Romance: JADEN: An MMA Fighter Romance (Bad Boy Tattoo Romance) (New Adult Pregnancy Short Stories) (29 page)

I narrowed my eyes, trying to think of an adequate answer. I wanted to give him my trust, my reassurance that we would be together through this entire ordeal, no matter what. I wanted to let him know that I would be able to give him the support he needed and that I would not run away. I knew what I wanted now, and I wasn’t afraid to announce it to the world, tightly controlled schedule be damned.

Then it came to me. I smiled, letting it spread across my face slowly as I looked up at him. The early morning light turned him a sort of bronzed color that reminded me of something precious. I placed a hand on his chest and leveled myself upright so that I would be looking at him right side up instead lopsided.

“I was wondering,” I said grinning, “when I can fly again.”

Christian looked at me for a few moments, his brow crinkled. Then it smoothed as understanding hit. He grinned and pulled me back down onto his chest, and I nestled there, feeling completely at peace for the first time in my life. “You can fly anytime you want.”

THE END

©
Copyright 2015 by Maya Grey - All rights reserved.

In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

by Maya Grey

The bar was pandemonium, as most bars located in the central location of any city are on a Friday night. However, Vanessa Crowley was most definitely not the one who was supposed to be in the crowded bar, sipping on a brandy and trying to block out the world.

It simply wasn’t her scene. Vanessa was in her element sitting in a library with her latest cozy mystery or walking around the art gallery that had opened recently situated just a few blocks away. No, on a Friday night, if Vanessa was real with herself, she would have been curled up against her husband’s chest and watching some old Western movie that most likely had John Wayne as the starring actor.

But that would have been two months ago. The options above would have been what Vanessa called P.H. Post Husband. Once she had discovered that Rich was cheating on her, not even with another girl, but with a man, she had instantly gotten him out of her life and her apartment. It seemed much too large, now, and she had taken to leaving it only a few moments after arriving there after getting home from work.

Vanessa had dealt with a particularly melancholy day and had come home to her empty apartment, wanting a kind of comfort that didn’t exist there anymore. Thus, she came to the bar. The drinks seemed to help a bit, though she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she was completely alone in the world.

The next sip of brandy Vanessa attempted to take ended up on her shirt. She glared over at the man who had pushed his elbow into her forearm, but he was already moving on. Every man seemed to move on.

Vanessa let out a sigh and downed the rest of her drink without pretense, feeling the burn go all the way through her and settle somewhere in her stomach, where it became a pleasant sort of warmth. She sighed once more and leaned back, before remembering that the bar stool she was resting on had no back, and she bumped against the warm back of one of the many patrons inhabiting the over-crowded bar.

A third sigh seemed nearly comical, so she kept it in, settling for setting her elbow down much too hard on the bar top and pressing her chin against her hand. The bartender was a man who looked to be about her age, perhaps a few years younger, and she watched him pour drinks as if he had been born into the job for several minutes. He had a fluidity about him that people simply didn’t see anywhere else. He reached for the bottles before even looking, sliding glasses along the table with a precision that took years to perfect. Vanessa should know; she’d been a bartender for the vast majority of her twenties. She made a mental note to give the man a tip that went above and beyond normalcy. He deserved it.

Just as she was mentally calculating the tip, adjusting figures as she continued to watch his superb work, someone slid into the bar stool next to her.

Vanessa ignored him. She could smell his spicy cologne, oddly different and not at all oppressing as every other cologne had seemed to be these past few days and months. It was too much like Rich’s scent, and she couldn’t deal with those memories, not right now.

“Howdy.”

The voice was low, low enough to send tingles down Vanessa’s spine, and that southern drawl was sweet enough to make sugar seem pale in comparison. She didn’t even twitch an eyelash. Men were on a very firm no list for the month. Or perhaps year.

“You look as if you’re in need of a good drink, honey,” the man continued.

I don’t see you, so you won’t see me. It was child’s logic, but Vanessa couldn’t help but employing it. Perhaps if she ignored him, he would simply leave. “Bartender,” she called instead.

The young man glanced up, a smile lifting his lips slightly as he glanced over at her.

“Can I get another?” she held up her empty glass. He nodded and made quick work of pouring her next drink.

“I’ll have what the lady is having,” the man Vanessa was avoiding looking at said easily, as if he wasn’t being completely ignored. Already, Vanessa knew two things about this man: he was cocky, and he was handsome. No man who was unattractive could speak so candidly to a woman who refused to even look at him.

Vanessa sighed. If he was going to have a drink while sitting directly beside her, there was no chance that she could shake him so easily. Vanessa steeled her nerves and glanced over at the man.

She obviously hadn’t steeled them enough. She had expected a slightly good-looking man, one who was the kind of easily good-looking that came with birth. One that got the ladies, but wasn’t the type of man who people stared at across the streets and in cafes. Vanessa had never seen one of those men in the flesh.

Well, that was a lie now. This man was made of the kind of symmetry that would make an artist cry. With coal black hair that she could hardly see peeking out of the cowboy hat and eyes that may have been a light green or perhaps a blue. She couldn’t tell because of the lack of proper lighting as well as the way his hat was pulled low over his face. The man was clad in a plaid shirt that was open two buttons down the front, just enough for Vanessa to catch a glimpse of pronounced collarbones as he shifted around to face her. The slight smile that tugged at his full and utterly sinful lips was more than overkill; it made her want to alternately throw herself at him and run away.

Shit. This was getting out of hand fast, and she didn’t even know his name yet. Vanessa told herself to look away; she tried exceptionally hard to tear her gaze away from the cowboy’s magnetic maybe-green-maybe-blue eyes and focus on the bartender once more, but she found that it was impossible. It was as if someone had hot glued their gazes together, and there was no way that she was able to get away, because she hadn’t been able to in the first few seconds when she was still able to.

The bartender slammed the two shot glasses down in front of the pair, effectively breaking the magnetic force that had been between them. Vanessa let out a sigh and downed her drink in one quick gulp. The alcohol made her dizzier than expected, and Vanessa wondered if she really should have taken another drink. She tended to do things that she would regret at a later time when she drank. Especially with handsome men who were giving her their full attention. Rich had never focused his full attention on her; Vanessa realized that now. She had never had such a great amount of focus put on her, not even when they had been having serious conversations such as when to get married and where to go on the honeymoon.

And they weren’t even talking yet.

“She hears,” the man drawled eventually, after what felt like a small eternity. It had been in those eternal heartbeats that Vanessa had completely lost her resolve to ignore this stranger. “I thought that you were hard of hearing.”

Vanessa opened her mouth to say something, anything, but her mind was blank. What does one say to such a statement? “I’m Vanessa,” she eventually said, sticking out her hand much too quickly and accidentally elbowing a patron in the back. He turned around and yelled something offensive at her over the loud music that had begun playing in the background; she didn’t even bother to listen to it. The cowboy glanced over her shoulder, frowning a bit—which created the most beautiful crease between his eyebrows, she noted—before taking her hand. His skin was dry and warm, nearly chapped, but Vanessa found that she liked the rough feel. Rich had always taken great care to keep his hands soft and perfectly groomed. Vanessa kicked herself for not realizing what that meant earlier. There had been the little signs all over the place; the way he always wore his snakeskin shoes and stared at guys’ asses almost as much as Vanessa did. The way he spoke, even, should have been a clue. But she had blindly ignored them all, thinking that Rich had loved her.

Stop thinking about Rich, Vanessa thought. Think about trying to deal with the current situation. “Zeke,” he replied casually, as if she hadn’t just switched topics completely. “Zeke DePriest.”

DePriest. That name was a famous one in their little Southern town. The DePriests owned almost half of the entire town, not to mention many outsourced companies. How on earth had one of their sons straggled off and become a cowboy? The chaps that clung to his hips for dear life did not look fake in the least, nor did the spurs that adorned his genuine leather boots. This was no cowboy wannabe. He was the real deal. Living in the south had given Vanessa a lot of time to learn the difference between people who actually lived on a farm and those who wished that they did. “A pleasure,” Vanessa said, and then winced. That was what her mother had taught her to say in response to meeting someone new, but with this man, the word ‘pleasure’ hung in the air like a taboo, feeling almost like a caress.

Vanessa most definitely did not miss the spark of interest that lit Zeke’s maybe-blue-maybe-green eyes. She groaned inwardly. Yes, he might be sex incarnated into man, and yes, he may have had the most beautiful accent she had ever heard, but he was still a man. Vanessa was not ready for men, not yet; no matter how pretty they happened to be.

“This place is crowded,” Zeke observed. Vanessa nodded, using her ample hip to nudge a skinny woman out of the way. The blonde shot her a dirty look and mouthed something at her that she didn’t quite catch over the sudden change of song. Vanessa just smiled, the kind of saccharine sweet smile that was reserved for truly annoying things, and the girl finally backed away, going to her own spot at the bar. Vanessa saw her check Zeke out and then give her a scornful glance. She felt a spark of rage light her belly. Yes, she might not be skinny and perfect, but she could most likely out-personality that skinny bimbo any day.

“Do you want to get out?” Zeke asked, slinging a thumb over his shoulder at the door. Vanessa wanted that more than anything, she really did, but she wasn’t sure what it would mean leaving with Zeke. Weren’t bars the places you left with strangers for one night stands? She started to open her mouth to say no, and then looked over his body again and frowned. Maybe a one night stand was what she needed. She could certainly use the break from reality. The fantasy that such a perfect man would ever want her would keep her going on in bed for years to come when it was just her and her thoughts. Vanessa glanced up at Zeke and noted the crooked smile that tilted one corner of his lip up. Oh, yes. She nodded, swinging herself off of the bar stool and picking up her purse from where she had stowed it underneath. She slapped a ten onto the counter and a couple of ones for the tip. The bartender nodded his thanks, flashing her a grin and a thumbs up after Zeke’s back was turned. Vanessa blushed to the roots of her hair and well down onto her neck. Was it so obvious what she was doing?

The crowd parted for Zeke like the Red Sea for Moses. He had a gravity around him that immediately alerted people to his presence. Whereas Vanessa had to struggle to get through the wake that he left, he effortlessly parted the crowd as if it were butter. Vanessa briefly wondered what on earth she was getting herself into—what would a man want with a girl like her, after all?—and then decided to store that thought into the deep padlocked box in her mind that held everything else she couldn’t deal with. Vanessa was pretty sure that the box wasn’t bottomless, but she was willing to stuff as many things into it as possible before finding out.

After much pushing and shoving, and many nasty glares, Vanessa made it to the door and shoved it open into the cool night air. It had grown darker since she had come into the bar. She was surprised by how much time had passed while she had been in the bar. Maybe a good two hours, or perhaps a bit more. Vanessa had thought that it would have been long and drawn out, drinking alone, but people watching and bartender watching apparently was the answer to making the night at the bar go faster. Vanessa stowed that little tidbit of information in the part of her brain that kept useful information that would make her life easier.

Vanessa walked behind Zeke for several minutes, contemplating how to best get out of this situation. The further they got from the comfort of the bar, the more Vanessa realized that she didn’t know Zeke very well. She was hardly drunk enough to leave the bar with some stranger. Who knew, perhaps the crazily good-looking man was secretly a serial killer that no one had ever caught. What if he would—

Vanessa’s thought process screeched to a halt. Zeke had stopped in front of a car that did not belong in the dingy little parking lot of the bar. All of the other cars were in some sort of disarray, or were old enough to be called Vanessa’s parents. Not Zeke’s car. Apparently the cowboy had not been cut off from the family money, because Vanessa didn’t know any cowboys who had the ability to drive a Lamborghini. Not just any Lamborghini, either. The best one on the market. The makers had only made about four of them worldwide, and they were a commodity. The fact that this one was sitting in Vanessa’s hometown seemed like a cruel joke. She would look again and it would be a different model—hell, a different car. But even as Vanessa blinked and discreetly pinched the inside of her wrist, she knew that there was no deceit. This was the real deal.

Billionaire cowboy. Vanessa could get down with that. Said cowboy was watching her, a slow grin spreading across his face. “I take it you know what this is.”

Vanessa rattled off the specs without thinking. Rich had been a huge car fan—the faster the better—and she had picked up a great deal about him. Zeke raised an eyebrow, grin widening.

“You know your cars,” he said.

“My—“ It would be incredibly weird to bring up an ex in this type of situation, Vanessa thought, catching herself just in time before quite possibly ruining this entire ordeal. “Friend,” she continued haltingly, “was obsessed. He loved anything that could accelerate from zero to sixty in under five seconds.”