As I drove across town, Ava and I carried on a casual conversation about the hospital and our attending physician.
“It seems like she has it out for you,” Ava said.
“I don’t know if it’s that,” I said.
“I heard her talking to the chief of staff about you.”
My heart sank. Our attending physician had been hard on me since the first day of my residency. I knew I didn’t have my shit together like I usually did, and that was having a negative effect on my work. If the chief of staff started to doubt me, then it could have serious implications for the rest of my career.
“What did she say?”
“She said you weren’t living up to your potential,” Ava said.
Living up to my potential? I had been an A+ student all through college and medical school. I had been the top intern in my class before passing my medical exams. I’d worked my ass off for years. Now I’m late for a couple of rounds, and I’m suddenly not living up to my potential?
“I can’t believe that shit. What the hell does she expect from me?”
“It seems more than everybody else. Winston was half an hour late for his rounds yesterday and she didn’t say a word.”
I shook my head in the darkness of the cab, feeling fury rise in my chest. We pulled up to the address Crash had given me. It was at a small arena on the outskirts of town. The parking lot was packed and the flashing billboard above the building displayed a picture of Crash and the other fighters participating in the match that night. Ava looked up at the billboard as we passed and her mouth dropped open.
“I swear to God, one of the fighters looks exactly like the guy we met in Brazil the night before we left,” she said.
“That’s because it is,” I said.
“Wow, does your stepbrother know him?”
“My stepbrother is him,” I said, parking the car and turning off the engine.
“No fucking way,” she said, laughing and covering her mouth with shock. Her eyes were bright with glee. I knew exactly what she was thinking. I was fucked. Literally.
“Now you see. Do you think he’s hot?”
“Girl, if I didn’t have a boyfriend, I would’ve ridden that pony all the way home from Brazil,” she said, giggling.
I looked at her with my eyebrow raised. “That’s disgusting,” I said.
“If you think it’s disgusting, you’re not doing it right. By the way? Whatever happened between you and your, um, stepbrother?”
“Nothing,” I lied, climbing out of the car.
We walked into the crowd of spectators, and I told the ticket guy that I was on the VIP list. They waved me by after instructing me where to go for my VIP seats. There were roped off seats in the second row with my name on them. Ava and I sat down as the noisy crowd chattered and shouted. After we were comfortably in our seats, Ava stood up and told me she was going to get a beer.
“Do you want one?” she asked.
“No thanks,” I said.
She frowned at me and scurried off up the aisle toward the concessions. How was I going to explain not wanting a beer? Even when I drove, I would usually have at least one with my friends. Refusing alcohol altogether was somewhat conspicuous for me. Even being a serious scholar, I still participated in social events and shared a drink when it was an appropriate setting. Watching my stepbrother at an MMA match was that type of setting.
Ava returned several moments later as the first match began. She sank into her chair as the lightweight contenders climbed into the ring and began warming up. These guys were smaller than Crash. I didn’t know anything about mixed martial arts or boxing or sports in general, really. But if the announcer said these guys were lightweights then Crash must’ve been a heavyweight, considering how huge he was.
“These dudes are so hot,” Ava yelled in my ear over the sound of the cheering crowd.
“If you like that sort of thing,” I said. The guys were mostly covered in tattoos like Crash. Ava usually went for the bad boy type. Her boyfriend was a rock musician. I’d never been into that kind of guy. I’d always gone for the upwardly mobile type. After spending three years with Jeremy and his super controlling ways, though, maybe that had been a mistake.
“Everyone likes that sort of thing,” she said, laughing beside me.
The fight began and the two young men in the ring clashed with each other, brutally punching and kicking and pinning each other on the mat. Blood and saliva flew across the ring. Even over the sound of screaming and cheering and clapping, I could hear the smack and the crunch of fist against bone. I sucked a deep breath between my teeth, imagining that Crash went through this on a regular basis. What would ever make someone choose this kind of occupation?
When the second fight started, I excused myself to go to the restroom and came back to sit beside Ava with a glass of water. She looked over at me, drinking her second beer, with a questioning look in her eyes.
“Why aren’t you drinking?” she asked.
I could see Crash step into the ring, his muscles pumped and glistening, his tattoos etched over his taut skin. A thrill went through me and exploded in my core. My head went dizzy with excitement and confusion. I leaned over to Ava and spoke in her ear the words I had been wanting to say for weeks.
“I’m pregnant,” I said.
“Bitch, what?” she said. Her face fell and she stared at me. Crash and his opponent began to circle each other and my heart beat furiously inside me. “Who’s the father?”
“I can’t talk about it right now,” I said.
Crash charged aggressively towards his opponent. He feigned one direction and then twisted around and kicked the man in the chest. His opponent went reeling backward, but corrected himself and punched Crash in the ribs. The brutal collision of two bull-like men was a thunderclap of alpha male aggression. I watched in stunned silence as the two forces of nature collided with each other in front of me. I was on the edge of my seat the entire match as Ava stared at me, forgetting what was going on in the ring.
The fight went down to the mat and Crash’s opponent held him in a headlock, cutting off his air supply. I sprang to my feet, terrified that he would be hurt. Terrified that he would never know the truth. Somehow, he twisted around and used his legs to trap his opponent, squeezing until he was able to pry himself free. In the lightning quick storm of punches, Crash dominated his opponent, hitting him in the face and the chest and the gut until he fell down on the mat, unconscious.
The referee came into the ring and counted out the knockout. The crowd cheered and booed. I looked up at Crash. His lip was bleeding and blood had smeared across his chest. Ava stood beside me, staring at my face. The lights and sounds and sensations swirled around me, and I didn’t know how I felt about anything anymore.
“Is it Jeremy’s?” Ava shouted in my ear.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
I began moving towards the locker room to see Crash. Ava caught my arm and yelled in my ear. “You don’t just drop that kind of thing and then refuse to talk about it.”
“I don’t know,” I lied. At least it would throw her off the trail. I didn’t know why I’d told her in the first place. I had just wanted to say the words to someone, anyone.
“You, Harper Kelly, are pregnant and don’t know who the father is? Are we living in some kind of alternate universe?”
“Ava, can you just drop it? I’m trying to figure things out.”
“Fine. Not like we’ve been friends for the last six years,” she complained.
We walk towards the locker room, and I was blocked by a team of bodyguards with the rest of the fans in the concrete hallway.
“Crash Nolan is my stepbrother,” I said. ”I just want to know how he is.”
“Move along, honey,” the bouncer said.
“Could you tell him Harper was here?” I said, disappointed that I couldn’t see him.
I had a new respect for what he did, as brutal as it was. There was something exciting and s
hocking in the pure aggressiveness of it. Seeing Crash dominate his opponent like that, it told me something about him that I hadn’t seen before. He was a warrior. A soldier. A dominant male, full of raw power.
“Sure thing,” the bouncer said.
I sighed and turned away. He was never going to tell Crash I was there. Whatever. It didn’t matter. I would see him soon enough at home.
Chapter Fifteen
I saw Harper in the audience, but by the time I made it back to the locker room, she was gone. I asked the bouncer keeping the fans out of the locker room if he’d seen a girl like her. The burly middle-aged man just shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. A lot of help he was. My trainer was overjoyed with me, going on and on about how he’d been reluctant to take a chance on me a few weeks ago.
I had dried out and had been training every single day. I knew that I would get back into shape in no time. This was just a preliminary local match, nothing much to it. I’d won. I’d proved myself, and that was the first step on my way to the next championship.
“Your biggest fan is waiting for you in the back office,” he said.
My heart jumped, thinking he was talking about Harper. I towel dried the sweat from my skin and batted away the medic who had cleaned and bandaged my wounds. I hurried to the back office, expecting to find her there when I flung open the door. Instead, I found a blond with impressively large fake boobs and a skintight dress that left little to the imagination.
“Hi, baby,” she said, patting the couch beside her.
My trainer had just thrown me a bone. Since Brazil, I hadn’t been able to pick up women. Maybe all I needed was to have this girl suck me off, and then I could forget about my lovely stepsister forever. It was worth a shot, anyway. I sat beside her on the couch and leaned back, letting her do whatever she was going to do.
She leaned into me and ran her hand up my thigh. I hadn’t showered. I knew I was damp with sweat from head to toe. If this girl wanted it, she was going to get me the way I was. Her hand ran up to my cock as she breathed into my ear and licked my neck with her tongue. When she saw that I was completely flaccid, she drew back and frowned.
“You need some help?”
“Sure,” I said, noncommittally. She walked her fingers up to the waistband of my shorts and began to dip them inside. I caught her hand and pulled it away. This just didn’t feel right. I shook my head. I couldn’t do it. No way.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, honey,” I said, standing. “It’s the thought that counts.” I walked away and could hear her growling behind me as I opened the door. I laughed to myself, thinking that this girl who was about to blow me was disappointed she didn’t get to have my cock down her throat.
I took a quick shower and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. I slipped on my boots and my leather jacket and made my way to the back door of the arena. My trainer caught me on the way out and asked me how things went in the office.
“In the future, don’t send me those sluts again.”
I left him with a shocked expression on his face and the door swung closed behind me. I straddled my bike and turned the key in the ignition. The engine rumbled to life, and my bike screeched out of the parking lot onto the highway.
I knew Harper would be at home by now, and all I could think about was getting back to her.
When I got home, most of the lights in the house were off. I walked past Harper’s door, my hand itching to turn the knob and go inside. I reached out to grab it but drew back, squeezing my hand into a fist. I clenched my teeth and walked away. I couldn’t do it like this. I couldn’t sneak into her room in the middle of the night and slide into bed beside her while she lay sleeping. No matter how much I wanted to.
I went to my new room. I’d traded it for one closer to the ocean view. This house was one of the nicest places I’d ever slept. Don certainly was loaded. I took off my jacket and sat down on the bed, considering Harper’s concerns about me losing my inheritance.
It wasn’t like I didn’t know how to make a living on my own. I’d been taking care of myself since I was a kid. The kind of numbers that were in Don’s bank account were beyond my comprehension. I considered what it would be like to inherit all that dough. It was baffling to even think about. What would I do with that kind of money? Buy an island? Buy a sports team? Did Don already own a sports team?
Maybe I’d start a business. Maybe I would open my own gym to train fighters or open a shop to restore bikes. All that didn’t sound too bad. I’d been fighting for a long time. Ten years, since joining the Marines.
There would be a time when I needed to take a step back from fighting. Maybe Don’s money would help then. Then again, the only reason I really was even considering stepping back from the ring was the idea that I should be there for Harper. A woman like Harper didn’t need a guy who was getting pummeled every weekend and traveling around to fight other depraved assholes for some belt or some title.
Not that I didn’t love what I did. I absolutely loved it. I loved the look in my opponent’s eye when he knew he’d been beat.
I was coming to a point in my life where I realized I couldn’t do that forever, not if I wanted a girl like her. I shook my head, amazed that I was even having thoughts like these.
If someone had told me a month ago that I would be considering putting down my gloves for a woman, I would’ve laughed in his face. Maybe this billionaire lifestyle was making me soft. I should have gotten the hell out of there.
But Harper had been under my skin before I knew she was Don’s stepdaughter. Before I knew she was in Los Angeles. I couldn’t get her out of my mind; she’d already started to change me from the first moment that I laid eyes on her.
I slipped out of my jeans and my T-shirt and laid back on the bed. The faint light of the lamp glowed over my tanned skin, and visions of Harper in her bridesmaid dress filled my mind.
I hadn’t had pussy in a month. Probably the longest I’d gone since basic training a decade ago. My cock stood firm and throbbing, and I slipped my hand inside my boxer shorts. I needed some fucking relief from this pressure. I couldn’t wait for Harper to give me what I wanted.
I gripped the base of my shaft and slowly pulled upward. Thinking of Harper’s gorgeous eyes in the moonlight the night I fucked her brains out in the ocean. I bit my lip and tilted my head back, stroking with greater and greater intensity. I remembered the feel of her body against mine, the smell of her skin, the sound of her soft moans as I pumped her up and down on my cock. Her nice round ass fit into my hands. I remembered the heft of her breasts and the feel of them against my chest.
A torrent of pleasure erupted from the base of my spine and cum shot across my chest. Surprised at the intensity of it, I looked down to find my entire stomach covered in cum.
I grumbled and pulled off my shorts, using them to wipe my skin clean. I didn’t hate jerking off any more than any guy. Every male worth his salt rubs one out on the regular. With Harper sleeping down the hall, I felt more frustrated than ever.
I growled and climbed under the blankets before turning out the lights. Tomorrow, that girl would be mine.
When I woke the next day, my cock was throbbing and insistent under the sheets. I looked over at the clock and saw that it was midday already. With the workout and the match the day before, I was beat. I grumbled and pulled myself out of bed. My fucking cock was at full attention even after giving it a thorough spanking the night before. I wasn’t in the mood to yank it again. Too irritated. So I pulled on a pair of swim trunks and made my way to the pool.
Don’s house had a basement pool room. Swimming was one of those activities that always helped me blow off steam. Exercising in water had a way of doing that. After a few laps, I caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye.
Harper walked around the deck and laid a towel on one of the deck chairs. She wore the same bikini she’d had on the day I met her in Brazil. My cock sprung back to life at the sight of her. Her tits loo
ked fucking amazing.
“I didn’t realize you were in here,” she said, standing above me.
“It’s an Olympic size pool. I think there’s room.”
“I should go,” she said.
I caught her foot and held her ankle. She glared at me, but I didn’t let her go. My hand slid up her leg. Water droplets ran down her dark skin. I looked up at her and smiled.
“I can share the pool.”
“I do like a swim after my shifts at the hospital.”
She slowly sat down and dipped her legs into the water. I put my arms up on the side of the pool beside where she sat.
“The water feels so good,” she said, lowering herself in.
“Want to race?” I asked her.
“I don’t think that’s a fair fight,” she said, slowly swimming out to the middle of the pool.
I followed her to the deep end where she touched the side and began to swim back toward the other side. “I’ll pace you,” I offered.
“Okay. I guess I could use the exercise.”
At the shallow end, she pushed off and burst into the water toward the deep end. She was slow compared to how fast I could swim at full tilt, but I paced her. Not wanting to show her up. When we got to the deep end, we touched the side at the same time.
She looked up and smiled before pushing off again toward the other side of the pool. I couldn’t take the slow pace anymore and burst into my normal speed. I made it to the shallow end at least forty-five seconds before she did. When she came up for air, she frowned at me and slapped me on the chest. Her little hand stung and made me laugh.
“You said you’d pace me,” she whined. It was so fucking cute. I caught her hand as she drew it away.
“I couldn’t stand to go that slow,” I said, drawing her close.
She smelled like strawberries and vanilla. I instinctively wrapped her in my arms and my cock burst to full attention at her touch. She gasped but didn’t pull back. She gazed up at me with a mixture of desire and expectation. She was so fucking innocent. My hands ran down her back and gripped her ass, pulling her against my throbbing rod.
Crash: A Bad Boy MMA Romance Page 10
