Crash: A Bad Boy MMA Romance by Haylee Delane Page B

asked, turning away.
    “Maybe. Maybe not,” I heard him say from behind me, the feeling of his hot gaze on my ass. I shook my head. This had to end.

Chapter Eleven
     
    I stood on the beach, watching her walk away. That woman was too fucking fine for my own good. What she’d said about Don’s will threw me off. I’d never expected him to leave me his money. He didn’t know me. I was just some man off the street who showed up at his doorstep with a letter. Even with the DNA test, I wasn’t really his son. He hadn’t raised me.
    Still, Don was acting like a real standup guy. I’d expected to come out here and punch him in the face. But instead, he’d taken me into his life and apologized for the sins of his past.
    I didn’t want to disappoint the man. It wasn’t because of the money. I couldn’t give two shits about Don’s money. I had some bank saved up and a career of my own. I could get by. That wasn’t a problem.
    The fact that Don would put me in his will made me look up to the guy. Maybe after all this time, it would be nice to have a father figure of some kind. Not that I really needed a father at this point in my life. But everybody could use somebody. I wanted to learn everything there was to know about the man who’d sired me. Maybe if I could learn from his mistakes, it would help me from making my own.
    Harper seemed convinced that in order to do that, we couldn’t have anything to do with each other. That, I wasn’t cool with. I wanted that girl more than I could even understand. She haunted my every thought. I’d never had a woman distract me like this before. I’d never had a woman distract me at all before.
    I was pretty sure that if I fucked her again, I could get her out of my mind. I had just been high from winning the championship, and she’d been so sweet and innocent. I’d been caught up in the moment as much as she had. Now it was tattooed on my brain.
    I figured the only way to remove that deep an impression was to have a replay. It probably wouldn’t be as hot the second time. Then I could just put it behind me like I did every other lay I’d ever had in my entire fucking life.
    Don didn’t need to know. Nobody needed to know. Somehow, I’d get that girl back in my bed. I’d fuck her brains out one more time and then move on. With that decided, I followed her up the beach. She’d already disappeared into the house. She needed some time to simmer down, and I’d let her have it. But the sooner I got out from under her spell, the better.
    I had shit to take care of. My mom’s funeral arrangements were not a picnic. And I was already training again at a gym downtown. I’d been invited onto the local team and my trainer was pushing me hard to get back into shape. The bender I’d been on since I found out about my mom had made me slow, and I needed to get my shit together if I wanted to win any titles now that I was back in the good ol’ US of A.
    Fighting was my life. There was nothing like dominating an opponent in the ring, clashing against another man to the edge of consciousness. The feel of my fist against some motherfucker’s face, the taste of blood in my mouth, the roar of the crowd in my ears. The smell of sweat and blood. The crack of bones under my hand or foot or knee. It was all so fucking brutally beautiful.
    I couldn’t let my despair or shame get me off course. I usually drank very little during the season, but I’d let it get out of hand lately. Losing my mom so suddenly like that had left a big, empty hole in my chest, and I didn’t know how to fill it. All this time, the vision of Harper’s beautiful face haunted me like an angel or a demon.
    The only answer was to fight and fuck. I’d let everything else sort itself out later. I trotted up the steps towards the beach house and turned onto the patio through the sliding glass door that led into a sitting room. Don and Harper’s mother Christie were there, sitting together in an affectionate