Shadowboxer (Tapped Out 1)

I relaxed. Being around him was having the strangest effect on me. I was becoming more normal, simply because he was. He wouldn’t let me freak out about everything so acting like a regular person was turning into my default setting.

The workout room door banged open. “Goddammit, are you fucking serious?” Kizzy shouted. “Over my damn dead body.”

I sprang back from Tray and held up my hands. “We’re not doing anything. I swear.”

Yeah, so I might still be a work-in-progress on the regular person front.

“Can you imagine the nerve? Bastard comes in here off the street and starts deciding how he’ll run the gym I’ve worked at for five years. Does he ask for input? No. Just starts coming up with fancy decrees and thou shalt nots.” Kizzy fumed and paced. “And then if that’s not enough, he tells me he’s breaking all ties with MMA, effective immediately. That he knows chicks here are training for illegal fights and he’ll report anyone he finds out is using the premises for ‘cockfighting.’ I’d like to get my hands on his cock. The stupid prick.”

Tray arched a brow at me and motioned to the door. Whether he was indicating he should leave or we both should, I wasn’t sure. I shrugged. Kizzy had to wind down sometime.

“I’m not tolerating it. There’s no way I’m asking my girls to go to another gym.”

I was actually the only MMA fighter Kizzy trained, but maybe she was speaking in generalities.

“This has been a place where women have trained to fight for years. He wants to take down the punching bags and the kettle bells, for fuck’s sake. Says the sport isn’t safe.” She pushed her hands through her already wild blonde curls. I’d never seen her hair quite that huge before, so I imagined she’d been giving her curls a workout during her meeting with Pierce.

Tray adjusted his eye patch and sprawled on a pile of workout mats. “Who’re you talking about?”

“Sutton Fuckwit Pierce. Who else?”

“Miss Cavanaugh.” The voice snapped across the room, sharp as a belt hitting flesh. “My office. Now.”

Kizzy stilled, her face leeching of all color. Her wild gray eyes connected with mine before she charged across the room to follow Pierce. Yet again she slammed the door.

“Whoa.” Tray pulled me down beside him on the mat. “That guy looks like he’s not messing around. Hugo Boss suit and all.”

I didn’t know suit designers, but Tray must since he’d been born with an entire silver tea set in his mouth. “Yeah. He’s the new owner. None of that sounded like good news.”

Tray shifted me against his chest, stroking my hair. I knew I should push him back, that the laughing girls were probably enjoying the hell out of our display. I just couldn’t do it. I’d been held so little over the years that my body curved into his automatically, seeking the comfort he gave. Seeking him.

“If you can’t train here, you’ll have to back out of the fight with Costas.”

His conversational tone didn’t fool me. I’d felt the tension seep into his body. “Nice try, wiseguy. There are other gyms.”

“Yeah.” He was quiet for a minute. “Like The Cage.”

“That again?” I reached up to adjust his eye patch. As much as I liked his pirate imitation, I couldn’t wait until he’d had his surgery and I could look him in the eye—both eyes—again. “The Cage isn’t exactly female-friendly.”

“You’re right. We should work on changing it.”

The enthusiasm in his voice made me shake my head. “You can’t just change a culture like that. I’m sure other women have tried and failed.”

“You won’t.”

He sounded so confident. So sure. “Is that so?”

“Yeah.” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, not wavering in the slightest. “Look at me. I’m not welcome here, but I’m hanging out just the same.”

“Hanging out isn’t the same as joining.”

“I’d join if guys were allowed.”

“You would not.”

“Shh. You’re ruining the point I’m trying to make. Which is that you can join The Cage, and it sounds like you’ll have to if Pierce pushes through everything Kizzy says. We both know The Cage is the best gym in the area. Unless you decide to give up fighting altogether.” He shrugged. “Your call.”

He obviously had lawyering in his blood. “And who would train me at The Cage?”