Uncaged Love #4: MMA New Adult Contemporary Romance by JJ Knight Read Free Book Online Page A

Jo,” he says, and rewards me with the lightest kiss of his warm lips against my swollen skin. The room is getting darker in the fading light outside, so I close my eyes. Colt releases my hands and brings my arms back to my body. He curls my head into his chest, still wearing his shirt, still fully dressed.
    I thought I belonged at Buster’s Gym, in the cage. I believed that those places where I had found myself, my strength, were home to me. But here, curled up with Colt, it doesn’t matter what four walls surround me. With him, I am exactly where I’m meant to be.

Chapter Ten  

    Waking up with Colt the next morning is sweeter than any of the other times. The fabric puffs and billows above us on the beautiful bed. The sun streams through a fancy scrolling set of window blinds framed by a curved window.
    It’s like a castle to me. Everywhere I look there is something else to stare at and admire.
    How did I get here? How did we make it to this amazing place?
    I roll over, realizing I’m naked. I almost giggle, thinking about how waking up in such a state would have sent me into a panic just two months ago, before Colt. Before all of this.
    He’s still sleeping, so I know it must be early. I snuggle in closer to his warm body. He’s become so familiar. I know the rise and fall of his muscles, the hard planes and rolling edges.
    My fingers trace the tattoo on his right bicep. This must tickle, because he stirs and makes a cute little whining noise, like he’s about to ask his mother for five more minutes.
    I try to picture Colt as a boy. Blonde-headed and probably a total rascal, running amok in the house, crashing into things. I doubt many of his toys lasted long. I can see him smashing them to the floor or stomping through like Godzilla ransacking a town.
    His eyelashes are long and curve against his cheek. I’ve seen little boys with those lashes, their sly flirty looks when I waited on their families at the various places I’ve worked. I imagine another little boy, Colt’s boy, and what he would look like. My throat gets tight. I’ve never even imagined a life where I had a family of my own. I have no concept of what that can be like. I just had my grandma, then just my dad, then Retta and her son.
    I refuse to think about him, and go back to the tattoo. I press my lips against the curves of the design that looks a bit like a four-leaf clover. Lucky, I think. I should be the one with that inked on my skin. I’m the lucky one.
    If I had to endure all the hardships in my life just to get to this moment, I would do it all over again.
    “What are you thinking about, so serious?” Colt’s voice is still thick with sleep.
    “About what a little monster you probably were as a boy,” I say.
    Colt rolls to face me and drapes his elbow over my hip. I look so small next to him, his massive chest and arms dwarfing my body.
    “I was a mess,” he says. “Tearing through the house, pounding furniture with boxing gloves.”
    “Your father started you early.”
    “Oh, yes. I think the first picture of me with gloves on was taken before they left the hospital.”
    I giggle. “That’s crazy.”
    He kisses the top of my head. “I’ll probably be the same way. Only all the girls will get them too.”
    I look up at him, his hazel eyes earnest as they search mine. Is he thinking about little girls that look like me?
    “We’ll have tough kids,” I say. The back of my hand trails across his chest. “Did your mother only have you?”
    Colt rolls on his back and tucks his hands behind his head. “Yep. Keeping my father’s wandering eyes in check was a full-time job.”
    “Oh. He was like that .”
    “Well, that’s how she got him, you know. He was married to my half sisters’ mother.”
    “Right.” I had forgotten The Cure’s sordid past. “Did it work?”
    “As far as I can tell.” The whirring blades of the ceiling fan show in his eyes as he stares at the ceiling. “I know it sounds bad for my mother,