Entrapped

by Tl Reeve

  “Look at me,” he demanded.

  She did, and a pretty pink filled her cheeks. The tanned flesh of her chest darkened. It was cute. Hot and sweet all rolled up into one, but he wanted to know what else she had the balls to threaten him with. Didn’t his curvy little mate realize without her, he would become a shell of a man. Nothing in his life would matter any longer.

  Of course, because he didn’t say shit to her, after their first mating Charisma didn’t know any of it. For the last three years he had been a gigantic asshole with regards to her love. It left her unsure of her footing, and he hated himself for making her feel a moment of doubt.

  He stopped when he stood in front of her. His massive hard-on tented his sweats as he used his entire body entire body to dominate and intimidate her. “Take what, Oasis? What else are you going to threaten me with? What could be more important than you leaving me and taking my pup from me?” Royce pushed, both mentally and physically. He had her up against the wall, his palms braced on either side of her head, caging her in while pressing his dick into her swollen belly.

  Her chin lifted in defiance, and her pretty hazel eyes snapped in anger.

  “Not so sure of yourself now are you,” he taunted.

  “Fuck you, Royce,” she whimpered.

  “Ahh, now baby, we both know that’s physically impossible. Plus, I like pussy, specifically yours, which you threatened to take away from me.” He growled, cocking his brow.

  She didn’t deny it, instead nibbling at her lower lip.

  “Want to know what is possible? Me fucking you. Which is exactly what I’m going to do.” He leered down at her, warning her. “After I get done paddling your ass.”

  * * * *

  Royce’s haughty tone did nothing to stymie the anger coursing through her veins. She understood the need to protect his family, but she wasn’t some damsel in distress. Yes, she carried his child and yes, she did what she thought necessary to protect said child. However, forcing her to go home because he knocked her up wouldn’t happen. She could do the job. Returning to Window Rock would raise suspicions, and they were already toeing a thin line. Wasn’t like they were getting tons of information relayed to them.

  “You’ll have to keep your dick in your pants,” Charisma said. “I have a doctor’s appointment at ten this morning.”

  Royce stepped back. “Fine. I’m coming with you. I don’t have classes today.”

  A niggle of worry snapped at her spine. It was irrational. The biggest part of her secret had been revealed when Royce found her in the bathroom after she showered. Yet, she’d been hiding everything for so long, the involuntary reaction had been just that, involuntary.

  “Fine.” She lifted her chin. “I need to help get the kids up, get them breakfast, get a shower, and do a couple other things around the house before we go.”

  Royce nodded. “I’ll help. I thought because your alarm didn’t go off, they had the day off.”

  She shook her head. “Nope. They won’t have a day off until Veterans Day.” She moved to the kitchen and began pulling boxes of cereal and pancake batter out of the cupboards. “Would you please wake Riley first? She likes to take the longest shower.”

  “Sure,” Royce said. “What about Mac?”

  “He’ll be up shortly. Coffee is on the auto timer.” She went to the fridge and grabbed the carton of eggs. “Ask Riley if she wants cereal or scrambled eggs, while you’re getting her up, too.”

  “On it.” He started for the steps then paused. “We’re not done, Oasis. We’ll pick this up where we left off after you’ve seen your doctor.”

  Breakfast was oddly normal. The kids, as if sensing the tension, were quiet. Once she saw them off to the bus stop, Mackenzie left not to long after. The house was then filled with silence again, and Charisma did everything she could to avoid Royce until it was time to leave.

  The drive to the doctor’s office didn’t take as long as she wanted it to. Never did, when she needed the time to think. Warnings and worries chewed at the back of her mind, leaving her in a state of panic. The what ifs and anxious energy coursing through her churned her stomach. They should be happy right now. They were having a baby, but she couldn’t help wondering if Royce would stay because of the child or because he loved them.

  Oh sure, he could say the words while buried deep within her. He could say them when the knot formed, and Royce climaxed. He could say them in the dark. In the night. He could say them when no one else heard him. Could he say it when exposed to the outside world? Even coming to this appointment with her was risking everything. They could be seen, or worse, killed. Charisma didn’t shy away from the truth of the matter. They were undercover. They were there to take down a woman everyone had thought was their ally.

  Would Royce ever put her into that category someday, because she kept the truth from him? When he got mad at her, would he throw this moment back in her face? She hoped he didn’t. She believed she knew him well enough, he wouldn’t do something so cold and calculating. Deceiving him, as she had, meant she also didn’t have a say on what happened next. She realized she actively hid from him. Even after he told her the truth—and she understood it’d been for the pack—she still shut him out.

  Charisma glanced over at Royce who’d taken the keys from her and said he’d drive after they walked out of the house. If he’d been mad at her, he didn’t show it. She supposed that was one of the biggest things about him...about the Rafertys in general… she didn’t understand. They could shut down in a blink of an eye. Their features relaxed. Their bodies held a weird tension to them, and their voices took on a creepy, deceptively pliant tone. The last time she glimpsed anything remotely like this, Mackenzie shut down on them and she thought they’d lose him forever.

  She shivered.

  “Are you cold?” Royce turned up the heat in the van. “Should have told me.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Stop saying sorry,” he replied. “Nothing to be sorry for.”

  The bite in his tone told her different. “Sorry.”

  Royce sighed. “Look, I get it. You did what you thought was right because of how I’d been acting. We’re here, this moment, now. I can’t make up any of my transgressions with you, or even attempt to claim my spot at your side, if you don’t let me in.”

  He had a point. She shoved him out and shut down on him when she thought—and sometimes still did think—he’d used her. Looking back at it all, she could connect the dots of their rocky relationship. Royce was placed into a catch-22. No matter what he did, he would have been wrong. Telling her put the mission at risk. Not telling her put them at risk. She also contributed to his risk, yet it still didn’t make up for the fact she’d been unintentionally hurt and was a victim to circumstances beyond either of their control. Maybe she should be angrier with Kalkin for putting them in this position.

  The whole clusterfuck circled in her head. It all came down to Royce and his job. She’d never tell him not to do what he loved, and at some point, she had to concede the work he did saved lives. Now, if she could only convince her heart of such.

  “You’re right,” she answered. “You also have to acknowledge what this has done to me. Corrupting your assignment or not, you willfully lied to me. You left me, in your complacent silence, dead on the inside, Royce. This situation now doesn’t fix it. Having sex doesn’t fix it. Time does. I deserve it after all I have been through and what I’ve been told.”

  Royce gripped the steering wheel tighter. “You’re right again. But, ask yourself this, how long will you punish me? Wasn’t keeping my child a secret for almost five months a long enough punishment?”

  Each word he spoke was like a drop of acid on her skin. “We can’t keep doing this.” Her bottom lip trembled.

  “No, we can’t.” He cut his gaze at her. “So, what fixes this, Oasis?”

  She didn’t know. “I don’t have an answer.”

  He gave a curt nod. “Neither do I. Where do I go from here?”

&n
bsp; The question, though meant for directions to the clinic, had another meaning. “Turn right at the next light. It’s half a block up the road on the right.”

  He followed her instructions then let out an exasperated breath when he pulled up to the clinic building. Outside were protesters. They were there every time she came for a checkup. She never told anyone about the vile things the people—mostly women—said to her on the way in. Of all the things to be protesting in the world, people still didn’t want women to have the right to choose. It wasn’t their business what she did, after all.

  “What the fuck is this?” Royce put the van in park and shut it off. “Is it always like this?”

  Charisma nodded. “They’re supposed to stay behind the yellow line, but...”

  Royce growled. “Have they touched you?”

  She shook her head, swallowing hard. “They’re just stupid humans.” She got out of the vehicle. “Come on, they only have a set number of appointments, and I can’t be late.”

  Royce followed behind her. When they reached the sidewalk, he placed his hand on the small of her back. The warmth of his palm pushed back the chill settling into her bones. She hated this part of it. Hated the slurs and the ugly statements those who professed to be God-fearing Christians slung at her.

  “Rot in hell, baby killer.”

  “Sins of the flesh cannot be mutilated and ripped from your body, whore.”

  Royce growled. “After today, you will use the insurance the college gave me to see a doctor. No more of this shit.”

  “Okay.” She swiped away a tear. “How do we explain all this, though? I came to the clinic because it was easier.”

  “We’ll figure it out later.” He glanced over his shoulder and snarled. “Fucking idiots.”

  Charisma placed her hand on her belly. In those few scant seconds walking through the door with Royce, everything became very real. In about four months, they’d have a child. Their child. She went to the counter and signed in. The receptionist smiled at her like always. The girl was full of optimism, and she had the best laugh. It could soothe anyone.

  “Good morning, Norah. I see you got met with the angry mob again.”

  “I did.” She gave a small laugh. “You’d think they’d get bored.”

  “Or at least an education.” Her hands stilled on the keyboard to her computer. “You know, I have asked them to come in and tour the facility.”

  “You have?” Surprise filled Charisma. “Why?”

  “I guess I hoped if they saw this place and what we really do here, they’d leave and never come back.” The receptionist shrugged.

  “Anyone take you up on the offer?”

  The girl frowned. “Nope. I guess it’s better to hate what you don’t understand than learn something new.” She hit enter twice on her keyboard. “You’re all set. The nurse will call you back in a minute.”

  “Thank you.” Charisma hurried over to the chair beside Royce and sat. From his position, they could see the people milling around outside. “If you continue to watch them, it’ll only anger you more.”

  He grunted. “S’pose you’re right.” He took her hand in his. The gentle, loving way he held her palm made her heart soar with love. She craved this kind of attention, and she’d shut herself down to allowing it. “We can’t keep rehashing old shit. The fucking horse is dead. It’s stained our floor with its blood, now we have to clean it up.”

  Though a gross picture he painted, Royce had a point. They could continue to lob hurtful jabs at each other or they could get ready for some life-altering changes. “I agree.”

  “Okay.” He squeezed her hand. “Am I allowed to go back with you?”

  She swallowed hard. “Yeah. If you want.”

  “Oh, I want.” He grinned. It’d been the first real sign of happiness she’d seen on his face since placing kisses to her belly.

  “Then sure.”

  The nurse stepped into the waiting room and called her name. “Norah Rough?”

  Royce scowled. “I hate that fucking name.”

  “Well, tough.” Charisma stood. “It’s our alias for now.”

  They followed the nurse down the bright, cheerfully painted hall. Pictures of babies and children adorned the halls along with hand-painted murals of children’s hand prints. Where there weren’t decorations or murals, memory boards filled the spaces. They had polaroids of babies born through their care. Some were preemies, while others were healthy newborns surrounded by their siblings. The place, in all honesty, set her at ease.

  “Right in here.” The nurse motioned to one of the bigger rooms. Inside was a 3-D imaging machine along with a handheld fetal doppler to check the baby’s heart rate. The one piece of equipment she never wanted to listen to at her visits.

  Once they were inside, the nurse had Charisma situate herself on the table, then took her blood pressure and her temperature. She worried everything might be a little elevated since she and Royce had been fighting.

  “Perfect as always,” the nurse said, before giving Royce her attention. “You must be the father. We were beginning to wonder if we’d ever meet you.”

  “I am. I work a crazy schedule at the college. Today happened to be my day off, and this coincided,” Royce replied.

  “Well, then, why don’t you convince Norah while I’m gone to allow us to do an ultrasound, so she can finally see and hear her baby?” The nurse smiled at Charisma and handed her a sheet to place across her lap. “You know what to do.” She winked. “She has been very closed off to the idea.”

  Royce frowned. “I’ll do my best. She can be quite stubborn sometimes.”

  The nurse laughed. “Too true.” She crossed to the door. “I’ll be back with Dr. Karen in a minute.”

  When she left, Royce looked at Charisma. “You’ve never listened to the heartbeat or anything?”

  “No,” she whispered. “I can’t explain why not. I just...I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I...I was afraid.”

  Royce crossed to her, wrapping her in his embrace. “Then we’ll do it together. It’s only right we get to hear his heartbeat together.”

  “Could be a girl,” she said, in a teasing tone.

  “It’s a boy, mate.” He growled at her before placing a kiss to her lips. Charisma whimpered, giving him the opportunity to deepen it.

  Stale coffee and something she considered all Royce floated across her taste buds. She dug her fingernails into his biceps, holding on to him for balance. In one action, Royce could make everything disappear. She sank into the sensations, missing this part of having him as her mate.

  A sharp knock came at the door followed by a throat being cleared. She reluctantly pulled back. Heat suffused her cheeks as she spotted Dr. Karen and her nurse at the door.

  “Well, now we know how she got pregnant,” the nurse said.

  Charisma buried her face in Royce’s shirt and breathed in his clean, wild scent. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” Dr. Karen approached. “You’re into your second trimester. You’re shedding all of the morning sickness, and now your hormones are going to throw your libido into a tailspin. Have fun.”

  Royce smirked. “We have been. When she feels well.” The lie rolled right off his tongue.

  “Good.” The doctor sat down on her stool beside them. “Are you ready to see your baby today?”

  Charisma glanced at Royce then nodded. “I am. It’s time.”

  The smile Dr. Karen gave her warmed Charisma. “Perfect. This scan will take a little time, so get comfortable. Just like last time lift your shirt up and pull your pants down below your hips.”

  Charisma did as she was asked. Her heart hammered. Her palms grew sweaty. Royce was there for her. He laced his fingers with hers once she’d settled. She stared up at him, and he gave her an encouraging look.

  “Is it always like that outside?” Royce said.

  “Unfortunately, yes,” the doctor answered.

  “It’s a shame,” Royce replied. “If they could see
the photos on the walls and the things you’re doing in here...”

  “Yeah, you’d think.” She grabbed the bottle of jelly. “It’s going to be cold.” She squeezed a liberal amount of the blue goo onto Charisma’s belly. “They don’t care about the women that walk in here. They don’t care that we have other services available here. All they think we do is kill fetuses.” She pressed the wand to Charisma’s belly. At first nothing showed up, but then they saw a head attached to a tiny body.

  “Oh my.” Charisma pressed her trembling hand to her mouth.

  “Well, let’s start with measurements.” Dr. Karen moved the wand around then used the ball pad on the machine to mark lines across the baby’s body. “So, this line from the baby’s head to butt gives us a good indication how long they are. This little nut is about six and a half inches.”

  “Wow... That’s, that’s amazing.”

  “Hang on a second.” The doctor turned the screen away from Charisma, and everything inside her knotted. She could hardly breathe. She’d hurt the baby. She’d done something wrong. This was her punishment for keeping secrets. “I have a few questions for you, Norah, and I need you to be honest with me.”

  She swallowed hard while staring at Royce, who’d been just as anxious as her. “Sure. Honest. What’s...what’s wrong?”

  “Oh... Oh gosh. I am sorry. Shit. You’ve been hesitant to do this for so long.” She turned the screen back to Charisma. “Watch.” She positioned the wand in a certain way over Charisma’s belly. Two images appeared on screen. One on top of the other. “Congratulations, Mom and Dad. You’re having twins.”

  Charisma blanked after that. The rest of the ultrasound passed in a blur of information and images she couldn’t even begin to fathom. Twins. A boy and a girl. Both were remarkably healthy. Both were growing like little weeds. The boy was a bit bigger at 10.2 oz, and the girl was 9.9 oz. Dr. Karen explained that there were always discrepancies when it came to weight and measurement. For their gestation, they were normal and above everything else, healthy. It’d been weeks since she smiled and breathed without worry. She clutched the photos of her babies in her hand, not wanting to ever let them go. Twins. We’re having twins.