by Franca Storm
I hauled the gym bag over my shoulder and spun around… right into a wall of hard muscle.
“Shit!” I shrieked, jolting back, my bag slipping from my hold, my heart hammering violently in my chest.
“Going somewhere, firecracker?”
I slapped my hand over my heart, trying to catch my breath and curb the wave of adrenaline shooting through me, as I looked up into the mesmerizing slate-gray eyes of Cole Taylor.
“Fuck, Cole,” I choked. “Couldn’t you have knocked?”
“So you could hightail it out the back? I don’t fucking think so.”
I went to reach for my bag, but he kicked it away across the carpet.
“Cole, stop it!” I cried, rushing over to it.
His large hand grasped my wrist, stopping me. I tried to jerk free, but he was too strong. He leaned down, grasped my hips and dropped me in the middle of my queen-size bed. As I scrambled to right myself amongst the over-abundance of pillows arranged neatly on top of the purple silk sheets, he climbed on, crawling up my body until he straddled me. With barely any effort, he had me incapacitated, his big hands confining my wrists, his inked arms a formidable barrier encompassing me, his thighs trapping my legs.
“I hate you!” I screamed, bucking beneath him in a fit of frustration.
“If only that was true. It’d make things easier on both of us.”
I stilled. “Is that want you want?”
He squeezed his eyes shut.
When he opened them again, all I could see was pain. “Don’t drag me down that road again, Tasha.”
How could I not? “I’m sick of being stuck in this… limbo.” I blew out a breath. “You either want me, or you don’t.”
His free hand slid deep into my thick, raven hair as he leaned in closer, his eyes boring into mine. “You know how I feel about you. But, you also know that, after what you did, it’s made it impossible for me to bring you into my life, to make an official claim on you.”
“I explained things to you and you accepted it.”
He leaned in closer, his gaze drilling into mine. “Slade wants your help,” he said, blowing past my comment entirely. “That’s why I’m here.”
“I can’t.”
“I haven’t even relayed the details yet.”
I turned my head to the side. “You made a wasted trip. I can’t, no matter what it is.”
“What are you so afraid of, Tasha? I’ll protect you. You know that. Fuck, if you cooperate with him, Slade will protect you with everything at his disposal.”
“Like he was able to protect the love of his life?” I snapped vehemently, his comment about protecting me hitting a nerve. Didn’t he get that it was the other way around? I was protecting him.
As usual, Cole snapped to Slade’s defense immediately. “He was utterly blindsided back then. Way younger and inexperienced. He’s been through a lot, done a lot, since then. He’s no fool. The guy knows his shit. No one’s been able to come at him and live to tell the tale since.”
“Too little, too late,” I muttered.
His eyes narrowed, hating the dig at his almighty president, the disrespect I was demonstrating. Talk about an extreme case of hero worship. Slade Mitchell really could do no wrong in Cole’s eyes. The asshole had him wrapped around his little finger. And, damn, Cole Taylor was a hell of a formidable soldier to have at his side. His reputation was something else. He was as much revered as he was feared. I didn’t doubt that Slade had been well aware of that when he’d brought him into the Steel Titans fold.
“Fuck,” I groused. “Just get off me and get the hell out.”
He didn’t move or give an inch.
“Cole!” I cried, thrashing beneath him and trying to break his hold. It was useless. He was an impenetrable force. All power and hard muscle.
“Stop moving,” he ground out.
I took him in. His jaw was tight, his body majorly tense. His expressive eyes were flashing in warning.
Oh.
Instead of doing what he asked, I ran with the opportunity he was unwittingly offering up, making the decision to poke the proverbial bear, rather than to sate it. I had to get him off me. I had to get him out of here.
I held his heated gaze as I undulated beneath him. His breath hitched as my pussy rubbed against his dick. His rock-hard dick.
“Tasha,” he cautioned.
I grinned.
And then I played to his weakness, sweeping my tongue over my top lip, slow and sensual.
“Fuck,” he groused.
My plan to push him far enough so that he’d bolt away backfired spectacularly when his mouth crashed against mine.
I choked from the sheer ferocity of it.
His hands left my arms and sank into the depths of my thick hair, grabbing fistfuls of it.
He tugged it roughly as he ground against me, grunting and rutting like an animal and delivering a hard, punishing kiss.
I was so overcome by the explosion of intensity, that I lost myself to it for a good few moments, my good sense leaving me when I needed it the most.
Against every protest from my body, I managed to get a hold of myself, pressing my hand to Cole’s chest and easing him back enough to break our kiss. “This is a bad idea.”
He scoffed. “Bad idea?” He licked my neck, making me moan out at the delicious feel of his hot tongue teasing my skin. “That’s what we’re all about, firecracker.”
God, it’d been weeks since I’d held him against me, weeks since his talented hands and mouth had tended to my body, weeks since his impressive cock had satiated me in the way only he could. I wanted him so badly. I craved that connection with him. I was desperate to lose myself in him, to forget that it could never really be, that we could never really be. It was a fantasy of another life, for versions of us that weren’t caught up in our twisted worlds, worlds that couldn’t reconcile one another.
He was right. We were a bad idea. When we came together, when we were wrapped up in one another, consumed by our hunger for each other, it always felt so right. But to the outside world, we were… wrong. We didn’t belong.
And I didn’t want that anymore. I didn’t want to be his dirty little secret. Not with the burden of what I needed to tell him bearing down so heavily upon me.
I needed it to be right.
And doing this with him was the antithesis of that.
I turned my head away, breaking our connection. “I can’t, Cole.”
He pulled back right away as I knew he would. He’d never push it.
He might be a big, burly biker, coming from a dark and brutal world, but he was very sweet and respectful when it came to that. He was good at reading my cues and body language and if he saw that I wasn’t all in, he wouldn’t go there. I was sure it had something to do with him having a sister and the intensely protective, father-figure relationship he had with her. He treated women the way he wanted his sister to be treated, basically. It was something that’d come as a shock to me. I’d never experienced that kind of gentleness and care from any man. I hadn’t known what to do with it at first. My jaded heart had assumed it’d been some sort of game. It’d taken a lot of effort on his part to prove that he was nothing short of sincere.
He climbed off the bed. I saw him wince when he adjusted his jeans to take the pressure off his hard dick tenting prominently against his zipper.
“I’m sorry,” I said, pushing myself up into a sitting position against my pillows now he was no longer pinning me to the mattress.
“You don’t need to be sorry, Tasha.” His eyes burned into mine. “But I do want you to tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m not discussing whatever the hell your mission is all about.”
“That’s not what I’m getting at.”
“I… everything’s fine.”
Urgh. I mentally kicked myself. I was a coward. I had been for the last six weeks. I’d been making excuses for not telling him sooner. Not wanting to do it over the phone, via a text, or an
email… it was all bullshit. Because, he was right in front of me now and I was still holding it back.
It wasn’t like me. I faced things head-on. Hell, I lived enveloped in danger, day after day. I had for my whole life. But this? This heavy secret I’d been keeping, was beyond my area of expertise, way beyond the scope of what I could handle.
And any reaction Cole had would just make it so much worse. Either he’d dismiss it and shatter me in the process. Or, he’d be on board in that gung-ho way of his when he was excited about something, making me feel like shit for being nothing but indifferent about it so far.
“You’re lying,” he said, coming closer. “Thought we didn’t do that, firecracker?”
“I…” I looked away. What else could I possibly say to that?
“We don’t lie to each other,” he said, stopping at the side of the bed and looking down at me, studying me intently.
“I need you to go, Cole.”
“No.”
“I can’t do this right now. Not like this. Not when you’re like this, operating with that tunnel vision mindset that you bring to the table when you’re on a club mission.”
He slumped onto the bed right beside me and reached out, stroking my chin tenderly with his thumb, coaxing me to tilt my head up to meet his gaze. “This is me here, Natasha,” he said, softly. “No matter what else I’ve got going on, you should know by now that you can always come to me.” He frowned, worry etching his features. “You’re in trouble, aren’t you, baby?”
I swallowed hard, trying to summon the nerve to give him the answer he deserved. “In a sense,” I managed to eke out.
His gaze hardened, his body going rigid, at my admission.
Although I hadn’t provided any real details, just hearing that I was in some sort of trouble had Cole moving into fight mode right off the bat. Shit. I had to snuff it out immediately, before his rage let loose and that temper of his had him going off half-cocked on a seek-and-destroy mission. If I didn’t tell him what it really was, he’d assume. And when it came to me and trouble with a capital ‘T’, there was only one name that came to mind as far as he was concerned. My former business partner and demented ex, Nik Stone. I couldn’t allow that to happen. He’d get himself killed. Even if he somehow survived going after a psychotic bastard like Nik, it’d incite a brutal war. The enforcer of the Steel Titans MC couldn’t take a shot at the President of the Strikers MC without it having some awful, far-reaching consequences.
“No, Cole,” I said, quickly. “It’s nothing like that.”
He didn’t relax.
Crap.
He didn’t believe me. “I’m serious.”
“Don’t cover for him. He might be a Prez, but he’s not untouchable. If he’s threatened you, or laid even a single fucking finger on you, then I’ll—”
“Cole!” I yelled through his rising rage. “Stop it!”
He paused, taken aback by my vehement outburst.
My shoulders slumped in defeat and I sighed in resignation. “I’m pregnant.”
His eyes went wide and it took him several excruciatingly long moments to actually say anything. “How far along?”
“Six weeks.”
He jerked back like he’d just been burned by a white-hot flame.
What’d just happened? “Cole?”
“So, the second I went back home, you fucked some other guy bareback?”
“What?”
“I wrapped it up that weekend, just like I always do!” he fumed, bolting off the bed and starting to pace erratically. I followed him, about to explain, when he spun back around making me jump.
“It was him, wasn’t it? Nik Stone. After all your fucking promises, you just couldn’t keep away, could you? That sick obsession between the two of you is still alive and well, after all, huh? Not only did you fuck him behind my back, you let him knock you up!”
Incensed at his awful accusations, I lost control, slapping him hard across the side of his face. “You son of a bitch!” I screamed. “How dare you!”
3
~Cole~
JESUS CHRIST.
Those manicured nails of hers were savagely sharp. I could feel the sting of them as they’d scored three red-raw marks down my cheek.
I was a trained fighter. I kicked ass on the underground fighting circuits, because I was the best of the best. Sure, I had the muscle mass and cement blocks for fists, but my real talent was that I was lightning-fast. I should’ve been able to deflect it, to snatch her wrist before her hand had connected. But I just really hadn’t expected that from her. She’d never struck me before. We both had volatile tempers when we were provoked, but it never escalated to anything close to violence with each other. For me, it wasn’t even a question. Not only could I do some serious damage if I went there, I’d just never hit a woman. Ever. Especially not her. There was always an unspoken line there, a line we’d never crossed.
The fact that she’d just done that told me just how out of sorts she was. She wasn’t herself, not at all. She was vulnerable, something I’d picked up on with her reactions to me so far. She was in a lot of pain.
And, here I was, being a dick.
But I just couldn’t stomach what she’d told me. I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around it.
She knew how badly I wanted a family. But we both also knew that it wasn’t possible with the lives we both led. I wouldn’t bring a child into danger and darkness. I wanted to create a better life, provide a better existence for my own family than what I’d had after my parents had died when me and my little sister, Luce, were so young. Tasha and I couldn’t even be together, so settling down and bringing a baby into it wasn’t feasible.
So, what? She’d gone to Nik instead?
She’d had enough of the way things were with us, all the walls in our way, and sought him out instead? Did she really think things would be any different with that monster? She must’ve lost it completely if she’d believed that even for a second, because he was a psychotic, brutal bastard. And, he didn’t respect the line that I did. He’d struck her several times back when they’d fucked around. He treated her like club pussy. Hell, he treated all women like second-class trash.
And now she’d tied herself to him forever?
I turned away, scrubbing my hand over my face roughly. “I can’t deal with this.”
I strode to the bedroom door, needing to get the fuck away from her so I could process this, so I could think straight. I couldn’t just walk away permanently. She was key to completing my mission for Slade. And, hell, I fucking loved her. Despite everything, that shit didn’t just die because you willed it. Once I’d completed my mission, it was gonna have to start, though, because there was no way I could ever accept what she’d done with Nik Stone. Tying herself to him in such a permanent way, bringing a kid into his brutal world, choosing him over me, disgusted me. I’d forgiven a lot with her, but I could never forgive that.
I was just past the threshold when an unfamiliar sound from her stopped me short.
Sniffling and whimpering.
Fuck.
She was crying.
She really was out of it. I’d only seen her cry twice in all of the eight years that I’d known her.
I gritted my teeth and dug my fingers into the doorframe, fighting to resist the overwhelming urge to turn back and comfort her.
Dammit!
I turned back and made my way over to her as she was heading to the bathroom.
“Tasha,” I said, as softly as I could manage, given how pissed I was.
I reached for her hand, but she shook me off, screaming, “Don’t touch me, you asshole!”
“I’m the asshole here?”
“Yes!”
“You fucked that monster and let him knock you up with his devil spawn! And I’m the one in the wrong?” I tugged at my hair, trying to contain my temper. She really wasn’t making it easy for me. “Damn, woman, you really have a way of spinning things in your favor.”
; “I haven’t been anywhere near him,” she murmured sadly to herself. “The fact that you’d go there and think I would ever do that to you is just—”
“Wait. What?”
She hung her head, still with her back to me. “Just get out.”
It bothered me that I couldn’t see her face, that she wouldn’t let me connect with her. She had very expressive features, especially those beautiful eyes of hers and without that I couldn’t read her. She was shut down, keeping me out. “What are you saying?” I pressed, moving closer and carefully rounding her. “You and Nik didn’t happen six weeks back?”
“You want to believe it, so believe it,” she said, rubbing her eyes and wiping her tears away.
She started when she pulled her hands away and found me standing right in front of her, in the small space between her and the bathroom door.
“Don’t look away,” I urged her.
With a heavy sigh she complied, leaving her hands down. My gut twisted at the sight of her red raw eyes, her tear-stained cheeks. I hated seeing her in such a state.
“I’m sorry, baby.” I reached out and brushed a lock of her silky black hair away from her eye. “I never want to upset you. Ever. Especially, not like this. It’s just, when it comes to you and that motherfucker, I can’t see straight. The only reason he’s not buried six-feet deep is because of Slade’s do-not-touch order. He knows I’m gunning for him, so he put out that order to stop me.”
“And to prevent a war.”
“Yeah.”
She shook her head, a hint of a smile ghosting her lips. “You crazy bastard.”
“All bets are off when it comes to you, firecracker,” I said, with a wink.
“I haven’t been with him or anyone else. Not for a very long time.” Her hand dropped to her belly, the intensity in her gaze flaring up. “The baby is yours, Cole. Ours.”
Well, shit.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t speak.
My mind was a chaotic whirlwind.
She was pregnant.
It was mine.
