BEAST
“I was volunteered for this.” Leo sat back in his seat, crossing his arms in front of him. “I didn’t know anything about it until I got here today.”
He wanted that last statement perfectly clear. If he hadn’t been fucking annoyed with Rodney already for volunteering him to do this, he was beyond annoyed now.
Allison appeared as confused by his response to her question as he expected her to be. He took in the lift of her brows, making sure he didn’t show any more of the effect she had on him as he’d already let slip.
“Okay . . .” she said, obviously not satisfied with his answer to her inquiry. “But you said you knew me.”
“You know how I know you, Jelly. Explaining it would’ve taken too long, and I wanted to be done with that before Bravo got back.”
“Bravo?”
“Gio.” He sat up, feeling even more exasperated about all this. “One of the owners of this place and someone who can get me sent back to the pen if I screw this up. I couldn’t have your crazy-ass sister going off—”
“First of all,” she said, sitting up as well, and Leo forced himself to keep his eyes on her face and away from that voluptuous rack bulging underneath her snug shirt. “My sister is not crazy, and I won’t have you referring to her as that. Understood?”
She paused as if to wait for him to agree or apologize. It shouldn’t have surprised him that the sister of such a spit fire would have some spunk. But it did. Not only did it surprise him, the hardened expression on such an otherwise sweet face amused him. Despite the inexplicable temptation to give in and offer an apology—it wasn’t happening. With each moment they stood staring at each other in a silent stalemate, Leo felt himself searching deeper into those big dark eyes of hers. It was insane. He wasn’t even sure what he was searching for, but he couldn’t look away. When it was clear he wouldn’t be offering so much as a nod in response to her question, she went on.
“You don’t know me and my sister’s aware of that. So, you referring to me as Jelly understandably set her off.” Watching her lift a stubborn little chin had Leo swallowing hard again, but like with her previous statement, he managed to refrain from further reaction. “I was thinking the same thing she was obviously, until I remembered my first encounter with you—”
“The jelly donut,” Leo said, resting his arms on the table. “I remember.”
How could he forget? He’d even dreamed of the day he’d been envious of a fucking donut. The way she’d licked and sucked that thing had him feeling shit no grown-ass man should feel over something so petty. Wiping the jelly off her face had been bad enough, but at least he hadn’t given into the thought he’d had the moment he saw it still there on the corner of her mouth—to lick it off.
“But you don’t know me,” she reiterated.
“No, I don’t.”
This time he’d concede at least to that, but he’d be damned if he’d admit to her or anyone else just how much she’d pestered his thoughts since that day. Especially why.
“You just caught me off guard today,” he continued, annoyed that he was having to explain any of this to her. “When I realized you were the same kid I’d seen that day. . .”
Those widening eyes had Leo momentarily pausing, but he refused to allow them to continue to trip him up. “You just look a lot different is all.”
She cleared her throat then mercifully dropped the eye contact when she glanced down at her notebook.
“Your glasses,” he said, once again going against his better judgment, but he was curious. “You don’t really need them?”
Though she continued to focus on her notebook, she had glanced up for a moment in response to the question. Watching her face tinge with color was something else. He’d seen his share of seemingly embarrassed or shy girls. Most of those times while he’d said something far more scandalous, he often questioned how genuine their reactions really were. Girls like Allison were rare in Leo’s life. Already he could tell there’d be so many other things he could say to her that would turn her beet red, but she was blushing over his questioning her glasses.
“I do.” She cleared her throat, pulling a strand of hair behind her ear, then made eye contact with him again. “Just not when I’m wearing my contacts.”
There was no question about it. Allison was as genuine as they came. No way could she be faking the flush of her cheeks. Leo should swallow back everything else he wanted to ask her. Get on with the damn interview and be done with this. Instead, his lips were once again moving, and the curious inquiry flew out without further consideration.
“You look so much younger with them on. How old are you?”
“Nineteen,” she said without breaking the eye contact, despite her face still glowing with deepened color. “Just had a birthday a few weeks ago. This . . .” She motioned a hand up and down in front of her. “The whole makeover thing was a birthday gift from my sister.”
She paused as she opened her water bottle and brought it to her lips. Leo blinked slowly, taking in a very deep breath as her plump lips caressed the bottle’s opening and she drank from it.
“Don’t women get makeovers to look younger, not the opposite?” Again, the words were out before he could put anymore thought to them, damn it. What was worse was her off-put expression had him scrambling to backpedal. “I mean, in your case, older isn’t old like in a bad way. I’m just saying it’s ironic that the outcome of yours was the opposite of what it’s normally supposed to be.”
Her instantly furrowed brows had him cursing himself for having opened his mouth about this in the first place. Having talked himself into a fucking corner, he had no choice but to admit it. “Not that you don’t look amazing—” Good would’ve been enough, you idiot. “I just mean you’re nineteen, and I saw what you looked like before. I don’t think you needed a makeover.”
Her expression softened instantly, even as the glow of her cheeks deepened again. Twisting the cap back onto the bottle, Allison shrugged, indulging him with a small but sweet smile. “The glasses being gone is probably what makes the biggest difference and why you think I look so much older. Thank you for saying I didn’t need a makeover, but I really did. I hadn’t aged since I was eleven. The hands of time needed a little nudge.”
Leo stared at her, silently, aware that every moment he sat there it became increasingly harder to not take in every detail of her delicate features. That only reminded him that he needed to get out of there, especially now that he’d confirmed she was very young. Maybe she wasn’t as young as he’d initially thought but still. “Just so you know . . .” He straightened up, determined to get back to what they were supposed to be talking about. “You’re supposed to be interviewing me,” he said, attempting to get back to his harder demeanor. “About what? Because I didn’t know anything about this.”
The pinch of her brows coming together had him looking away like a coward. Never in his life had he been so tempted to apologize when he’d done nothing wrong. Only speaking to her without the utmost respect and delicacy felt wrong. Just like visually groping her had felt the first time he’d laid eyes on her, remembering what her soft warm body pressed against his felt like had been too damn distracting for days after.
“It’s, uh . . .” She cleared her voice again. “It’s for a story I’m doing on the work-release program here at 5th Street. I thought it was an interesting and unique concept. Lila was able to work out an interview for me with one of her bosses; then I requested to speak with some of the workers directly.” She glanced down at her notebook again, pausing for a second before going on. “But I’m sorry you were volunteered for this against your wishes. You’re right. If you didn’t sign up for this, then you shouldn’t have to be here. You’re free to go. I’ll just interview Rodney.”
Torn between getting the hell out of there or staying put, Leo sat up even straighter but didn’t get up. What the fuck was he doing? She’d given him his walking papers. He should stand up and get out. Be done with this. The fact that he was still sitting there even considering sticking around longer, was further proof that his first instincts about this girl were spot on. She’d be nothing but trouble if he so much as got any funny ideas about her.
“What’s a PO?” She glanced up at him, and he was quickly caught up in those overly expressive eyes again.
“Probation officer.” Leo’s own curiosity had him sitting back in his seat already. “You don’t ever want miss a call from them. It could cost you big time.”
“So, you’re on probation even though you’re on work release?”
Apparently, she’d taken his answering her first question as an invitation to continue with the interview. Leo continued wrestling with the conflicting arguments going on in his head.
You should get up and walk out now. What harm can come from sticking around and answering a few questions?
It was a bad idea and Leo knew it, especially given how his dumb ass had already reacted to seeing her again. How easily he’d lost control of his curiosity. Leo could tell himself all he wanted that this was nothing more than having been drawn to her curves that first day. That, just like any of the other girls who’d turned his head at the gym, she was just another piece of ass he should steer far away from. The rules were clear enough, and the only thing he should focus on while on work release was this job and the training he agreed to do.
But this was part of his job, right? Gio had asked Rodney to do this, and while Leo hadn’t been there to pass on it the way he would’ve respectfully done so, especially had he known who was doing the interviewing, he was doing Gio a favor. Bad idea or not, this would be complimentary to his character, not a risk. Besides what harm could one interview with a college student possibly be? No matter how young she’d appeared to be, he now knew she was legal.
“Your probation starts the moment you’re sentenced,” he said, hoping with all hope he wouldn’t live to regret not ending this when he’d had the chance. “It’s usually longer than the time you do in jail. Work-release means I get to finish my time on the outside as long as I comply with the restrictions of the program.”
“And those are?” She glanced down at her notebook as she began taking notes.
Clearly, her offer to let him walk was off the table now that he’d obviously—and possibly very stupidly—passed on it. Breathing a little easier because this didn’t seem too bad after all, Leo began listing some of his restrictions. He was allowed to be at the gym while he was working or training for boxing. He’d be subject to random drug testing and in-home visits. “I can’t leave the county, unless I have special permission. I have to attend the required therapy—”
“What kind of therapy?” She glanced up at him, curiously.
Leo pressed his lips together tightly, breathing in deeply again. It was beginning to feel like a habit he’d have as long as he was around her. “Anger management.” He shrugged, attempting to make light of it, and moved on to something else. “It’s just one of the standard requirements. Like the random urine tests for drugs, even though I’m not in for anything drug-related.”
“What are you in for?”
Christ, those eyes. For as too young as his head kept harping she was, there was something so incredibly sultry about the way she gazed at him sometimes that said she was all woman. Maybe this was a bad idea after all. Clearing his throat again, he decided to share only as much as she needed to know for Gio’s sake. The guy and the rest of his business partners had done so much for Leo. So that’s how he’d look at this. This was a favor for Gio—for 5th Street. But he didn’t need to tell her everything.
“I’ve had my run-ins with the law in the past. What I was charged with this time wouldn’t have been such a big deal had it not been for my priors.” Inevitably, he shook his head in frustration, just thinking about it, but he went on. “In the past, I’d been pinched for fighting in an illegal underground fight club. I hadn’t been back there in years. The day I was arrested again I just happened to be there looking for someone when the place got raided. But I wasn’t fighting this time. Except the probation board wasn’t having it.”
Shaking his head again, he decided that was as much as he was sharing with her about that. To his surprise, unlike earlier, she wasn’t busy writing this time when he glanced up at her. She was staring at him with this look of disbelief or . . . awe?
“You were an underground fighter?”
Leo followed her eyes as they proceeded to roam his face, neck, and forehead. He was sure she thought she was making the connection about the scars. If she’d ever been witness to him in the ring, she’d know that was far from the case. His opponents were the ones who walked away with such scars.
Never Leo.
The scars he’d carried for most of his life had nothing to do with his time in the fight club. “I was,” he said but didn’t offer more.
“Can you tell me about that?”
She set her pen down, and Leo wondered now if this was what Gio had meant by her asking things off the record. When he glanced up at her again, she nodded as if to answer his unspoken question. “This is completely off the record. I’m only asking to satisfy my own curiosity. Only time I’ve ever heard of a fight club was the movie. But even that I never watched. Just heard about and saw some of the clips since it’s often mentioned online and such. I didn’t think they actually existed.”
Once again, she had him wrestling with his thoughts. She’d said several things after the one thought he’d been stuck on the moment the words left her mouth.
Satisfy her.
Straightening up again, he didn’t even care if she noticed how much he’d been fidgeting from the moment he sat down. He’d yet to sit still for more than five minutes. The reasons were insane and he knew it. Nineteen or not, she was still just a kid, an innocent kid he had no business having these thoughts about.
Glancing around, he wondered if he should take her up on her offer now. Get out of there while he still had the chance to do so with his conscience intact.
“Leonardo—”
“Call me Beast,” he said too quickly—frantically. But hearing her say his name was already doing to him what he’d had a feeling from day one would happen if he ever saw her again. “It’s what most people call me.”
Her brows came together again, and she tilted her head. “Why?”
Those eyes. Jesus Christ, those fucking eyes were going to be the end of him. Glancing away for the sake of his own sanity, he stared down at his fisting hands on the table but shrugged, attempting to seem less tense. “Fight-club thing.”
That was half the truth anyway, but no way was he telling her everything. Already his telling her anything at all about it was for one reason only: the pleasure of satisfying her—even if only her curiosity—for now.
Fisting his hands tightly as his insides heated with the annoyance that his mind would even go there, he focused on finishing his answer. “I picked up the name then, and even though I haven’t been involved in that shit in years, the name stuck.”
“Was it because you were a Beast in the ring?”
Leonardo stared at her playful eyes now. Refusing to lighten up and welcome any more playfulness, his response was nothing more than a nod.
Her eyes widened a bit in reaction to his hardening glare. “Were you just that good or was it all an act like those wrestlers on TV?”
Unable to keep from glancing down at those sweet lips—lips he thought of more than he cared to admit all because of her love affair with that fucking donut—Leonardo shook his head. She had no idea, and for the sake of making sure the questioning about this ended now, he’d give her a taste. “I’m not into theatrics, Ms. Allison, and I’m not proud of the name.”
He paused, surprised about adding that last part. What the hell was he doing now? For years, he’d been very proud. So, he wasn’t now. Why did he feel the need to make that clear?
Glancing away and feeling more than exasperated with himself, he added the next part because he needed to. She looked too damned intrigued—too full of curiosity. Leo was anything but intriguing. He was everything a sweet girl like her should detest—dread.
“I was unpredictable. Dangerous. I got the name after one particularly gruesome fight, and the reason for it is why it stuck.”
“What’s the reason?”
And there it was. Stripped of the playfulness she’d used earlier, her tone now oozed of dread. She was afraid to know, but just as he imagined, she had to.
“It’s not like the boxing your sister does.” He stared her straight in those enrapt eyes, knowing what he’d say next would have her looking at him differently—the way she should be looking at him. “These fights aren’t regulated. Anything goes. I’d heard the guy I was fighting was as dirty as they came.”
He thought about it for a moment before he told her the rest. Maybe he should make his reasons for doing what he did clearer—explain himself—but then he thought better of it. It was in his best interest to make sure the inquisitive little reporter would think twice about asking anything more. Only he couldn’t take looking into those eyes anymore, so he glanced down at his fist when he said it. “I let the attempts to gouge my eyes go, but when he tried to knee me in the groin, I ripped his jaw off.”
He waited for a response to that, but there was none. He should’ve been happy about that, glad he’d stunned her silent. Instead, he had to quiet the alarm in him that she may be packing her shit and wanting to end this interview now. It’s what she should've been doing.
Once again, he was forced to deal with the frustration of giving into glancing back up at her. Instead of dread, he saw that same intrigue he’d seen earlier. Her eyes were glued to him as if waiting for him to share more. Only she didn’t look stunned or afraid. She tilted her head as she’d done earlier in question. “But you don’t do that anymore,” she stated it as if it were fact not a question. “And you’re not proud of it. Yet you prefer being called Beast to Leonardo?”
Hearing her say his full name again, not just Leo, had him squeezing his fists even tighter. His utter weakness when it came to this surprised him as much as it annoyed him. He contemplated walking out again before she might notice what she so easily did to him without doing anything.
“Leonar—”
“Yes,” he said before he was forced to hear it again. “I prefer Beast. Listen . . .” He looked around, feeling the panic multiply. “Are we almost done here?”
She picked up her pen, appearing a little panicked herself. “I’m sorry. I got off the subject of the work-release program and didn’t get a whole lot of questions in about that. Is it okay if I ask a few more quick ones?”
Leo nodded, hoping the questions were quick, but once again was irritated at his inability to just say no to her. It was already happening, the unrelenting desire to want to satisfy this girl he knew nothing about. It’d won over the common sense of doing the smarter thing—getting the fuck out of there.
Thankfully, her follow-up questions were few and, as promised, quick ones. The interview was finally over, and he was almost out of there—on his feet even—when she hit him with one last question.
“Is it okay if I interview you again?” Leo turned to her, surprised to see the excitement in her eyes. “My editor might have some follow-up questions. For once, I think he’ll finally be impressed with one of my stories.”
Say no. Say you’d rather not. Say you can’t. Damn it. It’s partly true.
“I don’t think it’s up to me.”
“I’m sure Gio would be fine with it, but if you’d rather not do the whole formal interview thing with us setting an appointment to meet, I can just text you any follow up questions I might have.”
Before Leo could even consider his rebuttal—his absolute refusal to the insane idea of exchanging numbers with her—she was tapping away at her phone’s screen.
“It might not even happen,” she said, still looking down at her phone. “I think I have enough, but I usually think of something I’m slapping my forehead with the next day. So just in case, what’s your number?”
It might not even happen.
When he didn’t respond immediately, she lowered her phone. “Or not,” she said, sounding slightly embarrassed. “I’ll start working out here at the gym soon. If I have any other questions, maybe I’ll just track you down and—”
“Area code three-two-three . . .”
He finished rattling off his number before she could finish her thought about tracking him down. The last thing he needed was the anticipation of her walking up to him at any moment. He chose the lesser of two evils. If she ever texted him, he’d keep it straight and to the point. It also meant not having to deal with looking into those eyes. The entire time with her had felt like a challenge—like one of the sparring matches he had in the ring. He’d been bobbing and weaving, trying to avoid getting hit with another one of those paralyzing moments.
Just when he thought this round was over and he’d made it out unscathed, she hit him with another jab. “And, Beast?” He’d been wrong. Hearing her address him directly by his nickname was just as unnerving. Their eyes met, and once again, he was caught in them. “Ms. Allison is way too formal.” She smiled, only this time it wasn’t playful—it was sweet—it was beautiful. “You can call me Ali. It’s what most people call me.”
Leo nodded, turning quickly to get the hell out as soon as he could. Trudging out of there and toward the training area, Leo fisted his hand tightly, beyond frustrated about how poorly he’d handled the entire interview. The only thing he could hope for now was that he’d never have to address her at all. After today’s experience, he knew now, without doubt, that avoiding her was something he’d be doing at all costs.