Fierce by Kathryn Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

seconds to show yourself or I’m calling the cops. You’re trespassing.” No time to think that threat through to its conclusion. She just wanted to draw her stalker out, to know who she was dealing with. “Okay, have it your way.” She back-stepped to her jacket, plucked it off its peg on the climbing wall. “One…” She took out her phone, switched it on, and angled it so her stalker could see its light. “Two…” Rose pretended to press 911, held her finger over the “call” button. “Three…” She held it to her ear.
     
    “Go ahead,” said the stalker. “Get them down here so you can explain what you’re doing training after midnight in a men’s boxing gym.”
     
    “Who are you?”
     
    Footsteps. The silhouette of a man drifted toward her along the side of the ring. He had to have been standing behind the far corner post, watching her, but she didn’t know for how long. He’d turned the master switch off.
     
    What game is he playing?
     
    “It all makes sense now,” he said. “Ross Jackson, the skinny kid dying to prove himself in a man’s world. No wonder you stick out a mile in a place like this. No wonder the guys think you don’t belong here. My brother doesn’t know, does he—that you’re a girl?”
     
    She dropped the phone, reacting so quickly she almost caught it. But she fumbled it and the phone clattered across the floor in his direction. He plucked it up, nodded when he saw she hadn’t dialled a number.
     
    She flushed cold, then hot, then a swirling mixture of the two, and stepped forward. “Avery?”
     
    “You have me at a disadvantage.”
     
    “What are you doing here?”
     
    “Um, you sure you should be asking me that?” He stood before her, bigger than life, in dark jeans, a gray bomber jacket, and a Detroit Tigers baseball cap. “Who are you, honey, and why have you been pretending to be a guy?”
     
    Rose hugged herself. “How did you—?”
     
    “You move and hit like a girl. I know because I used to date one—a girl fighter, MMA. Only you’re not a fighter. You just want to be.” He paused, looking her up and down. “Plus, I can see what’s underneath.”
     
    Rose glanced down in horror at her soaking wet shorts and T-shirt. “Don’t.”
     
    “Don’t what?”
     
    “Look.” He had her trapped, cornered. She thought about making a run for it, but from where he was standing he could too easily block her exit.
     
    “From the back,” he said. “The outline of your sports bra. And you’re not fooling anyone in those shorts.”
     
    “I said don’t look. ” Her words came out angry, but she could feel herself unravelling inside. It was all over. Everything she’d worked so hard for, everything she’d endured this past week, her chance at becoming tough enough to get even: all gone. In every possible way, he had her trapped.
     
    “Okay, I won’t look,” he said. “This is no fun for me either. My brother trusted you; he saw something in you the rest of us couldn’t see. So before anything else happens, I just want to know why you did what you did. Why are you here ? There’s a unisex gym on the other side of town. You could have trained there and no one would have thought twice. Why take such a big risk like this?”
     
    “I have my reasons.”
     
    “I kinda gathered that,” he said. “Care to let me in on a few?”
     
    Rose glanced to the exit behind him, but it was too dark to see. “What are you gonna do? Rat on me?”
     
    “I will if you don’t start talking.” He took a threatening step toward her. “What’s your name—your real name?”
     
    She hesitated, then realized there was no other way out of this but to play along. Feel her way into his sympathy. Not with tears but with fighting talk; after all, that was what he lived for, the big ape. “Rose.”
     
    “Rose what?”
     
    “Jacqueline.”
     
    “That’s better. Still doesn’t suit you, but it makes sense.”
     
    “Oh yeah? What name does suit