Shadowboxer (Tapped Out 1)

“That’s not the only reason.” Her quiet certainty cut through the noise in my head. “You enjoyed it once.”

“Yeah,” I admitted reluctantly. “I did. It felt like vindication for a kid who’d been called pretty for way too long. The first time I broke my nose I deliberately waited to get it looked at, hoping it wouldn’t set right.” I shook my head. “I was fucked up back then. Still am.”

“You could’ve just phoned it in and whaled on guys however you could. But you studied the martial arts. You trained. It mattered.”

“Yeah, so what? It mattered then. It doesn’t anymore. I did what I set out to do, and my father still looks at me like the shit on the bottom of his shoe. I still—”

When I tightened my jaw and glanced away, she knelt between my knees and gripped my thighs. Her hands weren’t delicate. Hers could break things and did so with glee. And as it turned out, they could heal too. Her touch melted through denim and through skin and bone, easing the tension I’d become so used to carrying that I didn’t notice it anymore.

“Tray. Look at me.”

I looked. Something drew me to her in a way I didn’t understand. Before, I’d reassured myself by thinking that she aroused my rarely used protective instinct. Now she was trying to offer me comfort, though I knew she’d come over to my place to hand me my balls. Again.

“You don’t want the gloves,” I said dismissively, eager for a change of topic. I wasn’t going to confession for anyone—especially not Mia, who only saw me as a means to an end. “I’ll return them.”

An emotion I couldn’t name flashed over her face, dulling the brief flare of hope in her eyes. For a moment, she’d been out of her head and in mine. With two careless statements meant to shove her away, I’d snuffed out that light.

Oh yeah, I was a prince, all right. And I was about to prove it.

I lurched to my feet, my unexpected action nearly sending her back on her butt on the rug. Her super-quick reflexes kicked in and she rose, watching me warily.

My mood had shifted right back into anger after that temporary detour into self-pity. I wasn’t about to dwell on all that woe-is-me shit. Not when she was staring at me with wet lips and eyes like vats of dark chocolate surrounded by thick, tangled lashes. She made me into a poet and a heathen at the same time. I wanted to write goddamn sonnets to her fragile beauty and frightening strength and at the same time drag her to the floor and fuck her senseless.

It didn’t make sense. None of this did.

I stepped forward, deliberately getting in her face. She held her ground. Not shying away in any shape or form. Making me harder than I’d ever been.

“I want you. If you’re not prepared to deal with that, you need to leave.” In case she didn’t get the urgency of the situation, I shifted until she directed her attention beneath my waist. Something was throbbing again, and it wasn’t my hand. “Now.”

“You’re the one who said we shouldn’t see each other anymore.”

Her defiant tone coupled with her defensive pose worked as a one-two punch to my libido. Not that I needed much help. “You’ve said the same thing since day one. And you showed up at my door, not the other way around.” I cocked a brow, relying on machismo to cover up the fact that my muscles were quaking from the possibility she might walk. Again. “So which is it? In or out?”

She took my measure—actually, she stared at the outline of my cock through my jeans, and my cock didn’t mind—before lifting her shoulder. Clearly saying then do something about it.

Message received.

I bent and slid my arm under her butt, lifting her up and carting her toward the living room. My hand twinged more than a little at being called into service so soon, and I didn’t doubt I’d probably bleed right through her neat little ban

dage, but I wasn’t about to let a little pain and gore slow me down. I had a very clear image in my head of where I wanted to take Mia. Weren’t therapists always recommending replacing bad memories with good?

I was about to test that theory.

Expecting her to complain at my mode of transportation, I stopped moving down the hall when she made no sound at all. She’d retreated into that silent, observant space that made me ten times more desperate to earn her reaction.

Leaning in, I caught her lower lip between her teeth in the way I already knew she liked. “Since you like to watch so much, you’re going to watch my mouth move between your thighs.”

Just like that, she sparked back to life and shoved at my chest. “No.”

“Yes.” My voice was patient and calm, belying the storm of emotions brewing inside me. I wasn’t the kind of guy who pushed a woman into doing something she didn’t want to. Ever. Treading gently in this case was a smart tactic, especially considering Mia’s background. I hated the idea of scaring or hurting her for even a moment.

But God, I needed to taste her. To help her enjoy it. To love her without words.

“No.”

But her vehemence had weakened, and I could hear the curiosity bleeding through. She’d never voice it, never admit she was unsure.

I nuzzled that exquisitely soft patch of skin between her ear and her shoulder, drowning in the scent of her utilitarian soap. I blinked as I picked up a trace of something else, so faint that probably a bloodhound wouldn’t have detected it. But I did.