9. Knight
Chapter Nine
KNIGHT
Isuccessfully avoided her for a week. She was at the fight on Monday, but I didn’t make eye contact, and I didn’t stay at the afterparty where she was wearing her typical leather dress. She looked way too good in leather.
I needed to avoid her until I could get the feel of her off my hands, the taste of her off my tongue, and everything else about her off my mind.
I couldn’t afford to give in to my natural obsessive tendencies, not when it had the capacity to destroy the one perfect thing in this world.
I had to protect her from myself, first and foremost.
I’d forgotten that was an issue when she was so good at protecting herself.
I’d taken advantage of her in the elevator.
I needed to apologize, but it was better if she just stayed away from me.
I made it easy for her, taking meals in my room and generally avoiding everything that wasn’t strictly business.
And then Saturday morning, a week after the elevator, the front gate called me. The front gate never called me. I had people who dealt with deliveries and stalkers, and whatever else I didn’t have time to worry about.
I was in my office, in my suit, having a nice video conference with a group of businessmen whom I was carefully maneuvering towards an excellent real estate deal in Singapore.
I never should have gotten involved in real estate so far away, but I had to keep my mind occupied so it didn’t spiral in useless directions. Like the feel of Trixie against me.
“Excuse me for a moment.” I muted the group and then took the call.
Herman was big and capable of focusing on the tedium of his very essential job while blocking out everything else. “Boss, you’ve got a visitor.”
Someone from my other world wouldn’t be at my compound. Someone from my MMR world wouldn’t knock on my gate. I pulled down the feed to check out the visitor Herman didn’t know what to do with.
Trixie was on my bike, wearing a blue coverall and looking like she was here to take my already conquered heart. That wasn’t part of the plan; in fact, it was the anti-plan. But like I could resist. I couldn’t resist. That’s why this was such a bad idea.
She’d come to my compound to see me, and I was wearing a suit?
I slammed the lid of my laptop closed and sprinted out of my office, across the gravel to the fight tank.
Once there, I stripped in record time, pulling on a pair of black shorts lying on the bench, ignoring the tight fit, and then hurried past the rest of the crew until I got to the ring. I climbed in and then stopped abruptly.
No one was in the ring with me. And Trixie was going to come here and see me standing alone in the ring like an idiot.
“Boss?” Jerome asked, like I usually trained from five-thirty in the morning until seven-thirty, and I never broke schedule. Because I did.
I gestured to him into the ring. “Yeah. We’re doing a spontaneous sparring practice. I noticed my extension was hampered in the last big fight, so let’s work on that.”
He slowly took off his shirt and shoes, and Pixel handed both of us gloves. Right. Anything else I was forgetting? Pixel handed us mouthguards too. Right.
“Your extension? What does that mean?” Jerome asked with a dark scowl that some called psychotic.
I swung at him. I needed to get sweaty and look like I’d been doing this instead of business before Trixie showed up.
Except that I hadn’t told Herman to let her in.
I’d just run. I didn’t even hang up the phone.
Maybe she’d go away. That was probably for the best. Definitely for the best. If she came here, I’d never be able to not see her here.
She’d haunt the gym like she haunted my elevator.
Jerome slugged me across my face, bringing my focus back into the ring, at least until I heard the growl of my bike outside the fight tank.
Why was she here? Did she need something?
Maybe someone had died, and she wanted me to avenge her!
Or she wanted to sue me for kissing her. Or she wanted to kiss me again.
A cross hit me before I got my gloves up. I was sloppy, so sloppy. And then Jerome nailed me in the gut, sending me to the mat.
Applause came from outside the ring. I slowly sat up and cautiously looked over to see Trixie Dragon O’Hara in her coveralls, with a polite smile on her mouth. In my gym.
“What are you doing here?” I gasped, mostly because Jerome had knocked the breath out of me, but also, the dragon was in my gym. Was it up to her exacting standards?
She unlaced her boots, kicked them off, and then climbed up into the ring with me. I was still on the ground. She looked very tall from this position. Also luscious and ripe. She held out a hand to me, while I stared at her, at it, at her.
She huffed and reached down, grabbed my hand, and hauled me to my feet. I was bigger than her by a good deal, but she could still push me around. I liked that so much. Almost as much as her hand against mine, her firm grip intentional and direct. What was she doing in my castle fortress?
“I brought back your bike.” She glanced around at the avid audience who tried not to look like they were watching us and pulled her hand out of mine. Sadness. The world wept. “I tuned it up, like I said I would.”
“Oh. That makes sense. You could have parked it at Providence, then it wouldn’t have been so far out of your way.” I should stop staring at her. The mat. Much better. Except that her feet were bare. Her toes were so cute. Curvy. Pretty.
“It’s no bother.” She shifted her feet and crossed her arms. “So…thanks for not pressing charges. I’m sorry about the whole assault thing. Also grand theft.”
She whirled around to go, but I caught her arm, strong, soft, irresistible even beneath the loose coverall fabric.
“Trixie, why would I ever press charges against you?” And then I remembered her pressing against me in the elevator.
I couldn’t breathe. I just stared at her and she stared back for way too long. Not nearly long enough.
“Why wouldn’t you?” she finally said. “You have video proof of my…” She bit her luscious bottom lip, and I had a memory that had me blinking and stepping away from her.
Oh. Someone must have posted a video of us kissing.
Of her kissing me. I made a point not to look at videos of Trix, but of her kissing me?
It would be so hard to resist. “As far as I’m concerned, it was just promo for the coming season.
Also,” I murmured, moving close so I could whisper and not be overheard by every single person in the fight cage who was trying to pretend they weren’t listening.
“I assaulted you first. I’m sorry about that.
Sincerely. It won’t happen again. You can steal my bike, my bed, and my shorts, but I won’t be stealing anything from you again. ”
She cocked her head and studied me. “What about a tablespoon of sugar?”
My mind spun aimlessly while I tried to unravel that statement. “Sugar?” Oh, yes. They didn’t call me the mastermind for nothing.
“I have a recipe I’m working on. I’m short a tablespoon or two of sugar. Maybe I could steal some from you.”
I blinked at her. “Sugar? For cooking? You cook?”
She rolled her eyes and propped one fist on her perfect hip. “Yeah. I cook. Mostly Italian. Since we’re neighbors, I’d like to borrow some sugar.”
“Right. Sure. You can come up to my apartment and borrow some sugar.” Did I have sugar in my apartment?
I didn’t cook. I’d gone through a phase, but I’d only learned a few basics.
Like crème of tartar and mollusks. Or something.
I’d get sugar. I’d stop by the store as soon as she was gone.
I’d stock up on all the possible cooking ingredients.
How many could there be? When did she need the stuff?
“When—” I started, but it came out a croak.
I cleared my throat and tried again, to be the late-night DJ that no woman could resist. No, I was her neighbor.
She wanted to be neighborly. Borrow sugar.
Or steal it. Whatever she wanted. What did I know about neighbors?
What was that show? Won’t you be my neighbor…
Something about sweaters. I could get some sweaters, something cozy.
We could hang out. We could wear matching sweaters.
“When do you want to come over?” I asked, trying to sound like I wasn’t five seconds away from a brain hemorrhage. Pretty sure I failed.
She shrugged. “Just whenever. If you’re not there when I drop by, don’t worry about it.”
I was spending the next hundred years in my apartment, worrying about it. “You could text me first. Make sure I don’t have socks on the floor.” I’d never drop another sock for the rest of my life.
“I don’t have your number,” she said with a small frown between her brows.
Was not having my number a cause for sorrow? The heavenly choruses opened up and started singing. Focus. I cleared my throat. “Right. Well, you could text Nix, and he could text me.”
She sighed heavily and pulled out her phone. “Put it in.”
I stared at her phone while my entire memory was replaced with this moment.
She was letting me put my number in her phone.
No, she was telling me to put my number in her phone.
What was my number? I had absolutely no idea, because what were numbers when she was waiting for me to imprint my soul into her device?
“I can’t remember,” I said, wincing inwardly as hard as I possibly could.
“Oh. Well, when you grab your phone, you can send me a photo or something, and then I can text you.” She pulled out a pen and grabbed my hand, then proceeded to write on me like we were in third grade.
I imagine. I always had private tutors before I went to the boarding school for other stupidly wealthy young men.
I should have gone to third grade so that Trixie could write her numbers on me for years.
How many numbers had she had in her lifetime? I wanted all of them.