Craving Me, Desiring You

by C. M. Stunich

  Austin pauses, grabbing onto my arms and causing me to bite my lip in pain when his hand brushes my bandage.

  “Shit, sugar,” he breathes, letting go. “I'm sorry.” I sit back, sliding a safe distance away from his genital region. There is no way on earth I'm going to be able to think clearly if we're pressed together like that. I grab the white sheets and tuck them around myself, moving away so that the only parts of us that are touching are covered with fabric. I don't look away though. I keep my eyes completely focused on Austin's. “What … what did you … ” He looks disoriented, like he's gotten lost somewhere inside of himself.

  “I mean, I suppose I could be wrong, but I took two tests today and they were both positive.” I keep watching Austin's face for some sign of how I should feel. Right now, I'm not exactly enjoying what I see. “And when I finally sat down and thought about it, I realized I hadn't had my period last month.” Austin stays silent, sitting there with his back against the headboard. I wait a whole minute for him to respond, but he doesn't. He sits there, staring at me. “Austin?”

  “Amy,” he says back, voice soft but not angry, not disappointed, just empty. He's mulling over the idea just like I am. Austin runs his fingers through his hair while I wait, trying to be patient but unable to stop the thoughts that are racing through my head. Tease said Beck whooped for joy when she told him, took her in his arms and made love to her. This, this isn't like that at all.

  “You don't have to say anything,” I tell him, starting to stand up. “I just thought you should know.” I let the sheets slip aside and start to walk away when Austin grabs me around the right wrist and tugs me back towards him, enfolding me in his arms and pressing his face into my back. The stubble on his jaw tickles me, and I squirm.

  “God woman,” he says, voice rough and bursting with emotion. “How long have you known?”

  “Only since yesterday afternoon,” I admit as I let Austin pull me back to the bed and lay me out flat on my back. He leans over me, brushing his fingers down my cheek. “Why does it matter?”

  “I'm just glad you told me,” he says, and I have a real hard time reading the emotion in his face. I don't get much time to examine it because Austin draws back and flips me over, pulling my ass to the edge of the bed and pressing his dick between my cheeks. Oh goodness. I dig my fingers into the bedspread, and try to figure out what exactly is going on here. Is this a joyous … er, union? Or is Austin trying to fuck me for lack of a better alternative? I can't tell.

  “Austin, what are you doing?” I ask, breath a rare commodity in my lungs. I can hardly breathe. He chuckles behind me and the sound makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I lean into him, and bite my lip as he glides against me, teasing but not entering. You wickedly cruel, cruel man. How can I be doing this when I have no idea what it is you're thinking?

  “Celebratin',” Austin whispers harshly as he slams into me, filling me up with a sharp burst of sound from his throat. I press my face into the bed, smelling laundry detergent overlaid with the sharp scent of sex. We had quite a good time in here last night – it didn't end on the balcony. Last night's sex was so vastly different than this, almost fuzzy around the edges, soft. There's nothing soft about what Austin's doing to me right now.

  “You want to have a baby with me?” I ask. Well, I suppose ask isn't the right word. More accurately, I moan the phrase, letting it fall from my lips and hang in the air around us. The phrase feels so foreign, wrapping around and tangling our souls together tight. I hope this is really what Austin wants. It's hard for me to tell.

  “I want you,” Austin growls, holding onto me tight, pounding so quick and hard and fast I can almost imagine that we're strangers meeting in an alley for an illicit tryst. Not by any stretch of the imagination would I call this making love. “You're mine, Amy. I told you that.”

  “And you're mine,” I say, trying to keep my voice firm, even with la petite mort sneaking her dirty little fingers into the mess. Austin grips me tight, sliding one hand up to tangle in my hair, pulling my face up and forcing me to arch my back into him. Perhaps I should feel slighted we're not having a deep, verbose conversation about this, discussing options or plans or logicality. But I'm not. That's not Austin. Austin speaks with actions and intents instead of words. I feel this protective possessiveness radiating from him, this uncouth display of affection. He is, after all, a dirty biker boy.

  “You're my baby and if you're gonna be pregnant with anybody's seed, it's gotta be mine.” I moan, feeling the sound gurgle up from my throat, enjoying a guilty slice of primal bliss as I clench around him, my body working hard to achieve what it's already conquered, milking his seed from his cock with tight, fluttering pulses of muscle. I come first, resting in the hands of the little death, feeling her wrap her dark cloak around me and drag me under.

  Chapter 16

  Austin

  “Shit, shoot, and crap in a barrel,” Beck chortles, slapping his thigh and raising his beer bottle up for a toast. “Me and you, we're like two peas in a damn pod.”

  “You're a crazy son of a bitch,” I tell him, but I manage to clink the brown glass of my bottle against his. Gaine joins us with a slight frown, and Kimmi follows after. As we settle back on our stools and pretend the whole damn restaurant isn't staring straight at these four fools at the bar, Beck starts his blabbering again.

  “Wandering through life, a couple of ol' bachelors,” he begins, and I groan. He doesn't like when I listen to Nickelback on the intercom, and I don't like when he starts off on his stories. “Find ourselves a couple of much younger ladies.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Gaine says, leaning his elbow on the counter. Kimmi just sits there smilin' away.

  “And within a span shorter than a pony's stride, we buy some houses, and knock our sweethearts up. Living the American dream, amen!”

  “You been down here drinking before I even called your ass up, weren't you?” Beck wrinkles his red brows at me, green eyes sparkling. He's genuinely thrilled with all of this, and it's not just his usual sense of good humor. Beck is happy.

  “Shoot, no,” he says which is about ninety-nine percent likely to be a lie. “Me and Tease were pickin' out baby names, like a proper couple.” Kimmi wraps her nails around his bicep and snuggles against his arm.

  “I'm going to be an auntie times two,” she squeals, fluttering her long, fake lashes against her cheeks. I watch as she takes another swig of beer. “Amy's probably even further along than Tease, huh?”

  “Always trying to outdo me, ain't ya, Austin Sparks,” Beck says, narrowing his eyes and pointing his beer bottle in my direction. “I see right through you.”

  “He's definitely drunk,” Gaine interjects, ordering up some whiskey and setting his beer aside. He folds his hands behind his head, sitting up straight and staring at Beck and me both with a measuring gaze. His dark hair is all scruffy and out of place and there's definitely a hickey or two peeking out the top of his shirt, but I don't say a damn thing about it. None of my business anyway.

  “Shit, you're just jealous because you know Mireya Sawyer is incapable of makin' babies. Demons can't breed.”

  “Fuck you and your dead grandma, Beck,” Mireya counters, appearing behind him and reaching around to steal his beer. She looks me straight in the face and my stomach clenches tight. I don't feel anything romantic for her, but she's still my friend and I love her. It's just our sordid history that's got a knot of fear curling around my insides. “What are you guys celebrating? Tease's pregnancy?”

  “Yes and no,” Kimmi says, sitting up straight and tinkering with her dangly earrings. She slides her green eyes over to Mireya's brown ones. “Amy's pregnant, too.”

  “Amy?!” Mireya practically chokes on the word, giving me a look that's hard to decipher. “Jesus Christ, you guys. It takes a village to raise a child and now we've got two?”

  “We'll return the favor when Gaine finally figures out how to sow his wild oats in your devil womb.” Beck chuckles at his o
wn joke and starts in on a new bottle.

  “You are such a fucking dick,” Mireya says, scowling at my friend and coming around to stand next to Gaine. I turn to look at her, not because I want to, but because I can feel her eyes burning lasers into me. It's safer at this point not to look away. If I do, she might just incinerate me. “When did you find out about this?”

  “About,” I glance at my watch, “twelve hours ago.” I look back up at Mireya, standing with her hands on her hips, her jacket hanging loosely off her shoulders and flashing me perfectly bronzed skin and a fancy red top that I'm sure is all for Gaine's benefit. “Why?”

  “I guess that would explain your mood today,” Gaine says, dropping his arm around Mireya's waist and holding her close. I am such a dense motherfucker. I spent years watching these two prance around each other, and I never once noticed anything between them. I'm going to have to try real hard not to make the same mistakes with Amy. I don't want to be oblivious and stupid anymore. I spin my bottle between my hands and wonder what she's really doing upstairs in that bathtub. She says she's planning on reading, but who knows? I just hope she's not upset. I tried real hard to be attentive today, to talk to her, kiss her, hold her. We haven't exactly discussed the issue at hand, but I'm sure we'll get to it. It took me a second to process what she was saying, but after I got over the initial shock, I felt okay. It's a lot of responsibility, but I have to man my ass up. If I'm going to be a dad, I'm going to be a damn good one, and I sure as hell ain't going to let my kid be as much of a fuck up as me.

  A baby.

  Shit. Who woulda thought?

  I take another drink of beer.

  “This really puts the pressure on me to take care of shit,” I say, thinking of Tax's phone call this morning.

  “I know,” Gaine responds, setting his lips in a thin line. “But it's going to be okay. We'll get through this crap like we always do. Ghosts can be banished. We'll get rid of Kent's leftover garbage eventually and live happily ever after.” He smiles at me, and I almost want to believe his fairytale dreams. Must be nice bein' Gaine.

  “You're having a baby with your sweetheart. Perk up.” Beck slaps me on the back, guzzling beer and clinking his glass against Kimmi's. I smile at him, raising my own bottle for yet another toast. I guess the question at this point isn't what if I'm not good enough. I'm going to have to be good enough. There is no choice in the matter, not if I love Amy Cross, and I do. I look down at the polished stone counter beneath my hands and take hold of that possessive urge I feel inside. Amy is mine, and this baby is mine. Fuck, if you want to get technical, that fucking house is mine. This club is mine.

  I look up at the bartender, seeing him but not really looking at him. My gaze goes straight through to somewhere else. I take one last sip of my drink and set it down on the counter. What the hell am I doing down here when my lady is upstairs?

  “Excuse me, boys,” I tell them, rolling my shoulders and trying to work out a hard day's worth of kinks. “Ladies.” I nod at Mireya and Kimmi, ignoring the catcalling that follows me across the burgundy carpeting of the restaurant and into the elevator doors. I lean against the wall and shake my head. “Fuckin' A, Austin. Why on earth would God give your stupid ass a baby?” I answer my own question. “Maybe to wake me up inside and get my blood going? Maybe that's it?” So I walk out of that elevator with a smile on my face, and a heart ready to cast aside doubt. Everything seems like it's going to be peachy Goddamn keen until I find two of my guys slumped on the floor at the end of the hallway. I check their pulses, but they're not dead, just knocked out. “What the fuck?” I've got my cellphone out and I'm dialing up Beck's number before I even make it to the door of my hotel room. “Get your asses up here. Now.” I don't wait to listen to what he has to say, sliding my key in and shoving my way into the room with sweat beading on my lip and soaking into my T-shirt. “Amy?”

  I move through the bedroom and into the bathroom, finding the bathtub full of water, full of bubbles, with a book lying closed on the countertop. Amy is not fucking in here. I spin around, in full panic mode now, eyes searching desperately for a sign, any Goddamn sign that she's okay. I move back into the room and find her cellphone on the dresser next to the TV. Amy's duffel bag is wide open, clothes strewn across the floor haphazardly. That's not like her at all. Either she left in a hurry or someone made her leave in a hurry.

  “Fuck.” My voice is quivering with abject fear, and the muscles in my hands are so tight that my fingers curl painfully into my palm. After all this, this doubt, this stupidity on my part, I finally decide to push past it when I'm proven right. I am a shitty motherfucking leader.

  Chapter 17

  Amy

  I don't want to say that Margot is being particularly cruel to me, but I also can't say that I appreciate being kidnapped either. Most especially when I had a bubble bath and a book waiting for me.

  “I didn't want to do this,” Margot says, voice hard but only on the outside. Deep down, I can sense this painful bite of vulnerability. It gives me some hope where hope is much needed. Right now, I'm handcuffed, bound and blindfolded in the back of a car – apparently not all motorcycle clubs do their dirty work with bikes. “And I didn't mean to shoot you either. I might've let my anger get the better of me.” I feel the car pause, the engine rumbling as we idle to a stop. A minute or so later, we're moving again, my body slamming into the seats as Margot takes off with a jolt. I grunt when my injured arm gets crushed behind me, the insides of my eyelids flashing white with pain. “I thought you were Kimmi.” The anger in Margot's voice boils behind her words as we take a sharp turn. “But there was no way I was getting in there to kidnap her. Let's be honest, Amy. You were the easy choice.” I smell the scent of cigarette smoke drifting lazily into my nostrils. “Tease would've been a better bargaining chip for me, but oh well.” Margot sighs and keeps driving.

  I try my best to keep a good humor, but I know the sorts of things that could happen to me. If Margot's working alone, maybe she'll simply use me as a hostage, but if she really is still in with Bested by Crows and Broken Dallas, I could be seeing the ugly side of this life with my own two eyes.

  But no. No. Austin will come through for me. I know he will. I take a deep breath and try to put the trust in him that he doesn't yet have in himself.

  I don't get to ask any questions. This is not a Sali Bend novel. Where the fuck are you taking me? Are you nuts? I'm carrying a baby here. This is going to be hard enough, thank you. If it were a Sali book, I'm certain I would've escaped by now, used a knife that I was hiding in my hair to somehow cut the bindings at my wrists. As things stand, I'm struggling just to keep the weight off my injured arm. Margot caught me by complete surprise, coming into the bathroom and catching me, quite literally, with my pants down. She forced me to dress quickly at gunpoint so unfortunately, I don't have anything fancy or clever up my sleeve.

  Margot stops talking, leaving me to stew in silence, ears straining for the sound of motorcycles in the distance. And I was having such a nice day, too, I think, picturing the beautiful soft lavender color we'd painted in Kimmi's room. Well, Christy painted it mostly, and I helped with the edging, but Austin was there, too, working on the crown molding. I was hoping that when he came back upstairs, that we'd be able to talk. It wasn't in the cards, I suppose.

  A biker gang, a biker boy, and a baby. It's an interesting combination, but I don't see why it couldn't work. In fact, when I close my eyes and let my mind go, I imagine it turning into something beautiful. Austin hasn't said anything outright, but I got a good feeling from him today, a positive aura. Sometimes, the thing you don't think you want is the only thing you really need.

  I take deep breaths in through my nose and try to stay calm. Freaking out won't help anybody here. I assume Austin will rescue me, but I have to prepare for the off chance that he doesn't come in time. I lay back and try to come up with a plan.

  Chapter 18

  Austin

  I have to push my mental proble
ms aside. I ain't got time for that shit.

  “Beck and me will head out now. Gaine, you rally the guys and get a group together. Send everyone else to the clubhouse to keep an eye on it.” I slip Amy's cell into my back pocket and check to make sure my gun's in its holster. Everyone's lookin' at me like this a lost cause, and I don't like it. “Goddamn it! I didn't say straighten up your pantyhose and adjust your junk, I said now.” I push past my friends and head down the stairs. I don't have the patience to wait in the elevator right now. I'm more than aware of what's at stake here. Amy's sanity, her dignity, her life. The life of my baby. “Fuck.”

  “Austin, slow down. You break your leg and you won't be of any use to Little Miss Cross.” I ignore Beck, listening to the heavy fall of his footsteps as we careen down the stairs, moving out the heavy back door and across the hot heat of the parking lot. I try not to look at Amy's bike as I straddle mine. We'll get her back. It'll be okay. I have to keep telling myself that, even if I don't believe it. “Austin!” Beck grabs onto the front of my bike and leans in close. “We can't just run aimlessly around the city. We gotta get an idea of where we're going. If we take off in one direction, and Amy's on the other side of town, what good does that do us?” I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I know Beck's right. I get that, but that sick feeling in my gut, the one that made me so unsure of Amy and the clubhouse and this whole new life, it's changed. At least I can see what an idiot I've been.

  “Okay, okay.” I run my hands down my face and then drop them into my lap. I look up at the firm set of Beck's mouth. His determination makes me feel better, pulls me back from the edge for a moment. “So, when I left, Amy was alright. She obviously had enough time to run a bath. How long were we downstairs? A half an hour?” Beck nods as I bite at my lip and try to think real hard about this. The decisions I make now could affect whether Amy lives or dies. If they rape her. Oh God. My precious little sugar. Adrenaline courses through me, and I feel my vision flicker with red. If I get my hands on these sons o' bitches, they're going to pray for death. “We didn't see anyone suspicious and none of the guys noticed anything, so I'm guessing there weren't many of 'em.” I bite at my nail until it bleeds. “Let's say they got to her about fifteen minutes after I left. That gives Amy time to fix the bath and whatnot.” I look up at the sky, at the muted orange tones in the distance and take a deep breath. “There's only one major highway heading out of here, and if you want to make good time, that's the way you'd go. Not on some backwater shit ass back roads, especially not when you're from out of town. My guess is they're going South. Nobody in their right minds would head North towards Seventy-seven Brothers' territory. So if we book it and make good time, maybe we can catch up to them before they disappear off the highway?”