Free Captive by Natasha Thomas Page A

moment to consider the consequences of being so foolish.
     
    I didn’t just forget to consider the risks involved that he might have some disease from one of the numerous whores he’s slept with, but I didn’t stop, even for a second to remember that I’m not on any form of contraception. I haven’t ever needed it, and I certainly wasn’t something that I planned to happen even if I’d been considering taking a man, that man being Reaper, to my bed for some time.
     
    I don’t have sex. I haven’t since the last time I was forced against my will to spread my legs for a man, and that was fifteen years ago. A lot of people would tell me I was crazy for allowing that to be my only memory of intimacy with a man, but in my case it wasn’t planned. It wasn’t something I thought out. It just happened that way, and in some respect I’m glad that it had because if it hadn’t Reaper wouldn’t have been the new memory I made, and that’d be a damn shame.
     
    I’m sure that coming into this with the history I have, all of which is bad, no horrible, anyone could have shown me what it is like to be treated gently, with patience, and care. They could’ve shown me what it felt like to have a man’s hands on my body I actually wanted there, not ones that grabbed me roughly, and punished me. More than likely other me could have shown me what pleasure, real pleasure feels like, but it wasn’t any man that did those things. It was Reaper, and that was both a mistake, and a blessing.
     
    A mistake because I can’t get the feel of his rough, calloused palms out of my head. The way he watched me intently, making sure I was focused on him, what he was doing to me, what he was making me feel. It was a mistake because I want him like that again, not just for a night, but for longer, much long. Like forever. And that’s just not an option. Reaper isn’t a man that wants, or should be tied down. You can see it in his eyes. In the way he holds himself, ready to run at a moments noticed. And you know he doesn’t want to become too attached to anything because he doesn’t welcome many people, if anyone other than his son Steel and his family, into his life.
     
    I wouldn’t tie a man like Reaper down even without those reasons. He’s lived so much of his life for the job with the FBI, for the club, which he’s still doing, and for his son. He needs time to live for himself, which is why I didn’t share my news with him. And it is my news, not his. He didn’t consider the consequences either, and he sure as shit hasn’t mentioned a word about that night in the last four weeks either, so as far as I’m concerned it makes it my news, and my news alone. Some might think I’m selfish, that I should give him a choice, a say in what I do now, but I can’t bring myself to contemplate what I’d do if he told me to get rid of my baby. It would break me in a way that would be so permanent I don’ think there would be anything to resurrect me from that pain.
     
    There is only one thing I want from life, one. For as long as I can remember, so I would have been about four-years-old I’ve wanted a baby, a family of my own. Someone to love with everything in me. It’s something I need. Something I desire above everything else. It might be wrong to bring a little person into the world with such a great responsibility hanging over its little head already, but in all reality doesn’t every mother want to be loved unconditionally.
     
    I didn’t go out to get pregnant on purpose. I didn’t not demand Reaper put a condom on so that I could trick him into knocking me up. No, it was a simple twist of fate that it happened to be the right time of the month, and that my first experience with a man, since the sadistic fuck that was merely an excuse for a man I escaped, happened to be with Reaper, the only man that could be less inclined to be a father all over again was the one that made my dream come true. Hence the blessing part of my