The Baby Bump_Black Knights MC

by Sophia Gray

  Her thoughts ground to a halt. Was that what she wanted? A night free of the cage before she signed the majority of her freedom away? Free to do whatever...whomever...she wanted?

  Yes.

  Her father was going out of town on a business trip, too. Now was the perfect time. He wouldn’t know where she was. More to the point, he wouldn’t know she wasn’t at home. Her hands began to shake, but more with excitement than anything else.

  Having made up her mind, she began to take more care with the shower. She rubbed on a facemask, and smoothed a hair mask through her long hair. While she waited for those to do their magic, she made sure she was shaved and smooth, looking at herself more critically than usual.

  She’d never set out to seduce anyone before. Tonight would be different. She’d find the best-looking guy in the seediest bar and go home with him, come hell or high water.

  There was a knock on her bathroom door and she nearly dropped her razor.

  “Yes?” she called over the sound of the running water pounding down.

  “I’m leaving,” Gregory said, his voice heavy.

  “Fine,” she answered. “Oh. Dad...before you go...”

  “Yes?”

  “I just wanted to let you know that I’ve decided to do what you asked.” She waited, hoping her acquiescence would make him see how unreasonable he was being.

  “Good,” he said. “I’m glad you decided to see some sense. Anthony is planning to take you out this weekend. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  Fresh anger flooded through her, but she kept her tone sweet. “See you soon. Have a good trip.”

  He didn’t respond, but she heard the floorboards creak slightly as he moved away. Good to know that she apparently had a date. Creepy to know her father had arranged it for her already.

  Chapter 4

  Amelia

  As evening drew in, Amelia stared blankly into her closet. She might know exactly what she wanted to do tonight, but that didn’t mean she had any idea how to dress for it. Jeans and a tee shirt? No, that didn’t make sense. She was going for seductive. Something a little more revealing? Somethingmuch more revealing? Her heart pounded even though she was still in her own home. She didn’t have to go through with the plan. Not if she didn’t want to.

  Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Yes, she did. Her father’s words still rang through her mind. The more she thought about them, the angrier she became.

  She was still staring at the array of clothing when her computer chirped the Skype alert. There was only one person who ever Skype called her. She rushed over and hit accept.

  “Hey, Amelia!”

  Amelia smiled. The first real smile she’d felt in a long time. “Aubrey!” She tilted the screen, eyeing the women who filled the screen. Something was different. “You look great!”

  Aubrey grinned and pretended to fluff her new pink and blonde pixie cut. “This old, fabulous hair? Why thank you.”

  Amelia laughed, feeling most of the stress she’d accumulated since before the fundraiser vanishing. She was Amelia’s oldest friend. Aubrey had moved to Nevada in sixth grade and she and her military family had been gone before seventh grade started.

  Amelia had expected that to be the end of their friendship, but Aubrey had been determined to stay in touch. She had written Amelia letters on Lisa Frank stationery faithfully, week after week. Amelia had taken a while to respond, but it hadn’t mattered. Aubrey had seen Amelia’s need for friendship and had decided to fulfill it. In a very real way, Aubrey had kept Amelia sane through her formative years.

  The letters had become emails as the years passed, the emails became instant messages, and now they spoke on Skype several times a week. In addition to being her longest friendship, Amelia knew without a doubt that Aubrey was her only meaningful friendship. They might talk about clothes, money, and men from time to time, but normally they talked about Aubrey’s job, or the latest news in any number of subjects. Aubrey stayed informed on almost every issue somehow, and Amelia always felt better and smarter after one of their talks.

  “How’s the new job going?” Amelia asked. “You must be doing well if you’re celebrating with fancy hair.”

  Aubrey’s eyes lit up. “Amelia, it isso great. The director and I are really on the same page, and I finally feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, you know?”

  Not really. “I’m happy for you,” Amelia said instead of answering the question. “It sounds like the move really was the right choice.”

  “It was,” Aubrey agreed. “I swore I’d never move again after I got my own place and didn’t have to follow Dad around the country anymore.” She grinned and shrugged. “So, having inadvertently lied the first time, I hereby swear it again.” She held her clenched fist up to the ceiling of her living room and shook it dramatically. “As God is my witness, I will never leave Texas!”

  “I like having you a little closer,” Amelia said. “Ten hours is better than...what was it? Thirty-five when you were in Connecticut?”

  “Thirty-eight,” Aubrey corrected. “And I kind of like this dry heat thing Texas has going on. You know I hate the snow.”

  “Only because you’re scared to drive in it.” Amelia stood. “Mind if I take you over to the dressing table? I’ve got to get my makeup on.”

  “Go nuts. You know the stuff fascinates me.”

  Aubrey never wore anything more than lip gloss and maybe a coat of mascara if she was feeling fancy. She wasn’t making a statement; she just didn’t have the interest.

  Amelia envied the confidence. She hadn’t walked out the door without makeup on since the age of twelve when she’d seen a picture of herself in the paper next to Lauren and was horrified at how much more polished the other girl was.

  She carried the laptop to her dressing table, set it down on the edge and flicked on the lights of her mirror.

  “My eyes!” Aubrey cried dramatically, clapping both of her hands over her face.

  “Oh, sorry!” Amelia angled the laptop so the bulbs on the mirror weren’t shining directly into the camera.

  Aubrey laughed. “I can’t believe you still have that mirror.”

  “Hey, it might be as old as I am, but it works,” Amelia replied, getting her brushes and palettes out, assembling what she hoped would end up being an irresistible makeup look.

  “You know I was dying for one the first time I saw it, right?”

  “Really?” Amelia looked at the white-framed mirror with its attached Hollywood-style bulbs and then at her no-frills friend. “It doesn’t exactly seem like...you.”

  “I know. So impractical. It would have gotten broken the first time we moved. That’s probably why I wanted it,” she admitted.

  “I know what your housewarming present should be, then,” Amelia said, patting concealer under her eyes and making a mental note to order the gaudiest, fanciest makeup mirror she could find the next day.

  “I’ll hold you to it,” Aubrey promised. “So, let’s talk about you. What are you getting ready for?”

  Blatant disobedience. “Nothing special.” She didn’t know how Aubrey would react to her plan and she didn’t want to test it. She’d already ruined one person’s opinion of her. Amelia began blending her foundation and then applied a few coats of mascara.

  “I don’t know how you do that without opening your mouth,” Aubrey commented. “I thought the weird face was an essential part of putting on mascara.”

  Amelia snapped the wand back into the tube and closed it with a practiced flick of the wrist. “That’s only because you’re a hippie.”

  “Hey!”

  A glance at the screen told her that Aubrey wasn’t offended. To be honest, Aubrey rarely was. She was the most easygoing person in Amelia’s life and talking to her was always as soothing as a visit to a spa.

  “Seriously, though, Amelia,” Aubrey went on. “This is the look of a woman with something up her sleeve.”

  “My father is forcing me into a life of
respectability and dates with the governor’s son,” Amelia replied before sweeping bold red lipstick over her mouth carefully. “I plan to go out with a bang.”

  She checked her lips in the mirror, pleased with the way they had turned out. She might not be the sexiest woman in the world, but she felt happy with the bolder look. Her father hated it when she wore red lipstick. Or more than one coat of mascara. She felt almost like a pinup girl. She definitely felt confident and that was great, because she needed all the confidence she could get.

  “You do have kind of a sexy war paint look going on,” Aubrey admitted. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to be respectable,” Amelia said firmly, capping the lipstick and dropping it into the tray again with a small clatter. “Tomorrow. Tonight? I’m going to do whatever I damn well please.”

  Chapter 5

  Ethan

  Ethan glanced around The Hole. The bar was busy, the way it always was on Friday nights, and everyone was scattered around.

  This was the first time he and his whole MC had managed to get together in a long time. He wasn’t the only one with a lot on his plate these days. William was sitting at a table in the corner, scowling.

  “Cheer up.” His girlfriend, Maria dropped down into his lap and stroked one finger down his jawline. “You’ll get wrinkles if you keep making that face.”

  He swatted her hand away, but he couldn’t quite hide his grin. “You got a problem with that, then you shouldn’t have moved in with a guy ten years older than you,” he informed her.

  “If I had aproblem with it, I wouldn’t have stuck around for twenty years,” she shot back.

  Ethan hid a laugh with sipping his beer, but Maria gave him a wide smile. She was good looking for someone almost old enough to be his mother, and she was probably the only woman in the world calm enough to match William’s crazy.

  She and William also had the most stable relationship out of anyone in the MC, though Taylor’s girl, Penelope, was starting to look more like a permanent fixture than Ethan had thought when he’d first met her. The two of them were currently by the jukebox, flipping through the selections and arguing amiably.

  Ryan was leaning close to a dark-haired woman at the bar, clearly offering to buy her a drink and even more clearly hoping to impress her. Jimmy, the secretary, and Kenny, the Vice President of The Angel’s Keepers, had stopped by a table of her friends, chatting casually.

  “Thought we were supposed to be having a meeting,” William groused.

  Ethan took a long pull of his beer and then thumped the bottle down. “In the middle of a bar? When we’ve barely had time to sit down for weeks? Come on, you had to know it wasn’t gonna happen.”

  William shrugged.

  “He just wanted to drink,” Maria said.

  William pushed her up and out of his lap and smacked her ass. “Go find someone else to bug,” he suggested.

  Maria wriggled her eyebrows and walked over to the table where Jimmy and Kenny were still hanging around. William and Ethan watched as she draped an arm across each of their shoulders and then leaned down to the girls. Whatever she said made both women look at the men with much more interest.

  “She’s a helper,” Ethan said admiringly.

  “She’s a shit stirrer,” William said shaking his head even though his tone was affectionate. “What happened to...what was her name?”

  “Brittany?”

  “No.”

  “Rachel?”

  “No.”

  “Carey?”

  “No...”

  Ethan looked blank. William shook his head and sighed. “You’re gonna wear it out, kid.”

  “Kelly!” Ethan said suddenly.

  William snapped his fingers and then pointed at Ethan. “That’s the one. I liked her.”

  “She moved out to L.A. a few months back. Wanted to be an actress. Or a model.” Ethan shrugged. “I can’t remember which one. It might have been both.”

  William snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that. Maybe she’ll get up with you on her way back home.”

  “She might make it. She was kinda hot,” Ethan said.

  “You’d know better’n me,” William replied, taking several long sips of his beer. He’d barely put it down before Maria was back, dropping another one in front of him with a wink.

  William reached out and pulled her back down into his lap. “Perks of living with a waitress,” he said, wrapping his arms around her.

  She wriggled in his lap and gave him her bite-the-bottom-lip grin. “Not everyone gets these perks, big guy.”

  Ethan stood up. “Gonna get more beer.”

  He still had half a bottle, but William’s scowl had finally faded, so he figured he’d let the guy relax. The better William’s mood, the more inclined he would be to be helpful in wrangling the rest of the MC for an attempt at a meeting.

  He was halfway to the bar when he saw the door open. He stopped in the middle of the room, staring in pure surprise. It was a woman. That wasn’t really the shocking part; lots of women came to The Hole. Most of them were honest enough and just looking for a rough guy to take a ride with later. In both senses of the word. This woman, though...God. He’d never seen anyone like her walk through these doors.

  She was small, a bit more than a foot shorter than his own six feet five inches. Her slender body was shown off to its best advantage in a clinging green dress. He thought maybe it was silk and lace. He knew for sure that it was sexy.

  Her red gold hair fell down over her shoulders in soft waves and framed a heart shaped face that made his mouth go dry. He’d had his share of pretty women. This one was gorgeous. Her bright red lips and dark eye makeup reminded him of the ’40s pinup girls that decorated one full sleeve of art on his arm.

  She was obviously well off, too; even he knew the bright red sole of her black stilettos meant money. Her bag had a clear emblem on it, too. And there was something about the way she held herself, framed in the doorway, lit by the harsh lights, that told him she was used to being watched. He wasn’t the only one staring and that pissed him off.

  She stepped into the bar and the smooth skirt moved with an alluring sway around her lean legs. As she walked closer, clearly headed to the bar, he could see her green eyes flash. Her full mouth was set determinedly. Was she tracking down a cheating boyfriend? If so, he was happy to kick the guy’s ass for her.

  His brain only kicked into gear once she had taken a seat at the bar. He moved after her, trying hard not to hurry. He wasn’t the first to get there.

  “What can I buy you, sweetheart?”

  The woman looked the man up and down. Ethan could see she wasn’t impressed. He didn’t really blame her. Michael Slattery was the leader of another MC just outside of Elko. Michael considered The Angel’s Keepers a rival. Ethan considered Michael a moron.

  Ethan stood behind the woman and gave Michael a smile. “Nothing,” he said, making the woman look over her shoulder and up at him. He glanced down and read appreciation in her big green eyes. A knot in his stomach relaxed.

  “Why don’t you let the girl speak for herself?” Michael demanded, drawing himself to his full height and stepping closer.

  “You mean the woman?” Ethan questioned, leaning casually against the bar.

  “Whatever. Ain’t your call, Sammy boy. It’s hers.” Michael was barely looking at the woman now, spoiling for a fight that he clearly felt had been coming for too long. “Unless maybe you think me and you should take it outside.”

  “If I’m gonna kick your ass,” Ethan said easily. “I’d rather have an audience.”

  The woman had turned to face him now, her eyes wide, her breathing faster than it had been before. He tried not to look, but he couldn’t help but follow the plunging neckline of her dress to the swell of her pale breasts.

  She bit her lower lip. She was clearly a little afraid. She was also watching him much more closely than she’d watched Michael. William was approaching from the back of the bar. Tayl
or, Ryan, and Kenny were getting up from their various conversations to join him. Jimmy was looking up from his game of pool speculatively. He always analyzed the situation a bit longer than the rest. Ethan appreciated it. He pushed himself upright.

  “She turned down your drink. I’m turning down your fight. Looks like there’s nothing left for you to do, Michael. I’d suggest you get the hell out of here.”

  “Fuck you, you don’t own the place!” Michael took a quick step forward.

  William grabbed the back of his vest and jerked him back so fast that he nearly lost his balance.