The last Sample Sunday before release day!
October 21st can’t come soon enough.
But for now, here’s one final little teaser to get you ready for the big day!
(Note: Sample is Copyrighted, Unedited, and Subject to change because ish happens.)
Bella
Watching Princeton train was purely hypnotizing.
Of course I knew it took a lot of hard work to be at the elite level that he was. But actually seeing it from behind the scenes, watching the layer of sweat accumulate before splashing off his skin, observing the way his chest rose and fell in between rounds of exercises, listening to his grunts as he pushed himself with each challenge Tony threw his way…
I was… impressed. And maybe a little turned on.
Okay, I’m definitely turned on.
I mean, if he was this dedicated to his craft with a stamina to match, I could only imagine how that translated to the way he handled business in the bedroom. But since Princeton’s bedroom antics were the last thing that should’ve been on my mind, I remained focused on his training regimen, making sure I took good notes so that I could recreate the aura when I went to write about it later.
My head was down looking at my notepad when I heard someone gruff behind me, “Who the hell are you?”
Naturally, my face scrunched before I peeked behind me to find Sir Kingfield Lattimore himself, a sight that straightened me up instantly. While I was already convinced Princeton inherited most of his good looks from his mother, there was still a presence about “The King” that made your jaw drop out of pure intimidation, especially when in close proximity to him.
Still, I tried to play it off, standing up and extending my hand as I said, “I’m sorry. Bella Stevenson with…”
He didn’t care to know that much, ignoring my hand and cutting me off. “This is private property. So as far as I’m concerned, you’re trespassing, Brianna.”
I couldn’t tell if he was just testing me or if this was really his steez. Either way, my parents had instilled a sense of self-respect early on that had me unafraid to correct him. “It’s Bella. And I was actually invited here. By Princeton.”
It was just my luck that Princeton and Tony were clear on the other side of the gym which meant I was alone in defending my presence. And Sir Kingfield had no problem taking advantage of that fact when he grabbed my purse from the seat and stuffed it against my chest before he growled, “Well you’re being uninvited by me, the owner of this here establishment. Now get your ass on somewhere.”
My heart was beating out of my chest as I watched him stroll towards the office area that Tony had come from earlier, my shoulders jumping when I heard the door slam behind him. But it felt like my feet were cemented to the ground as I tried to process what had just happened. And not only what had happened, but how his attitude was a reflection of the things Princeton had shared about him during our interview.
Since I didn’t want to run the risk of Sir Kingfield coming back to find me still here, I gathered the rest of my belongings and was headed for the door until I heard Princeton call after me. “Yo, Bella. Where you goin’? You got everything?”
For some reason, addressing the run-in with his father felt like too much of a distraction to share in the moment. So I didn’t, nervously peeking towards the office doors as I answered, “Uh… yeah. I think I covered everything. Thanks again for the opportunity.”
“Nah, thank you. Hopefully we can do it again some time,” he offered generously, his smile almost enough to put me at ease.
But my skin prickled with nerves the second I heard the office door rattling behind me, forcing me to rush out, “Yeah, maybe. I’ll see you.”
I could see the confusion on Princeton’s face when I turned to leave, making it to the door just in time to hear Sir Kingfield growl, “What’d I tell you about bringing people in this gym, boy? Now I’m really gonna kick your ass today.”
Just the thought of being responsible for a harder than usual training day made me feel terrible, but I knew it was nothing Princeton couldn’t handle after watching him work for most of the afternoon.
Still, it was on my mind – he was on my mind – the whole drive home, through the half-bottle of wine I had consumed, and especially once I began to playback some of the audio I had recorded during our time together. The combination of his voice, the visuals from the gym, and the wine had me feeling especially lusty as I listened to him flirt his ass off before things got more real than he anticipated according to his change in tone. But even when things got serious, there was a layer of determination that he spoke with, something I couldn’t help but admire as I added to my notes. And by the time I finished listening to it completely, I was beyond interested to learn more about who Princeton was outside of what he had shared with me personally.
So I did what anyone else would do; went digging for his social media pages.
Like most celebrities, he didn’t have a Facebook page that he actually managed himself, so that was only filled with generic promotions. And even his Twitter was bland, not updated since the time he shared the article I wrote which was the only thing outside of fight promotion that he had tweeted about within the last month. But when I made it to his Instagram, it was clear this was his thing, filled with a balance of promotional and personal posts that made him seem human again.
There was a picture of him snuggled up with a dog that looked almost as big as him on what must’ve been an off-day, selfies of him between training sessions with captions all talking about “The Grind”, there were even video clips of him doing rounds on the punching bag, a sight that was just as hypnotizing as watching it in person. But I couldn’t help noticing there were no photos of any women outside of the pictures he shared with large groups of his fans. In fact, it took me a solid sixty-eight weeks of scrolling to find a picture that looked even close to lovey-dovey, and that didn’t last for long since the caption revealed she was only a cousin.
“Maybe he’s just not the sharing type,” I thought to myself as I clicked the tab to see what pictures he had been tagged in by other people. And while the first few were all pictures he had taken with fans, I gasped out loud when I recognized one set of fans in particular.
“Oh my God,” I whispered when I enlarged the picture to confirm it was actually him in bed asleep with the two women who were hassling him after the fight.
Clearly it wasn’t as much of a hassle as I thought since they had gotten what they were after.
The caption read, “This man goes so many rounds, it took two of us to put him down…” making me gag and intriguing me all at once since it pretty much confirmed what I had thought from the beginning after watching him train. But having my suspicions confirmed was as far as things were going to go since the picture had also given me reason to stay in my lane when it came to Princeton Lattimore no matter how charming he was.
Besides, I had my own fish to catch.
Train. Fight. Repeat.
That’s been Princeton “The Prince” Lattimore’s life for as long as he can remember. But when an interruption to his heavyweight champion world comes in the form of an alluring journalist who sees well beyond his undefeated stature, he quickly learns there’s a lot more to life outside of the boxing ring.
Write. Submit. Repeat.
As a budding journalist, Bella Stevenson is determined to solidify her place as one of the best writers in the game. But when she’s assigned to cover a boxing match – a sport she knows nothing about – she realizes that it’s going to take a lot more than just a good write-up to do so. And once chasing a good story turns into meeting the man of her wildest imagination, her world is quickly turned upside down in more ways than one.
Falling for each other proves to be an easy feat. But going the distance becomes the biggest challenge either of them has faced, especially as Princeton discovers who’s really in his corner…
actually, it's alexandra 