Ringside (3 page)

Angel

I was dreaming. I
knew I was dreaming, because Sloane was going down on me, and I figured she was
the type of girl who’d need a couple of drinks before
that
happened.

Drinks. Shit, even
halfway submerged in sleep I could feel the funk on my tongue and the terrible
taste in my mouth. Last night’s bender was going to cost me, that was for sure.

But not yet…

I willed myself
back into the dream, concentrating on the silky feel of Sloane’s wet, hot mouth
as she bobbed her head down onto my cock.

I couldn’t help
but moan as I reached out for her, winding my bruised fingers into her wild red
curls and guiding her.

Not that she
needed it. In my dream, Sloane was a sexy little beast, and she quickly taught
me that all I had to do was sit back and let her do her thing.

I was getting
close. Hell, was I going to cum? My wet dreams had come and gone a long time
ago, but I had that same feeling now that I used to have then.

Knock. Knock. Knock
.

I wanted to
finish, but all of a sudden I didn’t have a choice in the matter. Sloane turned
to smoke and blew away on the wind as I woke up in a hideously bright pool of
sunshine spilling through the window onto the bed.

“Mr. Angelino,
sir?”

I opened my
eyelids a crack and immediately regretted it. “Who is it?”

“It’s Marcus.”

Right. The
doorman.

The suite I lived
in was huge, but his voice was right outside my bedroom door.

“Yeah?” I asked,
unable and unwilling to take the irritation out of my voice. My family didn’t
pay this hotel the sort of money they did for the privilege of having doorman
wake us up from sex dreams on a whim.

“I’m sorry to
disturb you, sir. Please forgive the intrusion, but I took the liberty of
letting myself in.”

That explained
that
, I suppose.

Marcus cleared his
throat. I felt for the poor guy, obviously in fear for his job. “The front desk
sent me up. They’ve been calling you for half an hour without an answer, and
they’re worried.”

I sighed, sitting
up in the bed. I was still in my clothes from last night, and the dream had
left me with blue balls and a uselessly stiff cock to go along with my
hangover.

Had I really
missed a bunch of calls? When I turned my head to check on the phone, it was
clear why the ringing hadn’t woken me up. It looked like I’d tripped on the
nightstand trying to make it into bed. The cord was pulled from the wall, and
the lamp was in pieces.

I was probably
lucky that I was still wearing my shoes, or else I’d have cut my feet up pretty
bad.

That would have
been a disaster. A boxer with cut feet is a boxer that can’t get out of the way
of the punch that’s coming to finish him off.

“I’m fine,” I
called out.

“Yes sir,” Marcus
said. “I’ll leave the note that the front desk sent me up with under the door.”

I watched him
slide it inside, then heard his footsteps pad away and the main door close and
lock behind him as he left.

Once he’d gone, I
got out of bed. The lamp was a total loss, but I bent down and plugged the
phone back into the wall and then checked my mobile for texts. I’d gotten a
few, but nothing important.

Sloane hadn’t
called.

I frowned, images
and snippets of last night coming back to me all at once.

I knew she’d
driven, though I couldn’t for the life of me remember telling her where I
lived.

Wait a minute… I
felt my heart bang in my chest as I checked my contacts on my phone as fast as
I could. Had I given her my number? More importantly, had I gotten hers?

Knowing where she
worked was on thing, but after the events of last night I knew there was no way
she was going back to that dive, no matter how badly she needed the money.

And, since it
looked like I hadn’t put her details in my phone, that meant I was screwed.

I should just give
up on her. I knew I should. If she was any other woman, I would have.

Hell, I’d had
enough one night stands to know that it was better to cut ties and walk away
while you could, no matter how hot the girl was.

But there was
something about Sloane that didn’t let me forget her quite that easily…

Pissed off at
myself for getting drunk and ruining last night and angry at Sloane for
abandoning me at the Ritz, I walked over to the note Marcus had left and picked
it up.

It was from the
Valet, asking if I would please come and inspect the Jag. Apparently, the woman
that had dropped me off in it had been in too much of a hurry for their liking.
They’d threatened to call the cops unless she provided them idea, which she
had.

I threw open the
door and headed down without bothering to shower or change. If they’d seen her
idea, they’d know more about how I could find her again.

Sloane

Saturday. Even if
I still had my job at the bar, which I didn’t, I’d have spent the day doing
exactly what I was, bending copper wire around crystals and crafting jewelry
for my Etsy store.

They sold, at
least. I made enough online to pay for my lunches and some of my dance classes,
a welcome addition to the tips and wage I’d made at the bar.

Without that job,
I didn’t know what I was going to do. Ballet ate up so much of my time that the
only job that I could really spend enough time at to earn decent money was
something having to do with New York’s night life.

That wasn’t an
option anymore. I’d seen the look on Frank’s face. He was too afraid of Angel,
for whatever reason, to do something to me directly, but he’d badmouth me to
every other bar manager and club owner he could.

I was probably
already blacklisted even now, which meant that rent was going to be an issue
this month and probably an impossibility next month.

With a heavy
heart, I finished up the necklace. There’d be time to mail it on Monday. In the
meantime, I had to head off to school.

I had class at
noon, and when I got to the University a few minutes early I headed for the
library of NYU, folding my legs up beneath me in the comfy chairs in the east
wing and letting the flow of other students go past me.

I didn’t know what
to do. I was lost, stuck between a rock and a hard place.

If I tried to
lighten my class load I’d lose my scholarship. Without it, I couldn’t even
afford the books let alone tuition.

“Shit,” I
whispered, letting my head fall forward into my hands and rubbing at my temples
hard enough to make stars appear beyond my shut eyelids.

How did the other
students make money? I frowned, looking up and studying the people that meant
by, mentally ticking off my guesses at their levels of employment.

Rich kid, rich kid, rich kid,
my mind told me,
even though I knew that statically that couldn’t be true. However they were
making their money, I either didn’t have the credentials or the time to devote
to making what they did.

I swallowed hard,
finally letting my mind crawl back to the one thing I’d been avoiding thinking
about ever since I’d dropped Angel off at his enormously expensive, terribly
pretentious hotel.

There was always
stripping. More than a few of the other girls in my dance classes were making
damn good money working less hours than I ever had, and all they were doing was
strutting their stuff with basic, cheesy moves on shitty stages across New
York.

They were always
bragging about how easy it was, how great the tips were, how they really were
doing that thing that all strippers claimed to be - ‘putting themselves through
school’.

I could do that,
if worse came to worse.

Except I couldn’t.
I knew there was no way I could bring myself to let those men see me like that,
dragging their sweaty gazes up my naked body, leering at me like they owned me.

Not after…

No! I shook my
head, unwilling to let those memories resurface.

The worst thing
would be seeing their faces as they watched me. The lust in their eyes, the way
they’d view me as nothing more than a gyrating piece of meat paraded in front
of them for tips and gropes and pickup lines…

I felt sick just
thinking about it.

Even if it meant
I’d be homeless, there was just no way I was going to let myself be put in that
position.

Even if it means you give up your scholarship?
Asked that little
voice in my head, the one that always had questions I never had answers for.
Even if it means crawling back home with
your dreams in pieces?

Home. Now there
was a place I hadn’t thought of in a while, and I sure as hell didn’t plan on
doing it now.

I pushed myself to
my feet. The twenty minute break in my schedule was almost gone.

I left the library
and crossed the quad. At least it was a Saturday, which meant that the only
students between me and the dance studio were the ones that were pushing their
schedules to the limit, just like me.

I passed the
notice board, idly scanning the handwritten notes and computer printouts. There
was a whole section made up of nothing more than notes to lost loves, full of
stuff like ‘I saw you on the train, you were wearing a red beret and had a
purple bag’ and ‘you and I shared a laugh and a drink, and then the rain drove
us apart before I could get your name.’

In each case, the
guy or girl looking for their star-crossed lover left their mobile number.

It was just so
sad, and I found myself thinking of Angel. Would I ever see him again?

Did I want to?

I was about to
turn away when I saw another paper, bright yellow and flapping enticingly in
the wind. Any other day I’d have ignored it, but not today.

Today, I yanked it
off the cork board and folded it up in a hurry, intent on reading it more thoroughly
after I finished ballet.

Angel

I wrote it all
down. Everything he said.

Everything.

There was no
telling what part of the valet guy’s encounter with Sloane would turn out to be
important, and I’d be damned if I let her slip through my fingers once again.

“Alright,” I said
to him, going down the list. “She dropped me and the Jag off around three in
the morning. I was passed out drunk, and she didn’t want to say who she was.
You thought she might be a criminal who’d gotten me wasted and swiped the car,
then maybe got cold feet and dropped me off. So, you made her show you her ID.
Right?”

The guy nodded,
then pulled out his phone and showed me. Thankfully, he’d had the presence of
mind to take a picture of her student card, just in case the police needed to
get involved.

I took his phone
from him and had a look. There she was, smiling in the picture on her ID. NYU
only printed the photo and the students first and last name, but at least now I
knew the chick I was starting to obsess over was called Sloane McKenzie.

Maybe that would
be enough.

Maybe not.

“Thanks, man,” I
said to the valet, handing his phone back to him.

What was I going
to do now?

I friend of mine
was awesome with computers. If she could be found online, he’d probably be able
to find her. I got into the elevator and sent him a quick email with her name
and what I wanted to know about her.

Once that was done
I went back to my penthouse suite and drank a couple of glasses of water. The
booze from last night was still making my body feel shitty, but it would hardly
be the first time I pushed through a hangover and went down to the gym to
train.

Shower.

Shave.

Dress.

That done, I
checked my phone. Cole had sent me a text telling me he’d do what he could to
find Sloane’s address online.

Good. At least
things would be moving in the right direction, now. I headed back downstairs
and went to the valet.

Once the guy had
pulled the car around, he got out and gave me a sheepish smile. “She’s short,”
he said.

I nodded blankly
and accepted the keys, sliding a fifty dollar bill into his palm for having the
foresight to take a picture of Sloane’s NYU ID but not really knowing what he
was talking about.

Once I slid behind
the wheel though, it all became clear.

All good valets
will do whatever they can to not adjust the seats or the steering wheels or
whatever, and Sloane had moved the seat just about as far forward as it could
go so that she could reach the pedals.

She might be
leggy, but that didn’t make her tall.

I slid the seat
back so that my knees weren’t pinned against the steering wheel and turned the
key in the ignition.

If I concentrated,
I told myself I could smell her perfume in here, and for a moment I did just
that, leaning back and closing my eyes as I savored her scent.

Christ, I was
getting hard just sitting here thinking about her.

I didn’t believe
in love. That sort of crap was on the same level as the Tooth Fairy and Santa
Clause. I’d certainly told my share of girls I loved them, but that was just to
get into their pants.

I sighed, opening
my eyes and pulling out onto the busy New York street. The gym wasn’t far, but
this sort of traffic was going to give me way too much time to think about
Sloane.

Was it love?

No. Not yet.
That’s what I kept telling myself, but I was beginning to worry that my
feelings where well on the way.

I reached over and
cranked on the radio, trying to use the loud music to chase her out of my mind.
I had a fight to get ready for, and last night’s drinking was going to make it
hard enough to concentrate on jabs and uppercuts, let alone my always
problematic footwork.

Ever since I’d
thrown my first punch, my coaches had been harping on about my footwork.
Dancing in and out of reach of an opponent’s fists wasn’t my style. It just
didn’t feel right to me.

I’d always been
one to plant my feet and launch bombs, willing to weather the other guy’s storm
and do as much damage to him at the same time.

It had gotten me
into trouble in the past, but that was just me.

I didn’t run away.
Every poor son of a bitch I’d ever fought knew that I was going to come after
them with everything I had.

I suppose that was
the same way I was chasing Sloane.

All or nothing.