Fight for Me (15 page)

Fuck.

No woman had ever had this effect on him before. And somehow he doubted anyone else ever would.

“Are you trying to distract me?”

Natalie had been itching to get her fingers on these printouts the whole walk home from the library, but now watching Knox do push-ups, she had an itch to get her fingers on something else.

His back was straight and rigid, and the muscles in his arms were taut, flexing with every move. Biceps, triceps—he had all the ceps covered. And that ass . . . it was tight, solid muscle.

He was totally focused on the movement, and his eyes had that utter concentration that she’d witnessed when they’d been together. Only then, that intensity was focused solely on her pleasure.

Heat built within her at the memory.

“Is it working?” Knox asked.

She blushed and looked away, astonished that he still had this effect on her. They were lovers, but he still could make her blush with just a look or a handful of words.

Heck, he didn’t even have to do anything. She could just look at him and feel her cheeks flush. Of course, that might have more to do with the thoughts running through her mind.

She met his eyes. He was sitting with his arms resting on his knees and looking at her with that intense gaze of his.

Everything about him was intense.

And she loved that about him.

“I wasn’t trying to distract you,” he said. “I know how important this is. I can go in the other room if you want.”

She hesitated. She’d like nothing more than to spend the afternoon naked with him, but she needed to be prepared.

“No, that’s okay.”

She tore her gaze away from him and forced herself to focus on the papers in front of her. She was a mature adult. She could totally handle being in the same room with Knox and all his sexiness and still be productive.

Maybe. She hoped.

She returned her attention to the trust documents and underlined parts that were the most relevant to her situation. In just a few days’ time, she would be face-to-face with the woman who could change her future.

Eleanor
would
be there later in the week. She had to be. Natalie refused to believe otherwise. She was ready to take control of her future.

Two weeks ago, she had been fine with hiding. Four years had seemed like a reasonable price to pay for her freedom. But now she had Knox. This lifestyle didn’t suit him. Even now, he looked like a caged animal, all penned in. She couldn’t ask him to put his life on hold that long, not when he’d already given up so much to protect her. He could’ve skipped town and started a new life. Now that he’d broken ties with X, there was nothing keeping him here.

Instead, he stayed. And he was wanted by the police for questioning, at the very least. There might even be a warrant out for his arrest.

Not to mention X had it out for him. If Knox hadn’t paired up with her, he would have been free of all this.

So much depended on this meeting. She’d better not screw it up.

When she found she was gleaning no more useful information from the trust documents, she took a break and stretched her arms toward the ceiling, twisting to work out the kinks in her back.

She wished she could’ve stayed and worked at the library at a proper table with a chair, but Knox had been antsy as it was. And he was probably right. They needed to keep their profiles as low as possible, which meant staying out of sight.

She stood and continued stretching. Knox watched her carefully, so she did her best not to favor her shoulder or her hip, but both were throbbing. And neither one was pretty to look at. She’d never known so many shades of purple could exist.

She turned her attention to the other documents she’d printed out, the records for the Anna Farrington Foundation, which benefited local women and children in need. It had been formed after her mother’s death. She’d planned to look at these at Amelia’s, but her time there had been cut short. She wasn’t usually involved in the foundation, but all her recent thoughts of her mother made her curious about it.

From what she could tell, the foundation was thriving. If her father was good at one thing, it was convincing others to part with their money.

A faint feeling flurried in her heart. Hope. Maybe her father wasn’t the complete monster she’d come to find out about these past few days. Maybe her mother’s accidental death was just that—an accident. True, her father was a prick. There was nothing that could take that away from him, but until she’d dug into these records, she hadn’t realized that a small part of her still hoped that the man who had fathered her was a decent human being.

She didn’t want to be the offspring of a monster.

She flipped to the next page and frowned. The dates were the same. It looked like she’d accidentally printed two copies of the same report. Just before she balled the paper up in her fist, a word at the top of the column caught her eye—
transfer.

The flurry of hope turned into a stabbing in her gut.

She examined the two papers side-by-side. Same dates, different monetary amounts.

“He’s embezzling,” she whispered.

“Did you say something?” Knox asked.

She pushed the papers away from her in disgust. “My father has solicited tens of thousands of dollars for the foundation, and he’s stealing it. He’s been embezzling from the foundation that bears my mother’s name.
Goddammit.
”

Knox didn’t look surprised, but what did she expect? She was a fool for being disheartened every time she learned about another horrible deed her father had committed. This foundation was the only good thing that resulted from her mother’s death, and it hurt that her father had sullied it. It somehow seemed worse than his trying to take over the family’s money. He was disrespecting her memory and everything she stood for.

“How long has it been going on?” Knox asked.

“I don’t know. I’d have to look deeper into the files, but I need a computer for that.
Fuck!
I could be wrong, but somehow I don’t think so. There’s no reason for there to be two sets of records for the same date.” It made her sick to her stomach that this had been going on right under her nose, and she’d been too powerless—and clueless—to stop it.

“What do you want to do?”

She rubbed her temples. “For now? Nothing. Eventually, I’ll turn this information over to the authorities, but for right now, it can wait. Another week won’t make much of a difference if this has already been going on for years.”

“Maybe it will help your case with the board.”

“That’s a good point. If I can prove he’s embezzling from a charitable foundation, then surely they’ll believe I’m better suited to handling my own inheritance. If nothing else, they can give the monthly allowance directly to me instead of it going through him.” She sighed. “God, I just hate this. I just hate that my father is such a scumbag.”

Knox nodded, his expression tired, and she suddenly remembered what he’d told her about his father. Guilt slammed into her. Here she was complaining about her situation when his upbringing had been much, much worse. Despite everything, she’d had a privileged childhood.

“What was it like?” she asked. “Living in foster care?”

His eyes immediately hardened, and he shrugged.

She hated that he was shutting her out. Of course, he did confide in her about his mother, and she could tell by the pain in his eyes that it had cost him. But she didn’t want any walls between them.

Sometimes she felt she knew him better than anyone else. Other times, she felt like she didn’t know him at all.

This was one of those times, and she hated it.

“I understand if you don’t want to talk about it.”

“No . . .” Knox’s mouth drew into a hard line. “I just don’t have much to say about it. I got clothes, food, and a place to sleep.”

“That must have been a tough way to grow up.”

“Not much different from you,” he said, and she paused. In a way it was true. The love she thought she’d had from her father was a lie, but at the time, she didn’t know it. She just thought he was being hard on her.

She hadn’t realized the extent of his ruthlessness. She wondered how different her childhood would have been if she’d known then what she knew now. It was probably better that she’d been blind to his ways until she was ready to actually do something about it.

She just wished she’d gotten to this point sooner.

“I wasn’t the best kid. I was angry,” Knox said quietly. “I was just so angry. I wanted to kill my father. Turns out someone else did, too. He was killed in prison. I had a vendetta against the world, and I didn’t care who knew it. I got in a lot of fights. Eventually, my foster parents kicked me out. That’s when I hooked up with X. He’d seen me fight. Apparently I’m a natural.” He laughed bitterly.

“You are,” Natalie said. “That’s not a bad thing.”

“X trained me himself. In his day, he was quite the fighter. I lived with him at first. The scary thing is he was more of a father to me than my own had ever been. It took me a while to realize what I’d gotten myself into. By then, I was stuck. I was a high school dropout with no skills.” He ground his teeth and looked away. “Still am.”

“But you don’t have to be. It’s not too late to change.”

“Isn’t it?”

Natalie crawled over to him and laid her head on his shoulder. “No. It’s never too late.”

“I’ve spent my whole life fighting. First, my father. Then, anyone and everyone. And now . . . well, up until a week ago, I fought anyone I got paid to. It suited me. Looking down at an opponent after I knocked him out . . . it was the best feeling. I craved it. It was the only time I felt alive.” He let out a shaky breath. “Until now.”

Natalie traced the features of Knox’s face with her fingertip, smiling when her fingers caught over his stubble.

He was sexy as hell.

He leaned down to kiss her, his lips gently moving over hers. His hand skimmed her cheek, and that light touch sent shivers down her spine and lit a fire in her belly. She opened her mouth to allow his tongue to mingle with hers. There was usually urgency in their kisses, but this one was slow and savoring.

His hand drifted up her back, his fingers running along her spine, only pausing at her bra to unhook it. His fingertips danced across her skin while his mouth lazily trailed down her throat.

She leaned her neck back to soak it all in, concentrating on the feel of his lips and hands on her body. Her hands slid under his shirt to feel the warmth of his skin and the tautness of his muscles.

She loved his body—every angle, every strength, every scar. When he used it to protect her, it was strong and unyielding. But now, when he used it to love her, it was giving.

He pulled her shirt over her head, then eased them both down to lie on the sleeping bag. He trailed kisses along her collarbone, then sucked gently at each nipple until they were hardened buds. She bit her lower lip and tossed her head to the side.

She’d experienced it before, but every time with Knox felt so new, like the first time. Every feeling was unlike any she’d felt before.

When he got down to her belly, he unbuttoned and unzipped her pants so he could continue his path. He tugged her pants down and ran his tongue along the inside of her quivering thighs.

She breathed out his name as he pulled her pants all the way off, then quickly shed his own shirt and pants.

“I—” His mouth swallowed her words.
I love you
was what had been on the edges of her lips. But maybe now wasn’t the time for words.

She would just have to show him.

She tugged at the elastic of his boxers, pushing them down. He took her lead and stripped them off. Then he quickly slipped on the condom.

He settled between her thighs, and she rocked her hips up to meet him. He held back, though, and entered her slowly, so agonizingly slowly. She gripped his hips, but he maintained control of the pace. With his slow, careful thrusts, she could feel every inch of him touching every inch of her.

Being with him was always intoxicating, but this was a sensuality she had never imagined.

The heat within her built slowly and powerfully. She bit her lower lip to keep from crying out, and then when she couldn’t take it anymore, she cried out his name.

“Baby, you’re everything,” he whispered.

I love you.
The thought ran through her head, but she couldn’t speak if she tried.

She gripped his hips again, and this time he adhered to her request, his thrusts gaining speed.

Up and up and up she went until she exploded.

His body tensed for a moment, then he shuddered and groaned, crushing his mouth to hers.

Knox lay awake with Natalie curled up next to him, fast asleep. Every once in a while, she’d let out a little snore.

He never thought he’d ever consider snoring cute.

God, he was so gone for this woman. In such a short amount of time, she’d become his everything.

How was that even possible? He didn’t know, nor did he care. All he cared about was keeping her by his side.

He pressed his lips to her forehead, and she let out another contented little sound. If they weren’t on the floor of a falling-apart house in sleeping bags, he’d think this was too good to be true. But this was just a quiet moment before the shit storm of their lives started up again.

Natalie was one step away from taking control of her future. All she needed was five minutes with that board and she’d have them drawing up papers to give her full control of the Farrington fortune. She was stressed about it, but he knew better. She was going to get the job done.

Yet he was nowhere close to breaking free of X. Yeah, he was physically gone, but as long as X was around, he’d never be free of him. He needed more leverage. His visit to X’s office had yielded nothing.

And that goddamn fight that X had told him to throw, the request that set this whole thing into motion, was tomorrow night. Part of him didn’t give a shit, but a larger part of him was curious about who he was supposed to lose to. All X had told him was that it was a new guy.

X didn’t like to lose any more than Knox did. Although X didn’t pay as much attention to the fighters as he used to, he sure puffed up his chest like a damn rooster at every fight, sitting in the front row. He always gave an inspirational speech in the locker room. Which always happened right after he . . .

Knox sat up straight, jostling Natalie awake. “The bag.”

Natalie rubbed her eyes and cracked one open. “What bag?”

“X’s bag. He brings it to every fight, and he doesn’t ever open it. Just locks it in the same locker every time.”

“Okay.” Natalie pulled herself to a sitting position, but her shoulders were slumped and her eyes were only half open. Normally, he’d feel bad for waking her, but not this time. Not when he’d figured out the solution for X.

He knew how to get X out of their lives.

“That’s when the drop happens. He leaves money and his dealers replace it with cocaine. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it keeps the deal on neutral territory.”

“Okay.” She yawned. “So X is dealing coke. Do we turn him in to the cops?”

“No.” He paused, taking an extra second to fully process the idea. “I’m going to steal it.”

Natalie’s eyes popped open. Did Knox just say he was going to steal X’s shipment of cocaine? Did he have a freaking death wish?

“Care to run that by me again?” Surely she’d misheard him.

“It’s perfect.” Knox hopped to his feet and started pacing. “We can’t kill X ourselves. It creates too many complications. But if I steal his stash and flush it, he’s fucked. He doesn’t have the money to replace it.”

Natalie ran a hand over her face and uneasiness settled in her stomach. “So let me get this straight—you want to go to the fight where every shady person in this town will be in attendance and steal a buttload of coke.”

He frowned. “It’s not as crazy as it sounds.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She would have laughed at the irony of saying the exact same thing he’d said to her time and again if the situation weren’t so serious. They’d been trying to avoid these people, and he wanted to march right into their territory.

“No one will expect me to show my face there, and I know the building well. I can get in and get out and no one will know I’m there.”

Natalie took a minute to think. He was right that no one would be looking for him there. He knew the lay of the land, and the fights would provide a distraction.

Then there was the matter of the coke. She didn’t like the idea of having it in their possession at all, but it would only be temporary. The right thing to do would be to turn the evidence that X was dealing over to the police. But this was another one of those gray areas she’d been wading in lately. With all their rules and regulations and red tape, the police might let X slip through their fingers. And hell, they’d be in possession of the coke, so that could implicate them. She didn’t know enough about police procedure to understand the ramifications of turning in the evidence.
Stolen
evidence. Plus, they were already fugitives, not the most trustworthy status to have in the eyes of the law.

No, if they were going to take the risk to steal the coke, then they needed to make sure X would face the consequences, even if they weren’t legal ones.

It was far from perfect, but they were grasping at straws where X was concerned. At least as far as her inheritance went, they had a plan. They’d made no progress in freeing Knox from X, so this was as good a plan as any. As least it was taking some sort of action.

She hated to admit it, but his plan made sense. Crazy sense, but sense. “Will the locker room be empty?”

“During the fights it will be.”

“What kind of lock is on the locker?”

“I don’t know. I never paid attention to that. It’s not built-in or anything.”

“I guess that doesn’t really matter. It would be better if it were a key lock. I could pick that in no time. But there are tricks to cracking a combination lock as well.”

“Wait.” Knox frowned and crossed his arms. “You won’t be picking the lock. You’re
not
coming with me. Do you know how many dangerous people will be there?”

Natalie stood and crossed her arms, mirroring his stance. She narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s exactly why you need me. Lock picking isn’t hard, but it takes practice. If the fight is tomorrow, you don’t have enough time to learn that.”

“I’ll get into it another way.”

“How?”

“I’ll cut the damn lock off.” Knox was getting exasperated.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, which would only make him dig his heels in deeper. Knox was one of the most stubborn people she’d ever met, especially where her safety was concerned. The way he reacted made it seem like she
wanted
to get herself into trouble.

“There are two things wrong with that.” Natalie held up a finger to count. “The first is: how are you going to do that? We don’t have any heavy-grade bolt cutters. And second, it’s better not to cut the lock off. That would alert someone that the locker’s been tampered with. The more time we have to get farther away from the arena—and X—the better.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want you getting hurt again.”

His fingers rose to touch the bruise below her eye where Harding’s driver had hit her. She knew there was a nasty looking abrasion on her forehead from her skirmish in the alley, not to mention the bruises on her body. “I’ll heal. It’s not a big deal.”

“It
is
a big deal. No one should ever lay a hand on you. I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

“Even keeping me locked away? I’ve been locked away for over a decade.”

His eyes hardened and he took a step back.

She sighed. Comparing him to her father was a low blow. But damn it, though his intentions were honorable, no one was going to tell her what to do. Otherwise, what was the point of all this?

She closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him. He didn’t return the gesture.

“Don’t shut me out,” she said quietly.

Other than her bartender friend, Kat, who she only saw when Kat was working at an event she was attending, Knox was the only person in her life who treated her as an equal. She couldn’t bear for him to pull away from her now.

She understood his protective nature. Or at least she thought she did. It ran much deeper than she had realized. For every external wound she endured, he received an internal one.

Finally he wrapped his arms around her, tightening the embrace and burying his face in her hair.

“I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t.” She brought her lips to his, hoping the physical comfort would soothe him where he needed it most: his soul.

His mouth was hot against hers, the kiss all-consuming. His fingers raked down her back to her ass and he pulled her close. She ground her hips against him. He groaned and deepened the kiss, his tongue tangling with hers.

Knox nipped at her lower lip with his teeth, sending desire shooting through her.

When the kiss ended, Natalie was left breathless and wanting more.

But most of all, she was left with the knowledge that she wasn’t alone anymore. Whatever happened, she and Knox were in this together.