Fall Into Temptation (Blue Moon Book #2)(88)

“Oh, so that’s the trigger,” Jax said, his grin cocky now. “Don’t you think it’s weird how the whole town just loves this guy?”

He blocked Beckett’s next shot and gave him a one-two combination to the ribs.

“I mean, Mom even said he’s like this musical genius.” Jax wasn’t lucky enough to block Beckett’s jab. But he countered with a solid shot to the low gut.

“If you punch me in the balls I swear to God I’ll —” Beckett’s threat vanished in the heat of the exchange. Punches were thrown fast and hard until sweat and blood began to cloud his vision.

Distantly he heard the ringing of the bell and then realized it was Carter in the corner. “Hey, take a break before someone gets brain damage.” He tossed Beckett a towel and Jax a water.

“Can we be done now?” Beckett grumbled, testing out the swelling flesh under his left eye.

“That depends,” Carter said conversationally. “Do you feel better?”

“No, I don’t f*cking feel better. This was your thing, not mine. I’m not fighting some inner demons. Taking swings at someone isn’t going to make me feel better.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Carter said, slipping on gloves. “I’m tapping in, Jax.”

“Summer’s gonna kiiiiill you,” Jax sang as he hobbled out of the ring.

“Break my nose and my wife-to-be will murder you. Got it?” Carter said to Beckett.

Beckett answered with a jab to the chin.

“You f*cker.”

It was like the old days. Only Carter wasn’t handicapped by bullet wounds anymore and Beckett hadn’t slept in three days.

“You’re such an idiot,” Carter said conversationally as they sparred back and forth. “You’re in love with this girl and you put her on a god damn platter for someone else.”

“I thought it was for the best,” Beckett grunted, driving his fist into Carter’s face.

Carter shook off the blow. “Like I said. An idiot.”

They sweated out another fast exchange of fists with Carter finally dancing out of his reach.

“It’s my business,” Beckett wheezed. It was his business that he’d colossally f*cked up and now it was up to him to fix it.

“So what are you going to do?” Carter’s fist flew into his line of vision, glancing off his jaw.

Beckett stumbled back a step. “I’m gonna fight.”

He didn’t go down in a blaze of glory. It was more like a soupy splatter on the mat. But damned if he didn’t go down swinging. And smiling.

Jax crawled back in with water and more towels and the three men lay on their backs staring up at the fluorescent lights.

“Feel better?” Carter asked, his breath coming fast and shallow.

Beckett swiped blood off his forehead with the towel. He did. He really did.

A good fight was exactly the primer he needed for an even bigger fight. Gianna didn’t belong with Paul, she belonged with him. She deserved more than what that skinny “hey man” musician could give and he was going to see that she got it.

“Ever think about patenting this as some kind of therapy?” he asked.



If one more stupid person mentioned Beckett Pierce’s name to her without attaching the words “is an *” she was going to give up on her heavy bag and just start decking people in town, Gia decided.

Blue Moon was obviously Team Beckett.

Ever since the breakup she’d heard nothing but “I’m so sorry to hear about you and Beckett. He’s such an amazing blah blah blah.”

After some kind of login glitch with the gossip group, she was granted access again only to read the brief, terse post on Facebook about their breakup. It was the only mention of them before the group had started singing Beckett’s praises.

She thought this town had been rooting for them. But she’d been wrong.

For Throwback Thursday, someone had posted a picture of Beckett rescuing a kitten from a porch roof. Another Mooner had posted video of Beckett’s speech at the women in enterprise luncheon.

Oh, and she didn’t want to forget to talk about how “great” it was to see Beckett treating Paul and Aurora to dinner at Peace of Pizza. Gia didn’t even want to know how that came about. Beckett was probably offering to officiate their second wedding.

She knew he was Blue Moon’s fearless leader and all, but didn’t anyone care that the man had just given up and walked away from their relationship on a stupid misunderstanding?

Team Gia was feeling very lonely. And excessively angry. Between the “yay Beckett” from the entire town and the fact that Paul was driving her insane at home, she was afraid she was going to develop a rage problem. Especially since she wasn’t about to give Beckett the satisfaction of seeing her head to the shed to beat out some problems.

Not that he was looking in the backyard. He’d made it clear he was done. Done with her and done with them. Just making way for Paul.

The thought that she would take Paul back was laughable. To both her and Paul. The entire reason for his visit was to sign the guardianship papers, which they had done with Ellery in Gia’s kitchen two days ago. Beckett clearly had no interest in helping with the process anymore. And now Paul was just killing time before his new gig started in Brooklyn.