Naked Dirty Love

by Selene Chardou

  I sipped from a strong cup of French roast. “I don’t understand what’s going on with me at all, sweetie. You know me—I’ve wanted this for as long as I can remember, but he’s younger than me and so damn strong willed. We’re goin’ to fight a lot.”

  My best friend shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s what people in love do. Relationships take a lot of time, and a fuck load of effort, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I could never imagine Cillian not being in my life anymore. I fought for as long as I could but there comes a time when you can’t do it. You have to think about what’s best for you.”

  “Can I confess something to you and will you promise not to think I’m the world’s biggest idiot?” I questioned in a soft voice.

  Gisela laughed. “Honey, you can tell me whatever is on your mind and I would never judge you. Not like I have a right to, anyway. I slept with a married man for God’s sake. Cillian and I—when we got together, we had some tough times. He cheated on me by sleeping with his half-brother’s pregnant wife just to get back at him for fucking Brianna ages ago. I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination and I wouldn’t ever think any less of you. You’re my best friend for Christ’s sake.”

  I smiled ingratiatingly. “Yeah, I know but…I’ve wanted this for so long, I don’t know what to do now that I finally have the man of my dreams. Trey can’t be controlled and, truth be told, I don’t want him to let me have that kind of power. I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I couldn’t handle it if he were to just…send me on my way. I wouldn’t be able to stand it if he broke my heart.”

  “He won’t – he’s not that kind of person. My God, Kyra, he loves you. He’s been in love with you for so damn long, he had to have a porn star in his bed just to forget about you. He was willing to let you go because he didn’t think he could put you through that. I honestly don’t believe you have anything to fear—”

  My phone rang and I held up my hand as I answered it. “Yes?”

  “Ms. Eve Kerrigan is on the line for you,” the receptionist informed curtly.

  I turned toward Gisela. “Business call.”

  She stood from her seat. “You know where to find me. Don’t worry so much and, for once, put yourself out there. You can’t risk love if you’re not willing to give every part of yourself. Remember that.”

  I nodded, and watched as she left my office. “Put her through.”

  The line clicked and a husky, feminine voice inquired, “Have you found what I’ve been looking for?”

  I picked up my pen and twirled it in my fingers. “As a matter of fact, I have, Ms. Kerrigan. The person in question is anxious to talk to you but it has to be in L.A. That is where business will be taking him for the next couple days or so.”

  “That’s not a problem. I will have to speak to my superiors, secure a location, and I’ll call you back when the details are handled,” she replied quickly and efficiently. “There are…some complications.” I sighed softly and continued, “Business is turbulent right now where his connections are concerned. There might be collateral damage and I hope no one from his side is part of it, but I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Well, thank you for informing me but when I speak to him, that will be discussed along with other more pressing issues. I’m not exactly happy with the way certain people in his organization are conducting business. Neither are my superiors and they’re closing in. They have their eye on a certain business partner and if my son and his associates continue to fraternize with such people, I cannot stop the blowback.”

  My heart began to beat faster in my chest. “What exactly does that mean, Ms. Kerrigan?”

  She laughed, the sound brittle and abrasive. “You’re an intelligent young woman, Miss Hughes. I hope you’d be able to figure it out.”

  “Okay…what do I tell the party involved in the meantime?”

  “Tell him the meet has been arranged. I need our mutual party to be ready the day after tomorrow. No exceptions. Please let him know that. I’ll be in touch just to make sure everything has been handled accordingly.”

  I nodded though I knew she couldn’t see me. “I will make sure it’s done.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Hughes.” She paused before she said, “By the way, you’re requested at the meeting too. Please make arrangements to be there and, if possible, stay somewhere on the Westside, preferably Santa Monica or the Brentwood area. Everything that is said between our mutual acquaintance and I will need another set of ears besides the ones who are watching my every move. For collateral purposes, you understand?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Goodbye, Ms. Hughes.”

  The phone went dead and I hung up the receiver before unconsciously wrapping a hand around my throat and breathing deeply.

  I wouldn’t dare allow Trey to walk into any situation without knowing what was happening. It wouldn’t be wise to call him, especially if the Feds bugged my phone, and, at this point, I had no reason to believe it wasn’t.

  I stood and raced to Gisela’s office, not bothering to knock. She sat at her desk, her MacBook Pro open. My fingers went to my lips as I beckoned her closer to me.

  She knew the drill, better than I did. She had a digital clock radio with an iPod dock. “Say Something” played softly but she turned it up while I closed her door. My best friend stood and walked over to me.

  “What’s going on?” she whispered into my ear.

  “It’s the Feds. I don’t know if this has anything to do with Clooney or if it’s something bigger. They’ve bugged our phones and our offices. We have to speak to the guys before they leave for L.A. Something’s going down and…I can’t tell them everything but I can warn them.”

  Gisela nodded her head. “We leave now. I’ll drive us to the clubhouse. When we get there, we’ll talk to Cillian and Trey in private. They can tell everyone else what’s going on.”

  “How about I follow you? Depending upon how long this takes to sort out, I might go home afterwards.”

  “Okay but remember, keep up!”

  She walked to her desk, turned down the music, grabbed her keys and, moments later, we’d left the law office in our respective vehicles, heading from Lake Tahoe to Birch Tree.

  “Goddamn it! How the fuck did the Feds find out?” Cillian shouted before banging his fists against the oak table we all sat around, in the same room they used for chapel.

  “Where’s Dizzy?” Gisela asked in a calm voice.

  “Not here.” He glared at her before his crystal blue eyes settled on me. “He had a meeting with the big wigs—Raymond Jackson, Angelo Abandonato, and Jonesy Hughes. None of them want the cartel moving in here so they’re gonna handle that issue. What I want to know is how the two of you were tipped off at all?”

  “It’s attorney-client privilege,” I replied. “All I can tell you is the Feds are aware of the meeting because they’re watching the cartel. If they decide to move in, everyone goes down, and they can start to investigate the clubs using RICO. The only piece of the puzzle they need is to catch you conducting business with Aztecas Infierno.”

  Trey remained silent the whole time, his eyes occasionally softening toward me but he had nothing to be nervous about. I’d never drag him into this mess, or give his new club a reason not to trust him.

  “Can we move the meeting ahead of schedule?” Trey asked his VP.

  Cillian shook his head. “Those fookers are goin’ down. I don’t wanna be anywhere near the fallout.”

  Gisela walked closer and gripped his shoulders with strong hands. “What are you going to do? Your dad wanted this last shipment—”

  “I’ll handle my Da. In the meantime, as soon as we get down there, we speak to Hardy and Ronan. It might be a good time to leave the coke market once and for all. The Koslakov family has two major connections we can use—it’s time to discuss other options. Runnin’ Aztecas Infierno’s product has become hazardous to our health.”

  I stared at my best friend though she turned Cillian
around to face her. “Dizzy won’t go for it and you know it. Heroin is too high profile and the kind of women you want to import will cost more than drugs ever did! You’ll destroy the club, babe.”

  “It’s not that simple anymore. With the Feds closing in on us, we have no choice,” Trey said in a dead voice, belying all emotion.

  All the sudden, everything clicked into place for me. My father had expressed on odd occasions how the Saints would be a much different club with Killer at the helm and now, I began to understand what he meant.

  “Are you talking about human trafficking?” I wondered aloud before I could stop the words from leaving my mouth.

  Cillian’s cold blue eyes barely acknowledged my presence. “You’re here as one of the club’s legal advisors, Miss Hughes, and nothing else. If any of what you have heard today leaves this room, I will do everything in my power to see you’re disbarred. You work for us, not the other way around. And because you get paid handsomely for quelling your ‘bleeding heart’ conscience, don’t presume to tell me about the degrees of criminality and moral logistics of it.”

  I slammed my hands on the dark oak table. “Use all the different colloquialisms you want, Cillian, but it all boils down to human trafficking. We are talking about the wholesale of women into slavery!”

  “Yeah, babe, we are.” Trey walked over to me and held my hands in his own. “What? Do you think running guns are any better? People die because we allow illegal weapons to flood the streets. Drugs? They murder people everyday. What makes human trafficking any worse? You think it’s only poor white girls who are enslaved? There are literally millions of people—children included—in forced servitude right now but unless they have doe eyes and white skin, no one gives a fuck. So take that fuckin’ high horse of yours and stow it right the fuck now. They’re a commodity, and a damn good source to make money like anything else illegal we’ve done.”

  I shook my head. “As your legal counsel, I have to advise you against doing this for so many reasons. Cillian, you have a daughter, how could you even consider doin’ this? Do you know the kind of heat this would bring if everything goes to hell in a hand basket? You’re talking about the involvement of the CIA, Interpol and ICE—Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

  “With all due respect, Kyra, it’s out of line for us to intervene in club business,” Gisela responded in a calm voice. “It’s their club, and they make the rules, remember?”

  “Is that all you have to add to this conversation?” I smirked. “Of course you’re going to go along with this hackneyed scheme—it was your fiancé who thought of it in the first place.”

  My best friend flushed, her cheeks turning pink. “No, I don’t agree with what Cillian wants to do, but it’s not my place to disagree either. That’s saved for chapel and his brothers to squabble over. My father employs women for the enjoyment of men—I’m hardly in a position to argue the morality over the issue.”

  “With all due respect, your father pays his women! They aren’t sex slaves, Gisela.”

  “Semantics aside, selling pussy is selling pussy.” Trey leveled cold hazel-green eyes at me. “You’ve just lost this argument, Kyra. Give it up.”

  I wanted to shut the fuck up and walk away but that wasn’t an option. Talking about this subject in particular was taking me down a road I had no inclination to dig deeper into.

  None of these men were good or nice or worked on the right side of the law and I knew how much of a hypocrite I sounded like. If I was honest with myself, I didn’t even care about human trafficking—not really. I knew it sounded cold and callous but I’d grown up around violence my whole life and I knew what men were capable of doing.

  My fear came from Trey being involved but it wasn’t my call to make. Hell, this wasn’t my club either but if we continued down the road we’d chosen to take, it would be soon. No woman could be loyal to two different clubs and if my father didn’t force my hand, Trey would.

  I couldn’t win for losing.

  I breathed deeply and reeled my Welsh temper the fuck in. I didn’t have any other choice.

  My eyes stared from Trey to Cillian before I looked down at the table. “Gentlemen, I don’t know what came over me. My business associate is correct - we’re not here to judge, only to act as counsel. Whatever decisions you make in regards to your club is only our business once the law discovers what sort of…machinations you’re involved with. For your sake—and ours—I truly hope they don’t find out about this. If you’ll excuse me, I will be heading back to the office. Gisela, can you finish up here and keep me abreast of the situation?”

  She nodded her head. “Take all the time you need, sweetheart.”

  My neutral expression dropped the moment I stood, turned around and left the chapel, closing the doors behind me.

  Tears threatened to spill, but I’d would be damned if I would allow anyone to see me cry. I walked to my vehicle, a red late-model Range Rover, and leaned against the front door before I began to sob quietly.

  I never thought I’d ever be able to change Trey and, even if I could, I didn’t want to, but everything became so overwhelming. I felt too much for him; loved too deeply for him. He could break my heart like snapping a fucking a twig off a tree.

  The feeling of abandonment swelled in my chest until my heart physically ached and it was hard to breathe. My whole body twisted from within, turned inside out until I was raw with emotion. I wasn’t strong enough for this, and I wouldn’t do this to myself, not when I didn’t know how he felt about me.

  A gentle hand clutched my shoulder and squeezed before I turned around and collapsed in his warm embrace. I continued to sob but he didn’t need to know why. Let him think I was crying about impoverished women who’d be forced into servitude, whether the Saints decided to dabble in human trafficking or not. Hell, let him think it was my time of the month or I was just being hormonal. Anything but the real reason why I was crying like a baby—over him and whether the possibility of us working out as a couple existed at all.

  “Babe, I know this is tough for you,” Trey murmured and pulled me closer. “This isn’t a picnic for me either. You think I enjoy deceivin’ my brothers about what’s goin’ on? I fuckin’ hate it ’cause all this shit could come back to bite me on the ass. I gotta know you’re the one person standin’ in my corner when everything goes down. Please don’t tell me I’m alone in this.”

  I pulled away and looked into his gorgeous eyes. “No, I would never abandon you. You’re not an assignment or someone I have to deliver to her, Trey. Do you think I want anything to happen to you? I don’t want to have to worry about you the way Gisela did when she was goin’ through Cillian’s trial. I could handle it, it’s my job, but God knows I don’t want that to be me anymore than I want the person I’m defending to be you. Don’t you get it?”

  “Yeah, I do. You gotta know I’m gonna stick by my brothers though. They go down—we all go down. I don’t want any of this more than you do but when you have a FUBAR situation like we’re facin’, what choice do I have? Huh? You tell me.”

  I shook my head and wiped my tears away savagely. “I can’t tell you what to do, Trey. You already know that.”

  “Let me take you home and help make you feel better, all right? We leave in about four hours. I know it’s not everything but you’re comin’ with us—so is Gisela. We already talked about it and if the situation goes to shit, we’ll need ya there to handle the situation, you got that?”

  I nodded before I glanced into his eyes. “Take me home, sweetie.”

  He smiled before he kissed my forehead. “You got it, babe.”

  We didn’t have much time but that is exactly why everything felt right.

  The moment Trey got me back to his place—it was closer—he walked me backward through the hallway as we kissed passionately. I couldn’t get enough of him no matter how hard I tried. Slowly, his lips started kissing my jaw and further down my neck as he removed the suit coat I wore and tore my blouse open, re
vealing a ruby-red lace bra.

  He stepped back, looking me up and down with hungry eyes. “This better be part of a set.”

  I couldn’t help my laugh. “Yes, it is. But you’ll have to discover what kind of undergarment this matches for yourself.”

  “Come on.” He grabbed my hands and walked me to the master bedroom.

  Like the rest of the house, the room was neat and clean but the moment I saw the bed, I hesitated. “That’s not…”

  “My parents’ bed? Hell no. I took over their bedroom but donated the furniture to Goodwill. I bought new stuff.”

  “Why do you want to move to Serenity Village? This house is absolutely gorgeous, sweetie. It’s the perfect place to have a family.” I looked around at his tasteful décor and realized there was so much more to the man than a biker with an attitude.

  He kissed my shoulder lightly. “Too many memories…even if most of them are a lie.”

  I shed the leather cut from his body, followed by a flannel shirt before he stopped me from removing anything else. “What’s the matter?”

  “You’ll have plenty of time in the future to do what you want to me but right now…this is about you.” Trey’s arms wrapped around my waist possessively and pulled me closer to him. “We don’t have a lot of time. I enjoyed you last night but it wasn’t enough. I’m takin’ what I can get and what I want right now is you.”

  The warmth of his touch against me stilled my breath as I slid my arms around his neck and surrendered when he claimed my mouth again. Our tongues, locked together in a slow burn, coupled with his fingers running up and down my back, drove me further over the edge.

  He unzipped my skirt and the soft fabric fell to the floor. As I backed toward the bed, our kisses grew urgent and hungrier by the second. I needed him to take me as the heat that surged between my legs spread into an all-encompassing fire that warmed my belly and had me panting into Trey’s mouth.