Chapter Three

Cullen

My dick shriveled in my pants as my eyes swept over the kid.

The kid who Grace Wilson said was mine.

The kid who couldn’t be mine.

My life started to flash in front of my eyes, but I held that back. I refused to give in. Refused to accept my life was over.

We’d used protection, every time. I was sure of it. I was a fucking boy scout in the protection department, because the only thing I didn’t want more than a steady woman was a baby.

Fucking hell.

Suddenly, I was back at my little sister Aria’s place downtown. I’d rented that piece of shit apartment while I was getting my shit together, since I’d had it with my dad’s nightly drug parties. The man was sixty, and still having orgies in the fucking living room like some fucking twenty-year old hippie. He’d fucking disgusted me, but the final straw was when I came home to find my place in the pool house ransacked and a lot of my shit, and the thousands of dollars of cash I’d accumulated, taken. My father didn’t even care.

Aria’s little shithole was, in every sense of the word, a shithole, but it was freedom. Working at the Lucky Leaf Garage fixing motorcycles, I didn’t have a lot of extra cash yet. I’d been with the Cobras a while by then, and had a good chance at being named president, and hadn’t wanted to be still living at home, anyway.

I met Grace three days after I moved in. She was Aria’s next-door neighbor and friend. I caught her looking at me from the outside steps of her house when I was moving boxes in, wearing these short-shorts and little halter top that had her taut stomach on display and full tits, with her nipples poking out. Strawberry blonde hair that fell in two pigtails, nearly down to her waist. She was a little spitfire of a girl, barely five feet tall, and all mouth. She lived with her grandmother and sometimes, I’d lean against the wall and listen to her screaming her head off at the poor old lady.

One night, she’d come over for a talk with Aria, but Aria was at work. The way she licked her lips, though, I knew she’d come for me. I let her in and we had a few beers.

Then, somehow, I lured her down to my basement, and she didn’t leave for the next three days.

We just fucked. Again and again and again, our bodies so in tune with each other, we couldn’t get enough. It was like a daze, a whirlwind. I’d never felt anything like that, before or since.

So, now, thinking back on it, one of those times might not have been protected.

Shit.

I bit down hard, trying not to think of those three days, and the six months afterward. The six months in my entire life that had been different. That had felt … I wasn’t sure how to describe it. Just different. In a way I never wanted to feel ever again.

Fuck that. Not with anyone, but especially not with her. She fucking left me. No woman left me and got a second chance.

“You left me in the middle of the night,” I bit out, drawing a hand over my face. “You didn’t fucking return my calls.”

She nodded. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? What the—?” I fisted my hands as Phoebe appeared in the doorway. She’d undone the tie to her coat and was wearing something red, that bared too much of her fine parts.

But my dick was completely dead.

I had a kid. My dick was hanging its head in shame.

Phoebe started to give me a come-hither look but I met that with a scowl that effectively shot that down. I held up a finger to her. “Don’t.” I growled. “Just. Go home.”

Phoebe let out a sigh and put her hands on her hips. “Wait, are you telling me—”

I pointed at her. Then the door. “Yes. Go.”

I reached for it, swung it open, and stepped aside. As I did, a cab pulled into the driveway, its headlights sweeping across Grace’s face. She took a step toward it.

I pointed at Grace. “You. Stay.”

Grace shook her head. “Do you really think ordering women around like they’re dogs is going to work for you?”

I scowled at her as Phoebe, without another word, scurried out the door, between us. She kissed her finger, pressed it to my bottom lip and said, “Call me again, baby.”

I raised an eyebrow at Grace. “Always has.”

“Well, not with me it doesn’t,” she said, thrusting her chin out and reaching for the door. Leave it to Grace Fucking Wilson to act like a princess even when she had absolutely nothing. I held her elbow.

“Tell me why you left, first.”

She sighed, hedged. Looked down at her kid—our kid—and gnawed on her lip some more. “I had a good reason to. Really.”

“Yeah? Well, I’d like to hear it. And I’d also like to hear why you thought it wasn’t necessary to tell me I’m a dad until now?”

Just then, the little girl lifted her head off Grace’s shoulder and yawned sleepily. Grace stroked her head. “Do you think I could lay her down somewhere first?”

I shrugged. She’d put me off for almost two years. Another few minutes wouldn’t hurt. I led her upstairs and into one of the guest rooms. Which happened to be the room on the other end of the house, furthest from mine. I flipped on the light and she looked around.

She dropped her backpack on the bed.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I muttered, cursing to myself as I went outside to send the cab away.

As I did, I thought of that last night we were together. We’d been lying in my lumpy old futon at the shithole, and she was on top of me, naked, and I was inside her. She was doing that mesmerizing little dance she did, rubbing her perfect little body on mine, making herself feel good, her tits swaying in time to her movements.

Then my cell phone rang, and I saw in the darkness that it was Nix.

I’d been waiting all day for his call. Waiting for word on a car we were loading overseas.

And I made my first mistake.

I went to answer it. As I lifted it, she grabbed it from my hand and held it over my head, taunting me.

I motioned to her, serious. “Give me that.”

She grinned. “Nope. Make me come first. I’m close.”

I dug my fingers into her thighs to get her to stop. “GIVE. THAT. TO. ME.”

She stopped moving on top of me and tossed it across the room, a triumphant look on her face.

“What the . . .?” I lifted her off of my dick and scrambled across the room to pick it up. I answered it just in time and made the plans to meet Nix at the dock in a half hour. Then I turned to her. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

The girl had blue eyes that could turn to fire. Nothing any woman could do hit me quite like Grace’s eyes. She snapped, “What the fuck is wrong with me? What the fuck is wrong with you? I thought we were—I don’t know—in the middle of something important?” She’d already begun pulling on her shorts. “I’m such a terrible person. Maybe I wanted to be with my boyfriend without him thinking of his precious motorcycle club for once.”

She didn’t get it. The Cobras were everything to me. As far as I was concerned, it was Cobras first, everything else second. I’d never told her otherwise.

When I did mention it, she rolled her eyes. And if she didn’t understand, what the fuck was the point? “You’re not my girlfriend,” I spat out.

She was hooking her bra, but she suddenly stopped. I saw her face flame. But I’d never promised her anything. I didn’t do girlfriends. Wasn’t that for high school peckers? “Oh. Right,” she said, as if she’d just forgotten.

I sat down next to her. “Look. You know what the club means to me.”

“I do. But I also think I should mean something to you, too.”

I’d frowned, grabbing hold of her slim shoulders. “You do. But I’m going to be the president. I have responsibilities.” I’d been working toward becoming head of the club almost since day one. I’d never felt more honored in my life than the day I was named president of the Cobras. If one of the guys called me, there was no other choice than to be there, with them.

I’d checked my phone and reached for my jeans. “Look. I got to go. We can talk about this more when I get back.”

She didn’t say anything, just sat at the edge of the bed and looked at the ground.

I sat beside her and kissed her shoulder. “Come on. Don’t give me shit.”

“Me? I was close. And you . . .”

“That’s to be continued, okay? I promise, you’re first, when I get back.”

She gave me a half-smile, and said, “I better be.”

I’d left to go to the docks. I’d been there for the cargo shipment, and everything went smoothly. The guys probably could’ve handled it without me, but I knew if more stuff happened without me, they’d lose respect. So I shot the shit, went to The Wall and had some beers with them, carried on like it was any ordinary Friday night.

When I got back, it was sometime after midnight. Not rushing back, when I knew we were on thin ice? That was my second mistake.

My basement apartment was dark. And she was gone.

Not just gone from my house, gone from my life. She’d gradually moved more and more of her stuff from her grandmother’s house over to my place, until she was pretty much living with me. But in the space of the few hours I was dealing with Cobra shit, she’d cleared it all out.

I looked everywhere for her. And she’d just disappeared.

Vanished into thin air.

And now, here she was, in my fucking guest room.

She’d left me before.

And now she was back. With a baby.

My baby.

And no fucking explanation.

I went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. When I came back, I expected to see the kid in the bed. But she had her on the floor, on the plush carpeting, boxed in by pillows. “What? The bed not good enough for you?”

She shook her head and brushed a wisp platinum hair off the kid’s forehead. “Ella tends to move around a lot. Don’t want her falling off the bed.”

Well. That made sense. When I last knew Grace, her job had been as companion for her grandmother, but since her grandmother was pretty with-it, that meant that all she did, day after day, was raid her grandmother’s medical marijuana stash, sneak booze from her dead grandfather’s liquor cabinet, and watch TV. She hadn’t been a pillar of responsibility. It occurred to me that she had a lot more on her mind these days.

She turned down the lights lower and then followed me out to the hall.

I turned to her. “So?”

She looked hurt. “So what?”

“Dammit, Grace. I’m waiting. Are you going to explain to me why you left, and didn’t tell me I had a kid?”

She just looked up at me, scraping her top teeth over her bottom lip in a way that made my cock twitch. It didn’t fucking help that she was even hotter now. She hadn’t been skinny before, but she’d filled out. Those curves were front-and-center, even in the oversize flannel shirt and cutoffs she was wearing. I didn’t think it was homelessness that agreed with her; it was probably motherhood.

I tried to get my cock to remember that. There was a kid in the other room. My kid. And it was all my cock’s fault.

“Well?”

She sighed. “Please don’t be angry. It’s been a really tiring night and—”

“So you’re going to put me off again?”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re the one who was always putting me off.”

She pushed past me and stalked down the hall, like she owned the place.

There wasn’t a single woman in this world who could get to me the way Grace Wilson could. She was infuriating. “Where the fuck are you going?”

“It’s a big house. I’m going where I can be away from you until you calm yourself down and we can discuss this like reasonable adults.”

I stalked over to her and wagged a finger in her face. “Baby, with you, ain’t no such thing as reason.”

Her face reddened, and her nostrils flared. “With me? Let’s think back to the day I left you. Look me in the eye and tell me I was the one who’d lost her mind.”

I pressed my lips together. Let out a laugh. Placed my hands on her cheeks, and gazed straight into her eyes. “You left me in the middle of the goddamn night. Without even a goodbye. You lost your fucking mind.”

She tore my hands away from her face. “Yeah! Because you ran out on me first!”

“I. Told. You,” I growled, my voice steadily rising. “I did that because. . .”

Suddenly I heard a wail. I stopped. Grace heard it too and shoved her palm into my shoulder. “Nice job, idiot,” she said, rushing past me. “You woke her up. You really do have a way with kids, you know.”

I shook my head and turned around, grasping handfuls of my hair. I sank to a crouch in the hallway, wondering if this was a nightmare. It felt like one. “Never signed up for this kid thing,” I called after her.

She shushed me loudly as she went into the room.

I couldn’t do this.

Couldn’t take this.

Couldn’t take her.

There was a reason we went our separate ways. She was stubborn as hell, and I didn’t do relationships.

As far as I was concerned, I’d take care of the baby. Give her all the money she needed for the thing, and whatever she needed to get back on her feet. But I had my life. I liked my life. And nothing was going to get in the way of what I had.

I stomped over to the room and was about to tell her that when she came out of the door. Her nose practically bumped against my chest, she was so close. She smelled damn good. And she was gorgeous. She looked up at me, waiting for me to speak.

But all I wanted to do was kiss her. Taste her.

Dammit. I was too tired to think clearly.

“I’m gonna go to bed,” I muttered, turning away from her before my body could take action. “We’ll talk about this in the morning.”

I went into my bedroom and closed the door. I ran a shower to calm myself, and as I stepped into the warm water, I took my cock, pumping it, hard, in my fist. As I stroked, harder and harder and the hot steam swirled around me, I tried to think of a nameless face. Letting out a grunt, I pressed my forehead against the tiled wall and shot ropes of come all over the shower floor.

But no. I thought of Grace.

Fucking infuriating, incredible, gorgeous Grace, the only woman I’d ever felt anything for.

Fuck.