Page 32 of Craving the Edge

I shook my head. “I know what a break feels like.”

Her lips thinned in disapproval, but she let it go. “You can’t win without your dominant hand. Not a fight at this level. You know that, so why are you hiding it?”

She was hedging. I heard the question she didn’t ask. The one that wanted to know if I even wanted to be in that cage at all…but she held it back, giving me just enough rope to hang myself with if I wanted to.

The pressure in my chest tightened. I looked at her, really looked at her, standing there in the middle of this rundown gym that’d become my whole world. The weak morning sun filtered through the grimy front windows, hitting the peeling mirrors behind her. The fractured light caught the pale, soft line of her jaw, the curve of her lips, the colour in her eyes.

“It’s complicated,” I rasped.

My entire career felt balanced on a knife’s edge. One wrong move, one whisper in the wrong ear, and it was all over. Tokyo. The belt. The money that would mean I never had to worry again. All of it gone. My gaze fixed on her, unable to look away.

I stepped around the desk, erasing the barrier between us.

“I know you don’t want me,” I murmured. “I know you hate my world and everything that comes with it. You’re right to.” Her eyes widened a fraction. “But it doesn’t make a bit of difference. I can’t help it.” The words felt ripped from my throat. “I haven’t stopped thinking about that kiss… About the scent of vanilla on your skin…”

She froze. A deep red flush climbed her neck, spreading across her cheekbones. Her mouth parted, but no sound came out. The sight of her flustered, her control fracturing, sent a hot, sharp surge of desire straight to my cock. My mind threw an image at me…her against the wall of the storeroom, my name a gasp on her lips as I drove into her.

I swallowed hard, forcing the thought away. I clamped down on the impulse to reach for her, to finish what I started in that office. My hands curled into fists at my sides, the ache in my right a distant throb. It was nothing compared to the want coiling inside me.

I was losing control, and the part of me that thrived on discipline was screaming.

I scrubbed a hand over my face, the rasp of stubble loud in the quiet. “Look, I get it. The world I’m in…it’s fucking shallow. You want no part of it. I won’t bring it up again.” I took a breath. “But there shouldn’t be anything left unsaid between us.”

I had to make her understand. It wasn’t just the pull of her body…more than the need to claim her, to please her… It was more than that. It was everything.

“You saw me,” I murmured. “Not the wanker on a fight card, but me. You saw through it all when nobody else has even bothered to look.” My gaze held hers. “That’s the most any woman has given me in my entire life.”

I stood there for a beat, maybe two, waiting. For what? For her to tell me to get fucked? For her to laugh?

Suddenly, the thought of her rejection slamming into me was a KO I couldn’t bear. I had to get out.

I turned away from the desk without another word, unable to wait for her answer. I could feel her gaze on my back, a prickling heat that followed me as I walked towards the open space at the back of the gym, where I knew Tomas would be waiting.

Where the lie I’d spun waited in ambush…

CHAPTER 12

CHAR

I flicked the main light switch. The long fluorescent tubes sputtered on one by one, chasing the shadows from the corners of the gym.

The smell of stale sweat, rubber, and disinfectant was comforting. It was a language I understood. I checked the locks on the back door. I ran a hand over the cool, worn canvas of the ring. Everything was as it should be.

But my mind was a broken record, playing Declan’s words over and over. You saw me. Not the wanker on a fight card, but me.

I walked to the front windows, where I’d taped up blankets to block the view from the street. I nudged the edge of one aside, creating a small gap to peer through. Yesterday, the footpath had been clogged. Now, there were only three photographers left, leaning against a dented hatchback across the road, their long lenses pointing vaguely at the gym entrance. They looked bored.

Declan hadn’t offered them a single shot since that first morning, so their revenue stream hadn’t been as lucrative as they’d hoped.

I knew it wasn’t Rhys who’d chased them off. Declan had made standing here a waste of their time, using his influence to get them to back off rather than allow Rhys to send some vague legal threat via registered post.

I dropped the blanket and shook my head. He hadn’t even bothered to get his hand scanned. For all his talk of trust and high stakes, he was just another stubborn idiot running on pride. What if it wasn’t even a proper fracture? What if he was so desperate for an excuse to get out of fighting, that he’d willed the break into existence?

Did he even like it anymore? The grind, the cameras, the cage. Or was he just trapped, caught in the whirlwind of his own success, unable to admit he wanted out?

I pressed my fingers to my lips, feeling the ghost of his mouth against mine. A hot jolt shot through my heart and mainlined right to my core. He’d left the next move to me…

The dull thud of a medicine ball hitting the mats pulled me back. Somehow it was already midday and I’d spent the morning daydreaming about a guy.