Ghosts ✔

009 • Dana

Beads of sweat stood on her brow. Again and again the punching bag caught her fists. Her fingers were burning, but she went on and on until she was out of breathe. Panting, she leaned on her knees. For a moment there was nothing but a stabbing pain in her sides and a tiredness threatening to take every feeling away. 

Kip handed her a bottle of water. "Ten minutes. Then we continue."

She took off the boxing gloves and lifted the corner of her mouth. "You're tough today."

"You wanna compete with me, right?" He showed her a crooked smile, took off his shirt and started to beat the bag, without gloves. Dana took a sip of water. She watched how his muscles tensed as he was throwing punches, and it didn't take long before his blonde hair stuck to his face. 

Looking at Kip's body wasn't exactly a punishment; she rather looked at his body than at Maddox's, that never stopped at watching.

She caressed the small bump of her stomach. "Doesn't uncle Kip look hot? Although mama dares to bet that daddy would have looked way hotter if he'd been showing off his boxing skills here." She looked at Kip and saw the grin on his face. 

"At least he would have tried really hard to make it worth watching. Of all the Sons he's the one with the most KO's." 

He threw a few good punches before he looked at her again. She sensed that he liked to talk about his brothers today. It changed with the day: sometimes he didn't want to hear anything about them, on other days he did. Dana knew that feeling all too well. At some moments Juice's name couldn't even slip her lips, and on other moments she fed on memories about him. 

"By you?"

Kip smirked. "By everyone."

"Probably because I wasn't there to cheer for him." She smiled lightly. It wasn't hard to imagine how Juice would lose to Happy or Opie. They would have gotten him down on the ground with one punch. 

"Let's leave it at that, before that little Ortiz will get a daddy complex."

"Don't listen to him," she said, rubbing her belly. "Your daddy is a really tough man, although he certainly has his sweet moments."

The door swung open. Immediately the atmosphere changed and they both froze. Her heart pounded in her chest. Had Maddox heard them? She hadn't told him about her pregnancy, although she couldn't imagine he didn't know. On the other hand; there were more things he was blind to. She could see him convincing himself that she was't pregnant at all. 

Still she had to tell him; then she no longer needed to be nervous because of it. She however didn't want him to find out this way. 

"Well, show me something." Maddox leaned against the wall. With one piercing glance he told Kip to leave. She saw his muscles tense. His eyes shot towards her and she nodded reassuringly, although she felt anything but relaxed. 

She knew why Maddox was here. Although she had asked for her own room, he had visited her two days ago to watch her while she was boxing. It had turned him on and he had fucked her right here on the floor. 

That was probably what would happen in a few minutes again. 

Just like the past two weeks she tried to accept the situation. Nothing was more important than her baby. She no longer cared what he did with her body, as long as her child was safe.

She put on her boxing gloves again and started to live up on the punching bag. At her request the bag had been hung in this room, so she had a little bit of privacy, a place to retreat to. Kip had told her that he had been a Junior Lightweight Champion, so she had asked him to teach her to box so she could learn to defend herself. Maddox clearly saw no danger in it, for he had bought the attribute for her and all the hours she spent with Kip here, didn't seem to bother him either. 

On the contrary, the heat that was radiating from her skin after a boxing session called up a lechery inside him convincing her that he was pretending that he was the reason why she was sweating. 

Dana didn't look at him while her fists were hitting the bag. The muscles in her arms were burning, but she was so consumed by the activity that she even forgot that Maddox was in the same room. 

She was only reminded of that when she felt his hands on her hips. By reflex she turned around to punch him, but laughing he fended off the blow as if it was all a game and he lifted her up. A moment later he pushed her against the wall. He had already taken off his shirt, his tattooed skin stuck to her sweaty stomach.

"You're so hot," he whispered, where after he bit her neck and sucked her skin until purple marks would appear. His hands kneaded her breasts right through her crop top, then they glided down until they settled around the small bump. 

Dana froze. Skittishly she looked up to him. 

"Did you hear us talk?" She had wanted to sound neutral, but her voice cracked. 

"You think I'm stupid? Did you really think I wouldn't notice that my girl is pregnant? I just hoped you had the guts to tell me."

His fingertips arched, his nails cutting in her skin. She wanted to push him away, but instead she bent her head. "I was afraid."

"Whose is it?"

Confused she looked up. What did he mean, whose is it? Had a miracle happened and was he fertile again? "Can you..."

"Is it his?" Maddox nodded to the door through which Kip had disappeared. 

"Kip's?" she asked, so surprised that she forgot about the fear for a moment. 

"I have no idea what you two are doing here."

A bit skeptical Dana raised her eyebrows. "Bullshit. If you really believed Kip and I had something romantic going on, you would have killed him a long time ago."

"So it's from Juan Carlos."

She felt a pang in her stomach as she heard her fiance's real name. That had been something intimate between them, there had only be a few occasions on which she had called him that way. 

"Yeah," she said softly. "It's Juice's."

Maddox breathed in sharply. That knowledge seemed to piss him off more than the thought that it could be Kip's. "Does he know?"

"No," she whispered. "I found out when I got here, after a few weeks. I thought the nausea and my delayed menstruation were caused by stress."

Sighing, Maddox caressed her cheek. "You could have told me. You shouldn't go through something like this all alone."

Dana didn't know what to answer. Kip had supported her, but she rather refused to think about her future. About what would happen when the baby was born. There was no hospital around, no nurses... and who knows what Maddox would do with it.

"Do you want to tell him the big news?"

"W-what?" Dazed, she looked up. 

The back of his finger caressed her cheek. "Do you want to tell Juan Carlos that he is going to be a daddy?" He pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to her.