Naked Choke (7 page)

“Baltimore’s a rough city. I’m sure you’ve seen some bad stuff.” I paused, drummed my fingers on the wheel, thinking of the shit she saw on a daily basis. The shootings, the crackheads, the wife beaters. “That’s why you wouldn’t drink the water I gave you.”

“See, I’m not actually that crazy. I’m just
experienced.
” She covered her face with her hands, groaned. “Oh, God. I can’t believe I said that.”

I grinned at her slip. She was so damn sweet. “That’s good to know.”

She laughed off her mistake. “I’ve just learned a lot, the hard way.”

And that made her wise. Knowledgeable about life. It gave her so much
more
than all the groupies I’d ever met. Emory had lived, survived and still was so fucking innocent in so many ways. The thought that a guy like me might touch her and tarnish her, to wear that innocence away had me downshifting and us snapping against our seat belts around a turn.

It wasn’t just her sweetness that I was drawn to. Her ponytail whipped around from the breeze as I drove the ten minutes to my building and the scent of her shampoo—it
was
fucking coconut—was driving me insane. It was hard to keep my eye on the road when her toned thighs were on display. Thank God for shorts. The thoughts I had were anything but sweet.

“Simon seems nice,” I said, trying to make conversation when all I wanted to do was pull the car over, unclick her seat belt and pull her onto my lap.

“He’s lived next door a few years now and has been a good friend. Plus, he comes in very handy. He picked out the shoes I wore the other night.”

I glanced down her legs again. This time her words allowed me the chance.

“The heels?” I remembered those shoes well and spent Friday night thinking about them. The simple flip-flops she wore now were pretty sexy, too, with those bright, shiny nails. Hell, she’d probably be sexy if she wore a burlap sack. “I need to thank him.”

She turned her head and glanced at me, but couldn’t read her eyes behind her sunglasses. “Oh?”

“Those shoes looked damn hot and he came to the game with you. More importantly, he left you alone with me. That makes him a great wingman.”

Her mouth opened and then she snapped it shut. “I’ll be sure to tell him you said so.” She ran her palms over her shorts. Nerves? “I brought him because I wanted to be—”

“Safe.” I finished for her, keeping my eyes on the road. “I get it. Really. If I’d turned out to be a psycho, you’d have him to get you out of there. Shows you’re really smart and I like that.”

“You think I’ve ruled you out as being psycho?” She tilted her head to look at me. Ah, she had sass, too.

I shifted my eyes from the road. “You got in the car, didn’t you?”

She didn’t respond as I pulled into the parking lot of my building. It was brick, modern and three stories. The ground floor was a combination of my gym and other businesses. There were two floors of apartments above. I’d bought it a few years ago as an investment when I set up my gym and had the top floor retrofitted into just one apartment for me. Living above the gym made life simple.

Hopping out of the car, I dashed around before she could open the door for herself. I really wanted one more glance at her legs and the hint of cleavage that her tank top exposed before she climbed out. I was a gentleman, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t look.

“This is my gym.” I pointed to the entrance. “My apartment’s upstairs. Would you feel more comfortable if I showered in the gym, or would you be okay coming up to my apartment?”

She glanced up at the building, then at me. “Oh.” Taking her sunglasses off, she frowned. I could finally see her dark eyes. A chocolate brown several shades lighter than my own. She wore a hint of makeup, nothing like Friday night, and she looked like the girl next door. I couldn’t decide which look I liked better. Fortunately, I didn’t have to decide. Both did it for me.

“God, Gray, I owe you an apology. You’ve been nothing but nice and I’ve been…cautious and that has made you out to look like a…a…creep.” She reached her hand out to touch me, but must have thought twice about the action and let her hand drop. “There’s wary and then there’s rude. I’m sorry. Your apartment’s fine. I won’t run away screaming. I promise.”

I gave her a small nod of acknowledgement and led her toward the entrance for the residences. I used the fob on my keychain to gain entry to the lobby by placing it on the sensor on the exterior wall. “I wouldn’t promise anything yet, my place is a mess.” I pushed the button for the elevator.

She smiled, clearly relieved I’d let her insecurity slide. The doors opened. “You can’t be worse than a teenage boy.”

Once we were inside and used my key fob once again to access my floor, I moved closer to her. “I’m glad you’re wary, because that means you protect yourself. I understand, because that’s my job, to help people defend themselves. I’m also glad you feel safe with me. Like I said the other night, I won’t hurt you. No one will hurt you when you’re with me. That’s a promise.”

EMORY

The elevator was small, yet when Gray moved toward me, it felt downright claustrophobic. He loomed over me and I had to tilt my head back to hold his gaze. A frisson of electricity passed between us and I didn’t know what he was going to do. Was he going to kiss me? I literally gulped at the idea of his mouth on mine. He didn’t scare me, not in the sense that I feared for my safety, but I was definitely scared of how he made me feel. This,
this,
whatever the hell it was, was making me lose control of my body. With Gray around, it had a mind of its own.

I cleared my throat, my mouth suddenly dry as he watched me closely. There was no question he meant every word, that he’d beat the crap out of anyone who wanted to hurt me, like a modern white knight. “Okay,” I whispered, knowing he wanted me to say it aloud. His words were like a balm, soothing. I’d been taking care of myself, of Chris, for a long, long time and it felt good, no, better than good, that someone wanted to take that role on for me. I wanted to believe him. I
did
believe him.

The door slid open and Gray stepped back, letting me exit first. Instead of opening into a hallway, I stepped out directly into his apartment. It was wall-to-wall windows, the space bright and airy with an open floor plan. The decor was more masculine minimalist than sleek and shiny. The kitchen was modern and stainless steel, the couches leather, the TV large. It was apparent from the space alone that he had money, but he didn’t flaunt it. He didn’t flaunt his fame either. It was a very appealing trait, along with so many others I was slowly discovering.

“You think this is messy?” I asked, surprised. I knew what male messy was like and this was
not
it.

“I have a cleaning crew come through on Mondays while I’m downstairs, so it’s been all week since they’ve been in.” He dropped his keys on a table by the door.

I walked toward the kitchen. “No dirty dishes.” Turning, I faced the couch, coffee table, TV arrangement. “No empty pizza boxes or game controllers scattered around.” I finished my circle and faced a long hallway down which I assumed were the bedrooms and bath as it was the portion of the apartment with walls for privacy. “No dirty laundry on the floor.”

Gray shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a clean freak.”

I put my hand to my heart in mock surprise. “No woman has swept you up? Seriously, I had to ship my son to a military academy in order for him to learn tidiness.”

“Same for me then. Army.” He placed his water bottle in the sink, then came over to me, gave me a surprisingly hard stare. He had only touched me once, holding my hand at the restaurant, but this look, I felt it all over. “I don’t bring women here, so this…compulsion I have is a secret.”

I couldn’t respond to that because my brain was frozen.
Didn’t bring women here.
 

“I’m going to jump in the shower. There’s juice and iced tea in the fridge if you’re thirsty. The remote for the TV is somewhere near the couch. I won’t be too long since I don’t have to do my hair.” He ran his hand over his head, the short hairs rasping against his palm. I wondered if it was prickly or soft and I itched to find out. Instead, I only nodded.

He turned and walked down the hall. As he went, he reached behind his head and yanked his T-shirt off, gifting me with a view of his muscled back, lean waist and a tattoo that took up part of his left shoulder blade and worked its way around his ribs toward the front. Oh my God. That back. The door at the end of the hall shut behind him, then moments later I heard the shower.

Realizing I just stood there, mouth open, practically gaping at him, I rolled my eyes. I was being an idiot, ogling the man. No, not an idiot, because any conscious woman would ogle him. I mean, that was just his back. The way his biceps bulged with his movements, the way his back was sinewy and V-shaped with muscle had my nipples tightening. And the tattoo! I’d never found them all that appealing before, but I wanted to strip him naked and check out every single one of them. I knew about the one on his arm, and now the one on his back. Were there more? God, if there were, there wasn’t much skin left I hadn’t seen, but I wanted to tug on those shorts to find out.

Not that I could act upon it; I was a wuss. I barely remembered what it felt like to have a man-induced orgasm and was pretty bad at sex. Bad enough that I hadn’t been able to keep Jack from sniffing around Paralegal Sue, divorce me and move to California.

What did guys even want these days? Sex, for sure. But I’d heard, from Faith and Christy and all my younger single friends, that oral sex was done first these days. Even on first dates. Seriously? Was I so old-fashioned I wanted to work my way down a guy’s body?

Did Gray expect me to give him a blow job? Today? He’d barely touched me, just held my hand the other night, and that had been for show. But that was it. Was this even a date? Had he not touched me any more because he wasn’t interested? He said he didn’t bring women to his apartment, so why me?

Hearing the water shut off had me coming back from la-la land. The guy took two-minute showers like in the military. I hadn’t even moved from where he left me, so I went to check out his view from the large windows. We were above the treetops lining the sidewalk and I could see across the street to the other buildings. We were in an area of town that had once been a suburb of Baltimore but had been absorbed into the city. The small downtown area was thriving with boutiques and small shops, restaurants and coffee houses. I could see why Gray put his gym here; young people, fit people would find the location convenient.

I moved to look at framed pictures that were on a table behind the couch. One was of Gray competing in a fight, his arm out punching his competitor in the face. The photographer had caught him in motion. Pretty ruthless. Another was of Gray and a few other men, clearly other fighters. I picked up one of him and Thor, both with medals around their necks, both younger. No family pictures, then I remembered he’d said he had a shitty childhood.

“I hope I didn’t take too long,” Gray said, coming out of the hallway.

Putting the picture back, I looked up at him. He wore tan cargo shorts that hit the top of his knees and a pale blue button-up short-sleeved shirt. His feet were bare. His male scent filled the air, something woodsy and not too strong. Soap, perhaps? Whatever it was I liked. A lot.

“Me and Thor, back in the day.” He nodded toward the picture I’d just put back.

I glanced back at the photo. “One of your competitions?”

“Yeah, you can see what I look like with my hair grown out a bit.”

I assessed him, picturing him with longer hair. It was only about an inch long in the photo, but his hair was dark and covered his brow. I wondered if it were even longer if it would curl over his forehead and be unruly. Not his style, it seemed, and I liked Gray with it closely cropped. It exposed him to the world and with it he was saying
This is me.
He didn’t hide behind anything and I liked that. So far he’d been direct and forthcoming, and it totally,
totally,
worked for me.

“I kind of like the clean-cut look,” I admitted.

He ran a hand over his very short hair, all the while assessing me, perhaps testing the weight of my words. He made a sound deep in his throat. “Ready to go?”

“Sure.” My flip-flops were noisy on the wood floor as I followed him back to the elevator.

Grabbing his keys and sliding his feet into a pair of flip-flops of his own, he pushed the button for the elevator, which opened right away.

“You aren’t skipping a Sunday lunch with family, are you?” He leaned back against the handrail, gripping it.

Clearing my throat, I replied, “I got divorced four years ago. The house was sold in the settlement and I moved into my parents’ row house in the city.” I fiddled with the strap on my purse. “Yes, it was pretty pathetic, living with my parents in my thirties—with a child of my own. Fortunately for all of us, they retired and moved to Florida a few months later. I decided to stay and live in the house I grew up in, maybe because it was familiar, maybe because it was just easy. I had too much insanity as it was with a fourteen-year-old who was angry at his father, at the world. At the time it didn’t make sense to find somewhere else to live, but now with Chris gone, maybe I should start thinking about it.” I flicked my gaze to his and realized I'd rambled. “To answer your question, no. No family in town.”

The doors opened and he led me back out into the heat, which hit us like a wet blanket as we walked to the car. I glanced back at the gym, curious. This was Gray’s business. His life. When I first saw him on Friday night I’d thought he was fit and lived it instead of just pumping iron. I’d been right.

Through the wall of windows, I could see dark mats on most of the floors, a large reception area, punching and kicking bags hanging from the ceiling and what appeared to be a boxing ring with chain-link fence around it. Several people were working out.

“Want to check it out?” he asked, angling his head toward the gym.