Dirty Aces MC: Box Set #1

by Hart, Lane

  Just as I’ve convinced myself that my stomach is revolting against me trying to move on with my life, I vomit explosively all over my sink!

  “What the fuck?” I mutter as I hold my toothbrush away from me, spitting and teary-eyed from my sudden eruption. “I didn’t even drink anything last night… Oh god, no,” I mutter, desperately trying to think back over the last few weeks. I haven’t been keeping up with my periods all that well, but I’m certain that my last one was…was before I ever got on Malcolm fucking Hyde’s wild and wonderful ride.

  “Oh for the love of God!” I cry as I shake my toothbrush at the ceiling. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, Malcolm!”

  Malcolm

  * * *

  I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how to approach Naomi again and have damn near given myself an aneurysm trying to find the words to express how I’m feeling. How she has made me feel. I’m still so twisted up by the whole thing that other than working with Aces on the boat at night, I’ve been avoiding the club this past week.

  Which is why I’m caught completely off guard when I come roaring up to my little beach shack on my bike one evening to find a collection of motorcycles I recognize as my crew’s, along with what looks like some sort of delivery van sitting in my driveway. I’m not in the mood for company, but I at least owe my boys time to bend my ear before I throw them out of my house.

  “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” comes the cheering chorus when I storm into my small foyer, glaring around my living room at the other members of my MC and what can only be a half dozen women in varying degrees of undress. I don’t know if they’re professional strippers or just amateurs having a good time, but at least one of them is dancing on Fiasco in my favorite chair like she knows her way around a pole.

  “Fuck, thanks guys,” I sigh as I walk on into my house. “I’ve been so far up my own ass the last week I forgot this shit was coming up.”

  “Well, we didn’t forget!” Devlin proclaims as he slaps Fiasco on the shoulder. “We would never let an opportunity for a party like this pass us by! Get your ass in here and meet your lovely guests!”

  “Or maybe have a drink first,” Nash offers as he holds out a brand-new bottle of Jack Daniels to me, complete with a little, red ribbon. “Take the edge off and relax, man. Things have a way of working out, if you don’t force them too hard.”

  “Truer words,” I mumble in an informal toast as I crack open the bottle and take a long pull. “Fuck it,” I mutter when I come up for air. “You’re all here now, so take me around and do the introductions. You girls came all the way out here to see me, so you might as well have a good time!”

  Naomi

  * * *

  Since I can’t sleep anyway, I wait up for when Malcolm would usually get home, and then I gather up my courage, driving over to his house. I have no idea what I’m going to say or how to explain things when I see him again, but I know we have to talk.

  When I pull up to his house, I can see his motorcycle is there, along with several others and what looks like a catering van. I really didn’t want to talk to him with any sort of an audience, but I can’t make myself leave without at least seeing him first.

  When I walk up the stairs to his screen door, I can hear the music rattling the windows, and it takes several minutes of knocking before he finally throws open the door.

  When Malcolm finally answers, he just stands there in shock, looking as though he’s completely lost for words. Finally, he asks, “What are you doing here, Naomi?”

  “We need to talk,” I say as I slip inside his small beach house and find several other members of the MC lounging around the living room with mostly naked women draped all over them.

  Wow. I mean, I didn’t think he had been celibate for the last few weeks, but knowing Malcolm is sleeping with other women and then seeing it in person is a slap in the face I wasn’t ready for.

  “Well?” Malcolm says as he steps in front of where I’m standing completely frozen in place, staring at all of his visitors. “Talk or get naked.” He crowds me until my back hits the foyer wall, and then his hand is on my thigh, snaking its way up underneath my loose summer dress. “I’ll give you three guesses to pick the one I would prefer.”

  His words are slurred, and I can smell the stench of alcohol on his breath. Maybe I should leave and come back to do this another time.

  No, no, I have to tell him now. I have to tell someone, and he’s all I’ve got. I grab his wrist to stop his hand’s progress before he reaches my panties. Not because I don’t want him touching me there, but because I can’t sleep with him without telling him why I’m here.

  “We have to talk,” I reiterate.

  “Anything you need to say to me, you can say in front of my boys,” Malcolm replies.

  Without letting his wrist go, I drag him back outside to his porch. He staggers but follows me willingly, leaving the front door open. This isn’t the kind of conversation I want others to overhear, so I close it for him.

  Before I can figure out what I’m going to say, how to go about telling him this, Malcolm reaches forward and runs his index fingertip along the V-neck of my dress, dipping it into the cleavage. “I’ve missed these titties.”

  Of course he missed my body and being able to use it whenever he wanted. Not that I have anything to complain about since I enjoyed being with him too. But he hasn’t said he missed me, the rest of the parts he can’t fuck.

  When Malcolm leans forward and runs his warm, wet tongue down into my cleavage, I involuntarily moan as my body lights up all over. Damn him for being so good at distracting me by hijacking my body. The fact that he has hijacked my body in more than one way is what has me putting on the brakes.

  “Malcolm,” I say, grabbing both sides of his bearded face to pull up and try to make him stop. But he just cups both of my swollen, sensitive tits in his hands and keeps tonguing my boobs more enthusiastically. “Malcolm, please stop.”

  “In a minute,” is what he slurs before his mouth goes back to work, turning up the heat on my hormones so quickly that I get dizzy and stumble a step backward, nearly falling down the steps.

  “Malcolm, I’m pregnant!” I exclaim as I tug roughly on his hair to pull his mouth away from my boobs.

  That declaration definitely stops him in his tracks.

  “You…what?” he asks, his hazy, green eyes meeting mine. God, I really hope he remembers this conversation in the morning, because I don’t know if I can do it again.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  He stares down at me silently for several seconds, and then laughs. “Get the fuck outta here!” With a wave of his hand, he dismisses my confession, either because he thinks I’m joking or doesn’t give a shit. Only after he pulls out a cigarette, lights it up and takes a drag does he add, “Are you fucking with me, Naomi?”

  “No, Malcolm. I’m not fucking with you. I’m pregnant, and it’s yours.”

  “No. No fucking way,” he mutters as he sucks on his cancer stick and shakes his head in denial.

  “I am. I got sick and I was late, so I took a bunch of tests, and all of them were positive.”

  “So, what you’re saying is that you lied to me,” he replies, his face going from slack and horny drunk to narrowed eyed and angry in the blink of my watery eyes.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask. “I didn’t lie to you.”

  “Yeah, you did,” he says, blowing smoke out of his nose like an enraged bull. “You told me you were on the pill, and you weren’t.”

  “Yes, I was on the pill,” I assure him. “You saw them! I just…I missed one the night you brought me home and then was late the next night because of the fight when I was too pissed at you to remember to go home and get them!”

  “Right. You just forgot to take them,” Malcolm clips out sarcastically. “And even after you ‘forgot’ to take them, you still told me to fucking come inside of you!”

  “I had never missed any pills before…I didn’t think it was a big
deal as long as I eventually took them!”

  “You didn’t know that, if I filled your pussy with cum, you would get knocked up, and then I would be on the hook for fucking child support for the next eighteen goddamn years?” he yells at me.

  “I didn’t do this on purpose, Malcolm,” I tell him as tears roll down both of my cheeks.

  “Oh, bullshit!”

  “I didn’t!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “And I don’t want your money! That’s not why I’m here telling you! I’m telling you, because…because you’re going to be his or her father, you drunk asshole!”

  Turning away from me, Malcolm goes over to the railing. He leans over it on his elbows with his head bowed, his long hair hiding his face. Puffs of smoke occasionally float through the air before he straightens up and puts the cigarette out on the rail.

  When he finally faces me again, his jaw clenched tight, he removes his wallet from his back pocket and pulls out a wad of hundred-dollar bills, offering them to me. “Here’s enough for an abortion.”

  “What?” I gasp, outraged that he would blurt that out without asking or caring what I want, not to mention try and throw cash at me for it.

  “If it’s not about the money, then prove it – end it. Get rid of it.”

  “Screw you, Malcolm! I’m not doing that,” I tell him with an adamant shake of my head. It only took me about ten seconds of consideration after the stick turned blue for me to reach that verdict. Still, I did consider it. God knows it would make everything so much easier, but I don’t know if I could live with that guilt.

  “That’s what I fucking thought,” he says as he runs his fingers through his hair to push it out of his face.

  “I just…I wish it was that easy, I do. But I can’t do that,” I try to explain to him. “I’m going to have this baby, and I’ll do it on my own if I need to. I just thought that you would want to know...”

  “I already knew you were a goddamn gold-digger. This shit only validates that!”

  Swiping away the dampness from under each of my eyes, I tell him, “I really hope this is the alcohol talking and not you.”

  “Surprisingly, as soon as you said you were pregnant, I sobered right the hell up,” he mutters. “Not exactly the happy fucking birthday I was hoping for.”

  Today’s his birthday? I had no idea. Would I have still come if I had known? No, I would’ve waited. But it’s too late; and since there’s nothing left to say and I refuse to stand on his porch listening to him call me names, I jog down the front steps to my car without another word, without accepting his stupid money.

  “I’m getting a fucking DNA test before I pay a fucking penny!” Malcolm yells at my back.

  I want to flip him off or yell at him and blame him for putting me in this position.

  But he’s right. It’s my own damn fault for being late taking a few days’ worth of my pills.

  And now I wish I had never slept with Malcolm fucking Hyde.

  Malcolm

  * * *

  “What the hell was that about?” Nash asks when I walk back inside my house like a zombie after the bomb Naomi just dropped on me. “We could hear you yelling over the music. Sounded like all hell broke loose.”

  “Yeah, it did,” I tell him. Grabbing the bottle of beer from his hand, I throw it back and then wipe my mouth on the back of my hand before handing it back. “She’s knocked up and says it’s mine.”

  “Oh, fuck that noise!” he huffs. “You getting a test?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I told her, but it probably is mine.”

  “Are you serious? You fucked her bareback?” Nash asks. “How stupid could you be? You knew she was a lying thief you couldn’t trust!”

  “Yeah, I know,” I agree. “I’m an idiot for choosing a few seconds of pleasure over common fucking sense.”

  “A few seconds?” he teases.

  “Shut the fuck up. You know what I mean.”

  Slapping his hand on my shoulder, he says, “Yeah, I do. But maybe you’re wrong and it’s someone else’s…”

  I don’t even consider that option for a second because it makes me too fucking furious picturing Naomi with someone else.

  As if on cue, Fiasco chooses that moment to walk up to us. “What’s going on, Prez?” he asks.

  “Naomi’s pregnant,” I inform him.

  “Oh shit,” Fiasco mutters, his face going pale. Then even louder, he says, “Oh shit! Is it…could it be mine?”

  “No, you dumbass. You can’t impregnate a woman by coming in her mouth!” I snap at him, mostly angry at Naomi and myself, not him. But he’s here right now, and it’s nice to have someone else to take it out on.

  “Oh, right,” the idiot replies with a slap of his palm to his forehead. “I’m so fucking wasted right now.”

  “What’s your excuse every other day of the week?” Nash teases him, but I don’t hear the rest of their conversation or anyone else’s before the sun comes up.

  All I can do is keep thinking about Naomi, how much I missed her before she showed up and told me she was having my kid. Now, I’ll never know if she gave a shit about me or if she only slept with me to screw me over.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Naomi

  * * *

  Over the next few months, I blow up at record-breaking speed. The comfort eating probably isn’t helping, but I tell myself I should stuff my face with whatever my body is craving for the growing baby inside of me.

  Malcolm’s baby.

  Not that he’ll ever probably see him or her since he wants no part of me or it. He made that perfectly clear when he tried to throw a few hundred dollars at me so that I would get rid of it.

  I dip my last crispy crinkle fry into ketchup during my early lunch break and then call back to the kitchen, “Another order of fries, Jacob!” before I’ve even finished chewing.

  “Coming right up,” our cook says through the serving window.

  “Is it going to be another one of those days?” Nancy asks.

  “Another what kind of day?”

  “You know, where you cry all day and customers think you’ve lost your pregnant mind.”

  “No,” I huff, even though I can’t make any guarantees. “I’m just hungry this morning.”

  “It’s five minutes after ten o’clock in the morning, and you’re on your second serving of fries.”

  “So?” I ask defensively. “I’m going to have a veggie plate for dinner with fruits for dessert.”

  “Strawberry ice cream doesn’t count as a fruit.”

  “The kid needs dairy too!” I exclaim.

  “Sure, it does. Apparently, every drop from a dairy farm, but whatever floats your boat,” she says with a grin.

  The word boat automatically has me thinking about Malcolm, wondering how he’s been doing, who he’s been screwing over the desk in his office since I’m no longer available. Probably Anika or Ronnie. Maybe both at the same time. He was good at multi-tasking.

  And while he’s having fun doing whoever and whatever he wants, I’m gaining weight at the rate of what feels like a pound a day and am completely un-fuckable since I’m the size of a cow. My udders are even sagging when before they were so small and perky, I didn’t need to even wear a bra.

  My new, rotund figure aside, there are a million other worries that are much more important at the moment. For instance, I could barely make ends meet before I got knocked up. Now, I’m trying to scrape by to afford the basics for the baby like somewhere for it to sleep, a few clothes for it to wear, blankets and bottles. The list of necessities seems endless.

  There’s also the baby’s health that keeps me up at night. It seems so small and fragile, like everything and anything could hurt it. Since I’ve been going for free checkups at the health department, I’ve only had one ultrasound to make sure there was a heartbeat, which there was, thumping loud and clear over the speakers. I won’t get to see my baby on a scan for another few weeks, and it sucks.

  The days go by so
slowly, but too quickly at the same time.

  And while I’m not a medical doctor, I think this constant miserable emotion hanging over my head like a grey cloud is severe depression.

  Malcolm

  * * *

  I’ve kept myself busy for the past few months, refusing to give in to the desire to check in on Naomi. Mostly, I was afraid that I’m so weak for her that just seeing her face would have me asking her to come back into my life.

  Which would be stupid.

  I’m better off without her.

  At least that’s what I keep telling myself constantly, and it’s what I’m thinking about one day when I stop at a local gas station in the middle of town to fill up my bike.

  While I’m waiting for the pump to cut off, I glance around at the strip mall across the street, and that’s when I spot her.

  The first thing I notice is her belly, answering one of the burning questions on my mind. Fuck. She’s still determined to have this kid. I want to hate her for not taking the easy way out, for still planning to drag me through the hell of lawyers and courtrooms as she comes after me for child support. But mostly I’m pissed because I didn’t know what she had decided, and I missed out on so many months with her that I barely recognize her now.

  Then, I realize that she’s not just popping into the twenty-four-hour restaurant to eat but to work. She’s wearing a uniform, carrying trays of food when she should be at home with her feet up, resting as she grows a human.

  Walking inside the gas station, I pour myself a cup of coffee because I’m not ready to leave yet and I’m trying to talk myself out of walking across the street. Then, I just stand at the second window watching her run around on her feet for what feels like an eternity. She stops only occasionally for something to drink and eat while clutching her belly the whole time like it hurts.