UNBROKEN: A Bad Boy MMA Romance (Midwest Alphas) (Book 2) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Mailing List

  Chapter 1: The Alpha And His Dame

  Chapter 2: We're Not Like Other Couples

  Chapter 3: A Few Bad Men

  Chapter 4: Be Like Bowie

  Chapter 5: The Old-Fashioned Way

  Chapter 6: The Blood Duel

  Chapter 7: The Longest Night

  Chapter 8: Show Some Respect

  Chapter 9: A Bit Of Deja Vu

  Chapter 10: Let It Bleed

  Chapter 11: A Fair Fight

  Chapter 12: Always

  Chapter 13: Take Him Down

  Chapter 14: The Unbreakable

  Chapter 15: Everyone's Got Their Demons

  Epilogue

  Midwest Alphas

  Mailing List

  BONUS NOVELLA: RIDE ME

  RIDE ME Chapter 1 - Piper

  RIDE ME Chapter 2 - Kai

  RIDE ME Chapter 3 - Piper

  RIDE ME Chapter 4 - Kai

  RIDE ME Chapter 5 - Piper

  RIDE ME Chapter 6 - Kai

  RIDE ME Chapter 7 - Piper

  RIDE ME Chapter 8 - Kai

  RIDE ME Chapter 9 - Piper

  RIDE ME Chapter 10 - Kai

  RIDE ME Chapter 11 - Piper

  RIDE ME Chapter 12 - Kai

  RIDE ME Chapter 13 - Piper

  RIDE ME Chapter 14 - Kai

  RIDE ME Chapter 15 - Piper

  Whispers From Tabatha

  Copyright

  UNBROKEN:

  A BAD BOY MMA ROMANCE

  MIDWEST ALPHAS | BOOK 2

  by Tabatha Kiss

  WARNING: This novel contains explicit descriptions of

  erotic and sexual acts that some may find offensive,

  including perverse adult language.

  Reader discretion advised.

  This is a work of fiction intended for mature audiences only.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  No characters engaging in sexual acts are blood related.

  All sexual activity detailed within is consensual and

  all participants are of legal age.

  Text and Story Copyright © 2015 Tabatha Kiss

  All Rights Reserved.

  Can’t get enough of Tabatha Kiss?

  Click Here to Subscribe

  to my newsletter and receive exclusive updates

  and offers directly from me!

  Want to receive all my new releases for FREE?

  Click Here to Join my ARC Team!

  You can also “Like” me on Facebook!

  XOXO

  Tabatha

  Chapter 1

  The Alpha And His Dame

  “Claire Holloway,” Amy pulls me in a little closer, “I would like to formally introduce you to Lillian Tombs.”

  Lillian stares down at me like a cat would stare at a ball of yarn. “This is your recruit?” she asks Amy, her brown eyes never straying from mine.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Amy says.

  “She looks young,” Lillian notes. “How old are you?” she asks me.

  “Eighteen,” I answer.

  Her eyebrow twitches. “That’s young. Does your mother know you’re out so late?” she quips from the corner of her mouth.

  I clear my throat and remember what Amy told me before we walked in here. Stand up tall. Don’t smile unless Lillian does. Answer her questions and say nothing else. “My mother lives in Chicago, ma’am,” I say.

  “And what brought you down to the Ozarks?” she asks.

  “I…” My voice falls. I take a quick breath. “I had a substance abuse problem, so I was sent down to live with my stepfather’s brother. He set me straight.”

  Lillian takes a step back. “What’s his name?” she asks as she pivots on her heeled boots and walks across the office towards her desk.

  “Charlie Eastwood.”

  She pauses, hovering slightly in the air as she sits down in her chair. “Your stepfather is Thomas Eastwood?” she asks, her eyes piercing me.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, watching her closely.

  Lillian leans back in her chair and crosses her arms about her chest. Her eyes wander the room as deep thoughts lie trapped in her mind. “Hmm…” she finally hums.

  “Do you know him?” I ask. I see Amy go tense out of the corner of my eye.

  Lillian chews on her lip. “Your substance problem—” she says. “Is it over?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, disappointed that she ignored my question.

  “You’re sure?” she asks. “I expect very few things from my Dames, but keeping clean is one of them.”

  “It’s over,” I say.

  Her eyes fall on Amy again. “You will take responsibility if she’s lying?”

  “I’m not lying,” I say.

  “Claire…” Amy warns me with a quick smile. She looks at Lillian. “Yes, of course.”

  Lillian leans back in her chair, amusement glazing her perfectly lined eyes. “So, you’re the Alpha’s girl…” she muses.

  The Alpha.

  Tobias.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say with pride.

  She stands up off her chair and strides back around to the front of her desk. “Any chance he will change his mind and compete this year?”

  “You’d have to ask him,” I say, “but I don’t think he’s interested.”

  “Pity,” she spits. “He was something else…”

  “Still is.”

  Lillian smirks at me with thick, red-painted lips. “I thought you’d be taller…” Her eyes drift towards Amy. “She can shadow you for the season, but I make no promises for her future.”

  Amy nods. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Lillian grabs a clipboard off her desk and looks back at me. “Convince him to fight and you just might change my mind.”

  I open my mouth to speak, but a warning glance from Amy leaves me silent.

  “Well, honey,” Lillian chuckles, “you’re not uninteresting.”

  I stare back at her, unsure of what to say.

  ***

  “What did she mean by that?” I ask Amy as we leave Lillian’s office. I pause, quickly forgetting which direction to go. One way will take us back to the night club and the other will lead us to the fighting arena, and that’s not somewhere I’m ready to walk into again just yet.

  Amy shrugs. “No idea,” she says as she pulls her phone out of her purse. Her thumb swipes through her messages as she speaks. “But I guess you’re in. For now.”

  “I have to shadow you?”

  She nods, turning left. I follow her closely. “After my mother died, she made me shadow her for a season before she let me take over the Rolla branch. Standard procedure for new Dames. I wouldn’t sweat it.”

  We walk down the bare hallway and the thumping bass gets louder with each step we take towards the double doors. I push them open and the dark nightclub pulls us in. The sudden shift in my senses brings me to a standstill. I close my eyes and let the change gradually take me over.

  His fingers crawl around my wrist and a bolt of warm lightning travels up my arm. I turn to him and his handsome face comes into view from the shadows by the door.

  Tobias.

  “Hey,” I say, stepping towards him.

  “How did it go?” he asks us.

  Amy lowers her phone and the bright, white light abandons her face. “You’re looking at the Midwest Alphas’ newest Dame, Toby,” she gloats.

  He nods, but says nothing.

  “You look disappointed,” I note.

  “No,” he says. “Just not
surprised.”

  “It sounded temporary,” I say above the loud music.

  “It’s not,” Amy replies. “You can’t expect her to trust someone she just met. Lillian will come around.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” I mutter, doubting every word of it.

  “You’re damn right it does.” Amy slides her phone back into her purse. “Now, I’m going to get in a few dances. We drove all the way up here to St. Louis and I’m not leaving until I get a little partying in.” She extends her hand. “Care to join me?”

  I shake my head and smile. “No, thanks. Just let us know when you’re ready to go.”

  “Suit yourselves.” She flashes us a wink and disappears into the pulsating crowd.

  I turn back to Tobias. My eyes have finally adjusted to the dim lighting and I can see his green eyes staring back at me in the darkness. His black hair blends with the wall behind him, trimmed short and neatly styled. My gaze falls down his body and I bite my lip.

  “What?” he asks me, grinning wide.

  I scan back up his jet black suit jacket. “Nothing,” I smile. A first, I thought the suit would look ridiculous, but Tobias insisted on it. He’s my bodyguard, after all. He wanted to look the part and now that I’ve gotten a decent look at it, I’m definitely not complaining. “Lillian wants me to convince you to fight again,” I tell him.

  “What did you say?” he asks.

  “I didn’t.”

  He nods and leads me with him into the abandoned dark corner of the club. “Do you want me to fight again?” he asks, leaning me back against the wall.

  His lips graze my neck, sending quick shivers down my spine. “I want you to do what you want to do,” I answer.

  Tobias presses his body to mine and brushes his fingers under my chin to tilt my face up towards his. “I asked what you wanted,” he says, his lips grazing mine.

  I sigh as his touch lingers on my thigh. His fingers push up my shirt, obscured by the dark shadows of the club. My eyes glance around his shoulder, cautious of onlookers. “I like watching you fight,” I say, “but I’d never ask you to.”

  He pushes in to give me a firm kiss. I feel his lips curling against mine, a smile meant only for me.

  With a quick jerk, he turns me around to face the wall. I lose my breath and it stays lost as his lips attack my neck, leaving tiny bites along my flesh as he goes. A moan escapes my throat and fades off into the loud air around us. His hand moves along my abdomen and he pulls me in closer to him so I can feel his hard desire pressing against my rear from within his pants.

  I lean back and smile.

  He grips my face with his strong fingers and pulls me back for another sweet kiss. I fall even further into his embrace, my own passions running wild for him. My eyes open and I glance around at the faces of the crowd, each one of them focused on their own good time.

  All except for one.

  I jolt in Tobias’ arms as the face comes into view of the vibrating lights.

  Rick.

  Fear clenches my chest. I step away from Tobias, blinking quickly to wet my drying eyes.

  “Claire?”

  I hear Tobias’ voice, but it sounds so far from me. I look for Rick’s face in the crowd once more, but I’ve lost him in the haze of lights and music. I can still feel him, watching and waiting. My side twitches, recalling the feel of his blade against my skin. I step into the lights and curse under my breath.

  He’s gone.

  “Claire?” Tobias grips my arm and pulls me back. “What’s wrong?”

  I pull my eyes away to look at him. “I’m sorry,” I whisper beneath the pulsing music. “I just… thought I saw someone I knew.”

  Tobias looks over my head, his strong jaw clenched tightly with concern.

  I throw on a forced smile. “I’m fine,” I tell him, but I can’t stop my heart from pounding against my chest.

  ***

  This isn’t the first time I’ve seen Rick’s face in a crowd since the night of the tournament last year. It happens in the most unsuspecting of places. The grocery store. A restaurant. Even my dreams. No matter what I do, I can’t shake the feeling that he’s watching me, waiting for me to let my guard down or change my mind and return to him.

  I won’t. Obviously. I made my choice. I chose his cousin over him; a better man in every way imaginable. Rick was that first cigarette, the one you try because everyone else is doing it and you don’t want to feel left out. It’s fun, exciting, but ultimately makes you feel sick and leads to something more dangerous once the innocent taboo isn’t enough anymore. He was cruel, but knew how to hide it until the bruises on my face became impossible to conceal.

  That’s when my mother and stepfather sent me away. I thought it was to punish me for bad behavior. I’m sure it was from my stepfather’s perspective. Thomas always hated me from the moment we met. He wanted to send me away from the very beginning. When I got snatched up by the cops, it gave him the perfect reason to finally go through with it. But my mother… I think her motive was very different.

  The more I think about it, the more I see that she didn’t send me away because of my drug problem. She sent me away because of my Rick problem. We’re step-siblings, for one, but more importantly, he was hurting me and she wanted it to end.

  I hope to return the favor someday.

  My stepfather’s brother, Charlie, took me in. I hated him, at first. He was the antithesis of me at the time; the old warden hell-bent on making my prison life as miserable as humanly possible. No phone. No internet. Not even the radio. Just myself, him, and our daily “chats” when he forced his advice down my throat.

  If I had known back then what I know now, I would have taken his advice more seriously.

  It was his son, Tobias, who opened my eyes. He made me feel loved in ways Rick never could. He made me realize that I was worthy of being loved. He taught me how to stand up for myself and protect my body from harm. He saw something in me that I never thought to look for and now, I kiss him every day in gratitude.

  He’s my Alpha.

  I lean against the door of Amy’s sports car and stare across the parking lot of the club. It’s been over nine months since we’ve come back here to St. Louis. Christmas has come and gone. Spring has done away with the snow and ice. It’s the start of summer and it feels like it’ll be a cold one. I hold my jacket a little tighter around my body. My eyes glance down the alleyway between the club and the warehouse next door. It looks abandoned from the outside, but the warehouse actually houses one of the bloodiest arenas in this region of the United States. Lillian Tombs’ Midwest Alphas come to do battle here in exchange for the promise of wealth and glory. It’s where Tobias earned his Alpha title — along with the scars where Pike the Punisher plunged a metal shiv into his side. Rick held me at knife point and made me watch as they attempted to murder the man I loved in front of hundreds of people.

  So yeah. Seeing Rick’s face in crowds makes me feel a little uneasy. I blink and he’s gone. He’s all in my head, but that doesn’t make me feel any better about it.

  “Claire, are you okay?”

  I look up and see Tobias smiling at me. “Yeah,” I tell him. “Just tired, I guess.” My eyes wander over his shoulder and land on the parking space we stood in after the tournament fight. I wonder, if I went over there now, if I’ll see his dried blood still lingering on the dark pavement.

  “Claire.” Tobias lays his fingers beneath my chin and moves my eyes towards his. “I know what you’re thinking about.”

  “No, you don’t,” I say too quickly.

  He raises his brow in amusement. “I will admit… being back here freaks me out a little bit, too.”

  “It does?” I ask.

  “Getting stabbed kind of taints a place for you.”

  His lips curl into a smile, but I don’t laugh at his joke. Tobias could barely walk for weeks after that, although he kept a tough front and pretended that Pike didn’t hurt him as much as he did. He’s fine now. Or he’
s just gotten too good at hiding it.

  Despite Tobias’ protests to a hospital, Charlie immediately drove us to the nearest one in St. Louis after what happened. By some miracle, the small shiv managed to miss every major organ, but left behind a cruel scar that gives me shivers every time my fingers accidentally slide over it. When the doctor asked how it happened, I choked up, unable to come up with a decent lie, but Charlie immediately said it was an accident involving farm equipment.

  Charlie never asked any questions about it. His daughter, Mary, died earlier that day. Charlie probably thinks Tobias got hurt going after the man he thought was responsible for it. In many ways, the assumption is correct, but I dread the day he’ll ask me to fill in the blanks for him. Thankfully, he hasn’t yet.

  “Have I made a mistake?” I ask.

  Tobias takes a quick breath. “By joining the Alpha Dames?”

  “I feel a little over my head…” I mutter.

  “You’ll be fine,” he says. “Amy will teach you everything you need to know.”

  A chuckle catches my throat. “I wasn’t expecting you to be so supportive of it.”

  “Claire, I’m always going to be supportive of what you want to do,” he says. “I might prefer it if you didn’t join the Dames, but I’m not about to stand in your way either.”

  “You always say the right things,” I smile.

  “I’m a talented man,” he jokes. “Claire, you want this. I can tell. It might be difficult for you now, but I have a feeling that when the tournament officially starts next week, you’ll look back and laugh at this.”

  “Think so?” I ask.

  He steps closer to me. “Would I lie to you?”

  I don’t have to answer. I push myself up onto my toes and lay a soft kiss on his lips. “I mean,” I say, gazing into his green eyes, “if Amy Jones can handle it, I’m sure I can, too.”

  He chuckles and kisses me again.

  “Handle what?”

  I look behind us to find Amy gliding across the lot with a thin layer of sweat caked across her brow. “Nothing,” I say. “You ready to go?”

  “Reluctantly, yes,” she sighs. “I’ve forgotten how much I dig city guys…”