Ice Cold (An MMA Stepbrother Romance)
Read Ice Cold (An MMA Stepbrother Romance) Online
Authors: Victoria Villeneuve
Ice Cold – An MMA Stepbrother Romance
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Bonus Book BOSS
Chapter One
The liquid burned going down the back of my throat; I felt tears pop in the corners of my eyes, and I almost choked. Slamming the shot glass down on the tabletop, I bit deeply into the lime hoping to take the bite off the taste of tequila.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” my best friend Stacey exclaimed with a mile-wide grin. “We’re going to loosen you up if it takes all night.”
I’d been packing all afternoon, so had forgotten to eat lunch and dinner. That didn’t bode well for me when it came to Stacey’s grand plan for the evening. “Slow down,” I said. I tried to grab her hand as she motioned for the waitress again with the empty shot glasses clearly indicating the need for another round. “There’s no hurry here.”
“Speak for yourself,” Stacey said. She frowned at me. “This is our last weekend together before you move back home and leave me forever. I feel like I barely saw you all semester. You owe me your undivided attention for a night filled with decadence and bliss.”
I could just imagine what “decadence and bliss” looked like: over six-feet tall, toned and muscular like a Greek sculpture, and totally not into Stacey for anything other than a one-night stand. Essentially, Stacey’s idea of the perfect dream date and my worst nightmare.
“You have my undivided attention.” I hit her lightly on the arm. “It’s not like these things called cellphones don’t exist.” I waved mine under her nose. “You act like I’m moving to Siberia.”
“Might as well be. I mean Connecticut? Sounds uptight and frigid. Yuck. You should stay here with me in Chicago,” Stacey said with a pout. Her expression quickly changed back to a smile as two more shot glasses appeared in front of us.
I shook my head. “Well, I know you’re not looking forward to it, but Mom said she had big news for me when I get back next week. I’m hoping it’s a car. Plus, she said she might be able to connect me with someone about a job. I need one of those now you know.” My babbling was meant to distract her from the waiting shot in front of us. “C’mon, Stacey. Let’s dance or something.”
Stacey waggled her finger at me as she picked up her shot glass. “Not yet. We’re toasting. Here’s to surviving four long years of emotional pain and torture.”
I laughed. Stacey was incorrigible, and she knew it. I picked up my shot with a sigh. “Otherwise known as college. Those four years of emotional pain and torture should turn into respectable careers.”
“Maybe for you, Ms. 4.0 GPA,” Stacey said with a huff. “What are you going to do with yourself now that you can’t use the library or studying as an excuse not to have fun?”
I frowned. “I have fun.”
Stacey put her hand over mine. “Having your nose buried in textbooks, working as a teaching assistant for two professors, and staying up all hours of the night studying does not equal fun. Unless those professors were offering some after-class tutoring that I’m unaware of.”
Rolling my eyes at Stacey’s innuendo, I licked the side of my hand and tossed some salt on it. “Are we doing this or what?” I was feeling a bit indignant even though I knew Stacey wasn’t wrong. I had been one-hundred percent focused on my studies for the majority of my college career, and I had been okay with that. Getting good grades so I could get a good job meant more to me than partying every weekend and going through endless rounds of dating with guys who just wanted to get into my pants. The joke was on me that the dream job that was supposed to make it all worth it hadn’t materialized yet.
There was a part of me that was insanely jealous of Stacey’s ease in the bar ever since we walked in. She’d been stopped several times by people as we made our way to our reserved table, and I was pretty sure she knew every waiter and bartender by name. What that meant was that even though the place was starting to fill up with the Friday night crowd, we were still getting excellent service.
We clinked our glasses together, and I downed the shot. This one burned slightly less than the one before it. Stacey nodded her approval. Two shots in, and I was already starting to feel a little lightheaded. That wasn’t a good omen for the rest of the night, but I was determined to show Stacey that I wasn’t a complete stick in the mud.
“Now that we’ve got that settled, it’s time to scope out this evening’s prospects,” Stacey said with a lewd smile. She began to survey the crowd.
Stacey and I were about the same height, just over 5’6” with heels on, but that was where the similarity ended. Her bouncy, fire-engine red hair and pale, freckled skin made her stand out like a beacon in any crowd. Adding in her curvy figure and energetic personality, it wasn’t any surprise that she wrapped most men around her finger in no time flat. Me, on the other hand, had a figure that my mother affectionately called ‘athletic,’ which meant I was lean and struggled to fill out most low-cut tops. Stacey said she wished for my small, pert breasts often, but I didn’t buy it. Not with the way she threw her bosom around to get attention.
“Oh my God,” she squealed and grabbed my forearm tight. “I don’t believe it! It’s him! He’s here!”
“Who’s here?” I did a sweep of the crowd trying to determine who she was talking about. I figured it must be an ex-boyfriend although to qualify in that category only meant Stacey had slept with him more than once.
Stacey’s fingers twisted painfully into my arm. “HIM!” She cocked her head across the dance floor to the other side of the bar as if she didn’t want to be obvious. “Ice Malone. The MMA fighter. He’s right over there.”
I squinted to see who she was talking about. I vaguely recalled Stacey going looney watching some MMA fights on TV while I was trying to study. Then my eyes landed on him, and I felt my breath hitch. How I had missed him in my previous scan, I had no idea. It was as if the crowd parted around him where he stood. Everyone was in awe of him.
Tall, dark hair, tattoos covering his exposed forearms and twining up his arms, broad shoulders narrowing down to a trim waist. Yep. Decadence and bliss was now officially in the building. The only thing I couldn’t see from this distance was his eyes. It was where his nickname ‘Ice’ came from if I recalled correctly. They were a light blue-gray mix that almost looked silver in the right light. When his face swung in our direction and paused on our table, I forgot to breathe for a second.
“He’s totally checking you out!” Stacey whispered in my ear.
I scoffed. “I am hardly his type; I’m sure,” I said. I wouldn’t have admitted in a million years that I wasn’t totally okay with that idea. “I’m sure he was checking you out.”
“You should go talk to him,” Stacey said. She tried to give me a little push. “We’re here to have fun, right?”
“No way,” I said. “I’m not looking for that kind of fun. Not by a long shot.” Trying to flirt with a guy like Ice Malone was way out of my comfort zone even if I wanted to play that kind of game. Which I stubbornly told myself I didn’t.
“Well, I am. Hot damn, he is even better looking in person,” Stacey said. She slid her hands down the sides of her hips smoothing the sides of her mini-skirt. “I’m going in. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” I said as she began to sashay across the room.
So much for a girls’ night out.
I knew that I should be exhausted. The day had been nothing but several hours at the gym followed by endless rounds of reporters, cameras, and questions that were all the same. But having a fight coming up on my hometown turf had me keyed up. I was ready to blow off some steam. Luckily, my friend Kyle was ready to help hook me up. I had been able to shed my publicist, Lucy, only by promising not to do anything that would land me on the front page of the celebrity gossip section.
I’d lived in Chicago ten years ago before my dad moved us to New York City. I had been on the fighting circuit for almost two years now, and the cities were all blurring together. I had decided early on to use Chicago as my home base since I still had lots of friends here. And when I had a fight in town, like I did tomorrow night, I was hailed as the “hometown boy.”
“Didn’t I tell you this place would be hopping?” Kyle said as we walked through the door. The neon strobe lights illuminated a dance floor that was almost full despite the fact that it was barely 9 pm. There was a long bar set across one side of the room. The other side of the dance floor was elevated from the main floor, and tables and couches were scattered to allow breathing room if you didn’t want to dance. It was smaller than most clubs I was used to going to, but it would do. I only had one activity left to check off my list for today. That was getting laid. Lucy knew that, which was no doubt why she’d thrown several warnings my way before letting me off the hook for the night.
“As long as I find a piece of ass, it’s perfect,” I said. I noticed that as we made our way to the bar, the whispers had already started. Chicago was a major hub for the MMA, and so it didn’t surprise me to be recognized. That was all part of the show. The more fans you had, the more money the sponsors were willing to pay and the more endorsements you could secure. My star was rising, and it had helped me along the way that there seemed to be legions of women willing to throw their panties into the ring for me.
Kyle ordered beers for us as I started my calculated sweep of the room. There were women of every size and shape as far as the eye could see. That was good. As I scanned the tables on the other side of the room, my gaze stopped on one woman in particular. A blonde. I was so used to seeing adoring, sultry expressions when women looked at me that this one’s look took me by surprise. The woman’s lip was curled up in a frown that bordered on…disgust?
She wasn’t looking down at the dance floor. She wasn’t looking at some random place in the room. She was looking at me. What the hell was that about? I let my eyes troll down her body. Her bare legs seemed to go on for miles dressed in a pair of black heels. I was a legs man, for sure. My dick was immediately hard as I thought about having those legs wrapped around my waist. She wasn’t my usual type; I usually went for busty and petite, but this woman intrigued me.
Kyle handed me a beer bottle. I took a long sip. The blonde wasn’t looking at me anymore. She was staring at the DJ booth now. I felt as if I had been assessed and dismissed. That annoyed me more than anything. I wasn’t used to be dismissed by women; not even before I became a minor celebrity.
“See anything you like?” Kyle asked. He knew that his purpose in the evening’s mission was simply to ensure that I found a girl. Kyle was part of my crew. He procured whatever I needed to ensure I was in top form for my fights, and that included women and booze; my two main vices. I was wound up tight before every fight night and getting laid took the edge off. It was a routine that I repeated in city after city, and given my current winning record, it was a routine I wasn’t about to break. I was superstitious like that.
“Maybe,” I said. “Let’s see if we can find a table next to the dance floor.” The blond was my target. I was already starting to rehearse what I was going to say to her when I heard Kyle whistle low next to my ear.
“Incoming.”
It didn’t take a genius to see who he was talking about. A redhead in a shimmering bustier and barely there mini-skirt was headed in my direction. I paused just long enough to appreciate the ample cleavage being exposed. This was exactly the kind of girl that I normally took for a roll, and lucky for me, she was coming right to me.
“Hey there,” she said when she reached us. She tossed her hair over her shoulder. It fell in waves down her back. This girl oozed confidence. “I’m Stacey.”
“Shayne,” I said. “This is Kyle.”
Stacey barely gave Kyle a nod of acknowledgement before she locked her attention back on me. “I know who you are. Big day tomorrow, right?”
An MMA groupie. It was almost too easy. But I couldn’t help but cut my gaze back up to the blonde sitting at the table. She was looking down at me with that look on her face again. Her simple black tank and black short shorts weren’t nearly as showy as the woman in front of me, but there was something drawing me to her.
“Yeah, big day,” I agreed. “Excuse me. We’re on our way to find a table.” I needed to brush this girl off as quickly as possible.
“Oh, my friend and I have a table,” Stacey chirped. She turned to the side and pointed at the blonde, who seemed to sit up straighter in her chair when she saw the motion of the redhead’s finger in her direction. “We have plenty of room. Do you want to join us?”
My luck was getting even better. The redhead was there with the blonde. “That’d be great. Thanks.”
The redhead babbled the whole way back to the table, but I didn’t hear a word she said. I gave Kyle a slight jab in the ribs and cocked my head toward Stacey. I saw his questioning look. I gave another short nod toward the blonde as we approached the table. Hopefully, he caught my drift. It wasn’t Stacey that I wanted.
“Alexa, this is Shayne and um, what’s your name again?” I wasn’t surprised that Stacey hadn’t caught Kyle’s name. I felt bad when I hung out with my friends who weren’t in the MMA. They became second wheels at best. Luckily, Kyle was always pretty cool about it.
“Shayne and Kyle,” I said as I reached my hand across the table. “Nice to meet you, Alexa.”
Up close, she was even prettier than my original assessment from across the bar. I saw a shimmer of silver dusting her eyelids that made her blue eyes pop in a way that made me think I could drown in them.
“Charmed,” she said with a slight grimace as she gave me her hand. Her skin was warm against my palm, and I felt the intense urge to kiss it. What the fuck? I didn’t act like the perfect gentleman with women. I was far from that kind of guy. That’s why most women loved about me.
“Alexa and I have watched all your fights, at least the ones they televise,” Stacey said. She was practically bouncing on her heels. “You are so good.”
“You’ve watched them all?” My question was directed at Alexa.
“Stacey watched your fights. I was busy studying,” Alexa said. She stared down at her drink. I sensed that she was uncomfortable with me there.
Her aloofness made her even more irresistible. Yep, this was the girl that I planned to have underneath me calling out my name tonight.