Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 88656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
“Sounds good, Enzo,” he said.
I nearly dropped my teeth. Michael Kage was ordering cake?
After we’d done away with four glasses of good white wine and six mouthwatering lobster tails, Enzo ordered our table cleared and brought out a large piece of cake and two forks, placing it in the middle for us to share.
“This is our White Wedding Cake,” Enzo said with a grin. “We don’t even put it on the menu. It’s for special guests only.”
Kage and I each picked up a fork and took a small bite of the dessert.
“This is delicious, Enzo,” Kage groaned. “If I’m going to blow my diet, this is definitely the way to do it.”
Enzo smiled and slipped his hands into his apron pockets. “I just like to see you happy, my dear. Things are going good for you, yes?” He turned to me. “You are helping him to get his contract?”
“I certainly hope so.” I smiled across the table at Kage, who dragged another bite of cake off of his fork with his teeth. “I think we’re making some real progress. He’s definitely more well-known than he was a month ago.”
“And well-liked,” Kage added. “Thanks to Jamie pimping me out like a porn star.”
My eyes widened in surprise, and Enzo started waving his hands in front of his face. “I’m out of here,” he said, smiling. “This conversation is getting too weird for me. Enjoy your cake, boys.”
“Hey, I’m just giving your fans what they want,” I told Kage after Enzo was gone. “More skin. You work hard for that body, so you might as well show it off.” I took a bite of cake and licked the icing from my lip. “Besides, it’s not like I have any fight footage to share. Hell, I’ve never even seen you fight. For all I know you never have.”
“Don’t even think about taunting me,” he said dangerously. “You have no idea how many people I’ve hurt. I sent a guy to the hospital the night you flew in. I broke his arm in an armbar. Stupid fucker wouldn’t tap out.”
“What? You’ve fought since I’ve been here?” I dropped my fork and scowled at him. “Why didn’t you invite me? I want to see you fight.”
“Are you sure about that?” He reached across the table and touched my hand where it lay on the table, teasing it open with his index finger. Suddenly he looked vulnerable, seemed to be searching for the right thing to say.
“What? Do you not want me to see you fight? That doesn’t make any sense. It’s not like I haven’t watched you train almost daily for the last month.”
“That’s different.” He traced a figure eight into my palm over and over, staring at it all the while.
“Why don’t you want me to see you fight, Kage? I don’t understand. Are you afraid you’ll lose?”
He huffed out a breath. “I’m never afraid of losing a fight.”
Apparently, I was going to have to drag whatever this was out of him, because he wasn’t going to give it up easily.
“What is it that you don’t want me to see?”
“I guess I just don’t want you to see me differently.” He didn’t look me in the eye as he spoke, just kept watching his finger tracing that figure eight, which seemed to have literally become an infinity sign. “You don’t know how brutal it can get in there, Jamie. How brutal I can get. I kinda like the way you look at me now.”
“Like I want to eat you alive? You like how I’ve got the cannibal thing going on, huh?”
He laughed quietly. “Yeah, I like that.”
“So what makes you think that will change?”
“Fighting is different when it’s someone you know.” He finally met my eyes, and there was a haunted look in his. “You want to see me get punched in the face so hard my knees buckle? Or kicked in the kidney so hard I can’t stand up straight?”
I stared at him, my eyes wide, imagining the things he was describing. He was right. I wasn’t sure if I could I sit on the other side of a chain link fence and watch Kage get hurt.
“What, no comment?” he asked.
There was a change in his voice, and in his demeanor. That little light his eyes had when he looked at me— the one that made me believe he might see something special— was gone. Snuffed out and replaced by a cold darkness. Then the barest hint of a sneer tipped one corner of his lips, and I pulled away.
“Think you can handle watching me bend a gown man’s arm backward, hearing the bone snap before he has a chance to tap out? How about punching a man in the face until there’s blood spewing everywhere and he’s lying there limp like a rag doll, head flopping as I bash his fucking head into the mat? Have you ever seen a guy kicked in the face so hard you think his neck snapped? How about seeing me choke a man unconscious and wondering for the next sixty seconds if he’s ever going to wake up again?”