Page 10 of Wild Side (Vicious Reapers MC #3)

CHAPTER NINE

ZADIE

Decision made. I pull on a pair of clean, cut-off shorts and a cropped T-shirt. My uniform when I’m not at work is my actual uniform. When I reach for the motel key on the nightstand, I hear a knock on the door.

My entire body freezes.

Who the hell?

And at the same time… What the hell?

Before I can ask either question or even walk over to look through the peephole, I hear his voice from the other side of the door call out my name. My body freezes. I can’t believe I’ve heard what I have.

Maybe I’m just hearing things. Maybe it’s wishful thinking or a hallucination or something.

I mean, I did travel all day yesterday, worked myself up and stressed myself out, then had sex against my rental car before I came back to the hotel, ate sugar, and tried to sleep. So, maybe it’s just overtired delirium.

But when I hear my name being called again, it’s almost as if my feet move on their own volition. When I reach the door, I lean forward, looking through the peephole before I make a move to open it.

I’m not sure who I expect to see standing on the other side of the door. I know what Maverick’s voice sounds like, and I know it was him. But I didn’t believe it until my eyes locked in on him.

There, standing right outside my motel room door, is Maverick. I think about leaving him out there, ignoring the fact that he’s standing there, but I decide against it. I was going to go to him anyway. The fact that he’s here means I don’t have to drive around in the dark.

I wrench open the door, tilt my head back, and look up at him. He is smiling, his eyes immediately finding mine. Without a word, he moves toward me, past me, and into the motel room.

“Come on in,” I deadpan as I close the door behind him.

I watch as he spins around inside the room to face me, his lips still curved up into a huge smile. “Don’t mind if I do,” he quips.

Then, wordlessly, he sinks down on the edge of the bed, kicks his boots off, and shifts around so that he’s lying with his back propped against the headboard and his legs stretched out in front of him.

He’s gorgeous, of course, but I’m still taken aback that he’s made himself at home. When he lifts his hands, laces them together, and places them behind his head, he turns to me, his eyes sparkling as they dance over my face.

“What did you want to talk about earlier?” he asks.

It’s past three thirty in the morning, and he’s lying here in front of me, acting as if it’s the most normal thing in the entire world to do. I stare at him, unsure if this is real life, and pinch my thigh just in case I’m dreaming.

I’m not.

“Zadie?”

And because I’m so taken aback, so stunted in shock, what I do next is not how I wanted it to happen. But unfortunately, the words just spill out of me, like word vomit. Whatever you want to call it, they pour out of my mouth and into his ears.

“I’m pregnant.”

I blink, disbelieving that I’ve said what I have out loud. Watching him, I wait for his reaction. Because it’s out there now, and there’s nothing I can do to take it back. He doesn’t move. I’m not even sure he breathes.

I’m about to ask him if he’s okay when he throws his legs over the side of the bed to sit on the edge.

I wait for him to stand up and storm out of the room, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he places his elbows on his knees, brings his hands together in front of his mouth, and closes his eyes in a slow blink, then opens them and finds my gaze.

“You’re pregnant,” he says, finally speaking, but the words come out just above a whisper.

“I’m pregnant,” I confirm.

He nods a couple of times, drops his hands to his thighs, then straightens his knees, standing before he sits back down again. It’s as if he can’t figure out what to do, and I don’t blame him because I very much feel the exact same way.

I don’t know what to do.

I’m lost.

And tears fill my eyes, not for the first time. I blink them back, not wanting to cry in front of this man I hardly know. He clears his throat and shakes his head, as if to shake the thoughts from his running mind.

I wish he would say something, anything, and then he does, and I think that maybe, just maybe, he shouldn’t have actually said a word.

“Why the fuck are you here, then, and not with whomever did that to you?”

What. A. Dick.

“You did this to me,” I snap.

His eyes widen before they narrow. He snorts and stands. I don’t know what I expect him to do, but it’s not to walk right past me to the door. He stops, and I watch, holding my breath as I wait for him to wrench it open and walk out, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he drops his hand and turns around to face me again. He jerks his chin, keeping it up in the air slightly, his eyes looking down his nose and finding mine.

“I did this to you…”

His words trail off, but I keep my mouth shut. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.

“Fuck,” he hisses. “Fuck.”

I open my mouth to say something. I don’t know what, but thankfully, I don’t have to think about it because he continues.

“Marry me,” he demands.

Marry him.

Marry. Him.

My dad would probably be so happy. I run my shaky fingers through my hair. I don’t know what to say. Thankfully, I don’t have to say anything. He rushes me, slipping his hands along my cheeks before he dips his head and touches his lips to mine.

If I could be a different girl in a different world, I would call it magical.

MAVERICK

“I’m not marrying you. I don’t even know you.”

My lips twitch into a smirk. “Yeah, you may not know me, but you fucked me three times and are carrying my baby… You sure it’s my baby?”

I know it’s a shit thing to ask. If we were in a relationship, I wouldn’t.

But I’ve been around the block at least half a dozen times, and I’ve seen more than one clubwhore claim a brother knocked her ass up just as a way for security and to become an old lady.

I know there are some people who are above absolutely nothing when they want their way.

Although, I don’t get those vibes from Zadie. Granted, I don’t know a goddamn thing about her past, how she tastes and feels, which is important, but that also doesn’t mean I know shit about who the fuck she is.

And then I remember that her friend said they were club princesses. I never asked further, didn’t think I’d ever see her again, but now I’m wondering just what that entails.

“What makes you a club princess?” I ask before she can respond to my question.

I know it’s likely my kid. Fucked her every time with no condom, the timing fits, I think, and she’s not a clubwhore.

I don’t think she’s got much experience at all, to be fucking honest, and if she was just playing innocent, she needs to get her ass to Hollywood and become an actress, because she was phenomenal.

“From is that my baby to what makes you a club princess,” she murmurs. “That’s quite the leap.”

“You going to answer or avoid?” I ask.

She shrugs a shoulder, looking off to the side, then shifts her attention back to me. “My father is the president of the Reaper Rivara chapter,” she states.

My vision spots. I swear to fucking god it spots at her words. What the actual fuck? I can’t believe she’s just said what she has. How in the… what in the… Jesus fucking Christ. The only good news is that she wasn’t an enemy’s kid. This might cause tension, but it won’t be an all-out war… Fuck.

“The president?” I ask.

How in the actual shit did I do this? I don’t understand how I fucked the president’s daughter and had no fucking idea that’s who she was.

How.

Fucking how?

“The president,” she confirms.

What the actual fuck?

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

I don’t know how to respond to this. I can’t think of anything. My head is spinning. I don’t know what this means, where this puts her and me.

Since her father is the president of a club, he should be higher ranked than me, but because I belong to the original charter, and I’m an officer, my rank is actually higher than his.

This is the grayest fucking area I’ve ever encountered, and I live in the goddamn gray every day.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here,” I state.

She snorts, rolling her eyes to the ceiling before she brings them back to meet my own. “No shit, but I do know that marriage isn’t the answer.”

Isn’t it? I have a feeling that’s exactly what is going to need to happen. While I might be a higher rank than her father, I also have to follow the rules of the club, and disrespecting a sitting president is really fucking bad.

Before I can say anything else, she continues, and her next words cause my spine to straighten.

“My father is on his way,” she whispers.

“What the fuck?” I ask on a hiss.

I can’t think of anything else to say. What the fuck keeps rolling around inside my head over and over. I don’t know what else to say, what else to fucking think. I just stare at her, knowing that I’m going to have to call Bullet and tell him what’s going down.

Then I’m going to have to tell Goose. He’s already feeling a certain type of way about me right now. Not happy with the shift in my desires. In my thoughts, in my feelings. He’s going to fucking hate this shit.