OUR ACCIDENTAL BABY: Hellhounds MC

by Paula Cox

  Then Rust says, “I need your help, Allison. I remember the pamphlets you were holding that day when …Anyway, this is Joseph. I need you to help him.”

  The emotion in Rust’s voice shocks me. He stares down at me with those same solid black eyes, but I’m sure there’s something in them that wasn’t there at the bar, or outside the bar as he nonchalantly walked away. Joseph stands awkwardly behind Rust; he’s pretty obviously jonesing for something. He’s twitching, his eyes shifting awkwardly from place to place, and there’s just something itching about his entire body.

  “Sure,” I say, voice faint. “Come in.”

  My legs are trembling as I lead Joseph to the couch. Rust takes a place at the wall, leaning back, hands dangling at his sides. Part of me—the romance-reading part—wants to leap at him right now, reach down and grab his cock as I should’ve done in the alleyway. I think about what I’m wearing, black pants and a white shirt, and wish I was wearing something sexier. Then I kill that thought, which is completely inappropriate under these circumstances. But pushing my daydream away does little to stop my beating heart, my sweating palms, the fog which comes over my head. I ask Joseph if he would like a drink of water, and he nods. I’m glad; I go out into the hall and get Joseph a drink from the cooler while also downing two cups myself. I return with the water, and then pull up a chair near the couch.

  I expect Rust to leave. This past week, I have told myself again and again that Rust is a Neanderthal-like man who does not care about anyone but himself. That is the fiction I created; that is the only way I imagined myself getting over this man, who for some unknown reason has gained such a strong foothold in my mind. That is my only defense. But he does not leave. He just leans against the wall, watching. I glance in his direction as I go to the desk to get my notes, and I’m sure there’s genuine concern on his face. His forehead is creased, his eyebrows knitted, his lips closed, not quite pursed, but no longer curled into his knowing smile, either. His arms are folded, as though concerned, and his fingers tap against his biceps.

  He cares.

  This man really cares. The thought is too much for me to comprehend right now, because with it comes the absolute crumbling of the walls I’ve erected around him in my mind. If he is not the brute I’ve imagined him to be, then I’ll be forced to come up with a second line of defense. But I can’t do that right now, not with Joseph sitting on the couch and Rust watching the whole exchange.

  This realization hits me, processes, and then falls into a backseat during the short time it takes me to walk to the desk to get my notepad.

  “Hello, Joseph,” I say, offering him my social-worker smile. You have to be approachable and understanding, but not soft; that’s what I learnt at college. “My name is Allison Lee.”

  “Hello,” he mutters, unwilling to look me in the eye. That’s pretty standard. Joseph’s feet are doing a tap dance routine, and his fingers are drumming along on his knees.

  “I understand you’re going through a hard time right now, Joseph?” I say coaxingly.

  I’m burningly aware of Rust, who is to the side of us, lurking at the edge of my vision. I can just see his arm muscles in his jacket, tight, the leather looking as though it could burst any moment. I can see his big hands, and the way he stares at Joseph as though the two are brothers or something. I wonder for a second: maybe they are brothers.

  “Yeah,” Joseph says, nodding. “Yeah, a little—but it’s not too bad.”

  “Can you tell me your surname, Joseph?”

  He nods briefly, and then mutters: “Cussler.”

  So they’re not brothers, but Rust clearly cares a whole lot about him. Maybe he’s a club kid, or …yes, maybe he’s going to become a club kid. I’ve learned a little about the motorbike clubs during my time here, and one of the things I’ve learned is that the clubs will take addicts and detox them and patch them. A few of my colleagues disagree with this—they think it’s better for addicts to go through the established channels—and of course in a perfect world, all addicts would. But if there are people out there who are only clean today because of the clubs, surely that’s a good thing? And after all, the established channels don’t work for everyone. Looking at Rust, seeing how much he obviously cares, I can’t look down on it.

  “Okay, Joseph, I’m going to take a few notes on you, and then we’re going to talk about the possibility of you going to a rehab facility.”

  At the word rehab, Joseph’s eyes go really crazy. His feet tap against the floor so quickly that even on carpet they make an audible sound, like knuckles rapping wood. He reaches down with his hands and grips the couch cushions, much as I’ve gripped the same cushions over the past week. But he grips them in anxiety, not lust. His breathing begins to quicken, and I see it before it comes: a panic attack. I lean across, but I don’t touch him; without knowing him, it’s impossible to know if it will make things better or worse.

  “Joseph, can you listen to my voice?”

  “I’m not a junkie,” he mutters, talking to himself, his words coming out quick. I’ve heard words spoken like that hundreds of times, the unmistakably too-fast words that precede a panic attack. He goes on, quicker: “I’m not a junkie, I’m not one of those sick junkies. No fucking way.” He breathes in, out, in, out, face turning red, unable to focus on anything but the panic which is slowly tightening his chest.

  “Joseph, I want you to listen to me for a second. Can you do that, honey?”

  “I’m not a junkie. I’m not a junkie. No way. No damn way.”

  I’m about to repeat myself when Rust kneels next to the couch. Even kneeling, he looks huge, exactly the sort of presence I would assume to be frightening to somebody about to give themselves over to panic.

  “Kid,” he says, and to my disbelief Joseph turns to him at once and holds his gaze. Far from finding the large presence frightening, he seems to find it reassuring.

  “Y-y-yes?” Joseph manages, teeth chattering.

  “I want you to hear me, kid. Can you do that? Can you hear me?”

  Is this the same man who pushed me up against the wall of a dirty alleyway, the same man who stuck his hands in his pockets and whistled as he left me to get a cab, the same man who seemed not to give a damn about anything? Is this the same man I have told myself is a Neanderthal, an unfeeling monster? Is this the same man I have convinced myself is cold and unsuited to me? I can hardly believe my eyes as I watch huge, muscular, leather-wearing Rust talk softly and slowly to this teenager, talking him back from the precipice of panic.

  “I can hear you,” Joseph says.

  “Alright, good. This is Allison Lee, alright? She’s my friend, a friend to the club, and she’s going to help you get better. I know there’s some shit you don’t want to face, but you’re goin’ to have to face it. Life isn’t a sweet ride all the time; you have to earn a sweet ride every now and then. There’s gonna be some work, and maybe some pain, but I swear to you man, you can do this. You can pull through this. I believe in you. Do you get it?”

  Joseph manages a nod.

  “Good,” Rust says. “Now listen to her. Give her your full attention. She knows what she’s doing.”

  I only barely close my dumbstruck mouth as Joseph turns to me—with complete attention, with the sort of attention it would normally take me a few sessions at the least to gain. I was hoping for half-attention at best, but this…

  “Okay,” I say, regaining my footing as Rust returns to his place at the wall. “I just need to get a few details…”

  I let that hang, waiting to see if he’ll panic again, but he just looks to Rust. Rust nods, and Joseph turns back to me. “Okay, Miss Lee,” he says. “I get it. I understand. Let’s get it done.”

  I don’t let my shock into my expression, but I am shocked, more shocked than I was even when I came onto Rust outside the bar. For the rest of the meeting, Joseph is quiet, compliant, and even a little hopeful. He keeps glancing at Rust for support, and Rust offers him a smile now and then.


  Soon, I have Joseph on his way to a rehab facility, a good local program that pairs group therapy with interpersonal skills to help people understand what’s going on in their heads when they use, and what will help them stay clean over time. I stand in the hallway, outside my office door, thinking about the man on the other side of the door.

  He was supposed to be just some arrogant biker asshole, but now—

  As I grip the handle and push the door open, I’m painfully aware of the medley of emotions which swim in my chest, lust and nervousness and shock and warmth, all making it hard to keep my defenses up, all making it hard to think logically.

  Chapter Nine

  Allison

  Rust is still leaning against the wall, looking like a man who really does not care about anything, cooler than cool. Now that Joseph has left the room, that cocky smile has returned to his face. As I walk to my desk and sit in my chair—thinking that I can put this desk in between us as a kind of shield, I suppose—I wonder if the concern was some kind of ruse. But if it was, why drop it now? And a ruse to accomplish what? I thrust these thoughts down; overthinking about Rust has made me paranoid. I lay my palms flat on the desk, watching Rust, who just watches me right back, smiling nonchalantly.

  Here is the man who has captivated my dreams for the past week: who has made me wear out the batteries on my vibrator, who has given me innumerable incredible orgasms in my fantasies.

  After a while, the silence becomes unbearable. Rust doesn’t seem to mind it. He just leans there, calm, collected, as though he wouldn’t mind leaning there for the rest of time. I cannot. I have work—yes, yes, that is my excuse. I have more work to do.

  I clear my throat, and then say, “Thank you for bringing him in, Rust, but…” I’m supposed to tell him I have to get back work. Instead I blurt out: “I didn’t expect that of you. Really, I didn’t. I’m shocked—” I cut short, wondering where that came from, wondering why I cannot just control what I say and do when I’m around this man. Since I made the decision to follow social work instead of accounting, I have been in control. But with Rust I feel like the little girl who being pushed here and there without ever finding her grip.

  Rust pushes off the wall, swaggers to the desk, and takes the seat opposite me. He rests his elbows on the armrests and lets his forearms and hands hang down, like some massive powerful animal ready to jump across the desk at any moment; I search his eyes for lust, and I’m sure there’s something there, an ember in the deep night of his gaze. A ghostly hand trails up my back, tickling me, and I have to repress a shiver lest he see the effect he’s having. “Shocked?” He lets out a short laugh. “What did you think I was, sweetheart? Some kind of animal?”

  Is this guy a mind reader or what? Yes, I want to say, that is exactly what I thought you were. At least, that is what I tricked myself into believing you were. But now I can no longer keep up that fiction—and I am lost without it.

  “No,” I say. “I just didn’t expect you to care.”

  “Care? Who said I cared?”

  “You did—your behavior did.”

  “You a shrink now?”

  “No, but I spend a lot of time around people and I think I have a pretty good handle on how they’re feeling at any particular time; I think it’s vital to my job.”

  Rust lets out another laugh, his eyes never leaving me. “That sounds like the sort of answer you’d give in a court case, sweetheart. Defensive. Next you’re gonna tell me you’re pleadin’ the fifth.”

  Tell him to leave, tell him you have more work, tell him you haven’t got time to chat.

  “Rust, you saved me from those unpatched bikers, which is a nice thing to do. Obviously. But then you acted like you couldn’t care less, and now here you are, being nice and caring for Joseph, and now acting like you couldn’t care less again. Which is it? Are you the uncaring asshole or the sensitive biker?”

  Rust shrugs. “You of all people should know it’s never that simple.” Rust glances at the picture of a waterfall, which is to my left, and then stands up and goes to it. The desk is no longer between us now, not properly, only the edge of it. Ludicrously, I think about dragging my chair around to the other side. This is insane …I should just ask him to leave. But I don’t. Instead, I watch, enraptured, as he runs his callused biker’s finger down the canvas’s falling water. “Is this supposed to make a man peaceful, then?” he comments.

  “Or a woman, or a kid. Yes.”

  For the next ten or so seconds, I just watch as this six-three leather-wearing hulk of a man trails his finger along the contours of the canvas, and then he turns to me, staring down at me with eyes blacker than the acts which have haunted my dreams this past week. I remember thinking earlier that I wish I was wearing something else, but Rust clearly doesn’t mind. His eyes roam to my shirt, and then down to my dress and to my legs. I’m wearing tights, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

  I wriggle under his gaze. He meets my eyes, and smiles again.

  “Do I make you uncomfortable?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say, even though that’s not the whole truth, or even the half-truth. I am wriggling because my clit is aching, my nipples tingling as though goose pimples are rising on them; even my ass cheeks are buzzing in some strange way, like they want to be groped by this giant man.

  He leaves the painting and comes and stands over me. He is so large that his shadow obscures me, leaving me in semi-darkness, so large that when he stands over me it’s as though only he and I exist; I am trapped here, beneath him. That should make me scared—Neanderthal, brute, animal, I should say—but it does not.

  “You’re shocked that I have a heart,” he says, staring down at me with an intense expression now. Horny? Angry? Somewhere in between? I don’t know. All I know is it intrigues and excites me. “You were thinkin’ about me as some kind of ape-man, eh?”

  “No,” I lie. I should push myself to my feet and walk to the door, hold it open, and tell him thank you so much for coming by but now he must leave; I should ask him to back up. But I don’t. I just sit here, because no matter how much I reason with myself, my mind does not care about reason. And even my reason is weak, now. He cared. I saw it with my own eyes. He really cared.

  “No?” He tilts his head. “Really? Then why were you shocked, sweetheart?” He watches me closely for a few moments, and then says, “Do you know what I reckon? I reckon that for this past week you’ve been fantasizing about me, and now here I am, not the man you thought I was, and it’s making you damn horny. Don’t tell me it isn’t. I know a horny woman when I see one.” All at once, he’s kneeling next to me so that our heads are on the same level, our eyes staring directly at each other, our lips poised directly at each other. “No, Allison, I’m not just a fuckin’ brute, just, but I am a fuckin’ brute. Yes, Allison, there is a soul in here somewhere, but it’s buried deep and I don’t think anybody’s ever goin’ to find it.” He is leaning forward now, invading my personal space. I can smell sweat and engine oil and cigarettes and whisky and a dozen other manly smells on him, smells that should not be appealing but with my lust propelling me are more than appetizing. I’ve always wondered how the heroines in my romance novels can look past the brutality of these men, but now I know. Lust plays a huge part, as it is with me now. “Are you scared, sweetheart?”

  His breath tickles my lips. He has one hand propped on the edge of the desk and the other on the arm of my chair, enveloping me in his grip, and his breath spreads warmly over my lips and my cheeks. I open my mouth to speak, and he leans in again, so close that our lips are within inches of each other. This is my last chance, I know. This is my last chance to back away, to end this. This is my last chance to shove him hard in the chest and demand that he gets out of my office at once. I am aware that we are in my office, in the day, that down a hallway Marjorie is working, the library in full function, people on the computers or their laptops. I can hear them, quiet through the walls but real.

  “I am not scared,” I say. No—I
try to say. But the words don’t form. All that comes out is a small, “Ah.”

  Rust grins. Fuck, that grin is hot, and his body is huge; the sort of body a woman could be willingly trapped by. And his knuckles are grazed, and his face is hard, and his eyes are black and intense.

  I lay my hand on his chest, meaning to push him away, but then I find myself digging my fingernails so hard into his leather that two of them break. But I don’t feel the pain. All I feel are his lips pressed solidly against mine.

  Chapter Ten

  Allison

  He presses his lips against mine with such force that the chair on which I’m sitting leans back on its back legs. Instead of stopping to allow the chair to its normal position, he reaches around with his huge arm and props the chair up, stopping it from falling. The kiss is warm; I feel the texture of his lips against mine, but most of all I feel the warmth our shifting mouths create. I taste him, too, whisky and cigarettes, which somehow are intoxicating. Because they remind me of who he is, of what he is: an enforcer, and yet an enforcer who gives a shit. My clit tingles crazily, urging me on. I grip the front of his leather jacket harder, so that another of my nails snap. Pain, dim, comes to me, but it is overridden at once by the pleasure.