Making Him Sweat & Taking Him Down

Romances were like candles. Lust was the flame, and passion the wick. Lust was important of course, but it was the practical compatibilities that made up the wax—shared goals, harmonious personalities, a healthy overlap of values and interests. The more wax you had, the thicker and taller a pillar you could make, and keep that wick burning nice and slow, keep the flame alive years after that initial spark.

With Mercer’s body this close, she felt the scrape of the match head across the striker, but that was the end of it. An invitation to get burned. Nothing more.

“Four months,” Mercer muttered.

“Four and a half.” She hazarded a smile. “Hope you like a challenge.”

He met her eyes. “I do. But this fight would be a hell of a lot easier if I had any control over the accounts and could fund even a few of the improvements this place needs to get profitable again. Your dad never even shelled out to have a website done.”

“I noticed.” If you looked the gym up on Google, eight of the first ten hits had to do with Monty Wilinski’s criminal trial. PR was not on Mercer’s side.

“If you’re honestly willing to give the gym a chance during these next few months, I hope you realize change costs money. Maybe not a lot, but something.”

“It’s my intention to be reasonable.”

Mercer exhaled mightily, seeming ready to put the argument to bed for the moment.

She softened her voice. “I think it’s best for everyone if we keep this between ourselves. This whole trial period thing.”

“On that, we’re agreed…. You want a tour of the place while you’re here? Quick look at your inheritance?”

“No, thank you. Some other time, maybe.”

He nodded, seeming unsurprised. “You know, I forgot to say it, but I’m sorry for your loss.”

His words tugged something in her middle, a pang of sadness she didn’t know how to process. “Well, thank you…. I’m sorry for yours. It sounds like you two were really close.”

“We were. It probably won’t elevate me or him too much for you, but your old man was the closest thing I ever had to a father. Sorry he wasn’t the same to you.”

“Yes. Well.” Jenna stood, trying her best to seem calm and businesslike, stern but not hurt. In her everyday life she wasn’t stern or serious at all, but this place was far from the everyday. She had to keep her game face on, her dukes up, lest she back down too much with this man. If only she’d had training in such things.

She wheeled the chair back to its corner. “I’ll come by and talk to you tomorrow, after I’ve gotten settled.”

Mercer slid from the desk. “I’m usually around here someplace while the gym’s open. If I’m not in the office, you can find me downstairs.”

He offered his hand and Jenna shook it, thrown once more by the feel of it, rough and confident. Rough and confident. She felt a shiver, a little show of approval from a lamentably primitive bit of her female machinery.

* * *

MERCER WATCHED JENNA exit and walk past the office window. He laced his fingers behind his head and exhaled a long, ragged breath.

Glancing around the office, he felt as though he were seeing the brick walls and worn furnishings for the first time. This building might have saved his life as a teenager, drawing him away from the choices that had gotten his best friend killed and landed a few others on a path straight to prison. It’d been the only constant he’d known in a life full of endless moves and evictions and instability, the place where his angry, volatile butt had been put in its place, where he’d learned being strong had jack-shit to do with acting tough.

He’d see the gym close over his dead body.

But four months wasn’t going to cut it. If he could get Jenna to agree to postpone the execution, maybe through the next year… An extra twelve months to start turning things around could make all the difference. There was a tournament fast approaching, and if all went well, a couple of their homegrown fighters could land pro contracts as a result. That would boost membership. They could shed a bit of their black-sheep rep as an old-school boxing gym gone to seed, and start proving they were an up-and-coming force to be reckoned with in the MMA scene.

But that was a big-ass if.

And if Jenna’s word was any good, she’d maybe approve a few hundred bucks here and there to replace old equipment, but for a contractor to build a women’s locker room, for serious advertising, for anything that’d bring in enough new members or the sponsorship to drag them out of the red…? Yeah, right.

Mercer needed some aspirin—Jenna was promising to be a royal pain in his ass. If a rather good-looking one.

And she looked roughly how he’d expected. More stylish, maybe. More grown-up. And sure, she was hot—sort of uptight, college-grad hot, and way out of Mercer’s league. He wondered what Rich would make of her. Then again, his shameless right-hand man would hit on a fire hydrant if you perched a nice enough wig on it.

Mercer—and more than a few of his fellow fighters—had held theoretical candles for Jenna. Monty had spoken about her often and flashed her latest school portraits around, and she was like a celebrity inside these walls. Mercer had built her up as some exotic creature, his mentor’s mysterious daughter off in California, moving to college in Seattle, living some exciting West Coast life, all blue eyes and pink cheeks, shiny brown hair, like a girl from a TV show.

He’d heard nothing but praise about her from Monty since he’d been a teenager, and he’d always assumed they were close, or at least speaking. It wasn’t until the man was dying that he’d confessed to Mercer how much he regretted the way he’d treated Jenna’s mom when they’d still been together, and how deeply it broke his heart that he and his only child had been out of contact for twenty-five years. Nearly her entire life.

Emotional crap had never been Mercer’s strong suit, and Jenna made him feel way too many things for his comfort. Threatened, fascinated, confused, annoyed. Plus a strong and completely inappropriate attraction—like the AC had broken, the office suddenly filled up with muggy August heat.

He shook his head, banishing all that sultry bull. There were pressing crises that demanded his focus, thanks to Jenna Wilinski.

He’d been living for free in the apartment upstairs since Monty had gotten really sick and needed assistance, but it was doubtful Jenna would be eager for him to stay. And if they were stuck splitting the bottom floors between two mismatched businesses for the next few months, he ought to avoid stepping on her toes whenever possible.

Mercer had absolutely no issue being pitted against someone, provided that someone was his physical match. Could even be a man six inches and fifty pounds bigger than Mercer, no problem. Bring it on. But this…

He was used to proving himself with fists and knees and elbows, not the business acumen he frankly didn’t possess, despite the title he’d grudgingly inherited. He was a trainer, not a general manager. Not an accountant or promoter or a secretary, though all those jobs had fallen to him since Monty had passed. Why the old guy had thought Mercer was up to the challenge, he had no clue. Monty had always given him more credit than he deserved, and in the ring it was a pressure he’d relished. But this just sucked.

He was up against a woman, a stranger beloved by the man Mercer had considered his own father. The conflict weighed heavily on his heart, confusing and complicated, not a dynamic he knew how to process. Nothing so simple as stripping down and climbing into a ring to let his fists do the proving.

Though it didn’t change one fact—nothing got Mercer’s blood pumping quite like a good fight.

CHAPTER TWO

JENNA RETURNED THE next morning. Her gaze panned the foyer once more, but the uncertainty of the coming months cast her daydreams in shadows. She’d barely slept at the hotel, tossed around between excitement about her new venture and dread regarding the one she’d been saddled with…and some other curious, confusing feelings about the man at its helm.

The office was locked and dark, so she had no choice but to head for the wide set of steps in the rear and search for Mercer in the gym. She glanced at her clothes, one of a dozen new outfits she’d bought, needing a wardrobe that said competent young business owner. Clothes that might convince a professional man or woman to trust Jenna with their love life, though the choice would probably look stuffy and prim to a concrete basement full of bloodlusting boxers. Her new neighbors, for better or worse. Her new employees until the New Year arrived. Thank goodness their management was Mercer’s territory.

She descended the steps, and the stairs doubled back at a landing with a watercooler and a framed vintage fight poster, Marciano v. Walcott. What struck Jenna first was the smell. Sweat. Rubber and leather. Disinfectant. The odd, pungent potpourri of her father’s legacy. Not a fragrance that softly whispered blossoming romance! But a well-placed fan could probably keep it from wafting into the foyer.

The sounds came next, slapping and grunting and the squeak of equipment joints. Jenna took a final breath and stepped through the open double doors and into the gym.

It wasn’t quite what she’d expected—not the shadowy, smoke-clouded drug-and-gambling den old newspaper articles had so vividly conjured. Roomier, brighter, even orderly. But the rest was as she’d imagined.

A dozen fighters worked out at punching bags and on mats. A pair of men in one of two elevated rings carried on a practice match, tapping one another, not hitting. Her heart hurt, as she’d expected it might.

There was something about fighting she found upsetting. A sport that put so much emphasis on the physical—on hurting people—and whose glory went to individuals. Jenna believed deep in her heart that people needed each other. They needed family and friends and partners and teammates, support systems and tribes. At the end of the day, fighting was about establishing who was the best, standing triumphant in some sweaty ring with your fist in the air, the loser cast aside, all alone.

Jenna had always gravitated to the opposite. As a teen she’d been a camp counselor during the summers, in charge of building communities out of groups of nervous strangers. In college she’d majored in social psychology and enjoyed it, but all the theorizing in the world didn’t give her a fraction of the satisfaction that working with actual people did. In the end, she’d proudly framed her diploma and abandoned her intentions of becoming a therapist in favor of taking a job on a cruise ship as activities director. She was great at that stuff—bringing people together.

She looked around the gym. It’s a lonely sport, she thought. For lonely, distrustful people. Give her a softball league, any day.

It was looking as if she’d come down into this gloomy den for nothing, that Mercer wasn’t here, that she’d have to come back later and feel this awfulness all over again—

“Hook, hook, hook!” The voice jerked her head to the left.

Mercer was shouting at a beefy young man, who dutifully doled out the punches he was ordered, thwacking the padded targets Mercer held between them. Both were shirtless, Mercer as pale as his student was dark, as lean as the young man was bulky. Jenna got distracted by Mercer’s body. Like his nose, like his knuckles, his bare torso was fascinating, attractive in a way that made her wince. She’d never seen a man’s body quite like his, toned and utterly stripped of fat. Efficient and dangerous. Her own body stirred, but surely that was just a weird chemical reaction, panic about being down here mixed with airborne testosterone or something.

As she approached, she donned her best impression of an unaffected, professional businesswoman.

“Mr. Rowley.”

Once a fresh punch landed, Mercer dropped his guard to turn to her. “Jenna, hey.” He spoke to his trainee. “Ten minutes on the rope, then go through those flexibility drills from yesterday.”

The young man nodded and let the two of them be.

“Glad you came by.” Mercer slipped the pads from his hands and set them aside, recinching the drawstring of his warm-up pants. “Bet you’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Should I be hopeful or terrified about this visit?”

She nearly smiled at that. “Pragmatism’s probably wisest. Could we talk someplace less…”

“Feral?”

She nodded.

“Sure. Can you spare five minutes so you don’t have to smell me?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’ll meet you upstairs.” He jogged to the locker room. Jenna watched as he went, surprised by how many muscles comprised the human back.

She loitered in the ground-floor entryway, pretending to browse the equipment case until Mercer came trotting up the steps, dressed in a T-shirt and different pants.

He unlocked the office. “Thanks for waiting.”

Jenna followed him inside, noting his wet hair and a clean, manly smell—soap or deodorant. She sat in the guest chair, thinking this would be her future clients’ view as they awaited her guidance with their romantic goals. Maybe her own Mr. Right would make an appointment in the coming months, walk across this very floor, take a seat before her and suck the breath straight out of her lungs. Okay, maybe not months…not given her track record. Sure, it sounded bad, a matchmaker not being lucky in love. She could admit that. But she wasn’t afraid of commitment or anything. Just cautious. People could stand to be a bit more cautious, a bit more logical, when choosing a partner. Her mom sure could’ve been, back when she’d hooked up with Monty Wilinski.

Mercer sat on the desk, clasping his hands between his knees. “So, what’s going on in that brain of yours? Prepared to give us Neanderthals a fair shake?”

“Yes, I am. My father cared about me enough to leave me this place. The least I can do is offer you guys a chance to prove me wrong. And as much funding as I can reasonably spare.”

He sighed his relief. “Thanks.”

“No need to thank me. It’s not like I had much choice.”

In her periphery, she sensed gym members crossing the foyer. She just hoped her future clients wouldn’t be too put off by the curious human traffic marching past the office windows. To say nothing of the franchise standards overseer. She made a mental note to have said windows frosted.

“Well, I’ll take grudging tolerance, if that’s all I’m likely to get.” Mercer leaned forward and they shook once more.

“I ought to warn you,” he added, “the next month or so’s going to be chaotic. You’ll be moving in, plus there’s a big mixed martial arts competition arranged for the first week of October.”

Jenna nodded. She knew her father had switched the gym from straight boxing to include kickboxing and other disciplines in the past decade.

“Your dad sank a bit of money into it when the proposal first came up, to get our name on the event,” Mercer went on. “We’ve been co-planning it for over a year with a few other Massachusetts gyms and a promotions outfit. We’ve got a few guys who’re training their hearts out for it. I’m coaching a kid whose career it could launch.” Pride warmed his voice and brightened his eyes, softening his fight-roughened features. “People are going to be really keyed up, so apologies in advance if my head’s all over the place.”

“Understood. Is it taking place here? Downstairs?”

He laughed. She hadn’t heard him laugh before. It did something odd to her middle, the sound seeming to hum low and hot in her belly. Oh dear.

“No, not here,” he said. “It’ll be at an arena outside the city. Have you never watched any UFC?”

Any what? “No.”

“Well, ours isn’t a UFC event, but it’s the same idea, and still a pretty big deal. Got a couple important names on the card, and scouts coming from the major organizations, looking for the next generation of pros. We’re hoping for five thousand people.”

“Whoa.”

“Not much by Vegas standards, but not shabby, either. I’m hoping it’ll be just the shot in the arm this place needs to finally shrug off its lousy rep, earn some due respect and attract new members. Turn those books around,” he added pointedly.

“I’ll have my fingers crossed for you, then.”

“You should come. See what it is your dad helped start.”

She cooled at that. “Maybe.”

“Jenna?”

She raised her brow.

“Is there any chance I can talk you into extending the gym’s…you know. Trial period? Through next year, or even just through the spring?” The sincerity in his eyes broke her heart a little.

“Unless something amazingly encouraging happens, I can’t, no. Not without risking bankrupting both businesses.”

“I figured you’d probably say that.” After a disappointed huff, he slapped his thighs and met her gaze. “Couldn’t hurt to ask.”

Primary mission tackled, Jenna turned her focus to a more awkward one. “I need to see the apartment.” The apartment where her father had lived since he’d walked out on Jenna and her mom. She’d been dreading this, having to sort through his things and confirm exactly how much of a stranger he was to her. “Do you have keys to it?”

“I do. And I already took care of your dad’s stuff.”

“Did you?” She bit her lip, torn between relief and annoyance.

He nodded. “I wound up moving into the spare room about nine months ago, when he was getting really bad.”

“Oh. So you’re still living there now?”

“I am. But needless to say, my name’s not on any lease, so never fear, I’ll vacate the second you say the word. I’m sure you’re eager to get that place rented out to a paying tenant.”

“And you got rid of all my dad’s things?”

“Not all of them. But he asked me to do that, in the run-up to…you know. So you wouldn’t have to.”

So her father had trusted Mercer with his possessions, as well as his business. To spare Jenna the burden, ostensibly, but she couldn’t help but feel she’d been excluded. She’d been left nothing but property and papers and account numbers, impersonal gifts, nothing imbued with a father’s affection for his daughter.

Though what had she expected, really?

“He’d already started giving stuff away toward the end,” Mercer went on. “To the guys he’s trained over the years. I didn’t touch the really sentimental things, pictures and books and letters. I thought you might want to go through that yourself.”

“I would, I guess.”

“He had a lot of photos of you, you know.”

A sensation like a cold breeze tensed her. “No, I didn’t know.”

“Your mom must have sent them.”

“I doubt that.” Never in a million years. “My grandma, maybe.”

“Well, he had tons of them. There’s a big picture of you from some graduation, hanging right over the sofa.”

Too many emotions surged through her, bringing tears she wouldn’t shed in front of this stranger. “It was thoughtful of you to take care of that,” she said tightly. “I’d like to move into the apartment, if it suits me.” And seeing that it was free, she knew it would. “But I didn’t realize anyone was living there.”

“Squatting now, technically.”

“Only technically.” She warmed a little toward Mercer, grateful he was turning out to be a reasonable guy in the face of her showing up with plans to upend his livelihood. She’d return the favor. “I won’t ask you to move out until you’ve got something lined up. Maybe two weeks? By September first?”

“I’d appreciate that. You want to see the place now?”

“Sure.”

Mercer locked the office behind them and led Jenna to the back, through a door beyond the steps to the gym and up a flight to the second floor. Doing her best to ignore the flex of his shoulders under his T-shirt, she followed him down a hall toward the front of the building, where he unlocked the apartment—one dead bolt among several. Not the best omen for the neighborhood, but she’d heard repeatedly that Chinatown was on its way up. She could be a part of that, start fading the ugly mark her dad had left. Her branch of Spark could be a great addition to the swanky new tapas bar and upscale florist that also shared the huge, block-long building.

The door opened into a high-ceilinged living room, the far end drenched in noontime sunlight from the tall windows. The furniture was sparse and dated, but the raw space was an interior decorator’s dream.

She looked to the wall above the couch, where a large framed photo of her hung, a flashback to her high school graduation. She quickly glanced away. “It’s what, twelve hundred square feet?”

“Maybe not even that, but two bedrooms, nice kitchen if you remodeled it. Laundry, great storage.”

Jenna was already itchy to get to work on this place. Her first apartment, all to herself… A thought occurred to her, surely too complicated to even consider negotiating. Yet her mouth burst out with, “Can I see the spare room?”

“I guess your dad’s room is the spare room now.”

“My dad’s room, then.”

He led her past a big combination kitchen and dining room that was begging for new appliances and a fresh coat of paint. Then Mercer’s back drew her eyes again, that interesting shifting of muscle behind taut cotton.

He pushed in the door to a modest bedroom, bare except for a bed frame and dresser. Its window opened onto a fire escape, facing an intersection and the garish sign for a Thai restaurant. An interesting view, but not one conducive to privacy or peace. She looked around, taking in the squares where posters or picture frames had preserved the slate-blue paint on three walls, brick comprising the final one.

She turned to Mercer. “Was this always his room, do you know?”

“I couldn’t tell you for sure, but the last few years, at least. Is that too weird?”

“I don’t know. He’s basically a stranger to me.” She’d expected to feel something stronger, standing inside these walls, but so far she felt only detached curiosity.

“Want to see the other room? In case it’s more to your taste?”

She nodded and followed him to the far side of the apartment. The second room was furnished, neat but small, with a similar street view. Next door was the bathroom, also tiny.

“Everything’s been retrofitted as residential, obviously,” Mercer said. “And before the condo boom, so kinda wonky and half-assed—like the gigantic living room and kitchen and the closet-sized everything else. It’s actually a toss-up which is bigger, my room or the pantry.”

She perked at the notion of having her own pantry. “I don’t mind. Makes it interesting. How’s the neighborhood?”

“Willing to admit you’re in Chinatown yet?”

She smirked. “Sure.”

He leaned against the bathroom doorframe. “It’s not perfect. But a thousand times nicer than when I was a kid.”

“For no rent, it doesn’t have to be Beacon Hill.”

“On the plus side, there’s not much worth burgling from a boxing gym. And security’s free between six a.m. and ten at night.”

She peeked inside the cabinet under the bathroom sink. “What do you mean?”

“There’s only about eight hours a day when there’s not at least one trained thug wandering around downstairs.”

“Oh, right.” She straightened to smile at him. “How very convenient.” For reasons not entirely clear to her, she found Mercer reassuring. Physically, maybe. She swallowed, her gaze dropping to his chest before she caught herself. Shutting the cabinet, she mustered the nerve to ask, “How would you feel if I moved in before you moved out?”

“And we’re roommates until I find my next place?”

She nodded.

“It’s your apartment.”

“Well, I’m asking how you’d feel about it.”

He shrugged. “I can put up with anybody for two weeks.”

She looked down to hide her grin, shaking her head. She could sense him smiling back, feel his nearness as tangibly as sunshine warming her skin. Dangerous.

“And hell.” Mercer leaned an arm along the doorframe and brought his face a little closer to hers, making something hot and unwelcome spike in Jenna’s pulse. He smirked. “Maybe us shacking up together is just the chance I need to grow on you—change your mind about ruining all our lives.”