with her more-strawberry-than-blonde hair, a complete contrast to my pale, almost translucent skin and brown eyes and hair.
Our looks were the least of our differences. Sometimes it felt like ten years separated us instead of a little more than three. My baby sister had kept me going all these years, and she’d help me get over the finish line to our new life. A month from now she would turn eighteen. Then we’d start the rest of our lives, far away from New York. We both needed a fresh start, far from the memories that haunted us. I was determined we’d get one.
The door to the locker room slammed open, startling me. The feminine laughter that followed dragged razorblades down my spine. Anyone that didn’t think female fighters postured every bit as much as men didn’t meet the chicks I did on a daily basis. This particular group of them had hated me and everything I represented on sight. I wasn’t from their neighborhood of pawn shops and beauty salons. I didn’t have a neighborhood. No matter where I laid my head at night, I had no community and few friends. Which made me a target. Take me out and they’d have one less competitor to face.
But they didn’t get that I was fighting for my life.
“Hey Mia,” one of them called to me, smiling.
Apparently she wasn’t too disgusted by my once again bleeding lip. I must’ve bitten it without realizing.
“Heard you’re trying to set up something with Fox. You know that’s not going to happen, right?”
Instead of arguing with Vanity—I could never remember her real name, but I couldn’t forget her brutal right hook—I dropped my towel and hauled up my skinny jeans, sans underwear. I’d never been able to keep a lot of weight on, but lately it’d been dropping off no matter how many protein shakes I drank. My muscle tone was excellent, though my breasts were about to edge into an A cup if I didn’t watch it. Not a huge problem, since most of the guys I used to “date” ignored their presence. They mostly just got in the way when I was fighting.
Vanity strutted forward. “Aww, Spyder doesn’t speak?”
I tugged my sweatshirt free of the crap I toted around on a daily basis. That bag represented my home away from home and overflowed with hairbands, a battered paperback, gauze, cloth hand wraps, extra mouth guards, bike shorts, and a couple of tank tops. Right now the bag offered a distraction. Maybe if I ignored Vanity, she’d leave me the hell alone.
“I’ve never heard you talk,” she continued. “You fight like a little bitch, so I figured you’d have the smart mouth to go with it.”
The smirk crossed my face before I could stop it. One day I’d learn to control my involuntary reactions. They were always getting me in trouble.
My voluntary ones weren’t much better.
I pulled the sweatshirt over my head, well aware of the risk I was taking by breaking eye contact even for a moment. The show of insolence was worth it. No one would ever make me cower again.
The punch hit me square in the stomach, staggering me backward and stealing my breath for a fraction of an instant before adrenaline surged through my system and buried some of the soreness. Panic rose up in my chest, hot and unwelcome, almost as overwhelming as the agony that twisted my guts. Though it cost me extra seconds, I relied on the mantras I used in the ring to shove the fear in a box. I’d go down swinging, no matter what.
I jerked the sweatshirt down and shoved my arms through, smiling like she hadn’t just made me nauseated enough to have the burned egg sandwich I’d eaten for breakfast lurching up my throat.
She blinked, clearly confused. Flexing the hand she’d just used to give me one more bruise, she glanced back at her friends. And that was all the opening I needed.
Charging forward, I grabbed her by the throat and drove her into the wall. Her skull cracked ominously upon hitting the wood. I didn’t shy away from pain, my own or others. But I didn’t have a reason to inflict it here, other than the hit she’d delivered to my ego. Blows and namecalling I could withstand. I just couldn’t withstand her taunts that I had no chance of fighting Fox, when I’d been working toward that solitary goal for months.
Predictably, Vanity’s friends were on me like cockroaches before I’d even had a cha
nce to scratch those overly made-up cheeks. The stage name fit her, since she sashayed around the ring as if she were on a runway in Paris instead of an octagon in a rundown former industrial building in Brooklyn or occasionally the Bronx. She didn’t fight for the money, such as it was. Most amateur fighters didn’t make much, and amateur women made even less. She fought because she thought it made her look tough.
And now I was getting my already fucked up hair pulled out by the root by the crew of catty females who’d decided to triple team me.
Pain bloomed in my ribs, in my back, as they nailed me with punches to the kidneys and everywhere else. That was the bad part about getting into a brawl with fighter chicks. Even if I could’ve taken them on their own, as a group they were pretty persuasive. Especially when Mean Girl Number Two jammed a knuckle in my eye and sent me reeling onto my back on the dirty floor.
Fuckkkkk.
I focused on the shapes that loomed over me, each of them in triplicate. They laughed and gasped, holding their sides. They’d beaten me. Or so they thought.
Fast as a rattler, I pushed through the pain and jerked to my feet, grabbing two heads of fluffy curls and slamming them together. I hated them for their laughter, for mocking me, for their pretty hairdos. I’d had pretty hair once, so long ago that even the few pictures I’d saved were unrecognizable. Even my memories of happier times taunted me, if I allowed them to.
Their inhuman howls tasted like victory, though blood washed over my tongue. Bit it again, dammit. But at least they’d stopped laughing. Even Vanity had backed up, her big blue eyes wide.
I had nothing to lose. Death didn’t scare me. Why else would I stagger toward it with my fists up night after night, hoping someone would finally put me out of my misery? I never put my death wish into words. Never even let myself think that way. There were definitely things I wanted to live for—like Carly—but sometimes even I wondered how far I really wanted to go.
They cursed at me and called me names. I’d heard them all before. Puta especially. Then they took off, apparently forgetting they’d come in to shower and get changed.
A smile cracked my sore lips as the door clanged shut behind them. The expression I so didn’t feel helped stave off the prickling in my eyes. Pity they hadn’t stuck around to get washed up. What, didn’t they trust turning their backs on me?
I made my way to the sinks, limping more than a little, to view the damage. Dammit. Even worse than I’d thought. More bruising near my eye, newly reopened cut lip. Various scratches. By tomorrow my face and torso would be a rainbow of blue, purple, and green.
I did the best I could with soap, water, and antibacterial cream, then shuffled out of the locker room before anyone else could ambush me. The ibuprofen and acetaminophen cocktail I’d just taken had emptied out the last of my meds supply, and in my business, I’d need more quick. Time to visit the Kum and Go again, even though I’d just been there a few nights ago to replenish my stocks of tampons, peanut butter crackers, and root beer popsicles for my sore lips. I could power through a few bumps and bruises without pills, but I looked like I’d been hit by a truck that had reversed to do wheelies on my face.
Didn’t matter. I’d get by. I always did. These scattered body blows wouldn’t do anything but make me train harder. I had the fight Friday night, and I would win. No matter what. Before then, I had to convince my boss at Vinnie’s to let me work tonight, busted-up face and all. The job at the bar, the fights, the pain—they would all be over soon. Carly and I were getting outta Dodge.
I did the best I could with my puffy face and finished getting ready, zipping up my thin jacket to the chin in deference to the biting cold that waited for me outside. The January cold snap was particularly brutal, and I wasn’t exactly dressed for the weather. At least I didn’t have far to walk, since Vinnie’s was in the same neighborhood.
Shouldering my backpack, I headed out, head held high. I walked to work the same way, despite the sting in my eyes from the snow that bordered on sleet. In this area of town, if you put your head down, you were asking for trouble.
I was, but not that kind. I’d already had enough to last a lifetime.
As I approached Vinnie’s, dodging a guy walking a dog while rollerskating—in the snow, no less—I scanned the people down the block out of habit. Never making eye contact, just surveying my surroundings. The tuft of blond hair stood out, mostly because it rose head and shoulders over everyone else.
Then the blond guy looked at me. Into me. And the sharp wrench of my gut had nothing to do with my injuries.
The sheer punch of his face ripped away my breath. With dawning recognition, I tried to snatch my gaze away. He’d stolen it, compelling me in a way I’d never experienced.
Somehow I managed to turn away and reach for the door. The cool handle pressed into my hand. Now I was hallucinating in broad daylight. It couldn’t be him. Why would he be here? This wasn’t his neighborhood. The Cage was on the other side of town.
Bottom line, I wasn’t ready for it to be him. All these months of plotting and planning couldn’t come down to a chance meeting when I was limping and looked like I’d played Dodgeball with a brick wall. He’d never take me seriously like this. Hell, I wouldn’t take me seriously in his position either. How could I pose a reasonable challenge to him in the ring when I already appeared whipped?
So I wouldn’t let it be him, even in my mind. I’d just keep walking and maybe this whole clusterfuck of a day would turn into a bad dream that I’d wake up from, gritty-eyed and dry mouthed and grateful as hell that it wasn’t reality.
Ignoring the pinch of heat along the back of my neck, I strode inside the bar. I didn’t look back to see if he was watching.
I already knew he was.
Chapter Two
Tray
She turned away before I glimpsed much of her face. Just a curve of cheek, hidden by near-black hair. Eyes as heavy and bruised as the clouds that rolled across the sky, full of snow. She hurried inside the bar I’d walked past yesterday, the one with the sign.
That sign slapped up on the glass with fraying masking tape had drawn me back, for reasons I still didn’t fully understand. It drew me toward a nondescript bar and a nondescript girl, yanking me closer like a magnet.
Whether I’d end up being pulled in or repelled remained to be seen.
I pushed open the heavy wooden door, my gaze fixated on the pane of glass emblazoned Vinnie’s. My gut fisted, and I nearly turned around. I didn’t need the cash. I’d won most of my fights since the beginning of the year. No one got rich off of amateur bouts, not even close, but I was an anomaly on the circuit. My fast fists and surfer looks brought comparisons to Van Damme. I didn’t give a shit what they called me, if it meant more green in my pocket.
A couple of the locals had tried to bribe me to throw some fights, and that hadn’t gone down so well. Since then, they’d decided to invest in the winning team: me. The promoters knew I lured in the crowds. Some of my corner crew worked for peanuts, figuring I’d turn pro and they would ride my coattails all the way. They were wrong, but I wasn’t about to tell them that.
I would never make serious money fighting in amateur leagues, but I was doing okay. And living life my way, with my own money and my own fists.
So why was I at Vinnie’s Taproom? Did I really want to sling drinks for a bunch of angry drunks in my precious free time?
Maybe. Maybe I just wanted to get out and talk to people. See if I could meet a woman who didn’t have anything to do with the lifestyle. I’d seen a few prospects when I ventured out to have a drink a few weeks ago. Showing up at a bar when I’d been fresh out of a match and still thrumming with adrenaline had been kind of stupid. Most times I isolated myself after fights, because that natural chemical spike could convince me to do dangerous stuff.
Including taking home a chick I didn’t want to see over breakfast in the morning, just to get my rocks off. But I never made them leave. I bruised faces and occasionally broke bones for a li
ving, but I’d never left a woman feeling bad about herself. My dignified Long Island upbringing hadn’t left me even though I now lived in a walkup in Brooklyn.
Truthfully, my friends from the neighborhood were way more gentlemanly than the privileged fuckwits I’d known back home. Those were the guys you shouldn’t let near your teenage daughter, rather than the hard-edged ones people crossed the street to avoid in the boroughs.
Wolves, sheep’s clothing. People never fucking learned.
Not that I could talk. I was the one following a brunette with a battered face, simply because I was intrigued. Because I didn’t have anything better to do.
I strolled up to the bar and shook off the snow that had collected on my bomber jacket. It was one of the few relics I had from my old life, and it had even more scars than I did. Women told me it made me look dangerous. Then they got me naked and saw the checkerboard of bruises and welts that decorated my torso on a daily basis and usually forgot all about my clothes.
Leaning against the polished, well-worn wood, I smiled at the blonde bartender on duty and opened my mouth to speak. The words disappeared under the shout of indignation from the back room. Female, from the high-pitched quality. Sort of like a weasel in heat.
Almost instantly, I knew it was her.
“Gimme a freaking break, Carmine. I’m no worse now than I’ve been a million times before.”
I couldn’t hear Carmine’s reply but I guessed it couldn’t have been good, judging by the next deafening noise that erupted from the squealer. I glanced at the blonde, whose pale pink lips had rounded into a surprised ‘O.’
“Unhappy employee?” I offered her a wide grin as I rested my arms on the bar. I’d shoved up the sleeves of my jacket and the shirt I wore beneath, and her gaze dropped to my forearms. I’d seen the look before and counted on it to get me laid. If I’d seen her before the brunette, I might’ve considered it. “If so, my timing seems especially fortuitous.”