Payable On Death: A Jax Rhodes Novel, Book One (The Jax Rhodes Series 1) Read Free Page A

after another, imagining I was breaking one of the demon's ribs with each shot.
    "You need someone to hold the bag for you?" The deep tenor of the voice was unfamiliar.
    I ignored the question, assuming it wasn't for me. Everyone knew I worked out alone. I'd withstood the cat calls and ribbing every girl got when they joined a gym like BBC. Ear buds and my razor sharp wit went a long way to ending that.
    When he asked the question again, I stopped swinging. A few of the regulars stopped to watch me put the guy in his place, something they'd come to expect every time some new boxer tried to pick me up. I'd planned on telling him to fuck off, but my tongue stopped working the minute I looked into his blue-grey eyes.
    He was gorgeous in that tattooed, gritty, biker sort of way. Everything about him set my nerve endings on fire. And the voices I'd only begun to silence started arguing again. While I watched a bead of sweat roll its way down a torso chiseled by hard work, probably in and out of the gym, the voices argued over taking him up on his offer.
    Not just the one to hold the body bag. The unspoken one in his smoldering eyes which had muscles untouched by my workout tightening.
    The new guy was trouble with a capital T.
    I shook off the voices and the spark of attraction I'd instantly felt for him and grabbed my iPod out of my bag. I slipped my earbuds in, never taking my eyes off him. He gave me a delicious smile, dimples barely visible beneath the scruff on his face, and backed up a step, taking the hint.
    I was far from living the life of a nun—still, there was something different about him from the others I'd dated. If I let him, he'd derail me from the road to redemption.
    And that couldn't happen.
    I heard Mister Joe's deep belly laugh over the Five Finger Death Punch blaring in my ears. I stifled a laugh of my own when a few of the gym rats sang "shot down in a blaze of glory" in an off-key chorus. The regulars had learned the hard way that I came here to work, not to find dates. They respected me all the more for it. I hoped tall, dark, and dangerous figured that out as fast as the rest of them.
    I doubted my ability to resist him if he didn't.
    I left him standing there, no doubt staring at my ass, and moved on to the speed bag. A few minutes later, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I spun around, prepared to drop the new guy with a short hook to the jaw. Mister Joe caught my right in his massive palm. He'd left his post by the door and strapped on a set of trainer pads. He nodded to the ring with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
    I knew what he was up to. I humored him anyway. Mister Joe felt the electricity between me and the new guy from across the gym. He wanted to make sure the handsome stranger knew I could handle myself.
    Mister Joe stood in the center of the ring raising and lowering his hands while I hammered away on the pads he held. He picked up the pace, stepping to the side and then back, forcing me to cut him off and control the ring. New guy sidled up ringside and studied my every move, cataloging it for later use. I caught him smiling out of my peripheral and missed the pad when Mister Joe raised it for a left jab to the head. My arm sailed past the target, taking me with it. I collided into Mister Joe, taking us both back a step.
    "That's enough for one day, baby girl. Go on and get outta here. I think we proved our point anyway," Mister Joe whispered in my ear with a pat on my back.
    I untangled myself from the burly man with a chuckle and made my way out of the ring. The way he worried over my safety was cute. If he only knew the sexy new addition to Baltimore Boxing Club was the least of my worries.
    The line of demons waiting to get a piece of me when I died was pretty long. I'd managed to banish half a dozen or so back to Hell with the few tips I'd picked up watching the Southern Baptist Church on TV. Demons really don't appreciate it when you send them on a one-way trip home.
    Except for