Ring Bell: Between the Ropes, #6

By Loretta Kendall

Doom Brother Wraith Evens is the tattooed, biker, wrestling bad boy of IWX, who just so happens to have a striking resemblance to a holiday icon. As the celebrity silver fox struggles with a midlife crisis, he finds himself alone for the holidays. Upset that his twin daughters are leaving on a trip to Japan, his pent-up rebel ways get the best of him when he destroys a Christmas display in one of the company's biggest event venue locations. It's clear the once levelheaded Wraith is ready to snap as the stress of the season weighs on his shoulders.

Punished, and needing to make amends for the damages, his boss will force the grouchy wrestler to play Santa at the company Christmas party. When he meets a naughty elf woman who they have partnered him with, Wraith will learn to find love again while exploring a wild side he had worked to keep at bay.

Noel might seem like the cute girl next door, but the woman is about to take the wrestling legend on the sleigh ride of his life as he discovers she has a holiday secret that even he wasn't expecting. When the girl with the Santa kink meets the bodybuilding version of her jolly St. Nick dreams, she will take the phrase Ho! Ho! Ho! to a whole new level.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Loretta Kendall
• Release date: Aug 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223139270

Loretta Kendall

Loretta started her life with a dream and a story in her mind. For as long as she can remember, she was a storyteller, sharing tall tales with her friends from an overactive imagination. Twenty-two years as an image consultant in the entertainment industry, she revisited her love of books and writing. She is also the Editor-in-chief of Lux Local Magazine, a makeup artist, photographer, and graphic designer. She has been writing since 2017 and has a passion for creating happily-ever-after romance stories with the perfect mix of steamy and slow-burn moments. A hopeless romantic, she lives her own happy ever of twenty-four years of wedded bliss.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The holidays at IWX were fun for everyone, especially since the merger of the top two wrestling promotions in the world came to pass. When Wrestling Masters finally sold to International Wrestling Xtreme, and the Tyson Brothers became partners with the new IWX owner Gage Stone, business was booming.

Since the merger, the wrestling brand had become the cornerstone of the most exciting holiday wrestling events to date. Especially since one of their top wrestlers was literally the descendant and namesake of the real Jack Frost. With Jack around, it was virtually imposable to be a grinch… Or was it?

For superstar Wraith Evens, Christmas joy was the last thing on his mind. The holidays hadn’t been the same since his wife Lilly’s passing two years ago. After an accident in the military many years before that put her in a wheelchair, Lilly suffered with medical issues that finally took her life. Family was everything to him, but he hated the holidays and just wanted to get back to

kicking ass and taking names, not being ambushed by holiday cheer.

The six-foot, muscled biker with a clean-cut modern hairstyle, and a glorious beard that screamed sexy silver fox, was still on the top of his game, despite creeping up on his fiftieth birthday. Unfortunately for him, the memory of Lilly’s loss fell on the one day a year he just wished he could skip over, Christmas.

What made everything seem even more annoying was that since his hair turned silver, every woman in the stratosphere was gunning for the older wrestling legend. He wanted to have the closeness of a relationship, but most women in his circles were only interested in his money and fame. Now, during the holidays, the fan girls were looking at him as a naughty biker Santa. Flattering as it was, he was just not in the mood for eggnog by the fire and kissing under the mistletoe. Besides, no one seemed to fit his very specific sexual and emotional needs, anyway.

With his twin adopted daughters now on the wrestling scene, he would soon be ready to pass the torch and step away and retire. Yet, he was hotter than ever with the fans, and more powerful than he had been in his whole Doom Brother fighting career.

Sure, he was closing near the end of his wrestling journey, but he was still the man every wrestling fan girl swooned over. His bad boy attitude, and smooth, laid-back style, was what made him the superstar he had become, and he wasn’t quite out of steam just yet. Wraith Evens was the top IWX wrestler and the current world heavyweight champ, and he was living his best life, or so it seemed to the outside world.

Since his brother had returned as VP of the company, after a short stent in the political realm in their little town in Tennessee, the older Doom brother chose to stay in the ring where he felt he was most comfortable. It was one last big run of Warith’s career, and he was on fire, so why stop now? Despite thinking retirement was soon in the cards. With his sister Holly still by his side in the ring, and helping to run the Doom family legacy, the coming year was looking great for them all. Not that his twin daughters had joined the ranks, there wasn’t a wrestler that came close to their success.

It was late into the last show before the Thanksgiving break when Wraith was backstage, getting ready to go out to taunt the number one contender for his title in the main event. He had been brooding over the fact his twin daughters had just announced early that evening they were going overseas to wrestle in Japan for the holidays as a promotion for IWX. They wouldn’t be returning home until a few days after Christmas, and he wasn’t in the slightest bit interested in celebrating the holidays without them. He already lost his wife and a Christmas morning without his girls wasn’t worth the effort to be in the holiday spirit.

Just as he finished lacing up his ring boots, the door to his private locker room swung open. When Wraiths irritated eyes slowly veered to the man standing there, he let out a grunt of disproval, shaking his head in disgust.

Jack Frost had come out to the public with his real name a few years prior and was living up to his namesake with a winter icy theme ring gear. He set off the look by letting his albino white hair shine with powder blue tips to the spiky style that screamed ice cold bad boy.

What do you want, Frosty?

Don’t call me Frosty, wrestler Jack Frost grumbled. Hey, big man, I brought you some cookies from my mom’s Christmas store back home, and an invitation for this year's company party. It’s going to be huge.

Standing to tower over the man, Wraith looked over the tin and the card. Yanking it from the handsome white-haired wrestler's hand, he chucked the card back at him.

I’ll take the cookies. The invite you can give to some loser who actually likes that shit.

Come on, bro. It’ll be fun. We’re having a big gift exchange, music, and a shit ton of food. You know my mom and the event planner does it up big for us every year.

Save it, Frost. I don’t get into that holiday shit anymore. My kids are grown, and my wife is gone. I don’t need to fake all that goody-goody cheer anymore. Give me a beer and a good football game and I’m just fine.

Stepping back up to him, Jack handed the card back with a kind smile, saying, Just think about it. I know you don’t mean that. You and Cyrus always loved spending time with your kids on the holidays. I get it, man. I do. You’ve been through a lot these past few years. Trust me. I know it’s hard. I don’t know what I’d do without my wife.

Hard? What have you been through that’s so hard? Other than being a laughingstock when the news got out about you being Jack Frost’s descendant.

Jack laughed. Hey, it’s not easy being named after a fucking winter sprite, Wraith. If anyone knows this feel-good stuff is annoying, it’s me. The fact is, this shit makes my mom happy, and she loves seeing you. It’s the one event that Gage and the Tyson brothers still carry on since the merger, and it means a lot to us. The money raised at this event helps a lot of needy families. Besides, as much as is pisses me off, you are my mom’s favorite wrestler.

Wraith let a little curl peek the edge of his lip, remembering the sweet woman who dressed like Mrs. Clause. The fact her husband played Santa in the small town of Santa Claus, Indiana year-round was icing on the weird holiday family’s legacy. Their little Santa theme shop was adorable, and he loved taking his kids there on vacation one year to the nearby amusement park for summer vacation.

This shindig is in that town with all the Christmas stuff, right?

Yeah. Just like every year. Oh… I forgot. You never go. You always sent your wife and kids. Maybe this year you could honor her by going, even if the girls are gone out of the country.

Stop trying to guilt me, Frost. I had a good reason for not going. Don’t make me kick your ass.

I know. I didn’t mean it that way. What you do for charity is the reason I’ve always looked up to you.

Wraith’s teeth clenched at the memory of not doing the things with his wife he wished he had. He was booked for other events, and despite what people thought, he would have loved to have been to those fun parties with his family. Being the top guy on the roster wasn’t always easy. After all, it wasn’t like he just didn’t attend out of sheer spite of the holidays. Sure, he was a rough and tumble biker, but he had other priorities, too.

Wraith volunteered every year at Christmas biker events for the military, that seemed to always