Desire Uncaged: An MMA Romance Read Online Free PDF

outsider, it bordered on obsession.
    And here in the last two weeks—Ethan was coming down the home stretch. Sara was glad, he seemed much worse for wear. Just last week, Ethan had been caught with a punch while sparring, leaving him with prominent black eye. Even now, almost a week later, it still looked discolored, a hint of purple as his body healed it slowly. It drew tactless comments from their mutual coworkers for the first day, and Sara found it perturbing to look at.
    The pair finished their respective lunches and casually bid the other farewell. They had both agreed that bringing even a hint of their relationship into the workplace was a recipe for disastrous drama from the coworkers. And so Sara was an unwitting observer to both Ethan’s struggles, and the coworker’s surreptitious gossip about him. Sara kept the worst of it to herself, however.
    As Sara sat down at her desk, her phone buzzed. It was a text from Ethan,
    “Dinner tonight?”
    She responded in the affirmative.
    * * *
    That evening, Sara found herself on her ‘dinner date’. It consisted of her ordering Indian food and Ethan eating boiled chicken while watching her eat. Ethan’s eyes blazed with hunger. The TV was on, playing some bad movie from a decade prior. They were on the couch, lounging. She was draped across Ethan’s chest. Sara enjoyed feeling his muscular physique beneath her. And, the brutal weight cut notwithstanding, he looked great; lean and in spectacular shape. The only part that was eerie for her, was that since his diet was so restrictive, his metabolism had slowed down. His hands and arms were freezing. In an effort to warm them, she had wrapped her fingers in his and pulled them close to her chest.
    “Do you ever think you’ll be done fighting?” Sara asked.
    “I’ll stop when I’m dead.” Ethan added sarcastically.
    “I’m serious. You can’t treat your body like this forever.”
    Ethan looked down at her, his face serious.
    “I want to see where my limits are. Just how good I can become. You only get one life to live, you know?”
    Sara felt unsatisfied by the answer, but it was the only one she could ever illicit from Ethan.
    “Still, you keep starving yourself, and you won’t get too many extra years on that one life of yours.”
    Ethan nodded knowingly.
    It was then that the door unlocked. Ethan and Sara both craned their necks from the couch to see who had arrived. The pair both relaxed when they saw who it was. It was Joe, one of Ethan’s housemates. Joe was a younger fighter, only 23, but massively full of promise, potential, and enthusiasm. His constant upbeat attitude was infectious.
    “Hey Ethan, hey Sara!” Joe chimed
    “Hey Joe.” The pair responded in quasi-unison.
    “Dude, Ethan, you were looking sharp at practice tonight. You are going to kill it against Roberts. I got a good feeling”. Joe had walked over to the couch and looked at Sara,
    “Stick with him, he’s a future champ! Ha ha ha!” Joe chuckled as he made his way to his room. Sara, knew Joe was more than a little prone to hyperbole and exaggeration. But she still found the thought gratifying. She cuddled up next to Ethan. I am going to stick with him , Sara thought to herself as the pair laid together and quietly watched the TV.
    * * *
    Ethan, awoke the next morning to his alarm blaring. God, I can’t wait to stop waking up this early. As a general rule, the last week before a fight was a ‘rest up’ week, where intense training tapered off. But it was Thursday, and he still had two more rough days of training to go. Groggy and intensely sore, he made his way to the gym. It was too early for any of the other fighters, but dutifully, Ethan put on his music, and began to warm up.
    Before he could begin however, he noticed his phone had a new text. He hadn’t checked it since yesterday afternoon. He opened it up, and his chest grew tight.
    There were at least 20 message from Emily, his ex. Since the breakup, he had not