Taking Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy Book 1)

by Wild, Nikki

  We must have rode for the better part of an hour before we finally pulled to a stop near a park. Hunter killed the engine and climbed off, helping me back down from his metallic steed.

  “A park?” I chirped up, my gaze wandering. “I didn’t know Los Angeles had much in the way of parks…”

  “I’ve been here a couple of times, usually at night,” Hunter remarked warmly. “Before the police raid that shattered the Dragons, I had to come this way two or three times to meet with the club to meet with Talon. Happened to come across this place, and it’s stuck with me since. I made sure it was still around while we were doing our little investigation, here in town.”

  Hunter took my hand in his, and we began to stroll. Even at night, this place was beautiful. As I glanced over the trees and the winding lake around us, I reflected on this handsome man that walked beside me, and all that we had been through in our lives.

  We were practically our first everything.

  This beautiful, powerful man had always taken care of me, to the best of his ability. And he had been damn good at it, especially when we were young lovers against my sheriff father, against those who were jealous of our undying love, against the world…

  Fate had intervened to tear us apart, and we had gone for almost a decade thinking that we’d never see each other until the day we died. But then it had transpired to bring us back together again…

  “It’s beautiful here,” I told him, pulling closer. The streetlights and the surrounding city only made this gorgeous little respite from the urban life pop brighter. A younger couple walked past and smiled cheerily at us, clearly enjoying the beauty as much as we were.

  “Yeah, it sure as hell is,” he whispered. “But it’s nothing compared to you, Princess.”

  “You sly charmer,” I chuckled, but my cheeks warmed with the compliment all the same.

  “Listen, Sarah,” he whispered, kissing my forehead tenderly. “It tore me apart when you left last time, especially after finally having you back…”

  “I know it did,” I nodded sadly, resting my head on his shoulder for the moment. “It broke my heart to do it too, but it had to be done…”

  “I know. I get it, just like I did a few months ago,” Hunter acknowledged sadly. “But these last few weeks have put things into perspective for me. I can’t let you be in danger again, and I think it’ll kill me if you just walk out that door again…”

  I lifted my head from his shoulder and watched him as he continued to speak, turning to meet my gaze.

  “You told me that you want me to continue leading the Devil’s Dragons. You said that you want me to stay in charge, no matter the danger, doing my best to make our world better for the sake of our child… are you sure that you mean that?

  “I can walk away right now… Grizz won’t be happy, but he’ll understand. He can lead this club without me, taking it in better directions…”

  “I meant it,” I answered calmly. “I want you to run your club. You’re good at it. You haven’t let them down yet. And you know that things need to change to keep them alive and prosperous.”

  He nodded solemnly, accepting my answer. “Okay. But you have to realize, Sarah… if I do this… I just can’t do it without you anymore.”

  I looked at him sideways as he dropped down to his knee. With a quick and graceful motion, the little black box he pulled from his jacket pocket flashed a beautiful little rock on a stunning engagement ring…

  “Holy shit, Hunter,” I gasped in amazement.

  The passing couple, discreet as they were trying to be, had noticed the scene and stopped a little way down. They were pretending to watch the twinkle on the water instead of the biker who was suddenly proposing to me in this wonderful place he’d brought me to…

  “Told you before, Princess,” he grinned back up at me from his knee. “All sorts of funny things a kidnapping can do, sort of like proving what’s really important…”

  “You were always a hopeless romantic,” I laughed cheerily, noticing with awe how the bright neon lights of the city danced off of the water surrounding us.

  “Some things never change,” he chuckled.

  I took the ring from the box, nodding with tears in my eyes as I placed the wet jewelry around my finger. While our nearby guests cheered us on, I was overwhelmed with how beautiful it looked on me.

  My heart swelled with love and adoration.

  I glanced down at my darling and replied:

  “Some things change for the better.”

  Epilogue

  Hunter

  Six Months Later

  I gazed across the sea of babies in the newborn infirmary, watching their tiny, slumbering forms. Sarah was asleep in her hospital bed, dozing off the aftermath of a long and, at times, excruciating birth.

  Wonder which one is mine.

  The elderly nurse in the room answered the question for me, taking a small, sleeping infant from its bed and curling it up in its blanket.

  I watched her walk around to the door and up the corridor before she carefully handed me my son.

  “Congratulations, Dad,” she smiled. “Connor looks happy and healthy.”

  Connor…

  I’d let Sarah pick the name, although she picked a good one for our child. While I held him close and watched him sleepily push a finger into his tiny mouth, I felt the warmth of paternity overcome me.

  The name suits you, kid.

  “Are the rest of them with you?”

  “Oh yeah,” I chuckled, glancing towards the waiting room doors. “Those are my other boys.”

  The nurse pulled her lips into a grimace. “Coming up here in all that black leather, scaring everybody. Darn near gave some of us old ladies a heart attack!”

  “Don’t you worry,” I grinned knowingly at her. “I’ll get them out of your hair soon enough.” My eyes filtered down to my newborn son in my arms. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go pull a Lion King moment…”

  Holding Connor to my chest, I backed up through the doors and crossed the waiting room towards the Devil’s Dragons.

  The nurse had been right – they were earning a lot of funny looks for our dress code. My men proudly wore their black leathers and jeans while taking up a quarter of the chairs by themselves.

  The Devil’s Dragons had accepted Sarah in with open arms, especially after seeing the way she’d handled herself in the field in Juarez and in California.

  I was pretty happy to realize that she was still a complete badass. Pregnant or not. Even my fireball of a bartender back in El Paso had started treating her with respect, especially when they heard that she’d shot a legendary arms dealer and lived.

  Grizz was the first one to notice me, and patted the men on either side on the shoulders. Within seconds, the entire club was glancing over and ascending to greet me.

  “Boss, is that–”

  “I told you it’d be a boy–”

  “Takes after his old man–”

  “What a tiny little thing–”

  I proudly held my child up before them all.

  A wide smile beamed across my face as they began to hoot and holler, startling the other waiting parties and causing the gang of nurses to look over at us, all flustered.

  “Club, meet your newest member… Connor Hargreaves, heir to the Devil’s Dragons!”

  Don’t stop here. Book 3 of the Saved by the Bad Boy series (TAMING GRIZZ) is available right now! Click here to read Taming Grizz, just 99 cents or FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

  Taming Grizz (Book 3 of the Saved by the Bad Boy Series)

  And don’t be afraid to come back, because this ebook still has a few bonus surprises in store if you turn the page! Up next is Running Game, one of my hottest novels ever.

  You are the reason I write.

  -nikki xoxoxo

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  Novels by Nikki Wild

  Bad Boy Sports

  Play Dirty (A Bad Boy Football Romance)

  Running Game (A Bad Boy Football Romance)

  Bad Boy Fighters:

  Knockout (A Bad Boy MMA Romance)

  Bad Boy Bikers:

  Saving Landon (A Bad Boy Biker Romance)

  Saved by the Bad Boy (A Devil’s Dragons Biker Romance)

  Pride and Pregnancy (A Devil’s Dragons Motorcycle Club Romance)

  Roughneck (A Bad Boy Motorcycle Club Romance)

  Rough Rider (Outlaw Kings Motorcycle Club)

  British Bad Boys:

  Royal Prick (A Bad Boy British Romance)

  Arrogant Brit (A Bad Boy British Sports Romance)

  Rock Hard (A Bad Boy British Rockstar Romance)

  Played (A Bad Boy British Romance)

  Bad Boy Rockstars:

  Illicit Behavior (A Bad Boy Rockstar Romance)

  Rock Hard (A Bad Boy British Rockstar Romance)

  Bad Boy Stepbrothers:

  Lust (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)

  Richard (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)

  Bad Boy Billionaires:

  Protect And Serve (A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance)

  Pretend Married (A Sexy Billionaire Romance)

  Part II

  Bonus Book #3: RUNNING GAME

  A Bad Boy Football Romance!

  By Nikki Wild

  Copyright 2016 Nikki Wild

  All Rights Reserved

  Find me at my website:

  WWW.WILDNIKKI.COM

  Or friend me on Facebook!

  http://www.facebook.com/wildnikki

  Prologue

  Maisey

  One backpack.

  Everything I owned fit inside one small, pink backpack. I’d slowly given away everything else during the last two weeks. It wasn’t that I wanted to travel lightly. It was that I didn’t want any reminders of this place once I was gone.

  I took one long last look around the room I’d spent the better part of the last twelve years in. My eyes raked over the threadbare blanket littered with little faded green flowers, the stained carpet, the old, ratty, yellowed lace curtains that were hanging there long before I’d ever arrived to this hell-hole.

  I sniffed the air, the stench of old cigarettes, stale beer, and piss-stained floors etched so deeply into my nostrils, I knew it would take months for it to go away.

  Away. I smiled at the thought of what ‘away’ meant to me now. Anywhere away from here was going to be good enough for me. I grabbed the backpack, threw it over my shoulder, and walked out of that room as fast as my feet would carry me.

  I was leaving a week earlier than planned.

  I was missing the prom tonight. I’d miss graduation next week, too. But those were just silly ceremonies designed to make confused, aimless kids feel like they’d accomplished something.

  But I knew better. I knew the real accomplishments lie ahead. Not just for me, but for all of Highland High’s Class of 2005. We lived in the tiny, crumbling town of Ault, Colorado. There were exactly 274 students in the entire school, and we made up a little more than a tenth of the 2000 or so residents in the whole town.

  So, to say that accomplishing anything of note inside this town was difficult was an understatement. Ault stood for ‘A Unique Little Town’, but the only thing that was really unique about it was that it might just be the worst of all the similar little towns scattered across Colorado.

  There was nothing for me here and there never would be.

  I’d been planning to leave since I was ten years old. My eighteenth birthday was last week and I was keeping the promise I’d made to myself.

  At the last minute, I’d been suckered into staying for the stupid prom and graduation. That was just a momentary lapse of judgement, and now that I’d regained my senses, I was sure beyond a doubt that leaving and leaving fast was the only way out of the mess I’d dug myself into.

  I walked out into the musty living room, staring down at Clyde. He’d been my foster father for the last twelve years. I’d arrived in Ault when I was barely six years old - taken in by him and his wife Claire who’d succumbed to breast cancer just three years after I’d arrived.

  Clyde descended into a dark circle of booze and depression after Claire’s death and he never came up for air. I raised myself, more or less.

  This morning, just like every morning, he was passed out cold on the worn and dirty couch, wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing for two weeks. It would probably take him at least that long to figure out I was actually gone… Unless the beer in the fridge ran out first.

  I didn’t bother telling anyone I was leaving. There was nobody to say goodbye to. Nobody that mattered, anyway. There was one person who had somehow found his way into my heart, but that didn’t matter anymore.

  My life had been put on hold before it ever began but now it was time for me to push the fast forward button to my future.

  I walked over to the kitchen counter and began scrawling a note to Clyde.

  “Clyde,

  I’m gone. You can find your truck at the Ft. Collins train station. It’s been real.

  Take care,

  ~Maisey”

  Quickly, I made two tuna sandwiches and wrapped them in saran wrap. I opened the fridge and placed the note on top of a six-pack of Miller Light and put one of the sandwiches on top of it and placed the other one inside my backpack.

  I zipped it up and carried it out into the bright Colorado sunshine. A beautiful blue sky stretched out over the boring brown horizon, the only view I’d ever really known. Dead brown grass surrounded the dirty white trailer we lived in, extending out past our backyard and into a rodent infested field that was littered with old cars and illegally dumped trash.

  I couldn’t believe the time had finally come. I’d spent years imagining this day, planning for it, saving for it. And now it was here.

  I couldn’t help but smile with pride, even if my plan had run into a few wrinkles along the way. I’d drifted off the path for a minute, but I was back on track now.

  Leaving early was the right decision. I knew it without a doubt. Sure, I was petrified. I’d be alone, with nobody to depend on, nobody to call for backup, and I have no idea how everything is going to work out.

  But I’d always been alone. I was good at being alone.

  And anything I could encounter out there has to be better than what I’m leaving behind.

  I lifted my chin, took a deep breath, and jumped in Clyde’s rusty old truck. It started up right away, instead of sputtering and coughing like it usually did. I took that as a good sign and pointed it in the direction of Ft. Collins, which was about twenty miles down the road.

  My heart began pounding as the reality of my situation washed over me. Streams of cars passed by on the main drag out of town full of formally dressed teenagers with teased hair and painted faces. They were on their way to the Highland High Senior Prom.

  I swallowed hard as I thought about the one thing I had left behind.

  The one possession I hadn’t had time to give away in my rush to leave.

  My beautiful prom dress.

  It was stunning. All white, with a flowing, breezy sheer skirt and silver trim around the e
dges of the sweetheart neckline. It was the prettiest thing I’d ever owned. But now, it hung all alone in the closet of my old bedroom - unworn - with the tag still attached. As much as I needed the money, I couldn’t bring myself to return it, even if I’d had the time.

  But I had no use for it now. Just like I had no use for this place, or anyone who lived here.

  All of that was over now. My life here was over.

  My stomach fluttered as I reached the edge of town, the roads and trees and houses and everything else that I’d ever known, quickly disappearing in the rearview mirror.

  I wasn’t sure what my future held, but it had to be better than that view.

  JESSE ‘COLORADO’ COLLINS

  TEN YEARS LATER

  The faint sound of a camera shutter woke me up. After I realized that it wasn’t a part of my dream, I cracked open an eyelid, ignoring the throbbing pain in my head. A cell phone was inches from my face and I groaned, pushing it away.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I growled, rolling over.

  “You’re so adorable when you sleep, Jesse,” she replied. It took me a minute, but the events of last night came rushing back. I clicked through my mental rolodex, trying to remember who I’d been partying with the night before.

  Brandy. That’s who that voice, and the phone, belonged to. She was the head cheerleader for the Denver Mustangs and like every other cheerleader, she had the cookie-cutter body that wouldn’t quit to go along with her perfect face and flowing, blonde hair. The cheerleaders all looked alike. Shit, most of them sounded alike with their singsongy voices and air-head attitudes. They even fucked alike.