by Vanessa Vale
I cleared my throat, my mouth suddenly dry as he watched me closely. There was no question he meant every word, that he’d beat the crap out of anyone who wanted to hurt me, like a modern white knight.
“Okay,” I whispered, knowing he wanted me to say it aloud. His words were like a balm. Soothing. I’d been taking care of myself, of Chris, for a long, long time, and it felt good, no, better than good, that someone wanted to take that role on for me. I wanted to believe him. I did believe him.
The door slid open, and Gray let me exit first. Instead of opening into a hallway, I stepped out directly into his apartment. It was wall-to-wall windows, the space bright and airy with an open floor plan. The decor was more masculine minimalist than sleek and shiny. Or western. Besides a Stetson on a hook by the elevator, there wasn’t any sign of his being a cowboy.
The kitchen was modern and stainless steel, the couches leather, the TV large. It was apparent from the space alone that he had money, but he didn’t flaunt it. He didn’t flaunt his fame either. It was a very appealing trait, along with so many others I was slowly discovering.
“You think this is messy?” I asked, surprised. I knew what male messy was like, and this was not it.
“I have a cleaning crew come through on Mondays while I’m downstairs, so it’s been all week since they’ve been in.” He dropped his keys on a table.
I walked toward the kitchen. “No dirty dishes.” Turning, I faced the couch, coffee table, TV arrangement. “No empty pizza boxes or game controllers scattered around.” I finished my circle and faced a long hallway down which I assumed were the bedrooms and baths as it was the portion of the apartment with walls for privacy. “No dirty laundry on the floor.”
Gray shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a clean freak.”
I put my hand to my heart in mock surprise. “No woman has swept you up? Seriously, I had to ship my son to a military academy in order for him to learn tidiness.”
“Same for me then, but I joined the Marines.” He placed his water bottle in the sink then came over to me, gave me a surprisingly hard stare. He had only touched me once, holding my hand at the restaurant, but this look, I felt it all over. “I don’t bring women here, so this… compulsion I have is a secret.”
I couldn’t respond to that because my brain was frozen. Didn’t bring women here.
“I’m going to jump in the shower. There’s juice and iced tea in the fridge if you’re thirsty. The remote for the TV is somewhere near the couch. I won’t be too long since I don’t have to do my hair.” The corner of his mouth tipped up as he ran his hand over his head, the short hairs rasping against his palm. I wondered if it was prickly or soft, and I itched to find out. Instead, I only nodded.
He turned and walked down the hall. As he went, he reached behind his head and yanked his T-shirt off, gifting me with a view of his muscled back, lean waist and a tattoo that took up part of his left shoulder blade and worked its way around his ribs toward the front. Oh my God. That back. An upside-down triangle of muscle. The door at the end of the hall shut behind him, then moments later, I heard the shower.
Realizing I just stood there, mouth open, practically drooling, I rolled my eyes. I was being an idiot, ogling the man. No, not an idiot because any conscious woman would ogle him. And that had been just his back I saw. The way his biceps bulged with his movements, the way his back was sinewy had my nipples tightening. And the tattoo! I’d never found them all that appealing before, but I wanted to strip him naked and check out every single one of them. I knew about the one on his arm and now the one on his back. Were there more? God, if there were—there wasn’t much skin left I hadn’t seen—but I wanted to tug on those shorts to find out.
Not that I would act upon it; I was a wuss. If I was like one of those women at the bar the other night, I'd join him in the shower. That was so not me. I barely remembered what it felt like to have a man-induced orgasm and was pretty bad at sex. Bad enough that I hadn’t been able to keep Jack from sniffing around Paralegal Sue, divorce me and move to California.
What did guys even want these days? Sex, for sure. But I’d heard from Faith and Christy and all my younger single friends that oral sex was done first these days. Even on first dates. Seriously? Was I so old-fashioned I wanted to work my way down a guy’s body?
Did Gray expect me to give him a blow job? Today? He’d barely touched me, just held my hand the other night, and that had been for show. That was it. Was this even a date? Had he not touched me anymore because he wasn’t interested? He said he didn’t bring women to his apartment, so why me?
Hearing the water shut off had me coming back from la-la land. The guy took two-minute showers like in the military. I hadn’t even moved from where he’d left me, so I went to check out his view from the large windows. We were above the treetops lining the sidewalk, and I could see across the street to the other buildings. This area used to be a suburb of Brant Valley but had been absorbed into the city. The small downtown area was thriving with boutiques and small shops, restaurants and coffee houses. I could see why Gray put his gym here; young people coming from work and college students would find the location convenient.
I moved to look at framed pictures that were on a table behind the couch. One was of Gray competing in a fight, his arm out punching his competitor in the face. The photographer had caught him in motion. Pretty ruthless. Another was of Gray and a few other men, clearly other fighters. I picked up one of him and Thor, both with medals around their necks, both younger. A few nature shots. Open fields. Prairie. Mountains in the distance. Was this where he’d grown up? No family pictures, then I remembered he’d said he'd had a shitty childhood.
“I hope I didn’t take too long,” Gray said, coming out of the hallway.
Putting the picture back, I looked up at him. He wore jeans and a white T-shirt that fit very well across his chest and the same well-worn boots from the other night. His male scent filled the air, something woodsy and not too strong. Soap, perhaps? Whatever it was, I liked. A lot.
“Me and Thor, back in the day.” He nodded toward the picture I’d just put back.
I glanced back at the photo. “One of your competitions?”
“Yeah, you can see what I look like with my hair grown out a bit.”
I assessed him, picturing him with longer hair. It was only about an inch long in the photo, but his hair was dark and covered his brow. I wondered if it were even longer if it would curl over his forehead and be unruly. Not his style, it seemed, and I liked Gray with it closely cropped. It exposed him to the world, and with it, he was saying This is me. He didn’t hide behind anything, and I liked that. So far, he’d been direct and forthcoming, and it totally, totally, worked for me.
“I kind of like the clean-cut look,” I admitted.
He ran a hand over his very short hair, all the while assessing me, perhaps testing the weight of my words. He made a sound deep in his throat. “Ready to go?”
“Sure.” My flip-flops were noisy on the wood floor as I followed him back to the elevator.
Grabbing his keys, he snagged the cowboy hat from the hook and set it on his head. He pushed the button for the elevator, which opened right away.
He did all that while I stared, entered the elevator eyeing the hat, the man, the full package. While this was the Wild West, not too many went for the cowboy look off the ranch around here. Gray didn’t give a shit what others thought, and… yeah, that worked for me.
“You aren’t skipping a Sunday lunch with family, are you?” He leaned back against the handrail, gripping it.
Clearing my throat, I replied, “I got divorced four years ago. The house was sold in the settlement, and I moved into my parents’ house.” I fiddled with the strap on my purse. “Yes, it was pretty pathetic, living with my parents in my thirties—with a child of my own. Fortunately for everyone, they retired and moved to Florida a few months later. I decided to stay and live in the place I grew up in, maybe because it was familiar, and I needed
that, maybe because it was just easy. I had too much insanity as it was with a fourteen-year-old who was angry at his father, at the world. At the time, it didn’t make sense to find somewhere else to live, but now with Chris gone, maybe I should start thinking about it.” I flicked my gaze to his and realized I'd rambled. “To answer your question, no. No family in town.”
The doors opened, and he led me back out into the heat and toward the car. I glanced back at the gym, curious. This was Gray’s business. His life. When I first saw him on Friday night, I’d thought he was fit and lived it instead of just pumping iron. I’d been right.
Through the wall of windows, I could see dark mats on most of the floors, a large reception area, punching and kicking bags hanging from the ceiling and what appeared to be a boxing ring with chain-link fence around it. Several people were working out.
“Want to check it out?” he asked, angling his head toward the gym.
I glanced at him, offered a shrug. “Sure.” I didn’t want to tell him I was curious, but I was. I followed him to the door, which he held open for me. The space was large with high ceilings, the windows faced the street, so whatever was happening in the gym was advertising itself. It was clean, just like Gray’s apartment and didn’t have that sweaty-sock smell I expected.
A guy was punching a small bag that hung from the ceiling. It swung back and forth, Rocky-style. Two men were in the fenced ring, sparring with headgear, mouth guards and gloves. A woman ran on the treadmill, earbuds in place even though music came from hidden speakers.
The young guy at the front desk was on the phone but gave a quick wave to us.
“You used to fight like those guys?”
Gray turned to face the ring. “No, they’re just boxing. I did MMA.”
I bit my lip, hoping I didn’t sound too much like an idiot. “What’s the difference?”
“Boxing’s like Muhammad Ali, just punches, big gloves. See, they’re only using their arms.” When I nodded that I followed, he continued. “MMA is combining boxing with kicking, like Muay Thai or karate, then fighting on the ground like wrestling, but some Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in there for submissions.”
An electronic bell rang from a timer on the wall. The men touched gloves and stepped out of the ring, sweat dripping from their faces, their T-shirts wet.
“You do all that? The different martial arts styles?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Yeah.”
I saw Gray here, just right for his surroundings, his job. It didn’t make sense since he also looked like he’d be comfortable on the back of a horse, too. The knowledge and experience it took to run a place such as this, to have the following, the backing, the fame, was impressive. I was impressed. I was also completely in awe and a little bit in lust because the testosterone seeping from him in this space was heady.
“Want to give it a try?” he asked.
I frowned. “What, me? In there?” I pointed to the ring, the walls made of black chain link fencing. “That looks like something out of a Mad Max movie.”
He smiled. “Come on. I'll show you what I do, but you have to promise not to hurt me.”
He sat down on a metal bench that was next to the ring, took off his hat and toed off his boots and socks. He was serious, so I slipped off my flip flops. Leading me up the steps to the elevated fighting ring, he let me step in the ring first. The floor was firm, but it had a little give. “I have no idea what to do.”
“Okay, so you want to stand like this and put your hands up in fists, here and here.” He stood beside me, and I copied his stance. “Good.”
He moved to face me, hands up like mine. “Punch me.”
My eyes widened, and I dropped my arms. “Are you serious? I can't punch you,” I said, looking at the other men who were over by the locker rooms, taking off their gloves and squirting water in their mouths from their water bottles. “Besides, we aren't even wearing gloves.”
“Think of something that makes you mad. Got it?”
The first thing that came to mind was Jack. My eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I got it. My ex.”
He offered a quick smile. “Good. Now pretend I'm him. Punch him. Left, right. Like you mean it.”
I lifted my arms back to the position he'd shown me, then thrust out with my left hand. Gray's arm came up to block my strike. When I shifted my stance and punched with my right, I felt my feet come out from underneath me, and the next thing I knew, his hands were on me and I was on my back on the ring’s mat with Gray sideways on top of me. In the blink of an eye—and with a care I doubted he gave to his usual opponents—he'd swept me to the ring floor. Gray's chest was pressed into mine, and his face loomed over me. I was breathing hard, perhaps from the surprise move, but most likely because I had him on top of me, his mouth only inches from mine. There was no question he could hurt me, no way I could defend myself from him. Sure, I hadn't really tried to punch him all that hard or quickly, but still. A champion fighter, he was so far out of my league. I knew, though, if I pushed against him, he'd let me up. I wasn't afraid of him. I was in awe. And in lust. If I was this turned on with all our clothes on and in front of other people, what would it be like with him naked? And alone?
I licked my lips. My heart raced, and surely he could feel it. I could feel every inch of him, see the whiskers on his jaw, the darkness of his eyes. “Now what do you do?” I whispered.
Gray's gaze lowered to my mouth. “If you were my competition, I'd try to either choke you out or do an arm bar.”
I felt every hard muscle of his torso, even though he held himself off of me with his forearms. Regardless, I felt pinned and at his mercy. I did not mind in the slightest.
“Choking doesn't sound like fun, and I have no idea what an arm bar is,” I replied, licking my lips.
“Neither are fun,” he said, his gaze dropping once again to my mouth. “As for you—” His eyes lifted to mine, and I blushed. “—I take you to lunch.”
He levered off me, stood and held out his hand. I just laid there for a few seconds and looked up at him. I had been ready for him to kiss me, and I'd loved how he felt pressing me down. My body felt taunted and now neglected. Was he torturing me on purpose, or did he really not want to kiss me? Realizing he was staring down at me waiting, I took his hand, and he helped me up, but didn't let go.
“Wow. Um, okay, I know what you’re talking about now.” I had to get my bearings. The feel of a man above me—specifically Gray—had me hot all over. “Chris used to go to a friend’s house because they watched the fights on Pay-Per-View. Were any of those fights you?”
He nodded. “Sure, that was it, but I also fought back in the old days before satellite and cable.”
A long career then. “All you did was take me to the mat. The choking and the arm bars, isn’t it really violent?”
He grinned. “Very.” He pointed to his ear, then his nose. “I got these along with my trophies.”
I took in the whole package, and the scars and marks on his body from his career didn’t detract. Instead, it showed he had a past, a history, and he survived. “As a nurse, I have a pretty good idea of how those injuries must have felt.”
His smile slipped a bit. “I’m sure you can.” He led me out of the ring with a gentle hand at the small of my back. We put on our shoes.
I walked over to one of the long punching bags, ran my hand over the black leather. “How did you get your start though? I mean, did you do karate as a kid or something?”
This time his smile dropped away completely. He shook his head. “No. Nothing like that. Let’s just say I learned early on how to defend myself, and when I got big enough, I gave as good as I got.”
“Did you grow up here?”
“On a ranch in Wyoming, up by Casper.”
That explained some of the photos.
“After high school,” he continued, “I went into the Marines, and they honed that fighting skill.”
My eyebrows went up. Earlier, he'd glossed over his childhood and downplayed how b
ad it must have been. While he hadn’t outright said it, it was easy to infer someone had hit him as a child. I ached for the boy he’d been, of how far he’d come. The Marines, perhaps, had been his escape, especially from rural Wyoming, and it would have made him really experienced.
“You left the Marines and became a professional fighter then.”
He nodded. “I did what I was good at.”
I looked around the space. It was really impressive. It wasn't a cookie cutter gym. It wasn't a meat market, but a place for serious fighters. “Looks like you were really good at it.”
He offered a small shrug. “I’m not as interesting as the Internet says.”
I smiled. “Now that I know your full name, I’ll have to look you up.”
He didn’t seem too keen on that as he glanced away.
“Does it say something like you fathered some movie star’s kid?”
He grinned again, and I liked it. I liked knowing I could make him smile. He met my gaze. “Something like that.”
My eyebrows went up. “I was only joking.” A laugh sputtered out of me. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” When he didn’t say more but watched the boxers get back in the ring, I asked, “Was it the lady who stars in that sci-fi blockbuster? I take you more for an action-adventure type.”
Gray wasn't the kind of guy to be flippant about a baby. From what he told me about being afraid he'd hurt one, I knew it was all tabloid fodder, and I played it off as that.
He turned his head toward me and grinned. “There’s only one type I care about,” he replied, stepping closer.
“Oh?”
He nodded and tucked a wayward curl behind my ear. I felt that gesture all the way to my toes. “Emory’s type.”
“Oh.” I had no idea what to say to that. I had absolutely no comeback, and I was flustered. Of course, that made him grin even bigger.