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    This Round for Love: Champion Hearts, #2
    This Round for Love: Champion Hearts, #2
    This Round for Love: Champion Hearts, #2
    Ebook106 pages1 hour

    This Round for Love: Champion Hearts, #2

    By Malia Mallory

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    About this ebook

    Will Ford’s obsession with victory ruin his chances with Darcy?

    From NYT and USAT Bestselling Author Malia Mallory

    When Darcy Winthrop travels to Miami to organize a mixed martial arts event, she imagines sunshine, sand and maybe even a holiday fling if she stumbles across the right guy.

    What she finds is a sexy brawler with something to prove.

    Ford Cooper’s a man on a mission. MMA made him a star, but a major injury put him in the “has-been” category. He’s determined to fight his way back to the top one punch at a time and love is a distraction he doesn’t want.

    Now Darcy’s in for a fight—a fight to keep Ford in the ring without breaking her heart.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMalia Mallory
    Release dateApr 10, 2015
    ISBN9781519918833
    This Round for Love: Champion Hearts, #2
    Author

    Malia Mallory

    Malia Mallory lives in Hawaii with her husband and daughter. She's been working with words since alphabet blocks rolled into her crib, not only writing her own work but copy editing and proofreading the work of others. She has loved to read about relationships since she first sneaked off with her mother's Harlequin. Malia Mallory is the best-selling author of the Dominating BDSM Billionaires series and The ABCs of Erotica series, which covers the erotic spectrum from BDSM to ménage and everything in between. She has also released the Mia's Cop Craving series and Santa's Backdoor Baby. Malia’s books have hit the bestselling erotica lists in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. Her books are available in electronic format at major eBook retailers. For a free book, head to her website (www.maliamallory.com) and sign up for her newsletter. Connect with Malia on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Goodreads or her blog.

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      Book preview

      This Round for Love - Malia Mallory

      Chapter 1

      Darcy

      When I saw him across the lobby, all my lady parts came to attention. Every. Single. One. My nipples tightened and I grew moist inside. Who was he?

      Mr. Hot and Muscled was at least fifty feet away, but it was almost as if he were standing close, his heat rolling off the tanned surface of his skin and lighting a fire inside me.

      Darcy, you’re nuts. It’s just sexual frustration rearing its ugly head because of the cobwebs between your thighs. It was true. It had been a while. My eyes strayed to the check-in desk, but flipped back to him like iron to a magnet. Yep. Still hot.

      I would be in Miami for a few weeks. There was no reason I couldn’t find some company. After all, wasn’t Miami filled with lots of hot, young singles? My last relationship had broken up a few months ago, and no one had crossed my path that aroused my interest. I’d started to worry, thinking Brock’s tear down of my self-esteem had put me into a freeze. Apparently, I was wrong—blessedly wrong. At the very least, the drought seemed to be over. If one guy piqued my interest, it was a sign of a much-needed thaw.

      I rolled my suitcase to a nearby seating area and plopped onto the cushion. It’d been a long day. My flight from New York had been delayed, and the seats at the airport were about as comfortable as those in a bus station. I was used to traveling, having been a professional tennis player, but that wasn’t me anymore. Sometimes I wasn’t sure who I was, but I knew I wanted to prove myself. I’d taken my father up on his offer of a job. A position, he called it. I recognized it for what it was—an opportunity to finally work for the family hotel business.

      I’d brought a tennis racket with me. I’d had little time to play lately in New York, and I was feeling the itch. I’d been moderately successful at professional tennis, but I didn’t have the drive, or the talent for that matter, to make it to the top. Thousands of hours of practice and thousands of dollars in coaching couldn’t give me that spark when I didn’t have it. I was good enough. I’d made a living off it—a good living, but I was ready to move on. I was moving on.

      When I first left the tour, I didn’t play a lick of tennis for a couple of months. I was so burned out that I couldn’t imagine it. But I missed it. I missed scrambling for the close balls and the surge of satisfaction when I made a great shot. I was ready for fun, casual play where my ranking wasn’t on the line with every rally.

      Out of the corner of my eye, I checked on the object of my lust. He reached for the hem of his sweatshirt and pulled it over his head. Even in the air-conditioned cool of the lobby, it was too hot for a sweatshirt.

      The fabric of the t-shirt underneath caught, bunching up around his chest. My head swiveled, along with a dozen others, eyeing the tanned skin of his toned abdomen. Was that an eight-pack? Was that even possible? He tossed the sweatshirt on top of his suitcase, reached for his shirt, and pulled it back down.

      A sigh escaped my lips, and with reluctance, I pulled my gaze away. The swamped registration desk looked like a zoo. I wanted to see how the staff handled it. Officially, I was here regarding an upcoming mixed martial arts event, but the guest relations VP in New York had asked me to poke around. There had been an uptick in guest complaints about the Miami location. That was never good.

      I liked the hotel business. It was interesting, always changing, dynamic. My grandfather founded BIW Resorts International and my father grew it until it encompassed resorts and hotels all over the world. Growing up, I visited most of them. I’d even played a few tennis exhibitions at some of the properties when I’d been on tour. It was a natural fit for me to slide into a position in Events. Our resorts hosted golf tournaments and tennis championships, but the MMA fight series was a new contract.

      The event was a few weeks away, and it wasn’t coming together. From the look of things, the problems in Miami went beyond the upcoming event. The line at registration wasn’t getting shorter. It was getting longer. Nobody came out to help. With a crowd like that, even the manager should be out front. There was one young man fumbling with luggage, and I didn’t see anybody at the valet stand.

      The potted tree to my left was artificial, something the BIW frowned on. Why would you need fake plants in Miami? The plastic tree was dusty and I didn’t want to examine it too closely, but it looked like there was a cobweb in the middle. Totally unacceptable.

      The main paths on the carpet showed wear, or perhaps they were simply dirty. It didn’t matter. Either the carpet needed a good shampooing, or it was time for a replacement. Even the windows looked dingy. If the manager wasn’t on top of the hotel appearance, who knew what else was slipping?

      I took out my phone and made notes. What I’d seen so far was enough to initiate a visit from a team in New York.

      I bit my lip as my eyes turned back to Mr. Hot and Muscled. I suppressed a groan. So yummy. He was probably as dumb as a rock. Or mean. Or an asshole. It wouldn’t be fair to be so sexy and good-looking without something negative to balance it out. As I smiled to myself, he hoisted a large duffel bag onto his shoulder and strode away. I hoped there were a few more like him staying at the hotel and, with the MMA event scheduled, there probably would be.

      ~ * ~ * ~

      Ford

      The lobby was hot. Too hot. I stripped off my sweatshirt and eyed the reception desk. Damn. I had my room key. I’d been here a week, but I wanted to ask about moving rooms and that didn’t look likely at the moment.

      My room had a great view, but it was too close to the ground. At night, the sounds of partying drifted in unless I closed the sliding glass door. I preferred the ocean breeze to the air-conditioning, but I needed my sleep now more than ever. I wasn’t going to make a single misstep. Not one. Not with regaining my belt on the line.

      I had something to prove and I wasn’t trying to hide it. I couldn’t punch every sports journalist in the mouth, but I was determined to make them eat their words. I wasn’t over. I wasn’t a has-been. I was as good as I’d ever been. I believed it. I was going to make everyone else believe it, too.

      ~ * ~ * ~

      Darcy

      I rolled my suitcase into the room. It was stuffy and the curtains were closed. I grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled it away from my skin,

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