Bucking Bear (Pounding Hearts #3) (11 page)

“I hope not. I want her to have so many more than meeting some fighter.”

We are quiet as we travel to the airport.

Pulling up to the departure doors, I shake Claire’s hand. “Thank you for this, ma’am. If you guys ever need me again, just call. I promise I will be there as soon as I can. And if Krissy’s family needs anything, please tell me. Anything.”

“I will, Max, and thank you for helping.”

T
he plane ride
home is thankfully quiet and fast. I couldn’t really think of much on the flight. I don’t know why but the window kept my attention for most of the time. I’m not even sure what I was thinking. Somewhere in the clouds, I thought about the whole trip and just let my mind wander.

Halfway to home I get a text.

M
e
: Yep, it’s me.

I
send
a picture back of me smiling. This is probably the first selfie I have ever taken, and I am pretty sure it shows in the odd smile I give.

M
e
: How come you’re still awake?

A
rriving home
, I walk straight into the kitchen and open the cabinet above fridge. I pull the bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label down. I don’t drink that often, but right now I need to feel the burn as it hits my throat and goes down to my stomach.

Looking down at my phone I see the text from Grace.

G
race
: You were right.

W
ell
, no shit. I told her I know how guys are.

I
set
the bottle of whiskey down. I am glad it wasn’t much. I really needed to taste something beyond the ashes I have in my mouth.

Driving over to her house, I am still lost in my own mind. Somewhere in there I think of a dying girl and how unfair that is.

Pulling up in front of Graces house, I see her standing there in a fuzzy robe and PJ bottoms. Getting out of the vehicle, I leave the door open as I stride right up to her.

“What’s wrong, Max?”

I must have a look on my face. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know what I am feeling right now. So I do the one thing I can think of. I reach down and wrap my arms around her. Lifting her up, I hug her as tightly as I can.

“Oh.” She says quietly in my ear as I hold onto her.

M
ax hugs
me for the longest time. We just stand here, on my parent’s front stoop. There are no words because there’s no comfort in them. At a time like this words are empty, hollow little things. Faint echoes of the things we’re really feeling.

There’s only comfort in touch, in the affirmation that we exist. We are more than pain and ache, grounded by touching another human being.

He needs me, and something inside me needs him to need me.

Once he’s done hugging me, we move to his car. I sit with him, beside him, just holding his hand and giving him my company. After some time, I try to invite him inside.

I tell him I could sneak him into my room and hide him under my bed if my parents came knocking. He declines and kisses me goodnight but there’s a glint of laughter in his eyes before he drives away.

Walking back inside, the house is quiet. Everyone is sleeping.

Quietly, I tiptoe my way to Hope’s room. She’s already kicked her blanket off, it’s lying on the floor in a heap. Picking her blanket up, I carefully draw it up, tucking it around her little body.

In her sleep she’s so beautiful, so peaceful. An angel in repose.

My chest aches at the thought of ever losing her, of someone or something taking her away. She’s my world. She’s my everything.

Sitting on the edge of her bed, I spend a good deal of my night just watching her, thanking whatever higher being that’s up there for giving her to me.

I
didn’t get much sleep
last night so today I’m dragging. Just getting Hope up and ready for school saps up all of my energy. She, on the other hand, is a bouncing ball of endless energy. I’m grateful she has school today because otherwise there’s no way I could keep up with her.

After I drop her off, I drive straight home for a nap before I have to pick her up. Usually I use the time she’s in school to get things done around the house that are impossible to do when she’s around—like cleaning—but today that’s not happening. I’m too tired.

After my nap, I pick her up, and because she’s still all worked up from school I decide to take her to the park for an hour. It’s pure chance that I notice a beige car pull out behind me when we leave her preschool and follow us all the way to the playground. After I park, the car drives on past so I figure it must be just coincidence. I’m probably being overly paranoid but something about it triggered my mommy radar.

Taking a seat on a bench, I keep a close eye on Hope as she plays while I text Max through my phone. He’s training today and he already has so much on his mind I don’t bother to mention the car to him. After agreeing to have dinner with him tonight on my break, I gather up Hope and drive us home.

The rest of the week passes mercifully drama-free. On the nights I have to work, Max comes into Thursdays to have dinner with me on my break. I’ve gotten into the habit of having the cooks prepare his food in a special way for him so it doesn’t fuck with his training too much. Lots of clean protein and whatever fresh vegetables I set aside for him.

On the nights I’m not working, we have dinner at his place. Each day it gets harder and harder to say good night to him. It just feels like there’s never enough time, and I know we both would rather be saying good morning.

This weekend, though, is Carson’s weekend. For once he’s actually adhering to the drop off time and location—six o’clock at his house.

“I don’t want to go to Carson’s,” Hope whines from my backseat. “I want to stay with you and Bear.”

I sigh and give her a pointed look through the rearview mirror. “Don’t call him Carson, honey…”

Hope’s lips purse into an epic pout and she crosses her arms over her chest. “But that’s what he tells me to call him.”

I jerk a little in surprise. “Does he?”

Hope nods her head and honestly I don’t want to believe her but she’s rarely dishonest with me. Don’t get me wrong, she’s told some pretty gnarly fibs in her lifetime but it’s usually obvious when she’s lying about something.

“Did he say why?”

Her pout only deepens, and she shakes her head.

I stare out my windshield wondering how or if I should even bring it up to him.

We’re two turns away from Carson’s street and I’m still chewing it over when Hope asks out of nowhere. “Do you think Bear would let me call him Daddy?”

Thank goodness I’m sitting at a red light. If we were moving I probably would have hit a tree or something.

Getting my heartbeat under control, I wait until the light turns green and we’re rolling forward before telling her. “Max isn’t your daddy.”

“But I want him to be,” she whines.

I don’t even know how to respond to that so I don’t. I pull into Carson’s driveway and send him a quick text letting him know I’m here. He comes out of the house and I help Hope out of my backseat before unhooking her booster seat.

“Hey,” Carson calls out in greeting.

Lugging the booster seat out of my backseat, I plop it to the ground. “Hey,” I nod back at him.

Hope shifts from foot to foot and when I give her a pointed look she just pouts back at me.

Carson steps up to Hope and spreads his arms open as if he’s expecting a hug. Hope turns her back to him.

“Hope!” I scold. Her arms cross over her chest and her chin drops so far down she’s poking herself in the ribs with it.

“She’s in a bad mood today…” I say apologetically and Carson nods as if he gets it before he looks down at the booster seat.

“I don’t need that this time.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“I bought my own.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, it’s hooked up in my backseat.”

Picking up the booster seat, Carson jumps forward and grabs it from my hand. “Here, let me get that for you.”

I have to take a step back as he hooks it back up in my backseat for me and then there’s this sudden awkwardness between us when he’s done.

“Thank you,” I finally say, breaking the silence. Glancing down at my phone, I check the time. “I should probably get going…”

“You wanna come inside for a little bit?” Carson asks.

I shake my head and bend down, opening my arms for Hope. “May I have a hug before I leave?”

Hope steps into my arms and hugs me like she never wants to let go. I practically have to pry her little arms off of me after kissing her on the head goodbye.

Carson tells her to, “Go in the house. I’ll be there in a minute. I need to talk to your mommy.”

Hope looks to me, seeking my permission. I nod my head and straighten. She spins on her heel and takes off running.

Once she’s inside, Carson takes a step towards me and I brace myself.

“What do you have planned this weekend?” he tries to ask casually but there’s this angry glint in his eyes.

I shrug. “I’m not sure yet.”

“Going to meet up with your MMA thug?”

I look him dead in the eye. There’s no use beating around the bush on this, I don’t want him to think I’m leading him on or something. “Probably.”

His nostrils flare and his jaw tenses. I know he wants to say something but he’s restraining himself.

I decide to do exactly what Hope did and give him my back. Opening my car door, I toss him a quick wave and then slide inside. He just stands there, in the driveway, watching me as I back out.

There’s something about it that’s very creepy.

If there wasn’t a court order, and I knew it wouldn’t make things worse, I’d stop the car, grab Hope and take her with me.

“
A
re you okay
?” Max asks me over the lovely dinner he cooked for us.

I tell him I am but he gives me a look like he knows I’m lying.

I don’t want to ruin our first weekend together but I’m bothered about leaving Hope with Carson. After our
“date”
Sunday I don’t fucking trust him, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t just go to a judge and ask him to break the custody agreement because her father wants to get back together and he’s giving me the creeps.

Carson has every right to have access to his daughter. And for the longest time I was so for it, I so wanted him to be there for her… until now. Now I just get the feeling I’ve been wasting my time trying to mold him into the man I wanted him to be. I’ve been totally refusing to face reality.

When you add up all the stuff Hope has told me with all the stuff I already know—him not wanting her to call him daddy, him not feeding her breakfast, him constantly dropping her off early, him not even wanting to have a booster seat in his car for her, him getting angry and grabbing me… It all equals up to one thing—Carson is an asshole.

And I have to hand my little girl over to him every other weekend. If I don’t, if I fail to follow the terms of our custody agreement, I risk losing her to him completely.

“Come here,” Max growls and scoots his chair back from the table.

Standing up, I walk around his kitchen table and sit down on his lap. His arms wrap around me and he nuzzles his fuzzy face into my neck. Lips kissing me, I melt against him. It’s impossible not to relax into his touch.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

I sigh and turn my face into his warm shoulder. I hate to put my problems on him, he’s already got so much to deal with himself.

When I don’t answer, he growls and scrapes his teeth against my neck.

With a yelp, I try to pull away but his arms tense up.

“What’s wrong?”

I sigh.

“Grace,” he rumbles ominously.

Fine, if he really wants to know… “Carson is a douchebag.”

“You just now figuring that out?”

I shake my head and bury my face against his shoulder again. He’s so warm and he smells so good. His scent is crisp and spicy, there’s something about it that makes me think of pine trees and winter.

“Did he do something?”

“Besides buy a booster seat for his car? No,” I mumble against his shirt.

Proof positive that I am a fucking machine, this weekend I ensured wouldn’t be able to walk straight after I was done with getting my way. It was a fucking long weekend of happiness. She was with me as long as we could be. And it’s not nearly enough.

I think she might have even outdid me when it came to doggy style. She thrust back so hard on my cock my hips were sore.

It was so fucking awesome.

Grace has some serious kinkiness too her when she is trying things out. I don’t think a single position I mentioned gave her a moments pause, she wanted it all. Can’t say that I blame her, so did I.

My woman and my kid.

Fuck Carson.

That fuckstick is working on becoming a smear on the highway. It’s one thing to not get along with your ex-whatever, but it’s entirely another to harass them like he is. Dude is trying to win back the greatest thing to ever enter my life.

That shit ain’t going to fucking happen.

I’ll have his body in a fucking desert hole somewhere if he touches either of my girls again. I tried to talk Grace into letting me go pick up Hope for her, but she wouldn’t bend. That sucks. I would have killed for some alone time with Carson.

Sex and just life in general with Grace, I love it. That’s where all the happy thoughts end. Right there, Grace and Hope. Happiness in my life right there in the beautiful angels. Why she came into my life I have no clue, but I sure the fuck am happy that she has.

She has shown me that life isn’t about fighting and waiting, there is something more out there. There’s another half of me somewhere that needs to be mine. Fuck, I even want kids in my life. I can’t say I have always wanted kids. Shit or that I have even liked them. But I want and do like them now. I think it would be so good to have a child with Grace, and I know Hope would be an awesome daughter to have and a big sister to whatever comes out.

Fuck, there goes the thoughts of a pregnant Grace. That shit has become almost a nightly occurrence in my dreams. Right there in living color, her knocked up and naked on the bed begging for me to fuck her with my long hard cock. Fuck me, those thoughts are plaguing me. I wonder what Grace would think if I told her how fucking rock hard I get with the thought of her being pregnant.

Taking her home sucks. Nothing I can say more than it sucks and eats at my very fucking soul.

Krissy has helped a bit though. She has been texting me throughout the week. I think her main calling is to keep me focused on the task at hand with my training. To kick the shit out of Wade.

“
W
ell
, isn’t that fucking cute! Two grown fucking men whining like little pre-pubescent boys with skinned knees!” Dale roars from outside the cage.

Fuck.

Dale has decided in the last couple of weeks that since Chase has retired he needs a brand new fucking project.

Lucky me.

Yay.

Let me throw a fucking parade.

My body is shaking with achy muscles and drained stamina. The man is the fucking devil, I swear to it.

I hear a groan coming from somewhere at my side. I can’t see who since I am way too tired to move my head but I am pretty sure it’s Chase.

“Is he ever nice?” I moan out as I try to sit up. My abs are refusing to work it seems.

Motion beside me tells me Chase is trying as well. “This is him being nice. This is his more gentle side.”

“Fuck me.”

“Yep,” he agrees.

Dale is evil. Like I swear each and every muscle of mine he works into miserable pain gets him off. He acts as if it is a personal attack if I don’t break down and cry every couple hours.

I haven’t cried yet, but I know I have thought about it.

Thursday, for an hour, was the only time I saw him actually be nice. Grace and Hope showed up to watch us work out. The fucking bastard was all smiles and gentleness with them. But every time they weren’t paying attention, he would look at me and I swear he was giving me the stink eye. Fucker is crazy.

That was kinda cool though that my girls showed up like that. I really liked it. Hope was so excited to see me she ran right into the ring where I was working with Brett on speeding up my kicks. She yelled at Brett for hitting me then gave me this giant bear hug.