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Authors: M. Leighton

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BOOK: Tough Enough
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There are three long white gashes that run down his back. Not like claws, but at different places, like something scratched or cut him in separate lashes. On his lower back are five small dots in an orderly pattern that’s a little bigger than the size of my palm. And on his right side, just below his ribs, are two perfectly round scars about the size of a pencil eraser. I can’t imagine what the other marks are, but these two look suspiciously like cigarette burns. Old ones.

Fight to survive. Fight to live.

What has he had to survive? What has he had to fight for?

As I’m working, my mind is running a mile a minute. Unfortunately, my hands are nowhere near keeping up. In fact, I’m rubbing my index finger over the tiny dots when Rogan speaks, causing me to jump guiltily.

“I bet you weren’t expecting to have to work this hard for your money today, were you?” I glance up at his profile. One side of his mouth is quirked, but there’s no humor anywhere else on his face.
He’s covering up.
I know that for a fact. I recognize it because I’ve been doing it for years.

“I would expect nothing less from a man who fights for a living,” I reply softly, letting him off the hook. I would want someone to do the same for me if the situation were reversed. Some scars can’t be talked about for fear of opening the old wound and bleeding to death. I know
that
for a fact, too.

A grunt is the only reply I get from him. As I set about camouflaging more quickly rather than so rudely examining this enigmatic man’s body, I can’t curb the sense of sadness that fills me.
Or
the sense of connection.

For all his cute winks and sexy grins, for all his charisma and devil-may-care comments, this man has a past. A violent past. And something tells me that it has nothing to do with fighting for money and
everything
to do with fighting for his life. Despite the attraction that I feel toward him, Rogan just became more dangerous to me than ever before. Now I can relate to him on a deeper level, a purely emotional level. I can relate to a violent past. And the desire to escape it. Now we share something important. Now it will be
even harder
to fight him.

When I’m finished patching up his back, making it so that the world doesn’t see what’s been done to him, I tell him quietly, “You can sit up now.”

I back up as Rogan swings his long legs around and pushes himself into a sitting position, muscles flexing everywhere as he moves. As always, I’m aware of his beauty, but now, as perverse as it sounds, he’s even more appealing to me. He seems real and fallible and maybe a little bit broken. He hides it well, of course, but now I know. And I can’t
un
know.

I avoid his eyes as I treat his chest to the same consideration
that I gave his back, only with slightly less attention to detail since the camera shots will be focused mainly on his back. I’m fully aware of his mossy gaze on me as I squirt more cream into my hand and rub my palms together. He watches me as I reach for his pecs. He watches me as I let my fingers trail up to his collarbones, across his shoulders, over his bulging deltoids. I make my way back to his midline and then down his abdomen. It’s when the ridges of muscle tense under my hands as I near his waistband that my own stomach begins to react. Warmth blossoms in my core, turning my insides to hot, twitchy mush.

“Careful,” he whispers, drawing my eyes away from his torso.

His pupils are wide and there’s heat in his gaze, but it’s subdued this time. Vulnerable almost.

Ignoring his warning, I respond as though I didn’t hear him. “I—I won’t have to highlight your abs. They’re already defined well enough for the camera,” I say, clinging to thoughts of work to diffuse the tension. Not that it’s effective.

Rogan’s eyes narrow on me just before fire of a different kind appears inside the luminous emerald of his irises. So fast I gasp in surprise, his fingers flick out and snap around my wrists like iron cuffs, stilling my movements. “Don’t feel sorry for me.”

I’m stunned. “Wh-what?”

“I don’t want your pity,” he growls.

Although he shocked me with his quick movement, I calm immediately, understanding his reaction. Being pitied is an awful sensation. “I don’t pity you. I—I just . . .” I don’t know how to tell him that I feel closer to him
now
than I did last night when he was kissing me. And even if I could, I wouldn’t. He doesn’t need to know that. He
never
needs to know that. “I get it.”

His eyes search mine. For what, I don’t know. But he must find
it because his expression relaxes back into the subdued mask he was wearing earlier.

“Aren’t you going to ask me about them?”

I don’t have to inquire what “them” he means. He’s referring to the scars. “No.”

“Most people don’t notice, but those who
have
assume they’re the result of my fights. Like you did at first.” He pauses, scrutinizing me like he can see right into my soul. “But you don’t now, do you?”

Reluctantly, I shake my head.

Before he can say anything more, a shadow darkens the door behind him. I glance up just as one of the techs announces that she’s here for Rogan. “Stage Four is ready.”

“Just a sec,” I reply, avoiding Rogan’s eyes as I quickly dab some makeup on two more round places that dot his ribs just under his left pectoral. Except for the one around his shoulder blade, these scars, just like all the others, are so pale they’re barely noticeable. And I’m sure Rogan likes it that way. And I envy his body’s ability to naturally conceal things that might otherwise cause him discomfort. My body saw no such need to help me out. What’s wrong with me is impossible to miss if I don’t take measures to hide it.

When I finish, I steal a glance back up at Rogan’s face. He’s watching me again, only this time with an odd expression marring his otherwise perfect visage. When he leans close to me, he does it quickly as he stands so that I have little chance to move away. His lips graze the shell of my ear as he speaks. “Whatever I did last night, I’m sorry.”

And with that, he swipes up his shirt and follows the tech right out my door.

SIXTEEN

Rogan

“Cut! Let’s try this again. Right from ‘You wanted it.’”

I grit my teeth. Why the hell can’t I get this right?

The answer to that question is a word. A single word. Or rather a name.

Katie.
Sweet, beautiful, intriguing Katie. Katie with a dash of fire that she keeps as close as the hair around her neck. Katie with lips that taste like the wine we never got to drink. Katie with the eyes that push me away and then beg me to stay.
That Katie.

I push her out of my mind and smile at the tall redhead across from me, the one with whom my onscreen relationship is heating up. She watches me with her appreciative gray eyes, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as she stares up at me. She’s made her interest in me known. I’ve been polite in my
disinterest
. She’s all but ignored it. Obviously, she’s not the type to give up.

Her attention doesn’t bother me. Her titillating teases don’t faze me. I’m not tempted. I’m just . . . distracted.

I just keep smiling, unaffected, as I run the lines through my head again. When I can recite them perfectly in the silence, I nod back at the director. My mind is clear and focused. I’m ready.

I roll my head on my shoulders, trying to regain my usual level of concentration. That’s when I see her. She draws my eye like a bright flash of light, only there’s no flash, no light. Just her.

I’ve never seen her come out to watch filming before. And wouldn’t you know that today, of all days, she’d show up. Normally I wouldn’t mind, but I’m having enough trouble keeping my head in the game as it is. She certainly isn’t going to help that.

“Rogan?” Rayelle, the redhead, leans left, putting her face in my line of sight, making it a nonissue for me to look away from Katie.

I grit my teeth again, something I’ve done all day, something that has given me one helluva headache, and I nod once more.

“Take fourteen. Action!”

The instant Tony, the director, says ‘action,’ the words just leave me. Again. My eyes flicker to Katie. On her face is a blank mask. She’s neither excited nor blasé, neither interested nor disinterested. She’s simply here. Watching. I’m beginning to know her well enough to guess that something is going on just beneath the surface, though. It didn’t take me long to figure out that her still waters run very deep.

“Cut!” Tony barks again. “Rogan, what the hell? Is your head in your ass or what?”

I curl my fingers into fists. This isn’t like me. I never bring less than my A-game to anything that I do. I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy.

“Sorry, Tony. I don’t . . . I don’t know what’s wrong, man.” The aggravated disappointment on his face makes me feel like shit. He’s been singing my praises since the first day I got here and I hate to let him down.

He gets out of his chair and walks over to me, reaching up to drape his arm around my shoulder. It’s an awkward position for him considering the height disparity, but he does it anyway so that he can lead me off set. “Are you running your lines? Putting in the time?”

“I read over my lines every night. I just . . .” I feel like punching something. I need some time in the ring to get rid of a little aggression.

“Maybe get Rayelle to help you out a couple times a week.” His wink says he thinks she can help me with more than just my lines. I’m sure she’d be more than willing, but
she
can’t fix what ails me. Only one woman can, and I’ve hit a brick wall with her.

Then it occurs to me. “I think I might know just the person to, uh, help me out.”

“Fine, fine. I don’t give a damn who it is, just make it work.”

“I’ll be right as rain by Monday,” I pledge, my mind already on the weekend and how I can convince Katie to spend it with me.

Tony grins and slaps me on the back. “That’s my boy!”

With that, he turns back to the set. “Get Groenig in here. We’ll shoot the mansion scene this afternoon instead.”

My enthusiasm spikes to a more normal level and I swivel my head back to where Katie was standing. The spot is empty now.

Why come if you were planning to leave so soon?

I don’t understand her at all, which is probably part of the appeal. She’s such a contradictory female I don’t know what to make of her. She doesn’t react to me like most women do.

I think back to the way she looked at me when she saw my scars. They affected her. Why, I don’t know. She didn’t appear to be disgusted, so I don’t think it was that. Regardless, I’m more determined than ever to get inside that beautiful head of hers.

I’m smart enough to know she damn sure ain’t gonna spill her
guts for me. But if
she
has come to know
me
at all
,
then she ought to know that I don’t give up. I’m no quitter. I
will
know her. And I’ll know her
well.

Ignoring all the chaos surrounding me, I tug my shirt over my head and make my way to Katie’s brightly lit cosmetic cove. I stop just inside the doorway, catching and holding my breath so that she won’t hear me. Her back is to me, her rich hair spilling between her shoulder blades like a coppery waterfall. She’s doing something with her hands, something I can’t see, but she’s also humming. She’s swaying the tiniest bit to the music inside her head and, at this moment, she looks more peaceful than I’ve seen her so far.

The scene makes me ache to touch her, but the song she’s humming makes me smile through the discomfort. “Ten Feet Tall
.
” It’s funny because something about her, something about the way she tries not to care but can’t seem to help herself, makes me feel that way—ten feet tall. Like I’m somehow an exception to her rules, whether she wants me to be or not. I don’t think anyone has gotten close to her in a long time.

Maybe until me.

Suddenly, she turns to throw something at the trashcan. I don’t have time to warn her of my presence and she gasps in alarm, her big sapphire eyes getting bigger as she stumbles backward. The makeup chair clips her behind the knees and I see her start to go down. Her arms shoot out and her mouth rounds into an O, as in
oh shit!
I rush forward, reaching out to wind my fingers around her thin wrists and pull her toward me. The shift in momentum causes her to overcorrect and she falls against my chest.

“Oh!” she chirps, stunned. “Thank you. You startled me.”

“You’re welcome, and I didn’t mean to. I was enjoying the show.”

Color pours into her cheeks and she tucks her head. “How embarrassing.”

“Why?”

“Because. It just is. I mean . . . I don’t know.”

“I love that song, by the way.”

“You knew what I was humming?” She seems surprised.

“Of course I did. Now if it were
me
, it would be anybody’s guess. I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.”

Shyly, she glances up at me, a wry twist to her lips. “For some reason I doubt that. I bet you’ve never sucked at anything in your whole life.”

“I suck at things all the time,” I reply, hoping to keep the conversation going so that she doesn’t become too aware of the fact that I’m still holding her. Because I like holding her. I love the way she feels against me, all tiny and warm and curvy. And if she thinks too much about it, she’ll pull away.

“Like what?”

“Like origami. Like crocheting. Like ballet. Like—”

She grins up at me. “Have you actually
tried
any of those things?”

“I have.”

“Dare I ask why?”

“No, you dare not.”

“Secrets. A man after my own heart.” She says it in jest, but I know she’s only partially kidding. I don’t doubt that she has a lot of secrets. And I want to know them all.

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” I inject every bit of sincerity into my voice that I can muster. I don’t know why I would even offer. There are several things I couldn’t ever tell her.
Wouldn’t
ever tell her. But something tells me she’d never take me up on such an offer. That’s not who she is. I’d say she respects a person’s privacy. And asks them to do the same of hers.

Her eyes are locked on mine so I see the very second that awareness sinks in. Her expression starts to shut down before she physically backs away.

“Everyone is entitled to their secrets. I’ll be nice and let you keep some of yours,” she says, trying to be light and playful about it.

Even though I knew it wouldn’t be her style to want all the details, some part of me wants her to know all the ugly, all the unacceptable, all the things that no one else
really
knows. I want her to know about them and
still
give me the time of day.
Despite
them. “What if I want you to know them? What if I want to share them with you?”

“You don’t.”

“And why don’t I?”

“You don’t want to get involved with someone like me. I’m not the . . . I’m just not . . .”

I reach out to take her chin between my thumb and forefinger, capturing her before she can completely escape. “What do I have to do to convince you that I
do
want to be involved with you? Not someone
like you,
but
you
.”

That was too much. I can see it in the way she shrinks away from me.

I’m about to lose control of this opportunity and, knowing Katie, I might not get another one any time soon.

I plaster on a big damn smile even though I’m frustrated as hell.

“Luckily, I didn’t come here to discuss your worth as a human being. I came here to collect.”

“Collect?” she repeats with a frown.

“Yep. You totally derailed me on set today and Tony chewed my ass for not knowing my lines. Made me promise to rehearse them this weekend. And guess who got volunteered?”

I paraphrased, of course. She didn’t get volunteered, except
by me.
But paraphrasing isn’t lying. Is it?

“Who,
me
? Why me?”

“Well, I volunteered you. Mainly because you were the source of my . . . distraction to begin with. I figure it’s only right that you make it up to me. To
this show
.” I throw the last in for good measure, just in case my argument wasn’t convincing enough on its own.

She starts to make excuses. Just like I imagined that she would. “I’d love to help, but—” She stops abruptly, tilting her head to the side the slightest bit. As she considers me, I think back to the moment when she looked up at me after having examined my back. That same soft look is back in her eyes now. She pulls those big blues away from me for a heartbeat, but then she brings them right back. “Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll help you.” She squares her chin, like she’s bolstering herself, but bolstering what? Her courage? Her resistance? Her determination?

I must admit to being pleasantly surprised. I know I can be hella convincing when I want to be, but I was beginning to wonder if Katie is in possession of some sort of Rogan Immunity Charm that I’m not aware of. But now, I’m thinking that maybe inadvertently revealing something about myself, about my past, has made her see that I’m not such a cocky, obnoxious sleazeball after all.

Damn, this woman . . . She’s making me crazy!

But still, I consider this a victory, so my smile reflects as much. It’s genuine. And it’s big. “You will?”

Why the hell did I just give her an out?

She smiles in return. A small one, but a smile nonetheless.

“I will. But
just
to rehearse lines,” she adds sternly.

I laugh, giving her a sloppy salute. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am! I’ll pick you up at seven. We can eat and work and then maybe take a swim.”

It only takes about ten seconds for it to register. Panic. That’s what shows up on her face, in her eyes. Panic, pure and simple.

“No, I, uh, I can’t stay out too late. I’ve got some, um, things to do in the morning. But thank you. Just the lines.”

“And dinner. You have to eat
some time
.” She reaches for the hair that is ever-present at her shoulder and smoothes it around like a comforting blanket. Her nervous tick. “My brother doesn’t get out much and he could
realllly
use the company.”

“He has you,” she argues.

I give her a withering look. “Yeah, but I’m . . . me. Have you met me?”

The corners of her mouth twitch and I’m immediately gratified. “As a matter of fact, I think I have.”

“See what I mean?”

“Well, you
are
pretty disagreeable,” she jokes.

“A real bear of a guy, I hear.”

She exhales. “Okay. Just dinner and lines, but then I have to get home.”

“Fair enough,” I announce, backing away. I feel good that I’m making some headway, but I don’t want to push my luck. “Seven o’clock.”

She nods, her eyes shining. Right this minute, she doesn’t look worried or hesitant or guarded like she so often is. She just looks . . . beautiful.

I decide that this is the way I like her best. And that I’ll do everything I can to make sure I see it more often than not.

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