by B. B. Hamel
And my life was one wild ride after the next. We took care of Alexei, and when Alexei went to sleep, Vince made my body feel things I thought I’d forgotten. Fortunately Alexei was turning out to be a heavy sleeper, because I couldn’t exactly stay quiet.
And Vince was turning out to be an amazing father. He’d had a lot to learn at first, but he wanted to figure it out and wanted to be there. The biggest part of being a father was just showing up, and Vince did that.
Sure, he still went out with his crew. He still did dangerous things, but I asked him not to tell me the details anymore. I didn’t want to know which of my family members he had killed recently or how close he had come to getting another bullet in him.
I just wanted to be with him. And one day, when he’d stopped using condoms and I’d realized that I didn’t mind, I knew we’d be together forever. Maybe we weren’t married yet, but we were an unconventional couple.
And besides, he kept telling me that a ring was coming. He felt bad that he hadn’t made an honest woman out of me yet.
I didn’t mind. I was just happy I had another of his babies coming. That was better than a wedding or a marriage. It was more real, more binding.
He’d always be mine, and I’d always be his.
Slowly, Alexei stopped crying.
“Now, you be good,” Vince said, putting him back down to play.
He came over to me and wrapped an arm around my waist as we looked down at Alexei.
“Our kid,” he said.
“I know,” I answered softly. “We’ll have more soon.”
“Hey,” he said, and I looked at him.
He held up a little black box.
“Vince,” I said.
“Listen to me,” he said. “I want to make this real. Be my wife.”
“Okay,” I said, laughing. “Okay.”
He opened the box, and the ring was incredible. I slipped it onto my finger and felt something deep inside me.
It was contentment. I was happy, safe, and content.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you too.” He kissed me hard.
I was going to marry the bastard who’d gotten me pregnant. I never thought I’d end up with him, but I couldn’t imagine it any other way.
Because Vince was perfect. Dirty, smart, sexy, exciting, and a great father. We had a comfortable life in the compound, and hopefully one day we’d get a house of our own.
But for now, I was happy. I couldn’t ask for more. I had friends in Nat and Louisa, and I had my family.
After everything, I had finally come home.
In Vince’s arms, with Alexei playing nearby and another baby growing inside me, I was home.
THANK YOU!
Want more steamy bad boy action? Sign up for my no-spam newsletter and claim your FREE copy of Taught today!
Click Here To Sign Up!
You can also join my Street Team and get access to early review copies and much, much more!
Click Here To Sign Up!
Thanks so much for reading this bad boy romance! If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving me a review. That really is the best way you can help new readers find my work, and I would seriously appreciate it.
I want to hear from you! Check out my website at www.bbhamel.com or message me any time: [email protected].
Like my Facebook page! Click here! I post there all the time, so stop by and say hi!
Keep reading for the full text of Smash!
Want more steamy bad boy action? Check out my sexy SEAL novel, SEALed Bride!
I’m going to marry the playboy Navy SEAL for one million dollars.
Nash Bell is sexy, arrogant, and totally filthy. His war memoir is selling like crazy, making him one of the most famous people in the country. But he hates the limelight and needs me to fix his bad boy reputation to help get him back into active duty.
All I have to do is pretend to be his wife, and then I can afford my father’s medical bills.
I know I’m just a tool to him, but I can’t help but let him use me.
I don’t want to lie to America. But the cameras are on all the time and I need to play my role.
It’s strictly business between us. Except for when he whispers how badly he wants my body.
This should be easy. We just need to convince everyone we’re the perfect couple, despite the fact that I think he’s an arrogant a**hole.
Then Nash can leave, and I can help my family.
This should be simple.
So why do I want him to stay?
Click here to read it now on Amazon
Free with Kindle Unlimited!
Or keep reading for the full text of Smash!
Smash: A Stepbrother MMA Romance
1
Alexa
It all started with a mistake.
A big, stupid mistake, but I couldn’t help myself. Not when he grabbed me by the hips and steered me through the doorway, whispering, Come on, be my fake bride. I want to consummate this trip until you can’t stop screaming my name. I was powerless when it came to him, and he knew it. We barely knew each other, but I’d learned enough over the last few days to know that he got what he wanted. I didn’t even bother saying no anymore, because I knew that saying yes would feel so much better. He had deep blue eyes, a perpetual five o’clock shadow, tattoos all over his body, and muscles that just didn’t quit.
Frankly, he was the most attractive man I’d ever seen, let alone touched, and he definitely knew it. Cole was cocky, too cocky, but he had the swagger to back it up.
Come here, girl, he whispered in my ear. You’re going to be my bride of paradise. I’m going to sink my cock deep into that pretty little pussy of yours, right after we say these words.
We didn’t understand what was really happening. The staff didn’t either, but what did they care? They didn’t know what we really were to each other. We were just some stupid tourists, a little drunk on wine, a little drunk on each other. When we asked for the deluxe ceremony, they figured we understood what we were really getting.
They figured we really wanted to be married. Legally married, not just as some stupid joke.
We stood there in front of the priest as he spoke in Thai, a language neither of us knew. The air was thick and humid, even at night, and Cole held my hand the whole time, his eyes drilling holes in mine. We were in paradise, one of the best vacations of my life, even if my best friend had ditched me on the second day for some lawyer she’d just met. I wasn’t going to let it ruin my good time.
It was all fun and games until I met Cole. Then it was much, much more.
Later, much later, his strong body pressed up against mine in the cool white expanse of my bed, our bodies sweating, pleasure rushing through my skull. Is that how you like it, little wife? he whispered into my ear.
Yes. Please.
His fingers moved down between my thighs and did things I’d never felt before.
* * *
“Are you kidding me?” Lacey said, exasperated. “Your dad got married again?”
“Yeah, and this time he didn’t even bother telling me about it.”
I stood with Lacey in line at Starbucks, my backpack heavy from my last day of class. Finals were over and done with, which meant I was headed back home for the summer.
Junior year was finished. I was pretty sure I already had senioritis.
“Typical Frank. Always thinking with his dick.”
“Gross,” I said, laughing. “He’s still my dad, you know.”
“Sorry, but it’s the truth. Your dad is the biggest horndog I’ve ever met.”
“Okay, that’s enough.”
“I know it’s hard to hear, Alex, but it’s the truth. Your father is a grade-A player.”
I sighed, shaking my head. Nobody likes hearing about their parent’s sex life, but unfortunately, in this instance, everything she was saying was the truth. My dad, Frank Miller, was on his third marriage, plus however many girlfriends he’d had ov
er the years. He seemed to constantly go from one “true love” to the next with no real regard for anyone else around him. He insisted that it was different this time, that things were going to last for a long time, but he almost always said that.
I was pretty used to it, though. These new women appeared in my life like a hurricane, trying to be my friend, sometimes trying to be my mom, but they never lasted long. Frank didn’t have “commitment” or “monogamy” anywhere in his vocab, no matter how hard he tried otherwise.
“Yeah, well, I haven’t even met this one yet,” I said.
“Seriously? He got married again and didn’t even invite you to the wedding?”
“Supposedly it was a low-key thing. She’s this high-powered CEO of the company that just bought him out.”
We got to the front of the line and ordered our coffee. As we moved over to wait for the drinks, Lacey gave me a look.
“Her company bought his, and now they’re married? Seems pretty weird.”
I sighed, nodding. “Yeah. It’s some big scandal in the business community or something.”
“Classic Frank.”
“What I don’t understand is why this woman would want to go through all this for him. Don’t get me wrong,” I said quickly, “I love my dad. But who’s worth that much trouble?”
“What a cynic.”
“Like father, like daughter, I guess.”
Lacey laughed as our names were called. We gathered up our caffeine-and-sugar beverages and headed out into the warm afternoon.
I really wasn’t looking forward to going home for the first time in a long time. In years past, going back to my dad’s house in San Francisco was usually pretty great, but for some reason I was dreading meeting his new wife.
I’d heard bad things about her. They were both CEOs of up-and-coming tech firms, and Cindy was supposedly something of a hard ass. Everything I knew about her was either from the mouth of a PR firm or from some gossip rag online, but so far nothing seemed to really paint her in a flattering light.
And yet when Dad called me to tell me about the nuptials, he sounded really happy. For the last few years, his life had been all about work and more work, with the occasional girlfriend of course. But that never seemed to make him happy, just more and more stressed. He needed something in his life to brighten up his days, and if Cindy was doing that for him, well, then I couldn’t get in the way of it.
Still, I didn’t have to be excited to meet another woman that was going to want to be my replacement mother. Or maybe this one was going to want to be my best friend instead. You could never tell until you met them which direction they’d take.
“You’ll be home this summer, right?” I asked her.
“Of course. What else would I do, pay rent?”
I laughed. “Solid point.”
“Between prostituting myself for cash and living with my parents for a few months, I choose parents.”
“Not an easy choice, though.”
“Not at all.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “You get to make your own hours as a hoe. On the flip side, free food is a big bonus.”
We both laughed, and I shook my head at her. I was pretty sure she was genuinely considering becoming a prostitute to avoid going home.
Lacey and I had been best friends all through high school. I moved around a lot when I was younger, because my dad got jobs all over the country. Eventually, though, he wound up at his company Blingo, and we stayed put in San Francisco. I met Lacey my second day of school, and we had been inseparable ever since.
“Well, you know where to find me if you ever need to escape the oppression,” I said.
“Please. You’ll come crawling to me first I bet.”
“How long before I’m knocking on your door? A day?”
“Four hours. Tops.”
The University of California at Berkeley’s campus was more or less empty by the end of the school year, and we didn’t have any trouble finding a prime spot to sit down and watch what few students were left walk by.
“You know,” Lacey said after a few minutes of relaxing silence, “you haven’t mentioned your little problem recently.”
I frowned, sipping my coffee. I hadn’t mentioned it because I was sick of thinking about him. Even though I hadn’t seen him since we’d gotten back from vacation, he hadn’t been too far from my mind at pretty much at all times. Cole the fighter, the cocky asshole, the gorgeous stranger.
And my husband, of course.
Technically, at least.
“Wish I had an update for you,” I said. “Just counting the days until I can legally pronounce him dead.”
“Seriously?”
“No. I wish. I can just push the divorce through without his consent at that point.”
“How long?”
“End of the summer.”
“Have you told your dad yet?”
I snorted. “Yeah, right. And disappoint him? No, thanks.”
“Still, he could probably help you. I bet he has contacts and stuff like that.”
“Maybe, but at this point, why bother? It’s almost over.”
Lacey nudged me, grinning. “You sure you want to divorce him? I mean, I remember what he looked like.”
I thought for a second. Flashes of Cole’s body as he walked from the ocean, dripping salt water, his eyes looking at me both playfully and intensely.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said, not sure at all.
“What a shame. Waste of prime real estate, if you ask me.”
“Who knows if it’s a waste? He’s gone and I’ll never see him again.”
Which was exactly how it was supposed to be. But one stupid night, half drunk on wine and half drunk on each other, we had stumbled into this Vegas-style marriage chapel. Normally, the marriages were just for fun, a kind of fake ceremony to make couples feel good about themselves.
But we ordered the “deluxe” package. Cole said that if we were getting married, then we were doing it right, and how could I argue with him?
What we didn’t know, of course, was that the Deluxe Package meant we were marrying legally. The staff probably did try to explain that at one point, but we were either too giddy to listen or just too stupid.
And so when I got home and tried to register to vote, I got a nice little surprise. In the field for “Marital Status” in the official records website I was browsing, I saw a nice big fat “M.” After a bunch of phone calls, and at least two total meltdowns, I found out that I had been legally married in Thailand to one Mister Cole Redson.
Of course, once I figured it out, I tried to track him down. I tried everything, but Cole Redson basically didn’t exist. I knew he was an MMA fighter, but there were no records of him fighting under that name. I found an old address, but he had moved away from that place a long time ago. I decided not to do too much research about him, because I could tell I was already starting to obsess. I decided I needed to just get the divorce pushed through, with or without him.
Cole Redson had just disappeared. He’d swept into my life during a stupid spring break to Thailand and then had disappeared again, leaving me a married woman and a wreck.
Fortunately, though, all I needed to do was prove that I had tried everything to find him, wait the required amount of time, publish a notice in the newspaper, and then I’d be rid of him. No more husband, no more problems.
“I still can’t believe you actually married him,” Lacey said, probably for the millionth time.
I gave her a look and she grinned at me. “What? I’m just saying.”
“I know. You’ve been saying it for almost a year now,” I grumbled.
She cackled again and I sighed, dipping my head. I knew I deserved the jokes. Frankly, I felt like a total idiot. I mean, how did you end up married without even realizing it? And to a total stranger, apparently one that didn’t even exist?
How stupid did I have to be?
“Anyway,” Lacey said, sipping her drink. “This summer won’t be a tot
al bust, you know? I am making it my mission to get you back on the whores.”
I looked at her. “It’s ‘horse,’ not ‘whores.’”
“No. In this instance it’s definitely ‘whores.’ You need to get laid, and soon.”
I smiled and shook my head. Lacey could think like a guy sometimes.
“I don’t need to get laid, Lace. I’m just in a dry spell.”
“Yeah, a year-long dry spell. Come on, it’s time to make moves. Your husband isn’t really your husband.”
She was right and I knew it. Still, the last year had been busy. I’d switched majors the year before, and so I spent both my semesters overloading my schedule to make up the required credits.
Plus, I felt strange putting myself out there again. The last time I went for a stranger, I ended up married to a guy that may or may not exist. The frat boy douches and college hipsters just didn’t do anything for me, or at least not enough to make me want to step outside my shell.
But my divorce was coming up soon. By the end of the summer I was going to be single again, at least legally speaking.
Cole wasn’t my husband. He never was. How could he be my husband if I didn’t even know where he lived?
“We’ll see,” I mumbled.
“We will see. All those guys you’re going to bang.”
I rolled my eyes as she laughed at her own joke.
I wasn’t looking forward to going home, but maybe it would be good for me. U.C. Berkeley was nice and all, but it wasn’t home.
Maybe I just needed a relaxing summer to get back to myself.
* * *
A few days later, my cab pulled up outside my house. Dad wasn’t home, of course, because he was working late. But he promised he’d be back soon, and with my new stepmother.