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“Listen up, assholes!”
He’s clearly the alpha in this gym because all the others immediately freeze when his bark rends the air. He steps in front of me and nods at a side exit. “Everyone get the fuck out.”
No one moves, but I do hear some derisive snorts.
From my place partially behind him, I barely catch Avery’s rabid smile. “Let me rephrase that: The last one out of here is going to fight me. Right now. No tapouts.”
There’s an odd moment of silence.
And then people move.
I gawk around the inked-up curve of his biceps as a dozen grown men gather their things and haul ass out of the sprawling, impressive gymnasium.
After the side door swings shut for the final time, deafening silence sweeps through the cavernous room. Or, warehouse, really.
The place is a giant rectangle with concrete floors and metal walls three stories high. I spot a traditional-type gym off on one side, a few boxing rings, a corner filled with rows of punching bags, and then, in the center…
The Octagon.
At first, it looks like an enormous cage. Rubber-coated chain-link stretches up from the solid black base, with some sort of padded canvas stretched across the floor.
Avery steps up beside me, bumping my shoulder playfully. “You’re not ready for the Octagon, kitten. As a spectator or a participant.”
I turn to scowl at him. “What do you mean? You didn’t bring me here to watch you fight?”
He laughs. “Fuck no.”
My tattooed alpha turns to me, his hand coming up to hold my jaw in his soft, demanding way. His eyes scan mine, reading me so easily. “Look, my Alpha may be a total simp for you, but in general, he tends to be a complete psycho. I promise I’ll show you what I mean some day, but I have another idea for us right now.”
Avery and his ideas have gotten me into trouble all over the pack house. But when recalling all of those instances makes my scent a little thicker and sweeter, he only quirks a knowing smirk at me.
Narrowing my eyes, I toss out a cocky hip. “Okay, Menace. Do your worst.”
“Oh, baby,” he whispers, brushing his soft, full mouth over mine. A shiver runs down my back as he steps away, his light eyes darkening. “No one wants to see that.”
With one last teasing glance, he lopes off, waving a hand over his shoulder. “This way.”
My stomach sinks as he hoists himself into one of the smaller, square boxing rings that dot the corners of the cavernous gym. I stand beside the platform, my throat drying while he reaches a hand down to pull me up.
“Avery…”
He flashes that crooked grin that gets him out of everything. “Trust me?”
It’s a complicated question and he knows it.
Do I trust him with my actual life? Yes.
Do I trust that he won’t have some sort of insanity up his sleeve?
Not in the slightest.
But I set my fingers in his and let him help me climb into the ring.
He pulls me straight into his arms, twirling me right into his chest and giving me a squeeze. “My girl is brave,” he whispers, kissing my brow.
We’ve had more and more moments like this, where I feel like he’s saying one thing, but he’s trying to tell me another.
It reminds me of the night we met. How we connected so fiercely without saying much at all. Just like that, when he leans back far enough to look into my eyes, I see so much more than I ever expected to.
