OUR SURPRISE BABY Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, events, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  OUR SURPRISE BABY: The Damned MC copyright @ 2017 by Paula Cox and E-Book Publishing World Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

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  OUR SURPRISE BABY: The Damned MC

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  OUR SECRET BABY: War Riders MC

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Epilogue I

  Epilogue II

  FILLED BY THE BAD BOY: Tidal Knights MC

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  More Books by Paula Cox

  OUR SURPRISE BABY: The Damned MC

  By Paula Cox

  The biker’s thickness gave me morning sickness.

  I thought I could rescue him from a life of crime.

  But the bad boy biker didn’t want anything I had to offer.

  Instead, he wanted to give me something of his own:

  The baby I’m carrying in my belly.

  It was my job to talk him out of his way of life.

  But Rust was playing me all along.

  He didn’t want my help.

  He just wanted my body.

  Now, he’s dragging me into an underworld that I’ll never survive.

  But I can’t say no to him.

  His touch, his scent, his power…

  It’s all too much to resist.

  I’m a good girl librarian, not a rebel biker chick.

  But when I’m on the back of Rust’s bike, I feel like the whole world is ours.

  I’ll be whoever he wants me to be.

  His ride or die.

  His old lady.

  And the mother of his children.

  At least, until his enemies come for me and our baby.

  Chapter One

  Allison

  My life could have taken many different roads, I reflect as I walk through the city, a spring in my step. In one hand I clutch coffee in a travel mug, and the occasional sip keeps me smiling. In the other, I have pamphlets advertising my social work services at the community library. My services cater for those in dire need; in my experience, there’s no other feeling quite like knowing that you’re making a difference. I’m sure I’m making a difference—or, at least, I hope to. Given time. I dream, as I walk, that one day the library will become a real community center. I see myself wrapping my arms around a small boy and telling him everything is going to be okay, see myself laughing with an old man and promising him we’ll get his second chance, see a group of kids offering me a thank-you card. Maybe that last one’s a little self-centered, but a girl’s allowed to be just a little self-centered now and then, isn’t she?

  I stop by the Department of Labor first, a tall, white, smooth building with a uniform look about it: a mundane building, though the work they do is anything but. I go into the main reception area, where the receptionist, a young man with a tuft of brown hair and a freckled face, offers me a smile. I return the smile. I’m slowly beginning to make contacts, slowly becoming a regular face. People are already starting to redirect cases my way, and that feels great. I drop off a few leaflets, ask the receptionist to hand them out, which he promises to do, and then I’m back on my way, toward my car.

  As I drive toward the homeless shelter, I think about Iowa, where I came from, and where I’d still be living if I hadn’t done something about it. I didn’t get into social work because of any past trauma. It was not that I was beaten, or neglected, or hurt. It was not that I remember feeling threatened or afraid or wanting for food or clothing or shelter. By any reasonable measure, my childhood was excellent—on paper. My father was an accountant and my mother worked in a bakery. We lived in a small town in Iowa; from about the age of seven my father would talk to me about the benefits of accounting as a career, how stable it was, how safe and secure, and from the age of about fifteen my mother would hint to me about Joseph Norwood, the boy who lived next door and seemed to be doing very well, whose mother my mother would have tea parties with. I could see it, clearly, as though they’d already recorded my life on video and were just getting ready to press play: a house on the street on which I’d grown up; a husband chosen and packaged by my mother; a few kids and a safe, regular, humdrum life. There’s nothing wrong with a safe, regular, humdrum life, but I always wondered: what else? Surely there must be something…

  I laugh to myself, glancing around my car as I slide into the parking space: the open makeup bag on the passenger seat, the contents spilling over, the cardboard boxes in the back, full of books and pens and pencils for my creative writing program at the library; a soccer ball and a basketball rolling around loose. Most girls would have tried for California, Hollywood, or else New York: somewhere women went for lives of glamor and stardom, somewhere you could feel like a rocket ship, constantly going up. But no, I’d chosen Detroit, Michigan, and the wrong side of the tracks, too, the sort of places my father used to warn me never to
walk alone.

  I go into the homeless shelter, where a tall man with night-black skin and missing front teeth grins at me. “Is that Allie, or do my eyes deceive me?”

  “Hey, Aaron.” I grin back, leaning on the desk.

  Aaron sits on a seat which is way too small for him, hunched over a small notepad. He’s thin, reedy, but with a big man’s smile: it fills his face. Behind him, the homeless shelter spreads out, a tall-ceilinged warehouse with beds laid out side by side, a door leading to a kitchen far in the back, a few men and women sitting around an overturned box playing checkers and cards. Aaron is looking better than the last time I saw him. He wears a new sport tracksuit, the T-shirt tucked into the pants, and bright white sneakers.

  “You handing around those leaflets of yours?” He holds his hand out.

  I place a few in his hand. “Got to let people know I’m out there, right?”

  “Oh yeah.” Aaron nods seriously. “They call that self-promotion.”

  “Well, hopefully I can self-promote myself enough so that the library doesn’t cancel my services.”

  Aaron waves a hand at himself, and then gives his head a theatrical flourish, flashing his gap teeth. “You helped me, didn’t you, Allie? If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be walking like a zombie through the streets, trembling and looking for some trouble, cheap beer and cheap cigarettes moving through me.”

  I roll my eyes. “That’s not true,” I say, and mean it. “You did all the work in getting your life in order. I just helped you along.”

  He shakes his head vehemently, still smiling. “I won’t hear that.”

  I make to leave, and Aaron holds his hand up. “You won’t stay for a coffee?”

  Lifting at my mug, I reply: “I’ve got more pamphlets to drop off, big man.”

  But the truth is that it’s almost one o’clock, and my stomach is grumbling about wanting lunch. I return to my car, reach into the back and get my small cooler, take out my ham and cheese sandwiches and my soda, and then collect my current book from the glove compartment. Twenty-five years old, and I still get a thrill every time I pull out whatever romance novel I’m currently reading. The romance, the over-the-top delight of being swept off one’s feet, there’s just something about it that pulls me in. This one’s about a tough-as-nails alpha hitman who kidnaps a woman to get a bounty on her, but then decides he likes the look of her too much for that. She isn’t too fond of his roughness at first, but she soon comes to appreciate it. I read them quickly, and trade them out at the used bookstore half a dozen at a time. There’s another on my nightstand, likely to be started tonight. That one’s about a billionaire, with a taut smile and an even tauter whip; perhaps that one will be better for bedtime reading.

  I read for around half an hour, finishing my lunch, and then start the engine and drive through the city toward the abused women’s shelter.

  I remember choosing Michigan as my college, and then driving through Detroit one afternoon, just to drive and explore the city. That drive changed my life. I found myself cruising through the poorer areas of the city, just to watch. At first I felt like an invader into these peoples’ lives: the hard-faced men on their way to another shift at the factory; the skittish-looking women on their way to supermarkets and daycare centers, or rehab centers; the half-feral children running around in second-hand clothes looking for some trouble. Then the feeling of invasion was replaced with a feeling of profound humility. I had lived my entire life sequestered in suburbia, with fields and trees and barbeques and American flags and picket fences and large back gardens. If any of these people had walked down my childhood street, they would’ve felt like they were on a movie set, I bet.

  Up until that point in my life, I had always wanted to be a librarian. While romance novels are always my favorite, I love to read in general. Since I was a kid, I’ve been a literary adventurer: literary, historical, fantasy, science fiction; anything I could get my hands on. I spent a great deal of my childhood in the library, breathing in the scent of the books. I suppose I was trying to escape, even then, in my own way. But now, as I drove through Motor City and took in the fumes and the fatalism, I knew that I wanted to make a change here. As a freshman, I was a long way from declaring my major, but I knew that I wanted to forget accounting and pursue social work (without informing my father), and immediately enrolled in several volunteer programs to help the poor and disillusioned of the city. I was too scared to tell them for months; the explosion that happened when I finally did was terrible. I will never forget my father’s absolute disbelief, how he kept repeating: “But …I thought you were going to be an accountant?”

  I shake my head, shaking away the memories, as I pull the car to a stop and walk through the streets to the women’s shelter. The July sun slants down through tall buildings, blinding me, so that when I walk into the shelter, it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the indoor light. Kasey offers me a warm smile as I place the pamphlets on the counter, but she’s on the phone, talking incredibly slowly, so I just smile and leave, making my way back toward my car.

  I’ll head back to the library now, to my little office in the rear of the building behind the stacks, spend the rest of the day getting on with some paperwork, and then later I’ll go to my apartment and collapse on the couch, maybe turn on some Scandal or Game of Thrones as I summon the strength to go into the kitchen and bake a pizza. It’s odd, because though my work isn’t physically demanding, it always leaves me tired. It might have something to with expending emotional energy rather than physical, or perhaps it—

  I stop when I round the corner and see them: several men, all wearing leather biker jackets, but without any club insignia on them. A few of them are smoking cigarettes and laughing, and one of them leans over and peers into my car.

  I’m parked on a side street, tall buildings either side blocking out most of the sun, and the men and I are the only ones on the street.

  “Hey, Trent.” One of the smoking men gestures with his cigarette.

  The man peering into the car stands up, turns, and then nods at me and then at a long metal pipe which dangles at his side like a resting viper, ready to strike. “Make one move or one sound and I’ll shove this so far up you you won’t be able to speak for a week, y’hear?”

  Chapter Two

  Allison

  The man who speaks—Trent—is clearly the leader. He would look unassuming if it were not for his eyes and his out-of-place haircut. His eyes are bright, startling blue, a blue so captivating that if he were not holding a metal pipe and striding toward me I might almost be tempted to call them attractive, and his haircut is Viking-like: a shaved head on one side, a long lank style on the other. His knuckles are grazed, I notice as he approaches me, and his tongue constantly licks at his lips. His voice is gravelly, and his eyes are flat and hard.

  He approaches me, his motion liquid like a predator, while his men continue smoking, exchanging words and watching casually. This terrifies me more than anything else. They’re treating it as such a regular occurrence that there’s no need to even acknowledge it. Trent is not tall, but he’s still taller than me. I’m just over five foot five inches, and my frame is usually described as petite. I normally make up for my stature with the force of my personality, but right now, I can feel my body shrinking in on itself, and I’d give absolutely anything to be absolutely anywhere else.

  But I’m right here, and I need to deal with what’s in front of me. This Viking-haired man leans over me, staring down with bright blue eyes. “That your car?” he grunts.

  I open my mouth to reply, but my lips are trembling. My heart is beating madly in my chest, as though it wants to beat out of my mouth and beat all the way down the street, away from this situation. I force myself to take a deep, long breath. I know a little about the biker clubs of this area; I had to learn to be able to be a help to those who might be looking to get out of that life. The Damned, Undying Kings, a few others; wearing no patch on their jackets means that they’re part
of an unpatched, untitled group; that makes them incredibly dangerous. Motorcycle clubs get a bad rap, but most of them live by a code of honor that is stricter than what many of us follow at work. But men who’ve decided to be outlaws and keep to no code can be a threat like no other.

  I can’t freeze up. If I freeze up, I’m going to get hurt, or more. I compose myself, and then say, “Yes, that is my car, and it’s not worth anything. And it’d be really great if you could, you know, not smash a window or anything. I don’t really have the cash to fix it.” Oh my god, seriously, that’s my desperate plea for clemency? Good job, Allison, well done.

  Trent regards me for a few moments, and then throws his head back and coughs out a laugh. Behind him, his coterie laugh, too, harsh hacking laughs which hold little amusement. I make sure to keep my head held high, to not show the fear which moves through every part of my body, to not show how genuinely unsettled these men are making me feel.

  “You hear that, boys?” Trent calls back to them, flicking his hair in a somehow savage way; it reminds me of a wild animal flicking its head to get something out of its eye before moving in for the kill. “This lady’s a bit la-dee-da, huh?” He turns back to me, that metal pipe hanging at his side as a constant reminder of where this could lead. “You’re a fancy lady, aren’t you?”

  “I just want to get out of here,” I say. “I’m on your side. I don’t have a single thing you want.”

  I’ve worked with men like this before, when I was in training. It’s not just men, but people who are scared will do anything to try and maintain their status quo, even when they know it’s destructive, dangerous, or deadly. They will try to intimidate you, make you feel powerless, or push you to fight with them. You can’t be scared. The trick is to never let them see that you are scared: to remain at all times logical and calm. I remind myself of this again and again as I stare at these men and their leader. I can tell it confuses them. They clearly expect me to scream and panic, to start crying perhaps, and somehow I know that the moment I start to show any sign of weakness, they will leap on it.