Hard Love: A Bad Boy Fighter Romance by Megan West, Kristen Flowers Read Free Book Online Page A

the first punch.
Tiger swung first, but Nathan expertly dodged out of the way, taking the
opportunity to take his own swing. Tiger was too good for that and avoided it with
equal skill. The crowd jeered. They wanted to see blood from the start. The two
men continued to swing and miss until Nathan ducked for one second too long.
That was all Tiger needed to finally get his fist to collide with Nathan’s
cheek.

 
    The punch had a tremendous
force to it, forcing Nathan to stumble back. That allowed Tiger enough time to
throw another and get him on the shoulder, sending Nathan’s arm swinging
backward. The two men were already starting to sweat profusely under the hot
lights of The Ring. Emma saw beads of sweat fly off Nathan’s arm where Tiger
had caught him.

 
    Nathan stumbled
forward, almost head-diving into the floor of the fighting ring, but it was
just a way to finally get out of Tiger’s line of fire. He grabbed onto the ring
ropes and pulled his body up straight before suddenly turning and successfully
delivering a punch to Tiger’s stomach. It wasn’t very strong, but it was enough
of a warning shot to make Tiger step back.

 
    Nathan swung his
arm forward for another punch but Tiger was quick– he threw out a forceful
punch that grazed the side of Nathan’s chin. The force of it made Nathan fall
to the floor and Emma cried out, her hand covering her mouth immediately. The
crowd jeered even louder, some calling out Nathan for shoddy fighting and others
cheering for Tiger’s knockdown. Nathan got up quickly and got back into his
fighting stance.

 
    For the rest of
the first round, nothing more than a couple weak punches were thrown out by
either fighter. The bell rang and they each retreated to their corners for
water. Emma wanted to rush over to Nathan, but she held back. She didn’t
usually do that and she figured it wasn’t a good idea to do something
differently now that Nick was monitoring her so closely.

 
      The second round was even more intense than
the first. There were a lot of narrow misses but as time went on, Tiger seemed
to be getting the best of Nathan. Every little trick Nathan usually pulled off
either failed or made him susceptible to a powerful blow from his opponent.

 
    Near the end of
the second round, Nathan’s left eye was nearly swollen shut and a tiny cut
appeared along the bridge of his nose. Emma couldn’t remember the last time she
had seen him limping around so much when a fight wasn’t over yet. The cut on
his nose was starting to bleed more than she liked and her gut wrenched as a
million thoughts raced through her head.

 
      She started to worry he might actually lose the fight– which would
make Nick happy, but would set Alex Moretti and his men hot on their heels.
Neither of the two were enemies she wanted to make. With Alex, however, there
was nobody to help them out or keep them safe. There was no getaway from him.
Her stomach clenched and she started sweating.

 
    She watched, on
edge, as Tiger landed another solid blow to Nathan’s face. His head cocked back
and the crowd went silent as he crumpled to the ground. It was all she could do
to push herself through the crowd of people and get as close to the ring as
possible, tears in her eyes and body shaking with worry. She hated seeing the
man she loved lying there as if he were lifeless. Then she caught something out
of the corner of her eye.

 
    She turned to her
right and saw Alex Moretti standing on the side of the fighting ring. He was
livid. He was glaring at the crumpled heap that was Nathan. He shifted his gaze
to Emma. She couldn’t turn away from him. The crowd was going crazy and it was
clear nobody thought Nathan would be getting back up.

 
    Nobody thought
“The Comeback Kid” would pull off his spectacular last minute moves this time
around. From the looks of it, Moretti was one of those people. His icy stare
pierced through the crowd at Emma as the referee continued his