I can feel his anger washing over me in waves, and I take a step back as I swallow hard. I suddenly realize my original assessment that he would prefer I get an abortion might have been wrong. But since I’m carrying his child, he won’t hurt me.Right?
12
Gabriel
“You’re pregnant.You decided to get an abortion, and you weren’t even going to tell me?” I feel as though my world has just turned upside down. I knew, or at least I suspected, that Winter was pregnant. Logically, she would be the one at the club who got pregnant. I found her at the clinic, for fuck’s sake. But hearing the words come out of her mouth launches me into a tailspin of emotions.
Winterispregnant, and not only that, she planned to get rid of our baby without even telling me. She didn’t want me to have any say in the matter. She didn’t consider or care about my feelings at all. And it takes me no time at all to know I want her to keep it. We could have a baby together, one with my eyes and her beautiful smile.
If I had been a minute later, I might not have been able to stop it, and my hands clench as I realize how close she was to succeeding at her plan. But I can’t have that. Winter is mine, and she’s carrying my baby. She can’t just rip that away from me. We’re meant to be together. Bonded through trauma and a deeper kind of attraction that I can’t even explain or make sense of. She might sometimes fight it, think she’s better than me, and push me away in desperation to retrieve her old life, but she has nothing to go back to. And now, we actually have something we could look forward to.
A family of our own. That she would even consider putting an end to that strikes me to my very core. I want this girl more than anything else in the world. It makes my heart swell to know she’s carrying our baby inside her. And from her actions today, it’s clear she doesn’t want the same. I thought we were growing closer. We had such a good thing going. I mean, we had a fight over things going sideways on our date. But that didn’t stop us from having some seriously hot knife play sex.
“Explain yourself!” I roar when she doesn’t respond to my question.
Winter flinches, stepping back and away from me. From the way she blanches, I know she’s scared. But I can’t help myself. She tried to purge herself of a baby we made together, and she didn’t even talk to me.
“Why?” I demand more quietly. “Why wouldn’t you tell me? At the very least, shouldn’t I get to know?”
“I didn’t think you would want it. A baby would only complicate things, and it’s not like we have anywhere to raise a child. Look around, Gabriel. We’re sleeping in a shithole connected to a bar that’s meant for bikers. A place where men fuck women and pass them around like toys. Do you think we should bring a baby into this world? Because I sure as fuck don’t. What kind of life is this for a child?”
Her impetuous tone cuts me to the quick, and I press my lips into a fine line. This was my childhood, and she’s blasting it with all her judgments and doubt. I refuse to see her point when she hasn’t even acknowledged why I’m angry.
“You don’t get to make that decision for us. I put that baby in your belly, and I deserve to know about my child before you disappear to some clinic to abort it. How the fuck did you get there anyway? Did one of the guys give you a ride?” I bristle at the thought, prepared to smash someone’s face in if they did.
“Like I would ask anyone here after what you did the last time? And that was just for a ride into town! Oh, please. I hitchhiked.” She crosses her arms over her chest as her cheeks grow red. With fury or embarrassment, I don’t know.
“You what?” I ask, my voice dropping to a growl.She got in some stranger’s car to ride to the next town? How the fuck was she planning on getting home?
“Well, how else was I supposed to get there? You break anyone’s face who takes me somewhere you don’t want me to go, and clearly, you didn’t want me to go to the clinic. So, what was I supposed to do?” she demands, her voice rising.
“Talk to me!” I bellow, my anger hitting max once more. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she sneers sarcastically. “Maybe because I thought you might lose your shit and yell at me over getting pregnant in the first place!”
“Why would I yell at you for getting pregnant?” I ask, thrown off balance by her reasoning.
“Because, how can I be your perfect little fuck toy if I’m fat and pregnant?” she screams, fresh tears bursting from her eyes to pour down her cheeks in a tidal wave of emotion.
“That’s entirely illogical reasoning. Haven’t I shown you enough that I care about you?” I demand. “Are my gestures not grand enough for you? Or is it that I’m not spending enough money trying to please you like some rich prick who plans on buying you?” My fists clench hard enough to make my hand start to cramp, but I can’t back down from this. I’m beyond furious at what she did.
“Fuck you, Gabriel! If you hate that I had a lot of money in my past, why did you even bother trying to save me? Why didn’t you just let me die in that fucking fire, so I wouldn’t have to deal with this!” she screams, gesturing wildly at her belly.
“Because you’re mine. And so is that baby. I chose you. I chose to save you, and you have shown me constant resistance and outright rebellion despite all that. You don’t give a fuck that I’m trying my damnedest just to keep you alive. You’re so wrapped up in yourself and your stupid revenge that you would sacrifice our child’s life so it wouldn’t inconvenience you.” Red starts to close in on my peripheral vision as I try to keep myself under control. But I just can’t stand the thought of losing my child, the one beacon of hope I have about finally having a family of my own.
Not that having a child would replace the family I lost. Far from it. But it’s been brutally hard to look around me at all the happy club men with their wives and children and know that my mother and father never had that. Neither did I. That opportunity was ripped from me as a child. But this, this is my opportunity to make a change, to become a father, to take my child on road trips on the back of my bike, and create lifelong memories with them. And Winter is ready to just throw that all away.
“What are you going to do about it?” Winter demands sarcastically. “Are you going to spank me? Fuck me? Which holes of mine do you want to take tonight? Go ahead, Gabriel. Hand out my punishment for not telling you about the baby.” She stands upright, her fierce green eyes blazing with defiance as she juts her chin, nearly taunting me with her dare.
And suddenly, I have no ability to respond.Winter thinks I would punish her, give her rough sex when she’s carrying our child?I may like playing dark, dangerous games with Winter, to torture her deliciously, in a way we both crave. But this is different. I can’t stand the thought of punishing her with our baby in her belly. I would feel absolutely awful if I did something that hurt her or our child.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I feel all my anger dissipate at the thought of laying a hand on her. “I won’t do any of that,” I rasp, my voice suddenly hoarse with emotion. Stepping forward, I take Winter’s hands in mine, tracing my thumb across her knuckles as I pull her gently toward me.
Startled by the sudden motion, Winter lets me bring her closer.
“Are you okay? Did I take it too far last night?” My mind shifts back to the knife play, to cutting into her palm. The way I fucked her so hard and stuffed her holes. She seemed to like it at the time. But suddenly, I’m seeing it all from a different perspective. The positions I forced her body into, using the butt plug at the same time as I fucked her. It all seems like too much to do to her while she’s pregnant.
Horror grips my chest as I think about what I did. But Winter doesn’t tell me it was too much. Her face looks too astonished for that. I supposed it would be unusual for me to be gentle right in the midst of a fight. But I have to know.