by Tia Wylder
I reached up and grabbed him as I came. My screams of ecstasy were muffled as my body shook uncontrollably. I laid my head back onto the sheets and let the pleasure course through me. Dmitri appeared above me and cupped his hands around my breast. With a single movement, he ripped open the lingerie and let my breasts flow out. He grabbed one and took the nipple into his mouth.
He moaned with excitement as his tongue eagerly flicked the nipple back and forth. He pulled it out and lifted me onto my feet.
“This way,” he said.
He turned me around and pushed me forward. I braced myself on the edge of the bed.
“Get in front of her,” he said to Devin.
Devin climbed onto the bed and sat on his knees in front of me. I felt Dmitri’s hands dig into my waist as he slid into me with ease. He pushed me forward and I opened my mouth to receive all of Devin. Dimitri’s powerful thrusts from behind push me into Devin and created a rhythm that I was forced to obey.
I closed my eyes as the sensations overwhelmed me. My breasts dangled freely beneath me and swung heavily with each thrust. Dimitri pulled out of me and flipped me over. He stroked himself furiously until he came all across my chest as I laid on the bed.
“Devin, I’m finished, but she isn’t. Have your way with her, I’ll let you know when it’s time to finish. Why don’t we make it interesting? If you come before I give you the signal, I’ll kill you!”
Devin appeared above me. I could see anger and sorrow in his eyes. He leaned down and whispered into my ear.
“Just hang in there, I’ll make sure he pays for this.”
“Don’t think about him, just pretend we’re alone again, like before,” I replied.
He slid into me and I closed my eyes. Dmitri’s jests faded and gave way to the melody I first heard when Devin and I originally made love. I could feel that he was going to come, but Dimitri was yelling at him not to. I tried to slow him down, but I felt another climax coming. I couldn’t hold back, I threw my head back and let the orgasm flow through me.
I heard Dmitri shout in anger.
“I told you not to come! That’s it!”
I was still in a daze when I heard a loud animalistic roar tear through the room. Adrenaline kicked in and I sat up. Where Devin had been standing was a massive gorilla. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The gorilla leapt forward and grabbed Dmitri before he could finish loading his gun.
“I made you! You can’t do this!” he shouted.
The gorilla had him by the neck. I turned away as a loud crack filled the room. The two bodyguards came rushing into the room and I heard another roar from the gorilla. It made short work of Dmitri’s henchmen.
When I looked back, it was transforming. Its body collapsed inward and morphed until the gorilla was gone and Devin was standing before me. Dmitri was dead, and both his henchmen were out cold.
Devin was pulling on his clothes as I sat in a quiet daze.
“Dee, I know none of this makes any sense, but we’ve got to get out of here,” Devin said.
“Did you just turn into a gorilla?” I asked.
“Yeah, I did. I’ll explain everything when we’re out of town.”
I stood up as Devin brought me my clothes and a towel. I cleaned off and got dressed, but none of it was really settling in.
Devin took my hand. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“I can’t leave,” I said.
“Anything you need I’ll buy for you. As soon as they find out Dmitri is dead, they’ll be searching everywhere.”
“We can leave town, but we have to pick up Tyrel,” I said.
Devin’s eyes narrowed at me. “Who is Tyrel?”
I smiled. “He’s your son.”
Devin ran a hand across his head. “You’re serious?”
I nodded. “I found out I was pregnant after you disappeared.”
Devin laughed. “I’m a dad?”
I had to fight back the tears of happiness. “You’re a dad.”
Devin was grinning from ear-to-ear despite the circumstances.
“Alright, let’s pickup Tyrel and get the hell out of here. We’ve got a new life to start, together. You ready?”
I leaned forward and kissed him. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
RIGHT BEFORE EACH BOOK TITLE:
The Secret Baby
By Jessie Summer
Chapter One
Jackie
Everybody dreams about that perfect life: white picket fence, loving husband, great kids, and not a care in the world. Maybe there’s a reason why they call it the American Dream, because it’s just that; a dream. The real world doesn’t follow the rules of fairy tales or idyllic opportunity. It throws you into its jaws, chews you up, and then spits you back out without so much as an apology.
There was a moment where I thought I had it all. I was twenty-three and my boyfriend, Axel Blackwell, got a great job working in construction after his twenty-fourth birthday. We finally signed a lease on an apartment, and then I found out I was pregnant. Our daily lives were insane, but they were good. Axel took the news well, but we both agreed that baby would have to stay a secret from our families. He promised me he would stay, we would get married, and we would raise our baby together. We had each other, and that was all I needed.
The day everything changed, I was standing in the kitchen making breakfast before Axel’s shift; bacon and scrambled eggs with cheese. It was simple, but I wasn’t exactly a five-star chef, and Axel always liked it when I made bacon. I felt the baby kick inside of me as I was stirring the eggs.
I reached down and rubbed the mound rising from my stomach.
“I know, you’ll be out soon, I promise,” I whispered.
The bacon popped and sizzled beside me as I heard Axel walk into the kitchen. He sat down at the table and I heard his industrial strength smartphone hit the surface shortly after. He let loose a long sigh.
“Everything alright, babe?” I asked.
“Frankie wants me to work overtime again this week,” he said.
“Well, isn’t that a good thing? We need the money after all.”
Axel slammed his fist on the table and I jumped in shock. The spatula I was using to stir the eggs fell to the floor.
I turned around and saw him hunched over the table with his head in his hands. He ran both hands through his thick black hair and leaned back as he let loose another sigh.
“Yeah, course we need the money babe, but what about me? I’m killing myself out there!”
I felt the baby kick again and braced myself against the counter.
“Well, maybe you can get a better job, something less physical?”
Axel looked over to me with his dark brown eyes and shook his head.
“How many times are we going to have this conversation? I never went to college, hell I didn’t even finish high school! What cushy office job is going to hire me? The only thing I’m good for is hard labor.”
I felt a surge of pain in my sides and back. I had false contractions before, but this was different. They were coming faster, more intense. Axel was still talking, but his voice had faded as my mind focused on the tightening pain in my back.
“Axel, I think the baby is coming,” I said.
He stopped mid-sentence and leapt out of his chair. He wrapped his arm around my back and steadied me against the counter.
“Alright, I’ll call out of work. Let’s get you to the hospital,” he said.
He led me through our small apartment and out the door. The sun was just rising above the horizon. The air was thick and humid after rainstorms the night before. Sweat formed across my head as I awkwardly limped to the car. Axel laid me down in the backseat and closed the door before leaping into the driver’s seat.
“Just hang in there baby, both of you.”
I smiled through the pain as he turned on the car and pulled out of the parking space. He always drove a little on the aggressive side, but this time he was pushing speed limits and switching
lanes like a madman. Normally I would tell him to cut back on the alpha male crap, but in this situation his bravado came in handy.
We were at the hospital in a matter of minutes. He led me through the emergency room doors and immediately made a scene in front of the people scattered across the waiting room.
“My wife’s going into labor!” he shouted.
I felt the eyes of the onlookers all around me as a security guard and a nurse in a pale blue smock rushed toward us.
“We’ve got it from here,” the nurse said.
“I’m just going to park the car, I’ll be right back,” he whispered to me, and then turned to the nurse, “You take good care of her, that’s my son in there!”
It’s not much of a secret baby if you talk loud enough for the world to hear.
They led me through into the hospital proper and laid me down on a stretcher. The wheels squeaked and squealed as they carried me to the delivery room. I was on a proper bed with monitors and wires surrounding me before I knew it.
It was amazing how far technology had come. I was born in 2001 and now that it was 2025 everything was so different. Hospitals had technology beyond anything I would have imagined. They even offered to genetically alter the baby to remove the chance of defects or even just change his eye color.
Call me old fashioned, but I didn’t want any of that. Even if I did, the government’s idea of health insurance wouldn’t cover it, despite our massive monthly premium. I wanted my son to be the boy he was meant to be, no science involved.
Axel returned, just as he said he would. He was dressed in the same outfit as the doctors with a sterile mask over his face. He patted my shoulder with a gloved hand.
“How’re we doing?” he asked.
I looked over to the monitor beside me. It was somehow able to show us the baby in perfect detail as he sat inside of me.
“We’re doing well. The painkillers are working.”
Despite all of the pain, the stress, and the incredibly exhausting process, I held my baby son that day in my arms. It was the best day of my life.
Chapter Two
Axel
I had a son, I couldn’t believe it. It’s never real until you hold him in your arms and look into his little brown eyes. People always say he’s got your nose, or your eyes, but I could see myself in him. It was indescribable. We decided on the name Jacob, after my grandfather. My father may not have been the figure I needed him to be, but my grandfather was always there for me. Even when the cancer beat him down, he still helped me any way he could.
He gave me a piece of advice before the disease took him, he said: The world’s going to get worse and it’s going to try and drag you down with it, boy. No matter what, you don’t let it change you. You stay true to yourself and those you love. Always remember that.
Jaclyn, or as I called her, Jackie, wasn’t one to follow current events. She always said the news was depressing. She was right, but things were brewing, big things. I barely had time to get her back home from the hospital with our newborn son before it all came crashing down.
I sat on the side of the bed, hunched over my smartphone. Jacob had kept us both up for most of the night so Jackie was finally getting some much needed rest. I was reading the news story that would change my life, forever.
Tensions between the U.S. and the countries that we all owed money to had been growing; when it became clear those debts weren’t going to get repaid anytime soon. We had powerful enemies breathing down our necks, and now they finally cracked. After forming an alliance and pooling their resources, the Eastern Organized Front, or the EOF for short, decided it was time to step over the line. Our navy and their own were at each other’s throats somewhere out in the Pacific, but that day, June 17th, 2025, they opened fire on us without warning.
World War III they called it, the war that would end the United States. It was us against them, and it didn’t take a five-star general to see that we were immensely outnumbered.
The sensible thing to do would be to back down, but our president was just as much of a hothead as I was. So we signed the documents and in his infinite wisdom he decided to reinstate a draft.
All able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and thirty would be required to enlist. Short of breaking both my legs, I qualified. My hands were trembling as I set the phone down beside me on the bed. I looked back to Jackie and then over to Jacob’s crib. I couldn’t leave them without a husband and father, but I didn’t have much of a choice either. If I enlisted, I would be killed. We all would, this wasn’t a war you could win.
So I had two choices: suicide or fugitive. If I ran, they would hunt me, but if I went quietly, they’d have me serve as fodder on some god-forsaken field for the enemy. I slowly stood up and walked over to Jacob’s crib. He was sleeping soundly, I couldn’t risk waking him up. I grabbed the leather jacket my grandfather gave me, pulled on a pair of blue jeans, and walked out to the kitchen. I took the magnetic tablet off the fridge and set it on our modest table. Paper had been outlawed in 2020 when a bill passed to cease deforestation of the Earth’s major ecosystems.
The damage had been done if you asked me, but the bill forced the government to provide cheap electronic solutions for everything from books, to journals, to sketchbooks and school textbooks. Of course, all of that was going to cost money, money we didn’t have.
I tried to type using the onscreen keyboard but it was too frustrating. I turned on the voice-to-text mode and walked to the opposite side of the kitchen.
“Jackie, by the time you read this I’ll already be gone. I know you don’t keep up with the news, but we’re at war. They’re taking everyone they can to the meat grinder, but I won’t be one of them. I have to disappear for a while, get off the grid, but I promise you I’ll come back. As soon as they lose my scent or this damn war ends, I’ll be back. Wait for me, baby. Love, Axel.”
I looked down at the digitally handwritten note. It would have to do. I had to put as much distance between myself and this place as I could before they showed up to haul off all the men. I placed the tablet back on the surface of the fridge and walked back to the bedroom as quietly as I could.
I stood over Jacob’s crib and gently touched his soft cheek before planting a kiss on his forehead. It could be years before I would be able to safely return. He would grow up without me, without his father. I had no other choice, unlike my deadbeat dad who walked out on us; I was trying to avoid him losing a father entirely.
I turned and walked over to Jackie. She was sleeping peacefully. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes upon. I wanted to stay and protect her, protect Jacob, but I couldn’t. They would haul me off like some criminal in a week and I would never see them again. I leaned down and kissed her on the cheeks.
“I love you baby,” I whispered.
She replied with a few soft sounds that barely resembled words. She was fast asleep. I reached over to the picture frame on our nightstand. It was both of us on our first date. I took her to the beach and we posed for that picture with the sun setting in the background. It was my favorite picture of us, I couldn’t leave it behind. I took the picture out delicately and placed it in my pocket.
I fought back tears as I stood up and walked to the entrance of our apartment. I didn’t feel good about any of it. This wasn’t the right thing, but it was the only thing I could do. I walked out and closed the door behind me.
Out in the parking lot was Jackie’s old station wagon. She had gotten it from her parents so the thing was ancient compared to the cars surrounding it from recent years. Parked next to it was my motorcycle. While it was also old and technically illegal because it used a combustion engine, it had class. A small gas can hung from the back of it as gas stations were few and far between.
They didn’t do much to enforce the rules about combustion engines; otherwise Jackie and I would have been out of our vehicles a long time ago. People still drove them, and gas stations, albeit small ones, could still be found
in the corners of small towns.
I climbed onto the motorcycle and placed the keys into the ignition. This was it, the first day of the rest of my life. I turned the key and the engine roared. It barked and growled, nothing like the quiet and meek engines we used in modern cars. No, this was a thing of beauty. I slid my helmet on and drove off. I didn’t know where I was going. Anywhere but here I suppose
Chapter Three
Jackie
You never think about the day the person you love leaves you, mostly because there’s such a large part of you that knows it will never happen. Maybe I was naive, but I believed Axel when he said he was going to stick around. I remember, when I first saw his digital note on the fridge, my knees went weak.
I grabbed my phone and called him repeatedly, but he didn’t pick up. My first reaction was pure anger. He was being selfish; he left us behind so he wouldn’t have to join the military. Either way, he would have been taken from us, but if he was going to run, he could have at least taken us.
Then there were nights where I finished a bottle of wine after Jacob went to sleep and I thought about how he had no choice. He promised to come back, after all. I didn’t know if I still loved him or hated him, honestly it depended on the time of day. One thing was certain though, I couldn’t raise Jacob alone. Axel had transferred everything he had into my bank account before he left, but it wasn’t enough to last more than a few weeks.
I could ask my parents for help, but they didn’t know about Jacob. Their reaction would have been horrific if Axel was here, but with him gone it would be even worse. They would force me to move back in with them. They would take my baby from me, probably send him to some boarding school or offer him up for adoption.
They loved to dig their claws in and control my life like I was a puppet with strings leading right back to them. Help always came with a catch, which is why I never asked, unless I had to. No, I couldn’t tell them, and Axel’s parents were separated. He didn’t even speak to his mother anymore.
