Knock Out (Worth the Fight) (3 page)

God knew, she wanted to lick that digit, run her tongue along its expanse and keep going. He was rugged maleness exemplified.
Oh
,
yeah!
Just part your lips a little more and...crinkle my camisole.

Her indecision cost her.

He withdrew his thumb, shifted back into the position she’d first encountered him in, and rested his head against the cushioned wall of the booth. His eyes closed.

Moments passed. Until it became clear she was being dismissed.

Her thoughts shifted from “oh, yeah” to “oh, no” in ten seconds flat. She wasn’t about to let him blow her off her like some overeager MMA groupie. She jumped to her feet, skirted the table and kicked his shin.

His eyes snapped open and struggled to focus on the offending foot. She still hadn’t gotten his full attention, it seemed.

Leaning forward, she placed her hands on his shoulders and gave him a sharp push.

With a gasp, she found herself gripped at the elbows, lifted up and yanked forward. Then, he let go. Her legs fell open to straddle his and her breasts firmly connected with his chest. She inhaled in surprise, catching the clean, heady scent of his cologne mixed with the smell of the alcohol on his breath.

He shifted, forcing her closer still, so close she could see her startled reflection flickering within his deep, dark pupils. A face-off—except his crotch rubbed up against her...

For a moment, she forgot everything. Finnegan’s Pub, her agreement with Jerry, and even The Fall. Desire stirred, blatant and pure and in shocking abundance. Beneath long, dark lashes, he sat perfectly still, watching her.

She got the impression he was waiting for something. For her to decide what she was going to do with him beneath her. For her to jerk away or lean in, angle her head and grab a taste of him.

Until a loud, piercing whine—the kind someone made when air was constricted within their windpipes as they tried to form coherent words—interrupted them. The source, in all her spandexed glory, stood glaring at Logan.

“Un-freaking-believable. I leave for a few minutes to use the restroom and some whore dressed for a barnyard tries to steal my guy. Get off him, bitch!”

Logan launched herself off the welterweight in one swift movement, prompted not only by the woman’s demand but by the hardened length of male anatomy that had been curved against her ass. He surprised her with a fleeting smirk.
Oh yeah
. At least her response to him hadn’t been one-sided.

She turned to face the irate woman, Miss Easywrap in the tight tube dress. “I’m not finished...speaking with him. Give us a second, please.”

“Speaking, my ass. I’m gonna count to ten.” Rosie—Easywrap’s name, according to the enormous necklace perched on her cleavage—pointed to the bar. “If you’re not out of here when I come back with a drink, you’re gonna be sorry.”

Logan put her hands on her hips. She opened her mouth, then closed it. What was she going to do, fight the woman?

Easywrap gave her a talk-to-the-hand gesture and stalked off.

Logan felt fingers on her arm. “You’ll lose. Let’s go.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she muttered as the welterweight led her into another, more private room, one with a band playing and, hopefully, fewer disturbances. She needed a cold mental shower and to keep her eye on the objective: convince this silent, guarded man to fight.

He gestured to a booth in the back and slid in after her, sandwiching her between the wall and his big body. For several moments, that’s how they sat, quietly listening to the band thanking the audience for coming.

“About the qualifiers—”

The waiter approached and cut her off. “Last call. What’ll it be?”

“Another Johnny, and a white wine,” O’Shea replied, leaning back. His bare arm brushed her cashmere sleeve. A soft, subtle caress.

“Yuengling,” she corrected his order. No sense in switching drinks at this point. And more liquid courage was out of the question. Which reminded her how ridiculous this whole scenario was. She should have closed the deal and been long gone by now.

Well, she would have been if the man wasn’t so closed off. And if her heart didn’t flip-flop at the very feel of him brushing up against her. Close, far too close for comfort.

She sat straighter in her seat as a muscular arm wove its way behind her. Talk about sensory overload—it was too much to bear.

He raised an eyebrow but that was all.

Logan sipped her beer and, beneath her lashes, studied the man next to her as he drank deeply from his glass.

Getting involved with an MMA fighter wasn’t like swapping Chardonnay for Yuengling, she reminded herself. It wasn’t like he’d ever fit into her world. Besides, tonight was about convincing him to fight so she could keep her job. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Jerry says you’re the guy to beat.”

He muttered something under his breath. “Bar’s closing. Need to find my ride. Tell me, is Jerry...bothering you?”

Drunk or not, the man was perceptive and quick. Should she tell him her job as Octagon Girl was on the line? Quickly, she decided against it. Foolish pride, whatever.

Just do it
,
Logan.

“Like I said, he wants you to fight in the preliminary bouts coming up next month and qualify for Tetnus. There’s a million-dollar purse for the winner.”

He moved his arm out from behind her and rested it on the table. His fist flexed.

Logan gasped.

His poor knuckles were bruised and swollen to the size of golf balls. After the break and subsequent surgery on her ankle, she’d never again underestimate the pain someone might be suffering, even from minor injuries. His hands must be killing him.

“Tell Jerry I’m done. No more fights. No matter how many gorgeous women he sends to crawl between my legs.”

Logan’s temper exploded before she could bite back her words. “We’re having a conversation—that’s all. I’m sick to my stomach wondering why everyone thinks I’d
sleep
with you to get you to fight!”

Because you’re acting like you would
,
moron.
No denying she wanted this drop-dead gorgeous man and was so freakin’ attracted to him her blood sizzled. But this crazy desire for him had overshadowed her objectivity. Sleeping with him to get her way, now that would land her on the disgusting list, right beneath Pierre.

He smirked, appeared unfazed by her outburst. As if to say, “Right, like I couldn’t have taken you on the pub bench in the other room.”

“I don’t get it. It’s ridiculous—a fighter who won’t fight. If it’s one thing I’ve learned these past few months is that there is always someone waiting in the wings to replace you, even if they suck. I can do that, you know, find a sucky fighter for Jerry and
replace
you.”

Desperation was one small step away from irrationality, and as her angry words came spilling out, Logan didn’t just walk across that line. She pole vaulted. The chance of Jerry accepting another fighter was as likely as winning the Mega Millions jackpot.

“Thanks for the drink,” she snapped.

She dodged his attempt at grabbing her leg as she stood up on the bench’s cushion and climbed over him to let herself out.

“Shit,” she heard him mutter but she kept on moving, away from the booth, out of the room, and back to the front of the bar. To the table where she’d left Sal to watch her belongings, which was now occupied by a new couple. Her stuff—and Grandpa Romeo, it would seem—had apparently taken a walk.

Bleeding leotards.
She caught her stupefied expression in the front window until movement outside broke the image apart.

Her expensive alpaca coat was making its way into a double-parked car, clutched against Miss Easywrap’s obnoxious chest. “You...bitch,” Logan cried as she sprinted out the door after the blonde. But it was too late. The old Camaro had some pep in it and was halfway down the hill by the time she hit the curb, the only gift from Pierre that hadn’t been hauled off to Goodwill along with it. Worse still, her Louis Vuitton wallet and cell phone were secured in the inside pocket.

She tugged the neck of her sweater higher. If she’d learned anything this year, it was how to manage in difficult situations. In this case, she’d simply track down Grandpa Romeo and ask him for his jacket and some money.

Before she could head back inside, people began filing out of the pub—all at the same time. “Sal,” she called, searching the crowd for his white head. A cacophony of car engines drowned her out and the snow had picked up, fed by the wind off the rivers far below. With her hands on her hips, she moved undeterred up the sidewalk and back, searching for him.

A white-haired driver passed in a red Chevy pickup, without so much as a glance in her direction. “Sal,” her voice rang out weakly, knowing he’d never hear her, but feeling like she had to do something. Run after the pickup? As if that would do any good. She brushed her hands together for warmth. Surely someone down in South Side Flats would help her? If she didn’t freeze to death walking down the hill on the way there.

The door of the pub swung open one last time. Six foot two of taut, muscled male sporting a beaten-up, deep green coat—the kind someone in the army might wear—and a woolen bean cap pulled low over dark hair, exited. The welterweight glanced her way, turned and strode a few feet uphill to a black Jeep Wrangler.

Less than a minute later, Finnegan’s went dark.

Now what do I do?

She blinked as a horn rang out, invitingly. The Jeep Wrangler flashed its lights, which meant...

Resigned, she walked up the short distance to the Jeep.

“Can you drive?” a deep, husky voice demanded through the rolled-down crack of the passenger-side window.

O’Shea sounded slightly annoyed, but his words defrosted the chill from her body. Everything about the man made her blood run hot—except for his closed-up personality. That was unsettling.

She nodded.

“Get in.”

She moved her frozen limbs around the Jeep and climbed into the driver’s seat. The vehicle hummed, the keys already in the ignition.

As blessed warmth blew from the vents, she glanced at him beneath half-frozen eyelids. And gasped when once again he flexed swollen, purple knuckles.

“Planning on walking home?”

“No. Your friend Miss Easywrap made off with my coat, cell and wallet—seemed to think they were hers,” she shot back, mimicking his sarcastic tone. “How were you planning to make it home? Driving drunk is a stup—”

“You chased off tonight’s ride.”

An image of the trashy kleptomaniac spread-eagled across his lap—much like she herself had been earlier—came to mind.

Her body hummed in harmony with the engine, acutely aware of how fully he filled the passenger seat beside her. Logan weighed her options. After all, she knew nothing about him and what she did know wasn’t very comforting. Still, the Jeep was warm, she was in the driver’s seat, and most importantly, she’d been given another opportunity to persuade him. Life was full of chances. She decided to take another one by leaving with him.

“Look, I’m not going to bite you. Where to?” He seemed exasperated.

“The East End, Friendship. I’ll have to break in to my apartment, though, because my keys are in my stolen coat.” She pressed her lips shut, realizing how bitter she sounded.

“Hmph,” O’Shea grunted. For a second, he sat there, running his gaze over her features. A rush of heat spread up into her cheeks at his appraisal. Opening the glove box, he pulled out a napkin. Reaching across the seat, he gently dabbed it on her damp cheek.

“There,” he said, showing her the dark smudge of mascara.

Great
,
just great.
She must look worse than a Pittsburgh coal miner after a long shift.

They remained silent as they drove north. Snowflakes danced across the windshield, growing in numbers and force as they crossed the Monongahela River into the Golden Triangle, where all three rivers—the Allegheny, Ohio and Monongahela—converged. There, the snowfall grew so heavy it dimmed the bright lights from the skyscrapers downtown.

“Looks like we’re in for some storm,” she commented, not knowing what to say but feeling the need to break the silence.

It didn’t work.

She searched for another topic to get a conversation going, hopefully one leaning toward the topic of him fighting. “I don’t even know your name. Just O’Shea.”

“Let’s keep it at that.”

The storm brewing outside was minor compared to the one sitting next to her. Why did he have to be so damn difficult? She bit her lip hard, forcing her thoughts on the slight physical pain, and away from the abrupt swell of emotion within. Falling apart right now wouldn’t help her in the least.

He pointed left. So typically male, giving directions from the passenger seat, though there was nothing typical about him. “Okay, O’Shea,” she commented mockingly, but followed his direction nevertheless.

His low laugh filled the Jeep. She felt his eyes on her, but kept her own on the roadway.

“It’s Keane.”

Keane O’Shea. Go figure. Short name, short response. Narrowing her eyes, she shot him a look—which he ignored. Instead, he gestured toward an exit sign. Without comment, she carefully slowed the Jeep, exited and headed downtown—away from her neighborhood. A few blocks in, he signaled to turn off onto a side street lined with row houses.

“Number twenty-one.”

She stopped the Jeep in front of a rather dilapidated house.

Did I just drive myself to a one-night stand?

Uncertain, she studied the certifiably hot mystery of a man from beneath her lashes.

As if sensing her apprehension, Keane turned and cleared his throat. “Relax. Just a pit stop.”

Before she could say another word, he jumped from the Jeep, climbed the cement stoop, and, after someone answered his rap on the door, disappeared from view.

The snow made it hard to see and as the minutes passed, her uneasiness grew. Finally, the door flew open and Keane emerged with a bundle in his arms. A man and woman followed behind him, gesturing wildly.