The Race

by Alice Ward

  I was a mess. And if I was making absolutely no sense to myself, I wondered if everyone around me could see it too.

  Not knowing what else to do, I’d stayed away.

  But I could only stay away so long. It was only days until the fight with De La Matta. She was, after all, my newest project, and one that I wanted to be profitable so I could sponsor other fighters.

  I’d long since given up on trying to tell myself that this was only a business venture. It was a waste of energy, and while I was many things, I wasn’t a liar, not even to myself. I felt a connection to this spitfire of a woman, and that was that. I couldn’t tell that she felt the same, so I wasn’t sure what my next move would be. I didn’t want to move on.

  I wanted her here in my office. Now.

  I picked up the phone and pressed the button for the front desk. Chris answered, and I barked, “Have Cherry come to my office as soon as she’s available.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll inform her as soon as she comes out from her massage.”

  I hung up. Knowing she was near to naked under the hands of the massage therapist right down the hall had my cock calling all the shots.

  I stayed at my desk to hide his obvious glee. As I finished cost projections, I realized I was actually under budget. I’d toyed with the idea of bringing on the nutritionist that I had been planning on hiring closer to Cherry’s debut. There was no telling what she was eating at home, and I was willing to bet that her diet consisted of cheap fillers and carbs. She needed protein, a lot of it, and I was well aware that meat wasn’t always affordable for low-income families.

  Granted, the three thousand a month she was getting was supposed to help with that sort of thing, but I had picked up on the fact that she put family before everything. Her clothes were still just as worn and generic as when she first walked in almost two months ago, and she carried the same bag, patched in multiple places.

  I wondered what it must’ve been like to have such loyalty to family that she put them before her own health and needs. It was admirable, even if it was foolish. It had been a long time since my own family had resembled anything so caring, not since Mom died when Lillie and I were ten. Dad had increasingly grown more and more distant until he was barely even home

  It was hard to remember a day when Dad was softer, but he had been. He’d changed when Mom died, but he had turned into an unfeeling bastard when Lillie stopped coming home. His only communication with me was doling out orders and consequences if they weren’t followed to the tee. When I’d worked for my father, if I would have done something to endanger the company and the empire that he’d built, I would have been ousted in an instant. One reason I’d gone out on my own with Hunter.

  Uncomfortable with where my thoughts had gone, I got up from my desk to see if Andre had arrived yet. I wanted to take his opinion under advisement on the nutritionist, as well as what else we could do to bolster Cherry even further. I was determined she was going to show every single one of those muscle-bound idiots at the upcoming fight just what she was capable of.

  I strode quickly down the hall, intent on finding Andre, but I came to a halt as the door to the massage room opened, and Cherry walked out, clad in nothing but one of Sophie’s white sheets.

  The air thickened, as did my member, and I couldn’t keep my eyes from going over every inch of bare skin.

  Her golden skin looked that much more radiant against the white of the sheet, and her hair was up in a loose bun on the top of her head. There were red, puffy marks on her upper back from where the therapist had been working, and I had the sudden wish that it had been my hands there.

  She must have sensed my gaze because she whipped around, her face turning as red as the marks on her back.

  “I had to pee,” she blurted then looked down at the sheet.

  She was so adorable, so innocent looking standing there wrapped in white that I couldn’t help the smallest of smiles. I cocked a brow. “Glad to hear you have a functioning bladder.”

  She shifted and turned even pinker. “Right. I just, uh, didn’t want you to think that I was out here on purpose. Like I was…”

  I took a single step toward her. Not far enough to cut her off, so she could still exit if she was uncomfortable, but closing the distance enough that she could feel my presence just inches from her. “Like you were trying to seduce me?” I murmured, letting my voice drop lower than normal.

  Cherry swallowed, hard. A surge of lust, followed by protectiveness and passiveness went through me. She was good at putting on a show of being indomitable, and it made me want to dominate her all the more.

  “Yeah, that,” she breathed, her eyes drifting to my lips.

  I could feel her body responding to mine, and her hand reached for me tentatively.

  Perhaps my attraction was less one-sided than I had thought. It could be that she was just as intrigued by me as I was with her, but she kept it to herself for professional or personal reasons. But coming to conclusions like that was dangerous. It could lead to all sorts of misunderstandings and misinterpretations. I needed to know what she thought, what she felt, but she was about as forthcoming as a clam.

  I took one more step forward so that our bodies were almost touching, and instead of taking back her space, Cherry leaned forward, closing that final distance between us.

  My skin jolted at the contact, and all my thoughts of nutritionists and fight prep fled. God, I wanted her so intensely that I was tempted to haul her to my office and take her right there.

  “Oh my, am I interrupting something?” Sophie’s voice cut through the mood like ice.

  I straightened, quickly moving away. Anything I might say would be a lie, so I just gave both of them a nod and walked toward the front of the gym to look for Andre like I’d been doing when Cherry appeared, looking like some kind of Greek goddess wrapped in a tunic.

  I was somewhere right between chagrined and cocky, and for once I wasn’t sure how to arrange my facial features. Cherry certainly had a way of turning the entire world on its head and surprising me in the best way possible.

  “What’s with you?” Andre asked, spotting me from where he was lounging in the receptionist’s chair. “You look like a cat that caught a mouse but isn’t quite sure what to do with it.”

  How apt. “You could say something like that.”

  “Something like that, huh?” His eyes narrowed. “You weren’t making it on our girl, were you?”

  “No,” I answered honestly. Not this time. But his tone was odd, so I leveled a critical eye at him, intent on reading his body language. “But why would that be a problem, if we were… making it.” Just the man using the phrase “making it” in reference to her made me want to break him in two.

  “Because relationships with fighters never work, take it from me. And neither does just trying to stay casual. Someone always ends up using someone, one gets feelings, and then everything falls apart. Usually, someone gets sued. And that would be you.” He let out a dry, bitter laugh. “Take it from me. You are from way too different worlds on way too many levels. Just enjoy her as eye candy but don’t think about getting a taste.”

  I wasn’t going to tell him that I had already had more than just a taste of Cherry, so instead, I leaned forward so that my elbows were balanced on the counter. “There are plenty of words you can use to describe her, but eye candy is not one of them. It would do you well to talk about your charge with a bit more respect when she’s not around. Understood?” I didn’t leave any room for question in the tone that sounded less like a request and more like a threat.

  “Duly noted. Just be thinking about what I’m saying to you. Cherry is new to this world, and it’s the worst time for her to be distracted. If it was a year from now, I’d say go for it. But this early…” He shook his head, and I knew he was right.

  I straightened and forced my expression to neutral. “Now, I wanted your thoughts on hiring a nutritionist. Beneficial, or too close to the tournament to make any sort of differe
nce at this point?”

  The poor coach looked like he was suffering from a bit of whiplash with my sudden topic change, and just shook his head. “You know what? I’ll get back to you on that after our session today.”

  “Of course.”

  I watched him go and debated on walking back to my office, but I wasn’t sure I had given Cherry enough time to return from the bathroom. As much as I would’ve loved to see her clad only in a sheet again, her curves evident through the thin material, I also didn’t need to put myself through that kind of torture. It wasn’t that I couldn’t control myself around her, just that I didn’t want to. Badly.

  Shaking my head, I headed for the outer door. Maybe the cool air of the first day of March would help me forget exactly how perfect Cherry felt pressed up against me with only a single layer of cotton and the material of my suit between us.

  Not likely, but I could always hope.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Cherry

  Inhale.

  I splashed cold water from the gym bathroom faucet on my face then looked in the bathroom mirror, trying to calm my nerves.

  Exhale.

  It didn’t work.

  After two weeks of careful prep and basically running myself ragged training, the first weekend of March and the day of my fight against Roberto De La Matta was finally here.

  Focus.

  Inhale. Exhale.

  Everything will fall into place.

  I had never fought so hard to improve or put my body through such hellish workouts. But I could feel that a lot had changed. I’d thought I was in great shape before, but apparently, that was just the tip of the iceberg. I could not wait to see what results Andre could pull out of me after a few more months.

  I took one more quick look in the mirror at what might be the last glimpse of my unbattered face. After the fight, I knew I could be sporting some bruising for a while.

  You can do this.

  I could feel it in my bones — I was going to make waves tonight.

  I gave myself a nod then headed back out to the gym. Caleb had offered to pick me up at my house to take me to the fight, but I’d suggested meeting on common ground instead, for a mix of reasons.

  One, was that I just didn’t want him infringing on my world that much. My house was my safe haven, tucked away from the whole fighting scene that I had thrown myself into.

  Second was that my trip in the silence of the car that Caleb insisted pick me up had become a vital part of my fight prep. It gave me a solid twenty minutes —twenty minutes was precious when you had four younger siblings — of just listening to my music, focusing on my breathing and envisioning the day. No one talked to me or teased me mercilessly. It was my time. Skipping that time right before what might be the biggest fight of my life just didn’t seem like a good idea.

  “You ready?” Caleb asked from where he was waiting at the receptionist desk.

  He was dressed in a fitted shirt that showed more of his muscle mass than his usual suit. With jeans throwing him into a much more casual look than I was used to, it was a hundred percent unfair how delicious he looked. I wanted to run my hands through his hair to feel just how thick I knew it was and bury my nose in the crook of his shoulder until I could breathe nothing but his scent.

  Inhale. Exhale.

  I settled for a curt nod. “By all means, lead the way.”

  His responding nod was just as short, and then I was following him outside. We got into his car without another word, and then he was carefully pulling away from the curb. As I watched him, it seemed as if his eyes scanned the sidewalks on either side of the street, stopping on each pedestrian, assessing them briefly.

  “You’re looking for her,” came out of my mouth before I could stop it.

  His hands tightened on the steering wheel, squeezing it so hard I half expected it to break in two.

  When he didn’t respond, I said, “I’m sorry. I—”

  “Yes.” He let out a long sigh. “It’s a habit. I’ve been looking for so long, it just became second nature to scan the streets. I guess in the back of my mind I’m still looking. Hoping. She’s my sister, I still have hope. Sometimes that’s all I have.”

  I nodded, a lump forming in my throat, and managed to croak, “Hope is good.”

  He frowned. “Or hope can suck when it has you shackled to the past.”

  Silence descended over the car, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It amazed me, the highs and lows I’d hit with Caleb. Some moments were so charged with sexual tension that I just wanted to grab him by his expensive suit lapels and kiss him stupid. Some of our moments were peaceful, comfortable even in a way it would be with a friend I had known forever. This was a deeper moment. The kind where a confidence had been shared with the trust that it would go no further. It made me shift in my seat. I didn’t know if I wanted Caleb to expect anything out of me besides a good fight, one I was more than happy to give him.

  I watched the buildings pass as we cruised along. It didn’t take long for us to arrive at Broadbent Arena, but the parking certainly wasn’t easy because the arena was inside the fairgrounds, which usually had multiple events going on the weekends. We bypassed the main lot, parking near the back entrance in a VIP spot. We were early, in plenty of time for final check-in and warm-up as well as whatever other prep a camera crew might or might not need. I wondered just how jam-packed it would be once most of the spectators arrived.

  We got out, and I went to open the rear passenger door to grab my bag, but before I could, Caleb had already taken it out and slung the strap over his shoulder.

  “You just worry about the fight,” he said matter-of-factly before striding past me.

  Once more, I found myself nearly jogging in order to keep up with him, but I didn’t mind. It would make easing into my warm-up that much more seamless and took my mind off the nerves that wanted to rise to the surface and choke me.

  We reached a security checkpoint, and a strapping man with a clipboard stepped forward. “Name?”

  “Cherry Bomb,” I answered, holding out the blue card I’d been given at the sign-up.

  Caleb shifted, as if hearing my fighter name out loud was uncomfortable to him.

  “Cherry Bomb?” The man took my card, looking impressed and a little doubtful as he compared it to whatever was on his clipboard. “Huh, what do you know. You’re third tonight. Seven p.m. estimate. You’ll be greeted by an attendant inside.” He stepped out of the way and gave a head tilt. “Best of luck.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the card back and striding past him.

  “Be safe,” he said with a worried look.

  “I’ll try my best.” When he was out of earshot, I turned to Caleb. “Problem?”

  “No, you were quite professional there.” Caleb scanned the area and headed for the room with my name written on a piece of paper taped on the door.

  “Thanks.” I scanned his face, trying to read him. “What else?” I felt like there was something behind the comment. Caleb never said anything just to say it. That was part of what I found so damn attractive about him.

  “It’s just that Cherry Bomb sounds a bit too sexual.”

  I stopped and took in his frown, laughing. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Caleb was exhibiting jealousy or possessiveness. “Sexual? As in, pop the cherry?”

  He rolled his eyes and pressed his lips together. Then he met my eyes and the electricity between us zapped me in the forehead. “Or blast through that cherry. Or suck on a cherry.”

  I took a shaky breath, and my eyes scanned his face to see if he was joking, and I saw there was indeed a devilish smile there. Huh, he was messing with me. How very much unlike him.

  I decided to gloss over that topic and started toward the room. I needed to focus on the fight, not on the explosive desire I felt every time Caleb was in the same building. “I’m only professional when I need to be, and I don’t have to be with you.”

  “So, you’re saying I see the real side of y
ou?”

  “I guess so.”

  His smirk only grew broader. “Good to know.”

  I opened my mouth to ask what he meant by that, but an attendant rushed up to us and whisked me into the dressing room.

  “I’m Kasey, and I’ll be here to help you until your fight is over and you go home. And what a treat you are. You’re the only woman who auditioned and got past the requirements.”

  I tried to smile a greeting. “Really. That surprises me.” I hoped it was just because there wasn’t a woman who wanted to challenge, and not that Roberto’s team had refused women who couldn’t give him a ten-grand bribe. If I did well enough in this, it would hopefully be a step toward women fighters getting the respect they deserved.

  I reminded myself not to get ahead of things. I had to actually do well in the fight before I could pave the way for my fellow ladies in gloves, and my boxing still wasn’t really where it should be. Why couldn’t an MMA fighter have pulled this kind of stunt?

  The next thing I knew, the attendant was gone, and Caleb came in. It was almost time for me to warm up. The dressing room had a clean, plush mat on the floor as well as a water stand, and a sports drink setup. Feeling more self-conscious than usual, I sat down on the mat and started stretches, trying not to glance at Caleb while I did so.

  But I could feel his eyes on me. They were always on me, or at least it seemed like it. The sensation just made me want to impress him.

  “You can do this.”

  I looked up, surprised at his words of encouragement. Ever since our roll in the ring, he’d kept pretty mum, with most of our interactions professional, minus the time we ran into each other while I was wearing nothing but a sheet.

  “I know,” I answered, giving him a sure smile. “But thank you for the positive reinforcement.”

  He scoffed lightly. “Remember… confidence, not cockiness.”

  “I find the difference between those is underestimating how much your opponent can hurt you.” I bent into my stretch. “Trust me, I know how much this guy can hurt me. The thing is, he doesn’t know just how much I can hurt him back.”