Bare Knuckle: Vegas Top Guns, Book 5 (36 page)

The silence swirled out for a moment. Behind them were happy voices, clattering silverware and the low thump of music from an audio system.

Leah lifted her chin. “Fine. We’ll call this an official visit. As your new commander, I’m here to warn you. I’m not putting up with a lot of bullshit. Fang told me about your fighting. If this whole Billy Badass attitude is because of boxing—”

He cut her off. “It’s not.”

“Then what’s wrong? You can consider answering an order.”

He tightened his fists. “Trish and I split.”

“I’d kinda figured that,” she said, her expression suddenly solemn.

“She didn’t understand when I had to go check on my brother. He needed me.”

“You don’t think Trish needed you too?”

His stomach did three full somersaults.

There it was.

The fact he’d been blindly trying to avoid for weeks. Maybe longer.

Every time she smiled at him or laughed or straddled his lap, or when she’d shown him that amazingly detailed assignment for her class…

She needed him. His attention and support. His love.

Acknowledging how much she needed him included a flipside he hadn’t wanted to accept.

He’d needed her. To draw him out. To turn him outward from his obsessions and fears. He hadn’t thought himself capable of handling more than Carey’s problems because his brother’s rehab wasn’t the only issue dragging him. He’d needed someone to care—to accept him without judgment or pity. Trish had been the one to shine a bright, unrelenting light on his loneliness.

He’d been the one to dim that light.

He tilted back against the twisted trunk of a juniper tree, failing at a casual pose, a casual tone. “She’s strong. She’ll get by.”

“You’re such a jack nugget.”

“Thanks, Major.”

“Pretty sure we’ve left the official stuff behind now.” She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. “You’re an idiot.”

“I don’t need this shit.”

“Don’t get me wrong. We’re talking one jack nugget to another.” She pointed behind Eric, toward where Mike held a beer, laughing because Kavya had spit up on Liam’s shoulder. “You know I almost screwed things up with Strap, right? I mean, forget being a drunk and a club-girl douche. I was perfectly sober when I fell in love with him. That didn’t keep me from shoving him away with both hands. Scared goddamn shitless. Until that day—that day when nothing could’ve scared me worse.”

Eric had been there. Mike had nearly crashed, and Leah had thrown herself at him after his safe landing. Presto. Their secret affair revealed. They’d kept their relationship easygoing and professional ever since, but that moment of terror had revealed the deep extent of their love. Eric felt a similar terror now, nearly as bone-crunching and heart-stopping as rocketing out of a burning cockpit.

Leah stood and thwacked a punch to Eric’s shoulder. “Here’s the thing. You’ll only have one chance to apologize. Trust me on that. Screw it up and she won’t ever give you another shot. Make it count.”

Something crawled down his spine. “I don’t always talk well.”

“Of course you don’t.” Leah laughed as she walked back toward Fang and the revelers. “You have a penis. I wouldn’t expect any different.”

Eric had flown his jet over hostile territories. He’d bailed his nineteen-year-old, high-as-a-kite brother out of jail. He’d gone rounds with men bigger and heavier and with meaner right hooks than Eric ever dreamed. He’d crashed an F-16, for fuck’s sake. And he’d fought through the pain of surviving.

That had nothing on the fear threatening to knock him down as he stood at the back of a UNLV classroom. Trish had mentioned the hall a few times since she loved it so much. She’d said Alta Ham was a dumb name for a place where so much beauty was made. Eric had searched the whole building until he found the right room. It resembled an auditorium, where the floor slanted forward in a semicircle, but every space was crammed with various sorts of desks. Students milled around as they gathered books and portfolios, which meant that no one noticed him. Not at first.

He saw Trish. Straight off. Their fight in the hotel room was only three days gone, but Eric felt as if he hadn’t seen her in a year.

Her hair was the pale, feathery blonde. She wore jeans so skintight that they showed off her long, showgirl legs. Her top was bright red. But he’d seen her in far more elaborate getups. Wearing her glasses, she nearly blended in with the other college girls.

She was leaning over the professor’s desk at the front of the room. Eric knew without a doubt that unless the man was gay he was sneaking looks down her top. Who could blame him? Trish was probably the most beautiful woman in the world.

If she noticed, she didn’t make a fuss. She was completely pro, wearing a focused expression as she pointed at the paper she’d put in front of the other man.

Eric wanted to shove his hands in his pockets. Couldn’t. His hands were full. Instead he waited halfway up the row as students filed past. Some gave him awkward side eye.

Trish eventually saw him. Her gaze flicked up for a half second before returning to the papers. She flattened her hands on the desk as her shoulders lifted toward her ears. She didn’t want to see him. No surprise. She’d made herself perfectly clear, with words that stabbed him when he lay in bed at night.

Even if this failed, he had to do it. She deserved to know he hadn’t ever wanted to hurt her. Hadn’t wanted to treat her like something less than she was. So he took a deep breath and walked down toward the professor’s desk.

Trish straightened. Her gaze practically burned. “You’re not welcome here, Eric.”

“I have to talk to you.”

“Not here,” she said, each word clipped.

The professor calmly started gathering his belongings and stuffing them into an attaché. “You can leave with me if you’d like, or I can leave you in peace. Your choice, Trish. But if this is who’s holding you back from accepting the scholarship, I hope you know you can do better.”

One word stuck in Eric’s brain like a thorn. “Scholarship?”

The man blinked. “She didn’t tell you? Perhaps you’re not the problem after all.” He looked back at Trish. “If necessary, I can notify security.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s fine. Eric only likes to rip my heart out. He’s not into the physical stuff.”

Christ, that hurt. But it was no worse than he deserved.

Finally Eric was alone with Trish. He finished the long walk to the desk. He wanted to touch her. Needed to. But he had no right.

He set the portable external hard drive down on a stack of manila folders. It gleamed dull silver.

Trish’s eyebrows lifted. “What’s that?”

“Everything.”

“Not enough to get rid of the real me?” Her mouth twisted, and she took off her glasses. She was made up, sure, but so simply. She was one hundred percent Trish. “You have to get rid of all the pictures too?”

“Not like that.”

“Then what, Eric? Do explain it to me.”

He tapped his note cards together. Referenced the first. At least his writing was neat, because fuck it all, his hands were shaking. “First, I want you to know that I say this with no expectation of reciprocity. You have every right to be furious with me and to never forgive me.”

“Wait a second.” Her hands flashed out. She wrapped slim fingers around his wrists and tugged down so she could peer at the lined cards. Her skin was soft. A little cool. Her touch went straight to his brain like a roundhouse or a double shot of Jack. “What the hell are these?”

“I made notes,” he said simply.

Her lips gaped, enough to display her white, even bottom teeth. “But…why?”

“Because you’re too important to risk not saying what I need to.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Trish needed to sit down. Her knees insisted. Yet she didn’t want to give up the ground. He was tall enough, intimidating enough, that to sit would mean looking up at him like a supplicant. She would’ve for the rest of her life, had he been worth it.

So she remained standing and gave up the grip on his wrists. Her palm burned as she laced her fingers together. No sense letting him see her unsteadiness.

His features were as stern as ever. That rarely changed, only softening on occasion when he smiled or laughed. She’d almost been able to convince herself of having made all that up. He was an asshole. He’d punched a hole through her skin. The guts he’d pulled out were back in that skanky hotel room adding new stains to the shag carpet.

But his eyes…

The cockiness was gone. The blatant lust. The heavy cynicism. All she found, no matter how deeply she stared into that shadows-over-water blue, was anticipation. He was suspended in time, waiting for her answer. One way or the other. She couldn’t recall ever having held so much power over an individual.

A flash of sympathy caught her by the throat. How often had she been on the receiving end of that gut-tensing anxiety? Each and every audition. And now, at school, she felt it every time she handed in an assignment.

All she’d wanted was a chance. A chance to prove she was as good as anyone they’d ever seen, whether agent, casting pro, director or professor.

Just a chance.

She forced a stiff shrug then nodded to the cards he held. “You got nothing to lose, sugar.”

“I think I do,” he said softly.

Eric looked at her for another moment. He was memorizing her, but with more solemnity than she’d ever seen. No desire. Only a yearning she couldn’t name—unless she looked into her own heart and found its mirror image.

He stared down at his cards. His thick neck had never been meant to bend at that angle. When he’d lost that fight, he hadn’t been cowed. His pride had exited that ring intact, though his body had been battered. Now pride was something he’d checked at the door.

Nope. No go. She’d given him too much credit before. Guts. Carpet. Pain.

“I’m waiting.” Her voice was chilly to her own ears.

He cleared his throat, shuffled the top card to the back and started in earnest.

“I’m returning these photographs and videos because they were gifts given in good faith by a woman with the most resilient spirit I’ve ever known. I’ve betrayed that faith. The happy, spontaneous, trusting moments we shared have been tainted.
I
did that. I don’t deserve to keep that joy. Please, do with them as you wish.”

Okay, she
did
need to sit down.

Trish fumbled for the back of Professor Granger’s chair and let it take her weight. She was shaking. Holy hell, there was no denying that, even as she flattened her palms on the battered green metal desk.

Eric didn’t show any hint of smirking victory. He only took a breath and shuffled another card to the back of the stack.

“You called me on my bullshit. You made every fantasy come true. You made me laugh.” He lifted his eyes, which were bleak. Haunted. “God, Trish, do you know how long it’s been? Just…laughing.”

She swallowed and was surprised to find that she had a voice. The ice was gone. She didn’t know what to replace it with. “You never said.”

“I should have.” He licked his top lip then tucked back into his notes. “Through it all, you gave me the two things I damaged the most—your trust and your hope.”

Trust. Hope. She was only getting snippets of words now, the words he’d obviously taken so much time to craft. Her brain and her heart had gone to war. Slings and arrows. Full-scale combat. Their clamor was so loud that she gave her head a little shake. She didn’t want to miss a damn thing.

“We had so much in common when we met.”

He was warming to his delivery, somewhat less stilted. More inflection and passion poured from him. He met her gaze more often. Whatever he’d written had genuine emotion behind it, as if the sentences themselves needed to be any more seductive.

“A scarred boxer and a dolled-up ring girl. Both of us hiding. Because you were right. My scars are as much of a persona as your wigs and stage makeup. We even went by fake names. Yet you’ve blossomed. You’ve persevered past rejections and disappointments, forging a place for yourself here, where people can admire your thoughts, not just your beautiful body.”

He flipped a card, ran a hand along the back of his neck, looked up from under his brows. “I haven’t budged an inch. I’m the same surly animal I was last year in a Canadian hospital. I’d have taken off a nurse’s arm rather than say I was in pain, or admit to a therapist that sometimes all I felt was
falling
. Instead I would lie in bed reliving the moments I’d expected to die. I couldn’t even enjoy the company of my friends—not like before. I tempted you to lower your defenses while guarding mine like a fortress. That discrepancy is shameful.”

Trish stood. She couldn’t do this anymore. His strong, powerful arms, accentuated by the tight fit of a dark blue henley, were visibly shaking. The catch in his voice wouldn’t abate.

As if approaching a snarling bear in a trap, she edged around the desk.

He kept reading.

“My brother was the only person in the world who believed I could be more than a bruiser from Detroit. When I left him to join…” he stopped, cleared his throat, “…to join the Air Force, I believed my desertion drove him to make poor choices. But in taking an active part in his rehabilitation, he’s shown me that he’s capable of making balanced decisions—and that he’s equally responsible for the bad. He’s so much stronger than I believed he could be.”