“I’m sorry. What am I supposed to do with these?”
He lifts a brow. “You hold them up between rounds,” he replies as if I’m a complete idiot, then points at my dress. “You can throw that under the table.”
I stand like a stone as the puzzle pieces come together in my head to form the bigger picture. The bikini. The ring. The signs.
Oh my God.
Panic slithers down my spine. He expects me to strut before all these leering eyes in a bikini? Of course he does. I’ve already been mortified beyond measure at school. This is the most degrading thing he could think of.
I’m not some piece of meat to be ogled. I’m a Cartwright, goddammit!
I swipe the goose bumps off my arms and turn my back to Jimbo in a huff. Drowning in humiliation, I slowly pull the dress over my head and drop it under the table. Two tiny triangles cover my breasts—one blue with stars and the other red and white stripes—and tie around my neck and back. The bottoms are the same, stripes in the front, stars in the back, strings swaying at my hips when I move. I pull out the sign marked with a black number one and hold it in front of me as a shield.
The lights shift, the colors changing from white to blue and red as the bass pumps deep in my chest. Jimbo’s voice roars on the loudspeaker. “Welcome to Mad Dog MMA’s Friday Night Fight!” He pauses as the crowd erupts. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got a powerhouse play for you tonight! An up-and-comer from Elite Gym, trained in the art of jiujitsu, weighing in at one hundred and eighty pounds, our blue corner competitor, Robbie ‘The Wrecker’ Rasmussin.” He holds the last syllable on his name as the lights shift to the corner of the room.
Robbie comes down the aisle, his fists pounding the air as if he’s trying to mutilate it. For a split second, I’m afraid he will. A shaved head gives way to a ruddy complexion. He’s massive. A mountain of thick muscle bulging from his stout frame. He treads to the ring and ducks in through the doorway before settling into his corner.
“And in the red corner, the defending champ! The all-time undisputed Mad Dog champion, standing six feet, one hundred and seventy pounds, Jace ‘The Wild One’ Wilder!”
The spectators leap from their seats. I wince at the sound of their brutal cheers as the spotlight catches Jace strutting from the back room. His hands raised in a V, he juts out his chin as if he’s the king approaching his subjects. And from where I’m standing, that’s exactly what he is. Local mixed martial arts royalty, climbing into the octagon, his glistening face twisted in a determined sneer.
Heat pools in my gut. I shake off the sudden onslaught of desire flooding my veins as Jimbo continues his spiel, but I can’t take my eyes off Jace. He glimmers in the light, his tanned skin taut over lean definition. He turns his head and catches my stare. A wry grin pulls at his lips, but I realize seconds too late that he’s not smiling at me. He’s mocking me because I missed my cue.
Scrambling into action, I hold the number up high and trot around the outside ledge. Pretending I’m at another modeling audition, I use my pageant training to saunter in a circle around the perimeter of the ring. I finish with a wink at Jace and scurry down just as the bell rings.
The two men go at each other like animals in the wild. Grunts and growls, blood and sweat. I’m glued to the energy, my mouth agape as Jace pummels The Wrecker into chopped meat, yet he refuses to fall. Jace connects each punch and blow as if it’s effortless. The way his muscles flex and ripple does something tomy insides that I refuse to let surface. Call it awe, but it’s more than that. It almost feels like … longing. Whatever it is, I need to keep those types of feelings buried deep, deep down inside me.
When the bell dings, they both return to their corners. Their coaches flutter around them, but I don’t have time to watch. I snatch the next card and do another twirl for the audience. I prance past Jace with my oversized number two as if I have no cares in the world. But my inflated confidence comes to a crashing halt when I slip on my heel and tumble from the height.
Lucky for me, strong arms break my fall.
I tilt my head back, coming face-to-face with my green-eyed savior. “I’ve had women fall for me before, but this is ridiculous.” He helps me to my feet but doesn’t take his hands from my body. They burn on my bare skin, hot like his smoldering gaze as he gifts me with a magnetic grin.
“That was embarrassing.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t think anybody saw.”
Nice of him to try, but everybody saw. I fell off the ledge like a buffoon, and I would have face planted if not for him.
I shuck away, staving off the warmth of his touch, but he doesn’t stick around. He turns back to his side—the blue side.
I swallow hard.Did I just have a moment with the enemy?
One quick look at Jace answers my question. His eyes bore into my knight in shining armor as if he wished death upon him. His gaze drifts toward me, and the scowl remains upon his lips as his chest rises and falls with each frantic breath.
The ringing bell brings me back to the present. Jace charges, a stampeding bull knocking his opponent off his feet. His back slams to the mat with a thud. He puts up one hell of a struggle, but Jace is agile and quick. He lands a right hook to Robbie's chin, followed by a strong uppercut. Blood spews like a geyser. His head bounces off the mat, but Jace doesn’t hold back. He pummels Robbie without mercy. When he wraps his armsaround Jace to stop the massive beating, Jace uses his shoulder to whale him in the face. It’s bone-crushing brutality, and I’m whimpering on bated breath as I watch it unfold.
Jace wraps his legs around his torso and hooks his arm around his neck, pinning him to the mat. The ref hits the ground, counting the seconds before calling it. Jace is the winner.
He stands tall, pumping his fists in the air before running toward the chain-link fence. He jumps, using it to fling him backward in a flip. People go nuts. Chants of "Jace" and "The Wild One" ripple about as they knock into other participants in the rambunctious crowd. The reverence pours out of them as if he’s a deity to be worshiped.
I reach for my dress and throw it over my head, but I can’t shake the feeling of eyes boring into my back. Green eyes and a set of dimples that could make even the hardest girl blush. “Hey.”
“Hi,” I reply with a shy grin. I run my fingers through my tangled tendrils and pull it over my shoulder, finger combing the waves.
“I didn’t get a chance to give you my name. I’m Troy.”
I slide my hand into his waiting palm. “Ellie.”