Naked Choke (A Stepbrother MMA Romance) (4 page)

Chapter Six

When I wake up the next morning, everyone else has already
left for the day. Granted, it is almost ten, but I had trouble falling asleep
last night in a new bed in a new house. After I eat breakfast and shower, I
take the car out of the garage and head over to the gym, following the
directions that Duke scrawled on a piece of notepaper and left on the kitchen
counter.

It's in an area of Thurmont that I haven't visited much
before, on the opposite side of school from town and near one of the Navajo
reservations. It's located in a small shopping complex with a crafts super
store occupying the main block, and I park in the lot out front. The sign above
the entrance reads "Big Rig's Gym", and then underneath that in
smaller letters, "Home of Team Apex".

Huh. I always thought that MMA fighting was more of an
individual sport. I smooth the cotton skirt I'm wearing and make sure my polo
is tucked in. Since Logan clued me in that Duke might be offering me a job, I
wanted to look a little more professional. I pull open the glass door and walk
inside. The front desk is manned by a short thirty-something guy who smiles at
me as I approach him.

"Hi, I'm looking for Duke. I'm Caitlyn. His, um,
his—" I look over his shoulder toward the group of grunting men behind
him.

"Oh, Caitlyn! Right. Duke said you'd be stopping
by." He walks out from behind the desk and gestures for me to follow him.
"I'm Harold. This is your first time here, right?" I nod. "Come
with me," he says, and I follow him toward the training area. The wall
we're walking along is covered in old photos and newspaper clippings of Duke. I
slow down and peer at one. The resemblance to Austen is pretty uncanny.
"There's an area on the other end with all your typical gym stuff. You
know, weights, cardio machines, all that. And then there's this," he adds as
we stop at the edge of a black mat on the ground.

A group of sweaty men are scattered about the large room in
front of us. On one end, there's a large, empty cage. Next to it swing several
punching bags that are currently being beaten to a pulp, and floor pads and
other equipment cover the rest of the space.

"Team Apex," Harold announces proudly.

"Um, why is it a team?" I query, a bit embarrassed
but glad I don't have to ask Duke or his sons my question. "Don't they all
fight solo?"

He grins. "Yeah, think of it more like a training camp,
but it's a team because they're all helping each other, too. See?" he
says, nodding toward one of the mats across the room, where Logan grapples with
another man, suddenly tossing him over his hip to the ground.

"Do they ever have to fight each other? In the ring, I
mean?"

"In MMA, it's a cage. Sounds worse than it is. And
yeah, sometimes."

"It must be tough for Duke to watch his sons
fight," I murmur.

"Oh, Austen and Logan are in different weight classes.
Austen's a light heavyweight, and Logan's a middleweight. Duke doesn't believe
in cutting weight, so—" he stops as he notices my confused expression.
"You know, like in wrestling, how they'll drop weight before a fight so
they can fight in the lowest possible weight class, be up against smaller
opponents."

"Oh, yeah, a lot of the wrestlers in my high school did
that. They'd work out in the school gym in sweats and trash bags wrapped around
them. Didn't look too fun."

"Or healthy. Exhausts you right before a fight, so Duke
decided his fighters don't do it."

My focus drifts back toward the mats as I watch Logan pull
off his drenched t-shirt and toss it aside. Whoa. If possible, he's even more
ripped than Austen. His muscles look a little longer, leaner. He bends over slightly
into a fighting stance, bouncing on the balls of his feet, a look of utmost
concentration on his face…

"Caitlyn!" I hear Duke call out, and my head snaps
toward him. His huge frame approaches us, and he slaps Harold on the back, who
manages to wince only slightly at the contact. "Thanks, Harold," he
says, and Harold gives me a nod and walks back toward the front desk.
"Glad you found the place," he says to me, and I see a glint of
childish excitement in his eyes. "Come on, I'll show you around."

He leads me further into the space and I'm suddenly very
conscious of being the lone woman as the fighters pause their workouts and turn
toward me. One of them nods and winks at me and Duke's arm shoots out and
pushes him hard. The guy stumbles back and chuckles before turning back to his
sparring partner.

"How much do you know about MMA?" Duke asks.

"Not much. Mostly what Harold just told me."

"Got it. Well, the rules are pretty simple. Five rounds
in the cage, five minutes each. No hits to the groin, no kicking when someone's
down. You can win by points at the end of the match, or by forcing someone to
tap out or by knocking them out."

"What's a tap out?"

"It's when you've got someone in a hold that could
choke them or break a bone if they don't tap out, signaling they give up. They
tap the ground or whatever they can get their hands on." I nod, thinking
of the pain that Vince was in when Logan was holding his arm in that vise-like
grip. Bet he wished he could tap out. "Austen!" Duke calls out. I
follow his gaze and see a mess of arms and legs on the nearest mat and realize
that one set belongs to Austen. He grins when he sees me. "Kimura!"

Austen suddenly spins and pulls the other man's arm through
his and bends it. The man immediately reaches out with his other hand and taps
on the mat, and Austen releases him.

"Kimura," Duke repeats. "Very basic, very
effective. What else can I tell you?" he says to himself as we continue to
circle the mats. "Well, MMA breaks down into two kinds of fighting:
wrestling and striking. The former for a potential tap out, the latter for a
knockout, though of course you get points for moves in both. All fighters train
in both, though most tend to have a more natural talent for one. Here, we train
mostly in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and boxing. I take the lead on boxing, of course,
and Raul takes the lead for the jits," he adds, leading me toward an
older, though still muscular, man watching Logan on the mats.

As Logan and his partner intertwine their limbs, I hear Raul
swear under his breath and can't help the snort of laughter that comes out of
my nose. Raul's head snaps toward me and he considers me suspiciously.

"You understand Portuguese?" he asks.

I shrug. "A little. My mom's friend Beatriz – they work
in the salon together – she's taught me some. But she wouldn't teach me
those
words until I turned sixteen."

"I always thought you were speaking Spanish,"
Logan's partner comments as they break apart. Logan nails him with a sharp kick
to his thigh. "Ow, fuck!"

"Raul's Brazilian, Tanner," Logan corrects him.

"Exactly," Tanner replies.

"Jesus," Logan murmurs, shaking his head.

"I'm Caitlyn, Duke's girlfriend's daughter," I
explain to Raul, reaching forward to shake his hand.

"Prazer em conhecê-lo, Caitlyn," he says.

"Nice to meet you, too."

"Come on, I'll show you the rest of the place,"
Duke says, leading me back around the mats. After a tour of the weight room,
cardio area, and changing rooms in the basement, Duke leads me back upstairs to
the reception desk and clears his throat awkwardly. Ah, here it comes.
"You know, if you're still looking for a job, Harold is actually taking
some time off to get his personal trainer certification, so we could use
someone else behind the desk."

"Oh, really?" I answer innocently. "That
would be great." Even though I know about my mom's machinations behind
this job offer, it's still a job offer, and I need the money.

"Good. Harold will fill you in on the schedule."
There's some banging noises from the training area and Duke checks his watch.
"Time for the fight. Want to stay and watch?"

"Sure," I reply, feeling curious, and follow him
back toward the mats.

"We've been having a more formal sparring match for
Austen once a week to prepare him for the AFF. That's the American Fighting Federation,
the premiere MMA fighting league. Having one of our fighters get in would
really put the whole team on the map, and Austen's our best chance."

The fighters and coaches have set up metal folding chairs
around the cage on the far end, and Austen and another shirtless man are
stretching in opposing corners. Duke nods to a nearby chair and continues over
to lean on the cage by his eldest son, murmuring in his ear.

I take a seat and look around. A sense of tension has filled
the air. Raul enters the cage and walks to the middle. He beckons to Austen and
the other fighter to come to him, and they tap their taped fists together and
then immediately fall back and begin circling each other. The men around me
burst into cheers and yells, calling out encouragement to both of their team
members.

The other fighter approaches Austen and throws a couple
punches. Austen dodges the first and blocks the second, then nails him in the
stomach with a punch of his own while he's still off balance.

I lean forward, fascinated. I thought I'd feel scared
watching two men fight each other, but there's such a high skill level and
artistry to what I'm seeing. Duke bangs on the cage, yelling instructions to
Austen, and my eyes drift over the crowd to Logan.

He's standing behind the seats, fists up and eyes focused. I
glance back toward the men in the cage, but he's not mimicking either of them.
My eyes dart between them and finally realize that he's putting up his own
fight against his brother, reacting to Austen's every movement as though he
were the one in the cage.

Logan stays there until the fight ends in the fourth round
with Austen's arms locked around his opponent's neck until the man taps out.
Logan lowers his arms and surveys the room, catching me staring right at him.
He meets my gaze and I blush, turning back toward the cage.

Chapter Seven

"Text me as soon as you get home," Maya insists
over the phone. "What are you wearing?"

"Just a cute tank top and jeans," I reply. "I
don't want our parents to think this is a date."

"So they know?"

"Yeah, but they think we're just hanging out as
friends."

"Do you like him?"

"Yes," I admit, feeling myself flush. "When
we kissed the other day…wow. And it's not just that he's hot, either… he's
charming, laid-back, but it also just feels like everything's taken care of
when he's around, you know? Like he always knows exactly what to do, so I can
just relax." I bite my lip, feeling myself gushing. Hearing myself out
loud, it's clear that I've got it bad.

"I think you should marry Austen, and I should marry
Logan, and then we'll finally be sisters."

I laugh. "I'm not sure Logan is your type. He's really
intense."

"I like intense."

"He did give me this really good book to read."

"Oh, really?" Maya says suggestively.

"Not like that. Just a friendship thing."

"Just like you and Austen, right?" she teases me.

"Well, you've got me there," I admit. "OK,
I'll text you after." I smear a touch of berry-colored gloss on my lips
and add another swipe of black mascara to my lashes. Not too much, or my mom
will know something's up.

Fixing a slightly bored expression on my face to mask my
butterflies, I head out of my bedroom and down the stairs. My mom and Duke are
in the living room watching TV, and look up as I reach the foyer. Austen
emerges from the basement steps before they can say anything, dressed equally
casually in a grey t-shirt and jeans.

"Who's fighting tonight?" Duke asks.

"Yeardley and Ruiz," Austen says. "Not sure
who else. But at least that should be a good matchup. And you'll have a good
example to learn from," he adds, nodding to me. I smile and wave to our
parents.

"See you later!" I say as Austen and I head toward
the kitchen and then into the garage. I find myself feeling relieved that we
didn't run into Logan on our way out, though I'm not sure why. Austen slides
behind the driver's seat as I buckle myself in. He immediately asks me about
how my new job is going, and the conversation doesn't slow down for the next
twenty minutes until we reach the fight location downtown.

Austen parks on the street and I'm surprised to feel him
take my hand as he meets me on the sidewalk. He leads me toward a line of a
couple dozen people snaking down the street, and I see some of the people in it
looking at him and nodding, then whispering to each other. A man with a list at
the front of the line greets Austen with a fist bump, and Austen leads me
inside.

"You do realize people are staring at you, right?"
I murmur to him as we walk inside the dimly lit space.

"They know me from the circuit," he tells me with
a modest shrug. I raise my eyebrows. I didn't realize he was that well known.
"This is an old bar that bought the building behind it so they could hold
fights. The owner's a big fan of the sport. This is him now," he says
nodding toward a round, older man heading toward us.

"Austen Riggins! How can I get you to fight here
again?" he asks, shaking Austen's hand heartily.

"When you find me a challenge, Oliver," Austen
replies with a sly smile.

"And who's this lovely lady?" Oliver says, turning
to me.

"Friend of mine," Austen answers, dropping my
hand.

"Caitlyn," I say as I shake Oliver's hand.

"Caitlyn," he repeats. "You two enjoy the
fights tonight. Ruiz looks good, I'm telling you," he adds.

"We'll see," Austen says, then leads me to the bar
as Oliver starts greeting someone else. "Sorry about that," he
murmurs to me, placing his hand on the small of my back. "He knows my dad,
so I didn't want him to—"

"I get it," I assure him. "Think they're
going to card me?" I ask nodding to the bartender.

"Well, well," he says, grinning at me, and I
blush.

"I mean, I was just going to have one beer."

"I'll get it," he offers. He catches the
bartender's eye, and a second later he's sliding a beer across the bar to him.

"No charge," the bartender says, but Austen slides
a few bucks over for a tip anyway.

"Come on," Austen says, nodding toward a door in
the corner of the bar. I follow him, noticing he's still getting looks from the
people around us. Especially the women, who let their eyes trail across his
broad shoulders and muscular arms before looking away. I take a sip of my beer,
feeling a bit invisible.

We emerge from the dimly lit bar into a bright,
high-ceilinged space. At the center is a cage like the one at Big Rig's, and
there are tiers of wooden platform set up around it in a square with rows of
benches on each one. People are milling around and many of the seats are
already taken, but Austen finds us a couple free ones just a few rows back from
the cage.

"It's exciting to be with you while you watch your
first fight," he whispers into my ear, and I shiver as I feel his warm
breath on me.

"Well, I did see you fight last week," I remind
him.

"Thank god I won."

"From what I hear, there wasn't much of a chance that
you'd lose. Harold told me you have a shot at getting into the AFF."

He nods. "Just waiting for the right opportunity."
As he finishes his sentence, the lights suddenly dim and the music kicks up.
"There'll be a couple of fights before the main one," he says,
raising his voice so I can hear him.

A speaker crackles and an announcer's voice comes on.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he intones, "welcome to Cage Warrior's
Fight Night! We've got three great matchups for you tonight!" The lights
focus on one corner of the room while the announcement continues, "For our
first fight of the night, in our lightweight division, weighing in at one
hundred and fifty-three pounds, put your hands together for Viktor Delov!"

A shirtless man in tight shorts enters followed by two other
men who pound on his back. He shadowboxes as he makes his way to a door in the
cage and enters, jogging around as the crowd cheers.

"That's a lightweight?" I ask Austen, surprised by
the man's impressive musculature.

"Yeah, he's not really one fifty-three, though. He's
probably at least one sixty-five right now, but just cut for weigh-in," he
explains, and I nod, thinking of how Harold told me that Duke doesn't have his
fighters cut weight.

"And weighing in at one hundred and fifty-four pounds,
get loud for Bruno Almas!" Another man enters in the same fashion, raising
his arms as he reaches the cage to greet the crowd. A referee in a black and
white-striped shirt enters the cage and closes it behind him as the fighters
retreat to their corners and exchange a few last words with their coaches.

Two girls in hot pants and gold bikini tops walk around the
floor next to the raised cage, holding posters over their heads that read
"1". Seems a little silly, since I doubt anyone's in danger of not
realizing that it's the first round. I could swear I see one of them glance at
Austen and me a second too long, but the lights are darting everywhere now and
it's hard to tell. As the lights refocus on the stage, I watch the two girls
meet toward one of the far corners of the cage.

"It'll be three rounds, five minutes each. Not five
rounds, like the AFF," Austen whispers in my ear as the music cuts out and
the audience leans forward expectantly. I'm certainly feeling the tension in
the air, but it's more due to the fact that the girls are now whispering to
each other and nodding in our direction. "Almas has a longer reach, but I
hear Delov's been working hard on his jits," he continues, eyeing the
fighters.

"Uh-huh," I reply distractedly. The bell dings loudly
and my attention snaps back to the stage. As the fight gets underway, I find
myself watching without absorbing anything, despite Austen supplying me with a
constant stream of information about what's going on. Maybe the girls are just
big fans of his? Ugh, even I can tell I'm reaching.

As soon as the first round is done, I excuse myself and head
to the bathroom. I need to be by myself for a minute to get a handle on how I
feel. I follow a sign to the ladies' room, which is just back inside the bar area.
There are a handful of women already standing in line, so I lean on the wall
behind the last one.

Of course a guy like Austen would have a lot of female
admirers, and plenty of ex-girlfriends, too. I can't expect him to have never
dated before I came along. I catch myself chewing the inside of my lip and
shake my head. I take a deep breath once I'm inside the stall and resolve to
not worry about anything yet. It's too early on in the relationship to freak
out.

I walk back toward the fight shaking my hands dry and
promising myself that I'll enjoy the rest of the evening.

"Excuse me? Hey!" I glance around, realizing
someone's trying to get my attention. "Over here!" My gaze falls on
the two scantily clad ring girls. They're leaning with their round 2 posters by
the edge of the nearest bleacher, and they're beckoning me over. Shit.
Something tells me they're not about to give me their blessing.

I reluctantly walk over, not knowing what else to do. They
glance at each other and the taller one, a pretty, if overly made-up, blonde
steps forward.

"You're here with Austen Riggins, right?" she asks
me.

"Yeah," I admit, trying not to sound defensive
right off the bat.

"Look, I know how this is going to sound, but we just
wanted to warn you about him."

"
Warn
me?" I ask incredulously.

"We've just never seen you around here before, so you
might not know his reputation," she goes on, and I shrug as though it
doesn't matter to me, but inside I'm hanging on her every word. "He's a
player. A big one. He's slept with everyone."

"You?" I challenge her, wondering if this is just
jealousy talking.

"Yeah," she confirms.

"And me," the other one pipes up from behind her.
Oh, boy. "I mean, at the time I didn't think we were just sleeping
together. I thought we were dating."

"That's the thing," the blonde chimes in,
"he's so charming, he makes you feel like you're the only one. And maybe
we were all hoping it's true, you know? Ignoring what was going on
because—"

"—he's so fucking hot," the other one completes
her thought. I wince, hearing almost my exact words to Maya earlier in the
night repeated back to me like this. "The two of us finally decided we'd
had enough. And when we saw you with him tonight… we just thought we should
tell you. Before you get attached."

I can tell by the disappointment pooling in my stomach that
it's already too late for that. I nod and try to force a small smile.

"Thanks for letting me know," I say and begin to
walk away.

"You alright?" the blonde asks worriedly.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine," I assure her. "It's only
our first date anyway."