He looked like he wanted to say more, but he shook his head, talking himself out of it. He turned back toward David and my mom, and I stepped out of the room.
I’d been a little infatuated with Ryder before seeing him again, but David's son could easily become my obsession again.
Chapter Five
Ryder
“I need you to sign this contract.”
David looked down at the document on the table between us but made no move to sign it. I wished coming to his house was not my only option. I would’ve much rather he'd come down to the gym, but he refused. I needed him to sign the gym over to me, and then I’d never need to deal with him again.
After David left us, Uncle Drew and the gym were all I had to fall back on. David showed up at Uncle Drew’s funeral last month. After three years with no contact, I hated that seeing his face still made me angry. I avoided him as much as possible, but when the will was read and I found out the gym was left to Uncle Drew and David when their dad passed, I knew keeping my father away from my life might not be as easy as it had been. Especially since he seemed to be trying to reconcile the entire time he was at the funeral.
“Why are you making this difficult? You haven’t stepped foot in that gym in years, and now you want a piece of it?”
He looked at me, then back at the paper on the table. “If I sign this, I’ll never see you again.”
“What’s with this new interest in being part of my life? You spent years ignoring my existence, and now you want in?”
“I made a lot of mistakes, but you were never supposed to be a casualty of all this. I’ve never ignored you. I’ve tried to reach out to you. I just want a chance to be part of your life again.”
“I’m twenty-five years old. I’m not that little idiot who used to leave you those pathetic voicemails to come home, begging at your doorstep for you to come to the championship. I’m over it, David. And I’m over you. You never gave a fuck about me or Mom.”
“Ryder, your dad loves you.” Vanessa jumped into our conversation as though she had a right to be involved in our business.
“How about you stay the fuck out of it, huh? You're the reason all this shit started to begin with.” She gasped at my statement and tried to cover her embarrassment by lowering her head and letting her long auburn hair cover her face. I felt a small twinge of guilt but pushed it back when I remembered all the pain my mother dealt with when David left her for Vanessa Cole. She was the rich beauty queen who my mother had no chance of competing with. I hated to admit I really liked her before everything changed, but I did.
“Ryder, I understand you're angry, but don’t blame Vanessa. Blame me. It was my fault.”
“I don’t care whose fault—” The kitchen door swung open, cutting the words from my mouth. And the woman who walked through it cut all fucking thought from my head.
It’s her.
She looked at me with those bright hazel eyes, and I was thrown back to the night she opened her eyes and looked up at me from the sand. The night that still haunted me.
The look she gave me was different. Her gaze was hungry, and I’d let her eat at my table any day of the week. Her lip parted with a quiet gasp as she stopped and stared at me.
Fuck, why is she looking at me like that?
She changed. Gone was the pale-faced, frail woman strapped to the hospital bed.
My gaze traveled over her tight shirt and tiny sleep shorts.
Perfect, perky tits.
Small waist.
Curvy hips.
Smooth, creamy legs.
If I had a checklist, it would take me days to check off each part of her I would like to lick. Then I’d pull those long, silky legs around my waist and…
Look away, Hayes. You don’t need to get a hard-on in your dad’s kitchen for his stepdaughter.
She pulled her too-short shirt down in an effort to cover her exposed navel ring. Pulling it down over that smooth expanse of skin only pressed the shirt tighter against her chest, and my gaze shot up to her pebbled nipples.
Fuck this. I needed to get out of there. I’d never wanted a woman as much as I wanted to take this one. It had always been this way with Lexi, but it had definitely increased in intensity. I almost didn’t give a fuck David was in the room. I wanted to push her against a wall and make her beg me for it.
Women didn’t usually affect me this way. Being a fighter kept me too busy to think about women, but Alexis always had a way of distracting me. Don’t get me wrong. I liked to fuck, and often, but the shit she was stirring inside me wasn’t something I was used to. Avoiding her attempts to push into my life had been a good decision. I always had a soft spot for Alexis, but it had changed—merged with full-blown lust.
“What happened to your face?” she asked softly. Her concern over a small cut over my brow was cute.
“You don’t like my face?” I teased her.
“No. I mean, yes…” She pushed a hand through her dark hair and smiled shyly.
“Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt,” she said, but she still stood there, staring like she wanted me to do something. Grab her and claim her as mine. No. The last thing I needed was to let a woman as beautiful as her, with as much power over me as she had, dig her claws into me.
“How are you, Alexis?”
“I’m good. You?”
I shrugged. She pouted.
I wanted to tell her I thought about her sometimes. I thought about that night. The cold water. Her lifeless body. She’d been in my dreams countless times over the years, but she didn’t look anything like the woman standing before me.
I turned back to David and tried to recover from the unfamiliar feelings carousing through me from just looking at her.
Alexis Cole…
Even saying her name in my head caused my dick to jerk in my suddenly too-tight jeans. I’d never run away from a woman I wanted to fuck, but I needed to get away from this one. I knew without a doubt if I got my hands on her, I’d never let her go.
She probably had a boyfriend, a fiancé, or something. I glanced back at her hand and surprised myself when I felt relieved her finger was ring-free. She could still have a boyfriend. And I would…
I would what?
Old habits died hard. And I was fucking losing it if I was thinking of becoming her guard dog again. I needed to do what I came to do and get away from the seductress with the innocent hazel eyes.
“Are you going to sign or what?” I snapped at David, way more aggressive than I meant to be.
Glances bounced around the room between David, Vanessa, and Alexis. Somehow they communicated… something. I didn’t look back at Alexis, but I felt when she left, like she had sucked all the air out of the room. With her gone, everything returned to a normal level, and I could breathe again. Good, maybe I could get my focus back on the gym and not on getting Alexis to let me lie between her legs. David looked at me with a sly grin that told me this wasn’t going to get any easier.
“How about I make you a deal? Vanessa and I are going away for a while. We need someone to keep an eye on Alexis. Vanessa isn’t comfortable leaving her behind.”
No, not a good idea. I just got a massive hard-on by spending three minutes in a room with her. Any extended amount of time and I didn’t know what lines I’d cross.
“She’s not okay?” I asked. Alexis always said she was doing well. There wasn’t one time I texted her that she said she was having a shitty day, and that worried me. You didn’t go from wanting to drown yourself in the ocean to being perfectly fine.
“Vanessa still worries about her, but Alexis won’t like us leaving someone to watch over her, so don’t let on about this.”
“No. I’m not a babysitter. I did my part years ago. Besides, she’s made it this far. I just need you to sign these papers, and you’ll never have to worry about me bothering you ever again.”
I wasn’t in the business of purposely torturing myself by spending time in close proximity with Alexis.
There it was again, that jerk in my pants. My dick was already happily anticipating spending time with her. David had an excited gleam in his eyes, and I knew the fucker was up to something.
“I’m not interested in playing games, David. What are you up to?”
He laughed. “I’m not up to anything. In the years since Alec passed, I haven’t seen Alexis react to anyone like she did a minute ago.”
“Reacted to me? Are you seriously trying to set me up with Alexis? Trust me, you don’t want me anywhere near her. She’d probably be ten times more fucked up by the time I was done with her.”
He laughed like I was fucking joking. If he knew how many women I fucked and forgot, he’d lock her up in the next state. Alexis wasn’t like those women. She didn’t need someone like me fucking with her head.
“You’re just like me when I was your age.”
“I’m nothing like you!” Shit. I didn’t mean to yell so loud. I admitted I may be an asshole occasionally, but I was nothing like David. Or at least I hoped not.
“Calm down, Ryder. I get it. I’m not exactly your favorite person. Just take care of Alexis, and the gym is yours.”
That wouldn’t work for me. I had invested my prize money well enough that I could afford to buy David out.
“I’ll give you a half million dollars. That’s way more than your half is worth. I’ll call my lawyers—”
“Ryder! I don’t want your money. I’m not trying to get back into your life because you’re the reigning UFC champ or because you have a shitload of money. I’ll prove it to you one way or another. Take the deal.” He stormed out of the room as though he had a right to be pissed at me.
Fuck him and his deal. I would just have to figure out another way to push him out of the gym.
Chapter Six
Alexis
“Alexis, it’s time to get up,” my mother screamed through the door. The incessant pounding was driving me crazy. After I ran into Ryder in the kitchen, I jumped into bed and spent hours tossing and turning from sexual frustration.
I didn’t get it. He was just a man. How could he be consuming all my thoughts? When I realized I wasn’t going to be able to get him out of my head, I popped a sleeping pill. Usually, I used them to chase away the memories that haunted my nights, but the night before, it helped me forget the man who would be way too much trouble to my sanity.
“Alexis?”
“I’m up, Mom,” I mumbled, hoping she would leave me alone.
“You’ve been sleeping all day. Dave and I are leaving in an hour, but maybe we should cancel.” She sighed, and I heard the worry in her tone.
I dropped my head into the pillow and let out a muffled scream. She smothered me constantly. I didn’t blame her after what I’d put her through, but it drove me crazy.
“Don’t worry, Vanessa. Ryder will keep an eye on her.” David’s voice was a little muffled through the door, but I definitely heard his comment correctly.
I jumped out of bed, still slightly lightheaded from the pills I popped a few hours earlier, but I made it to the door in record time. I pulled it open, and my mom almost fell through because she was leaning her head against it.
“Why would Ryder be ‘keeping an eye on me?’” David looked at me guiltily, then looked to my mom for help. “David, what did you do?”
“He’s just going to stop by so your mom won’t be so worried.”
“No. My God, I don’t need a babysitter. He probably thinks he’s going to have to be on suicide watch now.”
My mother flinched, so I tried to calm down. She wasn’t to the point where she talked about what I did. She always reacted to the word suicide as if someone hit her with a bat.
“It’s been over three years, Mom. Why can’t you trust me?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you. I just…” She ran a hand through her shiny red hair. She looked so small and frail. I hated that she spent so much time worried about me.
“Mom, go have fun with your husband. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.” I quickly hugged her, gave her a kiss, and closed the door on her worried face.
I got back in bed and pulled the sheet over my head and fell back to sleep quickly.
~*~*~
My heart was beating out of my chest, pain radiated through every cell of my body, and the scream forming in my throat burned. A far distant voice called to me, and someone jerking on my arm woke me. I sat up in my bed and struggled to breathe. My hand automatically reached out for Alec, and relief flooded me as I felt his warm skin under my fingers.
“Bad dream?” He smiled up at me from his pillow.
I lay back down, and he welcomed me into his arms. “I dreamed you were gone. I can’t remember how or why, but all I know is I felt you die.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Lexi. You’ve been having these dreams since Dad died. You’re not going to lose everyone, Lexi. Losing Dad’s been hard on us all, but at least we still have each other.”
I looked into his face, one that was so similar to mine, and reached out to touch him, but before I felt his warm skin beneath my hands, he disappeared. Gone in a flash of light so blinding it exploded painfully in my head.
I jolted up from the dream.
Alec came back to me often. The dreams always felt so real, but I knew it was just my delusional mind playing tricks on me.
My fast, harsh breaths threatened to choke me, and tears welled in my eyes when reality began to sink in. The nightmares were insistent. Most nights, if I didn’t take a pill to help me sleep, I’d stay up. I felt like I was stuck in a time warp, where all the memories came to life, only to disappear when I blinked my eyes. The sadness coursed through my veins day and night and weighed me down.
I curled up with my pillow and let the tears fall. I realized years ago if I didn’t let them out, I’d drown in them.
~*~*~
I made my way from the restroom to my table. The music playing through the bar was loud, and I pushed past a lot of people to make any headway. I almost made it there uninterrupted when I was stopped.
“Lexi.” The voice behind me sent chills up my spine. His hand slowly wrapped around my waist, pressing his body against my back. His lips were against my ear, and I smelled the alcohol on his breath as he whispered, “Are you okay, baby?”
There was a time when his whispered words would have a melting effect on me, but I felt nothing, and it brought back memories I’d been running from for years.
“I’m fine, Logan.”
“Let me know if you need anything.” He tried to move in closer, but I pulled away. Noah, the bartender, was eyeing us from across the room. He was always on alert when Logan started crowding me but it wasn’t necessary. Logan and I had become friends. I’d resented him for a long time. Besides blaming myself for Alec’s death, I’d blamed Logan. Despite my cold and nasty attitude in the beginning, Logan stuck around. After Ryder pulled me from the ocean, Logan remained a constant in my life. He’d held me when I cried, made me pull myself out of bed when I’d sunk into depression, and he even sat quietly when I blamed him for what happened. After years of therapy, I was able to forgive him, but we would never go back to where we’d been. The relationship was never salvageable, but maybe our friendship was.
I knew Logan was still holding on to hope we’d get back together. He thought I needed time to deal with Alec’s death and then I’d come back to him, but I couldn’t stand to look at him without thinking of how much I’d lost or how he’d betrayed me. He only showed up at this bar because he knew I came here so often.
“Are you okay?” Shelby asked as I sat across from her at our booth. Shelby was the only person in this whole world who came close to understanding me and why I’d sheltered myself. But just like my mom, she was always studying me for signs of depression. She was Alec’s girlfriend before he died, so we’d bonded through our loss.
It had been just as difficult for her as it had been for me. In the three years since the accident, Shelby hadn
’t opened her heart to another guy. With her long auburn hair and brilliantly green eyes, she garnered plenty of attention, but she was almost as closed off as I was. I always joked that with her red hair she looked more like my mother than I did.
“I'm fine, Shelby.” She narrowed her almond-shaped eyes, trying to gauge my reaction to Logan. She wouldn’t find it because I’d become an expert at the blank expression. She finally nodded her head, giving up her nonverbal inquisition about my emotions. She didn’t want to see me and Logan get back together. She also didn’t believe we were just friends. The waitress came and set our drinks down on the table.
“Why are you so nice to him? There was a time when you couldn’t stand the sight of him.”
“I forgave him, and I feel much better for it,” I answered flatly, wishing we could change the topic. “Besides, he’s changed. He’s not the same wild kid who broke my heart.”
“Oh God, now you’re making excuses for him. Please don’t jump back into that cesspool. He’s still the same asshole he was back then. He just wears a mask around you. I want you to be happy, sweetie, but not with him. And if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll admit you never really loved him.” Shelby’s gaze bored into mine, so I turned away from her searching eyes.
“I don’t want to talk about Logan. We’re not getting back together. End of story. We came here to forget about men and their drama, so let’s drink, dance, and forget.” She smiled at me, then we clinked our martini glasses together and toasted to a happy girls’ night out.
As I lifted the glass to my lips, there was suddenly a shift in the atmosphere. I kid you not. It was like a magnetic pull. My gaze was drawn across the room by it and halted on Ryder. The last time I’d seen him, my attraction to him hit me so hard the wind was knocked out of me. I felt the same way watching him enter the bar. He was cocky and arrogant in a way that aggravated me, but sexy and intriguing in a way that excited me.
I watched as he walked through the room and strode to the bar, thinking I’d never seen a man so erotic. His perfectly sculpted facial features were breathtaking yet scary. Scary in an I’m bad medicine kind of way. You know the kind of medicine I’m talking about. The kind that promises you a cure for your suffering, only to get you addicted to something a lot worse than the original pain.
Fight for Me Page 3
