He pulled back for just a moment, and there was something wild in his eyes, too.
“Be loud,” he said. “I don’t care who hears you. I want them to hear you. Let them hear you and know that you’re mine, that you belong to me. Let them.”
Then he was back against her, his tongue lashing against her body, lifting her up onto her tiptoes with the force of his face-fucking. Her hips were not entirely under her control, pushing down onto his face, desperate for more contact, for more pressure, more everything.
The orgasm rushed over her fast and hard, furling and unfurling in a moment. She couldn’t have bit back the cry if she’d wanted to, and she very much did not want to. Her back arched, driving her ever harder down onto him, her head slamming back against the door, her body embracing the pleasure in a way that rocked her world. She wasn’t sure it would ever be quite the same again. She could feel wetness gushing down her thighs, and felt him groaning hard against her, heard his hand rubbing slowly over denim. Stroking himself, just a little, through his jeans.
She went entirely limp, and he caught her, nestling her in his arms before he stood, tossing her lightly onto the bed. He fell on her roughly, barely managing to shed his own jeans and boxers, and he didn’t even try for the shirt. She was so wet and loose that he slid into her easily, pressing her open like she’d been sculpted just for him. She made a happy humming sound when their hips met; she would have tried for something more expressive, but she was so loose limbed that she wasn’t sure she could manage a more distinct vocalization. His head hung down for a moment, his body trembling against her, and then he started to thrust.
There was nothing soft about it this time, but it also wasn’t the deliberately rough sex they’d had. This was something deeper, more primal. This was him marking her, claiming her, deciding that she was his and making sure that no one would ever forget. That sense – that belief that she was his – was nearly enough to pull a second orgasm from her on the spot. As it was, she wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled him just that little bit closer to her.
He slammed into her then, wrecking her, driving into her hard and fast and deliberate, searching for whatever it was he needed, buried at the end of her cunt.
“Not yet,” he whispered, almost to himself. “Not done yet.” But he didn’t slow down, didn’t pause, just shuddered against her, his teeth tight on his own lower lip as he plundered her body and made it his.
When he came, he came like she had, all at once and never-ending. He pulsed into her, his gaze vague and unseeing, his body shaking like he was about to fall to pieces before he collapsed over her, panting. His fingers slid between her lower lips, clearly concerned that she wasn’t done, and she gently batted him away. She wrapped her arms around him as he softened inside of her, and loved him just as thoroughly as he had just loved her.
Chapter Twenty-Five Mindy woke to Jack yanking away from her. She’d shucked off her pretty white dress at some point, and was lying in bed naked. She sat up blearily as he snatched a pair of jeans off the floor and jumped to yank them up his hips; she thought distractedly that he wasn’t wearing boxers or briefs of any kind. He turned back to the bed, saw her sitting up, and pointed at her bureau. He shouted something she couldn’t quite make out. It took her a moment that it was hard to make out his words because everyone else was screaming.
He snapped his fingers in front of her face to catch her attention, and she blinked hard, sucked back into reality.
“Get dressed!” he shouted. “Right now. Get to the main room. Do what you’re told! Hear me?”
He raced out of the room before she had a chance to answer. She pushed herself into motion, bleary and dizzy though she was. There was a stab of pain in her stomach as she pushed herself up onto her feet, but she made herself ignore it. Jack wouldn’t have yelled at her like that if it wasn’t important. She grabbed a pair of loose pants that weren’t hard to get into, even with the growing lump in her middle, then found a loose shirt she could shrug into without it being completely obvious she wasn’t wearing any kind of bra. She didn’t bother with shoes or socks, just hurried out to the main room.
The other women and many of the younger patches were gathered there, clustered together around the center of the room. Men were posted at each window, staring out into the darkness. She tried to step closer to one of the men, wanting to ask what was going on; she was waved away, fierce and distracted. Someone caught her arm, tugging her back towards the group of women. She looked and found Liz holding her arm.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Fire,” Liz said. “We’re staying here for now because it’s a long ways away from the clubhouse, but we need to be awake and ready to move if the wind shifts.”
“Shouldn’t we go now?” Mindy felt panic rising through her. She’d grown up within spitting distance of wildfires, and she knew how fast a building could be consumed.
“No,” Liz said. “If the wind shifts a different way, we could get trapped or caught. For right now, as strange as it sounds, we’re safest here.”
“Was it an accidental fire?” Her stomach ached more, a sharp pain that was becoming harder and harder to ignore. She swayed on her feet for a moment, and Liz’s eyes seemed to narrow in concern. It was hard to focus on her face through the pain. She saw Liz turn her head, and her mouth moved, but Mindy couldn’t make out the words that had been said. “Liz. What’s happening? Did someone set the fire?”
Hands were on Mindy’s shoulders, pushing her down into a chair. She didn’t have the strength to resist. Someone pressed a glass into her hand, and she drank it almost automatically. She tried to, anyway. She tipped the glass too far away from her mouth, and much of the liquid poured down her front. She managed to get a mouthful. That seemed better than nothing, even though she felt distant embarrassment over how she’d made a mess of herself.
Liz was incredibly short all of a sudden. No, she wasn’t short, she was kneeling, kneeling down beside the chair. Why was Mindy in a chair again? Oh, right, because there was a pain in her abdomen that was taking up the entire world.
“Did someone set the fire?” she asked again. Liz’s mouth was a thin, tight line, in a way that communicated plenty, even if she hadn’t said the words. “Is it because of me?”
At that, Liz finally shook her head. “No, baby,” she said, and suddenly her accent was a lot more southern than Mindy had noticed before. “No, this ain’t because of you. This is no one’s fault, but whoever did it, you hear me?”
“Okay,” Mindy said. There was something else important to say. What was it? “Liz,” she added, finding the words. “I’m hurting. Something hurts real bad.” God, she hadn’t said ‘real bad’ since she was living in a trailer park. It was the first expression she’d forced herself to unlearn.
Liz’s face looked concerned. She turned again and shouted something. It sounded like she was asking where Jack was; the response came back distorted like Mindy was hearing it under water. He was out fighting the fire. Someone would tell him Mindy needed him. That was good, but the pain wasn’t relenting. Nothing was relenting. Nothing was getting better. She curled her arms around her belly, letting herself bend over, trying to take off the pressure that was increasing. And then something was wrong, really wrong, because her thighs were wet, really wet, and that wasn’t right at all.
She heard someone say, “Oh shit,” and someone else say “Call 911,” and someone else said, “Get Jack right now.” Mindy thought that was nice, that someone was going to get Jack, because she was sure that this was all very bad, but she didn’t feel right at all, didn’t feel anything right, and she wasn’t sure how to say those words right now. Everything was clenched and screaming painful, and when Jack knelt in front of her, his face streaked in ash, she finally let the pain out in burbling, choking sobs. She felt screams clawing at the inside of her throat, but she didn’t want to let those out. There had been too many screams already. She knew, without a doubt, that screaming would doom
the Bean in a way that enduring this would not.
“Help’s coming,” she heard Jack saying, or saw him saying, or something. “Hold on for me, baby. Just hold on tight, okay?” His hands were in hers, and she squeezed them so tight she thought she could hear his joints creaking, but he didn’t fuss at all. “You’re going to be okay. The baby’s going to be okay. You just hold on to me, and I’ll get you through this. I promise. It’s going to be okay.”
He couldn’t make that promise, and she knew that, but it was still a nice thing for him to say. She wanted to tell him that she wouldn’t blame him if things weren’t okay because it wouldn’t be his fault. It was impossible to protect anyone but yourself, she knew that, and she couldn’t even protect her baby when it was inside her own body. So, he shouldn’t beat himself up for whatever happened because she didn’t know a lot of things, but she knew the way that she was feeling right now couldn’t possibly be a good thing.
Time started to get a little skippy. Like a movie with a badly cut montage scene. But when she was lying down, somehow, strapped to something hard, she felt a little better. Not much, but a little. That was nice. Yes. Better was nice. Jack was still there, still holding her hand as she was jostled and bumped through a parking lot—why was she in a parking lot?—and then lifted into a little box. Oh. She was in an ambulance. That was what was happening. That made more sense. Someone had called an ambulance because she was in pain, and her thighs were wet, and that was a really bad thing for a pregnant woman. She knew that much. She didn’t know much, but she knew that.
There was a woman, two women, on either side of her. They were saying things, too fast for her to catch them, so she just focused on Jack’s face. They were firing questions at him, and he was answering as fast as he could. No, she hadn’t had any complications. No, she wasn’t diabetic. No, she didn’t have any allergies. No, she’d only had a couple of prenatal visits so far. Yes, he did know the name of her OBGYN. There was a sharp pain in her arm for a moment, and then everything got very cold. She started to shiver, and someone put a big, warm thing over her, and that was nice. It didn’t make the cold stop, but it was nice all the same.
Then she felt something change in the air. It was hard to explain. She was woozy, and the pain hadn’t gone away at all, and it was rising again, and she could feel it trying to swamp her, pull her down into a darkness that she wasn’t sure she could escape from. She tried to resist, but the pain was big, monstrously big, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to tread water long enough to keep from falling down into it.
But she saw Jack’s eyes go cold and dark, his mouth solidifying into a thin, tight line.
“Lauren Teller,” she heard him say, his voice an echo of pain and anger. “Fancy meeting you here.”
She didn’t know what was said next because the darkness swallowed her up whole, taking her away from where it hurt.
Chapter Twenty-Six The darkness receded slowly, ebbing and flowing around her like ocean currents. She became aware of things one at a time. There was a beeping. She could hear it, and it rose and fell in her awareness. Sometimes she could push it away entirely; other times, it was so loud she wondered why it didn’t break her head open. God, her head hurt, that was the next thing she noticed. And when she noticed the pain in her head, she noticed her body, and that was a terrible decision. Her body was terrible, aching and sore everywhere. She wished she’d never paid attention to the damn thing, now or ever.
But something had happened; something she needed to remember. She pushed herself towards the knowledge, even though it hurt, even though she didn’t want to remember. She had been in pain, and terrified that she was losing… a baby?
The soft waves of remembrance crashed over her, and everything came back at once. She opened her eyes, her hands flying to her stomach. The pain at moving was unbearable, but she had to feel. She had to touch her belly, the swelling of her belly, and try to promise herself that everything would be okay.
She was in a room. A hospital room, maybe, except it wasn’t quite right. It was strange, awkward, not right at all. The walls should have been some harmless, pastel shade of boring, and there should have been noise in the hallways. There should have been more everywhere, more everything. She shouldn’t have been so alone. Why didn’t she have a roommate? She didn’t have health insurance, neither did Jack, so how the hell had she gotten a private room? And why did this feel so little like a hospital room?
The door swung open, and it was another thing that was off; the door handle was a regular door handle, instead of those hip bump handles all the hospitals had transitioned too— easier for people who were pushing gurneys or carting equipment or whatever. A woman walked in, wearing scrubs and holding a binder that looked like a medical chart, but there was something off about her, too. Her hair was piled up on top of her head in a way that looked too messy for a hospital worker. Maybe she was a nurse, instead of a doctor?
The woman walked briskly to Mindy’s bedside and stuck out a hand.
“Hi,” the woman said. “I’m Joanna. I don’t want to keep you in suspense. The baby’s okay. For now. You had a placental tear, which caused the bleeding. It seems to have resolved for the moment, but the rest of your pregnancy might be a bit more interesting than you had planned.” She pushed a smile, but it seemed forced. Her hands were shaking on the binder. Mindy felt a thread of concern in her belly. Something had happened in the ambulance. Jack had been there, and he had said something. A name. What had he said? She couldn’t remember.
“I don’t want you to worry, though,” Joanna said. “We’re going to get you to people who can take good care of you, alright?”
“Where am I?” Mindy’s voice was raspy, croaking from lack of use. She cleared her throat a couple times, and Joanna poured her a glass of water. “Are you my doctor? My nurse?”
The woman turned her gaze away from Mindy; she couldn’t help but notice that the woman’s cheeks had gone absolutely ashen.
“It’s a long story,” she said.
“Yeah,” said a man’s voice from the doorway. Mindy’s heart raced happily even before she turned her gaze that way and saw Jack. “So maybe you should start explaining what the fuck is happening here.”
Mindy reached out a hand to him, but he didn’t come to her right away. His gaze was tightly focused on the woman. Mindy tried to understand what was happening, but her head still felt foggy and confused. She didn’t think she’d ever seen this woman before, but it was hard to be sure. There was something in the ambulance, something her brain kept reaching for and then pushing away. What had happened? She couldn’t tell for sure.
“Mr. Dawson,” the woman started to say, but Jack cut his hand through the air in a clear gesture telling her to shut up; much to Mindy’s amusement, the woman complied without a complaint. Her cheeks were flushed, but her knuckles were pale and tight where she gripped the chart.
“I’ve been waiting in this burned-out shell of an excuse of a hospital, waiting for some doctor who is supposed to come along and tell me what the hell is happening. I’ve been waiting for hours. I go out for coffee, and that’s when you decide to step in and talk to my—to Mindy without me? Are you insane?”
“Jack,” Mindy said, the tension in the room making her more nervous than felt good or right. “I’m sure it was a misunderstanding—”
“Did she tell you who she is?” His voice was so dark and cold, but he finally moved toward her. He only did it to put himself between the two women, as far as Mindy could tell, but at least he was closer to her now. That helped her heart rate slow down to a terrified thrum as opposed to a high-pitched whine.
“She said she’s Joanna, and that’s she’s been taking care of me.”
Jack laughed, mirthless. “Well, one of those things is true.”
“Please, Mr. Dawson, anything else aside, I swore an oath—”
He cut her off again, though, this time, she didn’t silence as easily. “This is Joanna Fitz, wife of Lauren Teller. Re
member, I was telling you about her? Daughter of Grim Teller, the man I’ve been wrongly accused—” His voice slammed down on the two words like he was hammering them in “—of murdering in cold blood? Now let me think, why would I ever consider the possibility that someone attached to Lauren who is caring for my woman and my child might possibly have an axe to grind with me?”
“Because you’re not an idiot,” said another voice by the door. Mindy glanced over and saw a blonde woman, her hair scraped back into a bun, wearing a standard, dark blue paramedic jumpsuit. “Hi, Mindy. I’m glad you pulled through. You gave us a bit of a scare in the ambulance.”
“Stay the hell away from her.” Jack snarled, and he was clearly trying to keep both women in his sights at the same time. The woman in the doorway—Lauren Teller, most likely—rolled her eyes.
BIKER’S GIFT Page 60
