by Harley Wylde
“I see.” He took a step back. “Guess you got what you wanted then.”
Seriously? He was going to play that card? The guy was a man-whore from what my brother said, and I’d had no doubt I was just easy pussy for him. So what did Ryker care if I wanted to spend more time with him? It wasn’t like he’d fallen in love with me. And now that I was carrying his child… he couldn’t find out. He’d think I was trying to trap him, and that’s the last thing I wanted.
“Ryker, I…”
“Laken, are you coming?” Isabella yelled through the window she’d rolled down.
Ryker glanced at Isabella, then back at Laken, his gaze questioning. “You know Torch’s wife? Are you two friends or something?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“So have you been blowing me off for personal reasons or because of the Dixie Reapers?”
“They asked me to stay away from you,” I said, and then wished I’d kept my mouth shut. Now he would pry and likely find out who I was. Not what I needed!
“They asked you to stay away from me?” he asked, his voice low and far too calm. I had a feeling I’d just made a huge mistake.
“It’s fine, Ryker. I mean, you’re leaving soon anyway, right? We had fun, but it was never going to be more than that. I knew that the first time we were together. I never expected more from you.”
“Laken, I --”
His words were cut off as a motorcycle rumbled down the street. When I saw my brother heading our way, I wished I could hide, but it was too late. I clutched my prescription sack tighter and sent a panicked look toward Isabella, but she lifted her hands, and I knew I was on my own. Flicker came to a stop in a parking spot just a few feet from me, and he slid his sunglasses down his nose. His blue eyes were icy as he glared from me to Ryker, then back to me.
“Laken, get on the bike,” Flicker said.
I took a step in his direction, but Ryker reached out and gripped my arm.
“Just let me go, Ryker,” I said softly. “Please.”
“No. What the fuck is he to you?”
“Ryker, I…”
“Laken,” Flicker said, his voice a deep growl. “Get. On. The. Fucking. Bike.”
My heart hammered in my chest as Ryker tightened his grip on me, and I knew things were about to get really bad. I had no idea how to defuse the situation. I frantically looked at Isabella again, and saw that she was on her phone, no doubt calling her husband. Peachy. And I’d thought things were complicated now? Once Torch got here, I was beyond fucked. I’d been told to stay home, and here was I was parading around town. Even worse, I’d run into Ryker. Again.
“She’s not going anywhere with you, asshole,” Ryker said. “I don’t know what you think you have going on with her, but Laken is staying here with me.”
I closed my eyes and mentally groaned. That so wasn’t going to go over well.
I heard Flicker’s bike turn off, and I opened my eyes in time to see him swing his leg over the seat and head toward us. Ryker pulled me back and stepped in front of me. I thought it was a little sweet, and really stupid. He had no idea who Flicker was to me, but he’d just waved a red flag in front of a bull. I needed to de-escalate the situation, and fast.
I tried to step around Ryker, but he wouldn’t let me.
“Flicker, it’s not what you think.”
Ryker growled and glared at me. “It’s exactly what he fucking thinks. You’re mine until I say otherwise, Laken. I claimed your virginity, and that makes your pussy mine. Got it?”
I narrowed my eyes. That macho bullshit wasn’t going to work. “Um, no. Last time I checked, it was attached to my body, and therefore it belongs to me. I just let you borrow it for a night.”
He arched a brow.
“All right. Two nights.” My cheeks flushed.
“Laken, what the fuck is going on?” Flicker asked. “I told you to keep your ass at home. If I’d thought you were going to run off, I’d have left a Prospect guarding the damn door.”
“She lives with you?” Ryker asked.
“She’s my sister, asshole. Of course she fucking lives with me,” Flicker said.
Ryker tensed. He turned to face me, and his eyes had turned ice cold. I’d never seen such a hard look on his face before, and I wasn’t certain if I was facing the Marine or the biker. But he definitely wasn’t my Ryker in that moment.
“You knew who I was that night, didn’t you? Did you deliberately stick your ass in my face, hoping I’d take the bait?” he demanded, his tone harsh and unforgiving.
“What?” My eyes went wide. He thought I’d what? Set out to trap him?
“So what was your endgame, Laken? You wanted to be Hades Abyss royalty and thought you’d lure me in? Or were you trying to sweeten the deal I had with your brother’s club? Because they threw enough club sluts my way that you weren’t really necessary. Or was I supposed to be captivated by your virgin pussy?” His eyes narrowed. “Please tell me you took a fucking morning-after pill.”
My heart was hammering so hard I could hear it, and I was certain everyone else did too. I took a step back, the sack in my hand crinkling as I tightened my grip. Ryker reached for it, but I gasped and took off running. No way was I telling him about the baby now. Not if that’s what he thought of me. Tears blurred my vision as I ran, and a sob caught in my throat. I’d had no delusions of a happy ever after with him, but it hurt to know he thought I was capable of such a thing. If I’d had any idea who he was that night, I’d had avoided him like the damn plague. The last thing I needed in my life was another asshole biker.
I heard someone calling my name, but I didn’t stop. I ran until my lungs burned, and as I turned to look over my shoulder, I took a misstep and fell off the curb. The wind was knocked out of me as I crashed onto the street, and I heard the screech of tires and a horn honking. I tried to stand, tried to get out of the way, but all I did was give the driver a larger target. The car slammed into my side and sent me flying. My head cracked against the pavement when I landed, and everything fucking hurt.
“Laken!” I heard my brother roar my name, and then he was kneeling over me. “Laken, Jesus. Please tell me you’re okay.”
“Hurts,” I managed to croak.
My prescription sack had fallen to the pavement. “She dropped this,” a stranger said.
I heard sirens in the background and knew that things must be even worse than I thought. There was warmth seeping into my clothes and I didn’t understand where it was coming from. Before I could figure anything out, everything went black.
Chapter Five
Ryker
I was in a foul mood when I got back to the Dixie Reapers compound. As Laken had stormed off, I’d gotten on my bike and taken off. The last thing I’d wanted was to stick around. My bike roared to a stop outside the clubhouse, as I decided what the hell I was going to do. I didn’t know if Laken had acted on her own or if someone had put her up to it, but I was damn sure going to find out. I slammed into the clubhouse and came to a halt, when I saw the devastated looks on the faces at the bar.
“Who the fuck died?” I asked.
One guy winced, and the VP shot me a glare. “You’d better fucking hope no one dies.”
What the hell? How was this shit my fault?
A small hand gripped my arm, and I looked down at the VP’s wife. I couldn’t remember her name, but I’d met her briefly shortly after I got here. She’d seemed nice, and not quite who I would have pictured paired with the older man. Then again, I’d noticed all of the old ladies seemed to be quite bit younger than the bikers they were paired with.
“It’s Laken,” she said.
“What about that lying bitch?” I asked, my anger flaring all over again.
Tears gathered in the woman’s eyes and she bit her trembling lip. “There’s been an accident. Laken was…”
Laken was what? What kind of accident?
The VP came over and wrapped his arms around his wife. He spoke to me over the top
of her head, his look unforgiving and accusing.
“Laken was hit by a car when she ran from you. She’s at the hospital, and that’s all we know right now. Flicker called and said there was blood everywhere.”
My breath froze in my lungs. Laken was hurt? Yeah, I’d lashed out at her, and I was pissed that she’d used me. But part of me still wanted her, still cared on some level. I’d thought she was special, might even be someone I wanted around for a while. I didn’t like the idea of her in a hospital bed. And blood everywhere? Just how fucking badly had she been hurt? There was this squeezing sensation in my chest, and it hurt to breathe for a minute. Had I caused this? If I hadn’t lashed out at her…
The VP’s wife whispered something in his ear, and he shook his head.
“He needs to know,” the woman said.
“No, Ridley. That’s not for us to decide. We should have never ordered Laken to keep away from Ryker. It was her decision to make, and so is this. When she wakes up…”
“If,” Ridley said.
“No, when she wakes up, if she wants to tell him, then that’s up to her,” Venom said. “If we hadn’t tried to keep her away, then maybe none of this would have happened. It’s our fault he didn’t know who she was.”
I had a feeling I was missing something huge, and I wasn’t going to get answers by sitting around here. There was only one hospital in town that I knew of, at least only one that I had seen, so I went back out to my bike and decided I’d go see Laken. Maybe I’d been too harsh, and I should have let her explain. I was used to women trying to use me to get my dad’s club, they’d done it since I turned sixteen and bulked up. Yeah, I’d been mostly gone the last twenty years, but every time I was home the same shit happened. But if I’d been wrong… If it really was my fault that she’d been hurt, I’d never forgive myself. I’d killed people, beat the shit out of them, even killed females in Afghanistan who posed a threat to my team, but I’d never been responsible for hurting an innocent woman before. And that it was Laken made my gut churn.
At the hospital, there was a line of bikes near the ER. I parked alongside them and went in to check things out. Flicker, Torch, Bull, and several others were in the waiting area. All of them looked like they’d been beaten, and I figured that meant the news wasn’t good. There was a heaviness in my chest as I tried not to think about what would happen if Laken died. Was it that serious? Could I lose her before I ever really had her?
I approached Flicker, and he surged out of his seat, his hands clenched at his sides. If this really was my fault, then I wouldn’t stop him from beating the hell out of me, if that’s what he wanted to do. He’d have every right.
“You don’t deserve to be here,” Flicker said.
“Just tell me she’s all right.”
He looked away and refused to talk to me. Bull pulled him down into a chair again, and I found an empty spot to sit and wait. The minutes ticked by, and then an hour had passed. The longer we waited, the more the tension grew in the small room. By the time a harried-looking doctor appeared, I’d lost track of time and was starting to get really damn worried. The doctor pulled a mask down under his chin and looked around the room.
“Laken Beaumont’s family?” the doctor asked.
“That’s us,” Flicker said, standing along with the other Dixie Reapers. I got to my feet and stood on the outer edge, wanting to hear that the man had to say, and yet feeling like I was an outsider. I guess I really was, even though I knew a part of Laken they didn’t.
“We were able to stop the bleeding. She has two cracked ribs, and there was some internal damage from the impact. She has a gash on her head that took twelve staples to close, and some bruising on her side from where the car hit her. We had to induce a coma in hopes the swelling in her brain will go down, but the baby is fine,” the doctor said.
At the word “baby” the Dixie Reapers turned to glare at me, and I felt like the world was beginning to tilt. Laken was pregnant? So, she hadn’t taken the morning-after pill. Had that been her plan all along, or was it just an accident? I didn’t hear anything else the doctor had to say, but as he walked off, Flicker approached me.
“You got my sister pregnant, dickhead. And you nearly got her killed.”
“I didn’t mean for her to get hurt. And I’d thought she’d take the morning-after pill so she wouldn’t get pregnant. I should have made sure she took it.” Not that she would have if her goal had been getting pregnant from the beginning. She’d not seemed to pay me any attention in that bar until I’d run my hand up her leg, but what if she’d been baiting me. Wouldn’t be the first time. But it was the first time anyone had actually caught me. I’d always been super cautious and wrapped my dick… until Laken.
“Laken was on the Depo-Provera shot,” a soft voice said behind me. I turned and saw Isabella, the President’s wife. “She probably didn’t think she could get pregnant. I went with her when she had it done, and I don’t think she was scheduled to go back for another one until next week or week after.”
“She was on birth control?” I asked.
“You mean you fucked her and didn’t even ask?” Flicker asked. “What the fuck, man?”
“She told me to just pull out, but then…” I closed my mouth. No way I was going to tell her brother that her pussy had felt so damn good I’d lost my head. I’d already said too much before, not knowing she was related to a Dixie Reaper. Fuck, the way I’d gone on about her, I’m surprised Flicker hadn’t strung me up by my balls that first day. No guy wanted to hear about some guy fucking his sister.
“I’m going to go see my sister. And you,” Flicker said, pointing at me, “had better not fucking be here when I get back.”
“I’m not leaving,” I told him. “I need to talk to Laken.”
“No one’s talking to her thanks to you. Didn’t you hear the doctor? She’s in a coma.” Flicker turned on his booted heel and stormed off.
Isabella patted my arm. “Let him cool down, and he’ll eventually come around. Laken means a lot to him, and not just because she’s his sister. She came to live with him when she was a teenager because her mom died. Flicker took her in, and she’s lived with him ever since. No one’s allowed to touch her, she’s not allowed to work… I don’t think she’s been on a date since she came to stay with him. He’s a little obsessed with keeping her safe.”
Torch studied me with his arms folded over his chest. “You need to decide how you’re going to handle this. You have something of a reputation with the ladies, and it’s not a good one. When Flicker found out you’d slept with his sister, he nearly came unglued. I thought he was going to pound your ass into the pavement.”
“Why didn’t he?” I asked.
“Because I told him to get his shit together and cool the fuck off. Laken’s a grown-ass woman, but Flicker’s never going to see her that way. He’s twenty-one years older than Laken, and I sometimes think she’s more like a daughter to him than a sister. Not because of the age difference but because he raised her the last five years,” Torch said. “Other than the Dixie Reapers, she’s also the only family he has. They have a dad out there somewhere, and possibly more half-siblings, but no one has heard their old man in a long-ass time.”
“She’s carrying my kid,” I said.
Torch shrugged. “Is that all that matters to you? Because the kid will be taken care of. He or she is a Dixie Reaper, and Laken will have all the help she could ever need. We take care of our own. Any man in my club would lay down their lives for her and that kid.”
Was that all that mattered to me? No. I’d come here to check on her before I knew about the baby. Hell, before I’d thought she’d been screwing me over, I’d wanted to take her with me when I left this place. But I didn’t know if anyone here would listen or would care. I needed to see Laken, to talk to her and make her understand. If she really hadn’t set out to trap me… yeah, I was feeling like an asshole right now. Maybe the women I’d known had made me a little jaded, possibly a lot jaded
. A lot of my military buddies had been screwed over by girlfriends, or women wanting to be their girlfriends. I’d seen too many trapped over the years. Or maybe if I hadn’t fucked Laken before I got to really know her, then all of this could have been avoided. Not that I’d planned on more than one night with her, not at first. That’s all I’d ever wanted from anyone… until now. Until her.
“I need to see her,” I said. “I won’t leave until that happens.”
Torch shrugged. “Suit yourself. I doubt they’ll let anyone but family see her until she’s awake. And father of her baby or not, you’re not family. If Flicker has anything to say about it, you never will be.”
I might not be family to Laken, but I was family to the baby in her belly. That might not mean shit to the men glaring at me right now, and maybe it didn’t mean shit to Laken either, but I’d be damned if anyone was going to keep me from seeing her. Flicker glared at me as I approached the nurse’s station, obviously not having any luck in getting back to see Laken, but I did my best to ignore him. The nurse looked up at me, her eyes lighting up as I gave her the smile guaranteed to drop panties. I leaned in a little closer and prepared to give her the sexy growl that made panties wet every damn time.
“May I help you?” she asked, a little breathless, and the pulse in her neck fluttering. Oh yeah, I had her.
“My pregnant girlfriend just came out of surgery. I was wondering when I might be able to see her,” I said, lying a teensy bit. Pregnant, yes. Girlfriend? Eh, it was a gray area. I hadn’t asked her to be mine, but now that I knew we were having a kid together, no way in hell I was walking away without her.
“Oh.” The nurse blinked up at me, some of her excitement fading. Maybe I shouldn’t have called Laken my girlfriend? “Name?”
“Her name’s Laken Beaumont,” I said. “The doctor was just out here, but I didn’t get a chance to ask when I could see her.”
The nurse tapped on her keyboard, then frowned. “She’s in a coma according to the doctor’s notes. I’m not sure when she’ll be awake.”