The Traitor’s Baby: Reaper’s Hearts MC

by Nicole Fox

  He massages the bridge of his eyebrows. “You’re speaking like we’re a couple or somethin’.”

  “There it is again! Mr. Cool and Nonchalant, too cool and nonchalant to bother with me.”

  “I’m trying to keep you safe!” he breaks out, waving his arm and gritting his teeth.

  His explosion of anger brings emotion with it. We meet eyes again, and this time we truly see each other. In his face, I see that he’s missed me as much as I’ve missed him, thought about me as much as I’ve thought about him. It makes sense for neither of us and yet it’s the truth.

  “I just want the best for you,” he says.

  “Don’t you think I should have some say in that?” I reply.

  “We can’t see each other,” he says. “The cops’ll go crazy at the idea of one of their own—and that’s how they see you, Nancy, even if that ain’t how you feel—they’ll go crazy at seeing us together. They’ll kill me and kill you, or worse, and then where will we be? And for what?”

  “I don’t understand it ether,” I tell him. “All I know is for the past few weeks . . .” I cut off, suddenly embarrassed. Half-turning, I say, “I’ve missed you.” I feel vulnerable admitting something so intimate to a man I scarcely know: scarcely know, and yet I feel close to him.

  He takes a step forward, his body close to mine. I feel the heat from him drawing me in, impossible to ignore. It’s heat that promises rounds of pleasure, so many rounds that when the bell rings, I’ll lie spent on the floor. I turn to him, stepping closer.

  “I’ve thought about you, too,” he says, and then an animal look comes into his face.

  He moves with deadly speed, the same deadly speed he used outside to smash the leering cop over the head. His hand yanks down my tights and panties to my knees, and then slides up my inner thigh toward my pussy. His eyes are locked on me the whole time. I know I could ask him to stop. I’m not that sort of girl, etc., etc. . . . but I don’t want him to stop. I’ve dreamt of this hand for too many nights to make him stop now. Fear has become lust like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

  He pushes his finger against my hole, moving it softly, opening me up. “Is this what you want?” he asks.

  I’m wet, so wet, and aching, and hungry for the release of pleasure. “Yes,” I moan.

  He slides his finger inside of me, deep, pushing all the way to my sweet spot. That aching spot is waiting for him. The second his finger presses firmly against it I lose control, leaning forward against him and biting onto the leather of his jacket to stop from screaming. I’m vaguely aware that we’re in public, that outside women talk to each other, wondering aloud why the toilet is locked. Music pumps through the walls and glasses clink together. But I blot all that out until all that exists is me, and him, and his finger pressing against the most pleasurable part of me.

  He moves his finger fast, around in circles, which make my hot spot hotter and hotter. I taste leather, and then taste his sweat as I bite down on his T-shirt. His pectoral is solid, so solid that I can hardly grip it with my teeth. He tastes good, manly, smelling faintly of oil from the garage. Without warning, he lifts me up, both with his hand in my pussy and his arm wrapped around my bum. He drops me on the sink surface and leans forward, pumping his arm so that his finger drills my pussy. I feel utterly powerless, and feeling utterly powerless with Fink is almost too much to bear.

  Everything is on fire. My body, my mind, a billion pleasure centers singing a unified song.

  “I want you to come on my fuckin’ hand.” Fink growls like a beast, kissing and biting my neck as he fingers me. “I want to fuckin’ feel it.”

  I squeeze my legs around his hand, squeezing my pussy at the same time, making it so that my lips are tight around his finger, trapping him inside of me. He moves his finger even faster, so fast that I can’t feel it anymore: not each movement. All I feel is a searing heat inside of me, a heat so powerful it touches every part of me. The orgasm approaches, hot and steaming, touching my finger and my toes, making both curl, and making my cheeks and my lips flare red-hot. I close my eyes and see heat imprinted on my eyes. Fink rubs me quicker, quicker, and I can’t stop myself anymore. It feels too good. I’m lost to the world.

  I moan loudly, not caring that someone might hear, not caring about anything other than losing myself in this pleasure. I moan in unison with the heat, my moans getting louder the hotter my pussy gets. Soon, the heat is a giant force inside of me, so large that it blots every other feeling. I grind against his hand, so close now I can almost feel the orgasm. And then—

  The orgasm snaps from inside of me like a whip; Fink’s finger has become a weapon flailing wildly, hitting every single inch of me. My pussy releases, pleasure releasing with it, my hole getting looser as attack after attack whirls within me. Heat-touched pleasure utterly consumes me. My pussy gets tight, loose, tight, loose as pleasure empties onto Fink’s hand. I squirt, hard, squirting so much that I feel it dripping onto my thighs. I am aware that I’m screaming in pleasure but unable to stop myself. The orgasm could last for five seconds or five minutes. I have no idea. All I know is the flame-tinged whip, making my clit, my sweet spot, my face, my body, my nipples, everything—making all of it hotter than I can bear. Finally, the orgasm retreats and I’m left leaning against the mirror, my chin resting on my chest, breathing so fast it’s like I’m having a panic attack again.

  Fink steps back and I hop down from the sink, pulling up my panties and my tights. “Wow,” I say.

  “Wow,” he agrees.

  He doesn’t ask for sex. I know why, because he knows I’ll say no. And yet part of me is disappointed. I splash some water on my face, my panties damp from the pleasure, and then turn to him. “So,” I say.

  “So,” he replies. His chest heaves as lust slowly leaves him.

  “I want to see you again,” I offer.

  “I know,” he replies. “I want the same.”

  “But?”

  “We’ve been over it. I’d say this is like Romeo and Juliet, but I don’t consider myself much of a Romeo. We’re from different worlds, Nancy. How do you reckon this could work?” He kisses me on the forehead and makes for the door. “I wish we’d met under different circumstances.”

  I stand there, dumbfounded, not sure how to feel. He gives me the greatest pleasure of my life—and I mean that, because that frantic exchange dwarfs every other orgasm in my life—and then leaves me just like that. After a while, I leave the bathroom, leave the bar, make my way home, where I sit on the edge of my bed full of restless energy. He’s made his position clear and I should respect that, but I can’t help but feel that there’s more to this, there has to be more to this.

  It can’t all end with an orgasm in the restroom.

  Chapter Nine

  Fink

  “You sound an awful lot like you’re scared, Fink.” Snake drains his whisky and pours another. “I don’t wanna start nothing, but it seems that way to me.”

  I drain my own whisky. “Keep talking that way and see how scared I am.”

  Snake gulps, and then holds his hands up in a show of peace. “I didn’t mean nothing.”

  “Keep your fuckin’ thoughts to yourself, then.”

  “What is it, then?” the Old Man asks. “If you ain’t scared?”

  “This is a war with the cops,” I say. “It’s not about being scared or not being scared. It’s about business, and money, and living a goddamn life. I don’t remember the last time I felt scared. I don’t reckon that’s a good thing, either. Only crazy bastards don’t feel scared. All I’m saying is that this war can’t go on forever. Not with cops, it can’t. And cops have a habit of winning shit like this. In the long run, they always win. We ain’t a drug cartel. We’re a biker club. We survive by riding the thin road between outlawing and playing it safe.”

  “There’s some truth in that,” the Old Man agrees. “But what do you suggest we do when they bloody one of our own?”

  “It’s not about that.” I sigh, look
ing over the bar. The boss and his VP sit at the other end, drinking and talking. The boss is a good man, pushing 55, but strong and smart. But even he respects respect too much. “Since when can’t I handle a bloody face? What am I, a child? I don’t need a damn babysitter.”

  “Is this about that girl?” Snake asks, his voice even snakier than usual.

  “Are you itching for a bloody face yourself?” I snap.

  Snake sips his whisky, smiling crookedly. “You’re awful touchy when it comes to the girl.”

  “I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” I say.

  “I don’t think Fink’s scared,” the Old Man says. “I’ve known him since he was a teenager and I’ve never seen him scared. So maybe we ought to listen to what he has to say.”

  I nod at him, thankful. “This war ends with this clubhouse burning. This war ends with our brothers dead or in chains. It ends nowhere good, and I don’t see the sense in fighting it no more. Why are we smashing up cop cars, having fistfights with off-duty cops in the streets? ’Cause they bloodied me up a little? I’m over that shit. Goddamn. Me and Snake have bloodied each other up more times’n I can count and we ain’t at war.”

  “Yet.” Snake smiles.

  “I think you’re missing the point,” the Old Man says. “This whole business is about respect, and if we get disrespected—”

  The gunfire cuts through his words, thumping into the wall above us, wood and plasterboard chipping away, big pieces of shrapnel flying everywhere. I grab the Old Man by the shoulders and lower him to the floor, ignoring him when he curses and grunts at me. We all crouch as the gunfire passes by. It’s clearly a drive-by. The aim is haphazard and travels in a straight line up and down the clubhouse before the car screeches away. We all stay crouched for a long time, waiting for another round of bullets.

  After five or so minutes, the boss stands up. “All right, is anyone hurt?”

  “Yeah,” Snake says. “Caught me in the leg.”

  “Okay, anyone else?”

  One other man got one in the arm. Otherwise, everybody is okay. I help the Old Man to his feet. He waves my hand away when he’s settled in his chair. “Fuckin’ pigs,” he grunts.

  I don’t say anything. I don’t have to. If anything could’ve demonstrated what I was talking about more, I don’t know what it is.

  “We all need to lie low for a couple of days now,” the boss says. “Contact the men. Tell them the clubhouse is off-limits. We’ll keep in contact on the burners. We need to figure this out.” He meets my eye. “Maybe Fink has a point. Maybe this is fucking madness.”

  I leave the clubhouse, get on my bike and ride away, feeling free like I haven’t since I joined the club. The boss has never told us to just leave for a few days before. He’s told us to lie low, but that always meant at the clubhouse. This is something else. It’s almost like I’m not a club man. I don’t even wear my leather, riding just in my T-shirt. I could be anyone. It’s almost like I’m not a Son of a Wolf.

  I think about going back to my apartment, but going back to my apartment seems like a bad idea. They know where I live; that much is obvious, since they’re all cops. They’ll roll up and open fire and I’ll catch a bullet and that’ll be the end of Fink Foster. I end up riding toward Sal’s house. I’ve only ever been there twice before, a three-bedroom place in the suburbs which reeks of family. His wife didn’t take much of a liking to me and I can’t say I blame her. I showed up raging drunk and hungrier than a racehorse, munching down the food in ten seconds flat without any pretense at decency.

  The sun is setting as I reach the house. I stop a few streets down and walk down this suburban neighborhood, feeling like an invader. Kids’ bikes lay scattered on lawns and through a window I glimpse a woman taking a pie out of the oven. I can’t stop the mad laughter from bubbling out of me. This is all too perfect, all too American Dream. But maybe some of the laughter is jealousy, ’cause maybe I wouldn’t mind a kid with a bike on the lawn and home-cooked apple pie—I banish the thought. That thought leads to family, and family leads to pain, to asshole dads walking out on their kids.

  I stop when I reach Sal’s place. His car’s out front, so I know he’s home. I sneak around the back garden and just sit there, staring into the house. I don’t know why I don’t just knock on the door. Maybe I’m afraid he’ll turn me away. Or maybe I’m afraid that this suburban life will infect me. Whatever it is, I know as soon as I see Sal that I ain’t knocking. He walks into the kitchen wearing a turtleneck sweater with his big soft smile on his face. His wife—a skinny, redhaired, freckled woman—kisses him on the cheek and waves off to the side, presumably to the table since he gets out knives and forks and plates. I watch, an ache in my chest I don’t understand, and then leave before he spots me. I know Sal. If he spots me, he’ll invite me in. He’s too damn kind.

  I return to my bike and ride away from the suburbs, back toward the city proper, trying to figure out where to go. Of course, there’s one place I want to go above all others, one place which roars at me, which tugs at me. I try and ignore the urge. It’s been a couple of days since I saw her at The Mermaid and I’ve almost fooled myself into thinking I can forget her. But as I ride through the city, a lost man with a lost cause, I wonder if I should just bite my pride and go to her. At least Nancy’d mean warmth, and something almost like home. But I’d be putting her in danger, too. But isn’t that her choice?

  My thoughts chase each other around my head, but my body isn’t as indecisive. I end up outside Nancy’s apartment building without making the conscious choice to come here. I look up at the windows, trying to guess which one is hers, wondering if she’ll even want to see me after the way I left her. I need to decide what I want, but it’s hard.

  The second I start entertaining the thought of being with her, I remember the way Mom looked when she talked about Dad, eyes all watery and lips twisted in bitterness. “An evil man,” she’d say. “Walking out on me like that. Stole my last twenty dollars, too. Never be like your father.” Surely the only way to make sure that never happens is to never have a woman, a family, a life?

  I want to walk away. It’d be what’s best for Nancy and so far I reckon I’ve done a passable job of putting that first, but today I find I can’t. I climb from my bike and walk across the street, all while cursing myself for being weak. I ought to steer clear, but steering clear is just getting too damn hard. I’ll hurt her, like my dad hurt my mother; it’s in my blood.

  I realize as I’m staring at the buzzer panel that I have no clue what number she lives at. I hit a number at random, wondering if fate will work it out for us.

  It doesn’t.

  “Hello?” an elderly woman says.

  “Good afternoon, ma’am,” I say. “Do you happen to know which apartment Nancy O’Neill lives at?”

  She does. She gives me the number and I press it.

  “Um, hello?” Nancy says, sounding like she doesn’t get many visitors.

  I stand silently for way too long, trying to force myself to walk away. She doesn’t need me. I’ll just bring pain into her life.

  “Fink?”

  It’s hearing my name in her beautiful voice that does it.

  “Yes,” I say. “It’s me.”

  “I’ll buzz you up.”

  “Okay.”

  I climb the stairs to her room, not taking the elevator to delay the moment of meeting. I know that when I see her, I’ll be lost. She has that effect on me as no other woman has ever come close to. She’s the only woman who’s ever made me think about family and life and suburbs and all that shit that I’d usually call flowery or womanly, all that shit that I thought I’d given up the moment I took the patch. I reach her door. Nothing for it but to knock.

  She answers right away, as if she’s been waiting on the other side.

  “Come in,” she says.

  She looks smoking hot, but then she always looks smoking hot. Today she’s wearing pink pajama bottoms and a pink tank top with a pink b
ra, her hair tied in a ponytail and her purple bathrobe wrapped around her, but open in the middle. She leads me to the couch, and then goes into the kitchen. “A drink?” she asks.

  “Beer?”

  “I have wine,” she offers.

  “Wine it is, then.”

  She returns with two glasses. I can’t remember the last time I held a wineglass, if ever, but it tastes good enough.

  “Do you like it?” she asks.

  “Sure.”

  The TV is on mute: two women sit in a bar drinking out of glasses not unlike the one I’m holding. For the umpteenth time, I wonder what the fuck’s come over me to make me sit here and drink this wine and not feel absurd. More than that: feel comfortable, at ease. For the first time today, I feel like I can relax. Ain’t that what home’s supposed to be?