“Are you comfortable?” he asked, and when she said yes, his voice changed entirely. “Then tell me who gave you permission to move?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and then she wanted to try out a new word in her mouth. “Sir.” Oh, yes, that felt good. It felt good in this spot, in this position, at this moment. From the low hiss she heard behind him, he liked it too. He liked it just fine.
His hands rubbed the fullness of her ass, and she enjoyed the warmth and motion of his broad hands. When the first spank came, she yelped in surprise.
“One to five,” he said, his voice calm and conversational, almost impassive. “Where was that on your threshold?”
“Uh.” She fought to find a word, any word. The right word would be nice, but any word would do at that particular moment. The sting on her ass was bright and shocking in her mind, but not actually painful. “Two?” she said.
He struck her again, same spot, harder this time, and she hissed out a number without thinking about it. Three more slaps on that one spot before he moved to the other side, five slaps there, and then he was rubbing her ass again, stroking the wounded and sore flesh. He’d lost his clothes at some point, she didn’t know when, but when his cock pressed against the opening of her swollen cunt, she groaned hard. He slid into her easily, wet and soft, and he buried himself so deep inside of her that she wondered how she still had room to breathe. His hips slapped against the soreness of her ass, and God did it feel good. It felt so good to have him all the way inside of her, full of her, splitting her wide open. His hands were solid and firm on her hips as he pulled her back, forcing her farther back on his cock. She could feel the orgasm building, building wide and strong, and she reached for it, pulling it close and letting it wash over her in slow moving waves. He followed her so fast, grunting over her, that it was hard to tell when her orgasm ended and his began.
When he was finished, he sagged into her, wrapping his arms around her belly and dragging her down to the bed with him. She snuggled back against him, letting him hold her, and sighed.
Chapter Eighteen When Mindy woke up later, Jack was gone, and her stomach was growling. The room was dark; it took her a moment to realize that it was dark outside the double hung windows too. She pushed herself up to a sitting position and looked around until she found the bag with her clothes. She’d worry about putting things away later; right now, she just wanted to get some food and find out where Jack was. She wasn’t normally clingy, but at the same time, she didn’t know a damn thing about this place or these men. Jack said she’d be safe here, but was it a relative value of safe? Were there rules she had to follow that she didn’t know about? And, while she was obsessively worrying, what was going to come of all this? Jack had said she wouldn’t stay here forever, but what did he have in mind? It’s not like Providence was chock full of expensive hotels where he could put her up or something. Were they going to like get a little house with a picket fence? She was not at all sure she was ready for picket fences. Would he want a dog? Would they fight over the name of the dog?
She shook her head hard, trying to dislodge the spiraling anxiety. None of that mattered right now. She needed to focus more carefully. There would be plenty of time to worry about dog names when she knew what he wanted from her and what he wanted for her and the baby. Then she’d been able to weigh that against what she wanted for her and the baby. When all the pieces were in place.
She walked out of the room and down the little hallways. She hadn’t seen much of the place when they’d come in earlier, just the decor of the hallway and the main room. Despite it being quiet on the way out of Jack’s room, she still expected to get back to the bar and lounge room and see it full of rough and tumble guys who were one step away from beating each other over the head with beer bottles. What she eventually saw was very different.
The room was full and pretty smoky, but not to the level where she felt like she was walking into a sticky blue cloud. There were people playing poker, darts, pool. There were people bellied up to the bar. There were girls dressed in skimpy outfits, draping themselves over various bikers and clearly doing their best to turn people on, but there were also a variety of people dressed in leather, and they seemed to come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, including shapes that clearly had breasts. There was something really nice about that, she thought again. How much different would her life have been if she’d managed to break out of Gram’s strict but painfully clear ideas of what it meant to be a young woman trying to get out of the trailer park?
God, she couldn’t imagine getting pregnant out of wedlock back in the town she once pretended was home. Gram would have called a priest and an adoption agency, in that order. She would have shipped Mindy off to one of her many, many sisters, all just as old and crotchety and fundamentalist as she was, and Mindy would have… God, she didn’t even know. She didn’t want to think about that gray and dingy life.
Here, she felt like maybe she could be part of something. Who were you if you were the girlfriend or the… something more of the president’s wife? Did the president of a bike club have a First Lady?
She giggled at the idea of choosing china patterns for this room lit by a combination of light boxes and ceiling lamps. There was something comfortably seedy about the place, and she liked it. Perhaps dishes with pinup girls. There had to be something like that, right? There was something for everyone.
In looking around, she noticed Bodhi behind the bar, pouring a line of shots for those nearby. Since she didn’t know anyone else in the room by name, she decided to head in that direction.
When Bodhi noticed her, he gave her a nod, but it still seemed reserved. He passed out the shots and then moved over to her. “What can I get you?”
She took a moment to consider her stomach. She didn’t feel particularly nauseated, and she thought maybe she could actually eat and drink something. “Virgin Bloody Mary?”
His mouth spread into a little smile. “That I can do.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Did you think I was going to do something else?”
He looked uncomfortable for a moment, his teeth closing on his lower lip and his gaze carefully focused on his work, and then he shrugged. “Jack had words with a lot of us while you got rested.”
“Words?”
“You know. He wanted to be sure you were being careful. About a lot of things. I guess one of the girls did some Internet research for him—about stuff pregnant women are supposed to eat and not eat. He sent Ally out for these.” He put a gigantic pill container on the bar next to the drink in front of her. She picked it up and turned it over, recognizing the brand of prenatal vitamins her doctor had suggested. And she hadn’t been taking.
Something flared inside her belly, but she wasn’t entirely sure if it was frustration or appreciation for how attentive he was being. The line between protective and controlling was very fine, and she couldn’t be sure what side of it he was falling on without seeing him face to face. “I see.”
“You gotta understand,” Bodhi said, and Mindy raised her eyebrows. He took a moment and stepped back his tone. “This just isn’t how we normally do things, especially when the club is threatened. We keep things in the family. We stay close to home. We… take care of our needs here.”
Something about the way she said it made her look around the room, seeing all the girls who were hanging on leathered members. They looked happy, content—smiling. But was that really the case? As soon as she turned back, Bodhi was shaking his head.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “It’s not bad that he hooked up with you. It’s not bad that you’re…” He gestured at her form in a way that she supposed was meant to take in everything about her, from her pregnancy to her status as a normal. “But it’s different. And we’re all in a place where different is bad.”
“Because of this thing that happened with Grim, and what’s happening now with the Wardens?”
Bodhi’s eyebrows went up a bit. “He told you all
of that?”
“Yeah. It’s a pretty intense situation, definitely. I get why people are being cautious.”
Bodhi seemed to relax, just a little. “I’m really glad to hear that.”
“Can I ask where Jack is?”
“He’s out patrolling with some of the guys.” She must have looked confused because he clarified after a moment. “We ride about a mile radius around the clubhouse every so often. We want to make sure that there’s no one in the area who shouldn’t be there. We don’t do it as often when things are calm, but—well, things ain’t calm.”
“And I’m not making them calmer?”
“You know the truth?” He picked up a glass and started to polish it, the sudden perfect image of a carefully considerate barkeep. “I don’t think you have anything to do with it. I think that we’d be just as nervous if Jack didn’t have someone to relax with, or if we knew there was a girl and she wasn’t here. There’s no good situation here. There’s a lot of people looking for someone to be nervous about. It looks like that’s you. It sucks; I’m sorry about that.”
Oddly, the perspective helped. If it wasn’t about her, then she could let it go, brush it off, and focus more heavily on getting settled in, making friends as much as she knew how, and just being part of the club. Apparently, this was going to be her life now. She’d lived rough long enough; maybe she could try living rough with a family. Honestly, there was something appealing about that.
Jack had said everyone did something to help.
“Tell you what,” she said. “I know just enough about tending bar to be dangerous. Want to show me enough to be good? Maybe, in turn, I can get some dinner?”
Bodhi’s careful, practiced smile suddenly blossomed into something much more real.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m sure we can do that.
Chapter Nineteen Mindy almost didn’t notice Jack when he entered the room. She was focused on Bodhi who was showing her how to pour shots and the few mixed drinks that tended to get ordered. He told her it wouldn’t ever be enough to really tend bar outside of a place like this, where the most complex thing anyone ever asked for was a vodka tonic or a whiskey soda, but she could fill pretzel bowls and pass out long neck beers as well as anyone. In fact, all the years she’d worked as a waitress came into play; she could easily tell who was coming up to the bar for a drink or for conversation, who wanted to get their whiskey neat and walk away versus who was going to settle down for a little bit. She knew when someone was going to want another shot, and when they were ready to walk away but didn’t want to yet. It all came naturally to her. And she liked feeling useful. It was good to be useful.
She saw him between pours, standing by the front door, his hands on his hips and a slight upward curve to his mouth. God, that man had gorgeous lips. Yes, his cock was phenomenal, but it was his easy smile that kept drawing her in. She didn’t expect a guy who draped himself in that much ink to smile so easily. She gave him a little wave, and he walked over to her, sliding onto the bar stool. His hands were dusty, the grime caked into the creases of his knuckles; they must have been riding the dirt roads around the outskirts of town.
“What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a dump like this,” he asked.
She laughed. “That’s really the best line you’ve got?”
“I wasn’t thinking about how to pick you up until I found you behind my bar.” He propped his jaw up on one hand and gave her a grin that made her body tingle. “How did you get behind my bar?”
“I like being useful. Bodhi showed me the ropes.”
He laughed then, throwing his head all the way back. “Bodhi,” he called. The other man looked up from the far end of the bar. “You making a move on my woman?”
Bodhi raised a beer in salute. “Only the best, boss.”
There was a round of laughter in the bar, and she wasn’t sure entirely why, but she felt positive that something had loosened up in the room. Maybe Jack was treating her like any other woman he might have brought into the fold of the club, or maybe it was something else. Having the man they relied on here with them. That sort of thing always made a place run more smoothly. A good boss made people feel more secure. And him calling her his woman. That felt better than she’d thought it might. Interesting.
“Something to drink?” she asked, instead of unloading her every thought onto his unprotected head.
“Vodka, neat,” he said, and she poured the shot just like Bodhi had shown her. Jack nodded at her before tossing it back and grinning.
“So, you like me being your woman?”
He went just a little still. “I like it pretty well. Is it all right with you?”
“Yeah,” she murmured. She would have leaned across the bar to kiss him if she were entirely sure she could get there without her belly getting in the way. Instead, she settled for giving him a long, deep smile that was meant to warm him from his head to his toes.
“Have you had anything to eat?”
“A bite here and there.”
He reached out a hand and led her down the line of the bar, lifting their hands over the various folk seated there as they went.
“Bodhi,” he called. “I’m taking my woman for a burger.” She laughed as he put a little more emphasis on ‘woman’ than was strictly needed. Or maybe it was the ‘my’ he was pushing. Either way, it made her feel pretty good.
He took her to a table in the center of the room, away from the bustle, and told her he’d be right back. Mindy sat still, feeling much more on display now than she had a few minutes before. She did her best to roll with the feeling, letting it be just a thing that was happening instead of a thing she needed to worry about. It worked okay, but she was sure it would work better if people, especially the girls, would stop looking at her all the time. The whole thing was just nerve-wracking.
After about ten minutes, Jack returned with a tray loaded with burgers in baskets, and about every burger topping she’d ever heard of or thought of laid out in front of her. Bacon slices, two kinds of cheese, ketchup, two kinds of mustard, lettuce leaves, tomato, half an avocado.
“What’s—Jack, what are you doing?”
“So, I said I’d go get us some burgers. Caitlyn’s cooking tonight, and she’s great on the grill. But I had no idea what you’d want on your burger. So, I just… kind of brought everything.” There was something about a big man covered in tattoos looking sheepish that just made her want to giggle. She assembled her burger—cheese, bacon, avocado—and took a big bite. In the first few months of her pregnancy, she had barely been able to eat meat at all, and then as soon as the all-day nausea faded, all she wanted was the rarest, juiciest burgers she could get her hands on, all day long. This one was gorgeous. She had to move fast to keep her chin from getting wet and dribbling onto her shirt.
“Oh my goodness.” She groaned.
Jack laughed as he assembled a more traditional heartland burger—lettuce, tomato, mustard, and ketchup. He had a double patty, she noticed. She’d have to ask about that next time. “I’m glad you like it.”
There was something about him, different than what she’d noticed before. She finished chewing, then set her burger down. “Is everything okay?”
“Of course,” he said, way too fast. He seemed to realize it too and sighed, took a bite, then chewed. After he swallowed, he said, “Everything’s quiet. It’s really quiet. I know that should be good, but after we’d stopped the Wardens from snatching you, we all assumed they’d come to the clubhouse. Try a frontal assault. And instead, they haven’t done anything. They’re not the type to generally do nothing.” Jack shook his head. “The thing is, the longer they wait, the less leverage they have. So, the only reason to wait is because they’re getting something big ready. And that means we need to prepare. But how can we prepare when we don’t know what we’re preparing for? So, we keep running more and more patrols, which gets everyone more and more riled up. And it all spins around.”
She reached out to touch his
hand, and he shook it off. Her upset must have shown on her face because he gave her a quick, soft smile.
“Sorry,” he said, his tone lower. “The patches don’t need to see me being worried. That won’t ease minds.”
“What do they need to see, then?”
He was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know how much I can ask of you.”
“Well, you can start by asking. I’m a big girl, I’ll say no if I don’t feel comfortable with what you say.”
Another half-smile from the man across from her. Mindy had to smile.
“Okay,” he said. “It would be good for the people here to see you as more than just my woman. For them to believe that you’re here because you fit in, and, separately, because you’re with me. There are some who think you might be some kind of spy, others who believe you’ll steal me away from the club in their time of need. People are worried about what’s happening. If you could reassure them about some of that, it would help.”
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