A giggle to his left perked his ear, but not enough to turn. The gym was overcrowded with New Year’s Resolution holders, empty promises to ‘do better’ and ‘be healthier’. Most of them would be gone next week.
Red would still be there, though. Three days a week, she came in and rotated weight training with a light kickboxing routine. He’d wondered about the scar that dissected the left side of her lower lip, the white of the scar a vast contrast to the rosiness of her lips. It was still fairly new, he could tell. Scars were something he was familiar with.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Blondie got Red’s attention and pointed toward the neon yellow flyer that had been stapled to the bulletin board at the gym’s entrance. He groaned internally.Fuck.
Sure enough, he watched as the two women signed their names on the flyer, signing up for his kickboxing class that would start the following week.
The class that he intentionally startedafterall the New Year’s Resolution dropouts would call it quits. There would always be the gaggle of women that signed up just to get the chance to ogle him, and on the rare occasion he’d let one gym bunny hop into bed. And there were always men that would sign up in the hopes that they’d get to best him.
Not that they ever won. He was a machine.
A monster.
“Hey, we going to spar or are you just going to stand there looking grumpy all night?” Hector called across the mat, and Travis nodded. Hector was one of his sparring partners, one of the few that stood any kind of chance.
Tapping the Bluetooth earbud in his right ear, music began to play. Disturbed ‘Indestructible’ came on and he set his feet, angling his body toward the five-foot, ten-inch Mexican. His hair was cut close to his head, his face shaved except for a small goatee that covered his upper lip and chin. Travis stood three inches taller and outweighed the other man by fifty pounds of pure muscle, but Hector was scrappy as hell, having grown up as the youngest of five brothers.
Travis had been an only child. But it was probably better that way. He’d had a hard enough time keeping himself alive, let alone anyone else.
The mind-numbing rage that used to accompany thoughts of his childhood had dulled over the years. Thousands of fights—some fair, some not so fair—a decade of therapy, and the twentieth anniversary ofthat nightmeant he’d had a lot of time to work the anger out.
It wasn’t gone, of course. He just knew how to harness it better now. And currently, beating the crap out of Hector was going to do just fine to exorcise those demons.
Merv, the fifty-something-year-old gym owner and longtime mentor of Travis’s, blew the silver whistle on a string around his neck, and he and Hector were moving.
Ducking, jabbing, landing punches, feinting, circling. They traded punches, one after another. Hector landed a jab to his kidney and Travis grunted, baring his teeth in a grin. Around his mouth guard, Hector grinned back, wiggling his hands in a ‘come get me’ taunt, and Travis struck fast and hard with a hook that put the smaller, younger man on his back.
Chest heaving with each intake of breath, he grinned down at Hector, flat on his back. Reaching his hand down toward him, Hector hooked his arm around Travis’s forearm, and he hauled the other man to his feet. Hector removed the mouth guard and blew out a breath as Travis tapped the earbud in his ear to turn the music off.
“That fuckin’ hook, man. You save it for last on purpose, don’t you?”
“You should know it’s coming by now,” Travis chuckled, rolling his neck from left to right. “You’re getting soft—”
“Ma’am? Ma’am!”
The anxiety in the male voice across the room was what brought his head around. A heartbeat later he was launching himself over the rubber guardrails surrounding the mat, grabbing hold of the redheaded bombshell’s body just as she went limp, and her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she passed out.
Four
There was so much noise.
Several raised voices that she didn’t recognize talked around her. Another much deeper, rougher voice that seemed to surround her, her entire body humming with it, registered as she came to.
Blinking open her eyes, she squinted against the bright gym light directly above her, and then the light disappeared as a handsome, bearded face came into view.
That was when she realized she was laying across a hard pair of thighs, her back propped up slightly on those legs, her head resting near a bare torso. His deep voice rumbled through her body as he spoke softly. One of his hands shoved up through his long hair, pulling it out of his face, then he cursed crudely and raised his hand to his mouth. Tearing at the black tape that bound his hand with those impossibly straight, white teeth, he unraveled the tape from around his hand until he tossed it aside.
Holy shit. She was laying in Travis Hayes’ lap.
“I’ve got you. You with us, Red?” he asked, his eyes searching hers, his voice gruff. It sent shivers down her entire body. He had long, spiky, dark brown lashes surrounding gentle, honeybrown eyes. She nodded dumbly. His lips twitched slightly beneath the beard, and he murmured, “Good girl.”
If she hadn’t already been lightheaded, those two simple words would have done it.Good lord.
“Care to tell us what happened?” he asked roughly, but all she could do was stare up at him, transfixed. He was so much more gorgeous up close, if that was even possible.And she was laying in his lap.How was she supposed to form any kind of coherent response with a god this close?
Swallowing hard, she opened her mouth to speak, but what came out was an embarrassing croak. She licked her lips as he looked up, reaching over her to accept the bottle of water someone handed him. He brought it to her lips, and she took several small sips, then finally managed to whisper, “Thank you.”
He shifted as he set the water bottle down on the floor beside them, resting his hand, palm flat on the floor so that he was half leaning over her. She could feel the muscles in his arm bunch and shift where it was banded beneath her shoulders, his forearm supporting her head.
