Knocked Up by the Bad Boy

by Waltz, Vanessa

  Even though my heart pounds so fast, I can still hear myself barely whisper, “He’s been good to me.”

  “He killed his own father to become boss. Did he tell you that?” All the blood pools to my feet as Dad smiles humorlessly. “No, of course not.”

  “Dad, I—”

  “I would have set you up with a nice life. Any one of the guys in the MC would’ve treated you well, but instead you chose this piece-of-shit man who will throw you out the moment you’re used up.”

  Then his eyes glance behind me and I turn instinctively, right into someone’s chest. He grabs my arms and I try to jump away, but it’s only Johnny, whose face is stony.

  “Carlos, I’d appreciate it if you stopped sending your guys after my men. Things could get a bit—hot.”

  Jesus.

  “You fucking cocksucker!”

  One of his men slams Dad’s chest as he drags my father, who only has eyes for Johnny.

  “Take it easy,” he hisses in my dad’s ear.

  Johnny watches him and mutters under his breath. “Yeah, take it easy, criss de tabarnak.”

  I barely feel his arm curling over my shoulder, and I don’t fight back when he turns me around. I feel Johnny’s burning heat right through my skin. His anger pounds through his feet. His fingers scratch me through the thin t-shirt I’m wearing.

  He’s fucking pissed that I came here. Well so the fuck am I. He lied to me.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “I keep tabs on you.” His voice is tight.

  “Oh, so now you don’t trust me?” I yank my arm out of his grip and Johnny’s eyebrows rise.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “You’re a lying, cold bastard.”

  He lunges at me, and I’m so surprised at the pain crushing my arm that tears spring to my eyes. We’re standing in the middle of a busy hallway, but he doesn’t give a shit.

  “I don’t want to hear this shit right now. You came here when I told you not to—I told you it was dangerous.”

  “She’s my mother! What did you expect me to do?”

  “I expect you to be smart.”

  The vicious burn seethes in my chest as he pulls me down the hall, and I’m bursting to scream at him. How dare he admonish me?

  He stops suddenly when we go outside and I bump into his back, swearing. Johnny gives me an icy look.

  “I don’t want to hear a goddamn word from you while we’re in the car. I’m serious. It could be bugged.”

  This time he leads me to his car, hardly sparing me a backward glance as he walks across the parking lot. My head still pounds with everything my dad said, and he opens the car door for me. I pause and think of what a mess I’ve made with my life.

  “Get in.”

  The car ride is tense and my fists clench whenever he takes a sharp turn, or puts his foot on the gas, flooring it. I dare to glance at him and immediately regret it. His whole face burns red, but he stares straight ahead.

  “I can’t fucking wait—”

  “Maya, don’t—”

  “You lied to me about everything.”

  I feel so fucking stupid. The things my father said chilled me to the bone, and I can’t pretend that I’m not really fucking worried that he’s exactly what Dad said he was.

  Julien is gone, and they actually strapped his body to the windshield and lit it on fire. God. I can’t even imagine.

  “Wait ’til we get home.”

  “No. Let’s talk about this now.”

  “Fuck!”

  He slams the brakes in the middle of the street and the car grinds to a halt. I feel my insides lurch as he stops the car, smoke billowing around the tires. My hands slip against the leather, chest pulsing as I realize we’ve come to a full stop.

  “Maya, please fucking wait until we get home.”

  I’ll wait ’til we get home, and then the gloves are coming off.

  He parks the car and slams the door, but I get out before he can reach my side. Fuck him.

  I march past him, hardly giving him a glance, and he catches my arm, pulling me to his side effortlessly.

  “What the hell?”

  “Don’t treat me like a jerk-off, Maya. I don’t care how pissed you are with me.”

  And then that bastard plants a soft kiss over my lips, and it’s so sweet that it almost distracts me from my anger. It makes me cling to him a little bit longer when I just want to smack the smile off his fucking face. Then I remember how pissed I’m supposed to be, and I rip away from his side. His chuckle raises my hackles and I stalk into the elevator, pounding the button so I don’t have to look at his face.

  As soon as the door closes, Johnny tries to pull me in his arms. “Hey.”

  “Don’t fucking touch me!”

  I slap his hands away and stare into the mirror, watching his deepening frown.

  “You lied to me.”

  He approaches me close enough to hiss in my ear. “If I didn’t, you would have headed for that fucking place and gotten yourself killed.”

  “You killed Julien and he was just a kid. Barely younger than me—”

  “That kid was the part of the crew that bashed Michael’s fucking brain in. My soldier captured him, and we killed him. An eye for an eye.”

  The fucking indifference.

  “So they hurt one of you, and you react by killing one of them and setting his body on fire?”

  “Yes,” he says, deadpan.

  He looks like nothing in the world could possibly be wrong with that. The elevator pings and he exits first. I trail after him as he unlocks the door.

  “I have a question for you: how fucked up are you?”

  I’m marrying a fucking monster.

  He grabs my arm with a frustrated sigh and yanks me inside the apartment, slamming the door shut. Then he locks the door and I stumble backward, startled from the noise.

  “I’m not a monster, Maya.”

  “You strapped him to that car—and you burned him.”

  That pretty much makes you one.

  “He was already dead.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  He pins me against the wall with his eyes, which are shrouded in the darkness of his apartment. “There’s nothing wrong with a man trying to defend his family.”

  “What family?”

  “You, goddamn it!”

  My back hits the wall sharply as he starts forward, grabbing my shoulders. The emotion twisting his face stuns me into silence.

  “I’ll do anything—kill anyone to keep my family safe.”

  “That kid—”

  “—was a fucking degenerate, just like the rest of them. He knew what he was signing up for. What, I’m supposed to roll over and let them fuck me in the ass?”

  Tears build up behind my eyes, and I don’t know why. I know he’s right. There are all these feelings burgeoning inside me, and I don’t know where they’re coming from. Maybe it’s just that I’m having a fucking baby with this man—this beast of a man who can’t even tell me anything real about himself.

  “My dad told me things.”

  His hands slide up my shoulders, disappearing around my neck. “I’m sure he did.”

  The dismissive tone makes me fire back.

  “He said you killed your father to become boss!”

  I expect him to pull back in disgust.

  I expect him to deny it.

  A smile staggers across his face.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  Oh God.

  “And I’d do it again, and again—and again. That miserable prick had it coming.”

  “Oh my God.”

  He cups my face, but I worm away from him, backing into the pitch-black living room. He won’t let me go. Swift hands wind around my waist and pull me closer, right up against his chest where I can feel his heart beating.

  “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “I don’t know how to look at you anymore. You’re not the man I t
hought you were.”

  “I’m the same man you met in that bar, hon. I’m just—more.”

  My hands are pinned against his chest, and I can barely draw in breath. Soft eyes look down at me.

  “You won’t tell me anything about yourself.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “You killed your own father to get ahead. Why?”

  His body leaves my side as a shadow descends over him like a shroud. “That’s not exactly what happened.”

  Johnny walks away from me, looking back as though he expects me to follow, and I do. I follow him all the way into his study, where he walks behind his desk and opens a drawer, fishing out a dusty picture frame. He blows air over the glass and hands it to me.

  “That’s me and my dad.”

  An older, balding man with vague good looks throws an arm around a small boy with dark hair and eyes. The same eyes staring at me right now.

  “I told you he was in the life with me. He groomed me, you know? Raised me in the mob so that one day I could take his position after he retired.”

  “Did you get along?”

  He smiles. “Yeah. I worshipped my dad. To me, he was a goddamn hero.”

  How the fuck do you go from there to killing your dad?

  The smile disappears. “The problems came in my midtwenties, when I started making millions of dollars for the family a month. I surpassed all the captains—surpassed him. At the time, my dad was a capo and I worked under him. I was getting a lot of attention in the papers for how successful I was. Basically, I was getting too big, too fast.”

  The pain tightening his voice makes me want to reach out to him, even though I don’t even know what happened.

  “They pulled me in for a meeting and everyone was there. They asked me all kinds of questions and my dad said nothing to defend me. I think they were nervous about me. Young kid, lots of money—I could have made stupid decisions and gotten the family under fire. Anyway, I left that meeting knowing that my time was limited. Sooner or later, one of them was going to pop me.”

  Then his whole face clouds over. “I just didn’t expect it from my own father.”

  Oh my God.

  “Several of them ordered hits on me, including him.”

  “Jesus.”

  Johnny looks tired as he walks to the couch and sits down, his head in his hands. My heart clenches in my chest at the sight of him in pain. I sit down next to him and touch his thigh.

  “How did you—”

  He lifts his head and snaps at me. “I found him and blew out his fucking brains. Then I gave the boss a choice. He could resign or me and my crew would pick them off, one by one. He resigned.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  I can see Johnny still fighting to swallow down the pain of his father—his hero—betraying him. He lifts his head.

  “Karen left me right after that. She didn’t want to be with me anymore. It was too much for her.”

  Is it too much for me? Something about the way he looks at me says that he doesn’t give a fuck. His hand slides over mine, still resting on his thigh.

  “I’m sorry for what I said—”

  “Maybe I am a monster,” he says, turning around to look at me. “But I don’t give a fuck if I am.”

  I squeeze his hand. “I can handle it, Johnny.”

  “I know,” he says with a smile, sliding his arm behind my back and dragging me into his arms. “That’s why you came to me in that bar. You wanted to fuck around with a wise guy.”

  His smile intoxicates me, more powerful than booze or drugs. It slowly weakens me and an explosive spark ignites somewhere inside me when he bends his head and kisses me. I kiss back, yielding to his soft pressure. Shit, I already want him. I slide my hand around his neck, loving how warm he is. He pulls back, just hovering over my lips.

  “I’m crazy about you, Maya. I think if I don’t fuck you every single day for the rest of my life, I’ll go insane.”

  For the rest of my life.

  “You always get me so fucking hard, baby.”

  He gently nips at my collarbone as desire floods my veins like strong liquor. “If we get married, will you ease up on the MC?”

  “If? You mean, when. We’re getting married, Maya,” he ends with a rough edge in his voice.

  “I could change my mind,” I say in a dry voice, although it’s hardly a threat.

  He smiles as though I’ve said a cute joke. “You’re not going to change your mind. Like I said, you need me, and I’m not letting you go anyway.”

  * * *

  A question trembles on my lips.

  A question I can’t fucking ask while I’m wearing a wedding dress.

  I always assumed I would marry for love, not for politics. Not because I got knocked up. There are so many unanswered questions between us, but I still say “I do” when our vows are read. His head bows and catches my lips, and I try to kiss him back, but the roar of the crowd distracts me. And then all of a sudden, just like that, I’m married. He grips my hand and we walk down the aisle in a shower of lavender petals. I move slowly in the dress his mother helped me pick out, my legs shaking so hard that if it weren’t for him holding my hand, I would have collapsed. We make it to the limousine waiting outside the Catholic church, and then I finally have a few moments of blessed silence.

  My husband slides into the limousine and shuts the door, giving me a mildly amused look.

  This is fucking real. We’re married. He’s my husband. That’s it. I’m bound to him for life.

  It terrifies me. Did I make a mistake?

  “Maya, you look beautiful in that dress.”

  It takes me a second to appreciate what he said, and a weak smile pulls at my lips. He looks mouthwatering himself. He wears some kind of dark-gray designer suit that I’ve never seen before, but it’s probably expensive enough to pay for a dozen of his regular suits. It fits him perfectly. The fabric glides over his lean muscles and tightens around his legs when he sits down. A smile breaks his handsome face.

  “What, are you shy now?”

  My heart beats in my throat as I stare at him. I want to ask him. I need to ask him.

  But I’m afraid of the answer.

  “Do you love me?”

  His eyes widen slightly and he sucks in breath, looking stunned at my question. It hangs between us, making the air thin.

  “You said, in the beginning, not to expect anything, but I can’t.”

  I can’t because I’m in love with him. The thought of him not feeling the same for me twists a knife in my guts. Then I see the hesitation on his face and I know that my worst fears have come true.

  The fucking man I married doesn’t love me.

  “Maya—”

  “I love you!”

  My hands shake as a pained look crosses his face. It’s that look that absolutely kills me. Like a dagger to the heart.

  “I love being with you. I love fucking you—”

  “—but you’re not in love with me,” I finish, my throat already thick with tears.

  God, it fucking hurts. It’s not his fault. Hell, he made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t going to have feelings for me, but it still hurts.

  He touches my face. “Maya, I can’t promise you to be everything you want me to be, but you’ll have me forever. I’ll be a good father to our kids.”

  A thrill shoots up my chest. Kids?

  Then a wry smirk makes my heart flip. “You didn’t think I’d stop at one, did you?”

  He gathers me in his arms, almost crushing me with the force of his embrace. “I’ll be good to you, Maya.” His palm instinctively smooths over my womb as he plants a kiss on my head. “You’re my wife, now. You’re the most important person in my life.”

  Just believe him.

  I do believe him.

  JOHNNY

  My wife walks into the kitchen wearing nothing but one of my white t-shirts, which barely covers her pussy. Her nipples are like dark circles on the semitransparent fabric,
and my dick gets hard as if I didn’t fuck the shit out of her last night and this morning. She yawns and I watch the t-shirt ride up her ass as she leans over the kitchen counter.

  That’s one place I haven’t fucked her.

  I stand up, hard-on blazing against my slacks as I approach her from behind. She doesn’t hear me coming and jumps a little when my arm curls around her waist. She leans into my embrace, her curves soft against my body. Maya turns around, smirking as I hook a finger in her dangling neckline and sneak a peek of her tits. Not that I can’t see them already.

  She looks down and sees my hard-on. “Again?”

  I slide my hands up the backs of her thighs and I squeeze her ass. “If you’re going to parade yourself like this in front of me, you better get used to it.”

  Her tongue wets her lips and my mouth waters at the thought of having those beautiful lips wrapped around me. She reaches out and grabs my cock, curling her fingers around it. I feel it jump in her fingers.

  Then my hands sweep around her waist, just under the hem of the t-shirt. I cup her mound and reach back with a finger, finding her nice and wet. I plunge inside her, and her eyes become round as she lets out a small gasp. Jesus Christ, she’s wet. So fucking wet.

  “Please, Johnny.”

  I remember the first time I fucked her—how easily she manipulated me by throwing her tits in my face. I reach around her back and tighten her shirt, admiring how it wraps around her. I bend my head and sink my teeth into her curves. I grab the little nipple with my teeth and bite, and then I play with my lips.

  “You signed over your pussy to me.”

  We married a week ago in a church. I saw the love in her eyes when we kissed on that altar, and I see it every time she looks at me. I feed off of it—need it just as badly as I need her body.

  A small chuckle escapes her lips even as I’m thrusting in that wet cunt. Her cheeks burn red as I stop. I want to laugh when the color drains from her face. I gather her thick hair in my hand into a ponytail and I yank her head backward.

  “You’ve got something to say?”

  “No.”

  “You laughed. You think being my wife is a joke?”

  “No,” she says in a tremulous voice, still smiling.