Three Hot Wishes (Fantasy Come to Life - Magic in the Real World Novel) (29 page)

Angel

And that was the start of it.

There we were, naked. I knew Sloane was right. If I didn't change my technique, I'd be in trouble no matter who I got put into the ring with.

It was hardly a shock. I could tell how hard it was for her to come right out and tell me, but it was hardly the first time I'd heard it.

She got up to turn on the light, and I made a face when she pulled on a pair of spandex shorts and a sports bra.

Even though she saw my obvious disappointment in her newly-covered body, she gave me a wink and assumed a more than competent boxing stance, hands up to guard her face, rocking back and forth on light, agile feet.

"How am I doing so far?" she asked.

"Pretty damn good," I answered honestly, getting up and following her lead by yanking my boxers back on before I went over to adjust a few weaknesses in her stance. "Hold your hands like this, though," I said, pushing them a little farther away from each other and making her hunch her shoulders more. "You can't block your vision with your fists. Remember, a real boxer is wearing gloves, so they're even more in the way than this. You can't fight what you can't see."

She nodded, accepting the adjustments and adjusting. "Okay, cool," she said.

I watched her from a couple of feet away, until she waved me over to stand in front of her.

I did as she asked, pretending to be her sparring partner even though what I really wanted to do was drag her back to the mattress and have my way with her.

She was gorgeous, and the light in her eyes as she tried to adapt to a stance so new to her.

Still, the next thing she said snapped my attention back to the task at hand. "Try and hit me. Go slow, but don't treat me like a child, huh?"

"What?" I asked.

"You heard me just fine. I want to see what it feels like to have a fist coming at you when you're standing like this."

I nodded. "So that you can show me how to move my feet? You're really going to try and fix my footwork, aren't you?"

She shrugged. "I can't watch you just stand there and take that sort of punishment again. And, more to the point, I don't think you're going to win very many more fights if all you do is try and weather the storm. I mean, what happens when the other guy is faster than you, or has a longer reach?"

Now it was my turn to shrug. "I do what I've always done, push forward, take the shots and give 'em hell."

Sloane shook her head. "Stupid. Now go easy but try and hit me."

I sighed. There was really no point in arguing with her. I knew already that she was going to do what she was going to do. I could rant and rave, but I wouldn't be able to change her course, not once she'd made up her mind.

And I loved that about her.

So I dropped into my stance and threw a slow motion punch. She dipped a shoulder and did something with her feet that let her slip away. The next thing I knew I felt her small fist against my ribs.

"Show me again," I said, and Sloane smiled and reset herself in the stance.

This time when I punched, I watched her feet.

The importance of footwork had always been drummed into me, but it wasn't until right then, watching Sloane's bare feet on the polished cement of her apartment, that I really got it.

Suddenly, the way she moved connected with me. I watched her a few more times, and then got her to stand behind me and teach me the steps.

"It's just like a dance," she said, her hands on my hips. "The punch comes from your left, you move like this," as she put pressure on my waist and tapped my feet until I moved them the way she wanted. "You move like this. And counter punch. Is that what it's called?"

I nodded, shaking my head and smiling. Five minutes, and I could already tell this was working.

She laughed. "Counter punch sometimes. Not always, but often enough that the other guy knows he can't leave himself open for it. That way you'll be in his head, and you'll give him something to worry about."

"Sloane," I said, turning around and wrapping my arms around her. "What did I ever do without you?"

"You got drunk, hit on an endless parade of girls, got your face punched in and punched in other people's faces both in and out of the ring. At least, that's me guess."

I had to admit, she was pretty damn close.

Sloane

He may not have had the proper training, but once he got some direction Angel took to the steps like a natural.

At first, I'd thought that he refused to get out of the way of the incoming punches, that it was the result of some pig-headed macho attitude, but the more I watched him the more I decided that he'd simply never been taught the right way.

"It takes years and years to learn one form or another," I told him, "but I imagine it won't take too long for your body to get the hell out of the way, especially once you see how much easier it is to get inside the other guy's guard once you're not getting smashed in the face on the way in."

He nodded. "I'm not an idiot. It's just... Well, you're a really good teacher."

I smiled. "When's your next fight?"

Angel shrugged. "Not really sure. I get a call from Jessie a week or two out, usually. Though, considering the way things are between me and him, there's every chance I'll get a lot less notice this time around."

"Well, when you go to the gym to work out, or whatever, I want you to work on this, okay? Same footwork, same motion, same everything. With any luck you'll be able to drum it into your thick head before your night fight. And the good news is if you do teach yourself to fight this way, your opponent will be expecting the old Angel and will find himself getting into the ring with someone very different."

He looked at me funny, cocking one sexy eyebrow and staring at me with that smoldering look sometimes I wonder if he even knew he had.

"What?" I said at last, unable to take him looking at me like that without touching him. "Don't you think I'm right?"

"Of course you're right. It's not that." He shrugged, stepping closer to me, and I felt myself take a similar step to close the distance between us. His arms came up around me, and my breasts pressed against his body in a way that made me feel like my veins were being drip-fed lava.

"So what is it?" I breathed.

He looked down at me, dipping his head for a moment to capture my mouth with his, tying my tongue up in a kiss that made my knees so weak I had to cling to him to stop from falling down in a heap. I dared to peak at him as we kissed, and my heart banged away in my chest even harder when I saw that his eyes were shut.

That had always been the way I'd know, at least that's what I'd told myself. I wanted a man who met the world with open arms and who kissed me with eyes shut tight.

When the kiss fell away, Angel smiled warmly. "You don't even know how much you've changed me already, Sloane. When I think about the guy I used to be, I don't even recognize him. Sure, he may look the same, but who is he? I don't know what I was thinking, or why, for that matter. I wasted so much time looking for things that weren't going to make me happy."

I felt myself blushing, and I turned away. "You sure you aren't just saying that?"

His arms came up around me again, and I pressed my back against him. "I'm sure," he said.

"Well," I told him, trying to make my voice so light and full of humor, even though I meant the words with all of my heart. "You found me know, whether or not you meant to. Don't screw it up, okay? I can't take knowing you exist like this, only for you to go back to what you were, or for something to happen to you."

"I won't," he said. "I promise."

"And that goes for the boxing too," I told him. "You get out of the way of the punches, huh? I don't want something to happen to you, especially now that you may just be smart enough to move your damn feet and avoid what the other guy is throwing at you. I don't want to have fallen in love with you just to condemn myself to watching you eat through a tube because some asshole broke your jaw or something, on account of you going back to fighting like a bull and not a man."

He nodded, though the sincerity that sparkled in his eyes made me realize I'd let something slip. Angel had caught me, and his next words confirmed it. "You've fallen in love, huh?"

I nodded, unable to say the words again without first hearing them.

"I love you too, Sloane," Angel said. "I've loved you since the moment I saw you."

Angel

The right way to train is like you're training for a fight that could end your life. That's what I always told myself, just like I told anyone who asked me what it took to stay in shape.

Train like the guy you're going to get into the ring with is already training. He's lean. He's mean. He wants to pound you into the ground and spit on your grave.

So I kept my head down and worked the speed bag over, peppering it with lefts and rights, working on my timing.

More importantly, I concentrated on my feet, circling the bag and keeping them moving, feigning punches and ducking to the left or right, sidestepping phantom strikes and doing my best to improve my footwork.

It wasn't easy. Sloane made it look effortless whenever she showed me what she wanted me to do, but I did my best anyway.

"Hey, Angel!" I heard from the other side of the gym. It was Jai. I'd been true to my word and gotten him in. He was working with a coach right now who'd told me yesterday that the guy had talent. Maybe, after some hard work and a couple of months of training session, he'd make something of himself on the circuit

I stopped what I was doing, wiping the sweat from my eyes and looking over to him.

"Your phone keeps ringing, man. You want me to bring it over to you?"

"Thanks," I said, waving him over. Maybe it was Sloane. She was either back at the hotel or in a ballet class, in theory.

Jai brought me the phone and then went back to training.

I looked down at it. Three missed calls. Frowning, I looked up the number that had placed the calls. It was hidden, but it wasn't one I was familiar with either.

Could it be Sloane?

I hit recall and put the phone up to my ear. It rang a couple of times, and then a gruff voice on the other end answered.

"That you, Angel?"

"Yeah," I said. "Who's this?"

"You ever heard of a guy named Bruceman?"

I frowned. The name rang a bell, but I hadn't heard it years and years. "Berel Bruceman?"

"The one and only," he growled. I got the feeling from his voice that he was, what seventy? Eighty? "I won't waste your time, son. And you don't have to believe me if you don't want. I would, if I were you, but we'll see if you're smart enough."

"I suppose that depends on what you've got to say," I told him.

"Fair enough," came the answer. "I know that the Carellos made your opponent throw your last fight. It was stupid. Sloppy. A blind man could have seen that shitty fall he faked for what it was, but the crowd wanted the underdog to win and you gave them what they wanted."

I took a few steps away from the middle of the gym, sitting on a wooden bench in a quieter section of the building. "I didn't have anything to do with that," I said, making sure to keep my voice low.

Bruceman laughed, a raspy noise that grated in my ear. "I know that, you idiot. The other guy was kicking the crap out of you. He could have ended it whenever he wanted."

I wanted to argue, but there wasn't any point. The old man was right.

"The reason," he said, pressing on, "it was so sloppy was that Nitro had to be coerced. Your earlier opponent pulled out, right?"

"Yeah."

"Wrong. The Carellos put a gun to his head and took him out. He didn't want to throw the fight, you see."

I swallowed hard. It was certainly possible. These were dangerous men, and the sooner I got out of their grasp, the better, for both Sloane and myself.

Bruceman sighed. "I've seen it before. In fact, they did the same thing to a friend of mine, years ago. Set him up by throwing a fight in his direction, just like they did for you. Of course, you know what comes next, right?"

My heart sank. I'd been trying to talk myself out of the reality for a couple of days, but no matter how hard I tried I could only come to one reason they'd done it.

They wanted me to lose the next one. My underdog win would make me the odds on favorite to win my next fight. They'd bet against me and win big when I hit the mat.

Bruceman laughed again, only this time it was a sad, drawn out sound. "I'm going to guess by your silence that you do. You lose the next match and they get rich. Your career ends, probably. Even if it doesn't, once they pull your strings they never get cut."

I wanted to throw the phone across the gym. "So what, Bruceman? You called me up to gloat?"

"No, son. I told you what they did to my friend. You knew the name Bruceman, and I'm betting it's because you heard, years and years ago, that the Carellos ruined me. They love that story. Use it to scare you young kids. Well, I want to hurt them back."

"How."

"I want you to win. I'll make sure the Carellos bet everything against you. Everything. Once I've done my job, they'll have every penny on the table against you."

"And you want me to win? It's not that easy, man?"

"Angel, if you win, I'll make sure your safe. The Carellos will have nothing. No influence. No power. You and I can change the game here..."