Uncaged Love #2: MMA New Adult Contemporary Romance Read Online Free PDF Page B

want to message to Colt, but I hold back. I don’t want to overwhelm him like a lovesick teenager. I go over the evening at the salon a million times in my mind. And the kissing before it. The feel of him hot and hard against me.
    I know it’s going to be him who gets me past my fears and hang-ups. I’m finally going to let someone in. I’m going to take Colt McClure to bed. It’s something I never thought I could do, not since I left home.
    The thought of my old life makes my mood go dark. I head over to the phone and sit on the floor so it can stay plugged in as I do a quick search for my stepbrother. I assume he’s somewhere. For a week after I ran away, I checked the media sites for his name and mine. But nothing ever came up. If there are charges against me somewhere, they weren’t important enough to make the news. So, he survived what I did to him.
    There are lots of guys named Rich Mahoney on Facebook, but none are obviously him. I don’t have an account to do friend requests to see if any of the generic profile pics are actually his, but I wouldn’t risk that anyway.
    I’m tired of thinking about him, so I search for images of Colt. There are thousands. I pick a few and make a secret gallery of them. I title it “Web Memes” so it won’t be obvious if someone starts looking. As if anyone who sees us together doesn’t know I have a crippling crush on him.
    But is it still a crush if he is interested in me? I set down the phone and go sit in the same spot where we curled together last night. I want him there. I wonder how I can get him to come.
    The special knock breaks the silence. I smooth back my hair, since I don’t know for sure who it will be. When I swing open the door, it’s Zero. The minute he sees me, his eyes go big. “Mamacita, your hair is a glorious rose!”
    I laugh and let him in. As soon as the door is closed, he takes my shoulders to look at me hard. “You are like a bloom. Radiant. Glowing.” He narrows his eyes. “Did you do something cray cray with that fighter boy?”
    I’m sure I am blushing fifty shades of red.
    “You did!” Zero says. He grabs my elbow and moves me to the sofa. “Spill, baby girl. Tell Zero every scintillating detail.”
    “I didn’t do THAT,” I clarify. “But we did get a little up close and personal.”
    “I knew you’d get over your man-hate,” Zero says. “What was the best part about him?”
    The first thing that comes to mind is that hard bulge between us, but I can’t tell Zero that. “His dimples,” I say.
    “His what?” Zero seems offended.
    “They’re uneven! One is deeper than the other.”
    Zero shakes his head. “Shirley Temple has dimples. Not hot fighter boys.”
    “Okay, okay.” I scoot to the edge of the cushion. I’m feeling hyper and edgy. “He has this way of taking my hair down.”
    “Go on,” Zero says.
    “It’s like he’s stripping me down to the real me.”
    Zero nods. “I like him. He was totally worried about you when I went over to find you after the pictures went viral.”
    “What did he say?”
    “He wanted to know how to reach you.”
    “And then you gave him my home address.” I eyeball him. “Where I live. Alone.”
    Zero has the sense to give me puppy-dog eyes, like he needs forgiveness. “Your phone was out of commission. Besides, he’s really really hot. I think anybody would do anything he asks.”
    I flush a little. “Was he shirtless?”
    “Very.”
    “Yeah, it’s hard to resist that.” I conjure the image of his chest and skin in my mind. My heart speeds up instantly.
    “Girl, you are turning red as a cherry,” Zero says, then claps his hand over his mouth.
    “It’s okay, Zero. You already know my history.” Some of it, I think to myself. I never told him what I had to do to protect my virginity from my stepbrother. Nobody needs to know that. All Zero knows is that I never stopped protecting it. Every belly I jabbed, every face I crunched, it was always about keeping myself