Love On The Ropes (Ringside Romance) Read Online Free Page A

current assignment: to
infiltrate a pro wrestling organization. Take off his clothes, act like an
idiot, and nail phantom drug traffickers. Steroids. Christ, he wished he hadn’t
remembered.
    “Come on, just relax,” the female
said. It was the girl from before, the petite blonde who’d challenged him in
front of the guys.
    A sudden crash vibrated across the
room.
    “Where’s that son of a bitch?” a man
threatened.
    The girl moved in front of Jason,
placing an open palm on his chest. Her fingertips grazed his naked skin,
calming him, making him feel like he was being lowered into a foxhole where
he’d be safe.
    “It’s over, Floyd. Get out of
here,” she said.
    “I’m gonna kill him!”
    The woman’s cheeks flushed, red
creeping down her neck. One eyebrow slightly raised, she stared Floyd down
while patting Jason’s chest with her fingertips.
    “You’re not going to kill anyone,”
she said.
    “Right, I forgot. You’re into
jerks like Cody Monroe and this whack job.” He motioned to Jason. “That’s why
none of the other guys can get into your pants.”
    “Hey!” Johnny said.
    Something flared in the woman’s
eyes and instinct demanded Jason knock Floyd’s teeth out of his head. He
struggled to sit up.
    “Relax,” the woman ordered, then
looked at Floyd. “Did it ever occur to you that there’s no one in this organization
worthy of ‘getting into my pants’ including pretty boy Cody Monroe? Go on, get
the hell out of here.”
    She turned to Jason, her touch
warming his skin like a heating pad, relaxing his muscles and uncoiling the
knot in his chest.
    “Turn your head so I can get a
good look at your wound.”
    Her voice had softened, soothing
him in a way no amount of whiskey could. Then she did something completely
unnerving: she smiled. It was a bright, young smile, though it didn’t quite
reach her eyes. It radiated an innocence he couldn’t comprehend. Her smile made
him look away, turning his back on Floyd, his enemy.
    “That’s good,” she whispered.
    He felt her swab his head wound.
Scuffling and grunts echoed in the background. A door slammed and the woman
hesitated, her fingers resting against his shoulder. Her deep sigh warmed his
skin. She was relieved. About what? That Floyd didn’t pound on J in retaliation?
    Nah. She didn’t even know him.
    Yet, she’d called him J—the
nickname only a handful of people knew about.
    “I don’t think he’ll need
stitches,” she said. “Take a look, Johnny.”
    “It’s not bad. Put a butterfly on
it and get some ice.”
    He couldn’t believe he’d
surrendered, laid still and listened to their conversation like a fly on the
wall.
    Exhaustion knocked him flat,
exhaustion from training to be a pro wrestler for the past six weeks, then
being thrown into this insane world of testosterone-charged gorillas. Today was
his first practice with the guys and he’d lost it, getting into a territorial
fight with Floyd.
    J hated the fakeness of pro
wrestling and the bravado of the guys. Hell, he hated everything about this
assignment. Pro wrestlers were nothing more than grown-up kids play fighting.
Or, in his case, stripping.
    Stripping, the part of this job he
hadn’t mastered, the part he despised. But stripping provided him with access,
and the sooner he uncovered the source of the steroid distribution the sooner
he’d be out of here and on to something big.
    He needed help. He needed to earn
someone’s trust within the organization. He opened his eyes, blinking against
the fluorescent light. Damn, his head hurt.
    “How about something for the pain?”
the woman said, as if she’d read his mind. She stood over him with a cup of
water in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other.
    “No, thanks.”
    “It’s just aspirin.”
    Again, he freaked that she’d been
able to read his mind so easily. He refused to take anything stronger than
aspirin, and only took it when he suffered from severe migraines. He didn’t
mind pain. It kept