Read The Proposition (The Plus One Chronicles) for Free Online Page A

was that rich and yet took down a thug with a knife? Hell, who was that rich and ran toward a knife? “How did you disarm that guy so easily?”
    He guided the car around a corner. “Used to fight.”
    Her stomach clenched. “Fight? Like…get in fights, or fight professionally?” Had he been like those thugs tonight? Why had she thought she’d be safer with him than in a cab?
    His mouth quirked. “Both. I fought in UFC for a few years. Before I started my company.”
    Oh God. She couldn’t be in the car with him. A smoldering commenced in the center of her chest, but she forced herself to breathe. In the last years, she’d been getting better at controlling her panic attacks. Tonight, however, they were kicking her ass in unrelenting assaults. “Why? Why would you want to hit people? Hurt them?”
    His granite jaw clenched in silence. Finally, he said, “I like to win.”
    A loaded statement. Wanting to win might be simple, but the drive behind it tended to be a complicated snake pit of emotions and experiences. She focused straight ahead, on the dark and quiet streets as the powerful car slid through the night. Needing to fill the thick hush descending over them, she asked, “And did you?”
    “Two heavyweight championships before I retired.”
    I do whatever it takes to win. That’s what he had said when he handed her into the car. “Impressive.” It was all she could think to say. The tension in her chest kept twisting and constricting. He liked violence. He hurt people.
    “You don’t sound impressed.”
    His gaze raked her skin, making her feel exposed and vulnerable in the car with him. “I don’t like violence. I just…don’t.”
    “It’s a violent world. You might not like it, but it’s there.” He paused, then added in a softer tone, “Like tonight when you were attacked. It took controlled violence to deal with that situation.”
    She closed her eyes beneath a hot wave of nausea at the memory. “You broke that guy’s arm. I heard the bone snap.”
    “Quick and effective. And then I stopped once he was down. That’s the control.”
    She faced him. Visually explored his darkly sensual mouth, the nose that had an unnatural bend, and eyes that seemed to pierce through her. Intense. Dangerous. Sexual. When he shifted his attention back to the road, she asked, “Did you want to keep going? Keep hurting that guy?”
    His jaw scissored. “When I opened that door to the alley and saw you crawling on the goddamned asphalt with that look of raw terror…” He clamped his lips together.
    Kat fought the need to hunch her shoulders. “Go on.” She had to know.
    “I wanted to kill them both.”
    Tightly leashed violence bled through his voice, and she shivered. Wrapping her arms around her waist, she said, “You didn’t.”
    “No. Control, Kat. I live by it.” He rubbed his neck. “Anyway, I retired from fighting years ago. I run a company now.”
    She struggled to get onto safer footing with him. “What’s your company?”
    “SLAM Inc. I have gyms all over the nation. We develop fighters, do merchandizing, own an entertainment company. Various things.”
    “All having to do with fighting.”
    Challenge flowed from him. “Not all. But that’s where I got my start and where I built my wealth. I’m not apologizing for it.”
    “You don’t owe me an explanation.” Noting where they were, she said, “My building is there on the right.” Kat tried to get the censure out of her voice. She had no right to pass judgment on the man who had rescued her and Kellen. She was tired, sore and dreading being alone. “You’ve had two very successful careers and you can’t be more than what, thirty? That is something to be proud of.”
    “Let’s talk about you. You do cakes?” A grin worked his mouth, teasing the left side into a sexy curve. “And emergency brownies, if I recall correctly.”
    Bubbles of amusement tickled her throat. “Sugar Dancer is my bakery, and emergency brownies are