Crash: A Bad Boy MMA Romance (12 page)

I kissed her neck and whispered in her ear, “I need you so bad, Harper.”

With waving thrusts, I poured into her, pulling sexy moans from her throat as she whispered in my ear. I increased the intensity and the strength of my thrusts, the sound of flesh against flesh mixed with the sounds of her needy little groans.

“Oh, Crash. You’re so good to me,” she whimpered in my ear.

I could feel her pussy clench around my shaft and I groaned. Her swollen breasts pressed against my chest, and I let go of her hands to grab her perfectly shaped tit. I rolled her nipple between my fingers as I continued to piston my hips, driving deeper and deeper into her core. She wrapped her arms around my neck and ran her fingers through my hair.

With a few final thrusts, the explosion came from deep in my core and spilled out into Harper’s waiting womb. Her pussy clenched over mine, and she gasped from the shot of cum inside her. My head felt dizzy from such a massive orgasm. I could barely see straight. But I carefully rolled over and collapsed beside her, panting and sweaty.

She rolled over and rested her head against my chest and I wrapped my arms around her. I was never going to let this girl go. I intended to make her mine.

Leaving Crash in bed the next morning was a challenge, but I managed to sneak away while he was still sleeping. I made it to the hospital on time, thankfully. I got to my station without drawing any attention to myself. As we made our rounds for the day, I felt a sense of contentment and joy bubbling in my chest.

I knew that it was because of Crash. We were becoming closer and closer to each other every day and there was something deepening that I never expected.

I’d thought that if I slept with him, it would just help me get him out of my system, but it had become so much more than that. There was an attachment growing between us. More than just the sex or the flirting.

As I took an elderly woman’s blood pressure, I watched her husband holding her hand and looking at her with such tenderness and concern. It was so sweet it made me smile. She’d come in with chest pains and most likely had suffered a mild stroke. Dr. Williams came in and checked the vitals I’d taken. Ultimately, she diagnosed the stroke and gave recommendations for the woman, leaving me in with the couple to carry out her orders.

I brought the woman the medication she’d been prescribed and then left them alone in a private room where she would be kept overnight for observation. The little old man followed me out of the room and grabbed my elbow as I was about to turn down the hall.

“I wanted to thank you for being so kind to my wife,” he said.

“Oh. That’s sweet. Thank you,” I said. “She looks stable. We’ll keep an eye on her.” I patted his shoulder and smiled as I looked into his eyes.

“I don’t know what I’d do if I lost her. She’s my life.”

“She’s going to be just fine.”

“You know what it’s like to love someone that much,” he said. I just looked at him blankly and blinked twice. I had no idea what he was talking about. “You’re in love. I can tell. I can see it in your smile.”

“Maybe. Maybe I am.” I started to giggle nervously.

“You are. Doctor. Don’t run from love. It’s the most important thing you’ll ever have.” He squeezed my elbow and smiled at me. “Trust me.” Then he walked back into the room to sit with his wife.

I looked inside and asked myself if I was in love with Crash. After receiving that kind of message, as crazy as it seemed, it was hard not to believe it. How could I possibly be in love with Crash? I barely knew him. It was a hot sexual connection. Sure, he was sweet beneath his bad boy persona, but I couldn’t be in love with him.

I was lost in my thoughts as I walked down the hall and nearly smacked into Ava coming from the other direction. She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the locker room.

“What?” I shrieked, yanking my arm away. She’d pulled me out of my thoughts and startled the heck out of me.

“I have to talk to you.” She looked upset.

“Just tell me.”

She heaved a big sigh and looked around the locker room. There was no one else there.

“Harper. I’m really sorry. It just slipped out.”

“Ava, what the hell are you talking about?”

“I told Jeremy that you were pregnant.”

“You what? When?”

“I’m a gossip. I’m sorry. I know. I have a problem. Do they have a twelve-step program for that?”

“When did you tell him?”

“Yesterday.”

So he had known the night before.

“He thinks it’s his,” she said.

“He what? Ava. Seriously?”

“Isn’t it?”

“No.”

“Whose is it?”

I looked at her cockeyed. “You really think I’m going to tell you?”

“So you know?”

“Ava. Could you just shut your piehole and mind your own business?”

She took a step back and crossed her arms. “Okay. I deserve that.”

“I’ve got to get back to work or Dr. Williams is going to have my head.”

“Harper. I’m sorry. If you need anything, please just ask.”

“Sure, Ava.”

I felt totally betrayed by her, but I knew it hadn’t been malicious. Ava was a notorious gossip. Telling her had been a mistake, and I accepted that mistake. I’d just wanted to tell someone. The impulse had been stupid and this was the result of that mistake.

I burst back out of the locker room and past the nurses’ station on my way to the ER. Coming straight toward me was Jeremy, holding his sales bag. I cringed and turned around in the opposite direction.

“Harper,” he said, catching up with me. “We need to talk.”

“I’m busy, Jeremy.”

“Ava told me.”

“I can’t talk about this now,” I snarled under my breath.

“When were you going to tell me?”

I turned away and began walking quickly back to the locker room. Ava passed us in the hall looking guilty. Jeremy caught me and cornered me in the hallway.

“Is it mine?”

“I don’t know whose it is.” I didn’t want to tell anyone else until I’d told Crash. Now that it was out, I’d have to. But informing Jeremy who my baby’s father was before I told the father was not going to happen.

“You don’t know? Who else have you been with? How far along are you?”

“I’m not ready to talk about it,” I muttered. That much was true.

“Are you fucking your stepbrother?” he sneered, grabbing my arm.

“Let go of me.” I pulled my arm away and pushed around him to escape down the hall.

I went through the rest of my shift feeling like I was about to faint or throw up. Ava had put me in a bad position. It was stupid not to expect it from her. Why the hell had I told her? Of all the people I could’ve told, why had I chosen Ava? I couldn’t even tell my mother or Crash. Now Jeremy knew.

The fact that I had considered claiming he was the father a few weeks ago made bile rise in my gut. The days I’d spent with Crash had been some of the most magical of my life. What the little old man had said haunted me all day. Maybe I was in love with Crash. Did I want to be in love? Maybe I did. I didn’t really know. I didn’t really know anything.

I was taking a blood sample from a patient when Dr. Williams walked by and raised her eyebrow at me. When I was done with the sample, I put it on the tray and delivered it to the laboratory. She caught me in the hallway and stopped me.

“There’s some rumors going around the hospital right now about you, Dr. Kelly.”

“I’ve been stepping up my game, Dr. Williams. I’m trying to be the doctor you expect me to be.”

“What kind of doctor do you expect you to be, Dr. Kelly?” she asked me, giving me a meaningful look.

“I want to be the best doctor I can be,” I said, lifting my chin with pride.

“If these rumors are true, how do you expect to get through your residency?”

I could feel myself beginning to tear up, emotions swirling in my stomach. The hormones were changing my temperament, and I couldn’t stand it. Maybe she was right. I wanted to run away and never come back, but I stood my ground and looked her in the eye.

“The way any other woman does, Doctor,” I said, putting my hands on my hips and staring her down.

I knew Dr. Williams was a mother. She’d had to struggle to retain her place in the hospital. The fact that she was putting more pressure on me and being harder seemed hypocritical. And now she stood in front of me, questioning how I would succeed if the “rumors” were true.

“Look, Dr. Kelly,” she said. “I want you to understand, I’m so hard on you because I see so much potential in you. I’d hate to see you squander that potential. Now I hear these rumors. It’s a great disappointment.”

“And what gives you the right to be disappointed in me?”

“It’s only because I see so much of myself in you. I’d hate to see you make the same mistakes I did.”

“If you see so much of yourself in me, then why are you making my work and my life more difficult?”

“We all need to be challenged. You’ve been getting by on your innate personality traits. But when the shit hits the fan, that’s when you see how strong a person really is.”

“And so you wanted to be the shit?”

She looked at me sternly, then raised her eyebrow, a smile slowly breaking on her face. “Touché, Dr. Kelly. Very funny. Make sure you see someone soon. You need to take care of yourself.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ve got to get this sample to the lab.”

As I walked down the hallway to the lab, it felt like I had just had the most surreal experience of my life. I delivered the samples to the technician and went back to the ER for the rest of my shift.

At the end of the day, I climbed into my car and turned on the engine. Gripping the steering wheel, I felt so fragile I was ready to break apart into a million pieces. What Dr. Williams had said at the hospital reminded me that I needed to get some prenatal vitamins.

On the way home, I stopped at the drugstore and picked up a bottle. I carried the bag into the house and set it on the coffee table. I went into the kitchen and got a bottle of water out of the fridge and headed back to the living room where I’d left the bag. When I entered the room, I saw Crash sitting on the couch holding the bottle of prenatal vitamins with a blank expression on his face.

It felt like the whole world was crashing in on me and my brain went fuzzy. My knees began to buckle and all of the sudden, I was going down. I blacked out for a second. When I came to, I found myself lying on the couch. Crash sat across the living room from me on an easy chair, holding the bottle of prenatal vitamins. I sat up slowly. He was there beside me a moment later, helping me up.

“Take it easy,” he said.

I groaned and put my hand to my forehead.

“When were you going to tell me?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Harper said.

Harper had been out for a few minutes, and I’d stared at that bottle of vitamins the whole time. I knew what prenatal vitamins were.

Everything started to come together to create a clear picture of what was going on. She wouldn’t eat sushi. Her tits had grown a cup size. And she suddenly fainted in my arms after bringing home a bottle of prenatal vitamins. Obviously Harper was pregnant.

All this time, she hadn’t told me. She was fucking me every single day, but didn’t feel the need to tell me she had a child inside her. My child.

“It’s mine, isn’t it,” I said, rubbing my hand up and down her back.

“Crash, I didn’t want to tell you this way.”

Emotions spiraled within me, and I didn’t know what to think. Harper was carrying my child. It was both the most terrifying and exhilarating information I’d ever received. I knew in that instant that I wanted the baby. I wanted to be his father. I wanted to be the kind of father I’d never had.

“Yes. The baby is yours, Crash. From that night in Brazil.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked, nervous that she didn’t want to keep it. I wanted them both. I wanted the woman and the child. A few months ago, I never would’ve believed anyone if they told me that I would feel that way. But goddammit, I wanted them. I wanted the family. I wanted the happily ever after. I was ready to do whatever it took to be the man she needed and to be the father my child needed.

“I’m keeping it,” she said. I breathed a sigh of relief and pulled her into my embrace.

“Baby, this is going to be beautiful. We’re going to be an awesome family. I never thought I’d want this, but I want it more than anything.”

“I don’t know, Crash,” she whispered. “We haven’t known each other very long. And you’re still my stepbrother. What are Mom and Dad going to say about this?”

“How can you still be worried about that?” he asked.

“I am. I don’t want you to lose your inheritance. I don’t want my mom to hate me. And committing to each other just because we’re having a baby together isn’t the best decision for either of us.”

“Let me get this straight. You want to lie to our parents and not tell them that I’m the baby’s father?”

“I don’t know, Crash,” she whispered.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I’m ready to do anything to be with you and to be my baby’s father. And you’re telling me that you want to keep that from me? And why? Because our parents married each other? This baby was conceived before I even knew who my father was.”

“But that doesn’t change the fact that our parents are married. That makes us stepsiblings. Sure, neither of us knew about each other when we got together in Brazil, but now we’re stepsiblings. There’s no changing that. What if your father decides not to leave you any of his inheritance because you knocked up his stepdaughter?”

“If he thinks like that then he can die in a fire,” I said, so angry I had to stand up. I couldn’t believe what she was saying. It was all so messed up. “If you’re not going to tell them that I’m the father, who are you going to tell them is the father?”

“I had considered telling them that Jeremy was the father,” she whispered.

“That guy? You were going to let that guy be the father of my child?” I reeled around, storming towards the exit.

“I didn’t know what to do,” she said behind me.

I turned around, rage boiling hot in my gut and face. I clenched my fists. “I need to clear my head before I say something I regret,” I said before storming out the door.

I heard her yell my name through the thick door, but I didn’t go back. I was so fucking pissed I could barely see straight.

That baby was mine, and I’d be damned if I was going let a man like Jeremy take credit for it. As crazy as it sounded to my own brain, I loved Harper. I wanted that girl to be mine for the rest of my life.

After spending those days together in Don’s house, I knew why I couldn’t be with anyone else. I wanted her. I wanted her because I loved her. We were meant to be together, and that’s all there was to it.

I straddled my motorcycle and turned on the ignition. Without another thought, I sped down the driveway and out of sight. As much as I loved that girl, I couldn’t talk to her right now.

She was rejecting me at the very core. She wanted me to give up my child because of some stupid taboo that didn’t mean anything. Because she was afraid I’d lose some bullshit money. So what if Don disinherited me? I didn’t care. I could do anything I wanted. I didn’t need that guy’s money.

What I did need was Harper and our child.

I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t know when I would go back. It was almost sunset. Nighttime was the best time to get wasted. I drove down the highway headed east until I found a biker bar out in the desert. I climbed off my bike, ready for whatever self-destructive bullshit the night might bring.

I walked into the smoky bar, the sound of classic rock ‘n’ roll playing on an old jukebox. There were crusty old bikers with ratty beards and leather vests covered in patches. This was exactly the kind of place where a guy could get into a good brawl. I sidled up to the bar and rapped my knuckles on the warped wood.

“Whiskey neat,” I said. “Keep them coming.”

The bartender poured me a shot, and I threw it back. He immediately refilled my glass. I was going to need a hell of a lot more than this to drink away the wound that woman had shot in my chest.

All my life, I’d been haunted by the absence of my own father. Whether or not Don had done it on purpose, I’d been a fatherless child. Just like Harper. I’d wandered the streets while my mom worked double shifts, just to make ends meet.

I’d hated the man who’d left her in poverty. I hated the man who had abandoned his child to grow up without him.

And now the woman I loved was forcing me into a position where I would have to watch some other asshole raise my baby. I downed my third shot and asked for another, finally starting to feel the exhilarating glow of drunkenness inside me.

“Just leave the bottle,” I said.

The bartender raised his eyebrow at me but did as I asked. I took the bottle in hand and took a long swig until I began to feel my body unwind and my ego burn.

A middle-aged biker sat beside me and eyed my bottle. “Hey, buddy, you want to share?” he said.

I turned toward him and gave him my biggest shit eating grin. “No,” I said, cocky as fuck.

“You ain’t gonna share?” he asked, standing up from the barstool and rolling his shoulders.

“Nope,” I said.

“You know where you are, son?”

“I’m not your son,” I said. My words were starting to slur. “I ain’t nobody’s son. Nobody’s.”

“You got a whole bottle of whiskey and you haven’t paid. Least you can do is share.”

I took a deep swig and then sprayed it out of my mouth all over the biker. I watched his shocked expression as he wiped it off his face and beard. It was so funny, I had to fucking laugh.

The old dude took a swing at me, and I dodged away, still laughing. Even drunk, I could outmaneuver some untrained old asshole like this guy. Then his buddies joined him. They were all about as old and nappy as he was. I couldn’t stop laughing. I took another swig and sprayed them all.

“There,” I said. “I fucking shared.”

I was still laughing when they started swinging at me. None of them could touch me as I dodged and wove away from their fists. I was tempted to beat all their asses, but I knew that one hit from my hardened, practiced fist would send one of these old dudes to the emergency room.

But it was not just the old dudes in the bar. A group of younger bikers came up behind me and someone slammed me across the back. It hurt like hell and sent me down to the sticky floor, but I sprung back up and started punching. Even the younger guys couldn’t stand against someone with my expertise, and I took them all out pretty quickly.

There were probably a dozen guys standing around me in a circle. Some of them I’d beaten and others were just angry and shouting. A moment later, the bartender came out from the behind the bar with a shotgun in his hand and waved it menacingly at me.

“Get the fuck out of here,” he said. I grabbed the bottle from the bar.

“Fine,” I said, rolling my shoulders. “I just wanted to have a little fun.”

I staggered out of the bar. A couple of their fists had connected. I’d been punched in my gut, face, and chin. I put the bottle in the storage under my seat and straddled my bike.

I motored out onto the silent, open road and headed deep into the desert. The stars were shining high above in the clear night sky. I was seeing double, so I finally pulled over on the side of the road, grabbed my bottle, and started hiking up a sand dune.

When I got up there, I sat and looked up at the moon. It was full and beautiful like the night I had first met Harper. I looked down at my bottle and flung it out of sight. I didn’t want to fucking drink anymore. All I wanted was for Harper to accept my love, to let me be the father of my own child.

With my head swimming, I laid back on the sand and quickly lost consciousness.