Page 36 of Axle
When I finally sagged forward, he eased me back onto my heels and crouched beside me. His palm skimmed over my temple, brushing damp strands away from my face. “You done?”
“For now,” I rasped, my throat sore.
He scooped me up like I weighed nothing and set me on the counter. Then he reached over to snag my toothbrush from the cup, squirted paste onto the bristles, and handed it to me. Ibrushed on autopilot, rinsed, and then leaned against his chest as his arms went around me.
“Guess Nitro tried to poison us with that steak last night,” I mumbled, tilting my head back to glare at him. “It’s not fair. You should be puking, too, but apparently, you have an iron stomach.”
His eyes narrowed, his gaze dropping to my stomach. “When was your last period?”
The question was so unexpected that I just blinked at him for a second. Then my brain started doing the math, and the nausea that hit me this time had nothing to do with food poisoning.
My brain short-circuited, and I just stared at him, my stomach dropping.
Dates tumbled through my head in a messy blur, and my stomach flipped for a whole new reason. I wasn’t on the pill. We’d never talked about birth control. And he’d never once reached for a condom.
I should’ve realized sooner, but apparently, mind-blowing orgasms were enough to knock common sense right out of me. Not only had I ignored the risks we were taking, I’d also somehow forgotten how to do basic math.
I’d been so caught up in everything that the possibility of getting pregnant hadn’t even occurred to me. Not once. Until now.
My cheeks heated with embarrassment, but it was tangled with a dangerous flicker of excitement I tried to smother before it took root. As scary as the thought was, a small, secret part of me was happy at the idea of carrying his baby. Of starting a family with him—something I’d never really had.
I just didn’t know if he’d feel the same, and now I was braced for the potential fallout.
Finally, his lips curved into a smug smile. “Bet I put my kid in you the night I popped your cherry.”
My mouth fell open. “You’re not mad?”
“Why the fuck would I be mad? Now no one”—he stepped closer, caging me in against the counter—“including you, will ever doubt who you belong to.”
Possession rolled off him in waves, the kind that made my pulse trip over itself. Warmth filled my chest, drowning out some of the panic. He didn’t see this as a mistake, and that meant I could breathe.
“I might not be pregnant, though,” I pointed out. “It could just be an upset stomach from eating too much last night. And my period might be late because of all the stress lately.”
“There’s an easy way to find out.” His hands closed around my waist, lifting me off the counter to set me on my feet. “We’ll go see Cage.”
Mason strode into the bedroom to grab his phone and fire off a quick text. The ding of a notification was almost instantaneous.
“Cage is in his office. Let’s go.”
He got dressed much more quickly than I did. I barely had time to throw on a pair of his sweatpants and a hoodie before he was steering me out of the room, his hand warm and steady at the small of my back. We took the stairs down, and the minute we hit the main floor, I felt eyes tracking us, a ripple of curiosity I didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with right now.
Mason didn’t so much as slow to acknowledge his brothers, his palm pressing a little firmer to keep me moving. We headed straight outside and to the medical clinic where he’d brought me after my crash.
Cage was in his office, behind his desk, scowling down at a laptop. He looked up at us through the window to the reception area as soon as we walked in the front door, a concerned gleam in his eyes. “Something wrong?”
Mason didn’t crack a smile. “Need a pregnancy test.”
“Not exactly what I expected to keep stocked around here.” Cage leaned back with a crooked smirk. “But if more brothers keep falling like dominoes—first the prez, now you—I might as well start buying ’em by the case.”
Heat rushed to my face. “Wow. Subtle.”
“Hey, I’m just saying.” He shrugged unrepentantly. “Savannah didn’t use one of the boxes I grabbed for her. It’s yours if you want it. Or I can run a blood test.”
“How long for the results if we go that route?” Mason asked.
“A few hours if I have a prospect run the sample over to the lab and ask them to put a rush on it,” Cage replied.
“I want to use the one you bought for Savannah, please.” I laced my fingers together to keep from fidgeting, my stomach tying itself in the same knots. “It’ll be faster, and we can do the blood test if the result is positive.”
