Chapter Twenty-Eight
Bed rest was fun for about a couple of days. Lounging in bed, getting to read what she wanted or watch whatever she wanted without fighting someone for a remote, or just napping whenever she got tired; all of that was pretty cool.
But around day three, it started getting pretty boring. Mindy had watched all the movies she’d missed out on because of pulling double shifts at the diner. She’d read two books, napped more times than she could count, and was really horny. Her hormones did not know that she was on full pelvic rest, as Joanna had called it, and that she was not allowed to play, have sex, have an orgasm, or anything at all until the baby was born. Her hormones knew that she’d been having some of the best sex of her life for a week straight, and then she’d been cut off cold turkey. And even if she’d wanted to cheat on the rules, there was no way Jack was going to let her.
Joanna had taught Jack how to take Mindy’s vitals and check on the baby’s heartbeat. Joanna drove by every other day to check on Mindy as well and take some measurements that were more complex and harder to check without a medical background.
The weeks passed with no further pain or bleeding, or any other signs of trouble. Joanna began to look more optimistic when she came by, instead of looking like she was about to walk into a funeral. So that was pleasant.
Still, Joanna refused to allow her up out of bed for more than fifteen minutes at a time, and Jack was there to make sure that Mindy followed every single rule that Joanna laid down. When he needed to go out on club business, he had someone else from the club keeping an eye on her. Mindy had gained something of a reputation as a cold bitch who was not to be messed with, somehow, but people were terrified of Jack, just as much as they loved him. It was painfully clear that absolutely no one was going to cross him and let her have an extra long shower. Rat bastards.
Lauren didn’t come to the clubhouse, but Jack talked to her on an almost daily basis. They were cross-referencing the scant information each of them had been able to gather on Grim’s murder, and they were looking to find some commonality that they’d each missed separately, but when put together with the other person’s piece, would help them construct a whole that made sense.
The Chain Gang was attacked, more than once. Patched folk would be out on the roads and come across a bunch of spikes laid down, taking out their tires. They’d go to a bar and get into fistfights with men they knew were Wardens, even though they weren’t wearing their leathers. Over and over, they were picked at, prodded, and often humiliated. Jack told the Gang, over and over, not to get involved, not to engage, that he was working on it—but people were listening less and less. There was tension rising in the clubhouse. Mindy did her best to shut it out, trying to stay focused on herself and the baby, but as soon as she’d started thinking of the Gang as her family, it was impossible to shake that image. They were her friends, her family, the people she believed in. The people who believed in her. They were protecting her and the baby. They were doing their best.
“Here’s the problem,” Jack said, one morning when she was napped out and he hadn’t slept. He was lying on his back, next to her, with her head pillowed on her shoulder. It had been about three months since the agonizing day that had sent her to the ER. Her belly was so big now that she couldn’t really curl in on his shoulder anymore, but it was much better than nothing. “When I took you back from the Wardens, at least a couple of guys got shot. In all these skirmishes, we’re not the only ones getting wounded. But there’s been no real attempt at retribution. No real push to even the score. That’s just not right. That’s now how things are done. And people are getting antsy. It’s a great way to put people off, you know? To just make sure that they never quite settle; never quite get a chance to understand what’s coming next. In the movies, it always makes them complacent, but in real life, it just makes them more afraid, edgier. I’ve got to figure out how to get people to let off some steam, or when the attack does come, it’ll tear us apart.”
Mindy thought about asking what happened if an attack never came, but based on the sound of Jack’s voice, she was pretty sure it would be a mistake. He wasn’t in a place to hear about maybe it would all work out eventually. And that was fair. She wasn’t sure she would be if she were in his shoes either. “You don’t think Lauren can hold them together? The Wardens, I mean?”
He shook his head slowly; she heard his hair rasping against the pillow. “If it were another club, maybe. As it is? No, I’m afraid she can’t. I’d like to believe in her—and I swear to God this isn’t going to be a thing about her being a woman—but she’s never really been in the life. Grim tried to groom her, but even when he was the leader of the Gang, she wasn’t ever really part of the life. Like she knows how to ride a bike, of course, and she can do her own repairs. I know she and Joanna go out riding sometimes, but it’s not in her the way it is with some of us. She’s happy doing her work, and she doesn’t need the road under her wheels. She’ll live her whole life in this town, and that’s all right with her.
“And you?” Mindy asked. “Will you live your whole life in this town?”
His answer mattered a hell of a lot more to her now than it would have seven months ago. She’d already given up so much; was she giving it all up for a man who would get itchy feet two years down the road? Sooner?
He was quiet for a long time; she appreciated that he was thinking carefully before he answered her. “This is the longest I’ve ever been in any place, and I like that. You’re the first person I’ve ever been able to imagine having by my side, way into the future, and I like that too. I can’t promise I’ll never want to go walkabout ever again, but I’m pretty damn sure that if that were the case, I’d want you there with me, in whatever way you wanted to be there. Is that enough?”
She snuggled in just a little tighter. “That’s pretty damn perfect.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jack and Mindy were quiet for a while, and she found herself turning the conversation in her mind over and over; what had been discussed at the hospital. “So, you think it was Wester, who killed Grim.”
He nodded. “It makes sense, but it’s nothing more than a theory. The brothers following him, from what Lauren’s told me about them, they’re going to need proof, hard proof, before they’re willing to do anything. Honestly, if he doesn’t own it himself, I don’t know that anything will be enough. Not a single goddamn thing.”
There was something in the tone of his voice that made Mindy go very still.
“And what happens then?” she asked. He was quiet some more. “Jack? What happens if you can’t find enough to convince them to stop following Wester?”
He sighed, his free hand coming up to scrub at his face. “Then the war goes on, for a long time. For forever, I don’t know. Until everyone’s dead or both clubs are wiped out, or until one of us gives up and leaves town—goes to set up somewhere else. I don’t know. But I’m… Mindy, I won’t leave this town while there’s a single patched member of the Chain Gang fighting. They’re my family. I won’t leave them behind.”
Her stomach turned at his words, but she made herself nod into his shoulder. As much as she disliked what he was saying, the words made plenty of sense. More sense than she entirely liked. “I understand. Just be as careful as you can be, okay?”
Jack nodded. “I promise. I’m not looking to get killed. I want to be with you and see this baby grow up, and make a better life for my patched family and my new family. But I just gotta be honest. You understand?”
“That I do.”
He ran his hand over her stomach, grinning when he felt the sharp kick of the baby’s foot. They’d talked for a little while about finding out the baby’s sex but had decided that they didn’t want to know yet. Let something be a surprise.
“Did you ever think this would be your life?” she asked, knowing the answer already.
“Nope,” he replied. It was something of a script they’d developed over the past few weeks, and it
felt so safe and good. “You?”
“Never.” She snuggled in a little closer, and his arms tightened around her. “But I’m glad you’re here.”
“I feel just the same.”
They snuggled for a bit longer, and her hip started to ache. Nothing surprising there; her hips always ached these days, stretching to accommodate the baby. When she slung her leg over Jack’s, she heard the low groan and felt him harden against her inner thigh.
“Oh my,” she said and pressed her leg down. He hissed in response, gripping her knee to give himself a little more pressure as he pressed up against her. “You seem very uncomfortable right now.”
He grumbled for a moment without actually saying anything. It had been hard to miss how he’d been taking a lot of solo showers, and more than once she’d come back from the bathroom to see him guiltily clicking away from something on his computer. She’d suggested that she could help him out in other ways than actual intercourse, but he’d kept waving his hands at her. “Don’t worry about it,” he kept saying. “I’m fine.”
But he wasn’t fine. He was so hard that he had to be hurting, and she’d seen how distracted and frustrated he’d been. Clearly, it wasn’t all from a lack of orgasms, but it couldn’t possibly be helping. She dragged her thigh over his erection again, more deliberately this time.
He let out another groan, but he shook his head.
“We can’t,” he said, his voice tight. Oh God, he was so hungry for it; for fucking her as hard as they both liked. It made her body tense and tease, and she had to remind herself of all the reasons she couldn’t do what she most wanted to. But hey, she’d been trying to explain to him for weeks now that there were more options than just intercourse. No time like the present to show him exactly what she meant.
“I can’t,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean you have to be miserable. Let me help you.”
He didn’t immediately protest, so she sat up, working his belt buckle and tugging his zipper down. She got him stripped, and his cock sprang free, thick and massive and so goddamn pretty. She absolutely loved staring at him, but this was going to be even better.
She started with her hand, stroking him slowly from root to tip. She loved the feel of him in her hand, rock hard and coated with velvet. He made happy little sounds as she stroked, slow and firm, then faster with a looser grip. He hissed at the movement of her hand, whenever she brushed the underside of his head or stroked over his slit. God, he was leaking within a few strokes; he was eager and interested, wasn’t he? He groaned as she tightened her grip and looked for the right, regular rhythm to make him heave under her hand.
He pushed his eyes open and looked directly at her. “Are you absolutely sure you’re okay with this?” There was something almost frantic in his gaze, as if he was using every ounce of his self-control to stay with her, stay engaged at that moment, in the possibility that she might lose interest or decide she needed to stop.
So, she smiled as she stroked him harder.
“I’m so sure,” she said, and then she leaned over, taking him into her mouth in one long, hard thrust. He cried out, his hands coming to her hair as his hips arched up to meet her mouth.
“Fuuck,” he whispered, drawing out the vowel until his voice nearly broke. His hands were loose in her hair, but it felt like he was deliberately keeping them soft, like what he wanted was to grip her tight and use her mouth until she broke. It was gorgeous and sexy, and at the same time, she wanted him to fuck her just like that. If he couldn’t put her up against the headboard and screw her until her cunt ached with it, then she wanted him to use her mouth just like that. Hard and fast and unforgiving.
She reached up and caught his hand, squeezing until he tightened his grip. He looked at her one more time, then groaned as he gave in to what they both wanted. He held her in place, and he thrust up into her mouth, hard enough to touch the back of her throat and make her swallow. Every time she thought it’d be too much, he pulled back just enough before he slammed into her again. She braced her hands on the bed, on either side of his hips, and gave him what he wanted, fucking her mouth like he couldn’t get enough. She felt him tightening as his release neared, and in the moments before he came he pulled back, yanking her closer as he jacked hard with his hand. When he spurted, he splashed all over her throat and the tops of her breasts, groaning at the sight of it. She loved the look in his eyes, the wanton abandon, the eagerness. The way his soft, white cum looked splashed all over her tanned skin.
He sagged back onto the bed, a thin sheen of sweat visible over his entire body, and groaned. She reached for a T-shirt that had been flung off the bed at some point and cleaned up her chest, smiling to herself that he’d stained the top edge of her tank top. She would carry that reminder for a while, and that felt good.
He tugged her back into his arms and kissed her forehead. “You didn’t have to do that,” he said, his voice weary.
“I know,” she said. “But I wanted to.”
“That’s good.” He was fading fast, his arms going loose around her. “That’s nice.”
“I love you, Jack.” She wasn’t entirely sure where the words came from, but she was glad they came out.
His eyes flashed open, but for just a moment. He snuggled her tighter into him as they drifted closed again. His hand traced the swell of her belly as he smiled. “I love you back.”
Chapter Thirty
Time passed. The Wardens kept their distance from the clubhouse, but everywhere else they caught the Chain Gang, they were relentless. More and more of the patched were coming back to the clubhouse with knife and gunshot wounds. Minor, so far, nothing that the club medics couldn’t handle, but it was only a matter of time until someone died. And then there would be a full-on war. There’d be cops involved because everything would get turned upside down, and be completely brutal and terrifying. And Mindy was terrified that she, Jack, and her child would be caught in the crossfire.
So, when Bodhi suggested openly inviting Lauren to the clubhouse, the next time Joanna came to check in on Mindy, Jack didn’t seem to chew it over for long before he nodded his agreement. Worry curled through Mindy’s belly; he’d been so deeply opposed to the rank and file Gang knowing about the tentative peace that he and Lauren had forged; he had to feel desperate to agree to the idea. But she was just his bride, she thought; it wasn’t her place to comment or critique. At least, not about this. She didn’t know much of anything about the club, after all; she’d just barely started getting to know people when she ended up confined to her bed for absolute months.
“Yeah,” Jack said, and glanced at Mindy as he spoke. “Yeah, I think it’s time. Maybe past time. This has to get out into the open.”
Bodhi looked like he’d just bitten into something that tasted like horse manure, but he nodded. “I’ll spread the word and make the arrangements. Make sure she doesn’t bring anyone she doesn’t implicitly trust.”
Jack started to snap, then visibly bit his tongue and dialed back his temper. “I know, Bodhi. I promise we’re going to do this square.”
Bodhi’s jaw tightened, but he nodded. “Alright, boss,” he said. He stepped away from the room that Jack had converted into something of an office, nodding at Mindy as he went. She was allowed to sit up now, for half an hour at a time, as long as she didn’t have any pain, and her blood pressure didn’t start to climb. She’d made it eight months, after all; Joanna kept saying that this was great. At this point, if the baby came early, it wouldn’t be great, but the odds of survival were really good. And even thinking that made Mindy’s hands shake, so she pushed the thought away as often as she could. Of course, the baby would survive. Of course, it would.
She’d stopped calling it Bean after the past few weeks. It was so big now, actively kicking and twisting in her middle; it was so clearly not the size of a bean that it was just ludicrous to keep using the nickname. But without knowing the baby’s gender, or having had even a real conversation with Jack about a name, she didn’t k
now what to call it now, other than just ‘the baby.’ Which felt weirdly impersonal for someone with whom she was quite literally sharing a body.
“Is there anything I can do?” Mindy asked.
Jack shook his head. “Well, that’s not true,” he said. “Pray for us. Sound like a plan?”
She forced herself to swallow hard and share a shaky smile. “Will do, boss.”
Jack laughed, reaching over and pushing her down on the bed with incredible gentleness. “Don’t you start.” He stretched out next to her, burying his face in her breasts and making her sigh.
“So how does this work? Do you have to, like, go to the Wardens’ clubhouse and give her an escort here? Does she just turn up at an appointed time?”
He put one hand behind his head. “In a minute, when my heart stops racing, I’ll go call her. We’ll set up a time. She’ll ride here with her lieutenants and whoever else she trusts. To be formal, I’ll tell her how many people she can bring with her, and we’ll meet her at the edge of our territory, then ride the rest of the way in with her. And we’ll all sit down and see what we can hash out.”
BIKER DADDY_The Chain Gang MC Page 13