Below the Belt (21 page)

Midway through the first round, Arthur leaned across and seized Cooper’s arm in alarm.

“What’s she doing? She’s thinking with her feet again!” the old man hissed, his eyes wide.

Jamie had reverted to old habits, her feet lifting and then dropping as she quelled the instinct to kick her opponent, each aborted move making her vulnerable to attack.

“Must be the pressure,” Arthur said, his face screwed up with concern.

Cooper narrowed his gaze and watched the opposite corner where Williams’s trainer stood with his arms crossed, eyes intent on the action. Had he noticed Jamie’s weakness? Would he direct Roma to zero in on those fatal hesitations of Jamie’s in the next round?

The women continued to exchange blows, dancing forward, engaging, falling back, circling, always circling. After what seemed like forever, the bell rang and they both retreated to their corners.

Cooper slid the stool through the ropes and slipped through after it. He held his hand out for Jamie’s mouthguard. She spat it onto his hand and he rinsed it over the bucket while she washed her mouth out.

“Do you think they bought it?” she asked in between trying to catch her breath.

“He noticed. We’ll have to see what she plans to do about it. If she tries to take advantage, you know what you’ve got to do,” he said.

She nodded, dropping her head back against the ropes. He looked at her long, strong, lean body, her beautiful face, her startling silver eyes.

He loved her more than he’d ever thought it was possible to love another human being. He wanted her to win this very badly.

“You can do this, Spitfire,” he said.

Her mouth tugged up into a half smile. Aware of the clock counting down, he offered her the mouthguard, checked her cheeks and brow, and mopped the sweat off her chest.

Then he was back through the ropes, the stool following him. He’d barely turned to face the ring before the second round bell was reverberating around the arena.

Williams came out more strongly this time, keen to score points. Jamie maintained her awkward footwork, offering the other woman openings to exploit. Cooper watched in frustration as the other woman refused to bite. Instead, Williams concentrated on her own fight plan, wearing Jamie down with an unrelenting barrage of body blows.

Head blows might knock a fighter out, but the body was a much larger target and therefore harder to protect. There was no way Jamie could stop all the blows Williams rained down her. By the end of the second round, she was hurting. He saw it in her eyes as she dropped onto the stool. He pressed the No-Swell against her brow and cheekbones, and offered her what he could.

“She’s trying to wind you. Keep an eye out for her right uppercut—she always jabs with her left before she goes for your solar plexus.”

Jamie stared at him, her silver eyes desperate as she sucked in air.

“Do I stop trying to bait her?” she asked, gasping for breath. “Come out hard, do what I can with everything I’ve got?”

“No. She’ll bite. I know she will,” he said.

Jamie nodded her acceptance of his advice. He slid back to the safe side of the ropes as the bell rang.

He suffered through another round of watching Jamie get pounded as she offered up openings again and again to her opponent. As the bell rang at the end of the third round, he had to stop himself from sweeping Jamie into his arms and refusing to let her go.

She would hate him for not letting her fight her own battles. She would always want to prove herself first, before she looked to anyone else for help. It was a fundamental part of who she was.

They didn’t discuss strategy this time as she sank onto the stool. Jamie gulped air, rinsed her mouth out and simply watched him, her gaze absolutely trusting.

He hoped like hell he’d done something to earn that trust. That he hadn’t offered her bad advice and held her back for no reason.

“It’ll be this round,” he predicted. “Stay alert.”

His heart surged into his throat when a minute into the fourth round, Williams at last took the bait. Jamie offered up a hesitation, the merest faltering of her footwork, and Williams stepped in and tried to lay Jamie out with her left hook. The punch flew through the air, unstoppable, apparently impossible to survive. Jamie rolled with it, stumbling back a step. Her blood up, Williams moved after her, ready to finish Jamie off.

Which was when Jamie stepped around the other woman, using Williams’s own momentum against her, and slammed a right hook into the angle of the other woman’s jaw.

The world seemed to stop as Williams swayed on her feet. The crowd roared. Cooper held his breath. Jamie popped a straight-armed jab high on the other woman’s cheekbone, sealing the deal. Williams went down like a felled tree, her body slapping against the canvas.

There was no need for a count. She was out cold.

Relief surging through him, Cooper rushed the ropes as Jamie was declared the winner. She punched the air, throwing her head back. He reached her, wrapping her in her father’s robe. She spat her mouthguard to one side and kissed him, her face streaming with tears.

“I did it,” she said. “I did it.”

“I know, baby, I know,” he said, pressing a kiss into her neck and holding her close.

Thank God she was safe.

The crowd stood for Jamie and cheered as she walked away from the ring. Near the exit, a camera crew waited. This time Jamie didn’t turn her back on them.

She stepped up and stared down the barrel of the camera, her beautiful face very serious. Ignoring the journalist’s questions, she spoke into the microphone.

“I want to dedicate tonight’s fight to my father, Jack Sawyer. He was a great man, a great fighter, and I loved him very much,” she said.

Her piece said, she turned away, leaving the journalist gasping like a landed fish.

Cooper was still laughing when they entered the change room.

“Someone’s going to get a reputation for being difficult with the press if she keeps that up,” he said, “as well as a reputation as a knockout artist.”

She shot him a wary look and he cocked his head at her. “What?”

“I was thinking that maybe you’d be ready for me to retire after tonight,” she said carefully.

He studied her, her face shiny with Vaseline and sweat, her color high, her hair wet with perspiration.

“You can’t give this up. Not yet. It’s part of you, for whatever reason. You’re a warrior woman,” he said.

Her mouth opened and she blinked at him. “You always
know,
” she said, her voice low with emotion. “How do you always know what’s in my heart?”

“Because we’re the same, baby,” he said, drawing her close. “We’re two halves of a whole.”

He kissed her lips, her eyelids, the curve of her neck.

“What about you? What about having to watch me fight?” she asked, breaking the kiss to eye him worriedly. “If you can’t stand it, I’ll walk away. I swear it.”

He pushed the hair off her forehead and traced the curve of her ear with his fingers.

“I’m tough. Before this training gig, I did a little time in the ring myself, you know. I know what it’s like to want to own that space. And you’re a beautiful fighter, Jamie. There’s no way I would take that away from you. As long as you’re out there for the right reasons, I’ll stand beside you.”

“I love you,” she said, gripping his face in her taped hands.

“I feel the same way,” he said. They both broke into big, slow grins.

“You’re going to have to do better than that,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“A whole lot better,” she said, reaching for the stud on his jeans.

He threw a glance over his shoulder toward the door. “Your grandfather will be here any minute,” he said.

“No, he won’t. He’s a smart man. He knows what happens when I win,” she said, popping the buttons on his fly.

He shuddered as she found his cock and wrapped her fingers around it.

“What happens when you win?” he asked, reaching for the lower edge of her sports crop.

“I get horny. Really, really horny,” she breathed.

“Huh. I knew there was a reason I loved this sport.”