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  And then there was her other world. The one where she got sucked into a delightful vortex every time she was with Rider. Feeling. Really feeling for the first time in her life. And the only thing that scared her more than facing her family and friends and owning up to the circumstances surrounding her sister’s death was losing the thin grasp she had on the intense emotional high she felt every time she was with Rider.

  Had Claire experienced the same thing? Had she been submissive also? Was there some Dom at Extreme she’d known and obeyed? All these questions kept multiplying with every passing day. And although Emily separated herself emotionally from her mounting inquisitiveness concerning Claire when she was with Rider, in her quiet times, when she was alone or with Virginia, she knew she needed more answers than she’d started out with.

  Emily dozed off as the sun came up. She was deep asleep when her phone rang on the bedside table. She jerked awake and reached for the cell. Virginia. And holy hell, it’s one in the afternoon.

  “Hey, V,” she answered.

  “Em? What the hell? Were you still sleeping? You sound awful.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Where were you last night? I came by and you were out. You never go out without me. Have you come out of your shell?” she teased.

  “Maybe,” she repeated.

  “Oh, dish, girl. Stop with the maybes.”

  “I went to Extreme.”

  “Seriously?” Virginia nearly shouted. “That’s way the hell out of your shell. I’m gonna have to stop calling you hermit.”

  “I went there last Friday too.” Emily giggled. It felt good to confide in her friend. Virginia was the only person alive she would dare tell the details of her weird secret life to, and even then she wasn’t about to elaborate.

  “No shit.” Virginia hesitated. “Wait. Have you been seeing that studly hunk who talked to you that night?”

  “Maybe.” Now Emily laughed.

  “Oh. My. God. You are seeing him. I can’t believe it. How old is he?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “You cradle robber,” Virginia squealed. “I’m so happy for you.”

  “He seems much older. And don’t get excited. It’s nothing like that. He’s just showing me around, teaching me some pointers about the fetish world.”

  “I don’t believe that for a minute. You’ve seen him two Fridays in a row and it’s nothing?”

  “Well, technically, I’ve seen him more than that. He’s a cop. He pulled my brother over last week while I was with him.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. And then he thought Mike and I were married.” Emily grinned at the ceiling. That scene could have gone much worse than it had. Emily’s phone beeped in her ear. She held it out and saw a number she didn’t know. But curiosity ate at her. “V, I gotta take another call. Can we finish this later?”

  “Of course. But don’t make me wait.”

  “Ciao, V. Love you.” Emily hit the button to switch to the new caller. “Hello?”

  “Emily? This is Jenna. We met last night at Extreme.”

  “Oh, hi.”

  “I wanted to invite you to go with me and Katy to the fight next Friday. Have you met Katy?”

  “No.”

  “She’s Rafe’s wife. She’s also my best friend. Have you met Rafe?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Geez, Rider really has been keeping you to himself.”

  Emily cringed. Yeah, because he doesn’t intend to keep me. I’m not his girlfriend. She decided she should probably say something to that effect. “We aren’t exactly an item. He just agreed to teach me about…”

  “Submission? I know,” she added flippantly. “And I’m sure he’s told you he doesn’t do girlfriends, but I’ve also never seen him do anything like he’s doing with you. And he looks at you like you hang the moon. So, if you’re buying that line of crap from him, you need to stop. I think he’s full of shit. Hell, I got your number from him to invite you to his fight. If he didn’t want you there, he would have said so.” She spoke so fast. “Are you into him?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’ll take the yes and leave the but out for now.” She giggled. “So you wanna come with us?”

  “That would be so nice of you.” She sat up now, intrigued. “What do I need to know?”

  “Nothing really. Text me your address. Katy and I will pick you up. Wear something casual. Jeans. Whatever. If you want to go to the club after, bring along a change of clothes. That’s about it.”

  “Thank you. That’s very kind.”

  “Eh, no worries. I wish I had known someone who could show me the ropes around these brutes who call themselves The Fight Club when I first met Mason. Would have made my life a lot easier in the beginning.”

  “Well, I appreciate your help. What time should I be ready?”

  “We’ll pick you up at six.”

  “Thanks again.”

  “Okay, bye.”

  “Bye.” Emily set the phone down and stared at it. She couldn’t believe what she’d agreed to. Not that there was anything particularly strange about going to a fight with two girlfriends, but the line between her and Rider was blurring. She was not his girlfriend.

  •●•

  Emily opened the door Friday night to find Jenna and another woman who had to be Katy smiling at her.

  “Emily,” Jenna said, “this is Katy. Katy. Emily.” She motioned back and forth between them.

  “So nice to meet you.” Emily took Katy’s hand. “Come on in. I’ll grab my stuff.” She stepped back and the other ladies entered.

  “Shit, you have a lot of books,” Katy said.

  Emily turned from where she was stuffing things into a bag. “Oh, yeah. I’m a librarian.”

  “Really? That’s awesome,” Jenna grabbed a book off the stack on the coffee table and looked at the spine.

  “Most of that is YA. Young Adult. I’m a high school librarian. I get to spend the summer reading the latest and ordering new stuff.”

  “God, I envy that. Much more fun than spending the summer indoors reading depositions,” Katy said.

  “You’re a lawyer?” Emily liked these ladies already. They were real people with real lives. If she didn’t know they belonged to a BDSM club, she would never suspect. Perhaps she’d been prudish to assume anyone would care.

  “Yep.” Katy rolled her eyes. “Don’t let it fool you. It can be very boring.” She pointed at Jenna. “Now, Jenna, she has a fun job. She owns a flower shop, Ribbons and Bows. This bitch plays with roses and arrangements while I snooze over paperwork.”

  “Awesome.” Emily smiled at them. “I’ll have to check it out sometime.” She heaved her bag onto her shoulder. “I’m ready. I hope I brought the right things. Clothes for later. Makeup just in case. Purse. Shoes…”

  “Sounds about right.” Katy opened the front door and in seconds the three of them were in her glossy red Honda headed toward the unknown.

  “So how do these fights work?” Emily asked as they drove.

  Jenna twisted to look at her in the back seat. “Well, let me preface this by saying neither of us is overly fond of the fighting. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we support Rafe and Mason wholeheartedly. We just don’t go to many matches and watch. So, we aren’t pros, but we’ll tell you what we know.”

  Katy giggled. “So, there are these guys, and they get in this fence thingy and they beat each other until one of them is out cold.”

  Emily smiled. She was totally going to love these women…

  •●•

  Emily followed Katy and Jenna into the arena, her eyes wide as she twisted her neck to take in the entire room. It was loud and crowded. People were screaming from every direction. She stepped closer to the other women.

  Katy took her hand. “Don’t worry. It’s always like this.” Katy pushed through the crowd. Whatever destination she had in mind was beyond Emily, but she was grateful the woman held on to her tight and Jenna brought up the rear.r />
  Jenna spoke from behind her, almost screaming over the crowd. “As soon as this fight is over, we’ll be able to hear each other.”

  Katy angled for the fenced ring in the center of the room. And sure enough, she finally stopped when they reached one side. She leaned in to Emily’s ear to be heard. “Mason is up next. And then Rider.”

  Emily nodded.

  Loud cheering erupted, and Emily looked inside the fenced octagon to see the referee holding up the arm of one of the fighters. His eye was swollen nearly shut, and a line of blood ran down his cheek, but apparently he was the winner. The other guy was on the ground next to him.

  “Well, that was fast,” Jenna said.

  “And gross.” Katy shivered.

  Emily smiled. Katy was right, but Emily was intrigued. She’d never seen anything like this up close. Hell, she didn’t watch it on TV either.

  A crew of men entered the ring as the two fighters left. They scampered around wiping off the floor so quickly they were finished almost before Emily noticed them.

  “Okay, now Mason,” Katy said.

  Jenna wrung her hands at Katy’s other side and kept her eyes glued to the ring as Mason and another man entered. They both wore nothing but a pair of loose shorts, gloves, and a mouth guard. They bounced around the ring, loosening up by tipping their necks back and forth and stretching their arms over their head. Mason had a fantastic intricate design tattooed around one of his biceps.

  Katy gave Emily a rundown of what was about to occur. “So, when the bell sounds they’ll start the fight. They have three five-minute rounds with one-minute breaks in between. The referee will break them apart if he needs and declare a winner if someone gets knocked out. Otherwise, they fight out each round and the judges determine who wins based on some sort of point system for each type of kick and punch. Blah blah blah. That part’s confusing.”

  Emily stepped closer. These guys are really going to intentionally beat each other up?

  The announcer droned on about each contender and their accomplishments, and then a bell sounded and the action really began.

  Emily gripped her hands at her sides as she watched Mason come at his opponent so fast she was stunned.

  Katy spoke into Emily’s ear again. “Mason is a strong fighter. Rarely loses. Heck, none of The Fight Club lose very often. But Mason is aggressive. He starts strong and likes to take his opponent out fast. They call him The Bullfighter.”

  Sure enough, Mason bounced forward on the balls of his feet, backing the other guy up against the fence. He started swinging, throwing punches with both hands. When the other man ducked and covered his head with his arms, Mason swung in a complete circle and kicked the guy hard in the side of the head.

  Emily gasped. It looked as though the man had died as he fell to the ground in slow motion. The noise in the room was so loud it made Emily’s ears ring.

  Jenna screeched and jumped off the ground a few times. When she finally settled, her hands were shaking and she flexed her fingers. “God, I’m glad that was quick. I hate these things.” She turned toward Emily, expelling a long breath.

  “Why do you come?”

  “I don’t very often. Just enough to be supportive. Most of the time Katy and I find something else to do while the guys are at fights.”

  Emily’s gaze jerked back to the ring when she heard Rider’s name coming from the speaker.

  “Rider, The Enforcer, Henderson… Middleweight champion at six one, one eighty-two…”

  Emily’s heart pounded as her adrenaline pumped. The Enforcer. Seemed appropriate. She stepped closer as Rider came toward the side of the ring where she stood. He winked at her and turned around to bounce on his feet.

  Emily gasped, feeling a flush race up her face at his acknowledgment of her presence.

  Moments later, the bell sounded, and the two men sprang into action, jumping back and forth between feet as they approached each other.

  Emily couldn’t take her gaze off Rider. Staring at his back was no hardship. The wings that covered a good portion of his skin seemed to lift him off the ground. He was that nimble. He held his hands up in a fighting stance at his face. And then he swung, landing a blow to the other guy’s face.

  She flinched. “Holy shit, this is intense,” she mumbled to no one in particular. She winced when the other man swung at Rider, but he missed. She pulled her hands up in front of her and gripped them together.

  “I think she likes it,” Katy said before she chuckled.

  Emily couldn’t turn away from Rider to acknowledge her new friends. She might miss something. She couldn’t blink. She was mesmerized by the dance.

  Rider and his opponent turned their direction, coming closer toward Emily’s side of the ring. Rider continued to pressure the man, jabbing with both hands in no particular pattern. When he swung his leg out, kicking the man in the hip, Emily jumped. “Go, Rider,” she yelled before she could stop herself.

  It seemed like only moments passed before the bell sounded again and Rider made his way to one side of the fence. Another man leaned over him, wiping his face and squirting water into his open mouth.

  Jenna set one hand on Emily’s shoulder. “That’s Byron. He’s the cornerman. He helps out with all the guys from Joe’s gym.”

  Emily nodded. And then she jerked when the bell rang again.

  “That’s all they get. One minute,” Jenna said.

  Rider came forward more aggressively this time. He threw an insane leg kick to the other guy and while the guy was bent at the waist, Rider grabbed him in a neck hold and punched his face several times.

  Jesus. Emily felt oddly conflicted as her mind rooted for Rider while something deep inside her told her she was crazy to find this brutal sport so exhilarating. A man was getting beaten to a bloody pulp right before her eyes, and she was enjoying it.

  Come on, Rider… Knock him out…

  As if he could read her mind, Rider lifted his knee into the air and gave the man a hard jab to the face. Rider’s opponent hit the ground hard when Rider released him. The crowd screamed. Those who had remained in their seats jumped up to pump their fists in the air.

  And Emily found herself caught up in the excitement, yelling along with the rest of the crowd.

  As the announcer declared Rider the winner, he turned toward Emily and winked again, just as he had before starting the fight.

  A chill raced down her spine at the attention. Her world froze in that instant. Nothing else existed but Rider and her heartbeat.

  And then he turned and left the ring on the opposite side. She could only see the top of his head for a few minutes before he disappeared.

  “Girl, you really got into that.” Katy’s voice brought Emily back to the present. As if she’d been in a Rider vortex, she’d filtered out everything around her for a moment, watching him step down from the cage and walk away. Suddenly the noise of the crowd swooped back into her, filling her entire body with the vibrations of the sounds.

  Emily wrapped her arms around her center as if to protect herself from the invasion.

  She met Katy’s gaze. “That was intense. I feel drained.”

  Katy grinned. “That’s one way to put it.”

  “You don’t enjoy it?”

  “Not at all. I mean I can tolerate it occasionally, but watching my man pummel some guy to the ground isn’t my idea of Friday night entertainment.”

  Jenna leaned in. “And worse than that—watching some other dude beat the shit out of Mason.”

  “Well, yeah. I can see how that wouldn’t be fun.” Emily tried to rein in her excitement. Why the hell had she found this sort of thing so invigorating? She never would have expected a reaction like that from herself. If someone had asked her yesterday if she would like to go watch MMA fighting, she would have looked at them like they had two heads.

  And here she was. “So, what now?”

  “Rafe fights after a few more guys and then we get out of here,” Katy said.

  “How m
any guys are in this fight club of theirs?” Emily asked.

  “Six.” Jenna grabbed Emily’s arm and pulled her back a few feet so someone else could step up closer to the cage for the next fighter. “I think Conner and Zane fought before we got here. I’m not sure when Gage fights.”

  The next hour went by in a blur of noise and movement. When other fighters took the ring, Emily found herself learning the lingo and getting into the sport of it. Clearly Katy and Jenna weren’t so engrossed, but that didn’t matter.

  After Rafe finished, Emily followed her new friends toward the back of the room. An official-looking man with an ear piece and the broadest shoulders she’d ever seen pushed open a door for them to pass through. The second the metal door sealed shut, the noise stopped. “Oh my God. I can’t believe how loud it is in there.” Emily tapped her ears a few times, still hearing the ringing in her head.

  “Yeah, I don’t usually stay that long. There are a lot of fights tonight.” Katy turned around to face Emily as they headed down a long hall.

  “Where’re we going?”

  “To the locker rooms. We’ll wait outside the doors for the guys to come out.”

  “Ah. Okay.” She felt like a groupie. The MMA fighters were like a rock band. It kind of invigorated her all over again.

  And yet, you aren’t Rider’s woman.

  She sobered at that thought and tried to control her emotions.

  It didn’t take long to arrive outside the locker rooms, and moments later Mason emerged. He’d been the first of the three men to fight, and he took Jenna in his arms and kissed her soundly. “It wasn’t too bad, was it?”

  She shrugged. “Eh. At least you made it quick for me.” She smiled up at him, her chin on his chest.

  “Yeah,” he gave her a wry grin, “well, that’s the only thing I’m going to make quick for you this evening.”

  Emily flushed at the implication, as though she were eavesdropping on what should be a private moment. She envied their easy banter and the way Mason obviously adored her.

  The door opened again, jerking Emily’s attention to the next man to come out.