walks away, I set out to correct his assumptions of me. “My parents work hard every day and own the house. I didn’t ask to go to Suckshore Academy. As a matter of fact, I’d rather go to public school with normal people who don’t look down on the rest of the world. The vehicle was my mom’s, and I worked to pay for it during the summer when we aren’t in Italy for the two weeks a year we go to visit family.”
He leans in and whispers, “And the grooming?”
When he leans back and takes a drink, I provide an answer, hoping he will choke on it. “Full natural bush.”
He quickly covers his mouth to stop from spitting all over me, swallows, and then laughs from down deep. A real laugh. I have to turn my face so he doesn’t see me smiling, too.
I feel his warm breath against my ear when he says, “Never experienced such a thing. Maybe I will ask you out on a date, after all.”
“Not a chance in hell I’d go.”
“A challenge, Miss Steel?”
I turn and look him dead in the eyes. “No, Reeves, a straight-up denial.”
He holds his free hand over his heart and sucks air in through his teeth as he shakes his head. “You wound me, Miss Steel.”
“Oh, please, Reeves, as if there’s even a heart under that three-thousand-dollar jacket.”
He smirks, wipes his hand on his jeans, and extends his hand. “Then I’ll settle for friends.”
I shake my head, trying to force away the smile as I extend my hand. When our hands touch, the lights flicker and dim until complete darkness fills the room. His hand tightens, and he pulls me against him, causing me to gasp slightly. His breath hits my cheek as he says in a low timbre, “Are you ready to rumble, Miss Steel?”
It all happens in a split-second, and then his hand is gone, but I feel the challenge and the threat of his words course through me as music blasts from every corner of the building and the crowd roars.
A laser show of white and red lights brighten the center of the warehouse, illuminating the announcer in the middle of the ring. He looks familiar, but with the lights flickering, I’m not sure.
“One night. One fight. One winner. One prize. Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready to rummmmmmmble!”
The crowd grows even louder.
I look at Harrison. “How the hell are the cops not being notified?”
“Look around!” he yells into my ear so I can hear him. “How much did you pay to get in?”
“A hundred.”
“Multiply that by two hundred and fifty-three people.” He holds his hands up and rubs his fingers together. “Palms get greased, and even the good guys look away.”
“That’s over twenty-five thousand dollars,” I gasp.
“Fifty security officers, rental of the warehouse for the night. Movers for the equipment. Five Gs.”
“And the fighters split twenty grand?”
He laughs. “No, the coordinator gets that. Fighters get money from their sponsors and a cut from the bets. Winner gets an additional grand.”
“Jesus, and you guys do this every weekend?”
He laughs. “Hell no! This is four times a year. Sometimes less. Takes a lot to pull this shit off.”
The flashing lights separate from the chaotic flashes of red and white, making an X over the ring: one white line and one red. Two more beams of light illuminate off to the sides of the ring, and I watch as a shirtless, white short clad Tobias Easton appears, lit up in white.
He bounces up and down on his toes, rolling his neck. He flexes his hands at his sides, wrists wrapped in white tape, knuckles bare. He stretches one arm across his body, and then the next, as he continues to bounce to the beat of the music. His hair isn’t slicked back on the sides, and the top isn’t perfectly placed like it is at school. It’s a mess, like it was when he walked out of his bedroom and caught me red-handed having snuck into his house to get my phone.
The lights must be hypnotic, because I can’t look away from him.
I didn’t look at him then, afraid to, but right now, I literally have ringside seats and an invitation to look at his half-naked form.
He is … exquisite.
Chapter Five
Idiom
Don’t add fuel to the fire.
Truth
Why not? It doesn’t necessarily cause further destruction …
Sometimes it just heats things up.
“At six-foot-two, weighing in at one hundred and ninety pounds … Ranger the Wrecker!”
I look to Brisa, and she pats