Free Shadowboxer by Cari Quinn

conversation, and I didn’t get why we’d delved into this topic again while we were still outside in the freaking cold.
    Oh, wait, yes, I did. I’d kissed her and opened Pandora’s crazy box.
    “Why aren’t you listening to me?” She punched my chest, leaving a dull pain behind. “I’m a fighter, just like you. You haven’t heard of me because women fighters don’t count for shit around here. But I’ve heard of you . I’ve watched your tapes. I’ve seen your matches. You’re good.” She licked her lips. “But I’m better.”
    Laughter exploded out of me with the finality of a gunshot. She didn’t flinch. Barely even reacted. She’d been expecting it, obviously. “You’re a fighter? For real? Who the hell have you been taking out? Smurfette and her rowdy blue brothers?”
    Her teeth clicked as she set her jaw. “You shouldn’t insult what you just admitted you don’t know a damn thing about. Get in the ring with me and we’ll see where all your big talk leaves you.”
    I nearly laughed again. “Honey, I can’t deny you have the body for it. You just had it up against me, so I know you’re in good shape.”
    “Fuck you. I’m not your honey.” She shoved me back with the flat of her hand.
    M uch to my surprise, it almost hurt. Almost.
    She wasn’t through yet. “You had your tongue down my throat. That doesn’t make me your little woman.”
    “I never said—”
    She was still coming at me, pushing me backward with surprising strength. I wasn’t putting up a struggle, true, but she was still driving me up the sidewalk. And she wasn’t even winded. With her eyes blazing and her braid trailing in the wind, she was a beautiful sight.
    Not that I dared tell her that, in case she decided to go for my nuts.
    “Guys like you, you think you know everything. You’ve got the world by a string, and it only ever unwinds the way you want it to. That’s not how it is for the rest of us. We have to fight for what we want. We have to bleed.”
    She stopped shoving me and started yanking on my shirt to expand upon her opinion. If we’d been inside, I was pretty sure this conversation would’ve ended with her pulling off my clothes. And vice versa. The leashed energy pouring from her was seriously turning me on, and I was rapidly losing the ability to argue coherently. Anytime now I’d probably volunteer to fight her naked in front of a crowd of jeering men with slabs of raw meat attached to my ass.
    Hey, it could happen.
    “Are you listening to me? Can you even hear me through that thick skull of yours?” She was yelling now, punctuating her questions with bruising knuckle jabs.
    Fuck, she was hotter than hell.
    I’d never been harder in my life.
    I might’ve even fallen a little in love.

 
    Chapter Nine
    Mia
     
    I was not getting the reaction I wanted.
    Any minute now, Fox’s tongue would loll out of his mouth. I wanted to slap him full in the face and tell him to get a hold of himself, but that probably would’ve spun his crank more.
    Men. They were such predictable creatures. Cute sometimes, annoying others, but so very manageable. At least if you knew how to fight back. And I did.
    I also knew when I couldn’t reach my opponent. This one needed something a rational conversation could not provide. I’d suggest he go take care of business in the shower, but I really didn’t have any desi re to broach the subject of sex in any form.
    Bad enough that I’d let him kiss me. That I’d kissed him back. That I’d enjoyed it with every particle of my body and most likely a few of his too.
    Now I needed to get home. I’d put the idea of us fighting out there. He could stew on it. Beat off to it. Whatever. But I would get my way. My sister was counting on me, and I needed the money I could get from fighting him. Nothing else mattered.
    “Stop it. ” Fox’s irises glittered in the moonlight. “You’re not hitting me anymore.” He reached up to pry my hands away from his chest and seized my