3. Champion
Chapter Three
CHAMPION
I dropped the last box on the floor of the extra room and surveyed my domain.
The place was small but clean, and it was close enough that I could walk to the school if I didn’t want to take my motorbike.
The highlight of this entire trip had been watching the adorable little blond dancing like no one was watching on her front porch.
I shouldn’t have let her catch me looking, but I wasn’t used to easily spooked kittens like her.
She was cute, the kind of cute that had probably had a steady boyfriend since second grade and was waiting to graduate from college for the happily-ever-after wedding.
The thought of marriage made me run a hand through my well-tousled locks.
Fine, they were a mess, but no one looked good after driving a U-Haul from Vegas to Alabama without some kind of filter.
A shower was what I needed. I grabbed my phone and went into the kitchen to sit at the bar on the stool that came with the place.
I should probably get some furniture, but who had time for that when they were trying not to gnaw off their foot to get it out of a trap?
I checked the odds on the next race Trix was in, down in Bolivia.
Girl didn’t know how to take a vacation.
Maybe that was her vacation, getting as far away from Horse as possible.
Someone rapped on the front door. Maybe it was the kitten bringing over a hospitable plate of cookies.
I would make time for any hospitability she had in mind, although I only had a mattress on the floor in the bedroom.
Did I remember sheets? I’d have to stop at a department store after my first day at school.
No, I didn’t have time for fun, even if it had been months since I’d been with a woman, ever since I’d been busy fighting red tape in a battle I couldn’t win.
I opened the door to stare at the younger version of me.
Daniel had arranged the housing for me, or for the Crocodile, but she was more ostentatious than this.
“Not up to my usual standards,” I said without preamble, taking the iPad out of his hand and opening it.
The file was up with pictures and basic statistics on each lucky debutante who my mother considered appropriate dating material for the heir to her House of Beasts.
It was beyond ridiculous that she’d backed me into this kind of corner, but a champion had to know when he was defeated, and my mother, behind every inch of red tape, had let me struggle for months before she let me know the price of my freedom.
Like a fool I’d taken it, gnawing off my own leg to be free of her jaws.
Daniel followed me into the kitchen, carrying a few bags of groceries. “It’s close to the school. It’s my personal rental, so don’t trash it. No brawls.”
I snorted and opened the yogurt. Daniel was more likely to lose his temper and get in a fight than I was. I didn’t fight unless I was paid for it. He had gone to school here, come to think of it. He was probably graduating with something respectable like a law degree.
I took a spoonful of pink creamy yogurt that reminded me of the girl next door.
What song had she been singing so loudly?
Something about burning the night away. She was a morning after kind of treat, breakfast and brunch, sunshine on white sheets, leisurely love-making that lasted for days and nights.
I hadn’t been so inspired to get sheets in ages.
Maybe it was my perverse nature since I was not here for fun and games, so that’s where my impulses directed me.
Happily, I hadn’t been a prisoner to my impulses for years.
Age and wisdom came eventually however misguided you began.
Daniel popped open a blueberry yogurt and took a bite with his white plastic spoon, the foil lid catching the morning sunshine. “What’s your timeline?”
“The season starts in October, so I have four weeks before I have to find someone who will agree to the conditions of the contract.”
“You can’t sleep with anyone else,” he said, licking the spoon. “You have to be monogamous for an entire six months, or the crocodile will rip you apart.”
I smiled at him, nice and easy, the kind of smile I gave an opponent before I ripped them apart.
Daniel knew that smile and returned it just as pleasantly.
My cousin shared my killer instinct and then some.
“I am aware of each meticulous detail of my mother’s generous offer.
But six months with one respectable woman, and she’s taking her hands off for good. It’s a sacrifice I can make.”
“It’s not a bad deal.”
I shrugged. I was thirty. Dating one woman for six months wouldn’t kill me.
If my mother thought that would somehow change me and turn me into a one-woman-fool she was insane and delusional.
She wanted a grandchild. It wasn’t because she had maternal instincts, but because of the super serum she didn’t want to see die with me.
I would have refused her, but she had a hand in every major agency in the US government and had shown me just a taste of her more benevolent control over my business, the one I made with my two fists in fighting ring after fighting ring.
I knew what she could do to my world if she wanted to be malicious, but I hadn’t expected plain old- fashioned obstruction and then the final straw, her showing up to my fight on my birth father’s arm, like they were at the opera.
I wasn’t unaware that without her ‘organization,’ things would have gone much worse after that last Three-Hundred.
I didn’t want her help, didn’t need it, but if she joined them against me, my team would be knocked off one by one, unless I took Horse’s offer of alliance, but then it would be war.
War with the House of Beasts meant serious casualties.
No one on my team would come out unscathed. It wasn’t an option.
If I chose one deb to spend six months with, then my mother would guarantee not interfering in my affairs for the rest of my life.
I needed that with more and more people relying on me for their bread.
Also, it felt like a challenge. Could I stay with one woman for six entire months?
Of course I could, I’d just never wanted to before. Why settle down when life is so short?
Because your mother said so.
I kept scrolling, pausing at a stunning brunette. “She looks good.”
“Maybe you should go for one of the plainer ones. They’re said to have character. Who knows, it might get addictive.”
I gave him a look then frowned at the brunette’s details.
So young. Twenty-three. Too young for my thirty.
I preferred experienced women who didn’t have any expectations, not that I’d had time or interest in that recently.
This wasn’t a one-night-stand I was engineering, but a civilized six months of dating.
I’d have to get her to agree to it, six months without any other men, which should be simple enough with money and connections to make it palatable, as long as it was very clear up front that this would not be a life-sentence.
Six months was long enough. Marriage was completely off the table.
The idea of marrying one of the sex related to my mother was absolutely terrifying.
“What’s your preference?” Daniel asked, peeling a grapefruit.
He’d stocked my fridge with such girly food.
Yogurt, fruit, bread, applesauce. Where was the beer?
Where were the pretzels? Not that I consumed alcohol outside of the occasional ‘having a good time’ photoshoot.
My body was a machine that I kept in top condition, but sometimes I did go on vacation.
I could be on a beach right now with some lazy drink, but no, I was enrolling in a college so I could meet the females and gauge their natures before committing.
It was my mother’s alma mater and now her precious son was finally going, if only for a month.
It made my skin crawl to make her happy, but it wouldn’t last long.
“For breakfast I like veggies and protein, maybe a shake with nut butters and berries. Good antioxidants in those.”
He tapped the tablet. “What kind of female is your type? Brunette, blonde, leggy, chesty?”
“Chesty? Please tell me you’ve never referred to a woman as ‘chesty’ before.”
“You didn’t answer my question so that I can help you narrow it down for you. I’m the lucky one who got to compile this dossier.”
“Lucky you. Trolling social media profiles of the Alabama debutantes must have been inspirational. Blondes.” I was thinking of the girl on the porch. She was just so bouncy, like a kitten all energy and zest. She would be fun in bed, not serious and dramatic, but fun like I hadn’t had in too long.
I glanced over at the door.
“Are you expecting someone?” he said drily, and then hit a folder that had them organized according to hair color. “You’ve got the natural blondes, the bottle blondes, and the in-between blondes, the ones who only lighten up a little.”
I stared at the psychopath and shook my head. He’d actually categorized the different kinds of blonde. “Wow. You’re disturbing.”
“You’re easily disturbed. You’re going to be late for your class if you don’t run. I imagine you want to take a shower before you start making an impression on the ladies.”
I rubbed his head, for some reason feeling like he needed some affection. He probably didn’t. He was bred to be a cold-blooded killer, like me, like my mother. “Such a good keeper. I hope my mother is paying you well.”
He flashed me a sharp smile that didn’t have the studied warmth he put on most of his smiles. “I am getting what I want.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Make sure you get everything she promises in writing with assets to back it up.
” I gave the iPad one last swipe to get to the end.
“Woah—” I stopped at a picture of the blond girl from this morning.
She had a dazzling smile that reached her eyes that was absolutely impossible not to return with interest.
“I don’t recommend that one,” Daniel said, tapping the stats on the side. “Twenty-two, so definitely too young for you, and no record of past boyfriends.”
“If you don’t recommend her, why is she on the list?”
“She has an uncle with an old respectable name, but they’re not currently speaking.”
I snorted. “As if I care about her status.”
“She’s not experienced with men. She might be a virgin.”
I froze and then took a steadying breath. I had a notorious fear of virgins that was downright ridiculous, but phobias weren’t ever rational. “Then she’d clearly capable of being monogamous for six months.”
“You’re saying that you could be celibate?”
“Sure. I like women well enough, but the only thing I can’t live without is fighting.”
He held his breath for a moment before he nodded. “Sometimes I forget what you really are. You put on a good show, but you don’t have a reputation as someone who hurts women.”
“It’s not just a reputation. I don’t. I’ve never even hit my mother back.
I’m not just a product of my genetics and upbringing, but I am a free soul.
I choose the kind of man I am, and it’s not the kind who hurts the weak.
I’ve worked hard to be someone that can look at in the mirror and not see his parents.
” That was an understatement. It was particularly difficult considering how much I looked like my mother, down to the icy blue eyes.
“You’ve never given a woman bruises, even the kind of woman who likes it rough?”
I put my arm around his shoulder and squeezed a little too tight. “I don’t play to people’s psychological disorders. No one likes pain unless they’ve already been hurt too much. If you’re hurting women, I’m going to have to hurt you.”
He shoved off my arm. “Beating someone who doesn’t fight back gives me no pleasure. You don’t have time to brawl. You’ve got to get to class.” He held up a set of keys.
“What’s this?” I asked, taking them from him.
“It’s an old Chevy. It’s already set up with a parking pass at the school.
You did say that you wanted to go incognito so you could find out who the women really are before you let them know who the lucky winner is.
Maybe you’re just going to sleep with all of them and see which one you’d rather keep for six months. ”
I ignored that last part. That sounded like work, rehearsing girls for sex?
No. I wasn’t going to turn me or any of them into a prostitute.
There was too much of that in Vegas. “Who at this school is broke enough for an old Chevy?” I liked nice trucks.
I liked new trucks, not falling apart dinosaurs held together by twine and prayers.
But I was here as a nice nondescript student, not as Nix Death-Hammer, champion of the off-road mixed-martial for the past ten years.
“Several students are here on scholarships, and some are here because a rich relative paid, but that generosity isn’t all-inclusive. The blond you pointed out, the cute one without any kind of experience, is in that position.”
“She also lives two doors down. Too bad she’s on the list.”
“Why’s that? You don’t want her to see the comings and goings of your paramours?”
I frowned at him. “Because I thought maybe I’d have a little fun before I got down to business, but you’re right, I’m not here for fun.”
I headed for the shower, a cold shower. Daniel could see himself out.