Battlescars (2 page)

Her lips were full, the kind of lips that would look great with a bright red lipstick or without anything at all. The kind of lips that would look gorgeous wrapped around something long and hard. Dyson would normally run with such images in his head, but this time he tried to shake them off. It felt almost indecent to be thinking about her in such a way after those jerks had come onto her so hard.

But still…damn. She was worth a whole night full of second glances.

She sipped on her water and looked at him over the glass, her blue eyes locking with his. “Thank you,” she murmured. “I appreciate your help more than you know.”

Dyson smiled. “You are more than welcome,” he said, and then pointed to her glass. “Let me buy you a drink?”

She shook her head. “No, thank you. I don’t drink.”

Dyson digested that idea for a moment. “You don’t drink, but you’re in a bar.”

The woman held up her notebook as an explanation. “I’m doing the accounting for the bar owner. No drinking on the job.”

Dyson shook his head and laughed. “Okay…so let’s back up a minute. I know that you’re gorgeous and you’re good with numbers, but I don’t know your name.” He held out his hand. “Mine is Dyson.”

Her hand was cool in his, but her handshake was firm. “I’m Kayla.”

“Good to meet you,” Dyson said, waiting for her response as an awkward silence opened between them. She wasn’t forthcoming, and he didn’t want to push her. She seemed nice enough – grateful for his help – but not interested in anything more than a friendly hello.

Still, Dyson though, she was worth a shot. It wasn’t every day – or even every year – that he met a woman as naturally stunning as Kayla.

“Are you already an accountant? You look pretty young to be crunching numbers.”

She gave him a cool glance. Had he already offended her? Dyson looked down at his glass and tried to figure out what to say. He was always smooth with the ladies but something about this one had completely screwed up his sense of timing.

“I’m in college,” she said, her voice all business and no nonsense. “This is one of my part-time jobs to help pay my way through.”

“You take classes up at the university?”

She nodded and took another long sip of her water. End of discussion again.

“You do anything besides numbers? What do you do for fun?”

She shook her head and gave a rueful laugh. “I sit on bar stools and let guys hit on me.”

Dyson wasn’t going to honor that with a response. He took a long pull of his liquor and stared at himself in the mirror. After a moment, Kayla sighed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know that made you sound the same as the guys that were just harassing me, but it’s obvious you aren’t like that. So I really am sorry. But I just want to do my work and go home.”

“I understand.”

Dyson didn’t understand, but what the hell was he going to say? He wasn’t going to bare his soul to this woman who obviously wanted nothing to do with him, but there was something about her that was so intriguing already…something that made him almost understand the desperation of the two guys he had ordered away from her. She was the kind of woman who was already under his skin, but why?

Dyson took another long sip. Kayla sighed again, as though she wanted to say something, but she didn’t. She was looking at him, though. Dyson knew that feeling of someone’s eyes on him, that unexplainable tickle of attention that ran down his spine. It had held him in good stead many times, even here in this bar, where he had picked up more than a few women in his day.

He let her look her fill, then finally turned his gaze to her. To his surprise, she didn’t try to hide the fact that she had been caught looking – though she did blush.

“Like what you see?” he asked, his voice low and sultry.

She blushed even harder but to her credit, she didn’t take her eyes away from his. Dyson admired that forwardness in anyone, but especially in a young woman who had already dealt with one too many assholes tonight.

“Maybe,” she said directly.

Dyson grinned. This was more like it! Dyson knew just how to handle a flirt, and he felt relief as he prepared to settle into the comfortable territory of the typical boy-meets-girl-in-a-bar scenario. His smooth, practiced ease with women was back, and he was felt in control. “Oh really?”

“But I’m not available,” she told him, and shrugged sadly, as though she were really sorry that she had to cut things short. “And here’s my boss.”

A tall man with a serious, rushed air had come out from behind the mirrored wall. He smiled at Kayla and motioned her back, then was gone again. Kayla slipped from her stool and went around the bar, turning once to cast a final look back at Dyson. Then she gave him a curt nod and was gone.

“Shit,” Dyson breathed into his drink, emptying the glass. The bartender raised an eyebrow and Dyson pointed to the tap. He needed a beer to wash the bad taste of rejection out of his mouth.

“She’s something,” the bartender said, and Dyson looked at him with surprise. The bartender just went about pouring the beer as though he hadn’t said a word. He poured off the foamy head, topped the pint glass off from the tap, and set the heavy glass on the bar.

“You speak few words, my friend, but they are worthy ones,” Dyson said, and lifted his beer. “Cheers.”

K
ayla was dead tired. She yawned against her hand, even though it was already noon and she had slept in until she almost missed her first class of the day. It was Wednesday – one of her slower days – when she only had morning classes and her afternoons free. She thought about her friends, who could take a day off just as it was intended and spend the time doing absolutely nothing. She wished she could be like them, cruising around in convertibles, shopping to their heart’s content and maybe just going home, going back to bed and sleeping all day.

But life had never been like that for Kayla.

She climbed the steps of the boxing gym, sidestepping two Gatorade bottles that had been left behind after their owners had replenished the electrolytes lost in a workout. She pushed on the heavy door and stepped into a well-lit space with high ceilings, mats all over the floor and noises echoing from the rafters. She could already hear the sound of fists thudding hard against bags, or maybe even against bodies. The rough and tumble atmosphere had intimidated her at first, but she was starting to learn her way around it. Understanding the numbers behind the business gave her a kind of psychological power that rendered it less frightening.

She stood for a moment at the entrance, looking into the long room. There were men standing before bags that hung from the tall ceilings, punishing them with hard punches. There was a man nearby jumping rope with his eyes closed, sweat running down his face, the muscles in his legs pushed to the limit. Kayla watched him for a moment with more than a touch of admiration – this was a true athlete, a man with a rock hard body who was pushing himself to give more, more, more. She could respect that.

Looking down to the far end of the room, Kayla saw two men sparring in the ring. Something about them stirred her admiration in an entirely different way. She couldn’t see them very well from this far away, but they were much like the man jumping rope – hard, finely tuned athletes who were very sweaty, tired and muscular as hell. She watched them with interest as they danced around each other, the lightness of their feet a sharp contrast to the heavy landing of each blow. Their bodies were tight and toned, the kind of muscles that looked fantastic under clothes and even better out of them.

Lost in her thoughts of bare skin, muscled torsos, and dripping sweat, Kayla barely noticed when the men finally stopped their sparring. It appeared that no one actually won, but rather, they just got tired of what they were doing and chose to quit. One of the men was blonde and very fair, a little on the short and stocky side, and was all smiles, clearly loose and relaxed after a satisfying workout. The other one was taller, with dark brown hair and a quiet demeanor. She watched them for a while longer, focused on the guy with the darker hair. Something about the way he moved was intriguing.

They grabbed their bags and turned to head in her direction, and Kayla realized that she’d been transfixed, staring at the men for longer than she should have been. That was her cue to get moving. She looked at the floor as she walked toward them, heading for the little rooms in the back where she balanced the books. She had only taken a few steps when she heard a deep voice say, “Well, I’ll be damned. Kayla?”

Kayla froze and slowly looked up. She knew that voice – she had heard it come to her rescue the night before. What were the odds that she would see him here?

“Dyson,” she said, and gave him a curt, businesslike nod.

The blonde man stood beside Dyson, openly staring at Kayla with an admiring smile, clearly expecting an introduction. Dyson’s focus left no room for his sparring partner, though, and Kayla felt a little warm under Dyson’s intense gaze and winning smile.

“Okay, well…see you in a minute, buddy,” the blonde guy said, realizing that no introduction would be forthcoming and excusing himself to disappear through the side door. He gave them another glance as he walked away, but still Dyson didn’t acknowledge him. Kayla heard the sound of a locker slamming, then the quieter sound of a shower running.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Dyson said, still grinning broadly. His blue eyes fixing hers as if he were trying to read her mind. “Are you following me?”

Kayla rolled her eyes before she stopped to think about how rude it might seem. Then she blushed, which she absolutely hated doing, and the knowledge that she was blushing made her blush even more. Dyson was clearly delighted by this little lapse in her cool façade, and she mentally kicked herself for not being as smooth as her friends would be in this same situation.

“Maybe you are the one following me,” she said, and held up a notebook much like the one she had flashed before him last night. “I am here to do accounting for the owner.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say.”

Kayla grinned despite herself. “Are you always so cocky?”

“Are you always so persistent? I mean, following me, really?”

Kayla rolled her eyes again. This guy was plenty of fun, but she wasn’t here for fun. There wasn’t room for that in her life right now, and she couldn’t imagine a time when there would be space for such things. She reined in her smile and gave him a more serious look. “I need to get back there to work,” she said pointedly, and then brushed past him. “Good to see you again.”

“Hey, wait…Kayla, wait, please?”

She turned to look back at him, all sweaty and earnest and suddenly sweet.

“Listen, I know we somehow got off on the wrong foot,” he said, with no trace of cockiness. Dyson seemed like a candid and sincere man who was simply trying to make friends with her, and the change in his attitude softened her view toward him just ever so slightly. “I would like to start over. I have a fight coming up – I do some fighting to pay the bills – and I would love to see you there. It’s happening a week from Friday, right here. Would you like to come as my guest?”

Kayla looked at him for a long moment. She had to admit that she was charmed by his attitude, and she was privately pleased that he was clearly interested in seeing her again. She had never been to a fight before, and she wasn’t sure how she would handle all the fists flying, but she had to admit to herself that she was curious.

“Let me think about it,” she said.

The look of disappointment on Dyson’s face was fleeting but clear. She felt a little guilty about not taking him up on his offer, but Kayla didn’t like to make promises she couldn’t keep. She much preferred to keep her options open. What if she wound up with a job that needed to be done that day? What if she had to study for something? What if she just wasn’t in the mood to deal with fists and cocky attitudes and men all around her?

Kayla had never been quick to commit to anything concerning a man, but especially a man who was this intriguing. She had seen more than enough of that cocky, self-assured attitude out of her own father, and look where it got her. And where it got her mother, for that matter.

So she simply smiled at him and said, “I’ll let you know.”

“Okay…thanks for thinking about it. And have a good afternoon, Kayla.”

Dyson gave her an easygoing smile, turned, and headed to the locker room, and Kayla watched him go. He didn’t look back at her, and she wasn’t sure whether that bothered her or pleased her.

Just stop thinking about it, because what does it matter?

She sighed and headed for the back, where she found the George sitting at his desk, frowning at invoices. They were stacked up in haphazard, precariously balanced piles, and Kayla wondered – not for the first time – how he ever kept anything in order before she showed up to help him. It was so bad that Kayla was willing to bet George hadn’t paid proper taxes in years. Kayla had every intention of sorting out George’s tax issues, but that was something she would get to later, once she got the rest of his business sorted out and in order.