Can Maverick and Reese's Love Really Conquer All in This Sexy Novel?

In Legend, Maverick "the Avenger" Cage has a burning drive to rise to the top and become a name to remember in the Underground's MMA ring. And he's got a personal score to settle with the Underground's reigning champion and fan favorite, Remington "Riptide" Tate.

As Mav trains, he meets a young girl and sparks fly. But when things heat up between them, finding out she's none other than Reese Dumas, cousin to Riptide's wife, is a dose of cold water. Reese is a girl who's supposed to root against him, a girl he's supposed to stay away from.

But Mav fights for the woman in his heart and to prove he's better than where he came from. The world's eyes are on them and the victor will go down in history as the ultimate fighting champion — the ultimate Legend.

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The next morning at the gym, he's already inside. I take a treadmill while I see him gloving up, and I see the girls looking at him and going over to talk. I can't take the way he actually removes his earbuds and talks to them. He keeps glancing my way, curious about something.

And I don't know why I can't hold his gaze.

I dreamed of yesterday all over again. In my dreams things got heated pretty quickly, and I'd actually had the balls to kiss him. On those perfect lips.

I'm scared as he looks at me that he'll see what I'm feeling.

That he'll see what he makes me feel.

I glance away when I feel his eyes on me, but when he actually starts training, I watch him, the heavy bag swinging side to side. He drives his fists forward. I know that he uses the earbuds to block out distractions, and he seems to be listening to the sound of his fists. They make different sounds depending on how front and center he slams the bag. He's testing out hits.

He shifts positions to take on the back of the bag, facing the room, and our eyes catch when the bag swings to the side and his face is revealed.

He's wearing the most bloodthirsty expression I have ever seen.

He stands there, a full head taller, twice my weight—at least. And packed with muscle. My heart beats a dozen times. The bag is hit a dozen times. And he still won't look away. There's something dangerous in his gaze. Making my heart speed up and my body feel out of control. I want to know more about him—all there is to know. But he's more impenetrable than the bag his fists are knocking. He's like a steel wall, with steel eyes. Eyes that pierce. Like knives.

I wonder how he moves in bed.

All hard but fluid.

If he loses control.

I wonder what it takes to make him smile. Not smirk, not a brief smile, a real smile.

After putting in my time, I head for Racer and take him to a nearby park. I brought snacks for us—for Maverick and me—thinking I'd invite him with us, but it turns out I'm a coward and I couldn't. And now I tuck them back into my backpack. I'm so strangely lust-lovesick that I'm exhausted and sleepless, to boot.

We take the elevators and he leads me into a room on the second-to-top floor. I step inside as he shuts and locks the door behind me. It's a nice room that I'm sure he's easily affording now, thanks to the fighting money. His duffel bag sits in a corner. It's misleading to think that's all he owns. That everything he is and wants is tucked inside the bag. Because when I turn to look at him, I know he is so much more. I know he wants so much more.

And I want him more than I've wanted anything.

He starts forward. My knees grow weak. I want to take a step back but I hold my ground because I want his touch more than I want to take a step back. I hate him for making me feel like this, and I love him for making me feel so alive too. The air crackles between us as he stops a few feet away. Pure anticipation floods me. I stick my chin a little higher, meeting his gaze, holding it.

He reaches out to grab the back of my neck. He sets my nerve endings on fire beneath his fingertips. He never takes his eyes off mine as he draws me the rest of the way to him. I don't miss the meaning. He brings me to him—he doesn't come to me. It excites me and I don't know why.

He bends and nibbles my lip, barely getting started, his head bent to mine. Reason checks out as waves of feelings rush through me, and I feel my hands fill with his hair, my throat close with things I want to say that I have never said—dirty things, sexy things, and intimate things, and just… things. I can't. I feel rawer with this man than with anyone.

He walks me to the bed, and when he sits me on the edge, the rough fabric of his jeans grazes my jean-clad thighs; I can feel his hard quads beneath. Liquid fire warms my body, consuming. My heart skipping, jumping, fluttering.

His fingers brush over the tips of my nipples and shoot a delicious shockwave through me. A seductive smile touches his mouth. His f*cking perfect mouth.

I shouldn't be here.

I shouldn't want him like this.

But not a single part of me—of the ones that are working right now—cares.

I grab him, and the muscles in his shoulders tense under my fingers, and the air is burning, primal. When we kiss, there's no hesitation or uncertainty. Our lips fit perfectly, his body crushes me into the bed, his erection against my stomach, and as he's kissing me, he doesn't tease, or play, he just takes.

My fingers slide over the back of his neck, and it's warm beneath my fingers, and I want him to touch more, touch everything at the same time. He eases his hand to the small of my back, and I feel alive, the touch firm but achingly gentle, intimate, possessive, and our control starts slipping when he shifts and fits his erection between my legs. I can feel him through my jeans. His fingers skim over my top, then he pulls it off.

I unhook my bra, discarding it.

There's no one else here, just us, and I am a hostage to this, this lust, as he fills his mouth with a breast and shifts again, the move bringing his hips closer, nestling his erection deeper.

My eyelids shut. He handles my breast a little roughly, sucking the nipple. Stars flicker across my eyelids and I convulse from the pleasure. He eases back and jerks off his T-shirt and kicks his jeans aside, and I can't believe how good his skin feels under my fingers.

God, he's so gorgeous, my eyes ache when I look at him. His muscles hard as granite, hot as fire, smooth as velvet.

He's sucking my breasts again, both. Hungrily as he spreads above me. Soon we're all hot flesh and hands and mouths on the bed. And he's prepping me with his fingers. I don't need prepping; I'm so ready I can't see, my vision is hazy, and all I know is how warm and male he smells, how much I love the way he's breathing fast, how totally he melts me in every spot he puts his mouth on.

Then Maverick reaches out and puts on a condom. And I devour him with my eyes, my first time seeing a guy. I will never be able to love the look of one like I love the look of Maverick, naked and hard.

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