THE BABY OATH Read online

  Sirens blared as police cars and ambulances pulled into the lot. Rafe pulled out of the parking spot and headed toward the second exit, away from the police. “The police!” Maddie clapped her hands and pointed at the lights swirling on top of the cars.

  “Shouldn’t I talk with them?” I asked, but from the way he watched the mess happening behind us through the rearview mirror, I had my answer. “I didn’t really see anything anyway,” I rushed to say. I didn’t need him thinking I was some sort of danger to his club. I knew well enough what happened to people who crossed the Anarchy’s Reign or the Hell’s Spawn.

  He pulled onto the main road, heading away from the mall, and gave me an annoyed look. “I’m not going to hurt you. Besides. None of those assholes were Anarchy men.”

  “Mommy, he said a bad word!” Maddie pointed at him with a scowl. He raised an eyebrow and glanced over his shoulder at her. “He looks mean again,” she whispered loudly to me, like he couldn’t hear her.

  I smiled and shook my head. “You’ve never been around a five-year-old before, have you?”

  He shot me another glare then turned back to the road. “Where do you live?” he asked, coming up to the highway. I gave him my address and twisted in my seat to see Maddie.

  “He’s not a mean man. He’s going to take us home, and then you’ll take your nap. When you wake up we’ll have those popsicles I promised. Okay?”

  She looked back at Rafe’s profile and nodded, though she didn’t look completely convinced. I wasn’t either.

  We made it to my house in silence. I checked on Madison every couple of minutes, only to find her still mesmerized by the man driving us home. I wasn’t sure what shew as thinking, but the look on her face told me she found him less scary as the drive went on. By the time we pulled into the driveway into our little shack of a house, she looked down right smitten with him.

  “Mommy says you aren’t mean. And mommy never lies. So I guess you can come inside with us,” she announced to him once the car was parked.

  He looked over his shoulder at her with a surprised look on his face, and I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m sure Rafe has better things to do, Maddie. Come on, let’s go inside so he can call a friend to pick him up.” I opened her door for her to scoot out, then looked at him. “You’ll need someone to take you back for your bike. Maddie’s going down for a nap, but Mrs. Olsen isn’t home today, so I can’t leave her.” I shut the door, hoping he would follow us inside and not make a big deal about the situation.

  I should have known better. Once we were inside and he was standing in my living room, nearly taking up half of it with his size, I took Maddie to her room to get her settled down for a nap. With all the excitement I didn’t think she’d be able to fall asleep, but by the time I found her special blanket she was sound asleep on the bed.

  When I got back to the living room I felt ready for a nap myself. “Thanks for coming. I…I panicked.” I wrapped my arms around my stomach as he continued to stare at me from the middle of the room. “It’s hot in here.” I went to the window unit when he kept silent and turned it up a notch. It creaked and sounded like it was going putter out, but then it picked up energy and started blowing out more air.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked with concern laced in his tone.

  “Yeah. I’m fine.” I waved a hand through the air. “We were tucked down pretty good.” My heart had hammered so had against my chest, I wondered if there would be internal bruising, but I was good.

  “That’s not what I mean. I mean are you okay?” He closed the gap between us and held my face so I couldn’t look away from him. “You seem shaken.”

  “I was just in the middle of a shootout with my five-year-old. Yeah, I’m a little shaken, but I’ll be fine.” His dark eyes narrowed at me. “I promise.” I placed my hands over his arms, but didn’t pull him away from me.

  “You didn’t tell me about your daughter,” he said softly, still not looking away.

  “I know.” What else was there to say? I couldn’t very well tell him there was no future with him, so why involve my kid. Could I?

  “Where’s her father?” His brows knitted together and his lips thinned out, like he was angry on her behalf already without even knowing the full truth of it.

  I took a deep breath. “He walked out two years ago. I’m not sure where he is, really.” I shrugged, trying to look like Jeremy hadn’t destroyed my heart when he packed up and took off. We were better off without him, I knew that now, but back when he bailed my world had crashed around me. Being a single mom sucked when it came time to pay rent, or trying and have some resemblance of an adult life, but I wouldn’t have traded Maddie for anything in the world.

  “The other night you said you had to get home…because of her?” He nodded toward her bedroom door.

  “Yeah. It was my first night out in a long time.” I rolled my eyes. “Totally a good idea obviously.”

  “What does that mean?” He sounded offended. Great. I offended the big ass biker guy standing in my Livingroom with his hands already keeping me from moving.

  “Nothing. Well, just that since I’ve met you, things haven’t exactly gone smoothly for me, have they?” I tried to sound light. The trouble with Dr. Wilkins wasn’t really his fault, that man hated every nurse. Sure, Rafe showing up with a gunshot wound and taking over on his floor and demanding I be the only nurse attending him didn’t exactly earn me brownie points, but I wouldn’t fault him for that. “We’ve never been in a shootout before.” I almost laughed. The absurdity that was my current life hit me.

  He let go of me and dragged his hand through his hair. “Tell me what happened. What you saw at the mall.” Leaning against the arm of my couch, he folded his arms over his chest.

  “I didn’t see anything. Not really. When we stepped out into the lot, we heard the bikes coming. I couldn’t make out their patches, they were just wearing black leather vests like you, but I couldn’t see the patch on anyone’s chest, because they started shooting into the lot. I grabbed Maddie and ran for my car, but I couldn’t get my keys out so we just crouched down. Then I called you.”

  “No one came over by you?”

  “I heard one bike roll past, I think, but he didn’t say anything and he wasn’t shooting. I was so scared I probably just imagined it.” I took the hair band from my pants pocket and used it to tie back my hair. The damn air conditioning never really worked well enough and I needed a new fan for the living room.

  He stared at me for a long minute. “No one said anything, no yelling at each other or anything like that?”

  “Not that I heard. I was trying to keep my daughter safe; I didn’t pay attention to those assholes,” I shot at him. Between the shopping trip, the lack of sleep, and being shot at my nerves were fried. My entire body wanted to collapse into itself. His twenty questions weren’t helping anything. “Do you need a phone?” I asked, digging out mine from my pocket.

  He took it from me and pocketed it. “Before you say anything else, you are going to listen to me. You are wrung out. I need to make a few calls, and you need to get some rest. So, while I’m out here making my calls, you are going to get that sexy ass of yours into your bed and take a nap.”

  As good as that sounded, I couldn’t let him get so damn bossy. “I’m not a child, I don’t need to nap in the middle of the afternoon. Besides, Madison doesn’t nap for very long anymore. She’ll be up within the hour. I don’t want her scared.”

  He sighed hard when I folded my arms over my chest and stood too his full height. Before I could guess at his actions, he gripped my arm and spun me around until I faced the couch. His large hand pushed on my back until I was bent over the arm.

  I pushed up, kicked out, but nothing stopped him. He pushed down on me, keeping me over the arm as his hand landed hard against my ass. “I don’t know why you think I’m lying when I say your ass will take a spanking for your mouth.” Another hard slap. “Your stubbornness and your mouthiness are only g
oing to get you into trouble with me.” His hand landed two more times, harder and lower this time, right over my bare thighs.

  “Stop it!” I growled. It took more control than I thought I had not to scream. I didn’t want Madison walking in to find me draped over the couch like I was.

  “Wrong answer.” He slid both hands between me and the couch and unbuttoned my shorts, yanking them and my panties down to my knees. I tried to strike out, to get away, but again his arm pressed down on me and I was stuck. He continued to spank me on my bare ass. The minimal burn that I felt though my jeans could not compare to the fire he lit into me with my jeans pulled down. After what felt like a dozen or more swats, he stilled his hand on me, lightly rubbing my ass. “Now. When I tell you to go lie down and rest, what do you think the right answer is?”

  I felt the tears building in my eyes, but I refused to give in to him. I was an adult! A mother and a nurse. I didn’t need him to babysit me or punish me like some errant little child. “Get off of me.” I bucked again.

  He chuckled. “Stubborn ass girl.” His hand laid into me again. This time he concentrated on the curve of my ass, and my thighs. I wiggled, I kicked my legs out, but nothing made him stop. The burn quickly turned into a raging inferno. My mind screamed at me to give over.

  “Okay! Okay!” I let my body go limp and pressed my face to the seat of the couch. He didn’t stop though, he continued to spank me until the tears that were sitting in my eyes started to fall. Finally, his hand lay over my ass.

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he asked, running his fingertips over my ass.

  “I hate you.” I mumbled into the couch. Even as I said the words I knew they were a lie. I didn’t hate him; hell, I didn’t even dislike him. The moment he arrived at that parking lot I knew we were safe. And that was a feeling I didn’t get very often anymore. Even when I was being snarky with him, he didn’t take my bullshit. Most guys just called me a bitch and stalked off. Hell, Jeremy used to just tell me I wasn’t worth the time and would go out for the night. Rafe didn’t do any of those things.

  He laughed. “You do not. Lying will get you a round with my belt.” He squeezed my ass cheek, then drifted lower to my folds. Dammit, I could feel the moisture there, and the want. I tried to stand up again, so he wouldn’t see how much my body responded to his authority, but he just kept holding me down.

  Chapter Seven

  RAFE

  Shit, her pussy was soaked. Her juice ran down her thigh, which I gathered up with my fingers and dragged it back to her opening. “You don’t hate me at all.” I held her where she was, sinking two fingers into her cunt. She moaned, and pushed back toward me. “You know, you were just naughty, I shouldn’t let you come.”

  “Fuck. Rafe.” Her voice was low, but she gripped the arm of the couch, trying to push back at me. “Don’t tease me,” she demanded, and I gave her already red ass another swat.

  “You don’t tell me what to do. That’s the way this works. I give you pleasure and you say thank you. I give you pain and you say thank you. I punish your naughty ass when you need it and you say…?” I stilled my fingers from pumping into her and waited.

  After a moment I heard a soft “thank you” escape from her and grinned with my success.

  “See, good girl.” I plunged my fingers into her again, harder and faster. “Now, this one time I’ll let you come after a spanking. But you better make it quick, because your ass needs to be in bed in three minutes. If you don’t come before then, I guess you’ll be napping with a sore ass, and an empty pussy.”

  I stopped pressing on her back and let her have better range of motion. She pushed up and began to fuck my fingers harder. My cock wanted in, but we didn’t have time. Her daughter could be up any minute. “Better hurry,” I threatened.

  She slid her hand between her legs and began to touch her clit. I gave her another sharp slap. “You didn’t ask if you could touch yourself,” I explained. “Ask me.”

  “Fuck.” She shook her head but complied well enough after I gave her another slap. She was going to have a hard enough time sitting down as it was if her stubborn streak didn’t take a rest she was going to start earning a few bruises. “Please, Rafe, can I touch my clit?”

  “Of course you can.” I smiled down at her body as she began rubbing herself again. Her ass cheeks clenched. Her pussy gripped my fingers and her hips began to roll in a circular motion as she got herself off right in front of me using my fingers as her dildo. “That’s a good girl. Get yourself off, come for me, Beth. Come hard for me.” My free hand squeezed her ass cheeks, letting the heat run through her body again.

  “Oh, fuck.” She pushed her face into the couch cushion again.

  “Come, Beth. Be my good girl and come for me,” I urged her again, squeezing her ass once more. I pulled out my fingers and thrust them forward hard.

  She yelled her orgasm into the couch cushion. I could hear some of what she babbled, but most of it was lost into the fabric of the couch. Her ass slowed down until she removed her hand and lay limply over the arm of the couch.

  I slowly removed my fingers, bringing them to my mouth and licking them clean. My cock pushed hard against my jeans, but it would have to wait. She tasted too fucking sweet. I gave her one last slap and helped her pull her shorts back up over that beautiful ass of hers.

  She pushed off the couch, hissing when the jeans rubbed over her tender backside.

  “It hurts?” I asked with a sly grin. My hand still buzzed a bit from the spanking, I could only imagine what her ass felt like. She didn’t look at me, just turned her head away, but not before I caught the red in her cheeks.

  I caught her arm and spun her back to facing me, brining my mouth down on hers hard. Fuck she tasted good, felt good, my body wasn’t going to be able to take so much damn teasing. “It wouldn’t have been so bad if you hadn’t been so stubborn,” I said to her after I broke off the kiss.

  “You shouldn’t spank women.” Her eyes met my lips when I laughed.

  “You really want me never to do that again? Maybe you’d like a gentle man, someone bringing you flowers and bottles of wine?”

  She shook her head, not surprising me a bit. “You can’t just go around spanking women.” She tried again to deny what we both knew what was going on.

  “I don’t go around spanking women. I just spank my woman.” I caught her chin in my fingers and pushed it upward. “And now my woman is going to go take a damn nap before she passes out. If Madison wakes up, I’ll watch her. You just go.”

  “What are you going to do? We don’t even know who those guys were.”

  “I’m going to take care of that, and you are going to do what I said.” I rubbed her ass with my hand to warn her about arguing anymore with me. Her nostrils flared just enough to tell me she wanted to slap me, or at the very least yell at me, but she wouldn’t.

  “Fine. If Madison wakes up, wake me.” She pulled away and marched from the room toward the hallway. “And I never said I was your woman.” She called over her shoulder as she disappeared. I laughed then—the woman would forever push the boundaries. That was fine; spanking her had been the highlight to my week. But the next time, I’d need to be sure her kid wasn’t sleeping in the next room. She could have walked in and seen us and the last thing some kid needs to see is her mama getting her ass busted.

  Her kid. Fuck me, she had a kid. What the fuck did I know about kids? Nothing. Deciding to worry about that little detail later, I grabbed my phone and started calling the guys to find out if anyone knew what the fuck happened at the mall.

  I didn’t see any Anarchy kuttes when I pulled in, but my focus had been getting to Beth. It wasn’t something we did, shooting up a public area, but with Gray in charge now, who the fuck knew what he had the guys doing.

  After that shit storm of a vote, I spent most of my time at my house. I kept a room at the club house but lived most of the time off the compound. The clubhouse room was great when I needed a quick fuck or was too
hammered to ride home, but getting away from the bullshit kept me sane. Especially after Jason moved out and in with Stephanie.

  Stephanie wasn’t taking the death of her husband as well as I would have expected. Word was she hadn’t left her house since the funeral. I tried to keep a man at the house at all times, but she kicked them all off the property. Yelling and screaming at anyone who came to the house that it was the club that killed Jason, so why the fuck would she want our protection. After a few days of that, the guys wouldn’t go anymore, and when I tried to stick around she really went bat shit crazy. I drove past the house whenever I got the chance, but I didn’t make my presence known. When her heart healed a bit, I’d talk some sense into her. In the meantime, her mom was staying with her.

  Jason’s sister left town right after the funeral, no matter what I said to that girl, she wouldn’t listen. As soon as the funeral was over, she high tailed it out of town. I’d deal with her later, once I had this shit under control first.