TAKE ME, OUTLAW: A Dark Bad Boy Baby Romance

by Zoey Parker

  I touched my belly, and even though I wasn't supposed to feel the baby inside of me yet, I was still sure I could. I wondered if all expectant mothers felt the same way. I had thought up a name for the baby, and I couldn't wait until Rafe came home so I could tell him.

  I heard Rafe at the door. I put the last few items into the suitcase I was packing, latching it closed and putting it on the floor. When I turned around, Rafe was framed in the bedroom doorway, grinning that grin that never failed to turn my insides to liquid.

  “Well?” I asked. “How'd it go?”

  Rafe reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a banded roll of bills that looked about as big as a roll of toilet paper. “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” he laughed, unsnapping the band and fanning the cash out. “Can you believe it? A quarter of a million dollars, tax-free, and it's all ours!”

  I threw my head back and let out a loud, long, triumphant shriek, throwing my arms around Rafe's neck. “You did it!” I yelled happily. “You did it, you did it!”

  Rafe spun me around once before releasing me. Then he tossed the cash onto the bed, spreading it around until it covered the bedspread in a crisp green blanket.

  I looked up at Rafe and saw that the glee in his eyes had been replaced with something else. It was the same wild, hungry look they'd had in the farmhouse during the nights when we'd been on the run.

  Just seeing that look made me wet.

  “Take off your dress, sweetheart,” Rafe commanded. I loved that he still called me that, even when he was being bossy.

  My eyes stayed on his, hypnotized, as I pulled my dress over my head. I wasn't wearing a bra, just panties. I reached down to slide them off and Rafe darted forward, grabbing my wrists and yanking them behind my back. Our bodies were almost pressed together. A hot flush crept into my cheeks, and I realized I was breathing harder.

  “I didn't say you could take off your panties,” Rafe growled. “Those are the kinds of decisions that free people make. And you're not free, are you, Jewel?”

  “No,” I whispered, my wrists aching slightly behind my back. I felt my pulse pounding against my skin. My swollen clit throbbed as though it was reaching out to him.

  “That's right,” he agreed. I could feel his warm breath on my lips. “Who do you belong to?”

  “You,” I said immediately.

  I felt a twinge of delicious agony as his hands twisted my wrists harder behind me. My back arched, bringing my breasts forward to press against his shirt. “Say it,” he insisted.

  “I belong to you,” I said.

  “Goddamn right you do,” he nodded. “Now turn around.”

  Rafe released my wrists and I turned around, my buttocks grazing the front of his jeans. He lowered himself behind me and I felt his fingertips slide into the sides of my panties, slowly sliding them down my legs. The muscles in my thighs and calves trembled.

  “Crawl onto the bed,” Rafe demanded.

  I did as he said, the thousand-dollar bills crinkling under my palms and knees. I arched my back, presenting myself to him like an animal in heat.

  I heard him unzip his jeans and felt him climb onto the bed behind me. He mounted me, laying his hands on my shoulders. I felt his cock push into my pussy and I cried out, my entire body shaking.

  “You are mine,” he hissed, slamming himself into me.

  “Oh God, Rafe, yes, I'm yours,” I gasped. “I'm yours...”

  I hung my head down, my hair in my face as he kept pushing into me. He reached his hand around me to stroke my clit. A series of orgasms rocked my body like a chain of volcanos erupting inside of me, the lava filling every corner of me until I felt like I would explode. His hand moved to seize my hair, pulling my head back and to the side so Rafe could see my face as he took me.

  By the time I felt Rafe's climax jetting against my G-spot, I was trembling and could barely keep myself on all fours.

  I sank to my belly on top of the cash and rolled over onto my side. Rafe collapsed next to me and we held each other tightly, the bills rustling beneath us with every movement.

  “I love you, Jewel,” he whispered roughly, “And I love you, whatever your name is going be,” he said as he caressed my belly.

  “Sidney,” I said. “I was thinking Sidney seemed like a good choice, whether it ends up being a boy or a girl.”

  I felt him smile against my shoulder. “I like it.”

  I thought about the barn next to the house with the bullet holes in the side, and wondered what kinds of animals we might decide to raise in it. I thought about the fields behind the house that had grown fallow, and wondered what we'd choose to grow there together.

  But I never wondered whether Rafe and I would have a long and wonderful life together.

  That I knew for sure.

  THE END

  Thanks so much for reading! If you enjoyed the book, we would really appreciate your review.

  ***

  After that, if you’re still hungry for more bad boy action, then read on – we’ve got a few surprises in store for you :)

  Free Bonus Book

  As an extra thank you, we’ve included a couple of special bonus gifts. First up is an entire free novel.

  It’s the first War Reapers adventure: BREAK ME, DADDY.

  Enjoy!

  HE MEANT TO BREAK MY BODY. INSTEAD, HE BROKE MY HEART.

  I knew from the moment I walked in that this place was not meant for me.

  I was clean; this place was filthy.

  I was fair; this place was dark.

  But maybe I was sick of living a safe life.

  Maybe I was sick of every little thing fitting together just so.

  I was sick of being perfect and whole.

  I wanted to be broken.

  In this dark and pungent hell, I found the man to do the job.

  He took me into his arms and broke me –

  Over, and over, and over again.

  When it was finished, I picked up the pieces of myself that remained, and I left.

  But things never end that easily.

  I didn’t know it then, but when I ran, I took something with me.

  Something I never wanted…

  Something I never asked for…

  The baby of the man who’d owned me.

  Now, my unborn child and I are helpless pawns in some sick and twisted game.

  People are being hurt, killed.

  I can’t stand to watch anymore.

  All I can do is cry, and plead, and beg.

  All I can say are three little words:

  Please, for the love of God…

  “Break me, Daddy.”

  Chapter One

  Nic

  I woke up with a headache that felt like someone was tapping rusty nails into my skull. My guts were being slowly wound around a fist and squeezed. I heard myself groan like a wounded animal as I rolled over onto my back, knowing with grim certainty that as soon as I opened my eyes, the morning sun would jump through my window and dig its thumbs deep into my eye sockets.

  And if it didn't, well, probably one of Giovanni’s guys would.

  Sure enough, when I opened my eyes, the sunlight delivered on its threat and clawed at my face savagely. I forced my eyelids to stay open despite the pain and waited for the yellow haze to slowly fade away, bringing the rest of my apartment into focus one detail at a time, like an old Polaroid being shaken. Thankfully, the sunlight appeared to be my only attacker that morning. I wasn't sure how long that kind of luck would hold given my situation, but I'd take it while I could get it.

  I stumbled to my feet and staggered across the barely-furnished apartment, leaving a trail in the thick layer of dust on the floor. I wasn't much of a housekeeper. I didn't spend much time in this place. Why would I, when I spent at least two-thirds of my life on the road and most of the remainder at the Nest? It was just a spartan first-floor studio in a mostly-abandoned building in Rogers Park—an anonymous place to crash when I needed to be off the radar
for a bit.

  I didn't even pay rent for the apartment. I'd managed to rig some extension cords and power strips connecting to an empty apartment across the hall where the electricity was still running. That gave me enough juice to run a heater to warm the place and a small TV to fall asleep to. My books were in one battered cardboard box, and my clothes were in another. My beloved bike was stashed at the Nest down the block, fiercely protected by my brothers in arms, the War Reapers.

  What more could a man need?

  Something to make this goddamn hangover go away, that's what.

  I swayed over the toilet as I pissed through the thin layer of ice that had settled over the water in the bowl, the tiles freezing under my bare feet. The heater was decent at warming the corner of the living room where I slept, but in the bathroom, I could see my own breath hovering in front of me in silvery clouds, here one moment, gone the next.

  God bless Chicago in the wintertime. There’s nothing on earth like it, and thank Christ for that.

  Then again, I figured I should have probably just been grateful that I still had breath to see, the way things had been going.

  How the hell did it come to this? I asked myself, grimacing at the answer. This whole scenario was what Bard, the president of the Reapers, called “a comedy of errors.” Growler, his VP—who wasn't nearly as big a fan of books in general, or Shakespeare in particular—preferred to call it “a thoroughly righteous fuck-up of biblical proportions.”

  The Reapers had a long-standing business arrangement with Giovanni's crew. We'd run a few pounds of weed and sometimes, a few dozen tabs of MDMA from Indiana to Chicago so that Giovanni and his guys could make a little money off the city's college kids and burn-outs. Compared to the other stuff Giovanni was involved with (labor unions, money laundering, sports betting, and political fixing, just to name a few of the highlights), what we brought him was a drop in the bucket.

  Mostly, the arrangement existed to keep things peaceful and friendly between our club and the Mafia. Their connections with cops, judges, and other Midwestern crime families allowed us to move and operate with far greater freedom than we had on our own. One of our guys gets busted for speeding in Indianapolis or for bashing some dude's teeth in with a vodka bottle during a bar fight in West Lafayette? Call Giovanni, you'll be out of the joint by dinnertime. Some shit gets out of control, and we need a body to disappear without a trace? Call Giovanni, and wait for a couple of guys in overalls to come by in a truck, toss it into a rug or an industrial garbage bag, and boom—“What body, officer? We didn't see nothing. We’re just a harmless motorcycle club that does charity runs and Toys for Tots, so go bother someone else.”

  It was a good arrangement. And then fucking Vole had to come into the Nest a few nights ago and flush the whole damn thing right down the crapper.

  # # #

  Benvolio Bertolucci was one of Giovanni's many cousins, which was probably the only reason a pathetic nimrod like him could ever have become a made guy, let alone a major capo in the Bonaccorso family. They called him Vole for short, and he certainly looked the part. With his beady black eyes, massive nose, and protruding front teeth, he looked like some revolting species of rodent. Most of Bonaccorso’s soldiers were known for dressing sharply in their expensive suits and designer golf shirts. Even their track suits were kept spotless out of respect for Big G's obsession with neatness and presentation.

  Vole, on the other hand, seemed to pride himself on being the exception that proved the rule. His hair was always unwashed, his jaw and neck were always blue with stubble, he always had food stains drying and crusting on his off-the-discount-rack suits, and his shirts were always untucked and marred with careless cigarette burns. In short, he pretty much looked like something you'd find up your nose. He even seemed to take pride in this, since it represented just how much he could get away with, being related to the boss.

  But despite all of this—and the fact that his breath usually smelled like he'd just munched on a urinal cake, with a handful of stale cigarette butts on the side—the worst part about Vole was that he thought he was a comedian. His “jokes” usually fell into two categories: The ones we’d already heard a zillion times, and the ones we could do without hearing altogether. He always traveled with two other Bonaccorso thugs in tow who seemed to be paid exclusively to laugh at his bad jokes and smooch his ass for him whenever he needed it.

  Vole's “favorite joke” was to walk up behind guys, shove his knuckle against their upper backs like the barrel of a gun, lean in close, and whisper—with that heinous breath—“This ain't no stick-up, Jack. I'm just really tall, and really excited!”

  I’d heard that one in first grade and didn't laugh at it then, either. But oh how the two guys with Vole would pretend to fall all over themselves with their fake cackling and knee-slapping, waiting until Vole's own laughter died down so they'd know when it was safe for them to stop.

  Since Giovanni was a high-profile guy and always under the fed’s microscope, he usually let Vole do all of his business for him. This meant that every time we needed to hand off weed and pills in exchange for the money, Vole would come and visit the Nest with his two flunkies. So we'd all have to make nice for a few hours and give him free drinks, no matter how much he acted like an obnoxious prick.

  A few nights ago, Vole and his guys came in to make the usual exchange, and it was more of the same. Except that we were having a party for Kong, a member of the Reapers who'd just served a three-year stretch in Joliet for aggravated assault. Since Vole had never met Kong before, he decided it was a perfect opportunity to try out his favorite joke on a new audience.

  If I'd known what Vole was planning to do, I'd have tried to talk him out of it, or I could have at least talked to Kong beforehand and told him what was going to happen, asked him to play along. But I didn't know until he was all the way across the room behind Kong and it was too late to reach him.

  Vole stepped up behind a man who had just spent the past three years looking over his shoulder in prison. A man who was twice his size and probably three times his weight, with a long and unrepentant history of violence. He shoved his knuckle into the small of Kong's back.

  Before Vole could lean in to form the words “This ain't...,” Kong had already started moving with an easy, lightning-fast grace that no one would ever expect from such a giant ape of a man. He pivoted, grabbed a beer stein from the bar next to him, and broke it against the right side of Vole's face, all in a single fluid motion.

  A silence descended on the bar immediately. Vole fell to the floor, shards of glass protruding from his bloody cheek. There wasn't any pain in his eyes, though, or even any fear—just a look of utter shock and disbelief and an inability to process the information being sent to his brain, as though the ceiling had magically parted and a UFO had touched down in the middle of the bar. He simply could not imagine a world in which someone could reach out and harm him, and why not? In his world, that would be unheard of. In his world, anyone who dared to lay a hand on a made man in the Bonaccorso family would immediately be sponged from the face of the earth like a blot of red sauce dropped on a kitchen counter.

  I looked into Kong's eyes and instantly recognized three things: He understood what he had done, he wished he could take it back but knew damn fucking well that he couldn't, and he was ready for whatever came next.

  That last one frightened me because, to be honest, I wasn't sure I was ready.

  But I knew I'd find out in the next two seconds.

  The silence hung in the air for another long moment until Vole's eyes darted from Kong's face to the blood collecting on the front of his own shirt. He opened his trembling mouth and a high-pitched squeal came out, wavering, like the crying of an infant. Spit-bubbles formed on his lips, and somewhere amid the breathy screams and babbling, I could make out the words “Kill 'em all.”

  Apparently, so could Vole's bodyguards because they both reached for their shoulder holsters in unison. Their faces were matching masks o
f confusion. They were clearly operating on instinct and had been conditioned to do anything Vole told them and to draw their guns the moment a threat presented itself. But they both also seemed mildly puzzled by their own actions, drawing their guns in a bar full of bikers who clearly outnumbered them ten to one.

  Before my brain could even register what was happening, my own .38 snub-nose revolver was in my hand, and I was crouched behind an overturned table, firing hollow point rounds at the gangsters across the room.

  In real life, firefights don't resemble their movie-screen counterparts at all. With so many bullets flying and ricocheting, with thunderous gunshots so loud that each one seems to shatter my eardrums and make my jaw ache, with the shards and splinters of debris clouding the air, and the reek of blood and cordite in my nostrils—well, I’m probably going to miss most of the shots I take since I don't have the proper time or focus to aim without getting my own damn head blown off.