Knox (Sexy Bastard #3) (24 page)
Read Knox (Sexy Bastard #3) Online
Authors: Eve Jagger
C
an’t get
enough Sexy Bastards? Check out the other books in the series!
(Each book in this series follows a different couple and can be read as a standalone)
HARD
Strong. Arrogant. Hard.
Ryder Cole is the King of Atlanta’s nightlife — and the one man who can erase my past.
I’m running from secrets that could destroy me and there’s no room in my life for someone like him: too damn cocky, and sexy as hell. I should keep my distance, but smart goes out the window the minute he looks my way. And when he puts his hands on me … A girl could forget her own name.
But what happens when the past catches up with me, and all the things I’m hiding from tear our lives apart again? I can’t keep running forever, and Ryder always wins.
He's not the kind of guy to let me go gently, Ryder will give it to me Hard.
C
ASH
The minute any woman walks into my bar, I can tell two things about her: what she wants to drink, and how she likes to f*ck.
I’m Cash: bartender at the hottest bar in Atlanta. I’ve got girls lining up around the block, and they all know the rules: no strings, no promises, and no morning-after snuggling. You want brunch? Call your sister. You want the best sex of your life? Call me. Or better yet, just drop by the bar anytime. Clothing optional.
There’s a reason they call me a sexy bastard.
And yes, I really am that good.
A
NIGHT
WITH KNOX
(A Sexy Bastard Novella)
One night. A sexy secret. And a New Year’s Eve they’ll never forget.
P
ro baseball player
Cooper Knox is tired of groupies and fans - so when a sassy brunette with curves for days doesn’t recognize him, he’s not about to let his secret slip. She wants a night to remember - and he’s going to show her a few moves she’ll never forget.
B
ut secrets have
a way of catching up with you - and when the ball drops at midnight, the new year isn’t the only thing that will be starting with a bang.
Eve Jagger is the
USA Today
bestselling author of the Sexy Bastards series. A native of Georgia and a true southern girl at heart, she's a stay at home mom to two kids, and married to a sexy man who doesn't mind being used as research for those naughty scenes.
Eve cut her teeth writing in high school and college, but it wasn't until recently that she got the itch to write a full length novel. She loves complex, emotionally-charged characters and wild, sexy leading men.
Connect with me and stay up to date with all the Sexy Bastards!
CHAPTER ONE
T
here are
two smells in the world I love more than any others: a woman right before sex and this warehouse right before a fight. They’re different, of course. There’s nothing like a naked, wet, waiting woman, the scent of her skin salty with sweat but sweet at the same time, like swimming through an ocean of roses. The warehouse’s odor is far less pleasurable, phantoms of last round’s knocked-out teeth, bruised faces, and aching bones making the air heavy, grimy, stifling, like the smell of fresh dirt. But both are thrilling and unpredictable and make me want to explode.
Even when it was me in the ring a few years ago, my ribs about to get punched, my knuckles about to crash into someone’s cheekbone, the smell of this place would intoxicate me. Facing off with a guy whose sole intention for the next several minutes is to pummel you into submission is as terrifying as it sounds. And as exhilarating. The policy of bare-knuckles brawls is no shirt, no shoes, big problem standing right across from you. But all I had to do to calm myself was take a big inhale of this warehouse air, let the molecules seep into my lungs, into my bloodstream, and I won every match.
I always win.
So tonight, after Crutcher beats Miller in an upset, a big win for me for sure, when Tyler tells me that some kid is in for $10,000 and has disappeared, I tell him he’s got to have it wrong. “I would never have let Jamie McEntire run up that kind of tab,” I say. “I’ve seen him around. I wouldn’t give him ten dollars, let alone ten thousand.” When I took over running fight night two years ago, I did a little cleanup from the mess my predecessor left. No five- or six- figure debts to people we don’t know, no credit to anyone who’s welched more than once. We may be an underground operation, but there are standards. There’s also a dress code: women in heels, men in collared shirts, and our crowd is the type who likes to drop a lot of money on both. We have security guards. The bartender will call you a cab if you get too drunk. I run a tight ship. Even the police think so. That’s why they don’t hassle me. Sometimes they even take a try in the ring.
Tyler shrugs. “It’s been gradual. Losses on a couple fights, loans to cover him,” he says. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But I double checked the ledger, and it adds up.”
“Fuck me,” I say, and a blond woman in high heels and a dress so tight she must not have exhaled all night turns toward us. She raises an eyebrow at me, smiles like she might take me up on the offer.
And with the way she wraps her mouth around the neck of that beer bottle, keeping her eyes locked on mine as she takes a drink, I might just let her.
Tyler’s voice yanks me back to the problem at hand. “So what do you want to do?” he says. “He’s offered his house as collateral.”
I shake my head. “This isn’t a swap meet.” Sometimes people think that just because I run an illegal fighting circuit and betting ring, I must be dishonest or inattentive to keeping the books, or maybe just dumb. So they try to take advantage of me occasionally. They think I won’t notice or care if they siphon a little cash or don’t pay in full or don’t pay at all, that I’m just a guy who made his money beating the shit out of strangers while debutantes and their dates made their bets. All brawn and no brains. But they’re wrong.
In the ring, I didn’t mind being underestimated. It helped me win. Some spectators think when you look like me, tall, muscular, broad-shouldered, you won’t be agile enough to dodge a right hook. So they bet against you. They don’t realize those muscles aren’t just for showing off to the female members of the crowd—not that I minded when they noticed. Those hard biceps mean you’re strong, and those washboard abs make you quick, and it all adds up to making my bank account big.
But as the boss outside the ring, I can’t have people not take me seriously. The Armani suits I wear on fight nights look damn good on me but they don’t come cheap, so when I loan money I expect to get it back when the handshake said I would. It’s only fair. I’ve got a reputation to protect, not to mention a legitimate business career to support, owning two of Atlanta’s most popular nightclubs, a cocktail lounge, and Altitude, a bar some buddies and I run together. I got to the top flying like a butterfly in the ring, but I stay there because I sting like a bee outside it.
And Jamie McEntire’s about to feel what I mean.
“You know where this kid’s house is?” I say, clapping Tyler on the shoulder. He nods. “Good,” I say. “You’re driving then. Grab Valero and let him know that as soon as this crowd clears, we’re making a visit.”
Tyler leaves, and the woman in the tight dress with the lucky beer bottle approaches. The dip of her neckline is as low as her skirt is short. “Someone should wash your mouth out,” she says.
“Sorry if I offended your delicate sensibilities,” I say, smiling. We’re at an underground bare-knuckles fight.
Fuck
is hardly the most offensive thing she’s been exposed to tonight.
“Not at all,” she says. “I like a man who talks dirty.” She takes a sip from the bottle, tipping it toward me. “Want some?”
I don’t think she just means the beer.
Over her shoulder, behind her in the crowd, I see a guy in a decent-looking grey suit. He’s standing with a few other people but his attention is clearly fixed on her, watching. I tilt the bottle back toward her with my index finger. “Who are you here with?”
“No one special,” she says, taking a step toward me. “Unless you want some company.”
Women. They smell good, they look good, they taste good, but they can be so bad for you.
I’ve been Grey Suit back there. Even in the shadows of the warehouse I can read the look on his face, the narrowed eyes, slightly turned down mouth. He’s a guy who knows that just because he’s the one who’s taking this girl out tonight it doesn’t mean he’s going home with her. Back when I was fighting, my girlfriend at the time used the hours I was knocking guys’ blocks off to get her rocks off. She even slept with some of my opponents, who I beat anyway, but still—I don’t know if she was just bored or mean, didn’t love me or herself or both, but when we broke up two years ago, I swore off relationships. My motto is get in and get out, in all ways possible.
So Tight Dress standing in front of me, just the right size to straddle my lap in the front seat of my Audi, would usually be the perfect ending to a night.
But I can’t abide dishonesty, not even from a one-night stand. Like I said: there are standards.
“Your date’s not doing it for you?” I say, nodding at Grey Suit who’s now standing by the door where people are starting to exit. It must be after two a.m. by now and a weeknight, which means most of these people are six hours away from clocking in at the office tomorrow. Thrill seekers by night, executive decision makers by day, that’s a lot of our audience, and even though I’ve never been able to tolerate living that kind of rigid, conventional lifestyle for myself, their money’s just as good as anyone else’s. They may even have a greater appreciation for the brawls, since bare-knuckles fighting is a far cry from whatever uptight Fortune 500 company or corporate law firm they work at.
She glances at Grey Suit, then turns back to me. “He’s okay,” she says. That pretty mouth of hers widens. Despite the darkness of the warehouse, her teeth gleam like white stones. “But you’re Ryder Cole.” She runs her hand lightly over my arm. “And I’m willing.”
My bicep belies my intention to be behave, contracting instinctively as her fingers linger on my suit sleeve. “To do what?”
“Anything you want.”
I lean close to her. “I want you to go home with the guy that brought you and fuck his brains out like a good girl,” I say. “But you can think about me while you’re doing it.”
I cross to where Tyler waits by the door. Security will close up. We’ve got business to attend to.
W
hat happens next
? Discover Ryder and Cassie’s story.