If there was one thing Tiana hated more than fitness gyms, it was men’s boxing gyms. They had such a threatening vibe; the people in them had one thing on their minds: putting the hurt on other people. It reminded her of all the worst parts of having a fighter like Thad as a boyfriend. She’d always felt safe around him in high school and for some time after, but after his umpteenth successive concussion—she couldn’t recall the incident or even the year—he had begun to turn his hostility inward, toward her, because she was letting him down somehow. She was not living up to his idea of what a famous MMA fighter’s partner should be like. Not supportive enough? Not hot enough? Not strong enough? He’d never explained it to her in any way that made sense. He’d let his crazy verbal outbursts do the talking, and later, when they’d failed to convince her, he’d let his physical advantage take over.

 

She shuddered at the memories—they were more recent than she wanted to admit. Because Thad was not getting better, he was getting worse. And entering a sweat-pit like Scallion’s hammered home two things: how much she hated boxing gyms, and how worried she was about Thad. To come here of all places, alone, to thank a man whose looks and reputation flat-out scared her, told her how desperate she was to do something she could feel good about.

 

“Can I help you, love?” A politer-than-she’d-expected topless British guy strolled up to her as he toweled off. He was in his mid-forties, silver-haired, his skin reddish all over.

 

Tiana did her best to control her nervous tremble. Her smile quivered. “I’m looking for Dax Easterling?”

 

His expression twitched a note of disappointment. “Just my luck. I think he’s in the back, darling. Do you want me to fetch him for you?”

 

“If you wouldn’t mind. Thanks.”

 

“What’s your name, love?”

 

“Um, Tiana. Tiana Crowe.”

 

“Okay then. Won’t be a sec.” He seemed so gentle and friendly; it wasn’t at all what she’d expected. Then again, it had been a long time since she’d been in a boxing gym, or a gym of any kind for that matter. Thad had persuaded her to join one years ago, to get her into better shape, but she’d quit after a few sessions. It had felt too much like competing for the sake of competing. When she’d realized there was no way in hell she could ever be as toned or as skinny as those hardcore fitness chicks, it had all felt, well, a bit like self-abuse. And anyway, Thad had fallen in love with her when she’d been bouncy in high school. She was still bouncy. So what was his problem?

 

Mm, try telling him that.

 

She shifted her weight, then steeled herself when the British lobster reappeared side by side with a man so tattooed he looked like something from a comic book. Closer, she saw that the tattoos were a pattern of black, flame-like swirls, extremely elaborate and even beautiful in a savage, exotic tribal kind of way.

 

Dax Easterling the fighter looked exactly like she’d imagined—huge arms and shoulders, buzzed-off hair, permanent five o’clock shadow, and a seriously cut physique, including a six pack that could stop a sledge hammer. She remembered she’d met him before, briefly, though she couldn’t recall the exact venue. The blazing blue eyes, chiseled jaw, kissable lips, and the vaguely Italian-American look: if it weren’t for the tribal ink and the majorly badass reputation, she might only be intimidated by how drop dead handsome he was. He even had a cute bubble butt, revealed when he turned to fill a cup of water from the cooler.

 

“Miss…Crowe?” he asked between sips. The British guy left them alone.

 

“Hi. You won’t remember me,” she said. “At least I don’t think you will.”

 

“We met a few months back. A charity event, I think. Yeah, I remember now. I started that night in a tux, finished it wearing a T-shirt with my own picture on it. Boo-yah!”

 

“Oh.” Tiana had no response except to look around the gym.

 

“So…you’re here about what happened…?” He cocked his head to one side. “Say, why are you here? Didn’t your guy try to kill me a few days back?”

 

She nodded gravely. “He told me what happened out in the street, and I-I just wanted to say thank you.”

 

Dax quirked an eyebrow. “Thank you?” His brilliant blue eyes seemed to gaze right through her. “I thought you wanted to serve me with a subpoena or something.”

 

“No. I know what you did that night in the ring. I know you did it for the right reasons. Thad won’t admit it, but he’s in trouble. He’s not been himself. I think he’d have died that night if you hadn’t…” The intensity flooded back, and all she could think about was losing Thad, the only man she’d ever loved. He was slipping away from her even now. It felt like there was no way to prevent that. And it twisted her up inside.

 

“Listen, do you want to go somewhere a little less…intense?” He looked her up and down, but subtly, not in any sleazy way. “It was good of you to come here, but this is no place to talk. How about we grab a cup of coffee instead? There’s a diner about a block that way.” He pointed up Main Street. “Give me five minutes to freshen up, and I’ll meet you there. That okay?”

 

“Um, yeah—I mean what?” She shot him a puzzled look. “Coffee?”

 

“Uh-huh. It’s not bad there. I can recommend the espresso.”

 

“Why do you want to buy me coffee?” It sounded dumb as soon as she’d said it, but this wasn’t remotely how she’d expected this meeting to go. Dax Easterling was supposed to be one of the more unpleasant fighters on the MMA circuit, an icy outcast who had no time for fans or interviewers and who slept with more women than a randy sheik with a platinum card.

 

“You don’t have to,” he said. “We can always go a few rounds right here. Look, the ring’s empty.” He flicked her an insolent wink, then beamed a cheeky grin. At any other time, she might have found that obnoxious, but he was going out of his way to dispel the tension between them, and she liked him for it. Against her better judgment, she actually kinda liked this guy.

 

“Five minutes,” she said. “I’m buying.”

 

“Deal.” And he immediately left to get changed. A cluster of scars high on his left shoulder hinted at some kind of extensive war wound, maybe deep shrapnel damage. It was the one area of his torso that didn’t have a single tattoo. Then she noticed the heavy bruising on his right side, probably where Thad had kicked him repeatedly. So what was he even doing working out with busted ribs? Not that Thad wouldn’t do that kind of thing. These guys were all nuts to some degree.

 

The British lobster waved to her as she walked out, and she waved back. All the way to the diner, actually nearer two blocks away, Tiana wondered what Thad would say if he knew she was having coffee with the guy he’d tried to kill a few days ago. Then, strangely, the idea made her feel good about herself, like she’d rebelled against some insane ground rule for the first time, and she spent several minutes gazing out through the window of the diner, wondering what it would feel like if—just maybe—she allowed herself to rebel a little more.

 

Hmm, this was as good a place as any to start.

 

***

 

“First I’ve got to ask,” she said after a preliminary sup of her cappuccino. The verdict: a little weak, but passable. “Why did you do it? Why did you step in?”

 

Dax chomped through his bagel like a shire horse after a long day in the field. He nodded, held up a finger, indicating he wanted to answer but not with his mouth full—more evidence that he wasn’t quite the Neanderthal the press had made him out to be. And Tiana found herself asking: Who is he really? What’s he like away from his army buddies and his bad boy MMA persona?

 

“You and me, we both had the same idea,” he replied finally.

 

“Come again?”

 

“About that ref. We both knew he wasn’t doing his job, no?” He washed his bagel down with a swig of steaming espresso. “I mean the way you were looking at what happened in there—you knew your guy wasn’t just flagging; he was done, like, no coming back.”

 

She eyed him askance. “Why do you say that?”

 

“No reason to be coy about it. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not always the best judge of what a person’s thinking, but I’ve been around fear plenty, and I know what desperate looks like.” His piercing blue eyes did seem to be waiting for the truth to somehow show itself in her. Interesting. He was perceptive, if not exactly subtle.

 

“Then I won’t be coy either, Mr. Easterling.”

 

“Dax. Unless you’re IRS, in which case I’m outta here but quick.”

 

Cute, but he wanted the truth, he could have it. “My boyfriend’s taken some rough knocks over the years, Mr. Dax. More than I think anyone knows. Repeated concussions, which he’s refused treatment for, so everyone can go on thinking he’s this invincible warrior carved from granite or some damn thing.” She paused, a part of her reluctant to disparage the only man she’d loved since high school.

 

“I know the type,” said Dax, watching her closely. It suddenly made her very self-conscious, as though she was betraying Thad on a level she would hate herself for later. But wasn’t that the whole point of her coming here to see Dax Easterling? She had to do something, damn it. Staying silent and obedient and under Thad’s crazy-making spell had eaten away at her for too long. If she hadn’t come here to thank Dax, to at least talk about this with someone who had an inkling of what it was all about, she’d fucking explode.

 

This wasn’t betrayal, it was survival—her survival. Thad wouldn’t listen, he never had. And as much as she hated to admit it, things had been over between them for some time now. The problem was: neither of them was willing to face it. And she still loved the Thad Hollis from high school, always would. What she now had to figure out was a way to extricate herself from this toxic relationship without hurting him—and herself—more than she had to. So far, she hadn’t had the heart to do it.

 

Maybe she never would.

 

“He did steroids too,” she said.

 

“A lot do.”

 

“More than a lot. It really screwed him up.” She didn’t mention the resulting testicular damage or the testosterone he’d had to take to counteract it. “I just think his concussions have gone untreated for far too long. It’s messed with his head. He’s always been stubborn, but he just won’t be told.” She swallowed. “I don’t know how much of this you want to know.”

 

Dax blinked at her. “He’s punch-drunk. When he attacked me the other day, it was as if I was fighting someone who wasn’t really there. He was fighting on instinct, just…blank. Guys like that are dangerous. They can be lethal. I’ve seen guys like that snap in the field: too much pressure, too many knocks, or too many nights without sleep, and bam! Something just flips inside and that person is unrecognizable. And that’s all she wrote. Or they get over it, maybe, with time and treatment and…care, I guess.” He swallowed. “I don’t know how much of this you want to know.”

 

Tiana twitched a smile. It was a horrible thing to think about—that something like that could happen to Thad, at any time. But it was a comfort to know Dax at least knew what he was talking about. Maybe more than he was letting on. Something in the way he’d cut short like that: had he had personal experience with it, perhaps with someone he was close to?

 

“What do you think I should do?” she asked him.

 

He shrugged. “If they guy won’t listen, not much you can do. On the other hand, I wouldn’t—” A noise distracted him from the across the café. He spun round, jaw clenched, then let out a slow, relaxing sigh when it turned out to be nothing more than a fallen cup.

 

“You were saying…” She reminded him.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“I asked you what you thought I should do about Thad.”

 

“Ah, I reckon you could say something to the IMMAF. Don’t let him know you contacted them, but they have doctors who can recommend a psych evaluation if they think it’s warranted. In your case, I’d say it definitely qualifies.” The resolve in his voice and the strong, grounded way he delivered every gesture made her feel unusually safe. For her to be so sure of herself, so free to discuss such personal things with such a big macho guy as Dax Easterling—she almost didn’t want their cups to empty. She’d dreaded coming here today to meet him. What was it about him that now made her feel like she’d been missing something all this time? She’d thought she had fighters figured out. That they were all somehow carbon copies of Thad, with slightly differing doses of hot sex and cold male bullshit. But maybe she’d been wrong about that. Wrong in a big way.

 

Tiana took several pensive sips of cappuccino as she eyed this mysterious, perceptive, smoking-hot guy who was in some ways Thad 2.0, but was in other ways, somehow, the polar opposite of her boyfriend. “Would you back me up?” she asked. “You’ve experienced his behavior first hand. They’d listen to you.”

 

“I will if you want me to. I don’t give a shit about what anyone on the circuit thinks of me.”

 

“So I’ve heard.”

 

“Oh?” He quirked an eyebrow, raised half a smile—cute as hell. “What have you heard?”

 

“That you keep to yourself and don’t get involved in the celebrity stuff. That you’d rather hang out with your Marine pals than go in for the big splash parties.”

 

“That it?” He seemed a little disappointed.

 

“You really want me to quote the online gossip columns? I think there was a list of the most eligible bachelors in MMA, together with all the celebrity hotties they’ve dated.”

 

He almost snorted his espresso. “Really? How did I do?”

 

“Oh, you ranked pretty high.” Tiana honestly couldn’t remember where he’d placed, but it was definitely in the top five. And small wonder, she admitted to herself. Now that he no longer frightened her, she could see how the stick insects and the bling brigade might want to chase him around the circuit. “But don’t let it go to your head,” she added. “Some other guy had dated Katy Perry.”

 

Dax laughed hard, then winced and held his side.

 

“Looks painful,” she said. “I feel really bad about what happened. I can’t believe he came after you like that. After the whole intervention in the ring thing, I can kinda see why he’d react that way—not that I agree with him or anything, hell no—but it’s become part of who he is. I’m just sorry you’ve had to go through all this for doing the right thing.”

 

“He’s aware of the corruption, though, right?”

 

“Uh-huh.” Again, Tiana wasn’t sure how much she should say, but she found herself wanting to spill everything to this guy. “He’s more than aware of it.”

 

“You mean he’s in on it.” The matter-of-factness with which he broached that idea froze her mid-drink. This was dangerous territory. They were both playing with dynamite. Tiana downed the remainder of her cappuccino in one go, then wiped her mouth with a napkin. “It’s okay,” he added. “You already mentioned the steroids. And trust me, half the people in this goddamn sport are bending the rules. I know several really high profile fighters who’ve doped before a big fight and never gotten so much as a reprimand. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that referees are just the tip of the iceberg.” Dax necked the last of his espresso. “That sort of thing goes deep. One person of influence takes a bribe to look the other way, brings another colleague in on it, and pretty soon you’ve got a climate of rules made to be broken. It makes me fucking sick, but there it is.”

 

“And that’s part of the reason you jumped in the other night,” she said. “You were sick of all that corruption and you wanted to take a stand against it.”

 

He looked hard at her, gave a shrug.

 

“In that case,” she went on, “I don’t mind telling you, you’re right about everything you’ve said about Thad. He is on steroids, even now, and the reason he never gets red-flagged for it is because he pays officials to bury his toxicology tests. He knows he can’t fight without juicing, so he does whatever he can to stay in the ring. And truth be told, there are probably a thousand stories just like that all across boxing, MMA…”

 

“Every professional sport,” he said. “Some worse than others, yeah, but the problem’s the same. It’s systemic. Scruples never made anybody rich.”

 

“On the contrary,” Tiana added, “they prevent you from becoming rich.”

 

Dax pointed a finger at her in agreement. “And there’s that whole problem of ‘If everyone else is getting rich doing it, why shouldn’t I?’ That’s a powerful argument, or at least a seductive one. Like I said, part of the climate.”

 

“So why do you even want to be a part of such a corrupt sport?”

 

“Because I’ve had to fight for everything I’ve ever gotten in my life. Being given a fair shake in the ring, that’s just one more thing they don’t want me to have. I’ve never taken no for an answer, never will. I’ll take on the whole fucking sport, I don’t care. They either play by the rules they’ve set out or change them. And until they change them, they’d best stay out of my way if they don’t fly straight.”

 

Tiana tried to discern how much of that talk was macho bravado for her sake, and how much it was genuine. If he meant every word, well, Dax Easterling might just be her new hero. “So you’re a crusader?” she asked to test his response.

 

“On a crusade for one, maybe.”

 

“Sounds lonely.”

 

“Being the best is.”

 

She rolled her eyes at him, but with a sly smile to tell him she wasn’t mocking him—well, maybe just a little. When he smiled back, and they locked gazes, she sensed the air between them begin to charge. They were suddenly way more intimate than she’d intended or that she felt comfortable with. “Does it never cross your mind that you might be stopped someday?”

 

“Nope. It’s like they say: the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, and I ain’t never been beat, not even close. Not even in the Marines, and those are some of the toughest hombres anywhere in the world. I’ve fought on every continent, in every climate, against guys who would wipe the ring with half these millionaire UFC posers. If there’s someone out there who can take me down, bring him on, and I’ll show him why he’ll never get that far.”

 

Tiana had to hand it to him, when he talked tough like this, it was hard not to feel a secret shiver low down, deep inside. If Dax was as good as he boasted—and from his reputation, he probably was—hell, she could listen to him talk tough all day. And all the while imagine the ways he could take her down and show her a few moves she’d never seen before. She might not look like much fitness-wise, but she could probably show him a thing or two as well, on the deck, with their bodies wrapped around each other in that empty ring he’d jokingly invited her into earlier…

 

A chair squeaked across the floor behind her. Tiana snapped out of her fantasy and realized she’d been here far too long. She checked her watch and decided it was time to leave before this went any further. Sure, they’d hit it off, and that, more than any other subject they’d broached, was the kind of dynamite she absolutely couldn’t play with.

 

Thad would kill her if this went any further. Shit, he probably would whether it did or not, if he ever found out she’d come here today.

 

“I’ve not scared you off, I hope,” he said. “I mean, I’m willing to help if you wanted to take your boyfriend’s case to the IMMAF. Not the doping part, but the psych testing.”

 

She got up suddenly, slung her purse over her shoulder. “I, ah, yeah—I don’t know. It’s something to chew on, yes. I’ll definitely give it some thought. Thanks for all your help, Dax. I mean it.” Tiana liked that she’d resisted calling him Mr. Easterling. He didn’t deserve such a cold goodbye. At least now she’d feel better about thanking him. They could part as friends.

 

“Don’t mention it,” he replied, getting to his feet. He offered her his hand, but though she shook it, Tiana found she couldn’t look him in the eye. It would make her feel too…susceptible. “Take it easy,” he added.

 

“You too. Good luck with your…” She was going to say crusade, but that sounded dopey; she settled for “next fight.” Outside, on her way past the window, she gave a polite wave and saw that he was following her intently with his gaze. It gave her another secret thrill, how self-conscious he made her feel. He liked what he saw, what he’d heard; hell, he liked her, he found her sexy. This stupidly hot, intriguing guy found her sexy.

 

A cold gust hit her from the side, and reality came back with it. Tiana realized her own next fight was just ahead. It was a far trickier, more personal one, against the ticking time bomb that was the man she lived with.

 

There would be no winner in that fight.