Biker Baby (The Kings of Mayhem MC Book 3)

by Penny Dee

  When he left for the Navy SEALs, his absence was loud in our house.

  He left because of our father. Because he didn’t want to grow into the kind of man our father turned out to be. He never told me what he saw, or why it messed him up so much, but he did warn me to get as far away from our old man as I could.

  But I didn’t need to heed his warning. Because someone murdered our father before I needed to.

  Chance came home for the funeral. But he didn’t cry. It was his duty, he said, to come home and be there for his family. But as for his old man, as far as he was concerned he could rot in hell.

  And then he was gone again.

  I missed him.

  I still did.

  Fifteen minutes later, I pulled into my mom’s driveway. All the lights were on in the house. I parked my bike, briefly wondering if old Mrs. Baker from across the road would call my mom and complain about the rumble of a Harley at two thirty in the morning, before I bounded up the front steps to the porch.

  Inside, Mom was on the phone, smoking and pacing across the kitchen. Cade was also smoking and pacing across the kitchen, while Ari, my mom’s boyfriend, sat calm but concerned at the twelve-seater dining table.

  “What do we know?” I asked, walking in.

  Cade came toward me, his face grim. “There was a bomb blast. The details are fucking sketchy. But he survived. Five out of his eight-squad didn’t.”

  “Jesus Christ.” I ran a hand through my hair. “When did it happen?”

  “Two days ago.”

  “Two—why are we just finding out about it now?”

  Cade shook his head, agitated, concerned. “Probably because of where he was, which of course is fucking classified.”

  Mom hung up from her call and slowly sat down at the head of the table.

  “He’s okay,” she said, her usually calm voice was shaky. “He’s on his way back home. They needed to stabilize him before they could evacuate him.”

  Cade lit her a cigarette and handed it to her. She accepted it and drew in a heavy breath, exhaling it as if she was trying to exhale her pain.

  “Did they say what his injuries were?” he asked.

  “They’re bad.” Mom’s chin quivered and Ari reached over, placing his hand on top of hers. “He’s burnt. Badly. Second and third-degree burns to thirty or forty percent of his body.”

  I heard Cade exhale deeply next to me.

  “What does that mean for him?” I asked.

  “Months of rehabilitation. Surgery. They don’t think he’ll lose any of his limbs. It’s going to be a slow healing process.”

  Heartbreak and rage crashed violently through me.

  “The person I spoke to on the phone said he also had some bad shrapnel wounds. Lacerations, including a life threatening one to his skull.” Tears glittered in my mom’s eyes but she fought them. “They’re taking him to a naval hospital in Maryland. He’ll arrive tomorrow. I’ll get the next flight out.”

  “I’ll get it organized,” Ari said, picking up his cell phone and scrolling through flights.

  “I’m coming with you,” Cade said.

  “No, Indy is about to have her baby any day now. You’re needed here.” Mom drew shakily on her cigarette. “Besides, they won’t let anyone into see him but me.”

  “Let me go with you,” I said to her. “Even if I can’t see him.”

  “You have a pregnant girlfriend,” she reminded me.

  “And she would insist I accompany my mom to visit my injured brother.”

  “You both have women carrying your babies. You both need to be here. Not across the country.”

  “I’ll go with her,” Ari said, getting up from the table. “I’ll go make some calls.”

  Mom tried to swallow back her worry. She was a strong woman, but her Achilles’ heel was her family. We meant everything to her, and if anything happened to any of us, she felt it right through to her soul.

  I placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “He’s alive. And when he’s well enough, we’ll bring him home.”

  She patted my hand. “I hope so, son.”

  Cade sat down at the table next to her. “I’ll ride up to the university tomorrow and tell Chastity.”

  “No,” Mom said. “She has exams coming up. Let’s just wait and see what happens before we tell your sister.”

  When Mom decided to lie down, and Cade headed home to Indy, I rode home in the darkness with a cool, pre-dawn air whipping at my face. Once home and inside our apartment, I tried to be quiet so as not to wake Honey. I slipped off my hoodie and shook off my boots, and instead of heading for the couch to sleep, I decided to check on her. Seeing her sleeping so soundly made my chest ache with longing. In another time, I would’ve slid into the bed next to her and lost myself in her warmth and the creaminess of her body as I made love to her. Comfort would have been found in making her cry out my name before I lost myself in the pleasure of coming inside her. But those days were past. Now I had to settle for sitting on the edge of the bed and taking a moment to watch her.

  She was perfect. Fucking perfect. And during the maelstrom going on around me, I was just grateful she was there to temper the storm.

  She stirred and slowly blinked awake. “I didn’t hear you come in. Are you okay?”

  I nodded, and despite my heavy heart, smiled. “I will be.”

  “Is Chance okay?”

  Christ, I hope so.

  “He’s on his way back to the US now. They’re taking him to a naval hospital in Maryland. Mom is flying out tomorrow, but they won’t let anyone else in to see him.”

  She sat up and leaned back into the pillow, looking crumpled and sleepy. And adorable. She reached for my hand and pulled it into hers. “How bad are his injuries?”

  “He suffered some burns and shrapnel injuries. We’ll know more tomorrow once Mom has been to see him. But he’s alive and we have to hold onto that thought.”

  Fuck.

  Now I felt like fucking crying.

  Feeling emotional, I rubbed my eyes.

  Honey squeezed my hand. “You look tired.”

  “I’m fucking exhausted.”

  She glanced out the window. It was still dark out, but in an hour it would be light. “You should try and get some sleep.”

  She was right, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. There was too much going on in my head. “I don’t think I can.”

  She ran a tender hand up my back and I closed my eyes at the comfort funneling through me. It was like the anniversary of my father’s murder when she’d come to the clubhouse and soothed me into a deep and peaceful sleep.

  “Just lie down for a bit,” she whispered, gently coaxing me down onto the bed. She wrapped her arms around me, and I got lost in the warmth of her holding me against her body. I got lost in the happiness of feeling her round belly pressing into my back and in the comfort of her soft breaths against the back of my neck. Before I realized it, sleep overcame me and the agony of my brother’s tragedy was momentarily lost in a heavy and dreamless slumber.

  CALEB

  I awoke with a start several hours later. Looking at the clock, I was surprised to see it was almost lunchtime. Next to me, Honey was still sound asleep, on her back with her arm limp over her swollen belly.

  Careful not to wake her, I slipped from her bed and went to the bathroom for a shower. The noise was back in my head, and the fear and anxiety of my brother’s injuries flooded every cell in my body. I needed an escape and knew the perfect place.

  After a shower, I packed an overnight bag, and after leaving Honey a note, left our apartment and took off on my bike. I dropped into my mom’s to check if there was any more news about Chance. He was still en route to the US and there had been no change in his condition. However, one of the other two survivors had passed away from his injuries. The news was gut wrenching. Another family was going to receive the news we were praying we never heard. It was also a sober reminder that Chance was still critically wounded, and until he
was home on US soil and given the necessary time his body needed to heal, he wasn’t out of the woods.

  Cade and Indy arrived and Indy filled us in on some of the realities of burn injuries. He might have survived the initial injuries, but infection was a real concern. He would have to recuperate in a sterile hospital room and the recovery would be long and often painful.

  “We’ll bring him home,” Mom said, barely holding back her tears. “And we will look after him.”

  When she said we, she meant the whole club.

  Indy slid her hand over hers. “It will be a while before he is released. I want you to be prepared for it. What it is. What it means. How he looks. It’s going to be difficult.”

  Mom looked at her through her unshed tears, her eyes as bright as sapphires.

  “Baby girl, my whole life was built on difficult. Why the hell would this be any different?”

  There was nothing left to do but wait.

  But I needed to get away. I needed to stop the noise in my head. Mom was fine, soothed by some of Sybil’s stash and a shot of Patrón. It was time to head out to my granddaddy’s cabin for the night and spend some quiet time on the porch overlooking the water. I climbed on my bike and took my time riding through the golden light of the afternoon, arriving at the cabin just as the sun began to set.

  Inside, I dumped my overnight bag by the bedroom door but didn’t switch on the light. Dusky light from a dying sun streamed in through the kitchen window, breaking the shadows in the room.

  As I passed a wooden hutch, I paused to look at the photos spread across the dark wooden shelves. Years of family memories captured in time. Photos of a young Hutch and Sybil when they were building the cabin. Of two blonde-haired little boys fishing by the river’s edge taken sometime in the early seventies. Of my mom and my dad when they were so young and naïve, their arms around each other as they posed awkwardly for the camera before heading off to prom. Of Sybil and Hutch’s six grandchildren, the twins Abby and Isaac, and me with my brothers and sister. All of us young and smiling.

  I picked up a silver framed photo of me and my granddaddy. It was taken just before he passed away. I was only eight but we’d already formed such a close bond. Sybil once told me that Hutch had admitted to her that he felt closer to me than he ever did with my father. My daddy, he said, wasn’t interested in him right from the very beginning. But in me, he’d found a kindred spirit, and I felt exactly the same way. Losing him had punched a hole right through my heart and I’d never gotten over it.

  I picked up a second photo. It was of Chance and me taken a week before he was shipped out. Chance was in his Navy uniform and smiling broadly for the camera. I was a geeky fourteen-year-old with no muscles, no facial hair, and no idea I was going to watch my father die in front of me in a matter of months.

  Our family had lost so many. Not just our biological family, but our MC family, as well. Losing Chance was not an option.

  I thought of Honey and our baby, and a calming warmth swept through me. I put the photo down and took a deep breath. Pulling my sketchbook and pencils from my overnight bag, I stepped out onto the back veranda overlooking the water and sat in my granddaddy’s chair. Looking for some peace and quiet from my own head, I opened my sketchbook and began drawing.

  I’m not sure how long I was out there, but it grew dark so I had to turn on the porch light. I took a beer from the refrigerator in the kitchen and lost myself deeper into my art. Frogs croaked down by the water, and bugs buzzed in the air. Farther down the river an owl hooted, calling out to her mate.

  When a set of headlights broke through the darkness of the trees, I realized I must’ve been out on the veranda for hours. I got up, the chair creaking and moaning as I climbed out of it to see who was here.

  Just as I stepped inside, there was a knock on the door.

  It was Honey.

  Love bloomed in my heart when I saw her standing there on the doorstep looking unsure and a little vulnerable. She wasn’t sure if she should have come, but she was here just in case. For me.

  Without saying a thing, I pulled her into my arms and held her tightly to my chest, burying my face in the warmth of her neck as all my emotions surged to the surface. Until I’d seen her, I didn’t realize how much I needed her right now.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered.

  I didn’t want to let her go. I wanted to stay engulfed in her. But I broke away and stepped back to let her inside.

  “I wanted to check on you,” she said, placing her handbag on the small, round dining table. “I hope that’s okay.”

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I said. I was tired. Emotionally wrecked. Having her here made me incredibly happy. I sat down on the couch and she sat across from me, her legs curled underneath her, the swell of her belly obvious in the dress she wore.

  And that was how we sat for hours. Talking. About everything. About Chance and his injuries and what it would mean for him now. She asked about him and I told her how he’d joined the Kings of Mayhem while on a break from his Navy duties before heading into the more specialized field of the Navy SEALs. How he bought me my first tattoo gun.

  And in turn she told me about her childhood. How when she was growing up she wanted to be a part of a family because she was always lonely for company when her mom was never home. And when she told me that, I longed to tell her that she could be a part of the biggest family in the state if she would just let me in and give me a chance.

  But I didn’t.

  Because I wasn’t in the mood to hear her answers.

  Not tonight.

  Realizing it was after midnight, we moved to the bedroom and my body ached with fatigue, my mind even more so. Moonlight streamed into the room and cast the shadows in a milky white glow, making her skin as smooth as marble. She moved across the room and kissed me chastely on the cheek, wrapping her arms around me as she gave me a warm embrace goodnight.

  “You’re not sleeping in here?” I asked wearily as she moved away.

  She paused and stood across the room looking at me, thinking. Her eyes gleamed like big shiny orbs. I sat on the end of the bed wanting her to join me. Wanting to fall asleep in her arms. Wanting her. Needing her. But not wanting to hear her say no.

  Without a word, she came to me and pressed her lips to mine. It was a closed lip kiss, but it lingered as if we were frozen in time. And when I parted my lips, they parted hers and my tongue moved into her luscious mouth.

  For a moment there was hesitation. But then she exhaled breathlessly and her tongue brushed against mine and a soft moan caught in her throat.

  In an instant, desire replaced reminiscence. Lust replaced pain. Action replaced hesitation. With a hiss I pulled her onto my lap and held her to me, my eyebrows slammed together as I kissed her with every part of my soul. The pain of my brother’s accident nipped at my heels, but when Honey kissed me it was like we were flying so high nothing could catch me.

  Without words, I undressed her, slowly, savoring every reveal of exposed flesh as I peeled her clothes away from her beautiful body. She was so tanned, so smooth, and the way she slid her hands around my neck and kissed me passionately had me so hard it hurt.

  I was so lost in desire it barely registered when she climbed onto my lap and sank down on my cock with a deep, breathless moan.

  With a slow rise and fall of her hips she rode me, her head tilted back, her milky, slender throat smooth and creamy, her heavy belly rubbing against the bumps and grooves of my stomach. She closed her eyes and her plump, delicious lips parted as she moaned with the pleasure she was taking from me.

  She arched her back, allowing me easy access to her perfect breasts. I took one in my hand and enclosed my mouth over her perky, pink nipple, sucking it into my mouth and lapping at it with my tongue. She moaned and lost herself in the sensation, my name falling from her lips as her eyes found mine.

  And suddenly we weren’t fucking. It was so much more than that. There was real emotion and it filled the room
and wrapped us in its arms as Honey moved slowly against me, gently rolling her hips over mine. My climax was building, but I wanted this to last because this was like nothing I’d ever known. The warmth. The emotion. The electrical charge in the air.

  Honey’s eyes held mine as she placed a cool hand on my shoulder to steady herself, and I couldn’t look away. There was so much more in those smoldering blue eyes than lust. When she closed them I felt her clench tightly around my cock and I groaned as the pleasure swelled in my balls, and again I had to resist the urge to give in to my orgasm. She dropped her head back and moaned, her pussy gripping my cock as she started to come. And Christ Almighty, she looked like a fucking angel. So creamy and smooth. Her beautiful, long hair swirling around her polished shoulders and tumbling over her breasts as she took everything my cock had to give her. Her breathing hitched and she cried out, her tight pussy milking me. Her muscles tightening around me, her body quivering and trembling as her orgasm tore through her. That was it. There was no point fighting it. No point resisting. It was a slow build but it erupted into a giant supernova, ferociously consuming me with a force I’d never known. Blinded by ecstasy, I grabbed her face and smashed my mouth to hers, kissing her wildly as I came hard inside her, my hips thrusting, my cock violently ejaculating with months of pent-up desire.

  Breathless and my mind blown, I fell back onto the bed and pulled her down with me and into my arms, my heart thundering as I savored the sensation of her naked skin against mine. I kissed the top of her head and closed my eyes, my mind wiped clean of the darkness brought on by Chance and the uncertainty of his survival. This woman. This angel. The mother of my child. She’d given me a small space of time free from the torment of worrying about my brother by loving me with her beautiful body and soothing me with her gentle touch. She fought off my pain as fiercely as if it had been her own, and the strongest of emotions bloomed in my heart because of it.