Page 36 of Undisputed Player
My heart slammed against my ribs.
"Leo, stay right here," I ordered, pressing him against the wall of the check-cashing place that doubled as a neighborhood landmark and money laundering operation. "Don't move. Understand?"
He nodded, green eyes wide.
I hurried toward the limp figure, my sneakers slapping against concrete that had seen better decades. My hand found the pepper spray in my pocket, my pathetic excuse for personal protection, thumb resting on the safety cap as my brain cycled through worst-case scenarios.
Was this one of Damon's men? Had they finally escalated from surveillance to vehicular assault? Was this my fault somehow?
"Hey," I called, keeping my distance because I'd learned not to trust anything that looked unconscious in this neighborhood. "Are you okay?"
Was it stupid to check on them? Probably. But I couldn’t find it in myself to just… leave.
The figure stirred, pushing up on one elbow with a low grunt that was somehow both pained and... sexy? What the hell was wrong with me?
Something about the movement struck me as familiar, too fluid for someone seriously injured, too graceful for your average street casualty.
The dark hood fell back slightly, revealing fancy black sunglasses and a flash of hair so golden it looked like it had been spun from actual sunbeams.
No fucking way.
My heart stuttered like a broken engine as he pushed the sunglasses up, revealing eyes so blue they seemed to glow in thegathering dusk like sapphires lit from within. Eyes I'd recognize anywhere, eyes that had been haunting my dreams and making me question my sanity for the past week.
Jax Easton. Here. In my world. Sprawled on dirty concrete like some fallen god who'd taken a wrong turn on his way to Olympus.
"Mr. Easton?" I gasped, disbelief stealing what was left of my composure and leaving me gaping like a fish. "What are you—how did you?—"
My brain short-circuited. Jax Easton, champion boxer and millionaire playboy whose face graced billboards, had no business being in this neighborhood. Absolutely none. It was like finding a unicorn in a parking lot, or a Michelin-starred restaurant in a gas station.
"Jax," he corrected with that signature smirk I'd seen in countless interviews, even though he was currently intimate with asphalt that hadn't been cleaned since… ever.
"And apparently, I'm getting acquainted with your lovely street."
Even flat on his back, the man had more charm than should be humanly possible.
I glanced back at Leo, who remained pressed against the wall like I'd told him, watching us with eyes so wide they were practically falling out of his head.
My brain scrambled to make sense of this cosmic joke—Jax Easton, living embodiment of everything I couldn't have, lying on the same concrete where I walked every day.
"You're hurt," I stated the obvious because my capacity for intelligent conversation had apparently evacuated along with my common sense.
I crouched beside him, trying to ignore the way his cologne, something expensive that made me think of the ocean and money, cut through the usual neighborhood bouquet of garbage and fumes. Up close, he was even more stunning than the academy glimpses had suggested.
This was a mistake. This was definitely a mistake. I should have just run with Leo.
I snapped out of my shock-induced stupor and helped him into a sitting position, way too aware of the warm, solid muscle beneath my fingertips as I steadied his shoulder. My pulse raced like I'd mainlined espresso, and heat flooded my cheeks.
I had to get it together. He was just a man. A ridiculously attractive, impossibly wealthy, completely unattainable man who smelled like heaven and looked like sin.
Those glimpses at the academy hadn't prepared me for his presence up close, for the way reality seemed to bend around his perfect face. I'd seen him on magazine covers, shirtless on billboards advertising boxing matches, draped in designer clothes with models hanging off his arms like expensive accessories. But those images were poor translations of the real thing.
This was high-definition gorgeousness in my world of dirt.
"Indeed, I am," he said smoothly. "Think I hurt my wrist breaking my fall. Fucking car came out of nowhere."
I scanned the street, but the vehicle responsible was long gone, probably halfway to whatever mysterious dimension the cars here disappeared to after hit-and-run incidents.
“Do you need a hospital?”
