PREGNANT FOR A PRICE

by Kathryn Thomas

  Maddox, after all, is my only defense, and I don’t even know him. If he falls and I’m alone, what will happen to me? I swallow a huge lump in my throat. I don’t imagine it’ll be pretty.

  By the time we pull into a large car park near the docks, I’m considering throwing myself from the bike, thinking I’ll wait for it to slow down and just jump, run away, maybe call the cops.

  What the hell have you done, Eden? What the hell are you thinking?

  Chapter Eight

  The car park is full of old junk cars, the kinds which dock workers drive, beat-up old things which do the job, get you from A to B, but don’t do anything flashy. As the bikes stop, I see a man in overalls leaning against one of the cars, smoking a cigarette. He waves a hand to the group of bikers and then flicks away the butt. It turns over and over, and I find myself strangely caught up in the way it seems to glint in the sunlight. The referee? Do street fights have referees?

  The bikes come to a full stop, and I climb off, take off the helmet, and hand it to Maddox. He looks at me strangely, his forehead creased, watching me like I’m a puzzle he has to figure out.

  “You have a question,” he says, as his men move in a wave toward the man in the overalls. The bald man – Maddox’s lieutenant, maybe – walks right up to the man and they talk in a quick exchange.

  “Yes,” I say.

  He waves his hands over the car park. “You want to know why I’ve taken a lady as lovely as yourself to a place like this?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Is it…” I gulp. Am I in too deep? If I guess it right, will he turn on me? Remember, this man is a stranger I met in a coffee shop less than an hour ago! “… is it some kind of street fight?”

  Maddox looks at me for a long moment. I envision scenarios in which his face suddenly contorts, and he turns violent, gripping my wrist and bringing his handsome face close to mine, “You made a mistake coming here!” And then he’d hit me across the face and laugh, and his men would laugh, and then…

  He chuckles lightly, shaking his head. “This isn’t a street fight,” he says, smiling at me. An almost-kind smile. Not an outlaw’s smile at all. He reaches toward me, hovering his hand inches from me. “Trust me, Red. Come and see what the outlaw’s life is all about?”

  I look down at his hand, marked with a tattooist’s ink, callused from riding, large and tough. Then look back into his face. “Can I trust you, though?” I ask.

  “As strange as it seems, yeah, you can. Now, take my hand.”

  His tone is commanding, the kind of tone a feminist should not accept. I should now be triggered, start lecturing him about how it is not acceptable for a man to talk to a woman in that tone of voice, give him a real dressing down, feminist-style.

  But I like the commanding tone, I realize. More than like it.

  My hand is shaking when I reach forward and place it in his. It looks tiny in his palm, and then he folds his fingers over, and my hand disappears almost entirely. His grip is warm, strong; if he wanted to, he could drag me anywhere he desired.

  My hand in his, he turns toward his men. “Markus,” he calls.

  The big bald man turns. “Boss?” His eyes flit to my hand—my hand enclosed within his boss’s. And then he looks back to Maddox. It’s quick movement, but I can guess what he is thinking: Boss is holding hands with a woman?

  “Everything sorted?” Maddox asks.

  Markus nods. “Yeah, Boss.”

  Maddox waves a hand toward the dock. “Good, get to it, then.”

  Markus turns to the men. “You heard the Boss!”

  The men begin filing away from the car park.

  Maddox grins at me. “Ready to see what the outlaw life is all about?”

  I give his hand a squeeze. He squeezes mine in return. “Yes,” I whisper.

  ***

  Once the men have moved from the car park and toward the dock, Maddox and I follow. We hold hands, but it isn’t like holding hands. It’s more like he’s gripping my hand to stop me from running away; it’s more like he’s taking possession of me, pulling me along at his side. It’s more like something a feminist gender theory grad student should find very offensive. But I don’t, and that confuses me, adds fuel to the fire, which burns continuously in my mind: the fire of wanting to be eye candy and a valued mind at the same time.

  We walk between two large, gray warehouses, which look out of place on a too-bright day like this, the sun glaring down from a clear, azure sky.

  “Are you excited to get a glimpse at the outlaw’s life?” Maddox asks, his hand getting tighter around mine.

  “Excited?” I mutter. “I don’t know if that’s the word for it.”

  “Terrified, then?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know if that’s the word for it, either.”

  “You know, Eden, you’re a strange woman.”

  A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. “Strange, how?”

  “The sort of woman who would get onto the back of a stranger’s bike and ride out into nowhere with him isn’t usually a respectable, smart woman. She’s usually the sort of woman you see walking in short leather skirts from motel room to motel room.”

  “Prostitutes?” I offer.

  Maddox nods. “Drug-addicted prostitutes, women who don’t care about what happens to them. But you… why are you here?”

  I shake my head. There’s no way I can describe it all to him in a way he’ll understand, mostly because I don’t fully understand it. “Maybe I’m crazier than I look,” I say, my voice oddly grim.

  “Maybe you are,” Maddox says.

  He lets go out my hand when we reach the edge of the docks, a wall that overlooks the boats, the gangways, the planks, and the innumerable men, which move like insects over the boats. I’m reminded of ants scurrying over an apple at a picnic.

  “Look,” Maddox says, pointing.

  I follow his finger down to a boat that lulls in the water, a gangway connecting it to the dock. The Miseryed are carrying crates from the boat and placing them in an orderly pile a few yards from the dock. One of The Miseryed gets into a forklift and begins moving the crates to a truck.

  Maddox grins. “See? The outlaw life in all its glory.”

  Chapter Nine

  She turns from me, leans on the walls, and looks down at my men unloading the crates. Her eyes went wide when she saw it for the first time: all these grizzled, tough men, all of them looking like they could kill a man without a second thought, doing something as mundane as unloading crates. I toyed with her a bit, it’s true. I could’ve told her right away what we were going to do. But a man’s allowed a little fun, isn’t he?

  Anyway, she looks sexy as hell when she’s worried. As she leans over the wall, she stands on her tiptoes. The muscles in her legs twitch subtly, and I move my eyes up and down them, all the way to her ass. Her shorts ride up, and I catch a glimpse – a tempting sliver – of red lace panties. Interesting. She’s a strong woman, but she wears sexy panties like that.

  The truth is I was hornier than a devil pumped with Viagra when I invited her to ride with me—hornier, even. There’s something about this girl that’s driving me crazy. I don’t know if it’s the way her bra strap keeps falling from her shoulder (and the way she shrugs it back up without seeming to notice). Or the way her leg muscles twitch and tremor when she moves. Or the way her expression moves between sarcastic and soft and sexy all the time. She’s a real enigma, this Eden.

  I can’t stop watching her, imagining all the things I’d love to do to her. Just to slide my hand between those long, thin legs, up between that thigh gap, and see how wet I can make those red panties… red panties to match her hair…

  My goal was to break through her eye-rolling disdain, and looking at her now, I can see I’ve accomplished that. She thought there was going to be violence, an explosion of it. She thought she was trapped in the middle of a dangerous outlaw’s conflict. I’ve shattered that illusion.

  But also… yes, admit it, my mind wills me. Admit it
. Admit the truth!

  But also, I reflect, wondering why I care at all, I wanted to show her that the outlaw’s life isn’t all about being a criminal. When she looked at me, she saw a man who made his money by fighting, by hurting people. And yeah, there’s some of that in the outlaw life. There always has been, and there always will be. But here, today, Eden’s seeing the other side of the biker club life: the boring, everyday side - the humdrum side.

  She turns to me. “What’s in the crates?” she asks, and her brown-red eyes are wide, startled. I know she’s thinking about guns or drugs. I know she’s thinking that there are countless criminal possibilities. It’s written plain on her face. And dammit, she looks so hot when she’s this confused.

  Then I laugh, and a small smile flits across her lips before she straightens it out with a visible effort. “What’s funny?” she demands. “I don’t think making me a witness to something criminal is—”

  “They are just auto parts,” I say. “Engines, exhausts, some rims, stuff like that. Nothing as dangerous or as exciting as what you’re thinking.”

  “Oh,” she mutters.

  “You sound disappointed.”

  She turns back to the dock, looks down at The Miseryed—at men who wouldn’t look out of place in a killer’s den. She shakes her head, as though in disbelief. “Is that all?” she says. And then she shakes her head again, but this time quicker, as though trying to dislodge unwanted thoughts. “Disappointed? No, of course not. I’m glad. I don’t want to be a witness to drugs to guns or… human trafficking.”

  “Human trafficking!” I laugh. “Damn, Red, what sort of man do you take me for? I have a legitimate auto-dealing business. I’m basically just a mechanic. Let me tell you something about the outlaw’s life: it isn’t all bullet holes and tattoos, bike chases and fights with the police. Sometimes, it’s just a business. Like today. Just unloading some parts, selling them on. Simple.”

  “Simple,” she repeats.

  What I don’t tell her is that Irish has a connection back in Ireland who lifts the parts from various businesses and smuggles them across the ocean for us. We get them for a fifth or their market value and sell them on for four times that, to a dealership that specializes in stolen parts. And then the dealership sells them onto a contact in the legitimate market, and they end up exactly where they would have, in the car of some middle-class dad. We make a boatload of cash just from transporting it between the dock and the illegal dealership. But of course, there’s no reason to tell Eden about all that.

  She turns back to me, and from where I’m standing I can look down her tank top, just a tiny bit, but enough to get my blood running fire-hot. She sees me looking, and her mouth falls open.

  “Are you serious?” she says.

  “Not usually,” I answer. “But what are you talking about?”

  She gestures at my face. “Stop staring at me like that. It’s making me uncomfortable.”

  Her cheeks turn red, highlighting her well-defined cheekbones, and she bites her lip. It’s making her feel something, but I’m not sure it’s uncomfortable.

  I shrug. “Whatever you say, Red.”

  I stop looking at her breasts – her small, pert breasts – and look into her eyes instead. I’ve cracked enough women’s codes to know that Eden is conflicted right now, caught between horny and outraged.

  “The men will be at this a while,” I say. “Shall we take a walk?”

  “I should get back to work.”

  “Okay.” I nod. Bullshit. She isn’t going back to work today. She’s a student. They make their own hours, just like me... perfect. I decide to call her bluff. “Shall I take you back into town, then?” I ask.

  She squints at me like she’s trying to solve me. Don’t try it, Red. I’m the only code-reader here. Then her shoulders slump, and her beautiful body tenses, and she sighs. “No, let’s go for a walk.”

  “Great,” I say.

  I lead her down the dock, along the wall. We walk past the dockworkers until we come to the far end, next to a warehouse that isn’t being used at the moment, and then we continue walking until we are at the far, far end. The dock is crumbling here, the planks rotted, and no boats are tethered. Back the way we came, the sounds of work filter to us. Shouting and clanging and the rasp of metal.

  But despite all that, it’s almost like we’re alone. When she looks at me, I feel something. I’m not sure what that something is. Lust is in there. But I think there’s something else.

  Careful, I warn myself. Don’t get in too deep. Remember who you are.

  But when Red smiles at me like that – shy and strong at the same time – it’s harder than it’s been with any other woman. And I’ve only known her for a goddamn hour!

  Chapter Ten

  I watch her in silence for a few moments, and she watches me. She tries to look uncomfortable under my gaze, scowling at me, but I can see straight through the scowl and into her real emotion. She’s enjoying this, I see. Enjoying this more than she wants to let herself. Enjoying this as though this is the first time in a long time she’s let herself be looked at like this by a man.

  Then she tilts her head at me, biting her lip, and my cock presses hard against my jeans. She’s too sexy. Flowing red hair and her thin, petite body, her long legs, her breasts covered only in a bra with straps constantly falling over her shoulders.

  “Aren’t you going to ask about me?” she says, releasing her lip. “Aren’t we going to talk?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “Do you want to talk?”

  She giggles, and my mind is filled again with dirty scenarios, imagining her giggling when I do things to her, imagining the way she’d giggle if she was bent over my desk and I started stroking her clit, biting her tight ass, tickling and pleasuring her at the same time. She’s driving me mad. Driving me completely insane.

  Then her phone buzzes. She takes it out, looks at it, and then quickly locks it.

  “Something wrong?” I ask because her face is caught between a smile and a frown. She’s infinitely more complex than other women I’ve known, whose faces are always locked in one or the other, never torn between the two as though an inner battle is painting itself on her face.

  “No, not wrong. I texted my friend before we left, let her know who you were and what you looked like, just in case—”

  “I killed you and hid your body?” I finish.

  “Exactly,” she says. “And now she’s just text back saying: ‘Oh, he sounds dishy, I’m jealous.’”

  “So?” I say. “Come on, Red, you have to admit you’re punching above your weight with me.”

  She lets out a gasp. “You’re joking!” she exclaims. She slaps my chest, playfully. What are we doing? Are we flirting? Actually flirting? Not the stuff I do with waitresses and the like, but actually flirting? “She thinks you sound handsome.”

  “Well, if she ever meets me, her suspicion will be confirmed.”

  “Are you always such an asshole?” she shoots. “Is that why those big brutish men follow you?” She strokes her chin. “I’m still puzzling over that, you know. Some of those men look like huge beasts. Why do they follow you?”

  I smile: always smiling, cocky, that’s the best way to be. “It makes you wonder what I’m capable of, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she says without pause. “It does. You say you’re into legitimate business. Fine, I’m not sure if I believe you, but fine. But if it is true, how did you persuade all those men to go along with you? I’m sure it wasn’t easy. So, yes, it does make me wonder what you’re capable of.”

  “And it intrigues you,” I go on. I step closer to her. I’m close enough now that if I wanted to, I could lean down and kiss her. But I don’t. I just stare down at her. “It makes you wonder what it would be like to be with a man who could boss around so many scary men.”

  I watch her neck shift as she swallows. Her cheeks are amazing; they turn red constantly. It makes her look fresh, alive. I imagine her bouncing up and down, her pe
tite body infused with mad lust, mad life, and her pert breasts bouncing with her. I imagine taking her hard nipple into my mouth, sucking it until it is harder.

  “Maybe you’re wrong,” she whispers. “Maybe I’m scared.”

  “Maybe I am wrong,” I admit. “But I don’t think so. I think coming out here was the best thing you could have done.” I lean down, and she stands on her tiptoes. She wants it. She wants it bad.

  And so I step away, breaking the heat. Let her wait. Let her get wild for it.

  “I thought you wanted to talk.” I grin.

  She shoots a pouty look at me, looking cute and vulnerable and strong all at the same time. “I do,” she says. “I don’t know what you think just happened, but it was nothing—nothing at all.”