He smiled, and a second later he was swallowed up by the crowd.
Skyler turned her attention to the cage, where the next fight was starting. This one featured an African-American man with full-sleeve tattoos and a beefy opponent with a shaved head that gleamed beneath the bright lights. While the previous match had resembled wrestling, this one looked more like boxing.
Skyler watched with wide eyes as the fists began to fly. She couldn’t hear anything but the roar of the fans, but she imagined the sounds of flesh slapping flesh, hard thumps and sickening crunches. Two women next to her screeched like banshees, cheering for the dark-skinned man, while a group of guys in the row behind her boomed out encouragements for the stocky fellow.
Lord. She was definitely leaving here tonight with a migraine.
By the time the buzzer sounded and the final round ended, Skyler was wondering what all the appeal was—and then she spotted Gage, and the answer became pretty darn clear.
He was barefoot and bare-chested, black shorts hanging off his trim hips and skin already glistening from the hot, stifling air. His sculpted muscles were sheer perfection, and his tattoos stood out against his tanned flesh. He looked like a warrior. A deadly, sexy warrior, and her body instantly reacted to the waves of raw masculinity rolling off him.
The announcer stepped up to introduce the two fighters, and a spark of displeasure ignited in Skyler’s belly when she registered the obscene amount of female screams triggered by Gage’s introduction. Clearly her man had a fan club.
Gage’s opponent was bulkier but several inches shorter, with a scary-looking skull tattoo that spanned his entire chest. Definitely someone she would run in the other direction from if she saw him on the street, and yet the second the thought struck, she scolded herself for being so judgmental. For all she knew, Skull Tattoo was a really sweet guy. A guy who liked to stay home and watch Everybody Loves Raymond reruns with his wife and only fought on the weekends to make money for their couples’ pottery classes.
Except then he bellowed out an animal roar and dragged his finger across his throat in a death promise to Gage, and Skyler promptly went back to disliking him.
Gage, however, was completely unruffled. Even from yards away, Skyler noticed nothing but pure calm reflecting in his eyes.
She jerked when a bell rang to indicate the start of the first round. Her heart immediately jumped to her throat when Skull Tattoo launched himself at Gage. Fists up, Gage blocked his opponent’s blows, then attacked so fast Skyler barely even saw him move.
Left hook, right hook, one-two punches at lightning speed, until he’d backed Skull Tattoo against the chain-link wall. All the other man could do was try to defend himself, but when he threw his hands up to protect his face, Gage simply planted a fist in the man’s gut. Skull Tattoo buckled over, swayed on his feet, and then lifted his head in time for Gage’s fist to connect with the side of his face.
Lights out.
It was over.
Skyler stood there, dumbfounded. Her jaw dropped as two refs and a man who must have been the doctor rushed over to the unconscious fighter. The doctor touched his cheek, checked his pupils, and then signaled something to the ref, who wasted no time thrusting Gage’s arm up in the air. The announcer declared Gage the winner and the crowd went wild.
Unlike the previous victor, Gage didn’t stick around to take a bow or pump his fists. Covered in sweat, he hopped out of the cage and made a beeline for the row of chairs in front of it. Skyler saw him mutter something to a man with ginger hair and a bushy beard. People’s heads blocked their faces from view, but she noted Gage’s stiff body language, and knew he wasn’t happy with the conversation.
A moment later, he stalked back to the locker rooms.
Since she didn’t care about the next fight, Skyler left her seat and headed in the direction Gage had gone, but the two beefy men guarding the corridor wouldn’t let her through. She swallowed her irritation and stepped back to wait.
Fortunately, Gage reappeared less than five minutes later, back in his street clothes and showing no signs of injury. Not even a bruise.
Then again, no duh. His opponent hadn’t gotten a single swing in.
“Hey.” His face softened when he saw her.
“Hey. Nice match.” She raised one eyebrow. “Are all your fights usually so quick?”
“Nope.” He brought his head close to hers and lowered his voice. “I wanted it over fast so I could take you home and fuck you.”
“You say the sweetest things.” Her heart soared when he flashed her a crooked grin. She loved seeing his lips curve like that. It was so rare, and so deliciously rewarding when it happened. “So is that it, or are we sticking around to watch the other fights?”
“Do you want to?”