by Paula Cox
He fucks me like a man who has been waiting for a chance to fuck me: with uncontrollable ferocity. He fucks me harder than I’ve ever been fucked before.
I grab handfuls of the sheets and drive back with my hips, bucking on his cock, up and down, feeling his cock deep inside of me, fire-tinged, burning pleasure engulfing my sweet spot. He fucks me so hard that soon all I can feel is fire in my channel, just one long burning sensation of fire. I hear his grunts, hear my own own, hear the slapping sound of his huge cock inside of me. I feel his balls knock into my clit, which is strange at first and then adds to the pleasure.
I drive back harder and faster, all the time talking to myself in my head, a constant stream of words which pushes me toward orgasm: “This is the father of your unborn child. This is the leader of the Tidal Knights. He’s fucking you hard. He’s spanked you so hard your ass is bright red. He’s using you. He’s going to come inside you. He wants to feel you come all over his cock. He wants to feel you explode on him. He wants to feel you go super-tight with pleasure.”
I listen to his grunts and my own inner-words and my moans and then I drive down on his cock so hard I feel his pubic bone slam into my ass. I don’t care; I keep going. I bounce and he quickly matches my rhythm until we are fucking like starving animals, fucking so hard and fast that we know it’s going to hurt afterward.
“Fuck, yes, yes, yes,” I moan, as the pleasure begins to reach boiling point. “Yes, fuck. Kade. Kade.”
“Come for me.” He breathes out the words. “Come for me now.”
“I—I am.”
Everything stops. I know I am moving, know my hips are gyrating, but I don’t feel like I am. I feel as though I am sitting completely still as piping hot steam rising up into my pussy, spreads out in steamy hands, reaching into my belly, up to my breasts and tweaking my nipple from the inside, down to my toes, burning them so they curl, to the tips of my fingers, burning them the same way. I close my eyes and see red. It’s building, I think. It’s building right now. It’s going to—
And then it does. The steam burns every inch of me. My pussy goes super-tight around his cock, so tight he grips my ass harder and pushes in past my tightening lips and to my sweet spot, where he holds it almost still, shifting only slightly to massage the spot with the tip of his massive cock.
“Yes, yes, yes—”
He knows my body so well. Knows how to pleasure it so well.
The orgasm erupts from the tip of his cock and consumes me. I close my eyes tighter and see a deeper red. I shift my hips on his cock, moving to one side as he moves to the other, probing my deep sensitive spot. I moan loudly into the sheets, a mouthful of the bedding, moan so loudly that my words are clear even stifled: “You’re a fucking animal. You’re a fucking animal.” I pant, gasp, writhe, bounce, and then the orgasm explodes a second time and I reach around and grab his hand and press it hard into my raw red ass cheek.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” I cry,
Then, slowly, the orgasm passes.
Kade knows my body well; he’s made me come enough times over these past weeks.
As soon as I’m done, he leans over me, cups my breasts, thrusts into me one last time and grunts: “Fuck.”
He growls as he empties himself inside of me, and then both of us roll aside.
“That was . . .” I smile, and he smiles back, tired but content.
“It was,” he says.
“Don’t wait so long next time.”
I roll to him, lay my head against the leather.
He wraps his arm around me.
“I won’t,” he promises.
Chapter Seventeen
Lana
Being around Kade is wonderful but difficult. Every moment has two versions: the version he and I share, right here in reality; and the version which exists in my mind in which I tell him about the baby. Over the next week, he comes to my bedroom, we fuck, make love, screw, whatever you want to call it, we do it, and then we lie together for a while before business calls him off. Every time, I tell myself, is the time I will explain everything to him. I will tell him about his child. I imagine how he will react. Extremes dominate these imaginings. I see him building a crib and I see him throwing me out onto the street.
I write more, start a novel, discard it, start another, do the same. There’s a kernel in here somewhere. I’m sure of it. I just have to find it.
Scud visits me, brings me sandwiches, lingers and waits for me to speak. He’s a nice guy, I tell myself. But nice guys can be a pain in the ass, too.
I’m sitting at my desk, a couple of Evergreen kids giggling in the street outside, sun shining onto the wall in front of me silhouetting my every movement, when my cell buzzes. I almost jump up from the desk when I see the number: Terry.
I swipe the cell to answer and say, “Terry?” I speak uncertainly. Since I left her outside the Twin Peaks, we haven’t spoken. I’ve felt too nervous to reach out and she seemed to be fine with that.
When she speaks, it’s the same old Terry, matronly and playful with an undertone which implies that, if it came to it, she could throw down. “Lana.”
A pause. In the background, I hear what sounds like the beep-beep of a removals van.
“Are you going somewhere?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says. “I managed to get a job in Seattle, illustrating for a small children’s publisher. With that and the freelance work, I’m going to be able to finally call myself an illustrator. How weird is that, huh?”
“You deserve it,” I say.
“You helped,” Terry says. “I showed them our notebook. I never would’ve done any of that without you.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s all you.”
Another pause.
She wants to ask me something, I can tell. Or tell me something. But the way we left things before hangs between us, the proverbial elephant in the room—the elephant on the phone line, lurking somewhere between cell towers.
“Listen, Lana. I’m—I can’t say I’m sorry for how I felt about you leaving then and there with a man neither of us knew. But I handled it in the wrong way. I shouldn’t have gotten so angry.”
“I accept your apology.”
We both laugh, and the tension dissipates.
“I’m proud of you, Terry,” I say.
“The pay is about the same as working in the Twin Peaks, if you can believe it. But there are added benefits, like dental and not having to wear a bikini to work. What about you? Are you writing?”
“Yes, or I am trying to. I’m working on a novel. Well, half-working on a novel. I keep starting and restarting it.”
“What’s it about?”
I tell her: a girl gets caught up in a biker’s quest for revenge.
“What’s your main character’s name?” Terry asks. “Iron?”
“Ha ha, very funny.”
A third pause, but this one without any of the brimming tension or resentment. Terry collects her thoughts. She murmurs something to a man, who says: “Yes, ma’am.”
“Listen, Lana,” she says. “I have something to ask you.”
“Okay . . .”
I nibble the end of my already tooth-marked pen.
“I leased a two-bedroom place. Which is fine because I guess I could turn one room into a drawing room—not the old English stuff kind, an actual drawing room—but I was thinking, seeing as I’ll be moving near to your area. Why don’t you move in with me? We can be roommates. I’ll warn you ahead of time. I have been known to snore. If that happens, all you need to do is chuck a couple of pillows over my face.” She giggles.
“Oh, Terry . . .” I think it over. I’m falling for Kade, hard. That’s the truth. And another truth is that our sex is explosive and intimate and the time after the sex, when I lie in his arms and he runs his hands through my hair, is almost as incredible. But another truth is that every moment with Kade is difficult. Difficult because I have not told him about his child. And one day, I’ll have to explain it. Each moment with hi
m, no matter how beautiful, is marked with pain.
“What?” she asks.
I lower my voice: “I haven’t told Kade about the baby yet.”
“Oh.”
“And . . . I think I should, you know? What if he wants me to stay? What if he wants to—to sort of move to the next level?” I feel silly speaking the words. Kade enjoys our time together, enjoys tearing into each other, but he has never said anything that hints at something more.
“Well, the offer’s there. Send me a text if you change your mind.”
“I will,” I say. “I definitely will. I’m glad you called.”
“Me, too. Don’t be a stranger.”
“I won’t.”
She hangs up. I try and return to my writing, but my mind strays to Kade and Terry, to secrets, to the baby.
I can’t keep this from him any longer, I tell myself, trying to gear myself up for it. I can’t keep it from him; the lower part of my belly is softening, getting rounder. My hips and ass have gained weight, my breasts are swollen. I don’t think these changes are particularly visible to someone else, but I know my body well, and he’s getting to, too. At what point does it move from “putting on a little weight” to “incredibly pregnant?” I don’t know. And if I don’t tell him now, what will I say when he finally sees? Will I say it is somebody else’s? Will I plead ignorance and claim I have no clue how my body just started growing? Will I say I’m one of those women who don’t pay much mind to their periods? Perhaps he knows so little about women’s functions that he might believe it. But even then, I would have lied to him. And for the rest of my life, I’ll have to keep up the story that I didn’t know I was pregnant.
I realize I’m chewing the pen to tatters.
I drop it onto the desk and stand up.
No, I won’t live a lie. No, I won’t string him along. No, no, no.
It’s time to tell him.
I pace into the bar and to Kade’s office without giving myself time to think it over. Scud is sitting at the bar and as I walk past he says, “Where are you going in such a rush, Lana? Come and sit with me awhile.”
I ignore him. Not trying to be mean, just worried that if I stop, even for a second, I’ll begin to have second thoughts.
I knock on Kade’s door with a shaky hand, so that my knocks are quick raps.
“Yeah?”
“It’s me.”
“Alright.”
He sounds tired. Worn-out. On the verge of anger.
When I walk into the office, I see that the skin around his eyes is dark, sleep-deprived. His leather is thrown over the back of his chair and he wears a checkered shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the collar loose around his neck.
“Are you okay?” I say, when I see his face. It’s a picture of withheld rage.
“I need to get goin’,” he says. “Some incident out in the forest.”
His temples pulse and it’s like I can see the anger moving through him. He wants to punch the wall, or hurt somebody; he wants to be out in the forest where he can deal with whatever this is.
I tell myself that I need to come clean. I tell myself that it’s time. I tell myself I can’t keep this secret forever.
But looking at him, I know that telling him right now would be cruel. He’s already worried. He’s busy. He’s got other things on his mind. Telling him right now would serve no purpose other than relieving me, making me feel better, taking a weight off my chest. Telling him right now would be selfish. Maybe that’s true; maybe it’s just justification.
But as I look into those tired but still-bright blue eyes, I know I am not going to tell him today. And I know that if I am not going to tell him, I shouldn’t be here, lying to him night after night.
“I’m moving in with Terry,” I say.
“Your friend from the Twin Peaks?” He sits up, leaning forward. “What? When?”
“Soon,” I say. “She’s got a place in the city and she’s asked me to move in with her. I think it’s time—”
“It’s not,” he interrupts. “It’s not time at all.”
“I’ve told her I will now.” I’m shocked by how easily the lie comes to me, bypassing thought and just coming right out.
He stands up, shaking his head. “I can’t talk about this right now. Don’t do anythin’ until I get back. Give me that, at least.”
“I won’t be moving right away,” I say. “But I will be moving.”
How can I explain to him the importance of moving without telling him about the baby? I can’t, so when he looks at me waiting for an explanation, I just look back at him.
“We’ll talk about this later,” he says. He throws on his leather. “There’s somethin’ happening and I need to see to it.”
He glances at me, seems to be about to speak, and then shakes his head.
“She needs a roommate,” I say.
“We’ll see about that.”
Something about his tone makes me bristle. As though he owns me, and if I’m a hypocrite because I like him to own me in the bedroom and not out here, so be it. But as far as I’m concerned, the bedroom and the real world are distinct places with distinct rules.
“I’m moving,” I say, and then I march out of the office without waiting for a response.
I think Kade is following me before I get back into the dorm and hear the roar of his Harley.
I pick up my cell and text Terry: It’s a yes.
I went in there to tell him I’m carrying his child. I walked out after telling him I’m leaving him.
How the hell did that happen?
But maybe it’s for the best, I reflect as I chew on my pen. Maybe it’ll make things easier.
“Easier for who?” I mutter. “Easier for who? You? Kade? Or the baby?”
Chapter Eighteen
Kade
Mountain was a big man. A huge man. The sort of man the other men looked at and thought: Nobody could ever take him out. He was the sort of man who inspired belief in the Tidal Knights ’cause if a giant like him thought it was a good idea to be in the club, there must be some merit to it. He was the sort of man who walked into a bar and stopped the talking for a second. If one of the men was being squared up to by a few drunks, all it would take is a low throaty word from Mountain to get them running. Yes, Mountain was invincible; that’s how the men saw him.
So when I arrive at the clearing and looked down at the twisted, mangled, blood-drenched corpse, for a minute or so I can’t quite believe it’s Mountain.
Earl stands with his hands in his pockets, squinting at the body with the same disbelief I feel. We stand in the middle of a clearing, a break in the tall luscious green trees with a collection of rocks just behind us which look like the haphazard outline of a hand holding a pistol. Scud arrives soon after me, power-walking to the corpse, and then spinning around and puking all over the floor.
Earl curls his lip. “Get a grip,” he says quietly.
“What happened?” I ask Earl.
“Sheriff called it in for me, said it was one of ours. Some lady walking her dog found him. Good job the sheriff’s on our payroll.”
Earl looks at me meaningfully. Earl’s an old soldier. I should have made him second-in-command, even if Scud was third. Still, now that Scud’s second, Earl’s third.
“How does that help him?” Scud says, breathing heavily, wiping vomit from his mouth.
“It doesn’t,” Earl says. “But it helps the club. If it’s in the papers that Tidal Knights are being murdered, it makes us look pretty damn weak. Especially if it’s one of the lieutenants.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, thinking that it’s damn strange seeing a huge man like Mountain laid out like this. And thinking about Lana, too, about how she might be gone one of these days. I shouldn’t be paying that any mind at a time like this, but I can’t help it. Lana is the one thing right now that makes all this shit worth it. No matter how hard my day is, I can come home and join her in bed. If I can’t do that, I reckon I’ll go mad. Focus. I hav
e to focus. But Lana . . . Fuck, man, this caring-about-women shit can really screw with your head.
I think about this past week, all the times we’ve fucked, every night now. I don’t know what I was doing for the weeks before that. Now, no matter how tired I am, I find the energy to fuck her until we’re both panting and sighing, until both our eyes can’t stay open.
“Boss?” Earl raises a grey eyebrow at me. “How do you wanna play it?”
“We’ll tell the men,” I say. “Can’t lie to them. But I’ll be damned if we’re goin’ to let them see Mountain like this. We’ll tell them what happened but we’ll keep this grisly shit to ourselves. Mountain’s people need to be told, too.”