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The dull roar of noise was a constant assault on her eardrums. Pulling her to a halt off to the left of the huge circular cage sitting in the middle of the room, Jace leaned down to speak into a guy’s ear. The man, several inches shorter than Jace, flicked a quick gaze over his shoulder at her and nodded.
The man’s eyes roamed up and down her body, not in a sexual way, but assessing. As if he was finally getting a look at a piece of artwork he’d been hearing about for years and was trying to decide if the hype was warranted.
Stepping away from the other man, Jace bent down to yell into her ear. She tried to ignore the soft puff of air against her skin and the tingle that chased behind it.
“Stay here. If you need anything tell Axe.” He threw a glance over his shoulder at the guy still watching them. What kind of name was Axe? “Do not wander off, Quinn.”
She huffed out a breath. Where the hell was she going to go?
“I’m serious.”
Oh, she had no doubt he was. Having had just about enough of his overbearing, big-brother act, Quinn reached up, snagged the delicate edge of his ear and twisted until he brought it close to her mouth.
She didn’t miss the way his lips twitched with suppressed humor. Or the wide grin stretching Axe’s face. That did not help her mood. Okay, so maybe she pinched a little harder than she needed to. Part of her relished Jace’s sudden intake of breath. The rest of her just regretted losing her patience and letting her emotions rule her actions.
“I doubt Warren decided to attend a local MMA fight on the off chance my self-appointed bodyguard—who he knows nothing about—was on the ticket tonight. I’ll be fine.”
She just wanted this to be over.
“Warren isn’t the only threat, not here. There are plenty of dangerous men walking around tonight.”
As if to punctuate his point, the heavy thud of bodies bounced against the metal of the cage a few feet away.
Quinn winced, recoiling out of instinct. Jace stood his ground, his only reaction a puckered frown.
The sickening sound of flesh connecting with flesh rang out, along with low male grunts. Quinn’s gaze found the two men, tied together in a pretzel of arms and legs against the matted floor, as they tried to rip each other apart and force a submission.
Her stomach roiled. Blood trickled down the left side of one man’s face. One guy squirmed uselessly against the hold of the other, his expression contorted with a combination of pain and resolve.
She had to look away from the spectacle, and was just in time to see Jace slip through a door several feet away. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized he’d walked away. For some reason, it bothered her that he hadn’t said anything before leaving her here, in the middle of all the bloodlust.
A hand slid down her arm. Her eyes wide, Quinn spun to find Axe standing behind her, pointing to an empty chair a few feet to the left.
Great. Maybe she could spend the next God only knew how many hours, surfing the internet and playing games on Facebook. She settled, angled her body as far away from the cage as possible, and pulled out her smartphone. But found she couldn’t concentrate on anything except the sounds of combat ringing out around her.
It was like watching a train wreck. After a few minutes, she’d always find her eyes being dragged to the match. Better to see and know what was happening than let her imagination string together the grunts and smacks into some massive horror.
So far, none of the guys seemed overly injured by the time the matches ended. Sure they were bruised, and a few sported oozing cuts. But for the most part they all seemed happy to be involved.
By the third match, Quinn gave up the pretense that she was doing anything else. This wouldn’t be her first choice for a Friday night, but since she had to be here...
That is, until Jace was announced. Suddenly, her heart was thumping like a speedboat motor. Something that closely resembled dread settled into the pit of her belly, churning and bubbling uncomfortably.
Sitting straight, Quinn gripped the edge of her chair. Lights flashed. Music played. And from the other side of the room, Jace entered the cage. His opponent made a show of his entrance, jumping up and grabbing onto the mesh. Rattling it, he yelled and the audience ate up his show of aggression.
Jace ignored him, calmly sauntering over to his corner and the men clinging to the cage on the other side. One of them spoke to him, although Quinn wasn’t close enough to hear. Jace gave a single, sharp nod of agreement and then stared down at the floor.
She thought she saw him reach around and run his fingers along the tattoo covering his scars, but he was facing away from her so she couldn’t be sure. A heavy band constricted her throat, making it hard to breathe.
Fear crawled up her spine, making her restless enough to stand for the first time all night.
Beside her, Axe shifted on his feet and eyed her, as if he expected her to do something stupid...like run. For a brief moment, she considered it, unsure she could stand there and watch Jace go through what she’d already seen.
But before she could do anything, the match started. Quinn held her breath, but that didn’t last long. Especially when the first few seconds passed by relatively uneventfully.
The two men were fairly evenly matched, close in height and weight. They both had broad shoulders and defined arms. Thighs heavy with muscle flexed and contracted as they danced around the center of the ring. Every few seconds a fist would flash out like lightning, there and gone almost before she could blink.
Several minutes into the fight, Quinn’s pulse finally started to settle. Her stuttered breathing evened. Her body relaxed, the grip she had on the back of her chair easing.
And that’s when it happened.
Suddenly, his opponent slammed Jace up against the cage a few feet away from her. She watched the metal bow out under the weight of his body. Jace brought his arms up to defend his face, but that left the rest of him wide open. His opponent started whaling on him, landing body shot after body shot.
Jace fought back, connecting a few punches of his own. He writhed, trying to get out from under the weight of the body holding him in place. But he struggled as the other man’s fists kept finding their mark.
She’d tried to block out the sounds of the fights all night, but suddenly Jace’s grunts seemed like gunshots funneled straight into her ears. Each sound of pain lanced through her.
Panic seized her. Adrenaline shot into her system. She took a step forward, to do what she wasn’t sure, but a heavy arm clamped around her waist, holding her in place. Someone screamed. It took her several moments to realize the frenzied words were tumbling from her own mouth.
She struggled, pushing against whatever was holding her in place. Someone had to stop this. She had to stop this. Stop it before he got hurt.
Dammit! The man only had one kidney. What if something happened? What if those body shots did permanent damage? What the hell had he been thinking?
What had his doctors been thinking, clearing him for this?
Quinn growled low in her throat. Of course, that assumed he’d bothered to ask.
Somehow Jace managed to force his way out from beneath his opponent and get back into the clear space at the center of the ring. Her body sagged with relief into the band still holding her.
A soft voice rumbled in her ear. “He’s fine, cielito. The ref will stop the fight if he’s in real trouble.”
She shook her head, her lungs heaving hard. Held in place, she watched Jace take another hard shot to the face. His head snapped backward.
Quinn’s eyes snapped closed. She couldn’t watch. Pushing at the arm holding her she chanted, “Let me go. Let me go. Let me go.”
Suddenly, the restraint was gone and she was free. For a second she stood there, suspended, unsure just exactly what she needed to do.
In the end she fled, putting the cage and Jace at her back and pushing through the crowd. She knew Axe followed her, could hear the complaints of the crowd behind her, but she didn’t care. Couldn’t care.
She needed air.
* * *
JACE BRACED HIS arms on his knees, his head hanging heavily between them. God, his body ached, especially his ribs. Although, the cut above his right eye also throbbed like a bitch.
He pulled a deep breath into his lungs, trying not to wince when his ribs protested.
He’d won, though a single moment of distraction had almost cost him the match. He’d looked up at one point and seen Quinn standing on the other side of the cage, her eyes wide with apprehension. In that split second, he’d found himself grasped around the waist and pinned to the cage, defenseless against the onslaught of fists and elbows and feet.
Stupid. He knew better than to leave himself open like that.
After that, he’d studiously avoided looking in her direction. He’d channeled all of his focus into the man trying to send him to his knees.
It was over. And for the first time in two years he was starting to think he was too old for this shit. Who would have thought thirty-one would be too old for anything? Certainly not him. But his body couldn’t take the abuse it used to.
He’d found MMA by accident. When Michael had gotten sick and died, he’d needed an outlet. A safe release for all the pent-up anger, aggression and emotion. One of his buddies, a guy he’d growled at one too many times, had suggested he join a training program, not to compete but for the relief.
He’d fallen in love with the sport. The brutality and challenge of it. And maybe the reminder that he was still alive, his body functioning. It was getting harder and harder to remember why he’d needed the pain in order to feel connected to the world.
“Jesus, Jace.” He hadn’t realized Quinn was there until her soft voice touched him. Her words were followed by fingers slipping across his skin.
A sharp breath pulled through his teeth when she touched the cut over his eye—a combination of pain and twisting, unwanted need.
But she wasn’t interested in soothing his hurts. Somehow he knew she wouldn’t be.
Her palm cracked across his shoulder. Compared to the abuse his body had taken tonight, it was the equivalent of a raindrop in a hurricane. But unlike the other blows, he felt the echo of that harsh touch deep in his bones.
It rattled him as nothing else could. Not because it bothered him, but because any contact with Quinn always sent his body spinning out of control. Knowing she was upset with him didn’t change that, although it probably should have.
He was like a starving man, willing to take whatever scraps were available. God, if Michael could see him he’d laugh his ass off. He was pathetic.
“Are you trying to die, too?” Her shrill words cut through him, more painful than his injuries.
“No.” Although, he’d be lying if he said the thought hadn’t crossed his mind.
Danger had been part of his life—his job—for so long, and he’d never hesitated to put himself in the line of fire, especially if it meant protecting someone else.
He’d been playing that role for years. Growing up, his father, a long-haul trucker, had been gone more than he’d been home. How often had he heard the words, “You’re the man of the house”? By eight or nine, the responsibility of looking after his mom and brother was laid at his feet. And he hadn’t minded. He’d liked knowing his father trusted him enough to take on the task. It had made him feel important. Like a man, though he’d been far from it.
But the mantle was difficult to shed, even after his father had retired and finally returned home for good. By then, he and Michael had been grown.
It was still hard to look his father in the eye whenever he dropped by to visit. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he’d failed, miserably, by letting Michael die.
Ultimately, though, it was those same sad, tired green eyes—so similar to Michael’s—that had kept him from doing something stupid. As much as it might have been easier on himself to push the envelope and take the easy way out with stupid risks, he couldn’t do that to his parents.
Losing Michael had devastated them both.
Tonight it was all too much. He was just...tired.
With a sigh, he let his body sag into the physical exhaustion.
Quinn crouched in front of him. Her hands landed on his biceps, bracing her body. Heat he would have thought himself way too tired to feel surged through him. He shifted on the hard bench, trying to ease the sudden ache of having her so close.
Why was that pang so much sharper than all the others?
He tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t let him go, clamping her fingers harder around his quivering arms. Ducking down so she could force him to look at her, she stared right into him. “Jace, you have to stop this.”
He stared into her pale brown eyes. Wide, deep pools that threatened to pull him in and swallow him whole. Pressure suffused his chest, making it difficult to breathe. And suddenly he was angry. Pissed. At her. At himself. At Michael.
Throwing her hands off, Jace bounded up, temper snapping through him.
She rocked backward on her heels, startled by his sudden movement. Without thinking, he reached down and picked her up, steadying her even as he pulled her against his body all in one quick motion.
Her eyes widened, but she stood there, lax in his hold, flush against him.
His labored breaths brushed across her face, reflecting back at him.
“Don’t tell me what I have to do, Quinn. You’re in no position to cast stones. When’s the last time you went on a date? Or even thought about another man?”
To his surprise something hot and sharp flared deep in her eyes, sparking through those golden flecks and flashing fire.
Her mouth opened, a small sound pushing past her lips. God, he wanted to drink it in. Which is why he let her go and took a step back. She stumbled, catching herself this time because he couldn’t trust himself to touch her again.
Jerking her gaze away from him, she swallowed, and in a muted voice said, “That’s different. I’m not hurting anyone.”
“Only yourself.”
Her soft, sad eyes found his again, the impact of them slamming straight into his chest.
Giving him a small shrug, she said, “Maybe, but I won’t die from loneliness. You on the other hand...” Her voice trailed off to barely a whisper. “One wrong move in that ring and it could all be over.”
Without waiting for his response, she walked away.
Sinking back onto the hard bench, Jace hung his head between his arms again. It was at least five minutes before he realized just what she’d revealed.
She was lonely. Alone. Just like him.
* * *
LAST NIGHT HAD been uncomfortable, although she was used to that sensation around Jace Hyland. Just as she had for years, Quinn had brushed it off and instead focused on life’s mundane details. Making up the spare room. Getting him a towel and washcloth.
After she’d prepared everything, she’d retreated to the dark of her own room with the knowledge that Jace was next door—because he’d insisted on taking the closest room to hers in case something happened in the middle of the night. It had taken her several agonizing hours to fall asleep, her body restless and humming.
Although, when sleep had finally come, the relief had been short-lived, her dreams peppered with fantasies of Jace coming to her in the middle of the night. That gorgeous, sweaty, hard body sliding against her, into her, over her.
So she was awake early, groggy, grumpy and in desperate need of caffeine. Popping a pod into the coffee maker, she waited for the sweet, decadent nectar of the gods to flow through and into her cup. Less than sixty seconds later, the bitter scent of coffee laced with cinnamon, vanilla and caramel wafted up to her.
Taking a deep breath, Quinn closed her eyes and savored it for several seconds before letting the air out on a long, streaming sigh. Contentment settled across her shoulders. Cradling the hot mug in her hands, Quinn brought it close to her mouth but didn’t drink. She’d learned not to sip unless she wanted to fight a burned tongue all day.
She waited, simply standing and staring down into the milky brown mixture in her cup.
This was her favorite time of day. Before the crazy started. Those first few easy moments. They never lasted long enough, so she’d learned to enjoy them when she had them.
Today the peace was shattered by the light shuffle of feet. Just as she had two days ago, she looked up to find Jace framed in the doorway to her kitchen, his arms stretched overhead and fingers curled around the door frame.
Jace’s biceps strained the edge of the dark gray T-shirt with the print so faded she couldn’t quite make out what it once said. The hem, worn so thin it was practically transparent, rode up a couple of inches to show a strip of darkly tanned skin.
He watched her with sleepy, mesmerizing eyes. Quinn took a quick sip of coffee—it was either that or blurt out something inappropriate—but she paid for the cover-up by scalding her tongue.
