Bad Boy's Honor: An MMA Bad Boy Romance

by Ashe, Jessica

  Our lips eventually broke apart for air, but I didn’t let go of her head, keeping her mouth less than an inch from mine. We both gasped and panted for air, as I pressed my body against hers, letting her feel my eagerness bursting through my pants.

  My hand stroked the back of her thigh, until I reached the hemline of her skirt. I pulled it up and took a firm hold of her ass, pushing myself against her in the process.

  “I want you, April,” I groaned, as my fingertips moved down her ass crack towards her sweet folds. She gasped as my fingers lightly pressed against her asshole, and then moved on to her pussy, where I teased open the lips and found the entrance to paradise. “I want another night with you. How many times do I have to tell you?”

  She kept her back to the door, but her hand fumbled with the key in the lock until she finally got it open.

  The door opened.

  This was it. After nine slow months without her, I would now go back to the sweet ecstasy that lie between her legs.

  “No,” she mumbled quietly. “I’m sorry. This can’t happen.”

  She backed away from me, my fingers torn from her soft skin, as she walked into her apartment and closed the door behind her, taking my hopes of a beautiful night with her.

  I rested my head against her door trying to think of anything that would direct blood away from my penis.

  Zach. That did the trick nicely.

  I left and headed home. I’d fucked it up. April wanted me—or at least, she wanted my body—but that wasn’t enough for someone like her. All women wanted me to fuck them, and usually that was it. But not April. She needed more than that in a man.

  She needed something I couldn’t give her. I just wished I knew what it was.

  ~Twenty~

  APRIL

  Working at Foster’s law firm did have some advantages. Summer associates were paid the same amount as first-year associates which meant I had gone from being a student having to live off loans to cover my living expenses, to suddenly earning $3,000 a week.

  Even after tax, I earned more in a week than I ever had in a month before now. I’d always been embarrassed by my bank account, and I still was, but for a very different reason.

  The amount of money Arrington & Hedges paid me was absurd, but it’s not like I was going to give it back. Besides, it meant I could fly home to New York without having to worry about paying for the ticket or asking Dad for money, and right now what I really needed more than anything else in the world was to spend the weekend with Dad.

  I texted him to let him know I was heading home and he replied telling me to go straight to Kathleen’s New York place. I guess that meant he was living there full-time now. I couldn’t really blame him. Given a choice between living in a mansion, or a small three-bedroom house that was falling apart, I would take the mansion as well.

  Dad suspected something was wrong the second I’d told him about my visit. He usually had to beg me to come home, and I wasn’t one for surprise visits. I put a brave face on—easy enough to do via text message—and told him I just wanted to get away from the stress of work for the weekend.

  There was some truth to that. I wanted to get away from the office, because the office reminded me of Foster. So did my apartment. I couldn’t spend any time in my bedroom without having flashbacks to that night nine months ago, and even the hallway now reminded me of a kiss I would rather forget.

  Foster’s touch made me weak at the knees. It didn’t matter where on my body he touched me. This time he’d gone to my thigh and ass, but he could just as easily have held my hand or touched my back, he would have gotten the same reaction from me; a racing heart and a dripping wet sex.

  The second I saw Dad, I couldn’t keep up the pretense any longer. I looked up at him as he opened the door, smiled, and then burst into tears.

  Dad laughed and brought me in for a hug.

  “What’s so funny?” I sobbed.

  “You used to do that when you were a kid and you’d done something naughty,” Dad replied. “You’d look up at me just as I was about to tell you off, and then you’d burst into tears.”

  “I remember.”

  “I’m sure you did it just so that I wouldn’t punish you.”

  “It usually worked,” I said, smiling. Dad and I went into the living room, and sat down on one of the soft leather sofa. “Is Kathleen around?”

  “No, she’s gone out to run some errands. We have time to talk. Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

  “I’m not sure I can talk to you about it.”

  “Boy trouble?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about Foster right now, and I didn’t think that was what had me so upset anyway. I wanted Foster and he wanted me. I’d felt that much digging into my stomach when we kissed. Why couldn’t I let him in?

  “Girl problems?” Dad guessed.

  “You really want to talk about girl problems?” I joked.

  “Well, it depends what they are. I have a small selection of speeches I can offer you based on what I’ve read in women’s magazines. Let’s see, are you having your first period?”

  I laughed. “No, Dad, we’re a little way past that one.”

  “Ah, okay. Is your period late?”

  “Nope.”

  “Thank God for that. I think that’s all I have memorized. Tell you what, why don’t you describe the problem and I’ll try to improvise?”

  Where did I start? I wasn’t happy at work. I was earning a small fortune. Dad would be giddy if he ever earned half of what they were paying me right now. But the work felt shallow and dry.

  The only piece of work that seemed vaguely interesting and might have helped people was fighting the PorTupe fraud, but Foster had stopped me going anywhere near that. All because we had to keep the client happy, even when the client was a company run by awful people.

  “Did Mom enjoy her job?” I asked.

  Dad hesitated before answering, which I hadn’t been expecting. “I’m not sure she enjoyed the work so much as she thrived off the pressure. She wouldn’t have given it up for the world, but saying she enjoyed it is probably going a bit too far. We didn’t talk about work much to be honest.”

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t understand what she did, and she would often get stressed out just talking about it.”

  “She always seemed so happy when she spoke to me. Mom made it sound like the best job in the world, but now that I’m doing it I’m not so sure.”

  Dad smiled and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Have you ever asked a kid what they want to be when they grow up?”

  “Yes, I guess so. Why?”

  “They always give crazy answers, don’t they? Like astronaut, or fireman, or actor. Do you know what you used to say when you were a kid?” I shook my head. “You said you wanted to be a lawyer like Mommy.”

  I smiled. I couldn’t remember having said that, but it sounded like the kind of thing I would say. “Maybe the dream is better than the reality. I don’t want to just be a lawyer. I want to be a great lawyer, like Mom.”

  “I know. And your mother always wanted to support you in that dream. But if you remember, she also always told you to find your own path. She told you to consider other areas of law. You don’t have to do corporate law to make your mom proud, April. Hell, you don’t have to do law at all if you don’t want to.”

  “Mom made it look so easy.”

  “Yeah, she did didn’t she. Your mother was quite the actress at times. She certainly had me fooled.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I looked up into Dad’s eyes and could see he was struggling to hold back tears as well. He always got emotional whenever we talked about Mom, but I’d never seen him cry before. He’d always been strong in front of me.

  “April,” Dad said softly, as he removed his arm from my shoulders, and turned around to look at me. “I need to tell you the truth about the accident that killed your mom.”

  ~Twenty-One~
<
br />   APRIL

  The truth?

  “I already know what happened, Dad. Mom died in a car crash.”

  “Yes, she did. But I kept some of the facts from you.”

  “Why?” What other facts could be important? My mom had been killed. Surely everything else paled into insignificance in comparison to that?

  “Do you remember what life was like in the months before your mother died?”

  I’d been sixteen when Mom died. Old enough to have reached the terrible teens with full force and effect. I’d spent more time arguing with my parents than talking to them, but all kids did that.

  Dad had long ago convinced me that I didn’t need to feel guilty for the way I’d acted towards Mom in the months before her death. From my point of view, I’d been a completely ungrateful bitch, but to Mom and Dad I’d just been a sulky teenager. Apparently they even used to laugh about it, because I was living up to such a cliché stereotype.

  “I’d been a bit moody,” I replied. “I don’t remember why.”

  “A bit moody?” Dad said with a laugh. “That’s the understatement of the century. Yes, you were a bit difficult to live with, however you weren’t the only one with issues.”

  “You and Mom fought a few times,” I said, as I remembered hearing them argue through the thin walls.

  I usually had headphones on in my room because Dad got annoyed at the loud music, but sometimes I just lay on the bed and thought about boys from school. That’s when I’d hear the arguments. I couldn’t tell what they were arguing about, but it was impossible to ignore the angry, raised voices.

  “Yes,” Dad admitted. “There were arguments.”

  “Were you going to break up?”

  “God no, nothing like that. We both loved each other very much. The rows were just because of the stress your mother was under. She started working later and later, often not coming home until midnight or the early hours of the morning.”

  “That’s the job,” I said. “I’ve experienced that already. When there’s a big deal going down in the office, people start working all the hours available to get it finished.”

  “I know. I’m not completely insensitive to what she had to go through at work. However, when one big deal finished, another would start, and before you knew it she was working like that non-stop.”

  “I didn’t realize,” I said softly. Of course I didn’t; I was too consumed with myself to pay attention to what my mother was going through. No doubt I’d been obsessed with some boy whose name I couldn’t even remember anymore.

  “Good,” Dad said. “We didn’t want you to worry about it. I tried to convince your mother to take a step back, and maybe even move jobs if necessary. We didn’t need all that money, but your mom was an incredibly ambitious woman.”

  “I remember. She wanted to become managing partner one day.”

  “And she would have as well, of that I have no doubt. When your mother wanted something she got it.”

  “Like you?” I joked.

  “Yes, like me,” Dad said. “I was quite the catch back in the day. Your mother wasn’t the only lady lining up for a bit of—”

  “Okay Dad, I believe you. But what does all this have to do with Mom’s death?”

  The smile quickly disappeared from Dad’s face. He’d let himself get sidetracked to delay having to break the news as long as possible.

  “In the week leading up to the crash, things at work were absolutely crazy. I always liked to wait up for her, but she was getting in at one or two in the morning every day, including weekends. She often came home looking like a zombie.”

  “I can’t imagine Mom looking haggard,” I said. “She always looked radiant to me. Perhaps that’s just the way I like to remember her.”

  “I think it just goes to show the wonders of modern makeup.”

  “If she was still alive, she’d kill you for that comment.”

  Dad smiled. “Yeah, she would, at that. I told her to work from home, but it wasn’t so easy to do it in those days.”

  “Even now you have to show your face in the office all the time or people don’t believe you’re working.”

  “I can believe that. Law firms are so slow to evolve. Anyway, on the day of the accident, your mom left for work looking more exhausted than I’d ever seen her. She looked dead on her feet. I actually cried that morning. It was like she was dying slowly in front of my eyes.”

  “I never even noticed,” I whispered guiltily. “I had slept in that day. You had to wake me up to tell me what had happened.”

  Dad shook his head. “The accident didn’t happen on her way to work. I know I told you it did, but that’s not what happened.”

  “It’s not?”

  “No. At just gone four o’clock in the morning, your mom drove onto the wrong side of the road and slammed straight into an oncoming car. Fortunately the other driver survived, but your mom was killed instantly.”

  “It was her fault, wasn’t it?” I asked. Dad nodded. “You told me she’d been hit by a kid driving too fast.”

  “I lied. She fell asleep at the wheel. At least, that’s what we think happened. There were no drink or drugs in her system, and she hadn’t been using her phone. She was exhausted. The job had driven her to the edge, and she’d toppled over.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You worshiped your mom,” Dad said. “After the accident, you suddenly became studious and worked hard because you ‘wanted to make Mom proud.’ By the time I realized that meant you would become a lawyer as well, it was too late for me to say anything.”

  A year ago, Dad’s revelation would have come as a huge shock, but now, after seeing what life was like at large law firms, I completely believed it. Mom had been made partner in record time, and you didn’t achieve that by working nine to five, Monday to Friday.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I muttered.

  “Do you hate me for keeping this from you?”

  “No, of course not.” I gave my Dad a hug, which he looked like he desperately needed right now.

  “I don’t want you to think any less of your mom. She was still a remarkable woman.”

  “I know. And I don’t. She didn’t do it on purpose. It’s almost a relief to know she wasn’t superhuman.”

  “She can still be your hero, sweetie.”

  “She is. And so are you.”

  Dad wrapped his arm around me again and for a few minutes I just rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes.

  Over the last ten years, I’d been so obsessed with making Mom proud of me that I’d never given a second thought to what would make Dad proud. He was the one who’d raised me by himself for the last of those teenage years, and supported me through college and now law school.

  “Maybe I should give some more thought to my choice of career,” I said, still laying on Dad’s shoulder.

  “You don’t want to be a lawyer any more?”

  “I’m not sure. I do enjoy legal writing, I just don’t like the work I’m doing at the moment.”

  “Well don’t rush into anything. You’ve spent a long time following this dream; don’t ditch it on the spur of the moment.”

  “I won’t.”

  I heard someone coming down the stairs and looked up expecting to see Kathleen. It wasn’t her.

  “Foster?”

  “Hi.” He stood in the doorway, as if unsure about coming into his own living room.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m hanging out with some old friends this weekend and didn’t fancy staying in a hotel.”

  Dad removed his arm from my shoulder, and stood up, yawning and stretching himself out as he did so. Dad always did that when he’d been sitting for a while. He’d never have been suited to an office job where you spent most of your time with your ass in a chair.

  “I’ll leave you kids to it,” Dad said as he stretched his neck from side-to-side.

  What did he mean by that? Leave us to it? Surely
he couldn’t know about what had happened between us? I hadn’t even mentioned Foster yet.

  “Actually, Mr. Rhodes,” Foster said politely, “I’d like to speak to you for a moment if I may.”

  “Uh, okay, sure. But call me Pierce.”

  “Pierce,” Foster said reluctantly, as if trying out a foreign word on his tongue. “I need to apologize. For my behavior last time I was here.”

  Dad looked down at me with a bemused expression on his face. I shrugged in response. I was as surprised as he was.

  “Are you feeling okay, Foster?” I asked. “You’re in danger of sounding like a reasonable person.”

  “April,” Dad scolded. “Don’t be rude. It’s not easy for Foster to apologize.”

  “I am sorry,” Foster said sincerely. “I shouldn’t have said those things about you just being with Mom for her money.”

  “So you don’t think that anymore?” Dad asked.

  “Oh yes, I still think you’re just marrying her for the money. But I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “That’s a shitty apology,” I snapped. “Why even bother?”

  Dad just laughed. I loved how easy going he was, but I wished he would get mad sometimes as well.

  “Calm down, April,” Dad said. “Foster can’t help what he thinks. The important thing is that he’s polite.” Dad turned his attention back to Foster. “I don’t care if you don’t like me, I just want you to act like you do in front of your mother because it means a lot to her that we get on.”

  “That sounds fair,” Foster said.

  “No it doesn’t,” I yelled. “Dad’s not like that. I don’t know why you think so badly of him.”

  “It’s human nature, April,” Dad said soothingly. “My in-laws hated me for years before I finally won them round.”

  “They did?”

  “God yes. When your mother brought me back to meet them, they thought she was just going through a phase. I was her ‘bit of rough.’ ”