Page 5 of Her Demanding Biker (Savage Kings MC #9)

Chapter

Five

A RLYS HUNT

I was dreaming.

A dream.

Not a nightmare.

When was the last time that happened?

I was warm.

Wrapped up in heat.

And when I drew in a breath, I smelled... him.

Warm skin.

Cotton shirt.

Stretching, the blanket around my legs loosened and drew one leg up, feeling denim against my skin.

Denim?

Wait.

I opened my eyes and instantly realized that I wasn't in my bed.

Then who-

I tensed, my shoulders tightening.

Shit.

Logan.

The party.

Coming face to face with... him.

I turned on my side, putting my back to Logan.

I need time to think.

Time to remember what happened last night.

And as soon as I was on my side, I realized why people didn't sleep in regular clothes.

My dress was twisted around my body, but there was no way I was going to untangle it. I didn't want to wake him up.

I needed time to process.

I need time to think.

"You're up."

Well there went that time I needed.

"You fell asleep while we were talking."

The bed dipped behind me and then I felt a wall of heat at my back.

A wall of muscle.

When people talk about muscle memory, this isn't what they had in mind, but I remembered the feel of him at my back. This was just... more.

More of his heat.

More muscle.

It helped to remind me that there had been years since we'd been this close.

"You ready to talk again?"

I pursed my lips together. I didn't trust myself to say anything.

This early in the morning, I'd likely spill my guts to him.

I had no filter before my first cup of coffee and since I found out I was pregnant coffee was off the table. So was my favorite iced tea, sugarless of course.

Yuck.

"Arlys?"

I was struggling with my thoughts, trying to figure out a way to delay talking about anything of substance when I felt Logan's hand touch my hip.

I was suddenly completely awake and on edge.

There was just something about the way I felt when Logan touched me.

Alive.

Electric.

Like every cell in me was vibrating with life.

I'd felt it last night, but it was different now. I wasn't still reeling from the shock of seeing him again.

"Honey?"

My eyes closed and I let myself remember what it was like when I was younger.

What it was like to feel deliriously, wholeheartedly in love.

The kind of love where you sink into it like a warm, soothing bath.

"Arlys..."

The S dragged out as his hand slid off of my hip and onto my belly, stopped short.

"What?"

I sighed and shook my head, feeling my cheek pump against the pillow that I'd slept on.

What should I say?

What would I say?

"You're pregnant?"

I closed my eyes, waiting.

For what?

I didn't know.

His hand moved over my belly, a fingertip bumped against my bellybutton that had just started to poke out where it had always been an indent before.

Instead of pulling away from me, he moved closer.

The heat at my back got warmer.

And I felt his breath against my neck.

How many times had I imagined this very moment, but not like this.

Not when I was pregnant with someone else's baby.

"You want to tell me about it?"

About the hell I'd been through since he left?

How would I even begin to tell him about it all?

"Your father sent me your wedding photo."

And that's when my brain stopped working.

"I think he wanted me to know that you were out of my reach. Not just that you were out my physical reach but you belonged to someone else and I didn't have a chance to get you back."

"Did you..." I started to swallow the question and keep quiet.

"Did I what?" He shifted on the bed behind me and suddenly I felt the cool air of the room against my neck.

I made up my mind not to look at him.

I didn't want to see disappointment.

Or pity.

When I felt his hand on my arm, I steeled myself to resist. I wanted to hide a little longer.

Logan didn't try to turn me to face him.

Instead, he climbed over me and put his back to the wall.

He didn't talk.

Instead, he reached his hand out and stopped just short of touching me.

"Can I?"

I looked up for a moment and saw that his eyes weren't on my face, but my belly.

"Sure," I nodded, but I was just he didn't see it.

He lowered his hand to my belly and smoothed the fabric from my dress back toward my hip. It made it easier to see my belly that way.

It made my pregnancy look more... real.

"Last night," his voice was almost a whisper, "I couldn't tell."

I smiled at that. "Before I moved here," I began to explain, "The clothes I picked up to bring here were all on the big side. I didn't have a lot of cash to spend, so I bought big dresses hoping that I'd be able to wear it as I got bigger."

He nodded, but his gaze stayed on my stomach.

I hadn't really told anyone in town that I was pregnant.

Only women seemed to notice and only when my dresses would pull a little tight if I was carrying something or if the wind blew through.

"Kent didn't come with me."

Logan didn't react immediately. He must have known Kent's name. If my dad sent him the picture we'd taken at the wedding, he'd likely sent along other information, hoping to poke at Logan's feelings.

Feelings that I thought were long gone.

"We're not divorced yet. It's not my call." I sighed and the bump shifted under Logan's hand. "Because I'm pregnant, the judge refuses to do anything 'final' until the baby is born."

I could hear the airquotes in my head, remembering the dim look that Judge Wembly had on women 'with child' divorcing their husbands.

"The judge wants to make sure that I won't change my mind. Apparently, a woman whose hormones are raging in her body can't make big ol' decisions like divorce. We can't really know our minds about things like this."

Logan smiled then.

He wasn't trying to hide it. He knew how I felt about those kinds of thoughts.

My dad had them aplenty.

"And the judge let you move here?"

"The judge has no say in it for the time being," I felt my back teeth grinding together. "I have to go back for a hearing after the baby is born to finalize everything. But, until then, I'm here to do what I can to build a life outside of my marriage and away from my father."

His hand stilled on my belly and he tilted his chin up to look at me.

"I messed up."

It felt good to hear the words.

I felt even better to have his hand on me, rubbing my belly.

I wasn't the only one who thought it, too.

The baby moved, twisting just a inch or two to the side, closer to Logan's hand.

He felt it.

I saw the recognition on his face.

He looked up at me, his eyes filled with wonder.

It was a dizzying feeling.

I remembered that look on a clean shaven face.

One without any wrinkles.

And his hair.

Before I realized what I was doing, I reached out and caught the curling end of a lock of his hair.

"I've never seen you with so much hair before."

He tipped his head to the side, watching my fingers play with his hair. "I'm older. Not the young man I was when I met you."

It hurt to hear the tone of his voice. "I'm not exactly young, either. Willow and Maggie? The other women I saw at the party? I feel like they're a completely different generation."

"They like you."

I stared at him, my eyes wider. "How... how do you know?"

Logan leaned back against the wall and wiggled an arm under me.

Okay, so I helped a little.

I liked feeling his warmth, but I liked his touch even more.

His smile widened and I saw that he still had a chip in one of his canine teeth from a training mishap the year that I met him.

"I went out to help clean up after the party finished." He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. "We can get pretty messy when we have our parties. Fair warning."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm not surprised. I helped clean up after the unit events the Army made my dad hold."

"He never did like the 'morale building' part of being in charge."

"That's an understatement," I laughed and felt the baby move again.

"To him it was enough that he taught you boys enough to keep you alive.

" I could almost hear my dad's voice in my head saying the words with me.

"They don't pay me to make them smile! If they want entertainment, that's what they have the USO for. "

Logan laughed so hard he almost choked on it. "Damn it, Arlys. I feel like he's in the room with us."

I could feel the color drain out of my face and my breath catch in my throat.

The last thing I wanted was for him to be in the room with me.

Even though I'd been out of his house for almost three years, all it took was a thought or a noise behind me that reminded me of that house and I was dragged back into that hell.

"Shit."

Logan pulled me into his arms and held me securely in his embrace.

It didn't take more than a few breaths to push away the fear. My dad wasn't going to snatch me back home.

All I had to worry about was Kent deciding he wanted to make things worse for me.

He said he wanted the baby but when I told him how much a baby cost in diapers and clothes and formula and... everything, he changed his mind.

"I never should have left you."

I had to squeeze my eyes tight to keep my tears from leaking out.

"If my dad was saying he'd put you away in jail, I believe him. He might be a mean asshole," I couldn't help but cringe at the words, "but he doesn't fight battles that he won't win."

Logan held me a little closer and it felt like heaven.

Could it be this easy to fall back in love?

As if you'd ever fallen out of it.

My inside voice could cut straight to the bone.

It's nothing I would say out loud.

I didn't know how Logan felt.

This might just be a nice trip down memory lane for him.

He was a member of the club. Established in town.

He had better prospects than me.

Especially because I was already pregnant with someone else's baby. He should-

"Honey," I felt his lips touch the top of my head, "you're thinking so loud I can practically hear the echo off the walls in here."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." His voice felt like a kiss.

His hand moved over my belly again and I felt chills move across my skin.

"Do you... do you want to be with me again?"

How was it that I could feel hope and dread all at the same time?

"I... It's not just me now."

His fingers moved against my stomach and the fabric trapped between his hand and my skin felt like he was soothing my worries.

I covered his hand with mine.

I wanted to hold him close for just a moment or two.

When I'd married Kent it wasn't because we were in love.

He wanted the job that my dad could get for him and I wanted out of my dad's house.

I didn't think we had some kind of great love.

I thought he'd be decent to me, but we spent most of our time together avoiding each other at home.

And everywhere else we went.

I didn't want to make another mistake while I was trying to get rid of the old one.

I didn't think that Logan would be mean or cruel to me.

That wasn't my concern.

I was worried that he would look at me one day and realize that what we had before was just that, something we had.

As long as I could keep the past as a sweet fantasy of love, I had something to live off of in my heart.

I didn't want to mess everything up and end up lower than I'd been with Kent.

"Give it a try with me, Arlys."

I heard the deep tone of his voice. I swore I could feel it vibrating through me in places that had been dull and silent for too long.

I wanted to wrap myself up in this feeling, but the temptation was just that.

Tempting.

The abyss of loneliness was yawning open under me.

One wrong move-

"Let me in again. Let me show you that what we had back then was something real."

I wanted him.

I wanted this.

But I was scared.

And I meant what I said.

It wasn't just me I had to worry about.

I was divorcing Kent because I wasn't about to have the baby living in a home where anger and frustration were the baseline of the relationship between its parents.

That kind of hell would scar her child for life.

She wasn't selfish enough to put her baby through that for a chance at love.

"Give me a chance, honey. Just this once. If I fuck things up... If I show any signs of being an asshole, you can kick me to the curb and Willow and Maggie will get my brothers to beat me to a pulp."

I didn't know what to say to that. I didn't want anyone to hurt for me. I just wanted...

I could only hope that-

"Okay." I squeeze my eyes closed, embarrassed that my mouth had run ahead of me.

"Okay?"

I swore I could hear him smile.

"I mean," I bit the inside of my cheek. "I want to try. I want..."

Why was I crying?

It was the hormones, right?

Pregnancy hormones had reduced me to a mess.

"I want you."

I lifted my hand and covered my mouth, tipping my head back to look at him.

"My mouth," I mumbled behind me hand, "is going to get me in so much trouble."

"Your mouth," his voice came from deep in his chest as he lifted his hand to gently peel my hand away from my lips, "is one of my favorite parts of you."

Oh god.

Oh heavens.

I went from tired to turned on in a heartbeat.

The man holding me was the same man that I'd been in love with since I was sixteen.

He'd changed.

I'd changed, but there was still something the same between us.

It didn't take much more than breathing around him to make me ache for his touch.

"Arlys?"

"Hmm?" I stared up at him, lost in my feelings and physical need. I couldn't seem to form a whole thought or sentence.

"Let me show you." He move closer, laying me back on the bed, his body close, but his weight off of my belly.

His scent. His heat. The look in his eyes.

I was falling all over again.

I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck and drew him down.

I wanted him to show me.

I wanted him to know me again.

Opening my lips, I kept my eyes open until the very moment his lips touched mine.

And then I was gone.