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  So what the fuck am I doing?

  I shake my head and stare at the grocery bags. Ah, well. Too late now. I'm not getting laid anymore and a man has to eat.

  I'm making pretty much the only thing I know how to make, my ma's lasagna with rolls from the store and a salad on the side, when Savannah stumbles in, mid-yawn.

  "Oh, hi" she says, stretching as she slides her backpack off her shoulders and holds it by the top strap. "Whatever you're making, it smells amazing."

  "Thanks. I'm just whipping up some dinner," I say, "It should be ready in about fifteen minutes. Care to join me? There's plenty to share."

  "Really? That would be awesome, I'm starving!" Savannah tucks some hair behind her ear. "I'll just take a quick shower and then I'll help set the table."

  "So I take it the interview went well?" I ask.

  "Yeah!" Her face lights up with a huge, beautiful smile. "I got the job!"

  "Congratulations!" I'm still fighting not to think of her in the shower and how much I'd like to be with her in there. Though then we'd need more than fifteen minutes before dinner...

  "Thanks," she says, then shifts on her feet a little awkwardly and really adorably. "Okay, well, I'm going to go shower now..."

  "Have fun," I say. I can't keep the wicked gleam out of my eye and the cute blush that spreads across her face makes it so worth it.

  I enjoy the view a little too much for my own good as she leaves the room. Damn, those toned legs meet that perfectly curvy ass in the most ridiculously sexy way. If only those cutoffs weren't in the way.

  By the time she's out of the shower, dressed—unfortunately—and back in the kitchen to set the table, I'm pulling the lasagna out of the oven. It actually looks pretty good.

  She sets the table in silence, though I catch her stealing glances at me now and then. The air is charged and, by the rate at which she's blushing, I know she feels it, too.

  If she weren't my roommate, I would throw caution to the wind and forget about how bad an idea it would be to get involved with a girl who's as much of a mystery, and intentionally so, as this one. My big head is clearly not the one in charge of my desires at the moment, and all I want is to pick her up by her pretty little waist, throw her down on the table that she's in the middle of setting, pull down her cutoffs to reveal that perfect ass, and give her the proper fucking I've been wanting to since I first saw her.

  Instead, I eat dinner with her. We eat in near silence for a few minutes, interrupted only by her saying thanks and raving about how good the lasagna is. It's nice to see a girl with an appetite, for once. She's slim, but not a twig, and she likes enjoying her food. Unlike the girls I usually eat with, she doesn't poke around at her food or try to act like salad is the only thing she sees on the table. She takes a healthy serving of both the salad and lasagna and eats freely and unselfconsciously. She's a woman who knows how to enjoy herself.

  That's not a good train of thought to go down, though, and I know it. So though we're eating in companionable, perfectly comfortable silence, I finally break it. Mostly to drown out my own thoughts and keep them from going places they shouldn't, like under her clothes.

  We chat about her work. She tells me about her position as all around lackey, referring to it somewhat self-deprecatingly, but I can see her pride. It lights up her face with energy and ambition in an incredibly appealing way. She asks me about my fighting, teasing that she has heard about me from co-workers. The raised eyebrow and sassy smile she gives me turn me on.

  It's getting to be a somewhat uncomfortable dinner for me, since I'm not getting the release that every look and smile and move of hers makes me need more and more, but it's also so enjoyable that I make myself deal with the growing discomfort from my increasingly tight pants. Savannah gives it right back to me; I haven't been challenged like this since the early days with Sarah. Savannah's laugh is like music. I can't help but smile when I hear it and I find myself wanting to make her do it again and again.

  There's something about this girl.

  After dessert—slices of a shared chocolate cake that I picked up from the bakery aisle of the grocery store because women like chocolate—Savannah and I clear the table. She gets started washing the dishes while I wipe down the table, and I pause for a moment to admire her beautiful figure. She's humming a little to herself, under her breath, and gently swaying her head from side to side, her shiny hair swishing across her back.

  I bring the sponge back up to the sink just as she's turning to put a plate in the drying rack. She gives a little 'oh' of surprise and almost stumbles. Reflexively, I reach out to steady her.

  And then she's mere inches from me, my hands on her arms, holding her up. She smells lightly of something sweet and floral and delicious. She looks up at me, eyes wide and beautiful, rimmed by dark lashes and set in her perfect face. Her lips are slightly parted and I look at them just a moment too long. It's hard to pull my look away and we get even closer for a moment, as our bodies take control and draw us together.

  Then it's like a switch flicks in her brain or she has suddenly remembered something. She breaks away from me, drops the plate in the drying rack, and runs out of the kitchen. I hear her door slam shut behind her.

  I can't figure this girl out. Worse, I care.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Savannah

  The door slams shut behind me, making the thin walls around it shake a bit. I lean back against the door and slide down it, like I'm barring someone from entering my room. It's an absolutely ridiculous gesture, because the only thing that is endangering me at the moment is myself and my pent-up libido. Eighteen years of chastity, eighteen years of purity, eighteen years of never giving in to impulse or desire. Eighteen years of self-restraint that I just almost threw away for a tall fighter with piercing blue eyes and hair that's just the right kind of shaggy.

  I'm breathing hard, like I just ran ten miles, but exercise isn't why my heart is pounding the way it is in my chest. My whole body feels alive and I'm pulsing with lust, longing, and just plain curiosity. I'm curious about what else is out there. What is sex, this forbidden fruit, like? What would it be like to feel Cooper's hard cock move inside me?

  I blush at the thought, but it's thrilling all the same.

  And then there's the longing. For those brief moments in the kitchen right after Cooper steadied me, when I was no longer unbalanced but Cooper was still holding me firmly in his hands, I felt safe. It makes no sense to feel safe with someone who is such a danger to me by mere virtue of his gender and attractiveness. It makes even less sense to feel safe with someone as renowned for his bachelor ways, and habit of hopping from woman to woman, as Cooper seems to be. But somehow I felt safe with him, against all logic and against all reason. I felt safer than I have felt in years.

  I felt like I could just be myself and that was enough. I didn't need to be Savannah Santos, daughter of Flint Santos and future Mrs. Nate Moreno. I could just be Savannah, a young woman finding her way in the world with a dream and a sketchpad and a heart full of desire.

  Still, even though my feelings make no sense, I wish I could give in to them. I wish I could ignore the fact that it would be unacceptably irresponsible to entangle Cooper, an innocent bystander to my life, in the mess that getting involved with me would be. If I feel anything for the handsome man who gave me a ride to work and cooked me dinner, even anything as minimal as basic human respect, I owe him the decency of staying far, far away from him.

  So instead of opening my door and going back to the kitchen to finish what I almost started, I close my eyes and indulge myself in an imaginary world where I'm Savannah Quin, Cooper isn't a total player, and we can be together. I pull my shirt over my head and unhook my bra, cupping my bare breasts in my hands as I gently massage my nipples and pretend that my hands are Cooper's. I take a hand off of one of my breasts to slide into my pants, instead, and then into my underwear. As I rub my clit, I pretend that I'm rubbing myself against the length of Cooper's stiff erection.r />
  I can't risk losing my virginity, because the motorcycle club board goons would definitely check the wedding bed of a motorcycle club princess after her wedding night, so the rest is pure imagination without manual simulation. Eyes still closed, I keep playing with my clit as I imagine Cooper thrusting his erection deep inside my soaking wet pussy and filling me like no man ever has before. That thought sends me over the edge and soon after I come, I fall into a deep and blissful sleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cooper

  I'm pretty sure Vlad can tell something is up the next day at morning training, but he doesn't say anything. It's a fight day so I need to focus, and dredging up subconscious shit isn't going to help me do that. Besides, Vlad knows I'm not some punk and know how to channel my energy towards a singular goal. From my time as a SEAL, I have an unusual ability to hyper-focus and zone in on my target.

  Tonight, it's this punk-ass, rich kid boxer. This kid, Nate, isn’t even in my league, but he’s between leagues at the moment. No one in his own league will fight him anymore, because they’re beat before they even step into the ring, but no higher organizations would sign him yet. He has to prove his worth; that’s the way it works in MMA fighting, no matter who your daddy is. Anyway, the kid got lucky because my original opponent for tonight’s fight, last year's second place fighter, was an absolute idiot and got himself shot in a bar brawl. The loser doped like nobody’s business. Anyway, it’s no surprise that his brain was too fried to avoid getting shot right before the big tournament. A real man doesn't need steroids and supplements. A real man works for his victories and wins them through the strength of his body and the force of his mind alone.

  Since my original opponent couldn’t fight, and he got himself taken out too close to the match for the league to reschedule, so someone else could fight me, they need someone from another organization to step in for the fight. Giving Nate a shot was better than just canceling the fight entirely. Too much money was already out there in sold tickets and bets and the fans are already all riled up.

  But I’ve seen tape on the kid. He throws a decent punch, but he has no follow-up. He goes all out in the first couple of minutes and then he's flat for the rest of the fight. His moves are also as predictable as thunder after lightning. Don’t get me wrong—the kid definitely isn't bad. After all, no one in his own league stands a chance against him. But I’m in a different league and, even in my own league, I'm the king of the ring. I'm coming back up for another win this season, to add to my record-setting streak of seven tournament wins in a row. All in all, I'm not concerned about the punk.

  Besides, this isn't even a tournament match. There are no gloves, no fancy equipment or playbacks, and no complex rules. The only rule is that you don't kill your opponent—or at least try not to—but beyond that, you can throw any kind of punch, make any kind of jab, and launch any kind of attack. This sort of teaser match, just man versus man, is to get the fans hyped up for the tournament fights, and preview some of the match fighter pairings, so that the crowds are going crazy before the first official fight even starts. It's the primal stuff that gets them going, whether it's the men wanting to see two dudes pummel the shit out of each other with skill or the women wanting to see the men use their brute strength in the most primitive, animalistic way.

  But when you get cocky is when you fail, so I never go down that road. I fight every match like I'm up against myself.

  By the time I'm in the ring, the shouts of the crowd are surging for the start of the match, and Nate is standing across from me. I've successfully blocked the Savannah part of my thoughts off with a tight seal. I'm back in my element. The high-pitched screams of the crazed women, cheering ‘Veni Vidi Vici!’ and trying to fling themselves closer to the ring and closer to us, are a familiar soundtrack. The extra energy I have from missing my usual Thursday night bang yesterday is all in my fists as the clock starts and Nate and I start throwing punches.

  To my surprise, it's a better match than I expected. Nate has clearly been working hard since the taped fights I watched. He's blocking more, dodging more, throwing harder punches, and mixing up his moves a little. That's not to say that he's any real threat. I keep the lead all throughout the match, but the kid has come far and is rising to the occasion. It's like he has something to prove.

  The men are a mixed crowd, half roaring with adrenaline and half tight-lipped with anxiety. There's always a lot of money riding on the matches, even these pre-tournament underground ones that aren't officially sanctioned. Maybe even especially these, because they're fights without rules or regulations. These fights are all about the strength and skill of man alone.

  The women aren't divided like the men. The plain, good girl types, the foxy man-eater types, and the seasoned groupies alike are all going crazy. Somewhere in my peripheral vision a bra goes flying through the air, but it means nothing to me. This is my life, this what I do, and this is what I know.

  I win, though by a smaller margin than expected and after putting in significantly more work than against the lower-ranked fighters in my league. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone signs him straight out of the ring and they schedule a rematch for us later in the tournament. When we shake hands, the kid looks me straight in the eyes and nods at me like we're equals, instead of just holding his head and grimacing, like some defeated fighters do. There's something hard in his face. I don't know what it is, but the kid has developed some new chip on his shoulder in the past few months.

  My SEAL training makes me take note of all of this and my fighter instinct, encouraging me to learn all that I can about my opponent, makes me immediately try to figure out how these changes could affect me. It's not a big concern, however. He is still far from my toughest opponent, even if he does get signed and join this league, and I'm not threatened.

  I see him shortly after, sneaking into the locker rooms with a cheap Malibu Barbie type. Not my type and definitely a little more trashy than necessary, but she's also not entirely unattractive and the care Nate takes to look around and move quietly, looking like he's hiding the girl, seems a little excessive. Or maybe he has a girlfriend and Malibu Barbie isn't her?

  Not my business.

  "So, Cooper." Vlad greets me by my locker with a big bottle of an electrolyte-balanced sports drink and a fresh towel. He doesn't finish his sentence, just raises his eyebrows at me.

  I don't take the bait, and instead just glug from the bottle of sports drink. After a little while of that, after which Vlad gets that I'm not saying anything of my own volition, he continues.

  "What was that all about?" he asks.

  "What was what all about?" I ask. I know what he means.

  "Is it still the girl?" Vlad asks, ignoring my pointless deflector question. "Who is this chick?"

  "I don't know, man," I say, pulling my sweat-drenched shirt over my head and starting to unwrap my knuckles. "She's something else."

  "She must be," says Vlad, looking bemused. "I haven't seen you like this before."

  I shake my head. "She's just my roommate. Don't get any of your big ideas."

  "So, the usual?" asks Vlad. "Get in, get off, get out?"

  I bristle. I don't like him talking about her like that. "Can we talk about something that matters?" I say. "Like what happened to that kid, Nate?"

  "Surprised you, didn't he?" Vlad is finally off the subject. There's nothing that he would rather talk about or think about than fighting strategy. "The little punk has been working hard. That's why we never get complacent. There’s already talk of a rematch for you guys later in the tournament. Two trainers are arguing over who gets him right now."

  "Yes, sir," I say. "So, the deal?"

  "You know I don't like gossip," Vlad starts. I raise an eyebrow. You wouldn't think it looking at him, since he's such a tough guy, but Vlad likes little more than to know everything about everyone. It makes sense from a strategic standpoint, but it's still an entertaining contradiction with his impersonal presentation to those who
don't know him well. Vlad continues, "That Nate kid, whose face you were pounding a few minutes ago, is the golden boy of motorcycle club king Salvador Moreno."

  "A prince of the streets?" I smirk. It sure didn't help him win his fight.

  "Aye," nods Vlad, "But a troubled one. After the last big gang war between the Morenos and their rivals, the Santoses, they called a truce by promising that their children would marry. And apparently his little miss to be ran off not too long before the wedding."

  "Couldn't keep her satisfied?" I ask. Then I remember the girl I saw earlier. "So I'm guessing she's not Malibu Barbie, then? Huh, maybe that's why. The kid needs to learn to keep it in his pants if he wants to wife that."

  "This, coming from you?" Vlad laughs.

  "Hey!" I protest. "I don't want to wife anyone. What I do works for me." I say it a little less confidently than usual, which is ridiculous. Of course I don't.

  Vlad shrugs. "If he can't find his fiancee and get her back by October sixth at midnight, word has it that the biggest, deadliest gang war yet will break out between the Morenos and Santoses on October seventh."

  "What's then?" I ask.

  "That's exactly two months after the wedding was supposed to happen, on the girl's eighteenth birthday," Vlad says. "All I can say is that I'm sure as hell glad I'm not that kid right now."

  "Hell, yeah." I shake my head. "It's no wonder he's been training harder. I would, too, to get my mind off of all that."

  Vlad gives me another look. "You already are, and all it took was some cute

  girl."

  "Don't complain," I say, "You want me to train hard, don't you?"

  "I'm not complaining," Vlad says, putting his hands up, "I'm just surprised, that's all."

  I head off for a shower without a response. Hell, I'm surprised, too.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Savannah

  Cooper and I settle into a surprisingly comfortable pattern of friendly conversation and amiable company over the next few days. It's pretty painfully obvious, at least to me, that we're ignoring the elephant in the room—our chemistry—but Cooper doesn't push me or try to start anything beyond friendship, because he can tell that I'm holding back.