Page 9 of Baby Me

“Good.” I slid sideways and took her with me. She started to turn away and I helped until she was spooned into me with her back against my chest. I wrapped my arms around her, afraid if I drifted off she would disappear and I’d wake to this having been the best dream of her yet, but just a dream all the same.

It wasn’t a dream though.

We talked about where we saw our futures going and my sweet, beautiful Vina wanted nothing more than a family to call her own. It made my chest ache that she obviously longed for something she hadn’t experienced and simultaneously made me want to be that for her. She wanted children though, and my two were both grown adults. The thought of starting over didn’t scare me the way it probably should have. I’d had mine when I was still young and there was plenty of time to do it all again before I was too fucking old to enjoy time with a new family.

Before my thoughts on the matter got too deep, I took my angel again. I made love to her the way I thought she deserved. I made love to her to show her how I felt when there was little hope of taking it further. It wasn’t fair to either of us. There were just so many obstacles that it fucked with my head, especially after she fell asleep in my arms again when we were finished.

I dozed for a bit, but when I woke with Vina still in my arms, the panic set in. What if me hooking up with a younger woman was the thing that kept my daughter from coming back home? Could I sacrifice the family I had now for the one I wanted? Would that even be something I had to do? It didn’t matter because the fact that the possibility existed meant that I had to nip this in the bud. Vin wanted a family and I already had one that I’d fucked up enough. This couldn’t be the thing that kept my daughter from coming back into the fold because it would make me resent Vina down the road and that wasn’t fair to her.

Fuck.

Then there was Kip.

He was with Scout, but he hadn’t always been. What if he had fucked Vina too? How would that look to have a stepmom he… Irrational anger swamped me at the thought. Fuck. There was no way I could introduce a woman as a potential stepmom to my adult kids if one of them might have been inside her already. I shook the thought off because it seriously made me want to punch the fuck out of my boy. This was why it would never work between Vina and me. I hated it, but there was no denying the complications we faced.

Instead of facing them with her, I chose the fucking coward’s way out. I got up, dressed, and quietly left the room with her still sleeping in peaceful ignorance over the choice I was making. This would be our one time together. Maybe, after our talk, she would figure out what she wanted in life and go out there and find her own happiness.

I rubbed at my chest where an ache built at the thought of her creating that family she wanted without me. It was for the best, though. She deserved far better than a widowed bastard in charge of a bunch of dumbass bikers who had zero qualms about using a precious gem like her and tossing her out.

I was the current dumbass who did it.

My phone beeped with an incoming text. I pulled it out without thought and the message that waited for me was jolting. Not in what it said, but because I’d completely forgotten about the sender.

June: Please, I’m begging you to come hear me out. We had a chance at something and I’m not going to let you run from that.

Little did June know, I was running from the chance I really wanted to take, but she wasn’t the woman I wanted to take it with.

Chapter 4

Davina - Two months later

"No, no, no!"

The stupid test had to be wrong. I grabbed the next one and looked at the results.

"No, dammit!" I yelled again at the stupid stick. There was no use in denying it. That was the third one today, the sixth since I took the first test yesterday. The first had been a fluke, or so I thought. The test had come from under the bathroom sink, where one of the other club girls left what remained of a combo pack. When that was positive, I went to the store and bought five more. I took two more that same day.

Then, because I was too stubborn to accept the truth, I took the other three this morning when I woke up. The tests stated that first morning pee was the most accurate. I thought there was still a chance that the others had been wrong. Unfortunately, six positive tests were hard to dispute.

"I can't believe I'm pregnant," I mumbled to myself. Then I glanced around the dingy bathroom, as if seeing the space for the first time. It hadn't been scrubbed clean – truly clean – in ages. The once white grout had turned black in spots and yellowed in others. There were odd stains on the floor that I didn't even want to guess the origins of. This was just the bathroom. One bathroom.

The rest of the clubhouse wasn't much better. Everything looked okay on the surface, but the minute you focused on anything too long, it became obvious that there were problems hiding under the surface, or even at surface level. It went a bit deeper than dirty couches and people fucking out in the open.

The brothers were nice enough. Some were rougher than others, and while they'd all been relatively good to me, there were only a few who would make decent father material. It was doubtful that the few that could be good would be the one to father my child. That was the biggest problem of all.

If there was a way to know for certain that it was Tripp’s baby, I’d stick around. He may have only used me the once, but the soft spot I had for him had warmed even further into a full-blown crush on the man. Not that he’d noticed. He still pined over his long-gone wife. To hear the others tell it, Kim had been the love of his life. According to those same stories, she was a tough act for any woman to follow. As in, an impossible act to follow if you happened to be a club whore.

I closed my eyes and brought up the memory of my night with Tripp again. It wasn’t the first time and most likely wouldn’t be the last. Along with the memory came the wish in my heart that nine years without his wife had been enough to open his heart to someone else – even if that someone was a club whore.

Two months earlier

I glanced up through my lashes from across the room and tracked the club’s president as he moved behind the bar to grab a bottle. Something was bothering him today and to anyone paying attention, it showed. To me, it definitely showed because I was always paying attention.

He started to head back to the hallway that would lead him back to his office, or maybe his bunk room as it was on the opposite end of the clubhouse to most of the others. When his gaze swept across the room, I lifted my head to make it known that I was not only watching him but waiting for him to take advantage of my services.

Tripp had never done so in the past, so there wasn’t really a good chance he would take me up on the silent offer, but as his eyes locked with mine, hope grew in my chest. My heart ticked up a few beats per minute and before I could suffer another let down, Tripp crooked his finger at me.

I stood and my feet glided across the space between us as if being pulled by a magnetic force. When I made my way to within an inch of the man, he reached out and tugged me firmly to his side.

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