Page 11 of The Clinch
I lift my hand, slow enough that she can stop me at any point. My thumb skims her cheekbone, light, exploratory, tracing theline down to her mouth. When my thumb grazes her lower lip, everything in her says “go ahead.”
“Yes?” I murmur, closing the space.
She nods, barely. Her fingers curl into the front of my shirt, grounding, decisive, pulling me the last inch.
Her lips part…
And the air shifts.
Cold slices through heat, a shadow stretching across the floor.
My mind goes quiet the way it only does before impact.
Instinct fires. Assessment follows.
I straighten, look up, and know exactly who just walked into my night.
Travis Drake.
A name I haven’t thought about in years. The last time I saw him was under bright lights in Atlantic City—two hungry heavyweights still climbing the ladder. I took the win, but it was a war. A real one. The kind that leaves both men bleeding and the crowd howling.
Sometime after that fight, he vanished from sanctioned cards. Missed weigh-ins. An arrest that never made it to public records. Then the rumors—underground MMA, backroom fights, places where nobody stops the clock and nobody checks who you hurt on the way out.
The kind of circuits that chew men up.
I figured he’d burned out or gotten himself banned for good.
But here he is.
Bigger than I remember.
Meaner.
Eyes fever bright, jaw clenched like he came here looking to find a body to break.
He plants himself too close, chest heaving, breath sour with whiskey, posture screaming for someone to give him an excuse.
Liz locks up against me. The heat between us flash-freezes.
Drake’s focus cuts to her first—possessive, territorial—then snaps back to me.
I don’t move fast. I move final. Out here the win isn’t blood, it’s keeping her from the fallout.
His smile is ugly as he snaps to me. “Didn’t expect to find you here, Carver.” His words are a growl, laced with venom. “With your hands all over my wife.”
4
CLOSED STANCE (LIZ)
Ican’t breathe.
He’s right in front of me, solid and real, smelling of sweat and whiskey and every mistake I ever made.
“Ex-wife,” I snap, sharp enough to cut. “We’re divorced, Travis.”
His smile is jagged. Mocking. “Funny. I don’t remember signing divorce papers.” His gaze drags over me possessively. “You thought you could just vanish? Start over like I never happened?”
Four years. A new name. A new city. A life rebuilt brick by careful brick.
