Below the Belt (13 page)

By the time the first round bell sounded, Cooper calculated that Jamie was ahead on points, but only just.

This was going to be a close fight unless one of the women scored a knockout punch. He was in the ring beside Jamie in seconds, pushing her onto the stool. He accepted her mouthpiece and washed it out, then reached for the No-Swell and began to press it across her cheekbones.

“You’re doing great. Keep riling her. Every time she gets angry, she wastes a lot of energy and she gets stupid.”

Jamie nodded. She squirted water into her mouth then spat into the bucket. She had the beginnings of a bruise coming up on her left cheekbone, and a small cut on her lower lip. He cleaned the cut and slicked more Vaseline on as she sucked in big lungfuls of air.

“She’s fast. And sneaky,” she said.

“Dirty. But we knew that about her already,” he said. With Vandenburg training her, there were no surprises. “Keep moving, keep popping up under her guard.”

Their time was nearly up. He pushed her guard back into her mouth. Their eyes locked for a brief moment. He hoped like hell she couldn’t see how much he wanted to sling her over his shoulder and drag her out of there.

I should have walked away.

He knew it with absolute clarity. He wasn’t doing himself or Jamie any favors, feeling so torn when all his focus should be on keeping her in the zone and giving her the feedback and advice she so desperately needed.

The ref signaled. Cooper slipped back through the ropes, sliding the stool out after him. Arthur took the bucket and stool from him, placing them at the ready for the end of the next round.

The bell rang and Liana came after Jamie with ferocious zeal, working her into a corner as she slammed punches into her shoulders, head, belly. The crowd surged to its feet, excited by the strong attack. Vandenburg crowed from the opposite corner. Cooper kept his focus on Jamie, willing her to stay strong. To endure.

Jamie slipped a shot in under the other woman’s guard, then danced away. Liana came at Jamie again, her arms a blur of muscled motion as she struck and struck and struck. Again Jamie was driven into the corner.

Cooper wanted to look away but he couldn’t let Jamie down just to spare himself.

Jamie let fly with another quick, fast shot, this time to Liana’s belly. The other woman looked momentarily outraged that Jamie had once again gotten beneath her guard.

Dancing back to the center of the ring, Jamie grinned around her mouth guard and gestured toward Liana:
Come on, is that all you got?

The crowd loved it. They were on their feet again, hollering their approval.

All finesse was forgotten as Liana stalked toward Jamie, shoulders bunched, head down low. Furious, she swung out at Jamie, and once again they wound up in the corner, Jamie trying to protect herself as best she could.

Liana was ahead on points by the time the bell sounded and Jamie came back to her corner.

Cooper squatted in front of her and held her chin with his hand to make sure he had her attention. Jamie’s gaze focused on him, tired but determined. God, she was tough.

He waited while she rinsed and spat.

“How’s your wind?” he asked.

She nodded, despite the fact she was gasping for air. “I’m okay.”

“Good. You need to keep her moving, wear her out. She’s not as fit as you. You can break her.”

Jamie nodded again.

He shot a glance at the ref. It was time to let her go again. He wanted to say something, do something that would win the fight for her, save her all the pain that was yet to come.

But it wasn’t his fight to win.

He slipped out of the ring as the bell rang. Once again both women came out fighting. They exchanged a flurry of blows. Jamie worked hard to outmaneuver her opponent, her feet a blur of motion as she danced around her. Liana tracked her around the ring, her chest heaving like a bellows, her gaze never wavering from her target. Then Jamie feinted with a left, and before she could move in with her right, Liana let fly with the whistling uppercut that had KO’d so many of her previous opponents. Jamie turned with it, tried to deflect it with her forearm. The other woman’s glove smacked into the side of her jaw. Her eyes closed. Cooper braced himself to rush into the ring. Was she going down?

Jamie didn’t fall. Instead, she stepped
toward
her opponent in a counterintuitive move that confused Liana and made her shuffle backward. Jamie delivered a sizzling haymaker with her right, the punch taking forever to swing around before slamming into the other woman’s jaw with a resounding smack.

Liana’s head lolled on her neck. Her knees buckled. Then she hit the canvas, out cold.

The ref bent over her, checking her eyes. He signaled with his hands that she was out. The crowd went crazy, yelling at the top of their lungs, chanting Jamie’s name. Cooper dove for the ring. He slid between the ropes and scooped her into his arms, lifting her high.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and punched the air. She threw her head back, sweat spraying off her in glistening beads.

He’d won four championship bouts in his career, but no victory had ever felt as sweet. He’d wanted this for her so bad—both because he’d wanted the danger to be over, and because it meant so much to her.

They were both laughing and grinning like idiots. Then Arthur was there beside her. Cooper relinquished his grip on her. He watched as she hugged her grandfather, her face flushed with exertion and triumph.

The next few minutes passed in a blur as her win was officially announced and the crowd roared for her again. On their way back to the change room, Jamie was stopped by two different news crews for comments. She shrugged them off, refusing to feed them when they’d been prepared to tear her apart earlier. Then they were in her change room, the three of them high on relief and excitement.

Jamie was bright-eyed as she bounced from foot to foot, still hyped from the fight.

“I thought she had me that second time on the ropes,” she said.

Cooper threw a towel around her shoulders and went to work on the tape holding her glove laces secure.

“She’s a slugger, that’s for sure. But she doesn’t think enough. All power, no brain,” he said, tugging the laces free.

“God, I feel so good.”

Life didn’t offer up many moments of pure triumph like this. He knew firsthand how high she was feeling right now. As though she could take on the world, all the aches and pains and bruises forgotten for a moment as she reveled in her victory.

Cooper tugged her gloves off, then grabbed her hands to keep them still as he unwound the tape protecting her knuckles.

“You get in the shower, and we’ll go celebrate,” Arthur said. He was grinning, fit to bust.

“Hell, yeah,” Jamie said. She pulled away from Cooper’s grip to kiss her grandfather again. “Let’s go paint the town red.”

Arthur slipped out the door into the corridor to offer Jamie privacy while she changed. Cooper reached for her hands again.

“Let me finish up and you can get in the shower,” he said.

He could feel the energy vibrating through her as she watched him unwrap her hands.

“You think I’ll have trouble getting another fight after this?”

“Are you kidding? Any female fighter with an ego is going to be lining up to try to knock down Jack Sawyer’s daughter. Especially now that you’ve had such a splashy debut.”

He was acutely aware of the heat coming off her body, the mingled scent of her clean sweat and deodorant and the massage oil he’d used on her earlier.

He felt an overwhelming desire to bury his face in her neck and suck her essence into his lungs. She infuriated him, she aroused him, she bemused him. Watching her get hit had been hell. Now he felt her joy, her triumph. He was so proud of her, so
damned
proud of her….

“Did you see the look she got in her eye when I popped that first shot under her guard? I thought she was going to pound me into the ground,” Jamie said, her eyes unfocused and distant.

He’d denied himself last night, he’d been denying himself for weeks on end. He needed to hold her. To be with her. To be a part of her, even just for a few aching seconds.

He tossed the tape to one side and reached for her, sliding his hands up her neck and onto her skull so he could hold her head still as he lowered his mouth to hers. Her mouth opened beneath his hungrily and her tongue slid over his. She angled her head to allow him greater access. He could feel her whole body pounding with the force of her ramped-up heartbeat. His body was buzzing, too, from a heady mix of triumph, relief and desire.

Growling low in his throat, he backed her up until she was pressed against the cool tile wall. He reached for the lower edge of her sports crop. He had her out of her chest guard and bra in seconds, and he lowered his head to taste her, lick her, bite her. She started to lose it, grinding against him as she anticipated what was going to come next.

He pushed his hands inside the wide elastic on her fighting trunks and shoved them toward the floor, along with her underwear. Then he hooked one of her long legs over his hip. His mouth devoured hers as he slid a questing hand into the slick heat between her thighs. She was wet and ready for him. Her whole body quivered as he pressed the flat of his palm against her.

“Cooper,” she whispered desperately.

He was way ahead of her. He unbuckled his belt, then popped his button fly open.

Within seconds his rock-hard cock was pressed against her belly. He took care of protection, his hands shaking. Then he hitched her a little higher and guided himself between her thighs. He entered her with one long, powerful thrust. She gasped and closed her eyes.

“I have dreamed of this every night,” she said, so low he almost couldn’t hear her.

He began to move. He closed his eyes, reveling in how tight and hot she felt, how slickly their bodies moved together, how passionately she held him with her thighs and her strong arms.

“Yes,” she whispered, her head thrown back. “Yes, Cooper.”

It was so good, she was so good, he couldn’t hold on. He gripped her hips and encouraged her to lift her other leg from the ground. He took her full weight as she wrapped both legs around him and locked her ankles behind his back. He pounded into her, teeth gritted, eyes closed, his whole body straining toward pleasure.

She was so beautiful, so brave, so sexy, so damned hot. The way her body gripped his, the slippery slide of her, the taste and smell and feel of her.

His climax slammed into him like a fist. He opened his eyes and stared at her as he poured himself into her. She was caught between agony and ecstasy as she rode her own orgasm. He squeezed her butt cheeks hard as he pumped one last time into her, feeling her inner muscles tightening again and again around him as they came simultaneously.

For a few seconds afterward there was nothing but the sound of their harsh breathing in the change room. He rested his forehead against hers. She was trembling. He loosened his grip and withdrew from her, letting her legs slide to the ground.

Jamie’s silver eyes were dark with satisfaction when he looked at her.

“That’s what you get for holding out last night,” she said, reaching out to cup him in her hand.

Because he was a man, and because he was staring at the sexiest woman he’d ever met, his cock immediately began to harden all over again.

She smiled a self-satisfied little smile. He started to respond when the door to the change room squeaked. He had just enough presence of mind to drag his jeans up over his bare butt and thrust a towel at Jamie before her grandfather stuck his head around the door.

“Shake a tail feather, Jimmy. This old man’s hanging out for a beer,” Arthur said before he saw them. Shock hit his features, followed quickly by a wave of color.

There was a moment of silent tension. Then Arthur cast Cooper a dark, disapproving look. He stepped backward without a word, letting the door fall shut behind him.

“Shit,” Cooper said. He dragged his jeans together and buttoned his fly.

Jamie’s cheeks were pink. She wrapped the towel around her body, tucking in the end between her breasts.

“Okay, that was embarrassing, but since this seems to keep happening, he was bound to find out sometime,” she said.

Cooper buckled his belt.

“I can only imagine what he’s thinking right now,” he said.

He’d only known Arthur a few months, but he’d grown to respect the old man enormously. The way he looked out for Jamie, his fierce loyalty and his quiet presence all spoke of a man of his word, a man of honor.

The exact opposite of the kind of man who’d accept the role of trusted trainer to a fighter then proceed to throw her on her back and stick it to her at every given opportunity.

“Like I said, he was always going to find out eventually,” Jamie said. She headed for the shower.

Cooper made a rude noise. She gave him a knowing look over her shoulder.

“Until we get this thing out of our systems, it’s going to keep happening, Cooper. You know it, and I know it. It’s not a big deal, as long as we both remember what it is—and what it isn’t.”

He stared at the shower stall door as she closed it between them. A few months ago, having a woman as sexy as Jamie offer him no-strings sex would have been right up there with being offered a chance to come out of retirement with no risk of permanent injury. Problem was, sex with Jamie wasn’t no-strings. Not for him, anyway.

He scrubbed his face with his hands. Bending, he collected the discarded tape and tidied up the rest of his kit. He could only procrastinate for so long. After a few minutes he braced himself and exited the change room.

He felt like a teenager who’d been busted jerking off over his mom’s underwear drawer—dirty and downright wrong in so many ways. He’d known better. He’d tried to draw a line, but he hadn’t been able to make it stick.

Arthur was standing with his hands shoved into his pockets. Slowly his focus swung around to fix on Cooper.

“How long has it been going on?”