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  DAMAGED

  THE MMA NEW ADULT ROMANCE SERIES

  By Alycia Taylor

  Copyright 2014. All rights reserved.

  CHAPTER ONE

  EMMI

  I sat there and tried to process what Braxton said to me. He’d just blurted out, “I love you.” He loved me? Did he really think he loved me or did he think that would make everything that he’d done all better? Did he finally get hit on the head one too many times? It didn’t matter either way, I was not ready for that. I liked him… a lot. He turned me on, he drove me crazy… He was hot, sexy, smart¸ fun to be around, but love? No, not yet.

  After the fiasco with Trent I didn’t know if I’d actually ever trust those words. Trent let those three words roll off of his tongue as easily as he breathed and after a while I realized that they didn’t mean a thing. He used them to appease me… to control me.

  I automatically looked up at him when he said it and then just as quickly wished that I hadn’t. His poor face was so busted up that it was almost impossible to discern what kind of look he held there, but in his eyes I could see that he thought he really meant it. I doubted that he even knew what it meant to be in love. As far as I was concerned, love meant that you were willing to do anything for another person and you were willing to be faithful to that other person… forever. I really didn’t think that this guy who had spent the last few years of his life alphabetically fucking every girl on campus was ready for that. I believed in my heart that he wanted to be, or I would have never slept with him. But, the thing about it that was weird was, I got the feeling that he thought he was. I had to protect my own heart though and I knew that I wasn’t ready or willing to be with a guy who was even still struggling with that. Being cheated on once was enough. I wasn’t going to sit around waiting for it to happen again. I had just gotten so caught up in the fact that he made me desire him like I had never desired anything. He made me feel things that I never felt before… that I never even knew possible.

  “Hand me that Kerlix,” I said, hoping that if I just didn’t say anything, he would let it go.

  Sometimes, the act of omission was enough. He handed me the roll of gauze and I wrapped it around the knuckles I had cleaned on his right hand.

  “I cannot for the life of me imagine why you do this to yourself, Braxton.”

  Maybe he was a masochist too.

  “It’s simple, I do it for the money, and because I’m good at it,” he said.

  I could still see the question in his eyes: Is she going to answer me? Well I wasn’t, at least not then, I was going to do my best to take his mind off of it.

  “I’m no expert on making money, but it seems to me there would have to be easier ways.”

  “I couldn’t make the kind of money I make doing this in the amount of time I put into it unless maybe I wanted to sell drugs. That might even be a more dangerous choice. Those guys use guns and knives instead of their fists.”

  “So what do you need so much money for, Brax?” I was still next to his feet on the bathroom floor. I sat back on my feet and looked up at him. I was really curious why he was in such a hurry to make so much money that he’d be willing to get beat senseless to do it.

  “I want to start out in life with something, Emmi. I don’t want to ever be a loser like my dad. I want my sister to be able to go to college and not have to worry about flipping hamburgers to pay for it. One night of pain every once in a while is worth that to me.”

  I still didn’t get it. For one thing, the condition he was in, he would be in pain a lot longer than just one night. Besides, he wasn’t an alcoholic like his dad. I didn’t know him personally, but from what Braxton had told me, that was why his father was a loser. He couldn’t stop drinking long enough to keep a job. Braxton was smart, really smart. He was going to be able to use his brain to make a good living when he got out of school, of that I had no doubt. He already had a plan he had talked to me about that day at the trail when we’d had the picnic. I supposed things got stuck in your brain because of how you were raised and the environment that you grew up in.

  With Braxton, it was the fact that he had a father who humiliated him every chance he got and left him with no self-confidence. I thought he was overcompensating for that. I was exactly the opposite. No matter what I did or wanted to do, my parents encouraged me and told me that I was smart and capable. I’d have to say that right up until I caught Trent doing the horizontal mambo with that fat-bottomed girl, I was pretty well-grounded in my self-esteem. I still didn’t doubt myself all that much, but men, I wasn’t so sure about.

  I looked back up at him and he was still looking at me. I smiled, trying to play it all off.

  “Good as new,” I told him.

  He glanced in the mirror and said, “Do you think I can still have my modeling career?”

  I pretended to study his face and then I told him, “Sure, as long as you find a really good plastic surgeon.” He threw a roll of gauze at me. Good, the mood was significantly lighter in the room. “Come on, gimpy, let’s get you to bed.”

  He stood up off the toilet seat and nearly fell back down. His knee was swollen to three times its normal size.

  “Here, hold on to me on that side and put your weight on me and not that knee, okay?”

  He didn’t say anything; he just struggled back up to his feet and put his arm around my shoulders as I put one around his waist. I was brave, independent, and full of myself and my ideals…right up to the point where this guy touched me and then it all fell apart. Both figuratively and almost literally speaking.

  I tried not to let on, but I could barely hold him up. He outweighed me by probably close to a hundred pounds and that was all muscle. That wasn’t the real problem though. As we both limped out of the bathroom and down the hall to his room I tried not to be aware of the way those muscles rippled underneath my hand as he moved.

  By the time we were standing next to his bed, I was sweating and not from exertion. My breathing was ragged and all I could think was…damn him for making me feel this way.

  “Put your leg out straight while you sit, don’t bend it,” I told him, hoping my voice didn’t sound as shaky as the rest of me felt.

  He did, but as he lowered himself to the bed, he didn’t let go of me and I ended up on the bed too and practically in his lap. I looked at him and for a fraction of a second I considered forgetting that I was ever angry with him and press my lips to his wounded ones. God, being close to him made me insane. Thankfully, the second passed and I struggled back to my feet. I picked his legs up off the ground and swung them up on the bed so that he didn’t have to bend that knee. Then I took one of the pillows and tucked it underneath his legs and another one under his swollen elbow. The whole time he just watched me…waiting perhaps, for me to respond to what he’d said.

  “How’s that?” I asked him. “Comfortable?”

  He gave me another smoldering look, one that could melt a girl’s panties right off regardless of whether or not his face was beat all to hell. It was all in his eyes. I wasn’t going to let it get to me though, I was tougher than that.

  I waited him out and he finally said, “I’d be more comfortable if you would lie next to me for a while.” He patted the bed next to him. And then bless his horny little heart, he tried to grin. It looked more like a grimace, but I didn’t let on, I wouldn’t want to hurt his pride.

  I raised an eyebrow at him and put my hand on my hip. I hoped I looked as stern as I tried to sound as I said, “You getting yourself beat silly doesn’t change the fact that we were barely speaking. I’m still mad at you, Braxton, just not mad enough to let you bleed to death in the bathroom.”

  That time his smile was less menacing. “Good to know for the future, I guess.”

  “Get some slee
p, Brax.”

  I turned to leave and I heard, “Emmi…”

  Damn.

  I had almost made it to the door. I didn’t want to turn around. I was afraid he was going to say it again and could I get away with ignoring it twice? I sighed and turned around. He might’ve needed another aspirin or something.

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “You’re welcome, Braxton. Goodnight.”

  “Night.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  BRAXTON

  I wished I was dead when I woke up the morning after my fight. Every single part of my body hurt and that was no exaggeration. Even my teeth hurt. I actually put my fingers to them to check and make sure that I hadn’t lost any or that I wasn’t about to. They all seemed intact. I felt the blown up knee next and I knew there was no way I was getting out of bed in my normal way. I was in the middle of the bed on my back, right where Emmi had left me so I rolled onto my stomach near the side of the bed so that my good leg was on the outside. I put that one on the floor first and then awkwardly, and with a lot of help from my arms that also felt like complete shit, I was able to stand. I was sure that would have been a great video if someone had been there to capture it on film. I wondered how much worse this would all feel if I hadn’t won. I considered calling the other guy and asking him.

  I hobbled out into the hallway, each step felt like agony. As I was passing Emmi’s room on my way to the bathroom, I was tempted to knock and say good morning. It was early though and if she didn’t have a class today it might just piss her off. I didn’t want her any madder at me than she already was.

  I just wanted to see her stunning face.

  I stood there for a minute, just imagining that I could smell the fresh, flowery scent of her room and then I forced myself to go on past and I limped into the bathroom. I realized when I looked in the mirror that my face was even uglier this morning than it was freshly cut up last night. I had not one but two black eyes and my lips were so swollen that I looked like I had just gotten silicone injections. My right ear was so purple that it was almost black and I was not sure why or how, but my neck looked like it had been clawed at by an angry cat.

  I reached into the cabinet and took out the Ibuprofen. I shook out three of them and then decided to throw caution to the wind and took four instead. My head was pounding and all I wanted to do was go back to bed. I’d told Sam I would come in for our regular session though and if I didn’t show up I’d have to listen to him bitch about it and then my head would really hurt. He was such a nag sometimes, like an old woman. I hoped he didn’t have any designs on doing anything but talking today, even after the Ibuprofen I was sure I wasn’t going to be moving too quickly.

  I looked at myself one more time in the mirror and that was when it hit me…I suddenly remembered that I had told Emmi that I loved her. Fuck. Getting hit in the head so much was making me struggle to remember things. I’d just blurted it out without thinking. I guess I thought it would be okay, because it was true. I did love her. The truth was I didn’t think at all. Emmi had that effect on me. When I was around her I just felt things, more so than I thought them. I knew that because of my priors so to speak, she probably thought I was full of shit, and I was sure that was why she didn’t even bother to respond.

  I wasn’t just playing with her.

  That was the first time I could admit that about any girl.

  In the past, I had girls that were my favorites for whatever reason. I’ve liked a lot of them for more than just sex, but never, not even one time had I ever even suspected that I might be falling in love with one of them. I never once said it, just to get a girl into bed. I didn’t even realize it with Emmi until she walked into this bathroom last night. She was so mad at me this whole week that she couldn’t even look at me but yet when I needed her, she was right there. She tended to my wounds like an ER nurse and didn’t even bring up the fact that she was mad…until I tried to get her into bed. I guess that was understandable. She was the epitome of everything that a woman should be in my mind. Smart, funny, compassionate, strong, gorgeous and super sexy. There was something about her that got under my skin almost as soon as she walked through the door.

  I sighed as I splashed cold water on my face. They said no one was perfect and I knew that’s true but the thing about Emmi was, she was perfect for me. I just sucked so bad at showing my feelings and I knew Emmi well enough by now to know she wasn’t the kind of girl who would take my words at face value.

  Getting into my raised truck was a pain in the ass, getting out of it was like torture. I fell flat on my busted up face in the parking lot. Some lady walking by must have thought I was drunk because she did a wide circle thing around me to get to her car. It was embarrassing and the fact that she didn’t even ask if I was okay didn’t do much for my faith in human nature. I struggled back up to my feet and I wiped my hand across my lip. It came away with blood on it. I must have opened something back up. I hobbled into the gym, past the receptionist and all the middle-aged men and women in their designer work-out clothes, making my way to Sam’s office in the back.

  “Holy shit!” was how Sam greeted me when I walked into the room. It was a wonder he was still single, he had such a smooth way with words.

  “Good morning, Sam. How are you on this bright and shiny new day?” I read somewhere that if you acted positive, you would start feeling it. It wasn’t working so far.

  “You’re a mess, kid. Sit down,” he told me, as if I didn’t already know. He handed me a napkin and said, “Your lip’s bleeding.”

  “Thanks.”

  I dabbed my lip until the blood stopped coming.

  “I guess we won’t be doing any sparring or working out today. I can tell by looking at you what it is we need to work on.” That was at least a relief.

  “What’s that, pray?”

  “Winning, without getting beat into a pile of hamburger meat.”

  I tried to smile, but it hurt too much. “That would be brilliant,” I finally said. “But isn’t it you who is always telling me that my best defense is a good offense? I must have done well with my offense or I wouldn’t have won the match.”

  “True, but you have to admit, it was close. It was too damn close. Defensive moves done right will wear him down while keeping your pretty face intact at the same time. It’s my fault we spend too much time on the offense. When you’re feeling up to it we’re gonna be doing more rope slip drills and working with the slip bag.”

  I groaned, I hated the rope slip drills and Sam knew it. We used to do them a lot, but I figured out ways to manipulate my way out of them and got him to let me spar or something fun instead. I guess I did a great job of it too because he seemed to think it was his idea.

  The rope drills were ninety-percent bob and weave. Sam would hang a rope from the ceiling, just long enough to graze my shoulder. Then I had to bob and weave under the rope. Each time I bobbed, he would say, “Now graze it,” and I’d have to weave back and let the rope graze my other shoulder. I’d spend two hours going side to side and front to back, all in an uncomfortable, crouched position.

  The slip bag wasn’t much better. He had this old bag that was filled with rice. He was hilarious too, another reason I wondered why he was single. Every single time we used it he would say that if his training career didn’t work out, he could live for a month off the rice at least. Then he would proceed to crack up and expect anyone else around to laugh like they’d never heard it before.

  He’d hang that big, heavy bag in the middle of the ring and he’d swing it back and forth while I tried to move my head around and attempted to keep it from smacking me in the back of the head. Sam didn’t swing it gently, so when it did get me, I got knocked for a loop. I hated them both but I knew he was right and some days I hated that too.

  “Yeah, okay,” I told him. “Whatever you think I need to do.”

  For the next two hours we talked about crouching, landing, and a
yoga move called “Cobra Position.” He wanted to use a xercuff too, which was like a bungee cord with ankle attachments. I’d never been arrested, but I likened it to the shackles I’d seen prisoners wear on movies and television. It made every move harder and I knew that was the point. It wasn’t a pleasant exercise.

  While Sam droned on about defensive technique, I did my best to listen but my mind wanted to go back to last night and Emmi’s face when I said that I loved her. I was trying to figure out what the look she gave me had meant. Being in love was almost as big of a pain in the ass as getting in and out of my truck was. She probably thought that I said it partly due to the fact that my head was used as a punching bag for three rounds. She would be wrong about that though.

  I still felt like I loved her today.

  I focused my attention back on Sam. The next fight was in two weeks, and I wanted to walk away from that one with a lot less effort. It was important to me to win this whole thing. When I did, I promised myself I would be done and I could use my brain for something that didn’t involve it getting rattled around in my head at that point. At the tender age of twenty-two, I was already starting to think I was way too old for this shit.

  CHAPTER THREE

  EMMI

  “Is that a new bathing suit?” I asked Zoe who was obviously trying hard to get me to notice it as she waved it around before packing it into her beach bag.

  We were going to hang out by the water for the day. I was hoping it would clear my head and help me stop obsessing over the three little words that Braxton had said out loud. Hoping, but I doubted it. It had been almost a week already and I still had trouble thinking of much else.

  “Yes! I spent all my allowance money that my parents sent me for this month on it.” She held it up and said, “What do you think?” It was dark pink and it had little white surfboards on it. It would look good with her coloring. Almost everything did.

  She’d just told me that she spent all of her money on it. Even if I hated it, which I didn’t, of course I was going to say I loved it.