Captured at Nightfall (Capture My Heart Love Story) (2 page)

Lainie
was already working on her second major; having swapped to psychology after having a
mid-college-life
crisis with only five credits left on a degree in graphic design. She probably did crazy stuff like attend underground fight clubs all the time.

Lainie
batted a set of mascara-laden eyelashes, her bottom lip sticking out. “Please?”

Allie’s
mouth tightened with a grimace. “Okay,” she conceded.

“Awesome!”
Lainie’s fingers wrapped around her cell phone and began immediately tapping over the screen. “I’ll text the crew.”

Allie
’s cringe cranked even tighter, crinkling up the corner of her nose. “The
crew
consisted of Jason, Tyson, Cole, and Jennifer. Cole and Jennifer were a couple. And Allie actually, really liked Jennifer. Jason and Tyson, though . . . well, Allie referred to them as Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Immaturity was a free-flowing river of abundance between their two empty skulls. They spent the majority of their time flexing their muscles, farting, and turning Lainie into a squealing puddle of ovaries.

“What’s with
the face?” Lainie pouted. “You look like I shoved bamboo spikes under your fingernails.”

Allie
gave herself a mental smack and quickly cleared her expression. “Nothing. Indigestion, maybe?”

“
Eww
.” Lainie stepped back a little. Her eyebrows pinched up like she was having serious doubts about taking Allie under her wing, letting her occupy the recently vacated bedroom in the back of the rental house, or introducing her to the crew in the first place. “You’re not going to sulk tonight, are you?”

“What?
No! Honestly, it sounds fun.” Allie might have slightly over-exaggerated that statement, but added, “I’m glad you thought to invite me.”

Lainie
rolled her eyes as a smile crept back over her lips. “You can’t keep your head stuffed between your laptop and homework all day. It’d be practically criminal of me not to save you. You’re missing out on, like, the most important parts of college!”

Allie
smiled and gave a half-hearted, “What would I do without you?”

Lainie
’s eyes grew somber. “I
seriously
don’t know.”

It
was a quarter past nine before Lainie and Allie finally got to the UMMA. They hurried down a narrow brick alleyway leading to the entrance while the
click, click, click
of Lainie’s six-inch slut heels trailed behind them. Allie looked around, taking in all kinds of shady characters.

Holy
criminy!
This place had the heeby jeebies prickling all across the back of her neck and up her arms.

Gang members stood sentinel at the corners of the intersecting streets, protecting their turf, the metallic glint of their
pieces
shoved just below their waistbands. Down the length of the sidewalk nappy-looking hookers stood in doorways and along the gutters, asses out, displaying the merchandise to any Johns who may be passing by.

She turned to
Lainie to whisper, “Thought this place was supposed to be scary? Where’s all the caution tape and chalked-out body lines?”

Lainie
grinned. The girl had gone all out tonight, plastering on a skin tight, black mini skirt the ‘ho’s across the street would tear their own hair weaves out to get a hold of, along with a matching slinky top that had some serious side-boob action going on. Her eyes were charcoaled black, her hair teased, and her lips slathered with some kind of lip gloss that had snake venom in it to make them plump.

It
was insane what girls did to themselves to look good. When it came to getting a guy’s attention, Allie figured it would probably be a lot easier to just show up naked.

When
Lainie rubbed her swollen lips together, Allie shuddered. Naked sure beat the heck out of snake venom any night. Though, she had to admit, the girl sure could rock the slut look. Lainie had
do-me
pheromones radiating from every pour.

Allie
bit her lip and looked down at her own outfit. Deep red material helped compliment the ghost skin she’d been plagued with her whole life. It was her curse to bear that she always burned instead of tanned. She sighed. Definitely came up short in the cleavage department; especially when compared to Lainie, who seemed to have taken greedy seconds from that end of the gene pool. When the murky overhead lights flickered over them both Allie noticed her chest was sparkling. Lainie had dumped a bunch of glitter crap down her top before she could stop her. Now she had a pair of disco balls rising from the top of her dress.
Yay!

Where
Lainie went for glitz and glam, Allie preferred conservative comfort. It was only after Lainie had threatened to break both her legs and a few fingers that Allie had agreed to wear the dress instead of Levis. She’d been forced to put on makeup, too. Some borrowed eyeliner and shadow enhanced her plain brown eyes, while a tube of Harlot 69 red lipstick finished off the look. Allie had opted to pull her auburn locks up into a messy bun at the back of her head. Now she had the prick of about five million bobby pins stabbing her scalp with every step she took.

But, hey, if it got
Lainie off her back, then whatever.

A group of tattooed-up guys were loitering near the corrugated, steel door that was the entrance to the UMMA. When
Lainie and Allie neared, the guys looked down at them with dark, assessing eyes.

Allie
shot Lainie a nervous glance. “When is the
crew
going to get here?” Meat heads or not, Allie would feel a lot safer to be in with a familiar—
primarily male
—crowd.

Lainie
pulled out her phone, ignoring a come on from tattooed guy that had Allie’s cheeks matching her dress, and checked for new text messages. They passed through the doorway and Allie dropped her eyes, trying to hide from the creep-o’s stares.

“
Jennifer had a study group for chem lab, so they might be a half hour late.” She dropped her phone into a black, satin clutch. “The guys were going to swing by her apartment to pick her up on their way.”

Allie
and Lainie paid their admission and were swept away among a wave of bodies. The air was heavy and musky with sweat and perfume. Hard rap lyrics pounded through the room, while the bass vibrated over Allie’s toes and up her legs. The music seemed to ignite the atmosphere, setting Allie’s blood rushing through her veins. The crush of bodies weaved along to the beat while everywhere people shouted in wild conversation.

A banner
displaying the roster of fighters and their stats by weight class hung over the octagonal cage where the fights would take place.

Allie
’s eyes widened as she felt her nerves begin to surge. Blood splatters stained all over the blue mat inside.

The f
ighters standing at the outskirts of the arena with their trainers looked like thugs: all huge bodies, battered faces, wrapped hands, and low-slung shorts.

“Over there,”
Lainie shouted and pointed to a group of fighters. “See that guy?”

Allie
scanned the group Lainie had indicated. Two fighters stood kitty-corner from them, well over six feet tall, bulging with muscle, noses crooked from being busted a few times, ears a cauliflowered disaster.

“Which one are you pointing at?”
Allie asked.

Lainie
jabbed her finger harder. “That guy behind the meat. The red-headed one.”

S
tanding on her toes to see around the expanding mesh of people that were filing in, she caught a flash of bronze, untidy hair sticking up around a lean face.
Oh, my.
A stray lock shadowed a pair of moss-green eyes. The fighter had a hard jaw and cruel lips that were molded into a scowl. His face held none of the wear and tear of the other fighters. He was slimmer, too; muscles elongated and almost leonine, but by no means could he be considered a lightweight. A set of rock hard shoulders bunched together while he wound white tape around his wrists and flexed his fingers. His abdomen was pure washboard material. Tongue-licking goodness. His back curved with muscle that framed the line of spine and delved into spandex (
yes!)
shorts.

Allie
felt her mouth growing moist just looking at him.

Lainie
giggled. “Guess you found him, huh?”

Allie
nodded and swallowed.

“
Jennifer said we
had
to look for him. Total lay material, yeah?”

Though the word choice had her cheeks turning pink, Allie
couldn’t argue with that—couldn’t drag her eyes away from his body, either. He was dangerous and sexy. A complete predator.

“What’s his name?”

Lainie shook her head. “Dunno. Everyone just calls him the merc. He’s supposed to be some kind of ringer. Undefeated, too, with something crazy like ten K.O.’s under his belt. The one everyone wants to beat. He’s a middle weight fighter, but they’ve started putting him up against the heavier guys just to see if anyone can touch him.”

Allie
’s eyebrows rose. “What’s he doing at the UMMA?” Shouldn’t someone like that go pro?

Lainie
shook her head. “He’s had offers to move up, but wasn’t interested, I guess.”

“Huh,” was all
Allie could reply. She didn’t know enough about Mixed Martial Arts to add anything of intelligence. Never actually seen a fight for herself. All she knew about it was that MMA was a kind of mix between boxing and wrestling—minus all the rules. Oh, and the Brazilians kicked ass at it.

“Totally,”
Lainie agreed. “Wouldn’t mind having
his
shorts pulled down, hmmm? Do you think that’s a cup he’s wearing, or
all
him?”

Allie
’s eyes locked down
there
before she could stop herself and fire immediately rushed to her face. “Gross, Lainie!” Damn it, her throat had turned into the Sahara desert. She’d managed to go from nervous, to scared, to totally psyched, to crazy lusty all within the last fifteen minutes. “I could seriously get into this MMA stuff,” she agreed.

Seeming to sense he was being watched, his head swiveled around and his gaze seized hers.

“Oh,
shit
!” Lainie’s fingers clamped around Allie’s arm. “He’s totally looking at us!”

Allie
swallowed around a lump in her throat.

The
merc’s eyes narrowed, bled almost to black under the dimming lights. A shiver sliced down her spine and sucked the air from her lungs, leaving her a quivering lump. Whatever was going on behind those eyes scared the bajeezus out of her.

T
hankfully, the announcer, shouting for everyone to get seated so the fighters could weigh in, snapped her out of her trance.

“Come on,
Allie. We’ve got to get a good seat.” Lainie shook her arm.

Allie
let herself be pulled away, feeling as if her heart would crash through her ribs.

They
managed to get seats ringside; probably thanks to Lainie’s mile of cleavage on display. The crew showed up right as the weigh-ins were ending.

“Hi,
Allie,” Jennifer shouted as she squeezed past her, careful not to spill the contents of her red solo cup.

Jennifer
was tall, on the verge of lanky, with dark blonde, shoulder-length hair and even darker eyes hidden behind a pair of stylish glasses. She was kind, soft spoken, and shy; the perfect back up to Lainie’s over-the-top nature. Lainie tended to fight with most other red personalities.

“Hey
. . . Jennifer?” Allie’s eyebrows arched and she looked up at the guy who was definitely
not
the boyfriend, holding her hand as he and another guy trailed after.

She
followed Allie’s line of sight down to her linked fingers and her cheeks flushed. She gave an awkward laugh as they all sat down. “I guess I have some explaining to do, huh?”

“Uh,
yeah
!” Lainie leaned over Allie, looking incredulous.

Jennifer
cringed. “Cole and I broke up.”

“What!
Why?” Blue eyes widened. If Lainie leaned over any further her boobs were going to spill out all over Allie’s lap. As it was, Allie had a way-to-intimate view down to Lainie’s belly button.

“Well,”
Jennifer started, “I kinda caught him in bed with Lindsie Brown and a goat.”

“A goat?”
Allie and Lainie chimed together.

Jennifer
cringed again. “Well, maybe not a goat. It might have been just Lindsie. . . but I hear that’s the rumor that will be floating around soon.” She dropped her eyes as her mouth pursed.

“Ouch,
Jennifer. Way to go! Lindsie is such a horse-faced bitch.” Lainie had a personal vendetta with Lindsie . . . as did about three-fourths of the rest of the female population.

Allie
was shocked. She didn’t think Jennifer had it in her to be on the side of vengeance. She and Cole had been together forever.

“Hey,
Lainie,” Allie said. “Why don’t I trade you places?” Lainie was practically crawling into Allie’s lap at this point.

Lainie
looked down, seeming to notice for the first time that she’d invaded enough of Allie’s personal bubble she could have planted a flag. They swapped places and Allie sighed in relief.
Much better
.

“So,”
Jennifer continued. “This is my stand-in date, Ben. And this is his best friend, Gabe.”

Ben
with his highlighted, pin cushion hair, was tall, on the verge of lanky, with all the impeccable grooming of a hardcore metrosexual. By the way he beamed back at Jennifer, you could tell he had it bad for her. When he caught Allie’s knowing look his face flushed and he quickly shook her hand before moving on to Lainie. “Nice to meet you guys.”

The friend,
Gabe, waved from the other side of Ben. “Hey.”

Allie
sat back, happy to let Lainie and Jennifer
discuss
. At least until she felt an arm slither around her shoulder.

“Hey beautiful.”
Jason’s voice wedged a lump of puke in the back of her throat.

“
Jason.” Her facial muscles tightened as she did her best to hide her revulsion behind a smile. Honestly, she did
not
get the appeal that had Lainie hypnotized.

“How’s it
goin’?” His arm restricted and she was forced down into his armpit. “Exciting, huh? Lainie told me you’ve never even seen a fight, on TV or anything.”

“It’s
pretty, uh, different,” Allie agreed. Her eyes swept the arena as her fingers attempted to dislodge her body from Jason’s python grip.

Allie winced when
Lainie stiffened beside her, eyes growing wide as she took in Jason’s arm around Allie’s shoulders. Both girls shared a silent moment of understanding before Lainie slapped a dose of nonchalance over her hurt expression and threw herself back into the conversation with Jennifer—maybe a little too enthusiastically. Allie knew Lainie had a complicated on-again, off-again relationship with Jason; based primarily on lust. Mostly they tended to hook up whenever they were both between steadies and horny. Still, Allie knew it bothered Lainie to see Jason give attention to other girls. She had the suspicion Lainie was a lot more involved with Jason than their casual relationship would allot. Though, Lainie would die before she’d ever admit to it.