“Jackson, come on, let’s go.”
Her shaky voice showed her as weak, frightened. Things she’d fought hard to never show anyone again since the day she left home. But she didn’t care. She couldn’t. All that mattered was getting Jackson out of there before… Before what, Nessie? Before things get violent? The man’s a fighter. He’s probably violent by nature…just like Carl.
Oh, God, please no. Not Jackson.
Vanessa’s palms grew clammy, and her skin turned cold. She wanted to plead with him again, but the tightness in her throat had trapped her vocal cords. Jax angled his head and used his shoulder to wipe the blood from his face. Instead of helping the situation, it only smeared it around his stubbled jaw and shoulder like a preschooler’s finger-paint project.
Locking eyes with Danny, he ground out, “That make you feel like a man, kid?”
Danny’s jaw worked and his nostrils flared as though Jackson’s words smelled just as bad as they cut. “Nah,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what will.”
Vanessa held her breath as she watched Danny lean in to speak next to Jackson’s ear. Danny’s lips barely moved and he was too quiet for her to know what he said. Though he held perfectly still, every muscle in Jax’s body gripped his bones that much harder and his hands curled into tight fists as the kid pulled away with a satisfied smirk on his face. As he backed up, Danny went so far as to laugh, confident that whatever he’d said to Jackson had gotten the better of him.
A deadly look—the look she hated more than anything and had the power to stir up the dust in her memory and a sickness in her gut—sparked to life in Jackson’s eyes. Normally warm and inviting like a good whiskey on a cold night, his eyes now made her cringe and want to crawl inside herself.
Fighting as a sport was one thing, but fighting out of anger was another entirely, and something she couldn’t abide. Somehow she found her voice for a last-ditch effort at saving her perception of this man who had her turned inside out in only a few days. “Jackson, no, don’t do it! Please!”
Either he couldn’t hear her through the blood roaring in his ears or he chose to ignore her because a second later he threw a punch so fierce Danny’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he crumpled to the mat, a boneless version of his former self.
The coach, who’d left the cage after the sparring match ended, now charged back in, putting himself between a still-furious Jackson and the unconscious man. Corey and another fighter grabbed Jax by the arms and dragged him out of the cage, talking him down from the rage that still held him in its clutches.
As the world sped back up into real time around her, Vanessa spun toward the exit and walked as fast as she could until she at last punched through the double doors.
The heat of the early afternoon pressed in on her like a weight, bearing down on her chest and shoulders until her legs shook and she finally sought relief on the grass off to the side of the entrance.
She schooled herself to take deep, meditative breaths and regain control of her body. Soon she felt back to herself, but she still wasn’t about to go back into the gym. The guys probably thought she couldn’t handle a little blood, which couldn’t be further from the truth. It hadn’t been the blood that upset her but what came after it.
When she moved out of her mother’s house, Vanessa swore she would never involve herself with anyone who settled things with his fists. And even though this thing with Jackson was only a fling, it still bothered her to know he’d reacted the way he did.
Which rankled her even more. Why did it matter how he handled himself in a confrontational situation? It wasn’t like she was sizing him up for a potential relationship. She just wanted to bang his brains out for a few days—three, to be exact—and then go on her merry little way. It didn’t matter to her how many guys he knocked out outside of the cage. Right? Right.
The sound of the doors opening behind her had her glancing over her shoulder. Jackson strode toward her in his long, easy gait, so uncharacteristic of the intense man from minutes before. When he reached her, he lowered to his haunches, elbows resting on his knees and hands dangling between his legs.
“Hey,” he said. “You okay?”
Though he still wore the hand wraps, his gloves were gone and his face and body were cleaned of any blood. Only his slightly swollen cheek and the two butterfly bandages holding the incised flesh together showed any sign that he’d been struck.
She almost reached out to touch it, to test its severity or offer him comfort. But she stopped the impulse by grabbing a fistful of grass and shredding it to pieces instead.
She lifted her chin. “Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?”
He canted his head and studied her for a moment. “I don’t know. You left pretty quickly after I KOed Akana in there.”