His eyes flood tenderly. “Some people might easily take advantage of how nice you are.”

“I’m not nice on the inside.”

“You’re nice all over.” His eyes run over me, and my toes curl as his eyes reach my feet, and then he catches himself, clenches his jaw, and looks up at me, sincere and strangely puzzled.

“I don’t want to be nice,” I blurt out. “I want to be un-nice. Badass and special and unforgettable. People mistake nice with weak, and I’m not weak.” A man as hard as Maverick should despise weakness.

“I don’t think you’re weak. It takes strength to be kind,” he says in a haunted tone. But his eyes gleam in approval of me.

I want him to say what he thinks of me, but maybe I’m not ready to know. If it’s bad it will funk me out, and if it’s good I’ll be gone. I’ll be gone.

“I won’t make it until at least three days from now. I’ll see you there.” He walks away.

Don’t watch him walk away, Reese.

Don’t look at his inverted-triangle back and his fine ass, Reese.

I am looking at both when he swings the door open, and my heart does an odd little flip when a group of guys comes in and he looks over his shoulder at me. He remains there, watching me until I board. Just as the doors start to close, I watch him turn away and lift his hand to touch his wound.

A stolen moment. That’s what just happened with him and me. But I want more than a moment. And I don’t want to steal it. I want it to be ours.

I see Miles’s text again and I tuck my phone away without answering.

♥ ♥ ♥

THAT NIGHT I have a dream of us eating ice cream. “Do you want to know something?” Maverick slams the spoon into the bucket and then uses that hand to touch my mouth. “I want to kiss you right here.”

“Why here?”

“Seems like a good place to start.”

And when he sets his lips on mine, I wake up, as if it’s too incredible a reality, it can’t even happen in my dreams.

THIRTEEN

FIRST PAY

Maverick

I haven’t called my mother. Haven’t wanted her to think I couldn’t do it. Now we’re in Oz’s messy hotel room after picking up our pay and I stare at my first check for 18,005 dollars.

I slip it into an envelope and write a note.

My first check. It’s all yours.

Maverick

“You sure you don’t want to keep some of that?” Oz asks dubiously.

“Nah, she needs it more than I do.”

“Plan to send her all your checks?”

“As many as I can, yes.” I eye him narrowly while Oz rests his head on the back of the couch and eyes the ceiling.

“When you get to fight Tate during the season, we’re talking that check will have six, possibly seven, digits, not five.”

“Next one’s for me. I’m setting us up in a nice hotel like the big fighters do.”

“So you can invite her over?”

“Yeah, so I can invite her over.”

He sighs. “Good girls don’t date fighters.”

“Fighters have good wives.”

“One. One does: Riptide.” He raises his brows challengingly. “All the others are divorced like me.” He shakes his head, then adds, “When you fight for a living, it’s like your whole life is at war; it bleeds into your personal life.”

“Like my father’s.”

He stays silent, then cracks open his flask and takes a long swig.

“What do you know about my father?”

“Oh no you don’t.” Oz cackles and stands to leave, the fucking coward. But before he heads off, he slaps my back. “You don’t pay me for that.” He eyes me. “And you don’t want to know.”

“Actually, I do.”

He sighs and considers it for a moment. “Got all fucked up after being in the fighting world too long. He became a . . .” He searches for words. “Terror.”

“Drugs?”

He snorts, takes another swig, and midswig he frowns at the flask and turns it fully upside down to realize it’s empty.

“He fought dirty; I’ve seen the tapes,” I tell him.

“You don’t fight like him. You’ve got more good in you than he ever did. You fight better than him. That’s all you need to know.” He finds a half-drained bottle nearby and refills his flask.

“Oz, fuck, man,” I say.

He lifts his flask at me in a toast. “I’m taking my baby to bed, let it nurse me into a good mood.”

I sigh, then I flip the envelope and add my mother’s address.

FOURTEEN

GREYHOUND TO DENVER

Maverick

Two days later we’re in the back of a bus, on our way to Denver. Oz is snoozing. I have my earbuds in, watching my father fight Tate in the ring. I’ve watched the videos so many times. Studying for weaknesses. He has none. He’s fast; my father has trouble staying balanced when he catches a hit.

If I withstand ten fighters next fight, I can get to him. Face-to-face. I get to fight him. I get to see exactly what he’s made of.

Hell, I get to see what I’m made of.

I sigh and turn off my phone, then I set my forehead on the window and stare outside, not really seeing anything but her.

She’s in my head. She said He’s with me and now, somehow, she is the one who’s with me. She’s there when I go to bed, there when I wake. I rub my thumb over my cut.

Her eyes as she stitched me up.

Her lips closing around the spoon and licking off the vanilla ice cream.

My mind goes in all directions but it ends up in the same place: her.

Her watching me fight.

Her in a nice room with me.

On a nice bed.

And me, kissing her in a very un-nice way. Hearing her make noises that are the opposite of nice.

She huffs when she exercises and makes a certain noise when she makes effort, almost a moan, and then she sighs as she catches her breath, and she’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen inside a gym or out of it.

She’s got a tiny waist I could encircle with my hands and the most delicious butt. It bounces when she runs, and so do her exquisitely delicious breasts. She’s a sexpot, made to fuck. I can’t look at her without imagining what she’d look like under me.

Dragging my hand over my face, I pull my phone back out and try to focus on the man I need to beat.