When his hands slid under her shirt, she made no move to stop him. She relished the feel of his rough skin as he explored her, tracing the lines of her back and curling around the front of her hips and up to cup her breasts. It was then that she leaned away from him, but only to give him access to anything he wanted. Her shirt was off, disappearing into the night, and Torque reached for the waistband of her yoga pants. Blue let him wriggle them down off her hips and throw them after her shirt, but only if he didn’t stop kissing her.

  He pressed his thumb at the crotch of her panties, slowly rubbing in small circles. Blue barely held herself up by clutching at his shoulders, pulsing her hips to his rhythm. He knew how to make her wet with just a touch, or even a look, and she gasped with pleasure and surprise as his fingers drew aside the fabric of her undergarments to touch her skin. His hand was so warm, and the sudden contact made her body leap toward him.

  Her own fingers shaking from being so ready, Blue pulled at his belt buckle and reached for the treasure she knew was waiting for her. Torque’s member was hot and ready in her hands, and she caressed it with her fingertips. Oh, how she had been waiting for this. There had been so many nights since the last time she had seen him that she had wished he would show up at her door just to torture her with that body of his. He was so thick, so alive, and his raw masculinity made her weak in the knees. She wrapped her hands around his cock and tightened her grip, wanting to bring him the same kind of pleasure he could bring her.

  “I want you,” she whispered desperately into the night.

  “No. Not yet. I want to make sure you get what you need before I take mine.” His words made her quiver inside all over again. “I’m not just here to mess around with you, Blue. I’m not here to control you or make you a part of something you don’t want to be involved in. But I want you, and I’m going to make sure you know it.” The movements of his thumb increased.

  Blue moaned softly, now so dizzy she didn’t know if she could stand any longer.

  With his free hand, Torque wrapped his strong fingers around the backs of her thighs and pulled her up into the air. Blue wrapped her legs around him, and he turned to put her back against the tree. She was floating in the night air, so far above the ground that she had no idea how long it would take to fall back down again. She could feel his package pressing against her even as she continued to please him with her hands, and her core was now spread wide for him.

  “Oh, yes,” she whispered.

  “That’s right. You’ll get everything you need.” His hand practically vibrated against her most sensitive place, his fingers working to bring her to her to rapture.

  Blue melted into the tree behind her as her body convulsed from the inside out. Stars burst in her vision as her legs shivered around him. It was pure pleasure, but it wouldn’t stop. Her body was responding to his, singing back to him in repeated melodies of demand, desire, and satisfaction, and it was relentless. “Please,” she begged. “I need you inside me, or I’ll never stop coming.”

  “I don’t want you to.” But he did as she asked and entered her, his cock calming the tidal wave of elation that had possessed her body. He pounded into her as his hands grasped her ass.

  Blue didn’t think she’d ever felt something so wild, so pleasurable, so feral. She put her arms behind her and wrapped them around the tree, tipping her face and her breasts up to the night and giving herself over to the primitive parts of her mind and body that knew exactly what they wanted and would stop at nothing to get them.

  Torque bent his head to kiss her nipples as he fucked her against the tree, pulling them into his mouth and sucking them hard. He knew just what she needed. Yet another wave of undulating gratification flowed through her body, and Torque felt it. He thrust harder as his member swelled, bringing them both to the brink and pushing them over the edge to fall together.

  Blue panted as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Torque leaned forward and pressed his forehead to her shoulder. Neither one of them wanted to break the embrace, but they knew they couldn’t stay like that forever. Finally, Torque leaned back to break her contact with the tree, and he used the strength of his arms to let her slowly slide down his body.

  Being back on her feet again was slowly bringing Blue back to reality. They weren’t in some mystical forest where they could just strip down and do what they wanted. They were in the park, and there could be Dirty Bastards all around them by now. She was almost completely naked, and she fished around on the ground with her toe for her clothing. Most of all, there was something they needed to discuss. “Torque.”

  “Yes?” His voice was rough, almost rasping.

  “There’s something I need to tell you.” Blue didn’t want to. Telling Torque the truth could completely change things, and only a moment ago she had really been enjoying their relationship. But this was going to happen. Just as surely as her body had demanded his, just as surely as her body would grow and change around the baby, her tongue was going to spill out her secret.

  “Go ahead.”

  She had expected him to put her off, to argue that they had already wasted enough time with their passion and that it was time to get a move on. But he didn’t, and there was no turning back now. “Torque, I’m pregnant.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Torque

  “You didn’t just seriously do this to me, did you?” Acer paced the length of the bar at the Clubhouse. His dark gray eyes were steely as he glared at Torque. “We’re right on the verge of war, and you bring some useless interloper here? I thought you were smarter than that.”

  Torque glanced at Blue, who slouched in a booth in the corner. She could hear them clearly, but Acer insisted on talking about her as though she wasn’t there. Torque knew it was completely against their protocol to bring strangers back to their domain. But he hadn’t been about to leave her out at the park in the first place, and after her news he couldn’t leave her anywhere.

  It had shocked him, to say the least. Torque hadn’t really even thought about it, although he knew what they had done. After he’d stood there in the shadows, his pants barely even on, and tried to register what was happening, he’d had to know every detail. How far along was she? How did she know? Was she sure?

  And then he had moved like lightning to get her to the one place he knew he could keep her safe. He’d made sure she was comfortable and had a tall glass of ice water before he would allow Acer to start asking questions. He’d acted, but he hadn’t said much.

  His thoughts were coming and going so quickly in his head that he wasn’t even sure he could make complete sentences out of them.

  “I don’t see how this is any different than having the club girls here,” Torque tried to reason.

  “It’s completely different, and you know it is!” The president slammed his fist on the top of the bar, making his whisky glass jump. “The club girls know what this life is about. They signed up for danger when they agreed to be part of this madness. This …This girl has no clue what she’s doing.”

  “I can hear you, you know,” Blue remarked.

  Torque stifled a laugh. This was a sensitive situation, and he couldn’t encourage her to talk like that to the man who might decide whether she lived or died over the next few days. Acer wasn’t the kind of person she should be messing around with, and he probably appreciated her smart remark even less than her presence. But Torque was proud of her for being able to stand up to Acer like that. Blue had a mouth on her when she wanted to.

  “Good! Then you can hear me tell you to shut up and stay out of this!” Acer turned back to Torque. “I don’t have time for this, man. There are plans to be made and meetings to be held. You can’t bring your little fling here.”

  For the most part, Torque was content to let Acer run the club as he saw fit. He wasn’t interested in the day-to-day management of the members like Acer was, and his life was much more relaxing when he did his job and moved on. But right now, the president just didn’t see what was going on. “You don’t understand. This is the tattoo artist I was telling you about. She’s the girl Rat’s been after, and it’s because of me. She was involved in this war before you even knew about it, and it should be our duty to protect her.” Torque had to find a way to make Acer see that this was so much more than just bringing a piece of ass back to his room.

  Acer shoved his hands in his jeans pockets as he continued to pace. “I don’t know. That’s not the kind of thing we really do. You say you want her here to keep her safe, but don’t you think the Dirty Bastards will come here to look for her? We’ll be exposing all our men to danger.” He stopped pacing long enough to lean heavily on the bar, lines of worry creasing his face.

  “I don’t see how it’s any more dangerous to have them come here than to encounter them on the streets,” Torque countered. “We’ll be on our own turf, and there will plenty of us here for backup on a regular basis. We’ve got a hell of an advantage by just shooting out the third-story windows. Maybe this is really the best plan.” He was bullshitting his way through this, but he would do whatever it took.

  Torque wanted to be done with this conversation so he could take Blue up the stairs to his room and lay her in his bed. He didn’t even need to do anything else with her, other than just have the satisfaction of seeing her between his sheets.

  Acer hesitated, clearly still looking for a reason to deny this simple request.

  “I can fix that as payment.” Blue’s voice rang out through the room. Torque looked over at her table just in time to see her get on her feet and approach the president. She pointed at one of the large tattoos on Acer’s forearms, where a slash of pale skin skewered the arm of the King of Hearts. “That’s quite a scar, but it looks like the wound is old enough and the tissue is flat enough that I can fix your tattoo.” She reached out and took his arm gently in her hands, rolling it over so she could examine the entire piece.

  Acer looked at her in surprise. Torque waited for the older man to snatch back his arm and send her away, but he didn’t object. Instead, he smiled. “All right. Maybe you’re not so useless after all. But I want it done here. I’m not leaving the clubhouse at a time like this. You get your supplies and then come back.”

  Blue smiled back at him and turned for the door. Torque stepped up with her.

  “Now, hold on.” Acer put his hand on Torque’s shoulder. The pressure was light, but Torque knew it could be as heavy as necessary. “It’s damn near dawn. Nobody is out there doing anything right now. Almost all of our men are back in bed, and I’d be willing to bet the Dirty Bastards turned in an hour ago. Let her go home, get whatever she needs to stay here for a few days, and then she can return with her tattoo supplies.”

  “But—”

  “No, Torque. There are no buts about this. You’ve gone against me enough by bringing her here, and I’m already giving you far more than I want to. Just because she found a way to make this situation agreeable for me doesn’t mean the tide has completely turned in your favor. I want you here with me, just in case something happens.”

  Torque clenched his fists. His need to protect her was strong, whether Acer thought she needed that protection or not. But the president did have a good point, and there was little he could do about it. “Fine. But I’ll take her down to the garage and see her safely into a cab.”

  Acer flung the assertion away with a flick of his fingers. “Whatever. Just keep your ass on this property.”

  Torque kept his eyes on Blue as they walked down the stairs. She’d had a long, rough night, but she still carried herself proudly. His gaze wandered down to her ass, which was still enticing even after their rendezvous in the park. He reached out to pluck a small leaf from the confines of her hair. “You really think you can fix it? Acer’s tattoo?”

  She smiled at him over her shoulder, that same confidence he had seen in her before. It sent a tremor of need coursing through his body. “Of course, I can. I don’t know how he got that scar, but it looks like it really has healed over well. There’s only a small part of the tat that’s affected, and fixing it would make it look a lot better. It’s good work in the first place, and I think I should be able to match the style without a problem.” Blue tipped her eyes up to the ceiling as she thought about her work.

  “Are you all right? Going alone, I mean?” He still had half a mind to disobey Acer’s order and go with her. He was probably right about the time of day and her safety, but Torque couldn’t quite convince himself it was the right thing to do.

  Her mouth twitched and she gave a slight shrug of her shoulder, which made Torque immediately think she wasn’t too sure about it, but she forced a smile. “I’ll be fine. Your boss is right. Everyone is in bed. The only people who are up and moving right now are businessmen and moms.” She clamped her mouth back down on the words, no doubt realizing she would soon be in that demographic. “I’ll be much better off if I can run home and grab a change of clothes, anyway.”

  “I want you to watch your back,” Torque warned. “Don’t think that just because it’s light outside or because Acer has given you his reassurances that you’re safe. We can’t underestimate Rat and his men.”

  Blue gently laid her hand on his arm, her fingers dancing against the outline of one of his solid black tattoos. “You’ve done a lot for me, Torque. You’ve stood up for me like nobody else has before. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

  “Don’t say things like that,” he said through clenched teeth. “That sounds too much like goodbye.”

  She flicked her bright eyes to the floor but immediately brought them back up to his. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean it like that. I think I’m just feeling a little soft and mushy. Blame the hormones. It doesn’t take long for them to kick in, apparently.”

  Her words reminded him all over again of the news she had given him. He hadn’t passed the word on to Acer. It might have made the president more willing to let Blue stay at the clubhouse, but it would cause trouble in its own right. The pregnancy would be a surprise and an inconvenience for another day. Besides, he liked the secret better when it was between just the two of them.

  “I understand, but you can’t be soft and mushy today, just in case.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the knife he always kept there. It was the same knife his father had given him as a boy and the same one that had helped him win a fight that fateful day. He kept the blade sharp and polished, and he had never used it for something as mundane as opening a package. There were plenty of other tools for that, but this was a knife for survival.

  “I don’t think I need that,” she protested.

  Torque pressed it into her hand. “In that case, it will just be something you carry until you come back to me. Then you can give it back.”

  She folded it into her fist and looked up at him. “I’ll do that.”

  The cab pulled up just outside the garage door. The driver looked nervous as he realized his location, a fact that made Torque feel a little bit better. Even so, he hated to put Blue’s life in the hands of a stranger, even if it was only for a short time. It was more than just her life, after all. “Just promise me you’ll be careful. Really.”

  “I will. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  He watched the cab drive away and didn’t close the garage door until he could no longer see the car. Then Torque retreated up through the clubhouse to his room. The early morning sun streamed through his windows, slowly illuminating the town underneath him. He had been awake for far too long, and the fatigue that came with a healing body was catching up with him. Even so, he knew he couldn’t go to sleep. His mind was in overdrive, and he wouldn’t be able to turn it off for quite some time.

  Instead, he opened the dresser drawer and pulled out his pistol. Torque had gotten out of the habit of carrying it with him every day. When the clubs were at peace, there wasn’t much need and it only aroused the suspicion of the cops. Now, though, he knew there would be more of a need for it than ever. The Dirty Bastards were out there, and he had no way to know when they would be coming. And he had two more lives to protect now.

  Torque retrieved the cleaning kit from the drawer as well and set about readying his weapon. A father. He was going to be a father. It was the kind of thing he’d always thought of as being in the distant future, something that would happen when the time was right but nothing to worry about right away. And yet here he was, face-to-face with it.

  What kind of a father would he be? Not one like his own dad, that much was for sure. He didn’t want any son of his to grow up feeling an obligation to be part of Satan Seed. It hadn’t been a choice for Torque, but it was the sort of decision that shouldn’t be made lightly or by anyone else. Blue had asked him once what he would have done if he hadn’t been a biker. He had been a biker since he was born. The question had caught him off guard, and he hadn’t quite known what to say, but even now he didn’t have an answer.