by Rie Warren
When he pulled up to the mystery destination, apprehension turned to surprise as I took in the lettering on the plaque beside the door.
“An OB? But you always just have the nurse come to me.”
Exiting the sedan, he crossed the front to open my door. “My dear Gracie. Of course I’ve been keeping close tabs on the baby’s gestation.”
His creepy factor just went up about a thousand degrees.
“It’s time for your first ultrasound. I need to make sure all your slutty history hasn’t fucked up my progeny, don’t I, pet?”
Numbness crawled across my skin at his coldly spoken words. But still, maybe I could get a message out while I was here? But what good would that do? I’d already told Killian everything, and advised him not to help me.
There was no help for me.
At least I’d see my baby today.
We entered a glass and steel waiting area that was completely empty.
“Only the best for my best breeder.” Roark’s slimy words added to the detachment spreading through my body. “Come. Come. We’re expected.”
Guided to a sterile room, there was no nurse to point things out, only Roark who watched impassively—speculatively—while I disrobed, slipped on the thin papery gown, then climbed onto the narrow medical bed.
Moments later, a tall thin woman, who appeared sculpted from porcelain, stepped into the antiseptic room. She shut the door with a quiet snick and sauntered to Roark’s side.
“Gracie, I want you to behave,” he said as the woman strapped my feet into the stirrups until I was ingloriously spread wide and the gown slipped down to my crotch.
“If this is an ultrasound, why do I have to be in stirrups?”
“Don’t be impertinent.” The woman came to my side and pushed me down. “Is she always so difficult? Such traits can be passed on genetically.”
“And trained out,” Roark stood over the woman’s shoulder, familiarly cupping her waist.
“Hmm,” she murmured, and there was a distinct dynamic between them I couldn’t grasp, but it left me cold inside.
Colder than the gel the OB spread across my belly with the ultrasound wand.
As she fiddled with buttons on the machine, Roark leaned over to tweak one of my sensitive nipples hard.
My eyes flashed to his, and he grinned in that cunning way he had.
“Gracie, I’d like you to meet my wife, Rachel.”
What?
WHAT?
I’d known he was married, but why her? Why here? Why now?
I struggled to sit up, but Rachel glared at me, eyes frigid as glaciers. “Be still, or I’ll do a nice little amniotic fluid test on you with a great big needle that could endanger the fetus, and no one wants that, do we?”
“Don’t worry.” Roark swept a hand across my brow. “My wife is a very sought-after OB. You’re in good hands.”
I thought I’d hyperventilate, my respiration going crazy. “Why would you bring me here?”
“There’s just something about toying with your emotions that gets me going.” He shrugged, unconcerned.
“I don’t approve of you using these playthings of yours, Roark,” Rachel admonished, then she pecked him on the cheek.
“Ah, but you do approve of the offspring of this dalliance, don’t you dear wife?”
At her wry chuckle and his smug attitude I shut my eyes.
This has to be a nightmare.
As soon as the ultrasound landed on my tummy, I opened my eyes.
“Oh yes. Yes, Roark!” Rachel squealed. “Perfect size for eighteen weeks. Plentiful amniotic fluid. Wonderful . . . let’s listen to the heartbeat.”
I looked at the grainy image of my baby, tears gathering. And when I heard the fast whoosh-pump-whoosh of the nugget’s heartbeat, I breathed in on a sob.
I was on the verge of thanking Roark’s wife when she craned back to look at him.
“Our beautiful baby. Do you want to know the gender, Roark?”
Wait?
WHAT?
Horror made me speechless.
Dread held me motionless.
“I think . . . let’s have a surprise, darling.”
“Noooo!” I shoved the wand off me and sat up in distress. “It’s my baby. MINE!”
“I told you this would be too much for her. When will you ever listen to me?” Roark’s starched-white wife cleaned off the wand in jerky motions.
Then she placed a hand on my forehead in a soothing gesture, which only repulsed me more.
I thought I’d heard the most vile thing to come out of her mouth until she gloatingly continued. “Honey, it’s not that I can’t carry a child of my own, but why would I? I see firsthand on a daily basis the havoc pregnancy plays on a woman’s body. Besides”—she simpered—“I don’t want to give up my fabulous lifestyle to carry around a fetus when someone else can do it for me. Win win.”
I almost retched into the hand cupped over my mouth.
“Oh, Roark. Look. We’ve upset the whore.”
“She’ll get over it,” he intoned, too busy collecting the printouts of the ultrasound. “Or not.”
Rachel continued to brush my hair away from my face. “There, there. Surely you didn’t think Roark would be with you? That he’d let a prostitute raise our child?”
The horrific shock wearing off, I snapped back from her hand. I wriggled from the stirrups. I swung my legs off the bed and kicked the cold bitch out of my way.
Gel still clung to my belly, and I cupped my hand beneath the growing mound. “Stay the hell away from me.”
“Cute, Gracie.” Roark pocketed the ultrasound photos then pressed me back down to the bed. “You had to know you’re just a human incubator.”
While he spoke all calmly and matter-of-fact, he guided my feet into my panties. He shifted my dress over me and arranged the fabric just so. When he pressed his thumbs into my throat, I glared at him instead of thrashing against the choking feeling.
“You’re a very, very valuable incubator. As you get bigger, more fecund, the more money you’ll bring in. And when you start lactating”—he winked—“that’s a whole other fetish.”
This then was Roark’s ultimate punishment.
“You’re monsters. You’re both monsters!” I shoved his hands off me.
“Well, I think that’s a bit harsh. If I’m a monster then so is the fetus you’re carrying inside you.”
I couldn’t listen to any more of Roark’s twisted logic.
Hurrying out of the room, I made for the lobby.
I heard Rachel screeching, “Stop her! She’s carrying my child!”
Roark snapped me back to him, and Rachel raced to his side, hot spots on her doll’s cheeks.
Gripping my chin and pinching my jaw in a hard grasp, Roark sneered. “No need, is there, Gracie? She’ll come back to the whorehouse because she’s not a complete dimwit. Are you, pet?”
A million thoughts flew through my mind:
Where can I go?
What can I do?
How can I escape?
“Be back in your room by midnight.” Roark pushed me from him, and the two criminals watched me run away.
Blinded by tears as soon as I hit the curb, I scrabbled into the first cab that came along.
I gave vague directions to the only place I could think of.
Damn the ramifications.
****
I stumbled through the doors of the bar, halting when I saw a tall man with the same sort of dark expression as Killian along with a slightly smaller guy behind the counter, sloshing out glasses.
They both halted mid step, mid sentence, and the air rung with total silence.
Disorientated and wary, I wrapped my arms around myself. “I took a cab. I don’t have any money.”
I didn’t know these men.
I shouldn’t have come here.
My heart rabbited in my chest, and I worried about my baby.
The bigger man with the rougher features slowly adva
nced.
I stepped back.
He stopped.
“No fare for the cab? No big.” He called back to the other one. “Yo, Chase, go pay for Grace’s taxi. Tip ’em extra since they got her here safe.”
Tears overlapped my eyes, and I knew I was among friends.
I could barely speak as the first man cautiously took my hand and led me to a seat.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“My friends call me Revenge.”
I took the napkin he passed me and wiped my eyes. “That doesn’t sound like a good nickname.”
He tucked his head down. “No ma’am. Guess not. But it comes in handy when you wanna get a job done.”
Then he sounded out, “Sol! Where you at? Got some fucking tea or something for our Grace?”
Our Grace.
They all knew.
I didn’t have time to ponder that, because the brusque man patted me heavily on the shoulder before stepping back to dip his head again, “Pardon the language.”
I almost started weeping again when Sol appeared.
“Mamzelle.” The Creole carried a teetering teacup placed on a chipped saucer that had definitely seen better days. “How be da baby?”
My throat clogged up. I couldn’t answer.
Sol’s gnarled hands slid around mine. “Got some victuals cookin’ up. Set you right as rain, just you wait.”
He ambled off with a stilted gait, and again Revenge and I were alone.
Not for long because he megaphoned out, “Angel! Mercy! Get asses to the bar pronto.”
I shot up to my feet. “No. I don’t—”
Too late.
Mercy dashed in from a back door, took one look at me, then barreled right into me. “Grace! My lord. I prayed and prayed. And I knew Killian wouldn’t stop, not until he found you.”
The man known as Angel appeared after her—tall and blond, handsome and strong.
He didn’t touch me, but nodded. “It sure is a pleasure to finally meet you.”
“I’m so sorry, Grace. I left.” Mercy let me go from her hug.
“You nearly died.”
“But you . . . you were . . .” Her eyes fell to my belly.
“Sold. Bred.” I knew I spoke with a hardened tone.
I just couldn’t go there right now. Not with someone who didn’t know everything I’d survived, not even if it was Mercy.
My gaze found Revenge, and I hoped he read the message.
I need Killian.
Seconds later, I heard the telltale boot steps. Someone wasn’t being stealthy this time.
Killian entered, head down, jerking on the strap of his knife sheath. “What the fuck’s with all the commotion this goddamn ti—”
He looked up.
His lips parted.
“Grace?”
I ran straight into his embrace, burrowing against him.
Chapter Eleven
SLADE
I’D BARELY CAUGHT SIGHT of Grace standing in the middle of the bar before she was in my arms.
And I’d never been more thrilled to see someone, but concern wriggled right through me as her entire body shook in my embrace.
Looking out over her head, I was met with the expressions of Chase, Angel, Sol, and Revenge. Some relief showed, but mostly their faces pitched in somber shadows.
And Mercy, wiping tears from her face.
“Please,” Grace whispered. “I need to talk to you, and there are too many people, and—”
“We’re gonna take this upstairs,” I announced to all, quickly bundling Grace against my side and out into the back hallway.
Pointing the way upstairs, we left the bar full of utter silence below.
I took her to my room, shutting the door behind us.
Then I sat her in the one chair and stacked a pillow behind her back where I knew she sometimes got aches and pains.
Crouching in front of her, I drew her cold, clammy hands between mine. “What happened?”
In halting stops and starts, Grace relayed the entire disturbing goings-on of her morning. At that smug dick-hole’s wife’s OB practice.
I had to chew down on the roaring rage threatening to unhinge me. Always, before Grace, I could be relied on to keep cool in a crisis. Not so anymore.
Her face turned whiter with each word she said.
Each pain she revealed more horrifying than the last.
Above all, the stark realization that the freckled fuck-face never intended her to be a mother—the mother—to her baby at all.
Grace hid her face against my shoulder. “How could I have been so stupid? How?”
Stupid?
What woman, what mother, would ever expect to have her baby taken away from her?
Fury came second only to comforting Grace.
But inside, I vowed I’d rip that motherfucking human trafficker’s esophagus right out of his throat.
Lifting her from the seat, I switched places with her then settled her on my lap, in the lee of my arms.
“There’s no solution right now, is there?” Her words skimmed across my skin like ghost whispers and splintered accusations.
Except she wasn’t even accusing me.
It goddamn rattled me to my core that I didn’t have an answer for her.
Glaring out over the top of her head, I cursed the entire fucking world.
“I know a bunch of guys who wouldn’t mind getting their hands dirty to rip holes right through Finnegan,” I gnawed out the words between grinding teeth.
“The men downstairs.”
“Yeah. But there are even more of us, and I’ve got a whole armory of weapons stashed away.”
“You told them. You told everyone everything,” she said without reproach.
I stiffened all over. “Yeah.”
“When?”
My lips flattened into a miserable line. “Thanksgiving night.”
Glancing up, Grace nodded. “Because you needed to talk to someone. Because I keep messing with your head so much.”
No comment.
She started to lift off my lap. “I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t keep laying all this on you.”
“Whoa there.” Clasping her hand, I tugged her back down.
I framed her face with my palms. “You’re not to feel guilty. And you sure as hell don’t need to worry about me.”
“I don’t want you to think I’m using you.”
“Aw hell. Use me all you want.”
A different gleam misted across her hazel-flecked irises, and I realized whether I’d intended it or not the words had sounded like a sexual invitation.
Within seconds, the atmosphere shifted.
The chemistry changed.
The always-attraction soared to the forefront.
And I wanted to deny how much I wanted her. Now wasn’t the time for this sort of thing.
For fuck’s sake, Grace had come to me for solace.
Not sex.
But she stared at her fingers as they moved from my shoulders to my waist, and my heart clobbered in my chest. My pulse echoed right down to my groin.
She dragged the hem of my shirt up over my abs then reached beneath to swirl fingertips along flexing muscle and through rasping hair.
I grew distinctly hard against her ass, groaning when she wiggled in just the right way so my prominent bulge sandwiched in the cleft of her bottom.
“Shit.” Head craning back, I clamped my hands on the arms of the chair instead of around her hips.
“You said I could use you.” Grace drew her tongue up the straining cords of my throat then bit softly all along my jaw.
“Yeah.” I grunted . . . oh, fuck. “I did, but—”
“Sshh. You talk too much.” By the sound of her voice I knew she wore a teasing smile, because we both knew the truth about me and words.
As her lips trailed to the corner of my mouth, I damn near quaked in my skin.
“But, Grace—”
“This is what I need righ
t now. I need you, Killian. Unless . . .”
You don’t want me?
Her unsaid words hung suspended in the air, and I raised my head to look at her.
“There is no unless. C’mere.”
Our mouths clashed with a soaring urgency, no tender hello about this rampant greed.
Within minutes of tortured kissing and roving hands, the fire already burned too hot.
Christ almighty. We hadn’t fucked since Thanksgiving.
One day with her was never gonna be enough.
I had us up on our feet and half my clothes thrown off before attacking her lips again. Goddamn, but she tasted sweet.
And she sure as hell was no shrinking violet.
A possessive gurgle issued from her throat when she ripped through the tabs on my jeans.
I shoved them and everything else off then tore at her clothing with just as much frustrated impatience.
My hard, hard cock lurched upright, brushing the underside of her belly, and heat goddamn spiked inside me like a fever.
With her bare, and in my rooms, and daylight spearing across the walls and over the floor in sunbursts, I tore my mouth from hers.
I dragged my ravaging hands from her body.
I stepped back, melting into a moment I wanted to hold onto forever.
Standing nude and luscious, Grace became dappled in sunlight falling all over her ripe body.
She reached out for me, but I stepped back again.
“Wait. Don’t move. Please,” I asked in an unfamiliar guttural timbre.
She started to shield her breasts, but I halted her.
“Don’t cover yourself. Don’t hide from me.”
Fearless then—how could she not be when desire stamped all over my body and aimed my rigid cock like a staff to the air—she shook out the glorious black waves of her hair so the thick tresses tumbled down her back and over her shoulders.
Staging closer, I barely coasted the calloused pads of my fingers across her satiny skin. Down her temples so her eyes shuttered briefly closed. Across her plump lips so she breathed in on a gasp.
I only made contact with my hands, murmuring non-words of praise that came from deep within my gut.
Along her neck, where her pulse fluttered just beneath the most silken skin.