Ruined: Loving An Alpha Male: BWWM Romance

Acknowledgements:

First and foremost, I’d like to thank God for allowing me to express myself the way that I do. I know I wouldn’t be able to do what I love if it wasn’t for His grace.

I want to thank Jessica Watkins for seeing the potential in me and giving me this opportunity to express myself and share my crazy imagination through my writing. I will be forever grateful.

I want to give a huge thank you and love to my family. To my husband Derrick, thanks for understanding my craziness. I wouldn’t have been able to do what I love without your support. Love you for life.

To my babies, Chantelle, Charlee, and Derrick Jr., thank you for your understanding when mommy is glued to her laptop. Mommy loves you always. Never get discouraged to go after your dreams, just be smart about it.

To my siblings, Katie and EJ, God has already blessed me with the two of you when he answered my prayers so long ago. The arts lives in all of us, it’s the Taylor way. I’m a living testimony to never give up on your dreams. No matter what obstacles may come your way, always remember you can do all things through Christ. I love you guys.

To my mom (Sharon), you’ve always been a huge supporter in everything I’ve done in my life. You never judged me on my mistakes and always uplifted me in my accomplishments. You have been my biggest fan, and I love you and thank you deeply.

To my dad and stepmom (Earl and Carol), thank you for always lending an ear for me to vent when I needed it and encouragement to express myself when I was in doubt. You two have been role models for me just by being who you are. I love you guys with all my heart.

Smooches to my Aunt Linda, you are my idol. Huge hugs and kisses to my cousins, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, sisters and brothers-in-laws, mother–in–law and father-in-law, sorors, frat, and friends. I love you all!

To the JWP group, you guys are an inspiration thanks for your support!

Dedication:

I would like to dedicate this book to two people. First being my dad. You have no idea how honored I am to be your daughter. You have encouraged me in more ways than I can say. I value you as a person, a writer and as my father. Thank you for allowing me to send you my drafts to read. Your feedback meant the world to me, and I don’t think I would be here if it wasn’t for you. Now it’s your turn. Your time is NOW I can feel it. You are an amazing writer; it’s time for the world to know it too! You will always have my support as I know I have yours. I love you dad.

The second person I want to dedicate this book to is Ivie. Girl, I thank you so much for giving me that extra push. The excitement you had after reading my book gave me the confidence I needed to make my dreams a reality. You’ve read almost every romance genre out there and to hear you tell me you loved what I
wrote was
what I needed. Thank you. You and I are of like minds and spirit, and you just get me. I’m eternally grateful to have you in my corner.

Ruined

by
S.K. Lessly

What the hell am I doing? Am I about to make the biggest mistake of my life?

I was laying on a huge king size bed in my hotel room in my tux. I wanted to try it on, hoping that it wouldn’t fit so that I could use that as an excuse. But that was to no avail. Damn tailor got it right for once in his miserable life. Hell, any other time I’d have to make a few trips for him to get it right. But damn if he didn’t do it perfect on the first try this time.

Tomorrow I’m getting married, and feelings of doubt have suddenly started to surface. Don’t get me wrong; I love my future bride. But is that enough? Do I love her enough to sustain forever?

God this feels wrong. I feel like I’m about to embark on a journey to hell with no ice water. I’m about to play in the super bowl, and I get hurt coming out of the tunnel. No, better yet; there’s no ball to even play the game. How would you play football with no pigskin?

Okay, these are bad sports analogies, but you get the point. This feels like the wrong thing to do.

I’m such a douche, I know, to pick the day before my nuptials to call off the wedding. But I feel like if I don’t, I will be making the biggest mistake of both of our lives. Hell, I’m doing her a favor too. It’s clear she can’t see the forest for the trees. She’s been so wrapped in the moment that she can’t see how wrong this feels… or maybe she does and is just too afraid to tell me.

Fuck me
, I thought.
What should I do?

I sat up and ran my hands through my unruly blonde hair that I let grow entirely too long. I then smiled at the many times she ran her hands through my hair, gripping it tightly while I skillfully brought her over the sexual edge.

I felt my loyal solider get happy between my legs, just thinking about those exhilarating moments. But I quickly went back to the wedding, which quickly flattened my excitement.

I have to tell her. It’s the right thing to do. I mean, what kind of a man would I be if I went through with this? She would hate the fuck out of me, and I don’t want that.

Again, as I told you, I love the hell out of that woman. She’s everything to me. I would move heaven and earth for her with no hesitation. It’s just that… Fuck! … This sucks.

You know what? I’m going to stop being a coward. I’m a Navy SEAL, for fuck sake. I’ve toppled governments. I can handle this shit.

I reached for my cell phone and dialed her number. She quickly answered, and I heard the smile in her voice.

“Hey, future hubby,” she said in her sexy ass voice. You know, I could just listen to her recite the fucking phone book and beat off to just her voice. It was velvety and smooth. Damn, I loved every bit of this woman. So if that’s the case what the hell am I doing, you ask.

It beats the fuck out of me.

“Mason, you all right?” she asked me.

I cleared my throat.
It’s now or never, numb nuts.

”Actually, no. I’ve been thinking…”

Four years earlier…

I’ve been pounding this damn bag for hours now. I half expect my arms to fall off. But I’m a Navy SEAL, or at least I used to be. I don’t quit, and I’ll let nothing beat me. So I keep pounding away, listening to my fellow ex-SEAL, Alex Starks, tell me how I’m punching like a pussy just to get a rise out of me. Now I’m not a sucker for name calling, but the way he’s calling me a pussy is starting to piss me off. I’ve been going at it strong for at least four hours, and his ass has been standing around just watching. We’re working out at the official amateur MMA fighting facility on the South Side of Philadelphia. There are about ten boxers here training and getting weighed in for the season that will start in two days.

I stopped punching the bag once he announced how he could do better with his hands tied behind his back. I growled, “You wanna take the place of this bag?”

Alex and I have been friends for a very long time. We joined the Navy at the same time, about ten years ago, and joined SEAL Team Twelve at the same time as well. We both had each other’s backs the moment we both completed the SEAL Challenge during the first week of boot camp. After that, we continued to make sure that we both stayed alive throughout every mission we were on.

Alex and I have been on the same SEAL team ever since we joined. But the one time our bright and all-knowing superiors decided to split up the talent, he ended up almost losing his life. He left the Navy two years before I did and started up a boxing gym in his home town. When I was finally released from the Navy, I looked him up. I didn’t feel like going home just yet, and I wanted to make sure Alex was settled in and doing okay. It’s hard for military bred people to go back home and fit right in. Many people I heard either went crazy, became drunks and homeless or killed themselves because they didn’t fit in or couldn’t outrun the nightmares.

I should have known Alex wasn’t any of those people. A Philadelphia born and bred native, he fell right back into his life. We had seen a lot in our time as a SEAL. Hell, we did more shit than the norm. But nothing we did ever affected Alex. He would always chalk up what we did or saw to “a typical day in the hood.” Alex was dark-skinned and as tall as I was at 6’3”. He was slightly bigger than me in bulk. We stayed competitive, using each other to make sure we stayed in shape and ready; mentally and physically. He became my close brother in arms. When he left, I felt like half of me was gone.

Alex grew up in North Philadelphia and, in order to keep him off the streets, his uncle taught him how to box. He kept Alex working and training in his gym that was located in their neighborhood. Alex loved boxing and was actually pretty good. But he didn’t want it to be a career. Instead, he wanted to fight for his country. He told me that once he got out, he would open a gym to train in boxing and mixed martial arts. I told him that I would definitely look him up when I was finally released. That’s what I did, and I’ve been here for a little over a month.

Alex and an older friend of his, Lou Johnson, ran the gym out of a warehouse close to Center City and Penn’s Landing. When I got there and told Alex that I wanted to fight, both he and Lou looked at me strangely, but for different reasons. Alex looked at me wondering if I lost my mind, but Lou looked at me as if I should be working on Wall Street instead of fighting. I didn’t blame him. I didn’t have the look of a fighter, in his eyes anyway. I felt, though, that that was my charm. Alex didn’t believe I could fight either, until one day I had to prove it.

When I arrived at Navy boot camp, I stayed to myself. I did what was required of me, but I never said too much to anyone. During the second week, I was tested. I was chosen, of course, because of the way that I looked and the fact that I barely said two words to anyone. I really wasn’t in the mood to talk. The day I left my family wasn’t a very pretty scene, and I was still feeling the effects of my decision; that, and the fact that my body was still recuperating from the SEAL Challenge. If you wanted to be a candidate for the Navy SEALs, you had to take the SEAL Challenge in the first week of boot camp to even be considered. I was ready for it, but it still kicked my ass.

Anyway, there was, of course, the biggest asshole I have ever seen, both figuratively and literally, living in my barracks. I mean, this guy had muscles coming out of his fucking eyes. It was unreal. He was a couple of inches taller than me, and I wasn’t average in height. But as I said, he definitely had more muscle than I did. I walked into my barracks getting ready to call it a night when I saw the behemoth and his two followers by my bunk, or what we call
rack
, looking in my shit.

“What are you doing?” I asked calmly.

“Yo’, you see this shit?” the behemoth said to his friends, pointing at a picture of me and my twin brother.

Yup, I have a twin.

The behemoth smirked. “I bet he’s the bitch in the relationship.”

I didn’t react, except that I just walked up to him and took the picture out of his hand. It was a picture of me and my brother with our high school basketball uniforms on, standing in front of our state championship trophy. We were smiling, holding up the trophy we just won.

“That’s my brother, you idiot. Get away from my rack, Lawrence,” I added in my southern accent to give emphasis to the name he hates to be called. He told us he wanted to be called LR. But since I can be a complete asshole at times, I figured he should be called what his parents named him.

I felt everyone’s eyes in the room on me, including Alex’s. Alex and I hadn’t really said too much to each other yet, but we had a certain understanding. Sleeping next to each other on the bottom rack, we sometimes found each other still up in the middle of the night. We found we had a sick love for chess and started playing each other online using our phones. We never communicated while we were side by side, but we talked shit to each other via the web.

Lawrence walked up to me, as I knew he would, and asked, “What the fuck you say to me, pansy?”

I didn’t back down. I never back down from anything. I found that to be a downfall of mine—a character flaw, if you will—but there was one thing I wouldn’t do today, and that was to let the fucker intimidate me. He’d been throwing his weight around the barracks getting some people to do shit for him, but I was intent on ending this shit that day.

“There’s no way I stuttered, but maybe the effects of you being dumb as rocks is affecting your hearing.” I kept eye contact, waiting for him to make the first move. When he did, I was ready. I dodged left as he threw a right at my jaw and grazed my ear. His arms were long as shit, so I had to come into his body to get a few of my hits in and then duck and dodge a barrage of fists being thrown my way. I didn’t want to hurt him, so I played along and delivered a few punches to his chest and stomach while he got a few in on me.

He then grabbed me close and I told him, “Hey, we can do this dance all day if you want. But don’t touch my face.”

I know it’s a weird request considering we’re supposed to be fighting and all, but I hate getting bruises on my face. Call me what you want, but every time someone hits me in my face, I kind of black out. It feels like being bitch slapped or something, and I have to redeem myself. It’s psychological, I know, but there it is.

Well, Lawrence and I wrestled for a bit while our bunk mates cheered us on. Most were rooting for Lawrence, which I thought was crazy considering he was bullying folks, and then some were rooting for me. I saw Alex just watching with his arms folded as if he was disgusted at me for something. I frowned at him, telling myself that I would ask what his problem was after I was done with Lawrence.

I finally felt Lawrence’s resolve leaving his hold on me, so I loosened mine as well. I figured he was finally tired, and we would go back to glaring and name-calling, but I was totally mistaken. When we let go of each other, I stood remembering that I wanted to talk to Alex when the son of a bitch, Lawrence, swung at me. He hit me on the side of my face, making me stumble slightly.

I know you’re wondering how the hell I let that happen. Well, I sort of didn’t. I did react to his swing and ducked, but it wasn’t far enough from his reach. So now I see nothing but red. My ear is ringing from where he hit me, and I knew he left a mark. I was beyond angry. I wanted nothing more than to rip his limbs from his body and beat the snot out of him using them, but since I’ve matured somewhat, I knew I couldn’t do it.

But I could beat him senseless, and I was about to do just that when our recruit division commander (RDC) walked in the door.

“What the hell is going on in here?” the RDC instructor for our unit barked.

We all snapped to attention, as our instructor Chief Petty Officer Dennis Dillon walked in the room. Dillon was about 5’8” and lean, but a very mean SOB.

I reached for my face as I stood next to Lawrence seething. I wanted to pound his face in with my boot, and I think Chief Petty Officer Dillon could smell it on me.

He walked right up to me and Lawrence. “You two have a problem?”

“No,” I heard Lawrence say.

But I didn’t agree. I was fed up and wanted blood.

“SR West, what seems to be the issue?”

You’re called Seaman Recruit in basic training, SR for short.

I looked him directly in the eye even though we aren’t supposed to, and said, “SR Lawrence McPhee is in dire need of getting his ass kicked, sir.”

“Is that so?” He looked me over and smirked.

“Yes, sir,” I said simply.

Now in one of our quiet sessions with our RDC instructor, he revealed to us that there would come a time when we would want to knock each other senseless when we’re out to sea. Because we live in tight quarters wherever we end up, most ships have ways to relieve stress. His was the ring, which prompted me and Alex to smile. He told us if ever there came a time that we needed a stress reliever, you got three one-minute rounds to put-up or shut-up. Well, now I was requesting the option of using that stress reliever, and this was the time to know if our RDC instructor was full of shit, or if he meant every word.

Dillon looked at me once more and then looked at Lawrence. Then he said, “What about you, SR McPhee? You have some things you would like to discuss with SR West here?”

“Yes, sir. I do,” was all he replied.

Chief Petty Officer Dillon smacked his hands together and smiled. “Well, gentlemen, I have to say this is the first time in the history of boot camp where this has happened so soon. Maybe it was the SEAL Challenge you just finished that has the two of you all ramped up. But if you need to relieve some stress, let’s hop to it.”

CPO Dillon led us down to the basement of the barracks and opened a locked room with a key he had stashed on his key chain. Once the door opened, and he turned on the light, there was a full boxing ring in the center of the room.

I headed straight to the ring with a tail following me. When I looked back, I wasn’t surprised to see Alex behind me.

I asked, “What the hell was that look you gave me a while ago?”

He looked at me strangely, as if I asked him a stupid question. He said to me, as he grabbed a set of boxing gloves, “Really? You’re worried about a look I gave you?”

I knew it was irrelevant, but I wanted to know. I gave him my fists, and he began taping them. I watched him go to work as if this was his livelihood.

“Yes, I want to know what the hell was that look for.”

He sighed. “You were pissing me off.”

“Why? Because of the fight?” I asked him, as he finished with one fist and began on the other.

“No, you idiot. You could have ended that fight long ago, but you were toying with him.”

I squinted my eyes at him. “And how would you know that?”

“Come on, man. I can tell. I know for a fact you have more skill at fighting than you just showed. So let me warn you. Don’t waste any more fucking time with this asshole. We got to get up early as fuck, and I’m tired as shit.”

I laughed and checked the taping job he did before he helped me with my gloves. “Don’t worry. I’m done playing games.”

“Good.”

When I turned and entered the ring, so did Lawrence.

Our RDC said to us both, “Gentlemen, I won’t stress to you the importance of this moment. You get three minutes to get all this frustration out on each other, so the animosity will die here. You guys need to learn to work together, regardless of how you feel about one another. So let’s go on and get this over with. Three minutes will start at the bell.”

“This better not take three minutes,” Alex said in disgust.

I laughed for the first time since I got there, saying, “Don’t worry. It won’t take that long.” I looked at Lawrence and smiled, “This will only take about thirty seconds.”

Lawrence smiled at me, not knowing what was about to be unleashed on his ass. Someone rang the bell, and we started dancing around the ring. I watched him intently, wondering when he was going to make his move. I watched his eyes calculate how he was going to attack me. I knew what he was going to do before he even decided to make a move. I’ve been trained since I was young to predict my opponent’s movements. I waited—giving him a chance to save face—but he was taking entirely too long. So I did what I said I would and ended the fight in less than thirty seconds.

Needless to say, I had no problems with Lawrence after that day—nor anyone else, for that matter.