Romance: JADEN: An MMA Fighter Romance (Bad Boy Tattoo Romance) (New Adult Pregnancy Short Stories)

by Kristen Chase

  “Once the swelling has gone down,” Michael continued, running a hand alongside her leg until his fingers hovered directly beside the bite marks that decorated the outer side of her calf, “we can put some antiseptic on that and get it bound up. It should help with the pain, just a bit. We can also get you some pain killer if you need it.”

  “For not being a doctor, you sure do know a lot about medicine,” Megan commented.

  “I suppose I picked up on Andrew’s lingo,” Michael said and shrugged in the easy way that had the eloquence of it being very easy to talk about Andrew and his relationship with him.

  “You’ve been friends for how long?” Megan asked, elevating her foot above her heart as her father had taught her.

  Michael laughed. “We’re not friends,” he said. “Something more like friendly rivals. That’s how it’s always been between Andrew and me. We’ve always had this competition thing going where we try to always outsmart and out-brawl the other.”

  “You act like friends,” Megan commented after a few moments of taking this in. She supposed that could be the case, but the two seemed to genuinely like each other underneath all of the irritation.

  “Don’t let Andrew hear you say that,” Michael said, and Megan wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.

  “Don’t let Andrew hear you say what?” the said doctor asked as he reentered the room with a glass of water and blankets. He shot Michael a frown. “I hope you weren’t touching her bite.”

  “Of course not, doc,” Michael said. “You should know that I don’t touch when the items are damaged.”

  Andrew scoffed and didn’t reply. Instead, he handed the glass of water to Megan. She only then realized that her tongue felt like cotton in her mouth; dry, oversized and utterly disgusting. As he draped the blanket over her shoulders and shooed Michael away so that she could lay back down if she so pleased, he finally said, “You never change, do you?”

  “Never,” Michael agreed. “I’ll go get us some dinner,” he added, putting his cowboy hat back on and nodding to Megan. “You rest up, honey. I expect you to go on another ride with me.”

  Megan let out a sigh, but made sure to include a smile so that the cowboy knew that she was joking. “If you insist.”

  Michael shot her that captivating and utterly undeniably handsome grin. “I do insist, darlin’.”

  Megan couldn’t help the blush that flamed across her entire face in the splotchy manner that it so loved to do as she realized that he hadn’t included the word ‘horse’ in his ‘ride.’ Coupled with that smile, she was sure that he had implied it sexually and that she had been too out of it to notice.

  Not just out of it; out of practice as well. Megan hadn’t been the recipient or giver of flirtation for years, now. She would need to brush up her skills quickly if she was to keep up with this alluring, beautiful man; and she found that she wanted to. She hadn’t bothered to make the effort for quite a long time because the long line of men that she had gone through had all been the same type of asshole breed that she didn’t want to expend the energy on to attempt to improve.

  This day had certainly turned out very interesting. Megan moved herself over to a chair with Andrew supporting her and began filling out the paperwork. She would think about the stressful things tomorrow, but right now, she just needed to fill out the basics. Things she could handle. Her name, date of birth, social security number, medicare provider… it was soothing, almost; as if she could remind herself of who she was simply by proving it on paper.

  Luckily, she started to feel sleepy before she got to the payment part. That would be part of tomorrow, when she could deal with it. Yes, tomorrow…

  ###

  Megan hardly noticed when Andrew slid the clipboard from her lax fingers and draped the blanket over her. She was already out cold. Andrew was envious of her ability to sleep, but then he was always jealous of anyone’s ability to sleep.

  He pulled out a medical textbook he had been meaning to read for the past few weeks and settled into the chair across from the sleeping woman and waited for Michael to return with their food.

  It seemed like only moments later that the door opened and Michael stomped in, spurs making metal clacks against the hardwood floors of Andrew’s office. He hung his hat on the coat rack and set down two bags. “I hope the little lady likes brandy, because I got enough to drown the world,” he said as he carried the bottle into the room.

  Andrew put aside the textbook and glanced over at Megan. She was still asleep—not surprising—since her body was still focused on ridding itself of the poison. “I’m not sure brandy would be a good idea…”

  “Come on, doc. It’s the best medicine,” Michael said, flashing Andrew his trademark grin. “For anything.”

  “Can’t agree with you more,” Andrew said. “Let me bind up her wound before we start drinking, though. I don’t want to do that drunk.”

  Michael laughed. “I’ve had the pleasure of being a recipient of your drunk bandages,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “That gash never really did heal up quite right.”

  “Because you didn’t keep it clean,” Andrew said, trying to put enough offense in his voice for it to actually sound serious. He failed miserably. It was true, he had been drunk the night he had bound up Michael’s arm from when he had cut it on some piece of machinery from the ranch that he could usually be found on. But then again, he hadn’t been expecting someone to come to his door with an injury such as that at midnight.

  Michael shook his head and went into the tiny but functional kitchen to pick up shot glasses. “Two or three?” he called. It should have irked Andrew that Michael knew where he kept the shot glasses, but in this moment when everything was at a peaceful lull, he found that he didn’t mind it at all.

  “Three,” Andrew said easily. “I don’t reckon any of us will want to get up after we’ve had a few drinks.” There was no response, not that he expected one. Instead, he set aside his book and got up. He’d had the presence of mind to set the bandages out before and simply started cutting them into suitable lengths.

  “Megan,” he said, touching her shoulder gently. She really was pretty, especially now that she had some color in her cheeks. She stirred, blinking open her serene grey eyes. She looked around for a few moments, as if trying to remember where she was, and then her gaze fell onto him.

  “How long have I slept?”

  “Not long. I’m going to patch you up and then we’re going to have some drinks,” Andrew said, holding up the Ace bandage and cotton strips. “Would you like one? Or three?”

  “Maybe seven,” Megan groaned, shifting slightly in the chair. She winced as Andrew touched her leg, and he paused.

  “This will hurt,” he said. “Do you want to have a few before?”

  “Just get it over with,” Megan said, tilting her head back. Andrew found his gaze dipping along the curve of her neck, the juncture of shoulder and graceful swoop of collarbone, and suddenly his mouth was exceptionally dry.

  He wanted her in the way a man wants a woman, and there was no denying that. It didn’t matter that he didn’t even know where she was from or what she did as a living. She could have worked for the Italian mafia, or been a stripper and he would never know any different. It wouldn’t have mattered either way. He would have taken her whenever or wherever she deemed fit if there wasn’t the little problem of the cowboy in the next room who was practically secreting a pheromone labelled ‘she’s mine.’

  Who would she choose, if either of them? This beautiful woman probably had someone back home waiting for her to come back from… whatever she was doing here. She may not find them attractive, either. Some girls didn’t go for the cowboy, and some of them hated the doctor type.

  Andrew blinked and firmly told himself to stop thinking like that. He was a man, after all and a well-rounded one at that. Only women were allowed to obsess so much. That didn’t do a damn thing to stop his fingers from shaking as he bandaged her wound. He was acting like a
nervous teenager on his first date, which managed to piss him off and completely throw him off all at once. What was it about this girl that was so alluring? Was it the way she glanced up at him from underneath her thick, full lashes, lips curving up in a knowing smile? Was it the fact that she had been the only exciting thing that had happened to him all day?

  No, it was more of something else. Something he couldn’t explain; didn’t want to explain. It couldn’t be expressed in words, not completely. Some might call it love at first sight. Doctors weren’t supposed to believe in that. It was all just a rush of chemicals to the brain and whatnot.

  But something about Megan made him doubt it all.

  Michael came into the room shortly after Andrew stood up and returned to his seat, watching Megan out of the corner of his eyes. He handed out the shot glasses and they all downed their first shot without hesitation.

  “So, Megan,” Michael said, leaning forward in his chair. “What brings you to the West? You have an Eastern accent, New York, I’m guessing, so I know that you aren’t from around here.”

  Megan paused in taking a sip of her second brandy and peered at the cowboy over the rim of her glass. “I want to be as far away from there as I can.” She didn’t elaborate, and both of the men knew that tone well enough to not ask her to. It was a tone of no nonsense and of secrets, and they both had enough of the latter to not ask.

  “Make sense,” Michael said smoothly, covering up what would have been an awkward lapse in conversation if it had been just Andrew and Megan speaking one on one. “How long do you plan to stay?”

  “I don’t know, until my funds run out, I guess,” Megan said. Her eyes seemed to light with something akin to terror for a moment, and she pulled the bottle of brandy towards her and poured yet another shot and downed it in one go. “That will be fairly quickly with this unexpected expense.” She slumped in the chair, nursing a fourth drink.

  Andrew swallowed his feelings of regret. If he was nice to everyone, he would have no money and no business. He had learned that long ago. He needed to be hard to get customers. “We can make it a payment plan if you want to stay here longer,” he offered instead of a normal person’s apology. “I’d offer it to you for free, but I have to make a living somehow.”

  “No, I understand,” Megan said quickly. “My father is a doctor.” She seemed to regret saying that and promptly shut her mouth.

  They were all silent for several more minutes, growing hazier from alcohol consumption. It had always been a silent and long-standing contest between Andrew and Michael: who could drink the most without passing out or throwing up? So far, Andrew had been the victor, but only just barely. The last time they had gone out and drank—how long ago had that been, anyway?—he had been about to lose consciousness when Michael had fallen from his barstool, out cold. He had gotten an entire five minutes to revel in the victory and then woken up several hours later to find his face unpleasantly stuck to the bar countertop.

  Michael glanced over at Andrew, and something that Megan wouldn’t have possibly understood passed between them.

  If you win, you get her. It was all over his face, a look that Andrew had seen many times when they had been ‘prospecting’ in the bar, back when Andrew included himself in the festivities. It was in his body language, the tense way he held himself and the way his head was tilted. Andrew’s lips quirked into a smile. It was amazing that Michael had been able to pick up on that; Andrew prided himself on keeping subtle body movements and facial expressions from being perceptible to other people. That was why he always won at poker.

  He nodded once, turning back to Megan. Challenge accepted.

  The woman was looking at them with alcohol-laced eyes, dark, sultry and utterly alluring. If Andrew could have found the strength to move, he would have gotten up that moment and gone to kiss those beautifully parted-just-so lips the pale pink of rose petals. He wondered what she would feel like underneath him, her gentle curves that weren’t quite shaped enough to be athletic, but bordering on the fit side of body types—his favorite.

  Alcohol had always done this strange thing to Andrew’s body, and there was no escaping the fact that he was almost painfully hard just thinking about touching Megan’s milky skin, to see it bare beneath him.

  “What are you two going on about?” Megan asked, tilting her lips up in a lopsided smile.

  Andrew vowed to keep quiet, to not let her know of what was happening between the two, but to his surprise Michael spoke up. Michael liked mystery—part of his allure, Andrew supposed—and didn’t tell women what he was thinking or what he was feeling unless he could use it to further his ability to get underneath their skin and directly into their hearts. Apparently, he thought that this was the way to go for Megan.

  “We’re deciding which one of us gets you,” Michael said. The overlying tone was casual, almost disinterested, but anyone who had spent a little bit of time with the cowboy could have heard the tension that was underneath. He truly did care about this.

  Megan’s eyes were blank for several heart-wrenching seconds that almost had Andrew fleeing from the room in embarrassment before they lit with a spark of amusement and a touch of something darker that made Andrew’s heart flutter.

  “And what have you decided?”

  There was a perceptible decrease in the tension coming from Michael and he leaned back, grinning that lazy smile that somehow had girls going nuts. “That we’ll see who can outdrink the other.”

  “Oh? Is this how you usually solve problems?”

  “Very common,” Andrew said. “It’s how we’ve decided our careers, even. After all, we both went to the same school and got the same degree. If I had lost that drinking contest, I would have been the one to bring you into Dr. Michael and wearing that ridiculous cowboy hat.”

  Megan threw her head back and laughed. It was low, rich and something that sent chills down Andrew’s spine. He looked over at Michael to see if he was similarly affected, and saw the glimmer of interest that was quite perceptible in the other man’s gaze. “You are too funny, Dr. Andrew. And I don’t think that you’ll have to do that this time. Why can’t I have both of you?”

  Andrew froze, mind clearing for a mere second and seeing exactly where this was going.

  Memories intruded moments after imagining himself and Michael in the same bed, memories that were more physical than mental. He could still feel the hard leather strap of his father’s belt falling on his shoulders when he had been discovered kissing the high school football team quarterback behind the school one afternoon.

  Michael and Megan had frozen as well, as if they had all gotten an electric shot that spiked straight through the alcohol that clouded their brains.

  No one moved for several moments.

  ###

  Megan slapped a hand over her mouth after a few moments of shock. Had she honestly just said that? The look of pure horror on Andrew’s face was enough for her to realize that she had made a huge mistake; this she knew even with her alcohol-impaired senses. Shit, shit, shit, how do I remedy this?

  “I apologize,” she said finally, the brandy letting her do much more talking than she should. “I would have never said something like that sober.”

  There was a moment of deadly still silence. Andrew’s handsome face was shadowed with the kind of fear that went deeper than just being against something casually—like her and chocolate ice cream. No, this was something deep and psychological.

  Michael’s gaze was unreadable, and he moved slowly, setting his drink down on the table that Megan had been lying on only a few hours ago. “I am not opposed to this,” he said, his gaze still unreadable.

  There was a ‘but’. There was always a ‘but’ in these situations. Megan didn’t relax a bit at the admission. She had supposed that he was open to that—he had the kind of casual nature that people like her were drawn to, the ability to try anything and everything new. She hadn’t thought about the effect it would have had on Andrew. “But?”


  “But I am not sure if Andrew would—

  “I’ll do it,” Andrew said in a quick burst, as if the fact that he said it more quickly would make it go away sooner. He paused, took a deep, shuddering breath and then continued in a slower, more controlled voice. “I would like to. I can’t let Michael have all the fun, now can I?”

  “Are you sure?” The concern that was present in Michael’s voice for his friend was tangible in the air, almost like a living and breathing thing. Megan was jealous of the kinship they had. She had never gotten that attached to anyone. She had never allowed to let herself create bonds so tight that they would make her nearly inseparable from someone.

  “If you don’t mind,” Andrew said, looking away from the cowboy.

  “I’m not opposed,” Michael said, shrugging and standing up. “Should I carry her, or should you?”

  “You can, I’ll get whatever we need.” He turned to Megan, and his voice changed back to that cool business tone that he had used when telling her what her condition was and the treatment. “Are you sure this is something you want?”

  “I’ve done this before,” Megan said. She remembered the feeling of two sets of hands caressing her, lavishing her with almost too much attention, the feel of someone in her mouth and buried deep inside of her and shivered. “I want it more than anything.”

  Andrew nodded, and before she could say anything else, she was enveloped in Michael’s arms. She let herself fall against him. He was equally as muscled as Andrew, though from hard work instead of a gym. She slid her hand up the cowboy’s chest and touched his jaw.

  “Careful,” he murmured, carrying her into another room, up a flight of stairs she hadn’t remembered being there. “I doubt you want to be taken against the wall.”

  The silky implications in his voice were enough to make her burn hot with desire. Megan gave him a wry smile. “I’d love it.”

  “Next time, then.”

  The fact that they hadn’t even kissed yet and he was already offering her a next time shocked Megan. She looked up at Michael and remembered how beautiful his smile had been against those beautiful red rocks. She imagined riding into the sunset with him whenever she felt inclined to, and for the first time, it didn’t feel constricting.