Meg Maguire - Making Him Sweat & Taking Him Down - Making Him Sweat / Taking Him Down

“Nah, it’s just true. You’re distracting. With all your worrying and your phone calls and your…shapely parts.” He shook his head as if trying to clear it of a feminine mind-control spell, and the flirtation seed officially put down roots.

“Guess I won’t be signing you on as a client.”

“Save that nonsense for the reformed frat boys cluttering up State Street. If you’re too busy or lazy to go out and find a woman for yourself, you’re probably too busy or lazy to keep her happy.”

Jenna took a deep breath and asked a question that had been irking her since she’d snooped through his folder. “What do you think you’ll do, when the gym closes?”

“Not even going to soften that with an ‘if,’ huh? Well, I’ll probably go to work for another place, as a trainer.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad. And it might be better for your career, working somewhere a bit more reputable. Somewhere with more Google hits for its fighters’ accomplishments than its criminal scandals.”

Mercer made a face, looking as though he were smelling something far more pungent than ginger. “Doesn’t sit right, working someplace else. Guys like me are loyal, sometimes to a fault, and it’d feel like I was spitting on everything your dad ever did for me.”

She let one of his words bounce around in her head— loyal . Territorial. Protective. A strong man, capable of fighting to the death for his family. Her cavewoman libido stirred anew, a pleasurable, ill-advised warmth blooming in her body.

She glanced at Mercer’s arms as he picked strands of ginger from the grater. One of his forearms bore a bruise as big as a coaster, and she fixated on those knuckles again—pronounced and scarred. A phrase flashed across her mind— the human animal . She swallowed, wishing she could blame these thoughts on the wine. It didn’t bode well for a matchmaker to let lust trick her into an infatuation with a self-proclaimed commitmentphobe. Oh yes, very good instincts at work .

Jenna got the wok heating. “Tell me about Brazil.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Oh, anything. I’m a romantic. Did you have any steamy love affairs down there?”

“I trained and competed for thirteen months straight, two hours’ bumpy drive from the nearest real town. The only thing steamy for me in Brazil was the climate. Even if I’d had the chance, I’d have passed out from exhaustion on top of the poor woman.”

“Aw, such a waste.”

“Oh yeah. Cruel of me to deny the ladies of the world that famous Boston suaveness.”

Jenna tossed the chicken and vegetables into the pan. A tad buzzed, she turned to scrutinize her roommate for a long moment, eyes narrowed.

“What?”

“You know, you’d be handsome if you hadn’t been hit in the face so many times.”

A slow, wicked smile answered her, and something flared between them, something hot and mutual, tangible as the heat rising from the stove. “Is that your idea of a seduction?”

She shook her head.

“Just as well. You should’ve seen me before the fighting. Way uglier than this. All the broken bones have done me good. Quite the face-lift.”

She laughed.

“You know,” Mercer said, “you’d be cute yourself, if you weren’t hell-bent on wrecking my life.”

Her face went warm from both aspects of his comment, and she hid her blush by tending to the sizzling stir-fry.

“So, Miss Matchmaker. You leave some poor guy crying back in California?”

“I was exiled on a ship for six years, remember?”

“And you never bothered hooking yourself up while you were helping all those lonely tourists?”

She shrugged. “I dated a few guys, sure. Coworkers, of course.”

“Of course?”

“Well, there’s no point getting involved with the guests, when they’re only going to be around for a week. Which is fine for a fling, I guess, if unprofessional…”

“But you’re not a fling-y kind of girl?”

“No, I’m not. And cruise ships are really incestuous places. You blink, and everyone’s hooked up with everyone else—the lifeguard with the lounge singer, the nanny with the tango instructor. Sort of complicates a guy’s appeal, knowing he’s kissed half your friends by the time he gets to you.”

“I can see how that might wreck the mystique.”

“Plus the gossip on those ships is shameless . And I like that sort of stuff to stay private.”

“Bit traditional, then?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” She offered a mysterious little grin and turned back to the stove. It was a curious sensation, knowing he was standing there, just on the other side of the counter. That life, that weird set of experiences and skills. And holy hell, that body. Jenna usually caught herself falling for tall, slender men. Mercer was tall enough, but slender…no. Not burly, either, but… cut . Yes, that was the adjective. If he ever wound up in her Boston bachelor database, she’d be stuck with the inadequate drop-down menu designation of athletic to qualify that build. And if Mercer was athletic , then Bill Gates was well-off .

“So, you won’t be competing in that tournament next month?” she asked over her shoulder.

“Nah. I’m strictly there as Delante’s corner. Gonna run that kid into the ground for the next six weeks.” He grinned as though he relished such a chance. “Keep him too busy and too exhausted to worry about girls or any of the other nonsense waiting for him back in his neighborhood.”

“He’s like your project.”

“I guess. But I don’t do it for me. I didn’t lose a year’s sleep and nag myself hoarse to keep him from quitting high school because it was fun.”

“Why, then?”

“You just see something in a guy. You can tell when a kid’s got it, like this energy. He stands out. And you want to make him see it, too.”

“And what did my dad see in you?”

Mercer laughed. “Hell, I dunno. I was never going to go pro, not big-time, and I’m sure he knew it. I think he just let me believe maybe I could, so I’d have something worth working toward, give me some direction. I guess he just liked me.”

“What were you like, before boxing?”

“Pretty rotten apple. Or on my way there. My mom figured if her stupid-ass son was so hell-bent on getting himself in fights, maybe he could make something of it.”

“Guess she was right.”

He nodded. “Moms usually are. It’s a tough age, fourteen, fifteen. You think you’re a man, even though you’re so incredibly not. If you don’t know what you’re good at by then, your identity starts latching on to whatever you’re bad at. Whatever’s got people paying attention to you. That’s my theory, anyhow.”

“I think there’s some wisdom in that.”

They fell silent, and Jenna felt that pleasant wave of nerves again. It would probably only last as long as her wine buzz, but she had a crush on Mercer. The feeling wouldn’t be there when she woke, and their acquaintanceship was already complicated. They shared three key things—an apartment, a business and her dad—and tenuously so. They couldn’t possibly add a romantic entanglement to that list and not expect it to implode. Still, why did Mercer’s personality have to wind up being as appealing as his body?

“So, you don’t really date, then,” she heard herself asking as she turned down the burner under the veggies.

“Why, you need recruits for your harem?”

“It’s called a client database. Are you just a love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of guy, then? Three rounds and tap out?”

He laughed. “For a girl who won’t kiss and tell, you’re awful nosy about other people’s love lives.”