by Nicole Fox
“I’d tell you the same thing,” Jewel retorted, “except half the club is already doing it.”
Pulling her fist back, Mina landed a solid punch right on Jewel’s nose.
Big hands grabbed her by the waist and yanked her backwards before she could continue her attack. Mina clawed at them, but it was of no use. Her body was pressed against a large chest and a muscled abdomen. She squirmed in his grip, turning around to see Animal grinning down at her. He was a big man, built like a linebacker. With his lantern jaw and massive bulk, he could take down anyone in the club. A high-level enforcer, Animal was doing his job by stopping the fight. He also seemed to be enjoying it.
“All right, that’s enough. I think you’ve made your point.” Animal nodded toward Jewel, who was crouched on the linoleum holding her wrist to her nose. Blood oozed out over her skin, and her shirt had been torn so badly that it barely hung from her shoulders. Grill had come in, and he helped her to her feet and ripped a paper towel from the roll.
“Maybe that will teach you a lesson,” Mina spat.
Jewel scowled at her. “Looks like you learned a thing or two yourself.”
Mina looked down to find that her own top had been almost torn in half. Jewel had turned her tank top into an extreme V-neck, ripping it all the way down to her navel. Her purple satin bra was easily visible underneath.
“You shouldn’t be doing that, Mina. Not in your condition.” Despite his words and the fact that the women were no longer fighting, Animal didn’t let go of her. He kept his eyes on her chest, his thin lips curling at the edges.
“Fuck off.” She yanked herself away from him and stormed to the other side of the kitchen. From the corner of her eye, she saw someone else come into the living room. Skid paused with one foot through the doorway, looking over the breakfast bar at the aftermath. He went on past the couch and into the hallway that led to the garage.
Animal was at her side once again. “Mina,” he said, his voice low and his breath hot on her neck. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
“Maybe I don’t want to listen,” she snapped.
Grill had cleaned Jewel up well enough, and he escorted her out of the kitchen and toward her room.
Animal grinned again. “That’s what I like about you. You’re so feisty.”
She knew she should have gone upstairs, changed her clothes, and cleaned herself up. She should have gone to her father and told him what happened, both with Skid and with Jewel. She should have done a lot of things, but there was only one thing she actually wanted to do. Mina looked up at Animal. “Give me your shirt.”
He looked regretfully at her cleavage before lifting his bulky arms and stripping his tight white T-shirt off. Animal handed it to her with a raised eyebrow. “Okay, but this means you owe me.” He slicked a hand over his blond ponytail, clearly thinking Mina just wanted a show.
“I don’t owe you shit.” His muscles were huge, but she didn’t really care. Mina pulled the shirt over her head and trotted off through the living room toward the garage.
“Hey!”
She ignored him. Skid was in the garage. He hadn’t left yet, which meant she still had a chance to talk to him. Mina had tried so many times, but to no avail. Now, though, Skid had a reason to listen. “There you are,” she said cheerily.
He was standing by his bike, looking so tall and muscular she could have taken him right then. Adrenaline still throbbed in her veins from the fight, and she longed to do something with it. For the moment, though, she could only admire the way his thighs filled out his jeans and how the wiry muscles of his arms worked as he adjusted the buckle on his saddle bag. He glanced down at her T-shirt. “Nice outfit.”
She looked down at the massive furl of clothing that hung on her like a tent. It smelled of hamburgers, which made perfect sense given who it belonged to. “I suppose I could take it off, if you’d like.” She bit her lower lip. “But I’d really like to talk to you.”
Skid kept his eyes off of her, continuing to fiddle with his bike instead. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”
Mine huffed. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for a few weeks now, but you keep avoiding me. We can’t put off this conversation forever. Just let me say what I need to say and get it over with.”
He was silent for a long moment, and his hands stilled. When they moved again, it was so he could hand her a helmet. “Fine. But we’re not doing it here. I know how thin these walls are. Let’s go.” He swung one long leg over his bike and nodded for her to get on the back.
As much as Mina liked riding on her own bike—even though she still needed plenty of practice—she wasn’t about to pass up this opportunity. She had grown up on the back of a motorcycle seat, and she was comfortable climbing on the back of Skid’s old Harley and wrapping her arms around his strong body. She fought hard to keep herself from splaying her fingers over the muscles of his stomach or laying her cheek across his back. He was so damn sexy. It didn’t matter how hard he tried to avoid her; she couldn’t be turned off. The faint scent of cologne mixed with gasoline hit her nostrils, turning her on even more, but Skid raced out of the garage and into the wind. He accelerated quickly as they pulled onto the road, making her hold onto him more tightly.
He said nothing as they rode, and she was content to let him. For now. He hadn’t been wrong about leaving the clubhouse to talk. There were eyes and ears everywhere, and she knew now that she couldn’t trust any of them. If Jewel had betrayed her, there was no telling who else might do the same. Besides, she would have him all to herself when they finally stopped, and he would hear everything she’d been rehearsing in her mind since she was fifteen.
The couple made their way out of the industrial area that surrounded the old warehouse and into residential zones where the apartment buildings were packed shoulder to shoulder. They went further and further from the clubhouse without talking. Skid never offered up where they were going, and Mina didn’t bother asking. He could drive forever as long as he allowed her to be on the back.
Finally, the apartment buildings grew shorter and further apart as they hit the suburbs, and Skid hung a left. He swung the bike into a small parking lot that faced the beach. Lake Michigan was a vast blue void, stretching on and on forever under cotton balls of clouds. The water rumbled quietly to itself as it lapped at the sandy shore. Though the day wasn’t warm enough for swimwear, it was absolutely beautiful.
Mina’s breath was completely taken away when she looked up at Skid against this background. She smiled, wishing things had happened a little differently.
“You wanted to talk?”
Chapter Five
Skid
Skid studied the woman in front of him. She looked so sweet, so tantalizing, when she looked at him that way, but he wasn’t buying it. He had seen the way Animal had looked at her back at the clubhouse. For the first time since he’d heard of her pregnancy, he truly began to wonder if he had been the only member of Satan’s Legion Mina had slept with. The blond man had held her with a certain amount of possession that Skid recognized, and it worried him. She was even wearing his T-shirt, something that Skid wanted to rip right off of her body. She wouldn’t really be safe with a man like that. Animal’s nickname had come to him for good reason.
Skid shook his head, trying to drive out the mental images that suddenly haunted him. “You wanted to talk?”
She looked out over the water, down at the sand under her boots, and then back at him. “I think we should, don’t you?”
He shifted uncomfortably, putting his hands in his pants pockets and then taking them out again. “I guess so. But I’m not sure what there really is to say.”
“You can’t mean that!” Her eyes blazed at him. “You know I’m pregnant. Don’t you think there needs to be some … some …” She flung her hands in the air uselessly. “Some sort of discussion?”
Skid nodded slowly, trying not to let her hysterics get to him. Mina could throw a fit all she wanted to, but h
e was determined to remain calm. “Okay. Fine. Let’s start by talking about whose baby this is.”
She pulled her fist back and slugged him in the chest, but he made no move to stop her or avert her punch. Skid knew Mina couldn’t really hurt him, even though she’d done a number on that club girl. Let her hit him if it made her feel better. “How dare you? Just who the hell do you think I’ve slept with?” The wind picked up her hair and whipped it around her face, pissing her off even more. She wiped furiously at it with her hands.
“You tell me.” The idea still wasn’t sitting with him well. He had never been the kind who stayed with one girl for a long time. That just wasn’t the way the Satan’s Legion members did things, at least not most of the time. But he didn’t like thinking about someone else’s hands on her, someone else whispering in her ear, someone else grabbing her by the hips and—
Mina hit him again. “I didn’t sleep with anyone else, and I can’t believe you would accuse me of it! Do you think I ended up pregnant because I’m some slut or something?” Her arms were constantly flailing at him now.
He grabbed her wrists and kept them still. She fought him, but he held her easily. “You’ve had plenty of chances, Mina. You’ve been living in a clubhouse filled with men. No matter what your father told them, it doesn’t mean you didn’t tempt them.”
“Oh, I see.” She yanked her wrists out of his grip and turned to stomp a few steps away through the sand. When she turned back, she was blinking back tears. “It’s all my fault. That’s typical, isn’t it? Nobody would ever think to blame you or any of the other men had I slept with them. This is solely on me. Well, fine. Maybe I’ll just make sure it stays that way.” Mina crossed her arms in front of her chest.
A feeling rose up in Skid that he didn’t recognize, and it burrowed through his chest. Fear? Worry? “What exactly does that mean?”
“If this is all my fault and all about me, then I’ll just be the only person who takes care of this. I’ll leave the club, and I’ll go somewhere on my own. It’ll just be me and the baby, and nobody else will be there to criticize me.” Her fists were balled at her sides now and she stuck her chin out toward Skid, daring him to argue with her. “I don’t need anyone else, especially if all of you are going to act like such babies about this.”
“Mina…”
“What? That’s what you want, isn’t it? I’ll just disappear. You don’t care about me, and you don’t care about the baby. It’s your child, but I guess that’s only because it’s carrying your DNA. The rest of it doesn’t matter.”
For some reason, hearing the truth straight from her lips struck a chord with him. He had known it was a possibility, but he had tried to deny it. Now there was no way to do that. “It does matter.”
“Really?” she challenged. “Then why didn’t you stand up and say anything to my father? Oh, yes. I saw the whole meeting. I saw how you sat there at that table acting like an innocent bystander, like you didn’t know anything about what had happened.”
Despite the cool breeze, Skid felt heat radiating from underneath his skin. “I was trying to protect you.”
“Yeah, you did a great job of that when you got me knocked up,” she retorted.
“Listen.” He grabbed her by the arm, but gently. He didn’t want to hurt her or treat her as Animal had. “What do you think is going to happen if Park finds out about us? He’ll kill me, or at the very least kick me out of the Legion. So then what happens to you? You’re not going to be allowed to be with someone your father doesn’t approve of. You really will be on your own.”
Her lower lip stuck out a little. “I can do what I want to.”
“Oh, really? Then why did you have to sneak around when you wanted to talk to me? Why haven’t you told your father yourself? Mina, you know that’s not how things are for us. You can pretend all you want to, but sooner or later you’re going to figure this out. I just hope it’s before the baby comes.” He couldn’t imagine what things would be like for her if she had to do this all on her own. It was a tough world out there, and he had learned that well. Even if she didn’t realize it, she had a support system back at the clubhouse. It might not be ideal, but it was far better than her running away.
“You’re just saying that because you still want to cast the blame on me. You know what, Skid? I think you’re just a coward.” She poked her finger into his chest.
“Excuse me?” He could handle a lot from her, but this was just too much.
“I said, you’re a coward. You like to pretend you’re some tough guy with your big muscles and your dark hair and your vintage motorcycle, but you’re just too chicken to own up to what you’ve done.”
“That’s about enough of that.” Skid tightened his grip on her arm and pulled her close. Her eyes widened in a moment of fear, but they softened and slowly closed as he pressed his lips to hers. God, it had been so long since that night. He had forgotten how soft her skin was and the way she tasted. He opened his mouth and she did the same, their tongues dancing. A raw, animalistic yearning rose up in him, and he wrapped his free hand around her hip and pressed her to the hardness growing between his legs. Mina wasn’t just some club girl, nor was she just the president’s daughter, she was a sexy, wild woman that he longed to tame. He dug his fingers into her flesh, barely keeping himself from pulling her down onto the cool sand and making love to her right there. It wouldn’t matter that it was the middle of the day or that they were on a public beach; some things just couldn’t wait. The fact that she was carrying his child only made him all the more desperate to reassert his claim over her.
With that thought, he pulled back and broke their kiss. He stared down into her wide brown eyes and remembered there was still reality to deal with. “I do care about you, Mina, and I definitely care about the baby. But we both know that this isn’t a simple thing. We can’t just go to Park and tell him what happened, not without a lot of complications.”
She frowned, sending a wrinkle across her smooth forehead. “What are you suggesting?”
“We keep this thing between us quiet for now. Just for now,” he assured her as she started to protest again. “It’s the best thing for you and for the baby. We’ll let your father calm down a little bit while we try to find a way to tell him.” Skid still had her pressed against his body, and he wasn’t yet ready to let go. He knew he couldn’t have her again—not yet—and he would take what he could get.
“Don’t you think he’ll figure it out? I mean, he’s not exactly stupid. If he sees us together, he’ll know in an instant.” Hope fell from Mina’s face.
“I’m sure that’s true, and that’s exactly why he’s not going to see us together. We’re going to stay away from each other until this whole thing blows over, one way or the other. It’s the only way for right now.” Gently, he pushed her away from him. It was almost painful, and he could swear she felt it too.
She crossed her arms, instantly back to being the defiant young woman she had always been. “What do we tell him if he asks about this little rendezvous? You know how busy the clubhouse is, and someone probably saw us take off together.”
Skid nodded, seeing the reason behind that. “True, but we could just say that we wanted to blow off some steam. Everyone will believe that. There’s been plenty of tension back at the clubhouse.”
Mina turned to look out over the lake, the breeze picking up her fringe of hair. It was dyed blonde on the top, but it was still the original black underneath. He liked that she always managed to remain herself no matter what kind of look she was going for or what she was interested in at the moment. There was never any doubt as to who Mina was. “I guess that will work.” She turned back to him, her eyes sharp. “But I’m going to make it clear, right here and now, that I’m not happy about this.” She trudged through the sand back to the small parking lot where his bike was waiting.
After watching her go for a moment, Skid finally followed. He wasn’t entirely happy about it, either, but he had to do what he thou
ght was best. Being separated by choice was much better than being separated by force, after all, and Park still needed a little time to get used to the fact that he was going to be a grandfather soon.
Skid got on the bike and settled in, glad that he could at least feel Mina’s arms around him for their ride back to the clubhouse. It wasn’t much, but he would take it.
Chapter Six
Mina
It didn’t seem to matter how much time passed. Park wasn’t getting used to the idea of his daughter being knocked up. He sat on the edge of her bed, the lines in his face showing more than usual. His years of riding motorcycles out in the sun hadn’t been kind to him, but he still bore some vestiges of the handsome man he had once been. Mostly, though, he looked tired. “Mina, it’s been weeks. Just tell me who it is.”
She stood by the window, staring out it as though something interesting was happening below her in the parking lot of the converted warehouse. She’d never heard her father sound so desperate before, but it didn’t move her. “What good would it do me? You’d just kill him, or exile him. Then what do I have left?”