PREGNANT FOR A PRICE

by Kathryn Thomas

  “Nothing at all.” I nod, but we both know that’s a lie.

  Something is happening here. My balls are aching, desperate for a release. And it’s more than anything that’s happened with other women. Eden’s different.

  I realize with a shock that I really do want to talk, really do want to learn more about her.

  It’s so unlike me that I suck in a breath through clamped-tight teeth.

  Chapter Eleven

  “You said you were a student,” I say. You’re talking to a woman, and you’re not naked, sweating, lying in bed with her. Is something wrong? I push the questions away. They prove too deep. “A student of what?”

  “Gender theory.”

  She gets more interesting by the second. “Gender theory?” I say. “I have to admit, I don’t know very much about that. Is it interesting?”

  “It is,” she says, and a strange look flits across her eyes. It lasts for only a second, but I notice it. And what’s more, she notices me notice it. “It’s just…”

  “Yes?” I say, my voice strong, willing her to go on. “It’s just… what, Red?”

  “Don’t worry,” she laughs, but her laugh is hollow.

  It’s just that you don’t know if you want to be the princess or the strong independent woman, is that it? It’s just that you can’t decide if you want to be submissive arm candy or a spinster scholar. It’s just that you wish you could be both.

  “Fine. So what’re you working on, Miss Gender Theory? Will it take the world by storm and turn all men like me into woman-worshipping eunuchs?”

  “That isn’t what feminism is about,” she snaps. “We’re not trying to turn men into eunuchs, for God’s sake. I hate when people say that.”

  “A man needs to be a hunter,” I say. “A man needs to hunt his woman. If that is turned into something ‘wrong’ then yeah, we’re eunuchs. If, one day, I’m not allowed to chase a woman like you down the street, what am I?”

  “A gentleman?” she offers, with a wicked grin.

  “A gentleman!” I chuckle. “The day I’m a gentleman is the day LA floats up to the moon, Red. I’ve never been a gentleman, and I don’t plan to start now. Anyway, isn’t a gentleman part of the p… What do you call it, again?”

  “The patriarchy,” she mutters.

  “Yeah, isn’t that part of the patriarchy, too?”

  “I guess so,” she agrees.

  “I swear to God, all these feminists want to turn relationships into some kind of business deal. Instead of flirting with you back there in the coffee shop, I should’ve walked very timidly and respectfully over to you and submitted a goddamn application asking if I may have the honor of speaking with you.”

  She laughs, and then covers her mouth with her hand. “That’s not funny,” she says through her fingers.

  “Says the woman who’s cupping her hand over her mouth.” I smile. “Yeah, must be the least funny thing you’ve heard all year.”

  When she purses her lips, I immediately imagine how those lips would look during sex, how she would pout, pout, pout in pleasure.

  “So you’re going to be Doctor Chase, then? How old are you?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “So you’ll be a twenty-four-year-old doctor?”

  “A Ph.D. doctor, anyway. And—maybe.” She sighs, her chest slumping, and for the first time since I picked her up, she goes somewhere else. Her mind floats away from the dockyard, and something else takes her thoughts.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “You care?”

  “I care,” I sigh, hardly able to believe it. I really do.

  “I had the brilliant idea of asking my professor if I could submit a video game – a small one, but a functional, working one – as my dissertation instead of a traditional essay. She agreed, and I’ve been working on it really, really hard. My fingers are almost as callused as yours, Maddox.” She stops after saying my name, wets her lips, goes on, “The game’s about powerful women. It’s meant to empower women, change the way they’re seen in video games.”

  I let out a laugh.

  “What?” she growls. “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing,” I say, but I’m still laughing.

  “What?” she demands.

  “It’s just… you’re a walking contradiction, Red. I’ve never met a woman who’ll come on a ride with me, no idea what’s going to happen, smile and flirt while I check out her body, and then tell me she’s doing something to try and change the way women are seen… it’s crazy.”

  The familiar blush colors her cheeks. “Maybe, but it doesn’t matter,” she whispers. “Because I won’t be able to finish the game. There’s a—I guess you could call it a quirk in the code. It’s driving me nuts. The game won’t even function anymore.”

  Nice way to skip over everything I just said, I think, admiring her. She didn’t deny it; she didn’t confirm it. Is it because she doesn’t want to tell me who she really is, or because she doesn’t know herself?

  “You need help, then,” I say.

  She looks at me matter-of-factly. “Of course I need help.”

  “Then you’re in luck,” I say. This fate stuff again. What’re the chances? Seriously, what are the chances? One thousand to one? One hundred thousand? One million?

  “How’s that?” she says.

  “Because I know an expert programmer. And I know what women need. I’ll just tell him to fix the snag for you and make sure that the game shows women how they’re meant to be shown in video games. No problem.”

  She laughs shortly, rolling her eyes. “You know what women need,” she mutters. “Of course you do.”

  “I do,” I say. “I can read you accurately enough, can’t I?”

  “No,” she says, but her voice is weak. “You can’t read me at all.”

  “So you don’t want my programmer friend to help?”

  “I didn’t say that. No, no, I’d love to meet the programmer.”

  “Great,” I say.

  Then, because this woman has had a strange effect on me, I place my hand on her shoulder and look into her reddish eyes. “Don’t worry,” I say, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll get this fixed for you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Eden

  I reach up and touch his hand, feel the roughness of it, the strength of it.

  Then he takes it away and grins at me. “Let’s see how they’re getting on, eh?”

  Is he playing with me? I keep thinking he’s going to kiss me, or pull me toward him, and then he yanks himself away. And I’m left confused and wondering what exactly is going on here. He watches me, and for a moment I’m sure he’s able to read my mind. He’s too skilled at reading me. He looks at me, and he sees through me, and he knows what I’m thinking. I know that instinctively. This badass, strange, handsome biker knows what I’m thinking.

  “Eden, are you okay?” His eyes roam over me, from my breasts down to my legs. Wherever his gaze settles, tingles dance across my skin. Tingles down my chest, down my bra, and to my nipples. My nipples ache as they become hard, and for one mad second, I think about flinging myself at him. Then the tingles move down my belly, down farther, to my pussy. If he weren’t here, I would slide my hand down my jean shorts and sink into pleasure.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “Why’d you ask?”

  “You look a bit – I don’t know – lost.”

  “Mr. Owens,” I say, using the voice I adopt when talking in class or giving presentations: my prim, proper, lecturer’s voice. “I am lost. I started this day working on a video game in a coffee shop. Now it’s, what, midday?”

  “Midday.”

  “And I’m at the docks with the leader of a biker gang. So, of course, I’m lost.”

  “I love it when you talk sassy to me,” he grins.

  That grin is so cocky. I wonder how he’d feel if I slapped it off his face. Grin away, Bossman, but don’t grin too long or I’ll backhand you across that pretty mug and see what the result is. />
  “I should get going soon,” I mutter.

  His grin fades. “Why?” he asks. “I haven’t even installed your video game on my PC yet. Don’t you want the programmer to take a look?”

  Ah, this famed programmer. I’m sure it’s a joke. Why the hell would an outlaw know a programmer? I’ve seen a few biker movies, a few TV shows, and I’ve not once seen a biker gang who had any use for a programmer. But life isn’t always like movies or TV shows. But, seriously, The Miseryed needs a programmer?

  “Look me in the eyes and swear there’s really a programmer,” I say.

  He stares me dead straight in the eye. His bright blue eyes look deadly serious. “I swear to you, on my life, that there is a programmer.”

  “Fine!” I exclaim. “Let’s get going, then.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  We walk back up the docks, away from the end with the abandoned warehouse and crumbling walkways, until we are standing at the wall and watching The Miseryed unload the last of the crates. The truck is full of crates now, stacked from bottom to top, like a well-played game of Tetris. As I watch, the man operating the forklift slots the last crate into the truck, and two other men – the big bald-headed monster one, and a small Mexican man – slam the truck doors closed.

  With that done, the bald monster man walks to the wall, underneath where Maddox and I stand, and looks up. “Boss!” he calls. “All the crates are loaded.”

  “Good job,” Maddox calls back. Auto parts. Is that the truth? But then I look over at the men, at their faces, and I guess that it is. They don’t look excited or scared; most of them look bored. And plus, if it were guns or drugs, surely they’d do it at night, not in the middle of a blistering angry-sun day? “You drive the truck, Markus. The rest of us will follow on the bikes.”

  Markus nods his large head. “Yeah, Boss.”

  He turns and shouts the instructions to the other men, who all begin scurrying toward the stairs that lead back up to the car park, to their bikes. Some of them watch Maddox and me out of the corners of their eyes, but none of them seem annoyed by my presence. They accept Maddox’s lead unconditionally.

  Maddox reaches forward and takes my hand. Hot and cold. One moment: this. The next: nothing. What does he want from me? Does he want anything? Or does he enjoy toying with women?

  I know one thing. His eyes are captivating. When I look into them, I find it hard to look away. They are seriously bright, a blue so bright they are almost colorless in certain light. He moves his thumb over the back of my hand, over the ridges of my knuckles, smiling that calm, self-assured smile at me all the while. So at ease. The coolest man I’ve ever laid eyes on.

  “So, ready for the last leg of the journey?” he asks.

  “Oh, sure,” I reply, the warmth of his hand cupped around mine sending shivers up my arm. “Only if it’s as exciting as the first leg was.”

  “It will be. The outlaw’s life in all its glory, remember?”

  Then he leans forward, and I think he’s going to—

  But then he lets go of my hand and begins to walk toward his bike. I watch him, dumbfounded. Does he want me or not, goddammit?

  His shoulders swagger, and The Miseryed’s sigil winks at me as light hits the leather.

  After watching him for what feels like a long time (but is really only a few heartbeats) I follow.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The parts are delivered to a nondescript warehouse, and then we are back on the road, zooming back to town. The exchange was particularly boring: no gun fights, no car chases, no double-crossing biker members, no fistfights, just a regular day-to-day job, like Maddox said.

  I keep asking myself what I am doing, why my arms are wrapped around an outlaw’s midriff, why my hands feel so comfortable laid flat on his steel-hard belly, a belly so hard and muscular I’m sure I feel it through the thick leather of his jacket. Why did I wait outside the coffee shop for him? That’s not something I would ever do. I’m already starting to wonder if I had any say in it? Why, why, why . . .

  It’s the way he looks at you, and you know it, my inner voice whispers, my annoying-ass, sarcastic, know-it-all voice. He looks at you like a hungry wolf, like a beast on the hunt, like a beast about to jump from the shadows and tackle its prey. And despite what you tell yourself, despite all the lectures and seminars and gender theory talk, you love being looked at like that. Objectified is the word, and you love it!

  I squeeze Maddox harder, the helmet suddenly feeling too close around my head, trapping the heat. It’s true. Dammit, it’s true.

  Maddox rides us back toward LA central but turns onto a side road just before entering the city. He rides for a few minutes, and then turns again into the car park of what I first take for a random bar. It has the same squat, wide build, the same neon letters installed into the triangle of the roof, and the same big wide wooden doors. When I read the dark red letters, I know it’s the clubhouse: The Miseryed. The car park is about one-third full before we get there, bikes after bikes, with only a few cars. The bikes are all clean, shining in the sun.

  All the bikes pull in and stop. Kickstands are freed, and the bikes are turned off. One second the air is full of thrums and growls, the next it is almost silent. Maddox climbs off the bike, and I do the same. I take off my helmet, shake my hair free, and hand it to him. My hair falls flat over my eyes, obscuring my vision. When I smooth it clear, I see that Maddox is watching me.

  “What?” I demand.

  “Just now, when you shook your hair,” he says, “you were like a model in a TV advert.”

  Maddox’s men file past him, all of them muttering, “Boss.” Markus, the big beast, stops beside him and waits for the rest of the men to file into the clubhouse. I feel out of place as his second-in-command (which he quite clearly is) and Maddox stand casually in the car park.

  Markus doesn’t look at me. His face is squashed, all his features too large so that they appear to fall in upon each other. “Anything else, Boss?” he asks.

  “Not today,” Maddox says. “Go and relax.”

  “Thanks, Boss.”

  Markus walks a few steps toward the clubhouse, stops, and then turns around. He approaches me in two large strides and darts his hand out. I’m so shocked that I take a step back, and then Markus laughs uncomfortably. His hand is shaking. I look down at it for a few seconds before I realize: he wants to shake hands. I meet his hand in the middle and shake with him.

  “Markus Green,” he grunts.

  “Eden Chase,” I reply.

  He releases my hand, and then paces toward the clubhouse.

  I turn to Maddox, who watched the little exchange with a small smile. I raise my eyebrow: what the hell? He lets out a short laugh. “Markus is a tough man, a trustworthy man, but he’s incredibly anxious around women. I think he was trying to be polite, in his own way.”

  I smile. “It was kind of cute,” I comment.

  “Yes, kind of.” Then he walks right up to me. Toying with me again. His favorite trick: the bait and switch. “So, are you ready to come and see what an outlaw’s home base is like?”

  “A den of thieves, you mean?” I say. It’s meant to be quick, caustic, but he’s so close to me, my heart is beating so fast, that it comes out breathy and mouse-like.

  “A den of thieves!” he grins. “Exactly.”

  This is the first man I’ve ever met who I wanted to slap and kiss at the same time. But if he really does know a programmer, it’ll be worth it, won’t it?

  Chapter Fifteen

  The clubhouse doors open onto a large reception area, in which sits a decommissioned motorbike. The handlebars are rusted brown, and the metal is mottled with it. The seat is threadbare. The tires are nonexistent. It sits raised in bricks.

  “The bike of our first leader,” Maddox explains. “Led the club up until ‘49.” A small corridor leads to the right. “That’s the offices and beds, for when the men are too drunk to ride home, or if I want to get some work done.”

&nb
sp; To the left, another wide wooden door is flung open, and the main section of the clubhouse revealed. The bar is a large hall of a room, long and wide, with a high ceiling. Looking up, it reminds me of something from some fantasy video game. The wooden rafters and crossbeams look decades-old. Which they are, I remind myself. -49, remember? The bar itself is filled on one side with tables and chairs. Along one wall sits a series of desks, chairs, and computer terminals. On the far side are a long conference table, a poker table, and a pool table. The walls are covered with photographs, some black and white, others color, of men sitting on motorbikes, standing beside them, or gathered in group photos outside of the club. As we walk, I realize that from left to right the photographs move chronologically, from the oldest black-and-white photo to the newest color, which is a group photo with Maddox at the front.