Zen (4 page)

“When will your photographer arrive?” Zen asked, bringing everything back to business.

“He may be here already. I was going to check with the front desk after breakfast to see if he arrived.”

“Wouldn’t he call you to let you know?” Zen took a sip of his orange juice. He didn’t drink coffee or anything that contained caffeine. It messed up his system.

“It depends. Jimmie has a tendency to go off on his own. He’s hoping to become an award winning photographer.”

“Sounds like you and this Jimmie are well known with each other.” Zen didn’t like the familiarity that she spoke of the other male.

“Jimmie’s alright. We’ve been a reporting team off and on for a couple of years.” She continued to eat hoping the conversation would end quickly.

Rarely had a female made him feel out of sorts. He struggled to find something to engage with her about. She obviously wasn’t turned on by his looks or his usual come ons. He winked and she would frown. Not the response he was looking for. He ran his hand through his shoulder length hair out of pure nervousness. Damn the female unsettled him.

“So what do you have to do first after breakfast?” She might as well get this first day going. It was going to be a long one.

He gave her a half smile, which was not returned. “I thought I would walk with you to the front desk, and then I have morning practice. I could take you with me and introduce you to some of the other fighters.” He noticed her sit up at full attention.

“Which fighters will be there?” she asked with curiosity.

He didn’t like that she was interested in everyone else but him. It tore at his ego.
Fuck! What did it take to get her interested in him?

“Not sure.” He knew who would be there but he didn’t want to tell her. He wanted to see if she asked about someone in particular. Then he would beat the shit out of the male. Why was he attracted to the only female in the Galaxy who wasn't attracted to him?

Just his luck.

They finished eating in silence. The waitress brought the bill to the table and slipped a napkin into Zen’s hand when he took the bill from her. Shawna smirked. Yeah. That napkin most likely had the waitress’s phone number on it. She was surprised he didn’t already know it by now. The stories she had heard about him and women were extensive. There were rumors out there too that he was bisexual. That he had even had an affair with another male fighter for the GCFA. Now wouldn’t that be juicy information she would put in her exposé.

She was suddenly determined to find out all Zen's little secrets or as many as she could. She allowed Zen to pay for her breakfast. Then she stood without his help and began to walk out of the restaurant. Zen rushed to get up and rushed to the door before her.

He gave her a gentle smile.

She frowned at him.

Zen sighed.

What was it going to take to reach this female?

Shawna walked over to the lobby front desk and asked the desk attendant, "I am with the Galactic Times and was wondering if my cameraman checked in yet? His name is Jimmie Fallon."

"Yes, ma'am, Mr. Fallon has checked in. He is in room five-five-six."

"Would you ring his room for me?" Shawna was irritated that Jimmie hadn't told her he had arrived. It made her look bad.

The attendant handed her the phone. "Jimmie?"

"Sweet cheeks, how's it going?"

"Jimmie, why the hell didn’t you let me know you arrived?” Shawna didn’t care that Zen and the desk attendant was listening to her. Let them think whatever they wanted.

“Hey, don’t blow a gasket. I just arrived a few hours ago. Security set up my pass access, then I grabbed something to eat because I didn’t have anything before leaving home. The rest of the time I was unpacking and getting settled in. My room is swank. How’s yours?” He tried to deflate her anger.

“It’s fine. Now get down to the lobby immediately. We have to get some shots in of Zen training.” Shawna looked over at Zen who was leaning across the front desk whispering something to the pretty attendant. Was there any woman he couldn’t charm? “Five minutes, Jimmie!” She hung up and glared at Zen and the other woman. How the hell was she supposed to get through two weeks of this crap?

“He on his way?” Zen asked, walking over to where she was standing. Zen saw her red face and frowned. She was pissed off and for some reason he found it damn sexy.

“Yeah, we’ll give him five minutes if that is okay?” Shawna was happy there would be another person around with them so she wouldn’t be completely alone with the too attractive man.

“Have you seen the views?” Zen asked, trying to engage her. He pointed to the large lobby windows.

“I haven’t had time and the suites don’t have viewing windows,” Shawna answered, not looking at him.

“Come, they have large viewing windows here in the lobby.” He didn’t touch her but motioned for her to move toward the right side of the lobby.

When they got to the viewing windows, Shawna looked out into space and watched stars twinkling. “It’s beautiful.”

“Wait until we near a spaceport and you will see even more amazing sights.” Zen watched as a transformation took place over Shawna’s face. She went from cold and reserved to a warm, glowing, beautiful female. Damn he wanted her. He took a step closer to her and lifted his hand to brush a loose strand of her dark brown hair back behind the most delicate ears he had ever seen. He let his fingers linger over her earlobe. A desire to nibble her there, hit him square in his gut.

Shawna shivered from Zen’s warm touch. She could feel his body heat through their clothes and her nipples were instantly stiff and she felt her panties getting wet. She looked up into his eyes and was frozen, trapped in his gaze. Electricity seemed to shoot through her entire body and she licked her dry lips. His gaze shifted immediately to her mouth and to the thought he might kiss her. She should move away—something, but her feet wouldn’t move. This wasn’t good.

“Hey, Baker! You ready to get to work?” a man’s voice called out from behind Zen, breaking the spell she had been under. She moved away from Zen as fast as she could.

“Yes!” She frowned when she saw Jimmie already had his camera out. What had he been taking photos of? “Jimmie Fallon, this is Zen the Sin, Galactic Times Sexiest Male.”

Jimmie reached to shake Zen’s hand. The two men seemed to size each other up. Zen was at least five inches taller and had a much firmer body. Jimmie was not very athletic in build but he was still in shape. He raised his camera and took a close up of Zen, when he least expected it.

“So, where are we off too?” Jimmie asked.

“I have training scheduled,” Zen said as he motioned for them to follow him.

He went to the elevators and after entering, they went up one flight. He tried to get Shawna’s attention but she refused to look him in the eyes. They stepped out and went down a long corridor. There was several security guards there. Shawna expected them to be stopped but since they were with Zen, they didn’t have to show their passes.

“I need to change. It shouldn’t take long if you two could wait for me here?” Zen motioned to a couple of benches.

Shawna sat down and checked her messages on her minicomputer. Her boss messaged her an hour ago wanting to get pictures immediately. He was pissed that there were photographers at the after party and got shots that should have been their exclusive.

“Is everything okay?”

Shawna looked up to find Zen standing there. His eyes twinkled down at her. It took a moment for her to remember what he was asking her.

“Yes.” She tried her best to ignore the fact that Zen was completely shirtless. He had workout shorts on but no shoes. The man was hairless and golden all over. She had the urge to rub her hands all over the smooth skin exposed. She had seen him at his fight wearing something similar but she hadn't been this close up.

He lowered his hand to help her up. She ignored his hand and stood on her own. “Jimmie, get your camera ready. Our boss wants photos sent to him in a few hours.”

“On it!” Jimmie replied from behind her.

“Wow,” Jimmie commented as they walked into the training facility. “I had no idea the ship had anything this big. There’s even a full size cage.”

Shawna wasn’t as impressed. All of this was really beyond her scope. She didn’t normally cover sports events. That’s why she wasn’t her bosses’ first choice. But she did have a big following with woman readers. She knew what women wanted to hear about.

She looked around the facility and only partially listened to Zen as he explained the different areas. There was another room that had treadmills and weight lifting equipment. Jimmie was going crazy taking pictures. She watched as fighters were circling each other on mats. One side of the arena was used by the woman fighters and the other side by the men. She was confused over the separation during training.

“Why are you frowning?” Zen asked from next to her.

She didn’t realize he had gotten so close. “I was wondering why the men and women are separated.”

“We do separate training in the mornings and then combine the training in the afternoon,” he told her.

“Oh.” She looked around and realized she had become the focus of all the fighters. They stopped what they were doing to stare at her. Well, she was making quite the impression.
Way to blend in, Baker.

“Come, I’ll introduce you to some of the fighters.” Zen led her toward the women.

“Hey, guys, I wanted to introduce the reporter who will be doing an in depth interview for the next two weeks.” Zen stopped and motioned to Shawna to step forward. He placed a hand at the middle of her back. “This is Shawna Baker and her photographer, Jimmie.” He touched her back lightly to give her reassurance. He stepped closer so he could get another whiff of her delicious scent. Man she was sexy.

“Hi, everyone.” Shawna was a little intimidated by the women fighters. Their muscles were gleaming and a couple of them looked at her like she was enemy number one, especially the red-headed one.

“This is Gana, Roxy, Sersan, Isis, Alana, and Zara.” Zen pointed to each one as he introduced them.

Zara and Roxy were the only two that didn’t say hi. Zara nodded while Roxy, the red-headed one, glared daggers at her. What was that all about? She didn’t have time to dwell on it because after Jimmie took a few shots of the women fighters, Zen shuffled them over to the men’s side.

She was wrong, the women had nothing on the men when it came to intimidation. She bit her bottom lip out of nervousness. Unlike the women, the men didn’t take their eyes off her. It was as if they could see right through her guise.

“Guys, this is the reporter for the Galactic Times, Shawna Baker and their photographer, Jimmie. She will be covering me for the next two weeks.”

“She could cover me forever if she wanted,” a tall man with a leer said. He eyes raked Shawna head to toe undressing her visually.

Zen glared at the man. “Shut it, Torch. Treat her with respect.”

“Sure,” the man named Torch said.

“Ignore him, he is still learning manners.” This was said by the largest man Shawna had ever seen. His head was shaved bald and his enormous hand looked almost bigger than her whole head. “I’m Hammer.” He gave her a smile showing his dimples.

“Nice to meet you.” She gave him a small smile. The dimples took him from scary to damn cute.

“This is Esan, Taurus, Hercules, Ronin, and Maxim. Talon isn't here because his mate is about to have their baby and he is taking time off early to be with her. Where is Rage?” Zen asked Hammer.

“He’s running a little late,” Hammer told him.

“Well, we’ll let you get to your training. Just pretend that we aren’t here.” Shawna shooed Zen away making the men chuckle at Zen’s confused expression. No one had ever dismissed him before.

“That is going to be hard to do, your scent alone is distracting,” Torch remarked.

“What?” Shawna was confused. Did the man just say she smelled?

“Torch,” Zen growled a warning. He then turned to walk Shawna to a nearby bench.

“We’ll break for lunch,” Zen told her.

“Jimmie and I will need to leave before that. I have to select pictures to be sent to my boss. He’s insisting on something be sent to him today.”