“Why has it forsaken me?” I toddler-whined looking at Noah’s cup of coffee sitting on his desk like it’s the biggest betrayer of my life, my bottom lip stuck out. “Haven’t I always loved you? Adored you? Worshipped you? And now you turn your back on me!”

Standing over by the door, I’m far enough away that I can’t smell it again. When it happened an hour ago the fragrance of caffeine filtered through my nose and for a second, I was in danger of throwing up all over the nice office floor.

I wanted to cry.

Coffee was my bae.

My ride or die and now it was making me sick to my stomach.

Pulling a face at Noah’s smug smile as he sipped my betrayer, I padded barefoot along to the kitchen. My stomach was too delicate for food though I was ravenous. I lifted myself onto a stool and looked at the fruit bowl like it was a mound of melted cheese.

Behind me I heard Noah’s cleaning lady come out of the living room.

She’s one of my favorite people in his life.

Of course, she adored him. Doesn’t everyone. I’m president of his fan club.

She treated him like a lorded grandson, always fussing over him and cooking him Polish food.

“Are you still sick?” I started to form a white lie of it being just a bug I’d caught when she added on. “Morning sickness was bad for me, too. With all my babies. Here, I have something for you.”

My eyes rounded with surprise.

I haven’t told her I’m pregnant and I knew Noah hadn’t.

We spoke on this last night about when we were telling our parents.

He wanted to do it right then on the phone. It’s me who was reluctant.

Aneta has worked for Noah for as long as I’d known him.

She’s all of four feet nine, a slim Polish woman from the Bronx with gray hair always tied back in a severe bun at the nape of her neck. She dressed modestly, usually in leggings or black pants and always, always with a tabard on when she arrived and inside the pockets was like Mary Poppin’s magic bag, I swear.

This one time I needed a pin for my broken strap on a top I was wearing and didn’t have time to change. As if by magic she produced one. This other time I needed a band aid. Same thing. I would look at Noah and raise my brows and silently say; see, she’s magic. No matter what you needed; she had it.

She dipped her hand into the infamous pocket and came out with a sucker.

I frowned curiously.

It’s not really something I want right now.

Not with my belly taking a round at whipping.

“Here,” she pushed it into my hand. “Suck on this while I make you some warm mint tea. It’s ginger. It’ll help.” She busied with Noah’s fancy coffee station, boiling water, she then took fresh mint leaves from a tin and stirred them in, added a lemon and plopped the cup in front of me.

I must admit, both sucker and the tea did help. I sipped and sucked on both for five silent minutes.

“So, you know I’m pregnant then?”

She gave me a silly girl, I’m older and wiser and I know everything look.

“I come to clean four times a week. Four times I hear you throw up. Drink. Drink.” She urged. When the tea was gone, and I’m left with only the ginger flavored lollipop, I feel at least sixty percent better.

I’m practically doing cartwheels around the kitchen.

If only in my mind because I can’t believe two little things such as a sucker and tea can ease my belly

“I can’t believe they worked.”

“I leave you more lollies and you make tea when you get out of bed. Sip it.” She admonished like she thinks I would take the tea like a vodka shot.

I smiled and nod earnestly.

“I tell Mister. Fierro, he make tea. Here. Give me wrist.” She took my arm before I could offer it. She might be small but there’s no doubt here who is in charge when Aneta is around.

I love this lady. I want to be her when I grow up.

A few inches from my wrist crease she pressed her thumb into a tender part of my arm, gently rotating it. “Is this acupressure?” I asked. She murmured affirmative and relayed to me how her sister in law was an acupuncture doctor.

And what do you know. My nausea all but disappeared minutes later to the point I felt completely myself again, no gag reflex in the back of my throat, no upset belly. “You get mister. Fierro to do this, too.” I swallowed a chuckle.

She has Noah being my nurse.

I like it.  

I feel so good I even shower with my fancy shower lotion and put on real clothes that aren’t sweatpants and slippers and I replied to so many emails, it was fantastic. I paid bills. I got caught up on all my design work and when a call came just before 5pm for a quick tech emergency I left the apartment to take the subway to Lexington Avenue. Thirty minutes later I’m two hundred and fifty dollars richer for no more than a quick reboot could have fixed the system and I had a ginger sucker in my mouth the entire time.

It’s much later when I’m slouched on Noah’s uncomfortable yet ultra-trendy sofa watching an episode of SOA.

After the Lexington job I’d gone home for a while until the villain of my heart called and summoned me to the fuck-pad upstairs for dinner he’d made me.

I might have been a bit saddened when he got me snuggled on the sofa and didn’t attempt to slide his hands into my pants.

But this was nice too.

We’d binge-watched the series years ago but liked to play the which bad boy would you fuck game and since I was loved up with a queer the game totally worked. With my head resting on Noah’s belly, his fingers stroking in and out of my hair felt like the greatest thing ever for the growing headache brewing behind my eyes. Every now and then he’d take a hand from my hair and caress my popped belly under my shirt.

“Undeniably fuck.” Proclaimed Noah with the hot as hell dirty-boy smirk kicking up his lips.

I mocked. “Jax is a given. Everyone wants to fuck him. What about Tig?”

“I don’t think he’s queer.”

“And Jax is?”  

“For me he’d be bro-queer.”

“So full of yourself, Fierro. You think everyone would be Gay-For-You.” I teased biting his thigh. But then he is Straight-For-Me, so I have no room to judge, I smiled to myself feeling all warm and special.

My gorgeous, bendy-villain.

For a few scenes we continued to watch in silence. His fingers trailed from my nape down to my butt where he paid attention to both cheeks.

“Hey, you know I have a cousin who is with a hottie real life biker,” I murmured nuzzling his leg in pretense of getting comfortable. Whereas I just wanted to rub my face all over his leg and drink in his scent.

For a workaholic Noah was staying home an awful lot with me.

I wanted to feel guilty for taking his time. But I didn’t.

“You never mentioned this before,” his fingers moved to the back of my neck, gently massaging. The purr that came out of me was inhumane and saturated in pleasure.

“We lost touch a few years ago but we recently started emailing again, wait right there.” I rolled myself off the couch and went to grab my iPad from the bedroom. When I returned I climbed into Noah’s lap, he accommodated me by winding his arm around my waist, resting his chin on my shoulder while I typed in the search engine. “Our moms are sisters, but she’s lived in Boston most of my life. Though you wouldn’t know they’re related. We’re the hillbilly clan,” I giggled. “Here you go. That’s him. Rider Marinos. He owns a biker gang out in Colorado.” I showed Noah an article Zara had sent me a month ago of her man and his bikers doing a charity ride through the Colorado mountains. “They raised twenty grand for the local kid’s cancer hospital.”

Noah made an appreciative hum low from the back of his throat. “And your cousin is married to him?”

“Not yet, but they have a baby together. She’s adorably smiley and Zara is deliriously happy.” There had been some mystery regarding Zara for a few years a while back and still no one in our family knew where she’d disappeared to, only now she lived with a hot as hell man-bun wearing biker and was happier than I’d ever seen her.

Noah whistled scrolling through the article for the Colorado Armado Springs Tribune. “You realise who these guys are, kitten?” I scrunched my nose looking at the pictures as he scrolled through one after the other of hot, hot men on big black powerful bikes. Jeez, calm down hormones. Bless my soul, look at that big one at the front. I just bet he could throw down.  

“Yeah, some biker gang from Colorado. I told you that.”

How wrong I was. Noah went on to tell me how notorious the Renegade Souls MC were for their lawless breeze against the rules when it came to business.

They were famous for all the wrong reasons not only in Colorado but throughout the United States. And apparently Zara’s man was biker boss to all the chapters.

But they’d done that charity bike ride, they couldn’t be all bad, right?

My eyes widened “Really?” It wasn’t something Zara confided in me. Only how amazing her man was. “How do you know this?”

He tossed my iPad onto the floor and flattened me to the sofa. I squeaked up at Noah as he fitted his hips in between my legs and rested his hands above me. “I read the actual news and not just the gossip sections, kitten.”

Nose nuzzle.

He licked my lower lip.

Someone was in a mood and I was not complaining at all. My hips lifted.

“Don’t be a news snob,” my naughty, grabby hands slid up under his tee from the back, muscles bunched and flexed. God, this body of his never quit pleasing me. “Knowing what Kim K is wearing IS news, thank you very much.”

He shut me up in the only way he knew how.

It was hot, and it was fast and by the end of my third orgasm I was sure we’d broken that damn uncomfortable sofa, but no luck.

It lived another day.