Free Knocked Out By Love (Love to the Extreme) by Abby Niles

some pictures with us. Rita has a boyfriend who’s a superfan of yours, and he’ll be jealous as hell if we come back with evidence we hung out with the great MMA fighter.”
    Brody chuckled. At least his fans still believed he was great, even if his coach didn’t. Besides, he’d wanted a distraction. This sure as hell was going to keep him preoccupied.
    “Sure. I’d love to.”
    “Really?!” She clapped her hands excitedly. “That’s so super cool of you!” Then she turned to her friends and yelled, “He said yes!” which got a peel of squeals from the group.
    The attention pumped him up. Scarlett had kept him from worrying about his career and what he was going to do when he got home. Now these girls would keep him from overthinking about Scarlett.
    “My name is Whitney, by the way.”
    “It’s nice to meet you, Whitney.”
    He followed her to her friends and was immediately enveloped by five gorgeous women talking over each other. He politely listened to their gushing over his last fight, how much they were fans, and how jealous their boyfriends would be. He posed for pictures with them and then asked a person nearby to get a group shot of all of them.
    For the most part he was distracted, but he did his duty to Scarlett and kept an eye on her. Not that she seemed like she needed it. She and Mr. Doofus were now sitting in a booth, chatting away.
    He refocused on the girls, allowing them to tell him their life stories until he felt a tug on his shirt. A glance around brought him face-to-face with Scarlett. Immediately, his heart jumped, and, like he had thousands of times before, he cursed the instant reaction.
    “Looks like things are going well with you,” he said.
    “I can say the same thing about you.” She eyed the girls. “I didn’t know the cheerleader sorority type was your kind of thing.”
    The comment caused a ripple of pleasure, and he narrowed his eyes. “Am I detecting a bit of jealousy, Scarlett?”
    Shrugging, she glanced off to the side. “Perhaps. They make me feel old.”
    Old? Yeah, she might have a few years on them, but that was it. Her beauty could never compare to any other woman’s—or at least he’d yet to find one who did. “You shouldn’t feel old.”
    She sighed and met his eyes. “I miss being that age. Young. Just go with the flow. No worries.”
    “Yeah. Me, too.”
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t meant to barge in. I think I’d like to call it a night.”
    He shifted his body more toward her. “Why? I thought you and Mr.—uh, the guy you’ve been dancing with—were hitting it off.”
    “Yeah. I did, too, until his girlfriend texted him and asked where he was.”
    Brody grimaced. “Damn.”
    “Why are men such pigs?”
    “We’re not all pigs.”
    “A vast majority of you are.” He caught a sheen of her eyes as she crossed her arms protectively over her chest.
    She was so new to the dating game again.
    “Give me a minute, and I’ll walk you back to your room.”
    “No,” she waved her hand. “I just wanted to tell you where I was going. You stay and have fun.”
    “Absolutely not, Scarlett. I wanted you to dance with other men,” he forced out. “Just give me a second.”
    He stepped back to the women and said his good-byes to a chorus of disappointed groans. When he turned back to Scarlett, she had her fingers linked together and was looking anywhere but at him or the women. It wasn’t hard to pick up on how uncomfortable she was. Nothing about tonight had gone the way it was supposed to.
    And it was his fault.
    He was supposed to be showing Scarlett a good time, letting her think she was reacquainting herself with single life in a comfortable, safe way. Instead, one moment of freak-out, and he’d thrown her to the wolves, and because of that, she’d had another bad experience with another piece of shit man.
    He stepped up beside. “How about a walk on the beach?”
    She glanced up at him, a grateful smile on her face. “That would be nice.