Devoted

DEVOTED

THE
MMA NEW ADULT ROMANCE SERIES

By
Alycia Taylor

Copyright
2014.
All rights reserved.

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Future New Releases In This Series For 99 Cents

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Read
Part 1 - Consumed (The MMA Romance Series - Book #1)

Read Part 2 - Devoured (The
MMA Romance Series - Book #2)

Read
Part 3 - Addicted (The MMA Romance Series - Book #3)

Read Part 4 – Damaged (The
MMA Romance Series – Book #4)

Read Part 5 – Committed (The
MMA Romance Series – Book #5)

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CHAPTER
ONE

EMMI

Braxton was knocking on
the bathroom door and
I
was standing with a ring box
in my hand. Shit! On top of the fact that this was probably supposed to be a
surprise, he was going to think
I
was rifling through
his pockets.
I
’m not like that. A little too curious
maybe, but
I
would never purposely invade his privacy.
The ring was gorgeous though…and
I
was tempted to try
it on.

Another
knock.
“
Emmi
, is everything
okay?”

“Um…yeah,
just a sec.”
I
shoved the
box back in the pocket I took it out of and kicked the jeans over against the
counter. It would just look like
I
kicked them out of
my way. He should have put them in the hamper anyways. This was really his
fault.
I
took a deep breath before I opened the door.

“Are you okay?” He was
giving
me
a weird look.

“Yeah, I’m fine, why?”

“Your face is all red
and you’re breathing like you just ran a marathon.”

“It was a vigorous
shower,”
I
told him with a grin, trying to distract
him from his questions.

He raised an eyebrow
like
he didn’t believe me, or he was thinking something
dirty, but he didn’t say anything else. He bent down and picked up his jeans.
I
could tell by the way he was holding them tight around the
box inside the pocket that he was trying to make sure the ring didn’t fall out.

“I didn’t mean to
interrupt,” he told
me
. “I was just going to tell you
that I have to go see Sam for a bit at the gym.”

“It’s okay,”
I
responded. “I was going to have breakfast with Zoe in a
while.”

He leaned in to kiss
me
and I was more than happy to kiss him back.
I
always loved his kisses, but I had all kinds of energy I
needed to get rid of and a passionate kiss was just the place.
I
kissed him hard, slipping my tongue into his mouth and
running my hands across his soft hair. Guilt for going through his things and
excitement about what
I
found may have fueled it a
bit.

When we came up for air
he said, “Damn! Maybe we should just go back to bed.” He had a sexy grin on his
face and as he rubbed his hard body against
me
, it was
hard to say no.

Smiling through
my
sexual frustration, I told him, “Zoe will be here in
about five minutes.”

 
He grimaced but then said, “I could probably
do it in less than five.”

Laughing,
I
said, “I doubt that first of all, second of all, if Zoe
walked in on us I would be completely mortified.”

“Oh please, Zoe’s a big
girl, I’m sure she’s seen it all before.”

I
kissed him on the nose and said, “I love you, have a good day and I’ll see you
tonight.”

“Save it for me, okay?”

I
laughed and said, “Save it? Where do you think I’m going to put it between now
and then?”

“I meant the energy, I
know you’re saving that other stuff for me,” he said, kissing
me
again. “I’ll see you later.”

I
went into my room and finished getting dressed, leaving him the bathroom to
take his shower. Zoe was right on
time
and I made her
wait just a bit while I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and put on just a
little bit of makeup.

“Okay, good enough.
Let’s go, I’m hungry.”

“Where’s Braxton?” Zoe
asked.

“He’s in the shower,
wait until I tell you what I found in there a while ago.”

“What?” she asked,
instantly
curious.

“I’ll tell you at
breakfast, I don’t want Braxton to overhear us.”

When we got in the car,
Zoe started it up and said, “Okay, tell me. Was it another girl’s phone number?
A condom?”

I
laughed. “No, why are you always so suspicious? It wasn’t anything bad. I’ll
tell you about it when we get to breakfast, otherwise, we won’t have anything
to talk about when we get there.”

“Fine, I’ll wait.”

To Zoe’s credit she did
wait. Instead she chattered about school and a paper that she had due in
sociology.

“What’s going on with
Mike?”
I
asked her.

She shrugged. “I don’t
know, nothing, I guess.”

“Is this still because
you thought he might be gay?”

“No, I’m sure I was
wrong about that. We’re just not really clicking, you know? I think neither of
us has the heart to tell the other one, we’re both afraid of hurting feelings.”

“Aw, I’m sorry, Zoe.”

She shrugged again and
said, “He’s not the only fish out there. When I work up the gumption to break
up with him, I’ll find me another flounder.”

When we got to the
Chicken and Waffles place that Zoe loved to have breakfast at, we both knew
exactly what we wanted so we ordered straight away.

As soon as the waitress
left Zoe insisted, “Okay, I was patient, now spill.”

I
giggled.
I
had to agree with her. For Zoe, she had
been patient.

“Okay, last night,
after Braxton’s fight I told him that I loved him too.”

“I knew you loved him!”
she said with a cheesy grin, pointing her finger at
me
.
“It’s written all over your face every time you look at him or even talk about
him.”

“I know, I know, you
told me so,”
I
said, giving her the credit she
deserved. “The reason I didn’t go to the party with you last night was because
while we were at the house I saw that MMA contract I told you about. It
was signed
. I’m sorry I lied to you, but I just wasn’t in a
party mood at that point.”

“Oh
my God!
He signed it? He told you he wasn’t going to…didn’t
he?”

“Yeah, so after you
left, I got myself all worked up and had a full-blown anxiety attack.”

“Shit,
Emmi
, I’m sorry. Why didn’t you tell
me
?
I
would have stayed with you.
That
jerk
.”

“I know you would have
stayed.
I
didn’t want you to miss your party just to
watch me have a meltdown.
I
would have felt worse. It
worked out okay though. Braxton came home and found me on the floor, crumpled
in a ball having
a hard
time breathing. I guess his mom
used to have them and he knew just what to do and say in order to calm me
down.”

“He better
have
known how to stop them since it was all his fault,” she
said, angrily.

“Well, that was the
other thing. He told
me
that he already told them no.
He had just come back from having a beer with Sam and the MMA guy and he had
told them both no, again, that he wasn’t going to do it.”

“Then why was the
contract signed?”

“He said that he signed
it for his own…satisfaction, I guess. It was about knowing he was good enough
and all that. But he told them no and assured me that the championship fight
coming up is his last one, no matter what the outcome is.”

“Whew,” Zoe said.
“Well, that’s good. I thought I was going to have to kick his butt.”
I
laughed. “What? You don’t think I can take him?”

“I’m sure you could,”
I
said just to appease her. “There’s more though.”

The waitress brought
our food before either one of us could say anything.
When she
left we slathered butter and syrup on our waffles.

“Do you think one of
these days all of these calories will catch up to us and we’ll be fat, old
maids?” she asked and took a bite.

Just to tease her
I
said, “Well, I might be fat, but Braxton’s already got a
ring in his pocket that says I don’t have to be an old maid if I don’t want to
be.”

Zoe choked on her
waffle and started coughing. When she finally got it under control she said, “He’s
got a what, where?”

“I stepped out of the
shower this morning, onto his jeans.
I
felt something
hard in the pocket and I got curious. Anyways, it was a ring box with an
engagement ring in it. It was absolutely stunning.”

“Oh my God, he hasn’t
said anything?”

“No, we have never
talked about getting married. Our relationship hasn’t exactly been ‘traditional’
to begin with. We’ve talked about me opening a business someday and he alluded
to the possibility of being the financial guy behind it…but that’s as far into
the future as we have gone.”

“Wow, so what are you
going to say?”

“Well, first of all I
had to make my mind slow down and accept the fact that he hasn’t asked me yet,
so there could be another explanation for the ring.”

“Like what? He’s going
to propose to someone else? He loves you,
Emmi
, he
wouldn’t do that. I never thought I would see the day with this guy.”

“Look who’s all of a
sudden team Braxton,”
I
said with a grin.

“He’s changed; I’m the
first one to admit it. No, actually from what you’ve told me and what I’ve
seen, I think it’s not that he’s changed so much as that he was never really
that guy to begin with. He was pretending to be the stud. This guy who you’re
in love with, that’s the real guy.”

“I’m glad you see it
that way, I do too. But still, the ring could have belonged to his mother, he
could be holding it for a friend, I just don’t want to get too worked up about
it.”

“Okay, hypothetically,
if you went home today and he proposed…what would you say?”

“Yes,”
I
said, before I even thought about it.
I
grinned from ear to ear. “Oh my God, I would say yes. I love him...”

“I can tell.
I
can tell he loves you too.
I
’m
glad that you’d say yes, I think you found the one that’s perfect for you. I
hope it happens to me someday.”

“It will,”
I
told her.
I
wasn’t just trying to
pacify her either. Zoe is an amazing person, and she’s beautiful. One day she
would knock on a door like
I
did and her future will
open it.

“So, did you try the
ring on?”

“No, I refrained,”
I
said, trying to sound like I at least did one respectable
thing. “Besides, he was knocking on the door so I had to put it back before I
had time.”

“Is the rock huge?” she
asked between bites of sausage.

I
laughed. “It’s big enough.”

“That’s what women with
diamond chips say,” she said with a grin.

I
threw a package of syrup at her and said, “And that’s what girls without rings
at all say.”

“Touché!”

CHAPTER
TWO

BRAXTON

“Okay, we’re going to
do some intensity workouts today. The guy that you’re fighting this week, this
Gizmo guy…they say he’s really intense, and win or lose, he always goes three
rounds.” Sam was in a serious mood today.
I
had a
feeling I was going to be in a little bit of pain when I walked out of the
building.

“Okay,”
I
agreed. “What am I doing?”

“You’re going to go for
three minutes, hit the bag at fifty percent with a variety of punches. Rest one
minute then up your power to full strength and launch jabs.
Rest
for a minute.
Jab, throw a cross, rest one minute, repeat.
Jab, cross, hook…repeat, rest…jab…”