Rascal (Edgewater Agency Book 2)

by Kyanna Skye

  She dressed and gathered her bags, still feeling half asleep as she did so. And by the time she made her way to the main foyer of the house, her mother, stepfather, and Jay were all gathered to meet her and to see her off.

  None of them would be accompanying her to the airport, of course. Everyone had their own business to attend. But oddly, she found that mildly comforting. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts. She had a rematch to plan after all.

  “Goodbye, sweetie,” her mother said as she hugged her, her eyes lightly brimming with tears. “I’m going to miss you.”

  She smiled at her mother. “I’ll be back before you know it, mom,” she said, though she wasn’t delivering the words to her. Peripherally, she saw Jay smirk.

  “Remember everything I told you,” her stepfather said. “It’s going to be an adventure.”

  “I’m sure it will be,” she said picking up her duffle. As she stood there, looking at her family, she felt a smile rise up inside of her. “I’ve decided what I’m going to study.”

  “Oh?” her mother asked interestedly. “You’ve decided on a major?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I have.”

  “What?” Jay asked.

  She smiled at her stepbrother, and the bond that would remain their secret seemed to spark between them as she gave him her own million dollar smile. “Sports medicine.”

  He smiled back.

  THE END

  Wanted by the Outlaw: MC Biker Bad Boy Romance

  Carlie checked her appearance in the mirror on the reverse side of the sun visor. The mirror wasn’t large, but she was able to give herself an appraising look. She was full figured and buxom, and the chocolate color of her skin clashed with the dark blue of the dress that she had gotten into for tonight. The single blonde highlight in her hair gave a splash of color to her otherwise jet black hair.

  She didn’t look bad, she thought, though she thought that she could have done better. And with only fifteen minutes to get ready, she thought that she could have done worse. But as soon as they broke the city limits and headed into what the locals referred to as “open country” she had second thoughts about coming at all.

  But like so many times before she had given in to the pressure of Jackie, her best friend, to go out and do something wild and crazy. That usually meant going to a club that they had never been to before. It meant having a few drinks, eyeing the men there, maybe striking up a conversation… some harmless flirting… and if one of them got lucky, taking a cab ride home for a little no-strings-attached kind of deal. That was their way… that was how they had fun.

  But once they passed the edge of the city and entered into the kind of stretch of land where cabs wouldn’t go, Carlie found that she was dependent on Jackie to get home. Cabs wouldn’t come out here, not even if they were paid triple the fare. That also meant that Carlie was stuck with her friend, win or lose. And every mile that they traveled away from the city her spirits began to sink lower for the possibilities of how this night could end.

  Going out and doing something wild and fun sounded like fun when Jackie talked about it, just like it always did. Jackie always pitched it as a chance to break up the monotony of their everyday lives. To do something that was so far out of their comfort zone that if they were to mail themselves postcards about it the cards wouldn’t arrive for another week. To live life on the very edge… experience mystery… danger… and the thrill of being surrounded by the kinds of characters that filled Jackie’s only requisite for sexual conquest.

  “I want to meet a guy that makes me damp in my panties just by looking at him,” Jackie said as they approached one of the dozens of dive bars that could be found along the highway of the greater L.A. area.

  Carlie looked at her friend with mild disgust up at the bar as they approached and her expression changed. As mild as the loathing was for her friend at this particular moment, her dislike for this place was tantamount.

  The bar didn’t look like a bar at all. It looked more like the kind of place in a movie where fights broke out constantly, and people were buried in shallow graves out in the back. Any second she expected to see a man – or a pair of them – come flying out the front windows of the place throwing beer bottles at each other or trying to pound each other’s lights out. At the very worst she expected to see another pair of men come crashing out the front doors locked in either some kind of a knife fight or a gun battle worthy of one of the old western movies.

  That’s fucking California for you… she thought as she took in the other details of the building.

  It was a simple one-story place. It was built out of cinderblocks and was a wide place, like it could have been some kind of a storage facility or something once upon a time. There were stained windows on the front, flanking either side of a metal double-door at which there was a line of people already waiting to get in. Through the windows, she could see the light flickering and the blurred shapes of silhouetted figures moving back and forth, the privacy of the place – at least from the outside – was assured.

  Oh, good, she thought as they drew closer. No one will see if we get murdered while we’re inside.

  The front was covered in graffiti from top to bottom and in the kind of street characters that she couldn’t read. Even from the outside, she could hear the beat of the loud music and the sound of laughter and high conversation. The smell of tobacco and engine exhaust permeated the air, and she felt sick to her stomach after only a few breaths.

  As bad as the place was, it didn’t hold a candle to the kinds of people that were standing in line, waiting for admittance. There were men and women in both, and both seemed to be divided into two distinct camps.

  Among them were the kinds of people she figured were the “normal” bikers. Those were bedecked in leather chaps, bandanas on their heads, dark sunglasses, beards, visible tattoos, and leather jackets that could have housed anything from knives to big bore pistols.

  Alternately, there were the collections of people that she knew to be the speed demons of this particular day in age. Most of them were younger, only one or two years removed from being kids really. Those were dressed in padded jackets and pants that sported the logo of bike races, or other faster-than-shit marketing. There were men and women there too, the women wearing figure-flattering pants or shirts. Roadies, she thought they were called… or something to that effect.

  Either way, it was a strange mixture of people. Bikers who preferred good old-fashioned muscle bikes mingling with those who liked speed and noise from theirs, it was an odd sight. Being from deep inside the city she had always thought that the two groups of people generally didn’t like each other. To see them here was like watching fire and oil slowly creep towards each other and waiting for the inevitable flare up that would consume them and everything else around them.

  There was a small assortment of other vehicles parked out in front of the place as well. The most dominant of the vehicles parked out front were, of course, the assortment heavy bikes; Harley’s… Sturgis… like that, which clearly belonged to the traditional bikers. On the other side, as if there were designated parking areas for them, there were Kawasaki’s… Hondas… Ducati’s… or ‘crotch rockets’ as she heard them referred to as. There were also a few pickup trucks and a few cars, including the car that she and Jackie had arrived in. but the former told her that this place was a gathering ground for bikers.

  Not the kind of place that we should be, she thought, kicking herself to agreeing to go out on another one of Jackie’s adventures. She said as much to her friend as they drew closer.

  “Oh, come on!” Jackie said, with a childlike whine. “Where’s your spine?”

  “Firmly lodged inside my back and that’s where I’d like to keep it,” Carlie said as she kicked a rock through the dirt of the parking lot. “To that end, we’re going back home… now.” She said resolutely, feeling determined to head back towards Jackie’s car, parked on the side of the road on the dirt shoulder where they’d left it.
The car was old and a little beat up and wouldn’t have stood out in a gathering of vehicles like this so they might still go unnoticed, but Carlie would have thought that the car was better than a stretch limo if only they could turn around and leave now.

  “Carlie,” Jackie said, reaching out and resting her hands firmly on her shoulders and keeping her from moving another inch. “Do you know what this place is?”

  Carlie looked over her friend’s shoulder at the bar behind her and then looked back to her friend. The cinderblock walls, tinted windows, a gathering of shady characters hadn’t changed. And a neon sign above the door that labeled the place as “The Open Road” shined brightly, but did nothing to tell her of any hidden or underlying meaning that she might have otherwise been missing.

  “Is this a trick question, because it looks like a convenient spot for murderers to hide?”

  “No,” Jackie said, squeezing her shoulders with mild irritation. “This place… I heard about it at work today,” she said excitedly, but softly. “It’s said that the Gods of Asphalt-like to spend some of their time here.”

  Carlie arched a curious eyebrow at her friend. Much of what came out of Jackie’s mouth was a mystery to her, but more than once a little edification was necessary. “And who are they, some kind of a Goth band or something? Is that what this place is? A roadhouse?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Jackie said, leaning forward and allowing her head to hang in the narrow space between them for a moment before looking up again. “How can you live in L.A. and not know this?” She tensed her fingers on her shoulders as if pressing the information into her body through her touch. “Carlie, the Gods of Asphalt… they’re a motorcycle gang! And I hear that a couple of them are really cute.”

  Carlie felt her heart quicken and the desire to leave intensified tenfold. But even that comingled with her desire to smack her good friend upside the head. She was as bad as a man sometimes, being very one-track minded. She might not have known what Jackie did about this place, but she knew that gangs were not typically people that she wanted to be around. That Jackie was a creature motivated by sex had never been a shock to her, but it was that very reason that got them into trouble more than a few times. She put her hands up on Jackie’s shoulders and squeezed intensely. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you say that. Because if you did, as your friend, I would feel obligated to knock you the fuck out and carry you back to your cheap car and go home and along the way we’ll forget that this whole idea of yours ever happened.”

  “Oh, come on!” Jackie said, that familiar whine in her voice reminding her of a pouty child. “Please!”

  “No!” Carlie said, tensing her shoulders. “You want to go to a women’s strip club and try and get one of the dancers into your panties… fine. You want to get dressed up like we’re rich and go to a gentleman’s social club to fuck a rich guy… fine. But bars where biker gangs congregate, and we could end up dead? Uh-uh, I’m drawing the line!” she said resolutely and turned back towards the car.

  “Carlie!” Jackie said, her pouty tone firmly intact.

  “Come on!” she repeated.

  “You know I have the keys to my car, right?”

  Carlie froze after two steps and shut her eyes with intense loathing for her friend at this particular moment. But that was nothing compared to the self-loathing that she had for herself. All of this could have been avoided if she’d simply said “No” to this night’s outing. She turned back to her friend.

  Jackie held up her ring of keys with a winning smile on her face that was, again, akin to a child’s: grinning like they were playing a game that she had already won. And just like she normal, Jackie pulled out the collar of her shirt and dropped the keys down between her breasts and gave each of them a suggestive push-up, hiding the bulk of the keys inside. And then turned to walk towards the line of people waiting outside the doors of the bar and the meaning in that was all too clear: if she wanted to leave, she would have to let Jackie have her fun.

  It was an old trick of hers. Carlie was a doctor by training. The human body didn’t bother her. But there was something particularly unnerving about having to feel around inside her friend’s cleavage for the car keys. It was a line that she hadn’t crossed.

  Yet, she thought to herself as she grumbled and followed Jackie inside.

  The interior of the bar was just about what she had predicted it would be once they got inside. They waited in line for ten minutes before a pair of large – but not entirely neutral looking – bouncers admitted them. All the while Carlie whispered into Jackie’s ear, “I hate you for this.”

  If Jackie was at all offended by her words she had given no sign of it, her attention being decidedly elsewhere. She just bounced on her heels excitedly as they finally got inside. All Carlie could do was think that her friend was playing Russian Roulette and that somehow the both of them would end up catching a bullet if they weren’t careful in a place like this.

  There were so many people crammed on the inside of the bar that she was amazed that there was room for people to move. And every activity seemed to require people from both camps to participate.

  There was a dance floor where bikers were crammed and moving to a melody that was hard to hear over the other noises. There were people at the pool tables, playing darts, or having some kind of a drinking game at one corner table or another. Some of them looked to be having hushed conversations while others looked positively overt about whatever it was that they were discussing. It all put a chill down Carlie’s back.

  She followed Jackie all the way up to the bar trying to stay as close to her friend as a remora on a shark’s back. She felt stupid even being here. It wasn’t the first time that Jackie’s pussy had led them into a place like this and Carlie considered getting her friend some therapy to try and cure her sex-driven adventures. While Jackie’s eye was wandering around for some piece of easy man-flesh, Carlie’s eye was warier and watching for potential threats.

  There were too many to count.

  They pushed their way all the way up to the bar and Carlie felt vulnerable for it. The bar was on the far side of the building, directly opposite from the door. It would be no small chore to get out in a hurry if it came to it. But with so many bad elements crowded into a place like this, Carlie felt as if Jackie’s overdeveloped sex drive had finally landed them in god’s blind spot.

  Jackie ordered them a couple of beers, though Carlie would have preferred something a tad stronger. Though to have something stronger might have dulled her senses a little more than she wanted and something about that felt like she was baiting herself for something nasty to come and eat her.

  She turned an eye to her friend. Where Jackie was slender and perky, Carlie was larger and buxom. Jackie’s skin was fair while Carlie was dark, but she took some comfort from the fact that the pair of them weren’t drawing any unwanted attention from the people around them. It was as if they were invisible to these people and Carlie found that nothing short of acceptable. But as soon as Jackie tried to let it show that she was in need of a little TLC, then that was going to change and quick.

  “Ooh, he looks good,” Jackie said, pointing out on particular biker sitting alone at a table near the dance floor. Carlie’s eyes followed Jackie’s finger, and she saw the focus of her friend’s attention.

  He was nothing special. A man of sandy blond hair with a gruff look about him, like a man that should have been on a pirate ship with a patch over his eye rather than a leather vest across his chest. But he had the kind of rugged manliness that Carlie knew Jackie favored in her men. The jacket he wore had the logo of some kind of a high-velocity race team, and there was no question in her mind as to which camp this man belonged to.

  “Does he make you damp in your panties?” Carlie asked.

  Jackie shook her head. “No… but I’ll have to get closer to be sure.” She took the beer that the bartender gave them and took a large swig before setting the bottle down. She gave her breasts one
final push upright and brushed her hair over her shoulders. “How do I look?”

  “Do you really want me to answer that?”

  Jackie smiled. “Keep your fingers crossed, sweetie. Mama’s going hunting.” With that, Jackie started off across the crowded room, leaving Carlie sitting alone at the bar.

  Carlie almost called out after her friend but thought better of it. Noise would only attract unwanted attention, and she preferred to remain as invisible as she could. She sighed and found an unoccupied stool and crawled up on it, taking her beer and drinking half of it in one go.

  “I take it that you don’t really care to be here?” asked a deep and brooding voice from behind her.

  She turned on her stool to see who had spoken.

  Her voice caught in her throat when she saw the owner of the voice. She didn’t know how to describe it to her satisfaction except to say that there was a god standing on the opposite side of the bar.

  At first, the sight of him barely registered in her mind. He seemed so out of place here it was like finding a clean spot in a slaughter house. This man that stood before her… he was captivating to look at. All of the noise from the bar simply seemed to fade away. There only seemed to be him and her standing here… it was as if they were completely alone. But as strange as it seemed she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him.

  He stood close to six feet tall... maybe a little more. His hair was short, nearly spiked and was light brown in color. His eyes were a deep gray, like the sky after a passing storm. His skin was fair but pleasantly darkened as if he spent a lot of time under the sun. His jaw was pointed with an adorable cleft in his chin. More pleasant than that was his figure. From what she could see he wore only leather riding pants and a leather vest. Underneath that vest his abs, chest, and arms were fully visible, and the muscles that were partially concealed under there were beautiful from any angle.

  “Excuse me?” she said, finding that her voice had seemed to falter in her throat.