by Violet Blaze
“Something's wrong,” Janae says, reaching up to touch my face. I bat her hand away—gently—but Dober growls anyway. “What is it?”
“It's bloody nothing,” I say blandly. “She's just late.”
“You're not getting cold feet are you?” Janae asks, sounding aghast at the idea. “Because goddamn it, Royal McBride, if you treat this woman any less than the way she deserves, I will personally kick your butt.”
My lip curls into a snarl, but still, I say nothing.
I just stand there with my heart beating against my rib cage, threatening to break the bones. I want it to, just so I can feel that sharp burn of physical pain, let it obliterate all of the emotional bullshit that I'm putting myself through right now.
I want to hit something. Or somebody.
I want to take my gun and hunt down the cartel singlehandedly, blow off the heads of a dozen more thugs. Two dozen of them. Maybe that'll make the world a slightly better place?
I run my hand over my face and try to breathe.
“Something's wrong,” Janae repeats, but I just shake my head and shrug my shoulders.
“She's just late.”
Dober and Janae exchange looks.
“Why don't you give her a call, see where she's at?” When I make absolutely zero move to do that, Janae moves back a few steps and slides her phone from her purse. I feel my heart clench as she looks through her contacts, presses a button and lifts it to her ear.
Whatever. Let her call. It won't matter. Lyric won't answer. She's probably already up the air right now.
My hands clench into fists as I fight back some romantic movie cliché urges about chasing her down at the airport, running inside and taking her in my arms as I beg her to stay with me forever.
Please.
My mouth twitches a little. Pint-Size would never go for that kind of crap, not in a million years. She's not some she-wolf to be wooed with pretty words; she's my alpha female.
“Hey honey, I was just wondering where you were at,” Janae starts. I stare at the back of her head, at her dark hair coiffed up into a bun. Must be leaving a message. I wonder what Lyric will think when she hears that? If she'll regret leaving. If she'll celebrate tonight, find a guy with hair the color of straw like that stupid Brent motherfucker and take him back to her hotel room …
Jealousy surges bright and hot in my veins, and I have to grit my teeth to keep from spinning and punching the stone column behind me. What'll she do with my sister's ring? Ah, that ring. I rub a hand down my face as I mourn its loss along with Lyric. It was the last piece of my sister I had left, but I never even thought to ask for it back. I wouldn't. When I gave that ring to Lyric, I gave her my heart and my soul. Even if I never see her again, they're hers to keep.
Janae hangs up the phone as I blink away the thoughts, trying to clear cobwebs from my mind as I realize my cigarette's already burned down to the filter. I flick it away and light another.
Janae is breathing hard and wringing her hands, pacing back and forth on the slick steps of the courthouse, her eyes scanning the horizon like she expects Lyric to appear around the corner at any moment.
“Don't mess this one up, Royal McBride,” Janae scolds again and I can't help but roll my eyes. Really, these people. So goddamn fickle, like my damn Gram. Can't make up their minds either way. First, I'm a bloody shagging wanker for bringing Lyric around. And now, I'm a bloody shagging wanker because they think there's the slightest possibility that I don't care for her anymore.
What a lot of rubbish.
“Screw off,” I growl and Dober gets stiff like he always does when I say something to his wife that he doesn't like.
“Don't make me kick your ass minutes before your own wedding.”
“Like you could,” I spit, knowing that I'm being a right arsehole and entirely unable to stop myself. I start to pace, back and forth, my boots scraping across the pavement. With each second that passes, Lyric gets farther and farther away from me.
I want to fucking kill something.
“Standing here,” Janae says with a sigh, turning to her left and looking down the road, past the church and towards the sea, “it's hard to believe that I almost didn't make it out of that parking lot.”
“Janae,” Dober says, his voice gruff and soft, both at the same time. He gives me an inky sideways look that says to step off and leave him be with his old lady, but I feel rooted to the spot.
“Something like that,” Janae continues, completely oblivious to the fact that she's messing with my head. “It makes you realize that the only thing in life that matters is love. Love for your siblings, your parents, your kids, your friends … your soul mate.”
“Good God, woman,” Dober barks, leaning back and lighting another cigarette like he doesn't give a rat's crap about his wife's words. Clearly, he does, but I'm obviously in the way. If we were back at the clubhouse, he'd probably drag her around the corner, push up that pretty pink dress of hers and fuck her. I've seen it happen before.
“Nothing else matters,” Janae says again with a small wistful sigh.
Jesus Christ.
“Ah, bugger it,” I snap, throwing my cigarette as hard as I can and starting down the courthouse steps towards my bike. I can't do this. I just fucking can't. I tried, but I'm a bloody weak rat bastard of a man, and I can't leave it like this. I'll go to the airport and if Lyric isn't there, then I'll fly to Washington, D.C. and find her.
“Where the hell do you think you're going?” Janae roars as she storms after me, grabbing onto my forearm as I swing my leg over my bike. Dober's hot on her heels. “If you leave this girl at the altar so to speak, I will dedicate my every waking hour to making sure you stew in a hot pot of hellfire.”
“Do you have any idea who you're fucking talking to?” I snap as I stand up straight, still straddling my bike and give her the meanest look I can muster. I'm not sure how effective it is since right now my blood is boiling with desperation, this frenzied need to get to Lyric as fast as I can.
“Yes. And that's why I'm telling you this, Royal. You love her. I can see that. And yes, at first I thought bringing the mayor's daughter into the club was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard in my life, but … hasn't she proven herself enough? She's more than good enough for this club, this life … and she's just exactly good enough for you.”
While I appreciate Janae's sentiment, she's holding me the bloody hell up.
“Please let go of my arm,” I growl, but Janae just steps in front of my bike instead and crosses her arms over her chest. “Dober,” I start, but really, what's he going to do? Forcefully drag his wife out of my way while we're standing in front of the courthouse? “Janae,” I start, switching tactics. “You don't understand what the hell is going on here. But if you move, maybe I'll consider explaining it to you later.”
“Don't do this to her, Royal,” Janae pleads, the romantic in her rearing its ridiculously sentimental head. Fuck. What a day for the perfect club wife to decide she's going to defy her husband's president. I admire the bollocks this woman's got, but Christ, couldn't she have had this revelation later?
“I'm not leaving her, Janae. I'm going to get her.”
“Get her? She's on her way here.”
“No,” I snap, gritting my teeth as I kick-start the engine on my bike and curl my fingers around the handlebars. “She's not. Now move your ass.”
I'm starting to get desperate at this point, sweat beading on my forehead, heart thumping so loud, I can barely hear the sound of my bike engine through the pound of my own pulse.
“She's not?” Janae asks, lifting her chin up and looking down at me in that way of hers that got her the title of Queen Bee on the compound. “How would you know that? Were you the one that just spoke to her on the phone?”
That gives me pause as I turn off the engine on my bike.
“You spoke with her?”
“Dear Jesus, Royal. I get that most men are nervous on their wedding day, but you're really losing it
. Maybe you should go inside and grab a cup of coffee real quick?”
The sound of a car splashing through the puddles behind me draws my attention because who the fuck would park their car that close to the bike of a man in an Alpha Wolves cut.
My heartbeat picks up speed and I think my hands are trembling, but I'll be damned if I let Dober see me like this. I lean back in my seat and pull out a cigarette, taking three tries to light it. Nice, Royal. Real fucking smooth.
“Oh, baby,” Janae squeals as she looks over my shoulder and smiles.
“I'm sorry I'm late.”
Lyric's voice races through me, cuts my heart in half and leaves me bleeding out inside as I stand up and swing my leg over my bike, turning slowly and … fucking hell.
I drop my cigarette into a dirty puddle on the sidewalk.
“Hello, Royal,” Lyric says as she stands there panting in a white wedding dress and the black leather riding boots I got her, a pair of heels held in her left hand.
“Pint-Size.” My voice sounds rough, pained, like I've just been shot in the fucking face.
“Um, Dober, honey, let's go grab some coffee, okay?”
I ignore his gruff mumbles, completely fixated on the woman standing in front of me, next to a fancy black sedan riddled with bullet holes.
Lyric stares back at me with her big green eyes, nibbling slightly at her lower lip and then smiling slowly.
“We're kind of … we're a little bit romantic cliché, Royal McBride. Don't you think?”
I just stand there like an asshole, torn between grabbing this woman in my arms and fucking her right here, right now and … yelling at her for being an idiot. What is she doing here? I don't want her here. I don't want to hold her back and tie her down, but I …
Lyric's heart-shaped face is painted with careful makeup, just enough glitter on her cheeks for a shine but not enough to hide her still healing scars. Her lids are colored with a reddish-brown shadow that makes her eyes look like fucking emeralds. And those lips … red and warm and begging to press up against mine.
She reaches up her right hand and self-consciously ruffles her hair.
“I tried to fix it, but it's too short to be put up properly, so I guess it is what it is.” Lyric clears her throat and drops her hand by her side, the white lace of her dress ruffling in the wind. It's so white against the drab gray and navy blue of the sky, sea and sidewalk. She looks like … well, fuck, I'm not good with metaphors. A snowflake? Like she fell from the sky untouched and beautiful as all hell.
Dark hair drifts across her face in the breeze as I examine the plunging neckline of the dress, the pale swells of her breasts, the elegant shape of her bare shoulders. The skirt's opaque until it hits her knees, then it's nothing but flimsy lace and the faint outline of black leather motorcycle boots.
This image of her burns itself into my brain, tears me completely apart and takes that bleeding heart right from my chest, rips it straight out of me.
I can't think, can't move, can't do a goddamn thing but stand there like the fucking fool that I am.
“Aren't you going to say anything?” she asks, taking a step forward and pausing again. “Royal?”
“You're supposed to be on a plane right now, as far away from this place as you can get.”
“Is that what you wanted?” Lyric asks coyly and I feel myself giving into the rage.
“Damn straight. Jesus, Pint-Size, we both knew that you leaving was the right choice.”
“Then what were you doing sitting on your bike like that, like you were about to tear out of here like a bat outta hell? You were coming to get me.”
“Like hell I was.”
“You were,” Lyric says and then takes a deep breath before repeating herself. “You were.” Her voice is breathless and sexy, sending heat rushing through my body. “Listen, Royal,” she starts, glancing away and then taking a step back to open her car door. Lyric tosses the heels inside and slams it closed, locking it and tucking her keys into her cleavage. Just watching her put her fingers there turns my cock into a solid rod of steel. “The thing is, this world is unfair. And it sucks. And you know, for a woman, it sucks ten times worse than it does for a man.” She holds her hand up like I might protest that fact. I don't. Why should I? It's true, and she's right. “So abandoning any chance of a career in politics to be with a man I've known for three and a half weeks doesn't make any sense. It's just the sort of bullshit you see in a movie or read in a book and wonder, how can that woman give up everything for a man like that? Don't women get shafted enough? Don't we always get the short end of the stick? But you know, then I realized that if I gave up D.C., and I gave up being a senator … I wasn't giving up what I wanted. Because that's not what I want.”
I stare at her, hands trembling at my sides, listening to her words and wondering how I got to be such a lucky bastard.
“I just … I want to be free, Royal. I want to make my own choices and do my own thing, and I don't want to play the politics game, dress up for parties and schmooze with people I don't like, pretend to be something I'm not just so I can get favors or make connections. I don't want to live that life.” Lyric inhales, long and slow and deep. “I don't want to live the club life either, playing a second-class citizen or acting like I believe men and women have separate roles they're supposed to play. That's not me either.” She glances over her shoulder at the sea for a moment and then turns back to look at me, sweeping strands of brunette from her face. “I guess I haven't decided exactly what freedom looks like to me, but the one thing that I do know is that … it won't mean half as much if you're not there to share it with me.”
There's a long quiet pause as my heart starts to beat faster—a feat I didn't imagine was even possible.
“Well? What do you think?” she asks, trying to smile at me. But I can see it, see her lower lip trembling slightly as she waits for some confirmation that I'm listening, that I've heard what she has to say.
“You …” I start and then falter. Wow, brilliant, Royal. You. Wonderful speech. “Pint-Size, whatever it is that you want, I'll find a way to get it for you. I just … all I give a fuck about anymore is you. Even the club is … it's just a star and you're the sun, love.”
Her smile spreads across her face, big and red and full and gorgeous.
“Look at you, like a real poet. I'm flattered.”
“Are you going to come over here or am I going to have to come and get you?”
“Since I'm the one that had to drive all the way back to your place to get this dress before rushing over here to confess my love to you, I think it's your turn. Come and get me, Royal McBride.”
My feet move across the ground in a blur, taking Lyric's small, curvy body in my arms as I dip my head low for a kiss to end all kisses. It's passion and need and lust and love all twisted up in the hot slide of tongues, the press of hungry mouths and the blur of my hands as they move down Lyric's back and cup her ass.
Without giving a crap if anyone's around to see us, I lift her into my arms and she wraps her legs around my waist, kissing me with feverish intent as we stumble around the corner of the building, into the dark copse of redwood trees that press up against the courthouse.
I press her back into the old stone of the building and slide my hands up and under her dress, suddenly desperate to see what sort of naughty panties she thought to wear on her wedding day.
“Where are your fucking knickers, Pint-Size?” I breathe as she continues to kiss my mouth and jaw, pausing for a small moment to laugh.
“In my boot,” she says as I look down at her face and raise an eyebrow. “I thought this might happen, so I … I'm saving them in my boot for the ceremony.”
“You've got to be … are you taking the piss with me, Pint-Size?”
“No,” she whispers, weaving her fingers together behind my neck. “Not at all.”
I reach down and unzip my pants, my cock throbbing and pulsing in my hand as I position myself at Lyric's opening and thrust i
nside her liquid heat, fucking her against the wall of the courthouse like it's our honeymoon instead of minutes before our wedding.
We grunt and moan together, moving with quick, sweaty intent, joining together in a way that makes me wonder why I give a fuck about a piece of paper from this stupid goddamn building. Right now, with the warm body of my woman in my arms, I know.
No matter what, we already belong to each other.
And nothing could ever change that.
Walking out from behind the courthouse to find Janae and Dober waiting for us is incredibly embarrassing, especially since there's nowhere for me to cleanup and the lacy panties I just put on are already soaked from both Royal and me.
“Boss, Jesus Christ,” Dober says, but he doesn't sound particularly pissed off as he takes in our rumpled clothes and shakes his head. “You're such a dumb shit.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Janae says as I fix my dress and consider going back to the car for my heels. But you know what? I'm marrying an outlaw biker today. So guess what? I'm wearing leather riding boots under my lacy, feminine designer dress. “Do you want me to fix your makeup?”
“No,” I state firmly, pressing my arm against Royal's tattooed one and looking over and up at him. When he smiles down at me, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. His warmth infuses my body, and I know I've never been more certain of anything. “I want to do this. Now.”
“I see,” Janae says with a smirk as Royal's smile turns into one of his famous grins.
“Look at you, Pint-Size. That eager to become Mrs. McBride then?”
“Actually, I was thinking I'd keep my own name.”
Royal roars with laughter, turning and lifting me up off the ground into his arms, squeezing me tight with bands of corded, tattooed muscle.
“You're such an ornery little shit,” he whispers, but there's a sense of awe and wonder in his voice, like he can hardly even believe we're about to walk inside the courthouse doors. I think we'd both thoroughly convinced ourselves that as a couple, we were never happening. Well, I'm here to prove that theory wrong today. “Okay, Ms. Rentz,” he says as he sets me down on my feet and captures my face in his big hands. “Should we do this then?”
