And that I love her. Damn it, I love her.
Shit.
TWENTY-NINE
Katie
Friday
I don’t know what I expected that we’d do two days before the fight, but Rogan has been much busier than I anticipated. Evidently, because he hasn’t been training like he should, he has to go through a series of challenges to prove to his trainer, Johns, that he won’t go into the ring and get himself killed. Johns says that his acting, or “playing” as he calls it, just makes him weak. And according to him, Rogan needs to be at his best for this particular opponent.
“This ain’t some pussy from outta nowhere, some random jackhole who fights like a girl. This kid’s got something. I wanna see you eatin’ him for breakfast, not the other way around,” the crusty, graying fifty-some-year-old explains in his smoker’s growl.
I listen to Johns taunt Rogan with barbs as he pushes him through the most grueling workout I’ve ever seen. Not once does Rogan falter. Even as he grunts with strain, even as he grimaces in pain, he doesn’t slack off. In fact, Johns seems to have a way of driving him to work even harder, so maybe this is just their dynamic.
From my perspective (once I got used to Johns’s way of needling Rogan) it has been fascinating. Not just their relationship and the whole “gym” scene, but Rogan himself. Watching his muscles flex beneath his shimmering skin, seeing him press beyond the point of most human endurance, listening to his breath heave with his exertion—good Lord! My knees are weak and my panties are a wet mess.
This man is delicious in any setting, whether dressed in jeans and a tee with his cute grin and wicked wink, or dressed in a pair of shorts and dripping with sweat. He takes my breath away.
This makes me respect his physical conditioning and fighterly prowess, too. Rogan is a deadly machine. It seems he’s perfect. Top to bottom, head to toe, inside and out.
“Told you I was keeping up better than you thought,” Rogan tells Johns as he guzzles from a liter of vitamin water.
“Like I’d take your word for it, pup,” Johns replies, slapping Rogan’s shoulder. He calls him that a lot—pup. Seems like their affection for each other runs deep, far beyond this man’s gruff exterior.
“Get some rest. I’ll pick you up at eight.” Before he disappears around the corner, the brusque old man calls back to Rogan, nodding to me, “And explain to her what needs to happen on fight day. And what doesn’t need to happen on fight day.”
With a wry grin, Rogan salutes his trainer and then turns to me, slinging his still-dry towel over my head to collar me and pull me toward him for a kiss. “I don’t want to touch you and get you all sweaty,” he says, keeping every body part except his lips at bay.
“I’ve been watching this sweaty body for the last four hours,” I tell him, running my hands down his granite stomach and leaning into his chest. “I want it touching me.”
The black of his pupils swells within the green forest of his eyes and I barely hear him breathe, “Damn you, woman.”
Looking left and right to make sure no one has inadvertently stumbled into the private gym that his trainer rented, I give a startled yip when Rogan suddenly bends and throws me over his shoulder, trotting off toward . . . somewhere.
The next thing I see from my perch atop his shoulder, facing the floor, is the carpet turn to tile. When Rogan puts me down, we are in the bathroom. That’s the last thought that registers before his hands are all over me, his lips are all over me, and I find out firsthand what happens when you get a fighter all worked up.
It’s amazing.
• • •
An hour and a half later, we are in the back of the limo, retracing the streets to our hotel. I’m lying, boneless, against Rogan’s side, my head on his shoulder and his arm draped loosely around me. He seems distracted. Happy and satisfied, but still distracted.
“What did Johns mean about what to expect on fight day?”
I hear Rogan’s huff of laughter rumble through his chest and vibrate into my ear. “He has always insisted that a very specific ritual should be observed on fight day and he never deviates from it. Ever.”
“And just what does this ritual entail?” I ask, picturing everything from the blood of a live chicken to wearing a jockstrap that hasn’t been washed since 2009.
“Sleeping until seven. A big breakfast at eight. Stretching at ten, followed by a massage and lunch. He has pretty much the whole day planned out. What he forbids, no questions asked, is sex. Thinks it makes a fighter weak, distracted.”
Bummer.
“And what do you think?”
I feel his lips brush the top of my head. “I think my mind is always on you, so I’m not sure abstaining will make any difference.”