Hot as Sin (Contemporary Romance Box Set)

by Katherine Lace

Right now I’m standing next to the ring at Cain’s gym, watching him spar and train with Paul. Paul seems like an okay guy, although he keeps giving me the side-eye like he can’t figure out why I’m here. He saw the ring on my hand, saw the matching one that Cain took off before he wrapped his hands and gloved up. Surely he, too, has put two and two together—that is, if he didn’t know already. I’d figured the news would travel pretty fast among Pop’s cronies. Either way, he doesn’t seem inclined to ask any questions.

  Watching Cain train is interesting and even educational. I’ve always known a little about MMA fighting, since I’ve seen it on a regular basis since I was about ten or twelve, but I’ve never had the opportunity to dig into the art behind it. And it is an art—melding several kinds of fighting styles from kickboxing and regular boxing to jiujitsu to Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling and several other disciplines I’d never heard of before. Paul throws out names of holds and moves and Cain responds immediately, knowing exactly what he’s talking about. They spar, using boxing and kickboxing moves, then go to the floor, grappling in a variety of wrestling moves. Sometimes Paul slows them down, demonstrating each move and flowing through a sequence so Cain can see all its parts and how they fit together.

  Cain focuses on it all with an intensity I don’t see in him often. He talks in monosyllables, mostly, like his mind is totally absorbed by what he’s doing. He nods a lot, and though he doesn’t always look right at Paul when Paul talks, I can tell he’s taking in every word.

  When they finally wrap up, Cain is sweaty and breathing hard. He shakes himself off, flinging sweat droplets around the ring, onto the mat beneath him. He flexes his hands, and I can tell they hurt. Whether from bruises or cuts or stiffness, I can’t tell.

  Cautiously I move through the ropes to join him. Paul has retreated to his corner and has shed his gloves. He’s pulling the tape off his hands.

  I reach for Cain’s still-taped fists and start to do the same, peeling the tape back a bit at a time. He watches for a minute and then grins at me. “It’s going to take forever that way,” he says, and grabs an end of the tape and jerks it back.

  “Doesn’t that hurt?” I ask him.

  “Not yet. It will when you get to the skin.”

  “I’ll be more careful with that part, then.”

  He shrugs. “Suit yourself. Sometimes I’d rather just get it off. It’s not that bad. Maybe lose a little bit of hair—that’s about it. It’s like…” He pauses. “Getting your eyebrows waxed?”

  I laugh at the apt comparison and follow his instructions, figuring he’s done this a zillion times before, so I probably shouldn’t argue. When I reach the last few inches, I slow down a little.

  Cain, chuckling now, grabs the end of the last stretch of tape and just jerks it off. Then he loops the tangled tape around my own wrists and ties it into a sloppy knot.

  “What’s that for?” I protest.

  He laughs again and ducks a little to kiss me. He tastes sweaty, smells sweaty and musky and on the verge of actually ripe. He needs a shower. Behind us I vaguely sense Paul watching, maybe a little too closely. I don’t care. Pop already knows what’s going on between me and Cain and has already made his opinion on the matter abundantly clear. So who cares if Paul approves or not?

  I rub my thumbs over Cain’s where he’s holding my hands. “You know,” I tell him, “you could just pick up and go any time if you want. I wish I could.”

  “I told you, babe, we’ll do what we have to do. It’ll work out.”

  He seems more smug even than usual. I wonder what’s up. Then I get lost in the look he’s giving me. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but his eyes seem warm, open, with a caring in them I’ve never seen before. He squeezes my hands. “Come on back to the locker room with me. I have something for you.”

  I wonder what he could possibly have for me in the locker room. If the place were empty, I’d figure it’d be some crazy sex. But I don’t think he’s going to do that right now. There are about five other guys working out today, and I doubt he’ll risk having one of them walk in on us.

  However, he doesn’t seem too concerned about taking me back to the locker room. There’s another guy in there who looks like he’s fresh out of the shower. He makes a noise of protest, and I avert my eyes, but apparently Cain gives him some kind of signal, because when I look again, the other guy has put his pants on—rather haphazardly—and is hurrying to get his shirt over his shoulders and his feet in his shoes.

  “That was mean,” I tell Cain in a low voice.

  “Eh, he’ll survive.” Cain sits down on a bench and grabs a towel out of his open locker. He scrubs some of the sweat off his chest and out of his hair. “Sorry,” he says. “I’d go ahead and take a shower, but I don’t want to wait with this.”

  “With what?” I ask as he turns away again, reaching back into the locker. He takes out a manila envelope. It has papers in it, I can tell. Not a huge stack, but not unsubstantial either. I can’t see anything written on it. “What is it?” I ask as he hands it over.

  He nods toward it. “Open it. Take a look.”

  I study his face for a second, looking for some kind of clue there, but he just cocks an eyebrow and crosses his arms over his elbows. So I open the envelope and pull out the contents.

  It’s a catalog from UCLA. Inside the catalog is a sheaf of papers with specific classes, including the schedule for the upcoming semester. A couple of them even have a syllabus included.

  I stare at it for a minute, unable to process exactly what I’m looking at. Then I notice the class information pages all have my name on them, with the number of credits listed for each class. There’s also an invoice. It’s marked “Paid.”

  No, this can’t be what I think it is. I look up at Cain, dumbfounded, feeling the edges of my eyes going hot.

  He’s got a smile on his face like nothing I’ve ever seen on him. It’s gentle and open and loving and insufferably smug all at the same time. Gently he says, “You need to follow your heart, babe. This will get you started.”

  “You…signed me up for classes?”

  “Yep. You’re all set for that degree. I want to see you as a PA.” He leans forward and kisses my forehead. “You’ll be great at it. I mean, you’re great at taking care of me, right?”

  Hot tears slide down my cheeks before I can do anything to stop them. I can’t believe he’s done this. “Cain… I don’t know what to say.”

  He kisses me again, this time on the mouth, and uses a thumb to smooth the tears off my face. “Say you’ll be there for the first day of the semester, and that you’ll give it all you’ve got and make straight As.”

  I shake my head, unbelieving. “I’ll be there for the first day of the semester, and I’ll give it all I’ve got. I’m not guaranteeing the As—these are hard courses.”

  He grins. “You can do it. I know you can.”

  I look down at the papers again. These are hard courses, but just looking at the names of them makes my heart flutter with excitement. I can’t wait to get started. But…

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “This is everything I’ve ever dreamed of, but what about you and your dreams? Isn’t there something you want to do? Beyond fighting? Beyond…” I pause, second-guessing myself, but in the end I go ahead and say it. “Beyond following my father’s orders?”

  He nods slowly. “There are things I’ve wanted. When I was a kid, all I wanted was a family. Then I just wanted a place—somewhere—somewhere I felt like I belonged. Then it was winning my first fight, then it was coming to LA where I could send my career farther up the professional circuit.” He pauses, shakes his head a little. “Fighting is all I know, Jess. It’s all I’ve ever done. There shouldn’t be any shame in making a living at what you’re good at.”

  I grasp at his arm, desperate to get my point through to him. “But, Cain, you deserve everything you’ve ever wanted. And you could be so much more than just a fighter
.”

  His eyes flash for a moment and his mouth presses down to a thin line. I wonder if I’ve said too much. Inadvertently insulted him by implying that exactly what he is isn’t enough for me. But then his expression shifts, and I can tell he’s mulling something over. Finally he takes my arm and leads me toward the back of the locker room, into a corner. There’s no one else there, but I get the impression he doesn’t want to take a chance on anyone overhearing us.

  “Here’s the deal, babe,” he says as he sits on a bench and gestures for me to do the same. His voice is low but urgent. “I’m not going to be your dad’s lapdog much longer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He’s silent a moment then gives a decisive nod. “I got the new fight schedule and my instructions. Your dad wants me to throw the next fight—the one he keeps holding over my head. But I’m not going to throw it. I’m winning it.”

  It takes me a few seconds to absorb what he’s just said. “Cain, you can’t. He’ll kill you. He told you that last time you won a fight you were supposed to throw.”

  “I know he’ll want to. But I’m going to take the money, and take you, and we’re going to get the hell out of here. Go live our own lives. Make something real, just for the two of us.”

  I’m crying again, but this time it’s in fear, not gratitude. “Cain. He will kill you. It doesn’t matter what we do or where we go, he’ll find us. Find you. Then where will I be? Back under his thumb, but this time I’ll be…” I break off, realizing what I was about to say. I bite my lip. God. I can’t tell him that. Not yet.

  Or can I? Maybe it’s the only thing that’ll get through to him.

  “You said you wanted a family.” My voice is low and shaky. I grab my purse and start fishing through it. “What if you had a family? Would you really want to risk your life? Risk your health? Your brain? What if you had more than just a wife to come home to?”

  “But I don’t, so it’s a moot point. And, I mean, of course I want to come home to you after every fight, but what else am I supposed to do?”

  I’ve found what I was looking for in my purse, and I take it out, gripping it tightly. My hands are shaking. “You don’t have a family now, but you will.”

  I hand him the pregnancy test. I just took it this morning, and the double blue line is still clear as day.

  He takes it hesitantly, as if he’s not sure what it is. I scoot a little closer to him, desperate to make him listen. “Cain, it’s just you and me right now, but it won’t be for long. And I want you to be able to come home with me to take care of our baby.” He’s still staring at the little plastic stick, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking. He looks like somebody hit him in the head. “Cain… I love you.”

  His gaze finally shifts up to me, and I move back away from him sharply, adrenaline tightening my diaphragm. For the first time since we started this crazy ride, I’m actually afraid of him. There’s something in his eyes I can’t make sense of. I swallow hard, every sense going on high alert.

  “You’re pregnant?” The words sound choked, like he can barely get them out. “How…” He stops, closes his eyes, swallows.

  What the hell, Cain? My first instinct is to lash out, to remind him harshly that he was the one who wanted to forget about the condom, not me. And guess what happens when you decide to ditch a condom? But I take a slow breath and make myself calm down. His hand holding the test is shaking.

  I lay a hand on his arm, feeling the shivering in his tendons. “Cain—”

  “Why?” he says then, his tone hard and brittle as he jerks back from my touch. “When?”

  I’m flustered, but I manage to find words. “It has to have been at least a couple of weeks. Maybe it was right after the wedding, but I’m not sure.”

  He scrubs at his forehead. “Oh my God. Shit.”

  He doesn’t seem to be able to put enough words together to make a sentence. It’s scaring me. Is he upset? Overwhelmed? Is he mad at me?

  I reach for him again, hoping to be able to calm him down. “Cain… It’ll be—”

  But he’s not even listening to me anymore. He shoves to his feet, pacing the locker room. I can’t make anything out of the expression on his face. He seems infuriated, but there’s something else. Something rawer.

  “This is too much, Jess. It’s just too much.”

  “We can handle it together—”

  “What the hell do you think a kid’s going to grow up like with me as a father? I never even had one! How am I supposed to do this? How are we supposed to do this?”

  He wheels on me, and suddenly he throws the plastic stick across the room. It hits a locker behind me, and I hear it slide to the floor. I wince. He’s staring at me.

  “I can’t be a father. I don’t know how. How am I supposed to know how? How the hell is this ever going to work? We don’t even know if we’re okay yet, and there’s going to be a baby now? God, I should have thought about this.”

  His words have all become a blur, and I’m not even sure what he’s saying anymore. I’ve gone into flight-or-fight mode. And there’s no way I can fight him, so I just flee. As fast as I can, running out of the locker room and into the gym.

  Behind me I hear him calling my name. His tone has changed, edged with desperation. But I can barely see, my eyes are so blurred with tears, and I don’t turn around.

  9

  Cain

  My hands hurt as I punch the big bag. I’ve been practicing for hours, even though I probably should be conserving my energy for the fight tonight. But I’m so keyed up I couldn’t even sleep last night. My eyes are sticky and I feel like I’m punching through something thick and oily. Every punch takes an effort of will.

  You’re going to win this goddamn fight, Cain. You have to.

  It’s the only thing I have left—my original plan. To win the fight I’m supposed to throw, take my winnings, and get the fuck out of town before Spada can murder me.

  Thing is, I don’t really want to leave town anymore. Not without Jess.

  I haven’t seen Jess since that day at the gym. I keep playing that scene over and over in my mind. After about the millionth time, I realized I couldn’t actually remember everything that happened. What I said to her. Only that she showed me that pregnancy test, and I flipped my shit.

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  But I know the answer to that one, too. I’m an idiot. And I’m scared shitless. Scared like I’ve never been in my life. If I think about it too much, my chest goes tight and I can barely breathe. Even now I can feel my heart beating hard in the back of my throat, and it’s not because of the workout.

  I punch the back so hard it rebounds faster than I want it to and I have to catch it to keep it from bloodying my nose. With the bag between my taped, gloved hands, I just stand there, staring at nothing.

  Where is Jess? I have no idea. I called her sister, who cursed me roundly. Seriously, she called me names even I’ve never heard before. But she had no idea where Jess was, and I got the impression they haven’t even spoken since before Jess and I got married. Whatever hatred she was spewing at me probably came more from her father’s reactions than from any concern from Jess. In the end I hung up on her and didn’t answer when she rang back.

  And I don’t know anything about who else Jess might confide in. I’ve never talked to her about her friends, people she might go to when there’s a problem. For God’s sake, we’re married, and it turns out I know jack shit about her outside the bedroom.

  Like I said—I’m an idiot.

  I have no way to get hold of her, and she has every reason to never speak to me again. So where does that leave me?

  “Fucked, that’s where,” I mutter. I push off from the big bag and head for the locker room to clean up. I’ve got a few hours yet before the fight, and it’s about time I wised up and quit burning energy I’ll need later. Nothing about what I plan to do tonight is going to be easy.

  Under hot water in the shower, all I can think about is t
he time we fucked in here, her under the water, covered in it, her skin looking almost silver because of the streams pouring down her. My dick twitches because it, too, is a fucking moron. Why did I lash out the way I did?

  It’d be easy enough to blame Jess for everything. She let me fuck her bareback, she went along with everything I wanted to do sexually, then she was the one who sprung that damn pregnancy test on me with no warning. So it was her fault, clearly, that I reacted the way I did.

  But that’s a coward’s way out. We were in this thing together right from the beginning, and to throw everything back on her just because I’m worried is wrong. And I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a coward. I need to figure out a way to make this right.

  Over the past few days, alone in my condo that’s already started to smell like Jess, I rolled things around and around in my head, and I realized something.

  I don’t care how afraid I am of it—I want that baby. That baby is something Jess and I made together, out of love for each other, whether either of us is willing to admit it or not.

  But Jess did admit it. Because she’s braver than I am. That’s one thing I do remember clearly from that day: her leaning into me, saying I love you. What did I say in return? Nothing good, that’s for damn sure.

  I do love her though. I think I’ve loved her for a long time. Maybe not from the first night—then again, maybe from a long time before that. Maybe from the moment I first saw her, when she wasn’t even grown yet, when she was a bright-eyed teenager attending fights with her dad, punching the air to encourage me in the ring.

  Yeah, it’s a fucked-up mess. And I have to fix it, or I’ll never forgive myself.

  I don’t know what I’m going to say to her. Sorry, babe. You caught me by surprise and I acted like an asshole. No big deal, right? You’re okay with me being a douchebag, right? I roll my eyes at myself. I’ll figure that out when I’m face-to-face with her.

  First, though, I have to find her. How, I don’t know, but I have to.

  I have to.