“A smart woman told me to come here months ago...but I was too stubborn to listen.”

Nico inhales deeply, pushing a loud breath out before he begins, his face still looking down.

“Eighteen months ago I killed a man.  I didn’t intend to, but it happened anyway.  I’m a fighter and it happened in the cage.  The ref ruled it a clean hit, but it doesn’t change that it was my hand that dealt him the blow that killed him.

I’ve spent the last year of my life under a cloud of guilt and shame.  I went on, going through the motions every day, but I was dead too.  I grieved for the loss of the man, and the loss of who I was.  For a whole year.  A year of my life that I can’t get back. But it wasn’t until today that I realized I even lost it.”

Nico pauses and I hold my breath as I watch his head slowly rise.  His eyes find mine instantly, just like every other time.  Everything else in the room disappears and it’s as if we’re the only two in a long tunnel, sitting on opposites ends, but inexplicably drawn to each other.

“Then today I was given a gift.  A gift by an amazing woman.  She gave me the gift of forgiveness because I thought that was what I needed to move on.  But I was wrong.  No one was keeping me from moving on, only me.  She taught me more about fighting for what you want than I’d learned spending half my life in the cage. I finally get it…what makes us move on is to accept what we feel and share it.”

Nico’s voice becomes shaky and I fight the urge to go comfort him, but I can’t hold back the stream of tears that fall from my face silently.

“Today I made peace with it, Babe.  And you gave that to me.  I only wish there was something I could give you back that meant as much as what you did for me.  But there isn’t one thing big enough to call it even.  So if you’ll have me, I want to spend the next fifty or sixty years trying to repay you…saying thank you every day.  Because you, lady, are all I need.”

My feet can’t get to him fast enough.  I almost knock over two rows of folding chairs in front of me, trying to make my way.  But when I finally do, he holds me so tight that everything else fades away and I know we’re going to be okay.  As long as we have each other.

Epilogue

Six months later

Elle

It’s almost one on Saturday afternoon when I leave the office.  Nico asked me to come to the gym to help him with something.  He’s being elusive, won’t tell me what it’s all about.  There’s a bit of a knot in my stomach as I drive, hoping I’m not going to be hearing bad news.  The last six months have been the happiest time in my life.  I hadn’t even realized what I’d been missing till I met Nico Hunter.  But he has another fight coming up soon and I worry he may have heard news that could push him back.  We’ve made such progress, individually and as a couple.  Both of us finally putting our past in its place and moving forward…together.  We don’t try to drown it out anymore, like it or not, our past is our own, and it’s made us who we are today.  Accept and move on.

I’m surprised when I find the gym almost empty.  Usually on Saturdays the place is filled with guys with no necks.  Sal’s at the front desk and tells me Nico’s waiting for me in the storage room.  The storage room is a big open space, almost half the size of the gym, only it’s unfinished and bare, with a few metal shelves lining the walls and some decade-old file cabinets.  Nico must be filing paperwork, something he dreads and lets pile up for way too long.

The storage room is dark when I open the door and I’m just about to pull the door shut when a nameplate on the door catches my eye.  The Women’s Annex.  I don’t recall ever seeing it before and certainly I would have remembered anything that has to do with women in this macho male gym.

Curiosity gets the best of me, so I reach in and switch on the light, stunned at the vision I find before my eyes as they adjust from the darkness.  What once looked like an oversized garage is now completely refinished.  The walls are painted a pale pink, there’s rubber matting on the floor, similar to the black ones in the gym, but these are light grey, less obtrusive.  Pictures hang on the walls, most of women in gym clothes exercising and kickboxing. To my right, there’s a wall lined with exercise equipment, all sparkling chrome, shiny and new.  Large mirrors cover the walls behind the equipment and movement in its reflection catches my eye and startles me for a second.  I turn to my left following the reflection and find Nico standing in the doorway of a room, a room that wasn’t even there the last time I was in here to grab some supplies.

“Confused?”  Nico grins at me, he looks pleased to find that I am.

“When did you do all this?  And why didn’t you mention you were getting work done?”

“Because I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“It’s beautiful.”  I look around, taking in the entirety of the transformation.  It really is pretty.  Different from the muscle head gym that stands on the other side of the door.  It looks soft and inviting, not hard and intimidating.  “But it looks so…different from the rest of the gym?”

Nico chuckles.  “That’s because it is different, Babe.”

“It’s a women’s gym?”

“Sort of.”  Pushing his body from the door frame, Nico walks to me.  I stand and watch as he comes towards me, knowing he won’t leave any distance between us, he’ll invade my space.  And he does.  He stops directly in front of me, close enough so that the hairs on my arms raise and my body responds to his nearness.  I’ll never tire of what this man does to me.

Nico wraps his hand around my neck, pulling me in for a quick kiss on the lips, releasing me only enough so I can see his face, but our bodies are still touching when he continues.  “This is the new women’s self defense center.  I worked it out with Janna over at the battered women’s shelter you volunteer at.  I’m going to teach classes three nights a week, after the fight gym closes, get women to learn how to defend themselves.”

I don’t know what to say for a minute, it’s rare I’m actually rendered speechless. Nico doesn’t move. Instead he waits, giving me time to collect my thoughts.  His thumb rubs soothingly up and down the back of my neck while I let it all sink in.  “You did this for me?”  The words come out as a whisper, a thought that escaped my mouth.

“I did it for us.  I couldn’t be there for you and your mom when you needed help.  I know it makes no sense, but I’ll never forgive myself for not being there for you then.  But I can try to be there for the next woman who needs to defend herself.”  Nico pauses, searching my eyes for something intently.  “You changed my life, gave me peace.  I promised you I’d spend the rest of my life trying to give back to you what you gave me.  This is just the start.”

“I…I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you like it, Babe.”

“I like it, Babe.”  I smile up at the towering tough guy looking down at me so sweetly.

“That’s good.  Because you’re going to be my assistant.”  He grins like a Cheshire cat.

I raise my eyebrows in surprise.  “I am?”

“Yep, I’m going to put my hands all over that body of yours in the front of the room and you’re going to kick my ass.”

I reach up, locking my hands behind his neck.  Doing my best impression of serious, “I’m not sure I can do that.”

Nico looks concerned and for a second I feel badly for screwing with him.

“I’m sorry, Babe, if it’s too hard…”

“Oh, if it’s hard, I’m definitely not sure I can do it…”  I grin.

A look of relief passes over his face, but it’s replaced quickly by something else…and that something else looks devilish.  “Oh, it’s always hard for you, Babe.”  He yanks me tighter against him, demonstrating his words are spoken with truth as I feel his thick erection push into me.  “Let’s go christen our new office.”

“Our new office?”

“Yep, I was going to give you the full tour, but now that’s going to have to wait till later.  Much later.”

And we do.  We christen the new office…and the new supply room, and the floor…

* * *

Three more months later…

Elle

              So much has changed in the past year.  Nico is still the champion, but now we celebrate after a fight.  We’ve started a new tradition of having a party the night after a win at Nico’s gym. Neither one of us looks back to the time where winning a fight only caused pain.

My mom even came to the party tonight.  She wasn’t ready to see the fight, but we’re working our way up to it.  Baby steps, no more running backwards.  I watch as Nico’s crazy nephews spar in the ring wearing head gear three sizes too big for them.  Preach, of course, in one corner with one eight year old, and Nico coaching in the other.  And the ref?  Well that’s Vinny, of course.

Tonight we’re going to tell our families that we’re getting married.  I wish I had a romantic story to share, maybe that he proposed on a hot air balloon ride, or slipped a fortune requesting my hand in marriage into a fortune cookie.  But I’ve agreed to marry Nico, the black and blue, hotter than hell heavyweight champion, not some pansy Price Charming.  So instead, for the rest of my life I’ll blush when I think of how the man I’m crazy in love with proposed to me.

* * *

Nico

              There’s not a dry damn eye in the house when I announce that Elle agreed to marry me last night.  She made me swear not to share that I fucked her into agreeing to marry me.  But damn if she didn’t scream yes at least a half dozen times as her orgasm took us both over the edge last night.