Against the Cage (Worth the Fight #1) (2 page)

But neither was she into ballet or frilly dresses, like the other girls. She was into
reading and homework. She was the town darling and everyone loved her. Probably because she was friendly and didn’t know the meaning of no. In truth, she was a pushover—he’d even say meek. She’d always ended up doing whatever Slade or Jack said. No questions asked. Sometimes she’d stomped her feet or pouted, but she still ended up doing whatever they said.

The woman staring back at him now didn’t look like she’d be caught dead playing stickball or anywhere close to mud. She sure as hell didn’t seem meek. And she sure as hell wasn’t trying to impress him. She looked furious that he’d stopped her. In fact, she was seething, and he could feel the heat coming out of her pores, even through the barrier of the car door between them. The glasses were still there, highlighting the bluest eyes he’d ever seen, but from what he could see from the neck up, that was all that remained the same. Now she had a spark in her eyes that had been missing all those years ago. Suddenly he was dying to see the rest of her.

He didn’t normally abuse his position of power, but …

He attempted to give her his I’m-a-police-officer-who-means-business face that normally intimidated the hell out of everyone, but he couldn’t seem to hide his smirk. He hoped she didn’t notice. “Have you been drinking?”

“What? No!”

Yep, she’s definitely seething
.

“Are you sure? You were driving rather erratically,” he lied.

“No, I was not. Maybe I was going slightly over the speed limit, but I was not driving erratically.”

“Why don’t you step out of the car?”

“Are you serious?” She looked as if she was going to reach out and wring his neck.
This is new!
If there was one thing he didn’t remember, it was an angry Chris.

“As a heart attack.”

She let out an amused snort. “Did you just cliché me? Ugh! Could this day get any fucking worse?”

“You curse a lot.”

“Get out of my way, Jack Daniels, so that I can show you I’m not drunk. If I can prove it, may I go without a ticket?”

“Yes. I’ll let the speeding ticket go if you pass the sobriety test and don’t call me Jack Daniels again.”

“Fine. But that
is
your name.”

“Yes. But you’re mocking me.”

“How? I’m not the one who named you Jack Daniels. Blame your parents for that.
And don’t call me Chris. I hate it.”

“Fine. I won’t call you Chris, Christine.”

“Chrissy, please. Not Christine, not Chris. Definitely not Chris the Priss. Just Chrissy. You never were capable of calling me Chrissy, for some reason.”

“Because it was more fun to get you all riled up.”

“Some things never change. Eleven years later and you’re still mean to me,” she said, her hands still clenched around the steering wheel.

“Okay, fine. For the sake of fairness, I’ll stop. Chrissy it is. And you know how I feel about my name. I don’t need a smart-ass teasing me. Especially when that smart-ass should be a little worried about not passing a sobriety test and assaulting a police officer.”

“I didn’t assault you. It was an accident. Just get out of the way so I can open the door.”

He stood aside as she opened the door.

One long, fair, well-defined leg in the sexiest red high heels he’d ever seen stepped out of the car. Then the other.
Jesus Christ! Is this the same goofy little Chrissy Martin?
Jack felt as if he had somehow transformed into one of those cartoon characters whose eyes popped in and out of its sockets.

Holy hot legs, Batman!

He silently prayed that she had grown a tail or a third arm, because all he’d seen so far was causing his brain to melt down. He didn’t think he could handle any more, and all he’d seen so far were her legs. She finally got out of the car and went to take a step forward but then she lost her balance and stumbled toward the ground. Instinctively he reached toward her, grabbed her waist, and pulled her up before her face made contact with the street. The full length of her frame was flush against his body. Every single little inch was pressed against him. He gulped. Actually gulped. A few beats of awkward silence later, he reached for her chin with his finger and brought her face up to meet his eyes. “You okay?”

“Uh … yeah. I forgot I had a broken heel.” She brought her right foot up behind her and looked over her shoulder. He leaned in toward her body to look at the broken heel, bringing them closer together, if that was even possible.

“What a shame. Those were nice shoes,” he said, inches from her ear.

“Tell me about it.” She moved back a little, and he reached forward with his index finger and pushed her glasses back up her nose. He’d never had a reaction like this to a woman before. She straightened her black dress and ran her fingers through her long black hair. She stood up straight, shoulders back. Ready for war, it seemed. Well, one thing hadn’t changed—she was still self-righteous and proud. But Little Miss Pushover
was gone. And he was liking this new and improved hellcat.

“So, where do you want me?” Chrissy asked as she took off her shoes.

Completely naked and spread over the hood of my police cruiser with that tiny little black dress pulled up over your hips
, is what he almost blurted out. “Excuse me?” he managed to say instead.

“The sobriety test. I’ve never had to do one of these. What do I do?”

“You know what? Never mind. You can’t do a sobriety test in a shoe with a broken heel, and I don’t want you walking on the side of the road barefoot.”

“Does that mean you’re going to give me a ticket?”

“No. Just go,” he barked.

“What the hell is wrong with you? You’ve always been such an ass. I guess you haven’t changed.”

“I’m sorry, Chris. It’s been a long day. I don’t mean to be a jerk. Where are you staying while you’re in town?”

“Chrissy,” she said through gritted teeth.

“What?”

“You called me Chris. I was correcting you.”

“Oh, shit. Sorry. Habit, I guess.” She wasn’t a Chris any longer. No sign of the nerdy little girl anywhere. She was all woman, from the tips of the sexy-as-hell high heels to the top of the jet-black hair on her head.

“At Slade’s house,” she answered. He looked at her, confused, and she snapped her fingers at him, bringing him back to the present. “You asked me where I was staying. I’m answering. I’m staying at Slade’s. I kind of have to break in.” She leaned into him a little and whispered, “Don’t tell the cops,” then giggled. He had forgotten all about her giggle. She was a giggler. It was infectious. He used to think it was annoying. What an idiot he’d been.

“Why?”

“I don’t have a key. You know I let him have the house after Dad passed away, and it’s been years since I’ve been back. Technically, it’s half mine, so it’s not really breaking and entering.”

“Come on. Follow me home. I have a spare key,” said Jack.

“You do?”

“Yeah. He’s like a brother to me, you know that. He has a spare key to my house too.”

“Oh, okay. Where do you live?”

“Same place.”

“You mean you still live with your folks?” she said incredulously. Her face was full of judgment and pity. That had always been her
thing—
she was judgmental as hell. He didn’t remember caring so much about her judgments eleven years ago, but he sure as hell cared now. In fact, he was suddenly angry, and he wasn’t even sure why he felt a need to correct her.

“No, Chris. I don’t live with my folks. I bought the house from them before they moved to a retirement community a few miles away.”

She took a step forward, closing the gap between them, and poked his chest with her index finger. “Do. Not. Call. Me. Chris! And it’s great that you bought the house. It was just a question, so relax. I didn’t mean anything by it. You don’t have to be so moody.”

He grabbed her finger with his big hand. “I’m not moody. You’re just so judgmental.”

“I wasn’t being judgmental,” she answered. He looked at her in disbelief, and her shoulders slumped. “Okay, maybe I was being a little judgmental. Seeing you reminded me of that girl that you and Slade used to push around, and I guess it made me defensive. I’m sorry. Look, it’s been a terrible day. I just need a long hot bath and a good night’s sleep so I can go to Slade’s arraignment tomorrow morning and bail him out.”

“Okay, let’s go. Come on. Follow me home.” He waited for her to get into her car, then walked back to his police cruiser.

A few hours earlier, he’d been called to a bar fight, where he’d had to wrestle four guys into handcuffs. He was at the tail end of a very long shift, and all he’d wanted to do was go straight home, drink a nice cold beer, and sleep for the next twenty-four hours. Dealing with a speeding driver was the last thing he’d had in mind. But his sense of duty had gotten the best of him, and he had stopped her—not knowing that a pair of smoldering blue eyes waited for him in the driver’s seat. He found himself adjusting his pants a few times on his way home, and it wasn’t from the punch to his balls.

She was gorgeous. The once insecure, slightly overweight, frumpy girl was now a confident, voluptuous, well-put-together stunner. He was glad she still wore the glasses. On anyone else, the thick black frames probably would’ve looked goofy, but on Chrissy, it gave her that naughty-nurse look men fantasized about. As he drove, his mind drifted to Christine, the naughty nurse, who wore a short white dress—tight on the top, accentuating the swells of her overly-large-for-her-small-frame breasts—giving him just the teensiest preview of the garter from her stockings, and a little white hat that contrasted severely with her pin-straight inky black hair. Jack could picture her bending over to check his reflexes and reaching up to his mouth to put a thermometer in, and of
course she would be a good and thorough nurse and ask him in the softest, shyest voice to please pull down his pants so that she could examine …

Get a fucking grip, Daniels! Did you just make little Chris a porn nurse? What is wrong with you, dude? Snap out of it!

She wasn’t even a nurse, she was a doctor. The last he’d heard, she’d been overseas volunteering her medical services in third-world countries. She was so out of his league, he couldn’t even see the field. But hell if he wasn’t completely turned on by her unexpected attitude. She hadn’t been like that before. She had always been smart and goofy. But feisty and sultry? Nope, never feisty, and never ever sultry. She would do something Slade and Jack didn’t like and they’d scold her and she’d just take it, never rebelling. Yet she’d still follow him and Slade around like a little puppy. He hated when she would hang around his and Slade’s friends. They were all hooligans and he damn well knew it. She had no business being a sidekick in their troublemaking schemes. But then the last few months before she left, she had avoided him like the plague. He had always wanted to ask her why, but she’d been gone before he ever had the chance.

“Christ, has he always been so … so … There are no proper words. Male! That’s the word! I can’t believe I punched him in the nuts. How humiliating!” Chrissy gave herself a self-deprecating thump to her forehead. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”

Growing up, Chrissy had always had a crush on Jack, but his jerkiness overshadowed the crush. In fact, it crushed the crush. Every time she found herself swooning over Jack, and she had swooned often, he’d do something to remind her of what an ass he really was.

Slade had always ignored her and pushed her away. But whereas her brother completely overlooked her, Jack never did. He was always the one who brought her straight back home when she snuck into one of their backyard cage fights. He always scolded her when she did something he considered to be reckless, like joining the girls’ basketball team. He told her: “You’re gonna get hurt, Chris. You’re a munchkin. What do you know about basketball?” Or like that one time, senior year of high school, when she wanted to go to a party hosted by the head cheerleader. The plan had been to sneak out of the house after her father went to bed. Her best friend, Veronica, had lent her some clothes and helped her with her hair and makeup. Chrissy even decided against glasses that night—it didn’t matter that she couldn’t see two feet in front of her. She had been so excited. It was a cool-kids party, and she and Veronica were going to flirt with Roger and Nick, some wrestlers on the varsity team. She was sure Roger would finally notice her; she was, after all, wearing a tiny denim skirt. That night she had planned to indulge in her first kiss, and Roger was the target. As soon as they arrived at the party, they noticed the crowd cheering around a table where a game of beer pong was under way. One of the teams the crowd was chanting around was none other than Slade and Jack.

After gulping down big red cups of beer, Slade and Jack glanced sideways and saw Chrissy. Both guys glared at her. Slade rolled his eyes, annoyed, and said something along the lines of “go home.” She shook her head and stomped her feet. Yes, stomped her feet. Just like a toddler. Jack didn’t even bother to talk; he grabbed her by the wrist, dragged her into his car, and drove her home, all the while lecturing her on why she shouldn’t and couldn’t be at the party. The excuses mostly centered on how she’d cramp their style while they tried to get laid. The worst part was that Veronica, her best friend of six years, completely stopped talking to her after that night.

Lots had changed since then. She wasn’t the same naïve and defenseless little girl any longer. She was a woman. A woman who’d been through a lot. She had lived in the worst parts of the world and survived. She’d been through hell and back in her personal life and survived. That stupid love-struck teenager was gone, and now every time Jack gave her one of those panty-dropping dimpled smiles, she’d remember how mean he had been to her growing up and how he’d ruined her relationship with her best friend. How he’d never seen her as anything other than Chris the Priss, a dorky little sister in need of a protective big brother. How he had stifled her and never let her do what she wanted. But she had managed just fine for the last decade, and she didn’t need a man to watch over her like that now. If Jack thought he could swoop in after eleven years and push her around like he used to, he was totally mistaken.