Raw (21 page)

I curl my fingers, testing the tapes, and nod at Riley again before I look back at Tate. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s just me and you up there.”

“Wrong. It’s you up there, plus me and Lupe here.” He slaps his coach’s back. “We’re two against one on you.”

“Oz is fine,” I grumble as we both shove our hands into our gloves.

We get ready and go for it. I can tell he likes sparring with me. We don’t spar—we fight. No headgear; it’s a match. Over and over. The adrenaline is sky-high when we’re both in the ring. We’re both competitive, strong, smart.

We dance, dodge, counterpunch, punch. We duck, swing, hit, miss, and end up bloody and sweaty as usual. We take a lunch break and his coach sets up some power shakes for him on his side of the cafeteria table. I grab something from the vending machines and drop onto the seat across from his, straddling the chair.

“That’s what you’re eating?” He signals to the granola bars and my Coke.

I look at my food. Carbs. Energy. That’s all I see.

He sees something else. “Listen. It’s fine to break down your body, but you need to build it up, and not as fast as it can—FASTER. Don’t eat junk.” He grabs it and dunks it in a trash can a few feet away, opening a Muscle Milk bottle for me.

“I can fight anyway. My body doesn’t need your fancy food to run.”

He slides the power drink across the table to me. “They’re all just fighters out there. Don’t be just a fighter, be an athlete foremost. Your body needs to be in prime working condition—you hear me? Without your body in prime form, with prime ingredients for energy, no fight.”

“I’ll tell my chef.” I lift my Muscle Milk in mock toast and guzzle it down.

He laughs at that, then looks at me a moment. “Take glutamine. And eat protein like you breathe oxygen.”

We head back to the ring and spar again. We discuss power, tactics, speed, precision.

I can’t see any weakness in him. Even after all our sessions.

Until his wife enters the gym.

He stops punching and looks at her. Hell, he grins at her. I swing out and crush his jaw. Then I laugh.

He smacks the laugh right off me.

I clean the blood off the side of my lip, then shake my head as Tate walks to the ropes to talk to his wife.

And that’s when I see Reese through the gym window.

The glass is tinted. I can see her, but she can’t see me.

I walk forward and lean on the ropes, enchanted.

She’s walking in place with Racer in her arms, and she’s playfully poking a finger into Racer’s dimple. She’s smiling. She’s happy. She’s vibrant. She’s young. And she’s mine.

I watch her walk up and down the length of the window, nodding her head to something Racer says. I grab the rope with my glove, bracing myself as my heart picks up a whole new rhythm. The Reese rhythm that gets the blood going everywhere except my head. I’m starved for her; nothing sates me anymore. Not food, not winning, not fighting. My eyes are gobbling up the curve of her hips. The curve of her ass. The curve of her breasts. The curve of her bottom lip. The curve of her lashes.

I want to take her out to dinner. I want to know if she’ll lick her fingers, if she’ll lick
my
fingers if I feed her something. I want to know what she’ll order, salad, or steak and potatoes, or pasta. I want to know what she’ll drink.

I want to know if she stretches in the mornings. If she wakes up with tangled hair, and I
want
it to be tangled, and I want it to be tangled because of
me.

Brooke meets her outside and they start heading off. My gut coils with the need to run after her and ask her to give me a kiss. Not for luck. Not for anything but because I get high on it.

But instead I’m in this ring . . . exhaling while I watch Reese walk away, my body coiled tight as a bowstring. She’s this mouthwatering, sweet, nice, strong, feminine little thing and I am fucking crazy about her. I want to know where she’s going. I want to know when she’ll be back in my arms. I want to know why she let me make love to her that night. Why she let me make out with her in the park. Why she wants me but doesn’t want to want me. I want to know how fucking drunk I make her. And I want to know if the guy from back home ever made her feel the things I do.

“You fucking done staring at my wife?” The snarl comes from behind me.

I turn and look at Tate’s murderous gaze. I raise my brows. “I was beginning to think you didn’t have a weakness.”

“Oh, I’m mortal, all right.” He watches them leave. “Every time I’m fighting, I’m tempted to look at my wife. See if she’s looking at me.”

“Is she?”

“Every time.” He grins.

“Why look at all?”

“Can’t master that impulse.”

“I’m going to use this against you, you realize?”

“Good. That’ll teach me to stop looking. At least during a fight.”

Speaking of fights, I push away from the ropes and tap my gloves together.

“Gotta hand it, Maverick, you’re the best sparring partner I’ve ever had.” We head to center, and he narrows his eyes. “You remind me of someone.”

“My father.”

The most loathed fighter in history.

He raises his brows, shakes his head, and says, “Me.”

I exhale.

I’m . . . relieved.

Then I frown. “I don’t want to be like you. I want to be better than you.”

“Go for it. Every day
I
want to be better than me too.”

And we go for it.

Back to dancing, dodging, counterpunching, punching. Back to discussing power, tactics, speed, precision. We duck, swing, hit, miss, and sweat and bleed as usual.

Except this time my game’s off.

It’s so off, I don’t last three rounds before I’m bleeding out of my mouth and from that same cut on my eye that keeps opening.

“Where’s your head?” he snaps, mad.

Never been this fucked-up before.

I glance at the window just as I’ve been glancing back to see if she’s walking by again.

“Ah, I see. You like her?”

“Aren’t you going to tell me to stay away?” I shut my eye as I get the cut temporarily fixed.

When I turn, scowling and braced to fight for her, he’s got his brows up, and he says, “I’m not her father. Nor yours.”

We hit.

“Don’t go after her if you don’t think you can deserve her.”

He hits me again and I block, then jab him. He eases back and prowls around. So do I. “Deserve her first. Then go after her.”

“I’m trying.”

“Every day I try to deserve my wife. Reese is her cousin. One of mine. You take care of her, or I’m going to need to take care of you, and you’ll have nothing more to avenge.” He hooks and I deflect. I see an opening and take it.

I pummel his side, three times, fast, then ease back. “Understood.”

We prowl again.

“You’re the one who gave her that penny? The one she’s always looking at?” he asks, amused.

I cut him a warning look. “Fuck you. It was all I had.”

He nods, some new respect visible in his eyes. “Keep fighting like you do and soon you’ll be able to give her the world.”

I grit my teeth in determination and simply nod, because if I win, I’ll have respect. I’ll prove I’m better than my father. Tate won’t think I don’t deserve her, nobody will.

And I don’t tell Tate that in more ways than one, Reese is already mine. That I’m still trying to deserve her and I’ll die trying to deserve her. But she’s already mine. I know it, and for her to know it too, I just need time.

We fight for another three minutes, then we take our corners to catch our breath.

“Who’s my toughest fight? In semis?” I ask him.

He leans forward in his chair. “Yourself. It’s always yourself. Can’t win if you don’t think you deserve it. Other than that?” He thinks some more on the question. “Taz is wicked fast. Toro is a fucking meatball. You get a fist on your face and you’re done for the night. I always dance around the fucker until he’s dizzy, then go for the head. Least fleshy part of the asshole.” He shrugs. “You can go for the body too, but it takes more swings and if you wear down before he does . . .”

I nod and think about it, then I start asking him about everyone else. Twister, Spidermann, Hot Shot, and Libertine. And for the first time, I willingly listen to what Tate has to say.

Reese

“H
e was training with Maverick,” Brooke says offhandedly as we head three blocks down to the inflatable kiddie party place.

My heart does a double dip and a pirouette and other stuff
I don’t even know the names of
.

I almost stop walking.

“Oh” is all I say though. So cool, I sound.

But wow. That’s all you can say, Reese?

Because I want to say so much more. Ask so much more.

“Mavewick is my fwend,” Racer says, puffing out his little chest.

“How do you know Maverick? You’ve seen him twice,” Brooke taunts Racer, rumpling his hair.

“Uh-uh,” Racer denies, shaking his head.

“We’d bumped into him at the park before,” I hurriedly say.

Please, please, Racer, don’t say anything about Maverick kissing Reese on the cheek in the park.

Please don’t mention Reese sleeping in Maverick’s arms while he looked after you. . . .

I will be your slave storyteller FOREVER!

And push you hard in the stroller no matter how much my butt bounces and EVEN if Maverick is watching.

Racer is thankfully too busy keeping his eye out for our destination to say anything else.

“At the park? Really?” Brooke asks him. Then she eyes me and I feel a telling heat inside that climbs all the way up to my ears, which are thankfully covered by my hair today. “He is absolutely as gorgeous as they come,” she says with a female sigh.

And I think the small, painful little groan I just heard was mine. “God, I
know
.”

Her brows shoot up to her hairline in alarm. And cautiously, she adds, “He’s also dangerous. We don’t really know much about him. His intentions.”

“I know, but . . .” I try to find words. “Sometimes you just know. Someone. Don’t you think?”

“True.” She nods and purses her lips thoughtfully. “I do sometimes wish Remington would just finish this season in peace. Why does he want to . . .” She shakes her head, pursing her lips even tighter and then sighing. “Coach Lupe says he’s helping Scorpion’s legacy. But the truth is, Reese”—she drops her voice—“Remington
believes
in Maverick. Remy wants to make sure that
his
legacy is Maverick.”

I’m burning inside. I’m burning with hope for Maverick. For me. For us.

I want to tell Brooke that I have never felt like this before.

I want to tell her that I feel like a light when I’m with him.

That I don’t feel shy.

Or judged.

That I feel alive and bursting and free and accepted and understood.

And so female.

And so good.

And so pretty just because of the ways Maverick Cage looks at me.

And . . . I think it’s love.

They say love is a chemical thing, a brain thing, a hormone thing.

Call it whatever you want to call it.

I’m buzzing and obsessed, without sleep, without appetite, without want of anything but to be with him, talk to him, think of him.

I’m really, for the first time in my life, in love.

Not calm love, like with Miles, where it made sense to try to be in love.

This love makes no sense. It’s complicated and confusing and scary and I still have it bad for him and I still feel it. And I know it’s rushed and I know it’s dangerous and I know it’s maybe a little bit doomed, but I also know it’s true.

I want to say all that, but I’m afraid of her not understanding. This. Me. Us. I’m afraid nobody understands but Maverick.

I stay quiet as we head into the inflatable indoor playground.

And instead I ask, “How long will they train for?”

“All day for sure.” She stops to get us tickets inside. “Though Remington promised to run early with me today. He should be home by seven. The gym is booked for the day though. Do you want to use it?” She leads Racer inside, looking at me over her shoulder as I follow. “I can take Racer in the stroller with us.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Make use of it.”

So I do.

♥   ♥   ♥

IT’S 7:11 P.M.
when I get there. The gym lights are low, and there’s no background music. Instead, I’m greeted by the rhythmic sounds of the speed bag being hit at lightning speed far away. A part of me wonders if Remy decided to stay, but when I peer past the weights and the ring, to the far corner, it’s not Remy killing the speed bag. Oh, he’s dark-haired and tall, all right, and muscled like there’s no tomorrow, but the guy at the speed bag is Maverick.

He’s bare-chested, wearing nothing but his low-slung sweatpants. His tattoo is alive, rippling in all its winged glory as he hits. Biceps flexing. Shoulders clenching. Abs gripping.

Am I hurting you . . ?

Flashes of him mounting me swim in my head. Flashes of his hands all over me. My nipple disappearing into his mouth. Me, being filled. Being taken. Being reckless. Being free.

I watch Maverick for a moment in silence. In awe. All that male power, perfectly controlled as he measures his punches. Each landing on the spot where he wants it to land, hitting precisely, expertly, one arm rolling after the other.

I don’t get many opportunities to look at him—not really, because when I do, I’m usually seized by the fact that Maverick is looking at
me.

But now he’s concentrating on the speed bag, the same guy in the hoodie I met weeks ago who piggybacked on me at that gym.

His muscles have grown a little. He looks a little tanner, maybe he’s been running outside? He looks corded. More male. More adult. More dangerous than any fighter I’ve ever seen—because there’s no one who has as much to prove to all his haters as he does.

And I lean on the wall and watch the look of concentration on his profile. So lethal, so quiet. Every second that I watch, I feel this excruciatingly painful sensation of want mingled with happiness squeeze my chest.