Shadowboxer (29 page)

Then a pair of strong arms sli
d around my waist. If I were dreaming, I never wanted to wake up.

“It’s not nice to sneak up on someone.” I couldn’t keep the pleasure out of my voice.

“You were talking about me. I figured it would be rude to keep watching you. Kicks look better, by the way. Good job.” Tray kissed the side of my neck. “But make sure you twist your upper body with the movement. You’ll gain more flexibility.”

“I’m plenty flexible already.”

“No arguments there.” He nipped my jaw. “Miss me? Because I missed you. I watched the clock all day. I even considered going by Vinnie’s to see you in your titty top.”

I elbowed him
in the gut. “That’s not a titty top. Jerk.” Then I remembered my animal print panties and the usual heat climbed up my cheeks. “Though I tried to get something for tonight. It didn’t work out. Don’t ask about it. Forget I said anything.”

He laughed
. “What?”

“I
bought a pair of string bikini panties. But I can’t wear them.”

“You bought
string bikini panties?
You
?”

Frowning, I turned to face him and propped my hands on my hips. “I can do sexy things.” Then I sighed. “No, I really can
’t. It was a total fail. It’s not even my size.”

Somehow
I could smile and joke about it, when not only had I wasted money, I’d only bought the wrong thing because of Darren. Everything went back to him eventually. But the past faded when Tray was smiling down at me, looking perfectly delicious in his eye patch and a bright blue sweater that made his other eye seem even bluer.

“You’ll have to model them for me.”

“They’re too big.”

He tugged me close again and nuzzled my neck. “So we’ll tie the strings tighter or something. It’ll be more of a challenge for me to get them off with my teeth.”

I tilted my head to give him more room, then braced. Two chicks had stopped working out to watch us. And giggle. “Tray.”

“Mmm?”

“We have an audience.”

“Really? That’s
hot.” He licked my earlobe.

I relaxed. Being around him was having the strangest effect on me. I was becoming more normal, simply because he was. He wouldn’t let me freak out about everything so acting like a regular person was turning into my default setting.

The workout room door banged open. “Goddammit, are you fucking serious?” Kizzy shouted. “Over my damn dead body.”

I sprang back from Tray and held up my hands. “We’re not doing anything. I swear.”

Yeah, so I might still be a work-in-progress on the regular person front.

“Can you imagine the nerve? Bastard comes in here off the street and starts deciding how he’ll run the gym I’ve worked at for five ye
ars. Does he ask for input? No. Just starts coming up with fancy decrees and thou shalt nots.” Kizzy fumed and paced. “And then if that’s not enough, he tells me he’s breaking all ties with MMA, effective immediately. That he knows chicks here are training for illegal fights and he’ll report anyone he finds out is using the premises for ‘cockfighting.’ I’d like to get my hands on his cock. The stupid prick.”

Tray arched a brow at me and motioned to the door. Whether he was indicating he should leave or we both should, I wasn’t sure.
I shrugged. Kizzy had to wind down sometime.

“I’m not tol
erating it. There’s no way I’m asking my girls to go to another gym.”

I was a
ctually the only MMA fighter Kizzy trained, but maybe she was speaking in generalities.

“This has been a place where women have trained to fight for years. He wants to take down the punching bags and the kettle bells, for fuck’s sake. Says the sport isn’t safe.” She pushed her hands through her already wild b
londe curls. I’d never seen her hair quite that huge before, so I imagined she’d been giving her curls a workout during her meeting with Pierce.

Tray adjusted his eye patch and sprawled on a pile of workout mats. “Who’re you talking about?”

“Sutton Fuckwit Pierce. Who else?”

“Miss Cavanaugh.” The voice snapped across t
he room, sharp as a belt hitting flesh. “My office. Now.”

Kizzy stilled, her face leeching of all color. Her wild gray eyes connected with mine before she charged ac
ross the room to follow Pierce. Yet again she slammed the door.

“Whoa.” Tray pulled me down beside him on the mat. “That guy looks like he’s not messing around. Hugo Boss suit and all.”

I didn’t know suit designers, but Tray must since he’d been born with an entire silver tea set in his mouth. “Yeah. He’s the new owner. None of that sounded like good news.”

Tray shifted me against his chest, stroking my hair. I knew I should push him back, that the laughing girls were probably enjoying the hell out of our display. I just couldn’t do it. I’d been held so little over the years that my body curved into his automatically, seeking the comfort he gave. Seeking
him
.

“If you can’t train here, you’ll have to back out of the fight with Costas.”

His conversational tone didn’t fool me. I’d felt the tension seep into his body. “Nice try, wiseguy. There are other gyms.”

“Yeah.” He was quiet for a minute. “Like The Cage.”

“That again?” I reached up to adjust his eye patch. As much as I liked his pirate imitation, I couldn’t wait until he’d had his surgery and I could look him in the eye—both eyes—again. “The Cage isn’t exactly female-friendly.”

“You’re right. We should work on changing it.”

The enthusiasm in his voice made me shake my head. “You can’t just change a culture like that. I’m sure other women have tried and failed.”

“You won’t.”

He sounded so confident. So sure. “Is that so?”

“Yeah.” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, not wavering in the slightest. “Look at me. I’m not welcome here, but I’m hanging out just the same.”

“Hanging out isn’t the same as joining.”

“I’d join if guys were allowed.”

“You would not.”

“Shh. You’re ruining the point I’m trying to make. Which is that you
can
join The Cage, and it sounds like you’ll have to if Pierce pushes through everything Kizzy says. We both know The Cage is the best gym in the area. Unless you decide to give up fighting altogether.” He shrugged. “Your call.”

H
e obviously had lawyering in his blood. “And who would train me at The Cage?”

“My coach. Timmins is the best.” Then he frowned. “Ex-coach, I mean.”

I sat up. “What? He dropped you because you lost?”

“No, of course not. Actually, I dropped him.” He scratched his stubbled jaw and blew out a breath. “I quit, Mi
a. Hung up my gloves. I’ve been wanting to for a long time.”

Surprise shot through me, followed swiftly by pride. He had enough sense of self to walk away from a fight he’d lost without gunning for a rematch. That took a lot of
cojones
. I started to say as much, but he cut me off, his expression disturbingly earnest.

“And today, I started the paperwork to enroll at NYU. They have a great online program. In case, you know, I’m not here.” He grabbed my hand and folded my fingers into his. “If
we’re
not.”

Heat blasted through my belly, twining with something slick and slippery. I’d been feeling that same uneasy sensation ever since I’d laid eyes on him at Vinnie’s.

He wanted to come with me. Us, Carly and me. He didn’t know where we were going—
I
didn’t even know—but he was willing to come along anyway.

For a moment I could barely breathe, let alone speak. I was so confused and overwhelmed that I said the first thing that popped into my head. “Okay. I’ll check out The Cage. On one condition.”

He flashed that heartstopping grin. At least it stopped mine. “What?”

“I want
you
to train me.”

Chapter Thirty

Tray

In one day’s time, I
’d walked away from one career, took steps to begin pursuing another, and stumbled into an all-new job. And I got a girlfriend, even if I wasn’t sure she’d ever let me call her that.

I expected Timmins to rip me a new one for even suggesting I could train someone at The Cage who wasn’t a member yet. The woman I’d talked
him
into possibly training, no less.

But he only asked me for some tape of Mia
, and once he’d watched it, said she was in and so was I, on the other end of the desk. He put me on a strict probationary period, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t looking to be a trainer long term. I just wanted to help her win. End of story.

Timmins was just humoring me with the coaching thing. He figured I needed a break from fighting after my injury. He could t
hink whatever he wanted. I wouldn’t be back. I was done.

Kizzy wasn’t thrilled to see Mia leave Mark’s, but Pierce wasn’t backing down. He was militant about getting any and all traces of MMA out of his gym. Technically people could work out for any reason they wanted to, and he couldn’t
stop them. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t make the environment inhospitable as hell. Mia had expected Kizzy to quit that first night, yet she’d changed tacks and now flat-out refused to leave. Said she’d outlast some slick Brit. Somehow I doubted it, but it was hard not to admire her gumption.

Besides, I think she was enjoying how to
ugh I was being on Mia. They’d both probably figured I’d wimp out and give her a cake schedule. They’d been wrong.

For the week and a half I trained Mia, I put her
through her paces. She’d been cut to start, but that didn’t mean I let her slack on the suicide runs or time with the kettle bell. I taught her combinations and made her kick the heavy bag until she could barely walk afterward. We practiced grappling and striking for hours. Grueling, occasionally unintentionally erotic hours.

And if I enjoyed how adept she became at pinning
me
, who could blame me?

With
another couple of months of training, she’d be more than qualified for the real circuit. Hell, who was I kidding? She already was.

Thank God she wasn’t interested in go
ing pro. I couldn’t have stood watching her get beat up and bloodied month after month. Bad enough I’d have to be in her corner tomorrow night.

Tomorrow night. God. I couldn’t think about it or I’d go insane. I was halfway there already.

“Red or blue?” Mia held up two boxes of candles. She’d planned a little get-together tonight for Carly’s birthday tonight at their apartment.

I’d planned an afterparty for the two of us at mine, but she didn’t know that yet.

We’d been kind of taking it easy on the sex stuff considering my surgery was coming up, and Mia claimed she’d read that extra strain could affect the swelling around my eye. I’d gone along with it, mostly because I wanted her to know I wasn’t with her just to get laid. I wanted the whole relationship enchilada too.

Tonight, though, I wanted sex. Hard driving, mind-erasing fucking and sweet, slow making love. I wanted us, alone and blocking out everything else in the world. I wanted tomorrow to never come.

“Blue,” I said automatically, adjusting my hold on the handful of balloons I clutched.

“Blue?” She frowned. “But Carly’s favorite color is red.”

“So why did you ask? Get red.”

“But the blue goes better with the cake. Kizzy’s doing one with purple frosting. She said she saw the perfect cake online at Kiss Kakes, this fancy bakery in Salem. She wanted to just order one from there but the shipping would’ve been crazy expensive.”

I’d tuned out after she mentioned us having to eat something Kizzy made. “Kizzy’s baking the cake? Are we going to die? Why can’t Carly make it?”

“She can’t bake her own birthday cake. That’s not right.”

An image of Mia in an apron and nothing else sprang to mind—and sprang other parts of me into instant wakefulness. “You can’t bake?”

Mia was still too busy studying the candles to reply. I grabbed both boxes, threw them in our cart
, and nudged her forward. “Problem solved. Next?”

She didn’t move. “I can’t just buy whatever I want, Fox. My budget won’t allow it.”

I could always tell when she was irritated because I suddenly went back to being Fox. “I know that, babe. But I don’t have to worry about it, so we’re good. Get whatever you need.”

If someone said that to me, I’d be happy. But not my girl. Nope, she slitted her eyes and jolted the
cart until it bumped my thigh.

“I’m not with you for your money.”

“I figured, since you won’t take any.” I decided to just keep shopping—sad when that became my preferred out—and hoped that she’d get with the program. “So what else do we need?”

“It’s what else do
I
need. You’re not responsible for providing things. You’re a guest.”

Getting annoyed wouldn’t help anything. Certain areas between us would remain tenuous until she got used to being in
a relationship. I didn’t have it all nailed down myself. “I’m your guy. That means I’m throwing the party too.”

“You’re a
guest
,” she stressed, walking past me.

“Goddammit, Mia, stop being so fucking stubborn. Yeah, you have brass balls. I know it. I see it every day. But when we’re outside the gym, it’s not all your way or the highway. I have the right to put my foot down about something.”

She swiveled toward me. “Like what?”

I leaned across the cart and braced my elbow, holding my fist in the air. “Arm wrestle me.”

Her lips twitched. “Why?”

“Just do it.” She rolled up her sleeve and gripped my hand. “Count of three. Ready?”

Her chin quivered with the smile she couldn’t quite hold back. “Ready.”

“One. Two. Three.” I didn’t check my strength and took her down with one swift movement. She resisted
admirably, but I’d never allow myself to lose with something so important on the line.

Besides, I knew my opponent
. She had tons of power in her legs. Her arms were weaker. I’d been working them relentlessly for the last week and a half for that reason.

I hadn’t been sleeping, thinking of that weakness rearing its head in the ring with that asshole Costas. We’d worked out a strategy for the fight where she’d draw on her strengths—her speed and agility, how adept she was at Muay Thai,  and her kicks—and we’d practiced it endlessly. That would have to be enough.

“I won.” I finally released her hand. A few other shoppers were eyeing us, but that was nothing new. We tended to attract attention wherever we went. Fighting as easily as we breathed might’ve had something to do with that.

She rubbed her wrist. “No shit, Sherlock. Why you wanted to arm wrestle me in the grocery store is my question.”

I stepped closer and pressed my mouth to her temple, speaking just loud enough for her to hear. “You promised me a night if I won. All night, in my bed. My rules. No tapping out.” I tipped up her chin. “I’m collecting tonight.”

“Uh-
uh. That only applied to our fight. Since we’re not fighting, you lose that condition.”

“Show me the written proof .”

“Tray—”

“Back to Tray.” I smiled triumphantly. Yeah, she was weakening. Big time. “You know you want to spend the night with me. We have been most nights anyway.”

We’d spent them watching movies and hanging out with Carly, Slater, and Kizzy, when she wasn’t on the warpath over Pierce. Basically, we were getting used to being a couple. It was weird…and nice.

“Yeah, but tonight’s Carly’s birthday.” She bit her lip. “All night? At your place?”

“Mmm-hmm. All night in my bed.”

“But your eye—”

I cupped her cheek, rubbing my thumb over her wet lower lip. “Be with me.”

Releasing a shaky breath, she nodded. “I—I need…”

I rubbed against her, slow and determined. She’d started lowering her walls with me, but I was greedy and wanted more. I wanted all of her. “Tell me, baby.”

“Napkins. And plastic silverware.” She jerked away and disappeared down the next aisle while I smothered a chuckle.

That was my Mia. If you didn’t launch a sneak attack, she’d block and defend like a pro.

A few minutes later we walked out to the parking lot to my car. That was something else we’d been doing the last couple of weeks—driving. I’d taken my car out of long term storage to teach her, despite
her freaking out about refreshing her rusty skills on a ’Vette. Perfectionist that she was, she’d remembered the basics pretty quickly. We’d mostly practiced in parking lots and on back roads. We’d also gone to Long Island and I showed her some of my old haunts. She’d been okay driving there, if a little uncertain.

Now it was time to build her confidence.

“Heads up.” She juggled her shopping bag as I tossed her the keys. “You drive.”

“What? Out
here? No. I can’t. I’ll get arrested.”

“Yell
a little louder, why don’t you? I don’t think the cop at DD heard.” Rolling my eyes, I pulled down the passenger seat and shoved my bags behind it. “Stop being a wuss. We’re like ten blocks from your place.”

She handed me her bag and I piled it on the others. “I don’t know. What if—”

“Get behind the wheel. I’ll help keep you calm, I promise.”

She rubbed her palms on
the thighs of her jeans. “How?”

“Stop stalling. We have stuff to do at your place before Carly gets back.”

“Okay, okay.” She rounded the hood.

I got in the passenger side, pushing the seat way back. I shut the door and strapped in as she did the same, watching with amusement as she went through all her pre-driving checks. Move the seat closer. Adjust the rearview mirror. Fiddle with the seatbelt. Then, finally, putting the car into gear, checking over her shoulder—bot
h of them—and inching backward.

“I hate reversing,” she muttered.

“You’re doing fine. Just stay steady on the gas. Don’t forget your turn signal.”

“I remembered it. I wasn’t ready yet.” She navigated around a forgotten shopping cart, hit her signal and cr
ept into traffic. Good thing we were on a residential street, because she was doing about fourteen miles an hour, with occasional surges to sixteen.

“Turn off here.”

“Why? That’s not the way back to my place.”

God, her nerves were so cute. Why didn’t I find them annoying? I couldn’t figure it out
. “It’s the scenic route.”

“Scenic means more than ten blocks.” But she dutifully switched on her signal and turned onto the next block.

“Just relax.”

“Relaxing,” she mumbled, scanning in
all directions while tightening her fingers around the wheel.

I shifted my hand to her thigh and she jolted. “Easy. It’s important to be aware of your surroundings while driving. You have to stay alert no matter what’s going on.”

“Yeah.”

Nonchalantly, I toyed with the zipper of her jeans. Tugged it down. “I thought we’d do a little experiment.”

She shot me a panicked look, but I didn’t miss the edge of excitement in her expression. It magnified when I nudged aside her panties. She’d exchanged the first animal print pair for one in her size and I actually found it hotter than hell, minus the
Juicy
on her ass. I slipped my finger down her lips. Wetness slicked my skin.

“Tray,” she half whispered, half moaned.

I pressed deeper, circling the stiffening nub of flesh. “Open your legs for me.”

She swallowed loudly enough for me to hear and parted her knees, jamming her foot down on the pedal in the process. “Dammit. There’s a cop up there.”

“Just drive. Slow and easy. Rock your hips.”

“I can’t do this.”

“You are.” When she set her jaw, I drew my finger slightly away. “Want me to stop?”

She shook her head. “No. You know I don’t.”

I hid my smile, but barely. I waited until we’d cruised past the cop before unsnapping my belt and leaning closer to lick the hollow of her collarbone. She stifled a cry in her throat and I pushed deeper, harder. “See how much I trust you? I’ve had this car since I was sixteen. I lost my virginity in it, about five times over.”

“You’re fucking crazy,” she gasped.

“Probably.” Laughing, I licked up the side of her neck, finding that crevice between her jaw and ear that always smelled so good. “Next time we’ll try this with my face in your lap. That’s the advanced level.”

“Jesus. Do you
want me to…wreck…your…car?” She was concentrating so hard that she started braking for a stop light halfway up the block.

“No. I want you to come on my hand. On my fingers. I want to feel you pulsing as I push inside you.”