Fierce-Bryce (Fierce Family Series Book 2) Read online

  Copyright 2019 Natalie Ann

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without a written consent.

  Author’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The Road Series-See where it all started!!

  Lucas and Brooke’s Story- Road to Recovery

  Jack and Cori’s Story – Road to Redemption

  Mac and Beth’s Story- Road to Reality

  Ryan and Kaitlin’s Story- Road to Reason

  The All Series

  William and Isabel’s Story — All for Love

  Ben and Presley’s Story – All or Nothing

  Phil and Sophia’s Story – All of Me

  Alec and Brynn’s Story – All the Way

  Sean and Carly’s Story — All I Want

  Drew and Jordyn’s Story— All My Love

  Finn and Olivia’s Story—All About You

  Landon Barber and Kristen Reid- All Of Us

  The Lake Placid Series

  Nick Buchanan and Mallory Denning – Second Chance

  Max Hamilton and Quinn Baker – Give Me A Chance

  Caleb Ryder and Celeste McGuire – Our Chance

  Cole McGuire and Rene Buchanan – Take A Chance

  Zach Monroe and Amber Deacon- Deserve A Chance

  Trevor Miles and Riley Hamilton – Last Chance

  Matt Winters and Dena Hall- Another Chance

  The Fierce Five Series

  Gavin Fierce and Jolene O’Malley- How Gavin Stole Christmas

  Brody Fierce and Aimee Reed - Brody

  Aiden Fierce and Nic Moretti- Aiden

  Mason Fierce and Jessica Corning- Mason

  Cade Fierce and Alex Marshall - Cade

  Ella Fierce and Travis McKinley- Ella

  Fierce Family

  Sam Fierce and Dani Rhodes- Sam

  Bryce Fierce and Payton Davies - Bryce

  Love Collection

  Vin Steele and Piper Fielding – Secret Love

  Jared Hawk and Shelby McDonald – True Love

  Erik McMann and Sheldon Case – Finding Love

  Connor Landers and Melissa Mahoney- Beach Love

  Ian Price and Cam Mason- Intense Love

  Liam Sullivan and Ali Rogers - Autumn Love

  Owen Taylor and Jill Duncan - Holiday Love

  Chase Martin and Noelle Bennett - Christmas Love

  Zeke Collins and Kendall Hendricks - Winter Love

  Troy Walker and Meena Dawson – Chasing Love

  Jace Stratton and Lauren Towne - First Love

  Gabe Richards and Leah Morrison - Forever Love

  Blake Wilson and Gemma Anderson – Simply Love

  Sign up for my newsletter for up to date releases and deals. Newsletter.

  Follow me on:

  Website

  Twitter

  Facebook

  Pinterest

  Goodreads

  Bookbub

  As always reviews are always appreciated as they help potential readers understand what a book is about and boost rankings for search results.

  Bryce Fierce seems to have everything a woman wants. Brains—he’s a certified genius after all—good looks, a successful career, and a family name many wanted to lay claim to. But what he really wants is someone who is interested in him and not what he can offer. So he came up with a certain type of woman and that is what he’s going after. Too bad for someone who was always right, he found out how wrong he really was.

  Payton Davies was the girl many envied from a distance. Blonde hair, blue eyes, a killer body. Men wanted her on their arm for show. Even her parents told her to use what God gave her to get ahead in life because her intelligence—or lack of it—wasn’t benefiting her. What she wanted though was someone to be there for her. To appreciate her for who she was inside, not what she looked like, or judge her on any inadequacy she possessed.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Lose Yourself

  Prided Herself On

  Damn Good

  Limit Your Interaction

  A Pass On That

  Predictable and Boring

  Make Sacrifices

  So Proud of You

  Fool of Himself

  Large and Crazy Family

  He Was Different

  Flirting With Each Other

  My Plan

  She Was Good At

  Putting On Display

  Motivation For Her

  Sweet Girl And Hot Woman

  The Right Words

  To Go Far

  Seat of His Pants

  Special Night

  Some Game

  Happen to Anyone

  Confusing Thoughts

  Dumb Move

  The First One

  Put Me Down

  Bothers You

  The Right Woman

  Too Much Testosterone

  Chase the Tail

  Feel Inferior

  Compliment Each Other

  Like She Tried

  All Night Long

  Too Specific

  Got The Hint

  Blinded By Things

  Work Harder

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  “Hey there.” Bryce Fierce turned his head when he felt a finger trail down his arm. Not just a finger, but a fingernail, sharp and teasing. No pain, but with enough force for him to know who it belonged to. Then again, the scent of her minty gum mixed in with whatever fruity body spray she’d spritzed on let him know too.

  “Hey, Marcella.”

  “I was wondering,” she said, leaning into him. She had the lean perfected. She had everything perfected to get the attention she wanted. “If you were going to be working on your lab later tonight?”

  “I planned on it after dinner.”

  She snapped her gum and giggled, her blonde hair floating around her shoulders. “I could work on it with you? Professor Lang said that I’d have a better understanding of the class if I did my labs with classmates.”

  She’d never have an understanding of it, in his opinion. “And you want to do it with me over your friends?” he asked.

  Her friends that she walked around campus with, her posse. Always laughing, flirting, bouncing around with her arm on one guy or another. He wasn’t sure if she dated anyone, or at least exclusively, but she was sure seen with enough guys.

  “My friends aren’t working on it tonight,” she said, her long nails playing a tap on his bicep now.

  He might be a nerd in some people’s eyes, but he was still a Fierce and looked like one. Tall, dark, and built. If he had his face in books more than women or sports, that was his prerogative, but his looks still had women coming on to him, saving him from ever having to make the first move.

  He liked it that way too.

  “I’ll be around working on it if you find your way into the lab, but I’m not waiting for you,” he said. She frowned and he didn’t care. He wasn’t stupid; he wasn’t going to be used.

  “What time are you going to start?” she asked, pushing her bottom lip out. “I’m meeting friends for dinner at six.”

  “I’ll be in the lab around six thirty,” he said, adding another thirty minutes to when he’d planned to show up. No reason to be a complete jerk.

  “I’ll see you then,” she said, turning, her hair hitting his neck as she strutted back over to her little crew at the other end of the room.

 
“What was that?” his buddy Kyle asked him, coming over to whisper. “Marcella was totally into you.”

  Bryce snorted. “She’s into someone doing her work for her.”

  “And?” Kyle asked. “Who cares if you get to spend some time with her.”

  Kyle wouldn’t understand. He was smart like Bryce, but he looked like the brain that he was. He’d never dated and was just dying to get his first girlfriend. Maybe if he’d focus on girls that he had more in common with instead of those that wanted to use him, he’d find some success.

  Bryce had been there and done that. He’d dated in high school. He’d dated in college. But school always came first and he was sick of girls that only wanted to spend time with him so he’d help them out. Especially if they were dishonest about it.

  “I don’t need to waste my time with her when I’ve got work to do. She’s going to come over and ask me a million questions or just copy what I’m doing anyway.” He wasn’t an idiot. He’d been around the block enough. This was an old hat to him.

  “Yeah, but everyone knows she puts out when she gets help. Like a payment of sorts.”

  Bryce stared at Kyle to see if he was joking, which of course he wasn’t because everyone knew the games Marcella played. “I don’t need that kind of payment.”

  “Says no guy ever,” Kyle said, his eyes drifting over to Marcella and her friends. Bryce looked across the room to see Marcella wave at him. He didn’t wave back, but he did nod his head. “Dude, guys like us need chicks like that to bump us up.”

  “This guy doesn’t,” Bryce said. “I think more of myself than that.”

  He walked away from Kyle and took a seat before class started, knowing Marcella and her friends were talking about him and giggling.

  He wasn’t going to be used by anyone. If some woman didn’t want him for who he was, then he had no time for her. No energy. And no desire.

  Lose Yourself

  Thirteen years later

  Bryce let himself into his parents’ front door. He’d seen both of his parents’ cars in the garage that they’d left open for him to enter. Glancing at his watch, he realized he was late as always. He was sure his mother would have something to say about that.

  He couldn’t help it though. He got held up at work. Between lesson plans, grading papers, helping kids and then working on his thesis, he tended to get lost in time. In space. Hmm, maybe that should have been the topic for his thesis...is it possible to lose yourself in space?

  He laughed at that thought. Not many thought he was funny, so he kept those bits of information to himself when they popped into his head.

  “Bryce,” his mother said when he walked into the kitchen. “You’re twenty minutes late.”

  “I know. Sorry. Got held up.”

  “I know how it is,” she said. “It’s hard to walk away from the kids when they want help.”

  He could let his mother believe that. She was a fourth grade teacher and she’d stay until midnight if she had to help anyone that asked or needed it. “Yeah. Hope dinner isn’t cold.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We are just having chili and I let it sit in the crockpot until you show up. I’ve learned my lesson over the years.”

  Meaning he’d ruined one too many of the family dinners because he was late.

  Now as an adult, he and his brothers came to dinner once a month or so individually. It seemed he came the most though.

  His older brother, Sam, a surgical oncologist, worked a ton of hours and when he wasn’t working, he used to have female company or go out to eat. Of course now he was recently engaged to Dani Rhodes and spending more time with her than coming for family dinners.

  Then there was his younger brother, Ryder, who was an architect and worked at his father’s firm. Ryder came once or twice a month for the company of his mother rather than for the food.

  Ryder was the baby of the group and had the most in common with their mother, the two of them always putting their heads together with recipes. When Ryder came to dinner, it wasn’t for a free meal but to experiment with her.

  Bryce...he just wanted food. He’d never really learned how to cook, which was funny considering he was the smartest of the family and knew he could read a recipe just fine and execute it. It’s just he had no interest in it at all.

  Why should he when his mother kept him supplied with meals once a week? If he didn’t come for dinner, she dropped him off something that he could heat up as leftovers.

  When he wasn’t eating his mother’s food, he was making eggs or sandwiches or getting takeout. Campus food, he was fine with it when many weren’t.

  “Chili sounds great,” he said, walking to the fridge and grabbing a beer.

  Before he had a chance to take a sip out of the glass he’d just poured, his father came down the stairs and snatched it off the counter. “Thanks, just the thing to go with your mom’s fire hot chili.”

  He laughed at the move he’d seen one too many times in his life that he should have known to expect it, then grabbed another bottle out of the fridge for himself. “Do we get bread with chili tonight?” he asked his mother.

  She opened the oven and pulled a loaf out that had been warming in there. Hot damn, his lucky night. “I know one of your favorite meals, don’t I?”

  The three of them had been sitting there eating quietly, surprising Bryce since his mother was very rarely quiet. “Are you and Dad going on vacation when school is out?” he asked since the silence was starting to make him squirm like they were planning something on him and he had no idea what it could be.

  His parents made a habit of taking a week off after school finished for his mother. He thought it was nice they had that routine and didn’t break it in all the years he and his brothers had been out of high school.

  “I was just talking to your father about it last night. Not even two months away and I can’t get him to commit to where he wants to go.”

  “It’s getting late to get a place, don’t you think, Dad?”

  “Don’t be siding with your mother,” his father said, drinking his beer. His father topped Bryce’s six-foot-two-inch frame by two inches easily. The Fierce men were a big lot. “I could have told her I wanted tuna noodle casserole tonight and she would have made it.”

  Bryce shivered and fought back the gag. He hated tuna noodle casserole and wondered what sadist came up with that dish that his father loved so much but three kids of the house refused to eat.

  “Don’t listen to your father,” his mother said. “I’d never make that for anyone but him. Even I struggle to eat it, but the things you do for love...”

  His father smirked and went back to his chili, wiping up the sauce with his bread, then reaching for another helping. Bryce knew he was going in for seconds in a minute too.

  “I’m sure wherever you go you’ll have a great time.”

  He should be happy his mother wasn’t talking about his personal life anymore. Ever since Sam started dating Dani, and then got engaged, his mother had backed off of setting him and his brother Ryder up.

  What was it about his parents that they wanted to get everyone married off?

  His Aunt Jolene and Uncle Gavin had set up their five kids and they were all married or engaged in less than a two-year period of time. It was as if the rest of the family took that as an open invitation to start matchmaking.

  Thankfully nothing came about from it and Bryce, his brothers, and cousins were all on the lookout and knew they wouldn’t be caught in the web of manipulations their other cousins had been.

  “Speaking of a good time,” his mother said, “how is your thesis coming?”

  “It’s coming,” he said. These things took time; she knew that, yet she always asked as if it was a paper he had due at the end of the week.

  He’d already gotten his doctorate in chemistry and now he wanted it in physics. Why? Because he’d never grow tired of learning.

  “Oh,” his mother said, jumping up fast. “I forgot I picked somethin
g up for you.”

  His father and he both lifted their heads from where they were gobbling up their dinner when she dashed out of the room. He looked over, caught the eye raise and shoulder shrug from his dad and went back to eating.

  When his mother came back to the room, she dropped an envelope on the table next to him.

  He picked it up and looked inside to see a gift card for a place called Millie’s. “What’s this?”

  “I tried out this little place the other day. One of the teachers at work, her daughter just took it over. You know how it is, they want you to try it out and I couldn’t say no. It’s right on your way to work. The food was good and I figured I’d give her a little business and get a gift card for you since you eat out all the time.”

  “Sweet,” he said, setting it back down. “What do they have there?”

  “It’s not that big,” his mother said. “They are open from six thirty in the morning until six at night. They’ve got seating for about twenty, but it’s more a takeout place. Breakfast is donuts, muffins, egg sandwiches and the like. Lunch and dinner are subs, sandwiches, salads, some burgers. Quick things. Like I said, takeout, which is right up your alley.”

  “Sounds perfect,” he said, knowing he’d stop in soon enough. He loved how thoughtful his mother always was.

  Speaking of thoughtfulness, over an hour later, he was walking out the door with enough leftovers for a few meals while he sat in his one-bedroom apartment reading and doing research.

  ***

  “What the hell was that, Diane?”

  Diane Fierce looked over at her husband, Grant, to see him narrowing his eyes at her the minute Bryce, her middle son, pulled out of the driveway. “What was what?”

  “I’ve got a gift card for you. You know how we support the girls at work, yadda, yadda, yadda.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “You know we do. How many times have I come home and caught your eye roll that I had frozen pies and cookie dough I had to find room for in the freezer? Or wrapping paper that fills the spare closet in the hall.”