Alpha Fighter (2 page)

Whore.

But it's not even her that I'm mad at, with her bottle-blonde, straw hair stuck to her forehead with sweat sex. No, it's my fucking fiancee who's fucking some cheap slut in his bed, maybe what would have been
our
bed in a few weeks, depending on how we worked out the logistics of our marriage.

I barely even realize that I start yelling, I'm so mad. "How
DARE
you betray me? How
DARE
you fuck her, you asshole? I
WAITED
for you! I haven't even
TALKED
to a man—and you? You? YOU! UGGGHHHHHHH!"  

I'm so mad that I can't come up with something clever to say or do, some way to make him feel some of the anger and frustration that I feel. So I walk over to the bed instead and smush my opened banana into his black satin bedsheets and really smear it in before spinning on my heel and running out. 

I know. Not my finest or most mature moment. Not even the most cutting response. A banana? Really? But what's a girl to do?

By the time I get back to my house, I know that we are over. My almost ten-year engagement to Nate is over, because I am going to run away.

I can't marry someone who betrayed me before we were ever even together in the first place.

Cooper

S
omething's wrong. I may be hung over, but I know something is wrong. There's sun on my face and there shouldn't be this much sun on my face.

Fuck. I didn't set my alarm clock. I crack an eye open.

"You gotta go, Lisa," I mumble as I shake her shoulder.

She opens her eyes and looks at me with a sleepy smile. "Elise," she corrects. "And don't I get my coffee to-go? What's the rush today, stud?"

"No, I'll have to owe you one—next week, I'll make it a double," I say, rolling up to sitting and rubbing my throbbing head. "I'm showing the place today. I need you out half-an-hour ago."

"Fine," Elise pouts. She gets up, walking deliberately slowly through my field of vision to give me a long look at her heart-shaped ass and full Ds. She bends over with a flat back to pick up her lacy bra from the floor by the dresser, where I flung it last night, and I briefly consider getting up and giving it to her hard, doggy style. But I don't have time for that and I need her out. She comes back up with an arched back, swinging her hair over her shoulder. Just as she's pulling her skin-tight dress from last night on over her head, and I'm buckling my belt, the doorbell rings.

"Let's go," I say, not bothering to grab a shirt.

"Fine." She pouts a little, but follows my lead. My girls are low maintenance, all chronic side chicks, but I know they want more. I also know that they know better than to think they'll ever be more than a sexual release and a warm body in my bed. I make sure they know the only reason they're staying over is because I'm not about to send a woman out into the streets on the wrong part of town in the middle of the night. Especially not the way they come here, wearing what's probably the legal minimum in clothing and the maximum in 'I'm asking for it' hair and makeup. So they can stay the night, fine. But forever? Ha.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I'm no sucker and I'm not falling for any woman again. I'm not even bitter. I'm just not big enough of an idiot to fall in love.

"Can I at least make myself a cup of—" Elise starts. I cut her off.

"No."

She tries to go in for a goodbye kiss on the way to the front door, but I don't let it happen.

"Thanks for coming by, Elise" I say, as I open the door. She gives me the kind of look that would single-handedly turn a G-rated movie PG-13, then pushes past the small group of people on the steps.

It's a really unpromising selection. Only three people showed up, unsurprising given the dump I'm showing, but it's still a bit disappointing. There's a little man with thick glasses and a tic with his tongue, where he flicks it at the corners of his mouth every few seconds, like some sort of demented lizard. There's an unwashed teenager, at the most a scrawny and underfed twenty-two-year-old if I'm underestimating, who smells like a flaming joint. And then there's probably the hottest chick I've seen this year. She’s just the right amount of petite—not too skinny, and with curves in all the right places. They’re the kind of curves that make a grown man turn into an obedient, whipped little sheepdog, kowtowing to her every whim. Her long, black hair is shiny and as dark as infinity, setting off her big, caramel-colored eyes and bee-stung red lips like an exotic dream princess.

She could make a Victoria’s Secret model’s boyfriend wish for an upgrade.

I open the door wider and wave them all in, though there doesn't look like a single winner in the group. The guys disgust me, the babe is—well, a babe. It's just
asking
for trouble if you shack up with a hot chick, especially one as sexy as this one. You can't send a roommate home when you're done fucking her and then, before you know it, she'll be telling you what to wear, planning how to spend 'our' paycheck, and sleeping with half the neighborhood the first time you turn your back.

"Hi, I'm Cooper," I say.

"P-p-p-p-peter," stammers the sniveler.

"Teehee," giggles the pothead. "Wassup, homie? I'm...." He pauses for a moment, trying to focus, then breaks off into another high-pitched fit of giggles before he can remember his name.

"I'm Savannah." The girl's beautiful face scrunches up for an instant, like she regrets saying that, but she recovers quickly. She extends her hand formally in greeting. I look at it—I'm a little amused to be honest—and then take it. I'm expecting a wimpy little flop, but she's got a good grip and gives me a firm handshake. It's unexpected from someone that size, with such a delicate little hand, but she holds her own.

"This is the living room." I wave at the couch, television and coffee table off to our right.

"Nice view, maaaaan." The pothead has loped over to the window and is staring down at my view of a dumpster in an alleyway in pure rapture. I raise my eyebrows.

"And this is the kitchen," I say, leading them in to the small kitchen. P-p-peter leans over the sink, like he's examining the drainage or something.

"What's the b-b-biggest thing you can p-put down there?" he asks, in his pedophile-sounding voice, "I-i-in the garbage d-d-d-disposal?"

"What's the—?" I give him a look. "Look, I'm not a neat freak but I'm not going to live in a sty, either. I'm not home that much and I'm looking for the same in a roommate. No weird stuff. Pay your rent on time. Stay out of my way and I'll stay out of yours."

"Sounds good," says Savannah, coming back over from checking the stove. A girl who looks like that and knows how to cook? Mmmmm.

Savannah

T
he newspaper description didn't paint an unfair description of the place. It's really a bit of a dump, nothing at all like home. Forget about a ten-range stove with electric power and a self-cleaning oven. Forget about a twelve-man couch and floor-to-ceiling platinum TV screens, augmented by in-wall surround-sound stereo speaker systems. Forget about granite counter tops and crystal chandeliers. But seriously, if you are going to have kitchen appliances from the seventies, would it really hurt to de-grit the burners now and then? This is clearly such a bachelor pad.

The first thing I do when I move in is going to have to be a thorough cleaning of this place. I may not have money anymore, but give me some Lysol and a Brillo pad and I can still make the place shine like a poor man's treasure.

I'm surprised to feel a little excitement at the thought. Then again, it
is
exciting. I'm finally on my own and sure, I have to fend for myself. But I'm a big girl and I'd rather do my own dirty work than sit in a crystal prison for the rest of my life, as I would be if I married that cheating scumbag, Nate.

I also can't deny that the eye candy roommate isn't a little exciting. He's tall and muscular and it took me a second to recover when he opened the door and I was suddenly presented with his chiseled, bare chest and low-slung shorts, drawing attention to the muscular V-line framing his eight-pack. His strong arms, the kind that could do justice to even the toughest pickle jar, not to mention cause some serious damage on the streets, are covered in a flawless set of full sleeves. I skip a breath and have to catch myself in order not to let it show.

Now
that's
a man.

But there is no point in thinking about it, because there is no way that anything is happening here. There is no way that anything is happening with him, or any other guy for that matter, when the stakes are so high. Getting involved with me isn't like getting involved with another pretty eighteen-year-old. Runaway or not, I'm still the engaged daughter of Flint Santos and the blood price on the head of whoever dared to stain my purity, unwitting or not, would be astronomical. There is no way anyone, even this physically flawless Adonis, could escape the consequences.

No, I'm just here for a room. Besides, Cooper is already involved with someone. Or more likely, given her revealing last night's clothing and overdone makeup that screamed ‘trying too hard’, he is a charmer who beds women for the game of it and has notches on his bedpost that number in the triple digits.

Even if I wasn't forbidden to love anyone but Nate, who's a self-absorbed jerk that there's no way in hell that I can love, Cooper is not relationship material.

"Here's the bathroom," says Cooper, leading us out of the kitchen. "There's only one, so we have to share." He pauses, then looks directly at me as he says, "I'm a busy guy. I don't have time to wait for someone who's going to be in there forever. Get in and get out."

I surprise myself with the strength of my own nerve when I answer with, "No problem. I'm quick in the shower."

Only now I'm thinking about him and the shower. And thinking about him thinking about me in the shower. And then I'm thinking about him
and
me in the shower and suddenly I could use a cold shower.

I focus, instead, on the bathroom. It's definitely a fixer-upper. The first thing I'll have to do is dump a bucket of bleach in that toilet. It's not that it's actually dirty. Cooper seems to have kept everything quite clean in here, but it's just old and faded and not the white that it can be. Likewise, I see the potential in the sink and the shower, despite the fading tiles and dull faucet fixtures. The mirror is a bit of a goner, with a jagged crack all the way down the middle, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. If not, it's just a mirror. There are more important things.

Not that there's really much of anything that could dissuade me from taking this place, considering that the four hundred dollars per month rent is pretty much all that I can afford. Honestly, even with the ultra-cheap, four hundred dollar rent, I really better hope that a job pans out soon.

I take in Cooper's reflection in the mirror, my eyes traveling up his sexy body to his equally sexy face.

I also really better hope that I can keep a firm grip on myself.

Cooper

I
try not to look at the girl, since she's really not a safe roommate choice and her caramel brown eyes and plump, rosebud-shaped lips are distracting me from my roommate hunt. But my big head isn't always the one running things.

This girl is hard to stop looking at. And then there's the way she handles herself so seriously, with her head held high and shoulders back. She's not built as a fighter, but she has the spirit.

"Where's the bedroom?" Savannah asks, then blushes. "I mean, the room that's up for rent?" For just a minute, she breaks out of her tough persona and looks down at her feet, crossing a hand over her body and holding her other elbow in it. For just a moment, she looks a little shy, but still goddamn breathtakingly beautiful, and I have the conflicting desires to protect her and to take her, deep and hard and all at once.

No. Down, boy. I'm definitely going to need to give Wednesday's girl a call tonight, maybe a little early. I'll have her before my second training. She won't mind the sweat.

"Right. It's over here," I answer, leading my unimpressive group of potential roommates to the spare room.

"Niiiice, dude." Pothead flops down face-first on the bed, arms spread-eagled, and doesn't move.

"Does the d-d-door lock?" Peter shuts it to look at the backside of the knob, closing us into an uncomfortably small space for four grown bodies, especially of complete strangers.

"The key didn't come with the place when I got it, but I'm fine with you getting a lock." Though it won't be
you
getting a lock, at least not for this room. There is no way he's moving in, I already want to wring his neck and we're not even through the tour yet.

Then again, pothead still hasn't moved from his spot on the bed and I'm just not getting any sense that this guy has his shit together enough to pay rent, much less on time. I'm not in for that headache and I'm also not cool with him dealing out of here, if he develops a little entrepreneurial spirit. The last thing I need is the hassle of cops knocking down my door. I've had my share of government goons—I was one once and have no need to deal with them again.

"Is the furniture included?" asks Savannah, looking in the small dresser that's shoved in a corner of the room, in lieu of a closet.

"Yeah, it is," I reply. If she moves in here, it's going to be the longest exercise in fucking self-control that I've ever done. All I want to do with her and that dresser is sit her perfect ass on it while I pay some of that other kind of lip service to those perfect breasts. I've been with some attractive women in my time, but this one is something else.

"And internet?" She looks me square in the eyes, like she's haggling.

"There's a library a few blocks over," I say, staring her down just the same. She doesn't flinch or waver, even for a moment.

"Have you ever had bedbugs?" she asks.

"Bedbugs?" I smirk. No, but I'd like her in my bed. "No."