Read Bare Knuckle: Vegas Top Guns, Book 5 for Free Online

accident. His awareness of how he looked laid over his thoughts as surely as the scars lay over his skin. Any minute, she’d decide this wasn’t such a great idea. Hell, he might. He had enough on his mind without spending the night wondering—no, outright wishing—that this gorgeous pinup liked what he liked. He’d wind up thinking fabulous sex was a letdown.
    Lately, though, that’s what he’d felt after a night with a beautiful woman. The sex was satisfying, but it wasn’t the same as commemorating the experience.
    He hadn’t brought it up until Trish. The whole thing struck him as too Phantom of the Opera —the scarred guy hiding behind a camera, perving after a glittering showgirl.
    They kept talking while Trish finished the fries. She’d been in Vegas five years, him two. She was taking a few college courses, while he’d graduated from Michigan State. The conversation was first rate, which only added to the thoughts of photographs. She was witty and coy—too coy at times. Hiding, like he did. Time to see if they could change that. The camera revealed everything. When he ducked behind the lens, he was revealing more of himself than he did to his closest friends. He was revealing what struck all the way down to his primitive core.
    Who would ever know his fantasies other than a select few lovers? That was an exclusive club he wanted Trish to be part of.
    “So,” she said, appearing nervous for the first time during their conversation. “Where to next?”
    “Hotel or my place?”
    “Your place.”
    “Why?”
    “Because if I’m walking a boxing ring in a bikini and you’re taking punches as a hobby, I’m assuming money might be an issue on both sides.”
    “Maybe I like boxing,” he said dryly.
    She tilted her head. Her gaze roamed over his face with intensity enough to make him want to bellow. Or walk out.
    Answer already.
    “No.” She shook her head as if emerging from a trance. “You’d have gloated more. And your lack of an entourage is appalling.”
    Eric couldn’t hold back a laugh. “They keep calling in sick.”
    The ride to his loft apartment on the edge of Vegas’s industrial outskirts was almost relaxed. She hadn’t fled and he hadn’t made an ass of himself—a tendency he’d been working on since a few rehab nurses had dressed him down like drill sergeants.
    He flipped on the kitchen lights and stood aside, letting her enter as she wanted. He liked having half a complex to himself and a cheap-ass mortgage, but a few women had complained. Trish either had a surprising lack of care for her safety, or she trusted him. Considering her savvy, he was betting on the second.
    Not that he understood what in his mangled face said trust me . He didn’t used to be a poster-child example of how to be a decent human being. Doing right by Carey was the best he could say for himself, and that was as much penance as caring. Even flying—he’d fucked up and he’d made a couple enemies along the way. Since the crash, though…
    He couldn’t shake the memory of the ground rising up to meet him. Of gravity pulling him down. Of flames everywhere. The plane had been a dying animal wrapped around him, plummeting, groaning its last.
    Only afterward had he realized how shallow, how lonely , his life had become. He’d gotten by on his attitude, looks and body. Few found incentive to stay when he was a surly-as-fuck cuss. And he hadn’t realized how much he loved his job. He’d almost lost it all. He had a lot of ground to make up, and that wasn’t limited to the physical training he continued, determined to shake free from the last of his injuries.
    He tossed his keys in their bowl. Trish looked around the loft, silently assessing.
    She stopped in the middle of the open area that blended kitchen into dining into living room. “Sort of stark, isn’t it?”
    “By choice.”
    “It wasn’t criticism, believe me. One of my classes is set design. I think it’s habit now, assessing a space and