The Fighter (The High Rise, Book 1) (9 page)

“You watched
me dance?” I ask, surprised.

He nods
watching as he runs his thumb over my bottom lip. “Guess I’ve gotta
figure out if I could tolerate being with you if you are mixed up
in everything.” His eyes move from my lips up to my hair then to my
eyes.

“Mixed up in
what?” I question still not knowing what he’s talking about.

His eyes go
soft and he squeezes the back of my neck as he whispers, “Fucking
beautiful.”

Damn it. He’s
looking at me so tenderly and he’s being so sweet, his eyes keep
going to my lips and I find I’m dying for him to kiss me. But he
doesn’t. Why won’t he kiss me? Ugh.

“Goodnight,
Laney.”

And then he’s
gone.

I thump the
back of my head against the wall and stare at the ceiling for a
moment before finally closing the door and locking it. After
checking on Dani and finding she’s sawing logs like none other, I
go to the bathroom to remove my makeup, brush my teeth and change
into shorts and a tank top.

Once in bed I
check the alarm on my phone making sure it’s engaged so I’ll be
sure to wake up early enough to get a call in to The Arches for
Mrs. Lanning.

Just when I
get comfortable and start to drift off, my eyes pop open when I
remember something he said.

Guess I’ve
gotta figure out if I could tolerate being with you if you are
mixed up in everything.

He has to
figure out if he can
tolerate
me? Jerk. And, again, what am
I supposedly mixed up in?

“I’ll give him
something to tolerate,” I mumble before falling asleep
.

Eight

Last night in Laney’s
apartment, it was all I could do to keep from kissing those
luscious lips of hers then take her to bed
.

Talk about a
crisis of conscience.

On the one
hand, I want to fuck her so hard I’m all she thinks about for a
goddamned month.

On the other,
her family is the enemy. They’re the reason my brother was hurt,
the reason I’m here to bail his ass out.

I don’t know
if anything good could come from getting involved with her. Being
with her seems like it’d be a conflict of interest and I have to
keep telling myself that no woman is worth selling out my own
family for.

Yet I’ll be
damned if there’s not something about her that makes me want her,
even makes me fucking crave her. We’ve got mad chemistry between us
that’s through the roof. And not only is she gorgeous, there’s an
innocence about her that just doesn’t fit and it makes me want to
protect her although I know that makes no sense. I’m starting to
think she’s not involved with everything but I still believe she
has
to know what her family’s doing. It’s happening in the
basement of this very building for fuck’s sake. She’d have to be
blind not to know the corruption that’s going on around her;
therefore, I’m still not completely convinced.

And that’s why
I walked away.

In the
meantime, back at my apartment, just as I lay down to get some
sleep someone pounds their fists against my front door.

I yell, “Hang
the fuck on!” because the pounding continues. I pull on a pair of
jeans not bothering buttoning them because whoever this is, they’ll
soon be gone. And the goddamned pounding continues as I walk to the
door. Dumbass.

I look out the
peephole and there stands Jessica.

“You’ve gotta
be fuckin’ kidding me,” I mumble. I’m tempted to act like I’m not
home, leaving her ass in the hallway. But then the yelling
begins.

“Heath! I know
you’re in there! Open the door, baby!”

When I don’t
respond or open the door, she yells my name even louder.
Christ.

Whipping open
the door, I snap, “What the fuck, Jessica?”

She stumbles
in and I catch her just before she wipes out.

“Whoops,” she
says with a giggle looking up at me.

I walk her in
enough to close the door then stand her up straight. “What the hell
are you doing here?”

She puts on
her pouty face before whining, “I’m in trouble.”

I now walk her
all the way inside, sitting her ass on the sofa while I sit on the
coffee table facing her.

Jessica’s a
beautiful woman, tall, long blond hair, long legs, and any other
time I wouldn’t mind her being here but right now I’m pissed. She
knows this isn’t how we do things. We’re not serious and we’re not
exclusive. I could’ve had another woman here and what fun that
would’ve been explaining things to either of them.

“How are you
in trouble?” I ask running my hands over my face. She leans forward
and sloppily puts her hands on my jeans where they’re unbuttoned
trying to get a handful of my dick. I reach down and stop her,
shaking her hands to get her attention. “How are you in
trouble?”

“I’ve done a
bad thing,” she remarks flopping back against the couch.

I’m not up for
playing any games tonight. I’ve already dealt with one drunk
woman—one who I
wouldn’t
mind being here right now—and my
patience is dwindling.

“What’d you
do, Jessica?”

“Colin found
out,” she cries dragging out the last word.

“Found out
what? And who’s Colin?”

She looks like
she’s about to pass out so I lean forward grabbing her by the hands
making her sit forward and repeat my question. “Who’s Colin and
what’d he find out?”

“Colin? Is he
here? Oh my God! You need to hide!” she exclaims, jumping up and
almost falling again.

I stand
quickly grabbing her by the shoulders then bend down so we’re
eye-to-eye. “What’s going on, Jessica?”

She takes a
wobbly step forward and wraps her arms around my waist pressing her
cheek against my bare chest and she’s crying. Great.

She sucks in a
sobbing breath then proceeds to blow my mind. “C-C-Colin’s my
fiancé and he f-f-found out I was cheating on him tonight.”

Fiancé? What
the fuck.

My body tenses
as I let that sink in. I didn’t know she had a fucking fiancé. If I
had, I’d never have gone there with her. Jesus.

I take her
shoulders again, pushing her away from me to where she has to
unwrap her arms and make her sit on the couch again.

“I’m gonna get
you a wet washrag. Hang on.”

She’s got
mascara running down her face and it’s not pretty. She’s very
conscientious about her looks and wears so much makeup that she’s
clogged my drain in the bathroom a time or two after removing it
when she’s stayed over, and I know she’d be mortified at having
black streaks down her cheeks.

Cursing all
the way to the bathroom, I come back out to find she’s passed out
on the couch. I try rousing her but to no avail. So letting out a
breath I bend to wipe the streaks on her face getting as much off
as I can. Next I go to my bedroom and toss the rag in the hamper,
coming back out, and picking her up, carry her to my bedroom where
I lay her in the bed. After taking her heels off, I cover her then
grab the other pillow and head out to sleep on the couch.

I lie there
thinking of how fucking good Laney felt rubbing against me and
whispering in my ear when she pulled her little seductress shit
tonight at the club.

My last
thought before I fall asleep is that I’m going to find a way to
have her.

It’s Saturday
morning and I’ve got my first fight tonight. I’m pretty jazzed
about it too. I’ll get to take all my pent-up frustrations out on
some poor asshole. I can’t wait.

I just got out
of the shower and after dressing I go into the kitchen to see
Jessica making breakfast. Her long bleached blond hair is in a
messy bun atop her head and her skintight jeans and four-inch heels
make her legs look a mile long. She’s in full makeup again—her
purse is a black hole, probably weighing in at at least twenty
pounds because she has everything you can imagine in there—and is
wearing one of my Gold’s Gym t-shirts that she’s knotted high at
the side so that her midriff shows and her belly button ring
sparkles in the light.

“Hey,” she
says sheepishly. “I, uh, made bacon and eggs for you.” She walks
shyly to me and tiptoes up to kiss my cheek. “I’ve gotta run but
can I see you tonight?”

I frown at
this because hell no she can’t see me tonight. Or ever. “There’s no
point,” I respond only to see the hurt roll across her
features.

Fuck.

“Oh. Okay,”
she murmurs and starts gathering her stuff to leave.

“You know if
I’d known you have a fiancé I’d never have started this with you.
That shit’s not cool.”

“I know.” She
turns and looks at me with tears welling in her eyes. “So this is
it, huh?”

I nod before
saying, “I’ll walk you out.”

As we make our
way to the elevator she sniffs and remarks quietly, “Sorry I didn’t
tell you.”

I shrug
because it’s said and done. At the elevator she presses the down
button and turns to me.

“I’ll miss
you, Heath.” Tiptoeing up, she wraps her arms around my neck and
hugs me long and hard before stepping into the elevator that’s
arrived. “Bye.” She gives me a sad smile before the doors close on
her.

I stare at the
doors for a moment, rubbing the back of my neck. Well, that was
interesting. When I turn to go back to my apartment, Laney’s
standing in her doorway staring at me, mouth agape and I know she
saw everything.

Fuck.

I want to
explain things to her but I doubt it’d do any good. She’ll see what
she wants to see and what she saw looked bad enough as it is.

And if she has
a hangover, she wears it well because she’s looking cuter than
ever—hair in a ponytail, wearing short shorts that make her legs
look spectacular and a tank top that accentuates her terrific tits.
The best part is she’s wearing house shoes that look like huge,
hairy feet.

“I was, uh,
just getting the, uh, newspaper,” she stutters bending to pick up
the paper.

God, she’s
fucking beautiful. She has no makeup on but she’s easily the most
stunning woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.

“’Mornin’,” I
say as I start to walk back to my apartment knowing she won’t talk
to me again.

“Heath?” she
calls.

“Yeah?” I
answer, surprised, stopping and turning back.

“I just wanted
to apologize for last night. I was pretty drunk. If I’d been sober,
there’s no way I would’ve
tolerated
wanting you to kiss me.
Besides, you’re
so
not my type.” She looks me up and down
cavalierly. “Have a
great
day,” she says sarcastically,
shooting me a
fuck you
smile before going inside and closing
the door.

This makes me
chuckle. She’s such a liar and she knows it. I walk back to my
apartment with a grin because I know when a woman wants me and
Laney Kyle wants me.

It’ll be an
asshole move on my part, but I can’t help thinking how fun it’ll be
to prove it to her.