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As Rich stepped down from the raised ring, Mercer greeted him with a beaming smile that seemed to ask, “What took you so long?” They shared a manly, brusque hug before a medical guy tidied Rich’s cut. Rich led the way back up the aisle, his corner following. Lindsey’s gaze caught on his back muscles, gleaming under the stark spotlight.
“Wow,” she said, relaxing back in her seat.
“If only all fights were that efficient.” Jenna frowned. “Except that would mean every fight ended with someone getting really badly hurt.”
“Still. What a way to kick off your career.” In a few months, Lindsey could be shelling out a small fortune to watch Rich fight on pay-per-view. The thought was enlivening, except…
Something soured her stomach. Rich wouldn’t be around much longer. Mercer had said he needed new guys to fight, more opponents in his weight class and at his level. He’d be off to a training camp, who knew where.
She’d miss Rich’s ego-stroking flirtation, but it had been nice while it lasted. Exciting, without any messy romantic fallout. A crush. Someone to get secretly nervous about seeing, to put on eyeshadow for, without actually having to do any of the work of an actual relationship. Then again, also without getting to enjoy any of the perks, such as three rounds with Rich’s body in the ring better known as her bed.
As if she’d have had the first clue what to do with him if she got the chance.
With Delante’s and Rich’s victories secured, the final two matches were stress-free. By the time the main event was wrapped, Lindsey had officially caught the MMA bug. Swearwords she’d never uttered aloud had come streaming from her mouth unbidden, and she’d hopped to her feet so many times it was a wonder she hadn’t broken a heel or twisted her ankle.
“Are you coming to the after party?” Jenna asked, organizing her purse. “Nothing glamorous, but free drinks once the press stuff is done. Merce and I could give you a lift later.”
“Count me in. I could stand a little VIP treatment.” It wasn’t every day she’d get a chance to mingle in this strange, feral world.
If she’d known she’d be going to an after party, she’d have dressed up a bit more. It was chilly for early fall and she’d worn jeans. Nice ones, with a cute top, but watching jacked, angry men attack each other had her feeling exceptionally feminine, and she wished she’d dressed to reflect that.
Jenna had a pass to get them behind the scenes, and they followed the noise and activity to the threshold of a boardroom past the lockers. A long table was set up at the far end of the room with microphones, and the fighters sat behind it, all showered and dressed, answering questions for the small cluster of press people. Rich had changed into a suit, and Lindsey could make out the white bandage someone had applied to his temple.
Most of the questions were for the bigger-name guys from the final matches. But when one reporter asked Rich how he felt about his “lucky punch,” he smirked and replied, “If this was archery, you wouldn’t be asking about my lucky bull’s-eye.”
When the meeting disbanded, Lindsey and Jenna followed the crowd. They ended up in a fancy area for the corporate types who had box seats and season tickets, and the open bar was swamped. They spotted Mercer loading stuff onto a dolly, presumably to be taken back to Wilinski’s. Jenna hugged her boyfriend, and Mercer’s return embrace looked eager and possessive, making Lindsey a touch envious. She hadn’t felt the pleasant dig of strong male fingers at her back in ages.
The couple broke apart, and Lindsey clapped Mercer’s arm in congratulations. “Happy, I trust?”
He laughed. “There’s an understatement.”
“What do you think—was it a lucky punch?”
“Rich doesn’t need luck. He hits like a truck.”
“Do you wish he’d gotten a chance to show what else he can do?”
Mercer shook his head. “Nah. Rich has that thing—that thing people love to hate. He’ll be even more of a draw if fans are dying for his win to be proven a fluke.”
“Where is he?”
“Being courted by managers, same as Delante. I need to get over there myself, keep an eye on the kid. You girls should get some drinks—I’m driving.”
Lindsey and Jenna hit the bar, then wound up loitering in the concourse with a small group of guys who trained at Wilinski’s. They spent some time getting to know their mysterious, violent neighbors and trying to follow the postfight gossip.
A bit later Jenna disappeared in search of Mercer, and Lindsey was starting to feel the hour, her adrenaline waning. She took a seat on a radiator, letting her heels drop to the floor, and checked her phone for the first time in hours.
One text, from Brett. What time are you home tonight? It was from a couple of hours ago, and he was probably already in bed. The subtext read, “You’re going to wake me up, aren’t you? I need my beauty sleep. I’m a powerful lawyer.”
Okay, that was a bitchy interpretation, but she had the spirit of it pegged.
She tapped out, Not sure. Late. and shut the thing off. Suddenly wiped, she was tempted to contradict the message and head for the subway. Who knew how long Mercer would need to stay?
Then her mood shifted, weariness gone in a breath as silly, glittery excitement burst inside her like confetti.
She had a second to register Rich’s haughty, blinding smile before he was swarmed by a dozen well-wishers and autograph-seeking kids, Lindsey’s view blocked. Thank goodness, too. The drinks had her feeling loose, and she could use a minute to pull herself together.
Rich was a ridiculously good-looking man. Scary-sexy with his shirt off, and devastating in a suit. His gorgeous, masculine face, dark eyes and shoulder-length black hair had earned him his fight nickname. Broad shoulders and chest, slim waist, then those hips and that butt and those thighs and…ooh, tremble. His shape seemed made-up, like the heroes in those comic books Brett used to care so much about.
Rich could’ve easily skewed toward being too perfect, except for that accent, peppered with swearwords and strong enough to strip the wax out of your ears. It all worked great as a swaggering ring persona, but his over-the-topness wasn’t an act, Lindsey didn’t think, and that was enough to keep smart girls from getting any reckless romantic notions about the man. Though it didn’t keep her body from wanting his.
Lust object? Go for it. But she held herself back from slapping a few other labels on Rich. Rebound material? In your dreams, Tuttle.
Still, as the crowd thinned and her view of him cleared, she felt her pulse race, hormones elbowing her better judgment aside.
Six feet, three inches of good-sense-wrecking kryptonite.
And if Lindsey were her own client, she wouldn’t be letting herself anywhere near Rich Estrada.
2
BUT INADVISABLE NEARNESS was exactly what Lindsey got only a moment later.
Rich escaped the crowd, heading in her direction. He blinked in recognition and surprise, and blinded her with that lethal smile.
“Look who it is.” Stopping in front of her, he slipped the suit jacket from his shoulders. The space was stuffy. He hadn’t worn a tie, but he undid an extra button on his dress shirt. “Almost didn’t recognize you outside that office.”
“Hello, Mr. Champion. Well done.” She hazarded a clap on his arm then regretted it, now knowing exactly how hard that particular body part was. As if she needed another thing to fixate on.
Rich shrugged, uncharacteristically humble. “Just a regional title. I’m still in the minors.”
“For now.”
He tossed his jacket on the radiator. “Thanks for coming. And for sticking around this long.”
“Hey, free drinks.”
Rich laughed.
“It was fun. My pleasure.”
He sighed, a tired, genuine noise, and took a seat beside her—though not quite as close as Lindsey would have preferred. She’d never seen him like this. So…accessible. Probably just exhausted. He flirted with her every chance he got, and not subtly. As though it was a sport, one he played with every woman he came across.
He rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, forearms flexing with tendons and making Lindsey’s brain glaze over.
“You actually watch any, or was it too gory?”
“Oh, no, I watched the whole thing.”
“It’s an acquired taste.”
“Then I just may have acquired it tonight.” Oops—was that a flirty smirk she’d felt pass her lips? Quit thinking so hard. He’s just the obnoxious, sexy guy from the gym downstairs. The one she’d developed an extremely troubling fascination with the past couple weeks. Probably some self-defeating relationship-sabotage crush. Naughty matchmaker.
A server came through with a tray of champagne flutes.
Rich snagged two, handing one to Lindsey.
“Thanks. Cheers to your big win.”
They clinked. His dark eyes held hers as he drank. Goddamn, she could fall into that stare and drown, grinning as the world went black.
“How come your face isn’t all screwed up?” she blurted. Rich laughed, a deep and far too exciting noise.
“No, really. Haven’t you ever had your nose broken?”
“Sure. Twice. And what about all this?” He pointed to a couple scratches and the bandage, and the stitched gash nearly healed beside it. She’d dabbed concealer on that once—long story. Been close enough to smell his skin, as she could now. Tonight that scent tried to hide behind a hint of cologne, but she found it easily, breathed it in.
She pulled herself together and waved dismissively. “Surface stuff. I get those shaving my legs. How come you’re not…You know.”
“More like Merce?”
Lindsey wouldn’t say Mercer was unattractive, but he looked, perfectly aptly, like a man who’d spent the past decade getting routinely punched in the face. Whereas Rich…
“You’re too pretty,” Lindsey concluded. “Too symmetrical. And your ears aren’t hideous enough.”
He smiled, looking away as though she’d actually managed to make this shameless man bashful. She took the opportunity to ogle his forearm again, and the way his dress shirt pulled taut against his locked biceps.
Their eyes met once more. “You implying I’m doing my job wrong?” he asked between sips. “Seems like letting my face get scrambled as little as possible would be to my credit.”
“Fair enough. Are you happy with how you did tonight?”
“You actually wanna hear the long, incredibly boring answer to that?”
“Sure.”
“I’m happy I won,” Rich said, swirling his champagne so the foam rose. “And I know the way it happened will be great for lining up another match, to prove I didn’t just stumble into a title with a lucky punch. If Higgins and I ever wind up in the same pro organization, I’ll probably get a nice rematch, maybe even move up the card, if they spin this into some rivalry. But I would’ve liked a bit more of a tangle with that asshole.”
Lindsey nursed her drink as he recounted the details, asking questions when she didn’t understand a term.
He laughed after ten minutes’ conversational dominance. “You fake not being bored really well. Tell me to shut up anytime.”
“I don’t mind. We are at a fight, after all.”
“True.”
“Are you what they call a technical fighter?” She’d heard the term someplace, and it now accounted for a healthy percentage of her meager MMA vocabulary.
Rich shook his head. “Mercer’s a technical fighter. Means he can execute a kick or punch with, like, robotic precision. Me, I’m sloppier, but when I hit, no matter how busted it might be, I like it to land hard. Like, hard. Plus I’m not the strongest grappler. Best if I can mess a guy up while we’re still standing. I do what they call sprawl-and-brawl, avoid going down to the mat whenever possible.”
She crossed her legs, accidentally brushing Rich’s shin with her bare foot. Zing. She cleared her throat. “Sorry. So, how did you get into all this? Tell me you were in med school or something, then you had a nervous breakdown and went all Fight Club.”
He cocked a skeptical brow. “You wish I was a doctor?”
“No, I mean, it’d be cool if you had some upstanding life before you went rogue. It’s such a romantic cliché,” she said with a silly sigh. Oops, that’d be the champagne.
“Sorry, I was never upstanding. Grew up poor, immigrant parents, got in tons of fights in grade school. High school dropout. But I could lie, if it gets you all worked up.”
Lindsey grinned, hoping her blush didn’t show. “Nah.”
“You sure? What do you want me to be, in my previous life? Investment banker? Oil magnate?”
She laughed.
“Lawyer?”
“Definitely not,” she said a bit too passionately.
He bumped her shoulder with his. “Disgraced royalty?”
“That would explain your fight name.”
“Nah, that’s just because of my aforementioned pretty face,” he said, flashing her a smile worthy of an Armani campaign.
“It’s the nose. You have a very princely nose.” She nearly reached up to touch said nose, but perhaps mercifully, Jenna and Mercer wandered over. Lindsey edged herself farther from Rich’s hip. Assuring Jenna she was freshly single in front of him seemed lacking in both class and subtlety.
Jenna beckoned Rich to his feet for a hug. “I wondered where you were hiding. Congratulations. If I’d been able to bring myself to watch, I’d say you looked great.”
“I always look great.” Rich and Mercer gave each other the standard manly half-hug-slash-handshake.
“Great work, man,” Mercer said. “Just don’t forget where you came from, once you sign with an org.”
“I’m sure I won’t, not with the Wilinski’s branding you’ll want plastered all over my shorts.”
“We’re about ready to head out. Did you still want to catch a ride with us?” Jenna asked Lindsey just as someone came around refreshing the champagne.
“Oh…” She watched the foam rise in her glass. She didn’t want to leave yet. She wanted to stay and keep flirting with Rich, keep this lovely buzz stoked and put off getting bitched at by Brett for waking him up. But the subway would stop running shortly and cabs were expensive, especially if she was soon likely to be on her own, paying rent… . “I guess I should.”
“Where do you live?” Rich asked.
“Brigham Circle.”
“You can share my cab later.”
“You sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. It’s on the promotion company’s dime.”
“Okay. Great.” Far better than great.
“Right,” Jenna said, giving Lindsey a look, one she translated to mean Don’t forget you have a man at home or some similarly fretful matchmaker admonishment. “I’ll see you Monday. Have a great weekend, both of you.”
Lindsey watched them disappear into the chaos, suddenly shy now that her evening was officially slated to end in the same vehicle as Prince Richard.
“Wait.” She turned to him as he sat. “Don’t you live in Lynn? Isn’t that, like, twenty miles from where I am? In the opposite direction?”
“Like I said—not my fare to pay.”
She smiled, tapping his glass with hers. “Any plans for your prize money?”
“Help my mom out with some bills, get my car fixed. Nothing flashy.”
“Saving those flashy plans for when you’re one of the main event guys?” She shook her head, boggled by the top-level payouts. “Fifty grand for a night’s work.”
“I know. Still, nothing compared to Tyson back in the day, or the big Vegas boxing matches. Seven figures for a single fight.”
She looked him in the eye, feeling a flash of intimacy and praying it didn’t show on her face. “Think you’ll ever be that big? A million dollars big?”
“Nah. Even for the biggest events in UFC, the main event guys don’t take home more than two or three hundred grand. And those are the top Ultimate Fighting Championship guys. Celebrity types. Names you might actually recognize outside the sport. People are only just realizing it’s not a fad or some pro-wrestling-type sideshow.”
Lindsey tried to imagine any woman seeing a commercial featuring a half-naked Rich and not finding herself turned on. To the sport. Turned on to the sport. “I should buy shares.”
“I’ll buy shares in Spark, then. Mercer says your stable of singletons is growing nicely.”
“I’m meeting with my first client on Thursday.” Sort of. She’d be shadowing and assisting Jenna to start, completing a couple courses this fall before being officially cleared to oversee her own clients. “And you’ll be on the road soon—no longer a threat to the female population of Spark.”
“Their loss.” His gaze shifted to some distraction in the middle distance.
“Are you looking forward to whatever’s next? Jetting off to exotic foreign locales?”
His eyes met hers once more. Goodness, they were dark. And deep. Boring through her skull and dismantling her good sense.
“No jets for me,” Rich said. “More like motor lodges off the freeway or somebody’s spare room near whatever facility my future manager sends me to train at.”
“But you are leaving Wilinski’s, right?”
Word came down the corridor that people were relocating to a club. Rich nodded his comprehension but turned back to Lindsey.
“I’ll get sent away to some camp for a while, so I’ll have a chance to try on the competition.” he looked thoughtful a moment.
“What?”
Rich’s voice went quiet, nearly soft, and he dropped his gaze to the glass in Lindsey’s hand. “It feels shitty, saying that. Like I’ve outgrown the gym.”
“Maybe you have.”
“I’ve been making do with what I got for as long as I’ve been alive. Wilinski’s is my style—scrappy and broke.” He frowned. “We could make it a lot more than what it is, if we had the money.”
“How do you get money? More members?”
“Yeah.”
“And how do you get more members? By producing bigname fighters, right?”
“That’s a good way.”
“Then all you have to do is go out there and set the world on fire, Rich.”
He smiled, though the gesture drooped with melancholy. “There’s a part of me that’s afraid I’ll go off, train for a few months in some state-of-the-art facility and forget where I came from.”
She was peeking through the slimmest crack in his shell, offered a glimpse of a man who wasn’t as cocksure as he liked everyone to believe.
“That’s your choice to make, I suppose.” Emotion and alcohol had her reaching out and rubbing his arm, patting his shoulder. The contact was intense, a mix of intimacy and awe at the sheer hardness of him. She took her hand back, feeling drunk.
For a moment their eyes met, then Rich dropped his gaze. “Sorry to unload. It’s been a hell of a day.”
“I’ll bet. You going to the club?”
“Nah, I’ve had enough excitement for one night. Plus I gotta be in the gym at ten.”
“Jeez, no rest for the wicked.”
“You wanna get out of here? Must be pushing two.”
Get out of there and go home alone? Or together? The exhaustion was gone from his eyes, replaced with his usual mischief, if she wasn’t mistaken. “Sure.”
He stood, stooping for her shoes and sliding them onto her feet. Lindsey blushed to the roots of her hair and stammered a thank-you.
Rich stopped by the locker room for his gym bag, and Lindsey carried his jacket. The weight of it felt peculiar, draped over her arm. Personal. She wanted to put her nose to the collar and find his smell there. She wanted to pretend she’d forgotten she was holding it when they got to her place so she could keep it. But that was lame and a little creepy, and an invitation for uncomfortable questions from Brett.
Stupid crush, making her all crazy.
The night air was enlivening, and Lindsey suddenly felt wide-awake. She wished for a dozen things in a breath—for Rich’s arm around her shoulders or his hand claiming hers, for a hot, loaded look or a brazen invitation. The only gesture she got was the simple opening of her door when he selected a cab from the curbside lineup. Her heart beat in her throat for the few seconds it took him to stow his bag and circle to the other side.
He seemed impossibly big as he settled beside her.
She gave the driver her address. It was only a fifteen-minute ride, this time of night. The backseat felt strange after the arena, so quiet and close. She glanced Rich’s way. “Did you meet any managers you liked?”
“Two or three I thought I could stand working with. Got their cards, so I’ll have to do some research this week and make my pick.”
“If you get your rematch, I’ll be sure to come.”
“Excellent. My first official groupie.”
“You wish. What if I show up in my Greg the Trucker shirt?”
Rich winced. “If that dirtbag’s your type, I am not sharing a cab with you.”
“Just kidding. And fine, I’ll be your groupie. Just don’t think you get to sign my cleavage.”
He laughed, eyes squinching in a way that seemed to double his sex appeal.
Not wanting their rapport to end, Lindsey asked a couple more questions about the sport. Rich answered, then added, “You really got some bloodlust in you.”
“No, it’s not that.” An image flashed—his hips, his thighs, his sweat-gleaming stomach and incredible arms. “Some different kind of primal something-or-other. Did you have any family watching tonight?”
“Nah. My mom thinks it’s barbaric—she grew up in Colombia, in a real rough area. She’s seen more than enough fighting for anybody’s lifetime. And my sister gets too stressed out.”
“You really love it, huh?” What was it like, to be so passionate about something? Lindsey thought she was reasonably driven, but she wouldn’t say wedding planning and matchmaking were her callings. Careers, perhaps, and satisfying ones, but not passions. Maybe she just wasn’t passionate. Not the way Rich was.
“I do love it,” he said. “It’s all I know, really. Gotta milk it for all it’s worth while I’m still in good shape. Maybe in ten years I’ll have to think about earning something flashier than a GED and find a respectable gig.”
“You could coach.”
He shook his head. “I’d rather see guys as opponents than students. I’ll leave all that nurturing bull to Mercer.”
“Well, your immediate future looks awfully bright. Let’s hope they’ll be able to understand your accent, wherever you wind up.”
“Tease all you want—you’ll miss me when I’m gone.” He said it through a self-satisfied sigh.
“I’m sure I’ll get more work done without you sticking your princely nose around the office door every ten minutes.”
“How come you never say yes when I ask if you wanna grab lunch?”
Lindsey’s face heated in the darkness. “I’m always busy when you ask.” In truth she’d said no because often she and Brett were on-again, or because Rich flat-out intimidated her. It wasn’t as though she floated through her workday on a champagne cloud of boldness. On a good day Lindsey suspected she was cute, but Rich was stunning. Men like that didn’t simply stroll around with passably cute girls. She’d spent enough time feeling invisible. The next time she got into a romance with somebody, she wanted a man she could shine beside, and Rich was too bright to do anything but cast others in his shadow.
“Maybe now that I’m leaving,” he said, “you’ll deign to say yes, just once. Take pity on a man.”
“We’ll see.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. What about after work? Jenna must let you go home at some point. Long enough to get a drink down the street?”
Her blush burned hotter than ever. “Are you asking me on a date?”
“Say yes and find out.”
She glanced out the window, champagne courage abandoning her. Dammit, why did she have to clam up at moments like this? But for once, her mouth sided with her body. “Okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Okay.”
Rich shook his fist in triumph. “Nice. Frigging finally.”
She laughed. “I hesitate to fuel your already turbocharged ego. But yes, fine. I’ll go out for a drink with you some evening after work.”