by Violet Blaze
Still, I don't stop as his mouth takes over mine, tongues sliding together as I lift my hands up and curl them in his dark hair, pull it hard enough that he groans against me, adjusts his body so he's laying mostly between my legs.
“This is stupid,” I tell him as he licks my lower lip, moves his mouth along my jaw, down to my throat. Royal's teeth scrape against my skin as I buck my hips into his hand and he adds a third finger, pulling pleasure straight from my brain and down my spine, into my core where it feels like I'm breaking into pieces. “We'll never work. It won't work.”
“Have some faith, Pint-Size,” he growls as he slides his fingers away and a whimper escapes my throat. My hands come down and help him undo the button on his jeans, slide his zipper out of the way. “Have some fucking faith,” Royal grunts as he finds my opening with his cock and pushes in, making me see stars speckled across the vaulted ceiling above us. His right hand pushes my thigh up while his body works against the pink lace of my panties.
Beneath us, the table shakes as we writhe together with wild, frantic movements, the push and pull of our bodies eliminating the need for words—or maybe just the capability of them. I feel my lids flicker as my back arches off the table and my hands slide down Royal's shoulders, my fingers curling into his muscles. The sight of him up there, moving like that … it's intoxicating. I can't think, can barely breathe as our pelvises meet in hard, desperate thrusts.
We're having a conversation with our bodies, but right now, I'm not exactly sure what that conversation is.
“Fucking faith,” Royal grinds out again as he moves inside of me, my heart slamming into my rib cage, my stomach still twisted into knots. He groans as he leans down and kisses the side of my throat, nibbles at the sensitive flesh, shoots goose bumps down my spine. When his mouth comes back to mine, frantic and needy, I take him in, raise my hips and feel a thrill as he shudders and groans, coming hard and deep inside of me.
When Royal lowers his body down to mine, his arms are slick with sweat and he feels heavy and hot, a comforting press of skin to skin in all the right places. For a few quiet moments, we breathe together, and then he's up again and pushing my knees back, lowering his face to the pink lace between my thighs with a smirk.
Royal's tongue takes up right where he left off.
This is stupid, I think as the pleasure starts to cloud my brain again. And it isn't going to work.
But then he does this really fantastic thing with his tongue that has me biting my lip and digging my fingers into his hair. I blame that for the subsequent scramble of my thoughts and the sudden desperate need I feel to make this work.
Our relationship, it doesn't make sense.
But I want to try it anyway.
I really, really do.
I'm smoking a cigarette on the back porch when Lyric comes out, opening the sliding glass door and padding up to stand next to me. Her arms are crossed over her chest and the brunette waves of her hair tumble around the shoulders of her borrowed t-shirt.
I'm bloody terrified of her. Really, I am. This … whatever it is that I'm fucking feeling for her, it's not something I've ever felt before. Things in my life used to make sense. The club first, my brothers first. Always. When I look at Lyric, it feels like my priorities are shifting right before my eyes. Some girls, they like the whole brotherhood thing, the feeling of belonging, the idea that they mean less to their man than his bike does. But I don't think Lyric's like that—and I know I'm not.
I scrub a hand over my face and then pull my cigarette from my lips, ashing it in the barbecue at my right. I don't look at her, just keep staring across the yard at the fence, deep in thought.
Mile Wide.
Brent Gilman.
Sully Rentz.
Landon and Rebecca White.
I'm staring at a sea of puzzle pieces, and it's my job to push them into place, figure out what's going on here.
“We haven't been using condoms,” Lyric states in her best take-no-shit voice. “Let's talk about that.”
I turn my head slowly to look at her. She's so goddamn tiny. But it's like she didn't get shortchanged on anything, like all that good stuff and that fire and that spunk that makes Lyric up got crammed into the smallest possible package, giving her more punch per ounce than anyone I've ever met.
I really am an idiot.
I take a drag on my cigarette and look back towards the fence. I try not to smile, but it unfolds across my face anyway.
“It's hard to think about that kind of thing with you wearing pink crotchless panties and all.”
“Hilarious,” she says as she scoots a little closer, puts her arm up against mine. The casual contact sends goose bumps springing up on my arms as I continue to smoke my cigarette and pretend I really am as big and bad as I'd like to think. Heh. I'm a motherfucking certified grade A dumb shit. “Are you trying to avoid the subject, Mr. McBride?”
“Are we talking about babies or herpes?” I ask with a grin as her face pales and she takes a step back. Those green eyes look me up and down with a flick of lashes as Lyric narrows her gaze and lifts up a finger to point at my chest.
“You better be joking about both items on that list.” She pokes me in the pec, and I reach up to capture her wrist in my fingers. I can't seem to stop touching her. It's bloody constant. “Royal.”
“I'm clean, love,” I tell her as I toss my cigarette in the barbecue and turn to take Lyric in my arms. We're both barefoot, our toes touching as I look down at her face while she scrutinizes me, tries to put me in one of her little boxes, file me away with a label and force everything to be all neat and tidy.
Well, she's got a big wake-up call coming because life isn't neat at all. It's fucking messy and twisted and confusing. It's hypocritical, and it never ends right, and it makes no sense. There are plot holes and villains who don't get theirs, good people that suffer and wrongs that never add up to rights.
“You can't know that for sure without a full STI panel,” she begins, and I cut her off with another kiss, one that quite literally curls those perfect little toes of hers. She still smells like wildflowers and honey, but there's this other scent on her skin now, something familiar that takes me a moment to recognize.
Me.
She smells like me.
I breathe her in and then stand up straight, digging another fag from of my pocket. It's easier to think when I'm smoking.
“I guess not, but I don't make a habit of shagging without rubbers, love.” I pause as I light up and she runs some fingers through her hair. “And babies … well, I can't really do anything about that now, can I?”
“You're not taking this very seriously,” she tells me, pulling at the hem of her borrowed t-shirt. It does nothing for her. I can still see that perfect ass cupped in pink lace, her cheeks peeking out from beneath the black fabric. I clench my smoke in tight fingers. “Considering we met a week ago,” she mumbles under her breath.
“See, you're all caught up in that. A week. Who cares how long it's been? You like me or not, Pint-Size? Stop trying to map everything out.”
“You're a real dickhead, you know that?” she says, but there's no heat to it. I watch as she tilts her face back and looks up at the stars. It's a clear night for once, no sign of fog rolling in off the bay. I study the pale curve of Lyric's throat, the way her fingers lift up and brush lightly across her skin. “Why would Mile Wide want to kill Brent? Isn't offing an FBI agent a pretty terrible idea?”
“Well,” I start, but I'm not sure how far to go with this. Every man is different, but club business is club business. Still, in a man's home, he can tell his wife whatever the fuck he wants. Some guys like to keep everything to themselves and others feel the need to vent to their old ladies. Lyric … I have no clue how to handle this. It's all new territory for me, too. “I don't know. That's what I'm aiming to find out.”
“I'm still pissed about Sully,” she tells me, but she sounds a little relieved, too, like she realizes he could've ended up like F
BI Douche. “But I understand why you did it.” A pause, a glance. “Did you … I smelled blood on your shirt that night you stopped by my place …”
“It was his,” I tell her. I'm not about to lie to this woman. I might not tell her everything, but I won't pull the wool over her eyes either. “I beat your brother with a hammer.” Lyric cringes and shakes her head like she doesn't want to hear what I have to say anymore.
“Holy crap, Royal.” She pauses again, and I watch as she swallows hard, gearing up to ask me another question. “Did you … really … did you kill your old VP?”
There's a long stretch of silence, the sound of the waves not so distant behind us, crashing against the rocks, foaming and frothing and licking at shore.
“He didn't give me a choice,” I tell her, and that's God's honest truth right there. The boys found Landon before I did, brought me in. I tried to talk to him, and he tried to shoot me. That was it. And Rebecca was in on all of it. Now, two of my prospects are dead and she's missing. Fan-fucking-tastic. “Landon was my best mate,” I say as I let my cigarette turn to ash on the wind. “If I could've saved him, I would've.” I glance over at Lyric, trying to read her facial expression. It's tight and locked up, not ready to be opened.
“Does the club know about me?” she asks instead, glancing over at my face. “I mean, about us. This.”
“Some of them,” I say, thinking of Dober and Smoky and Glacier. They were waiting outside my bedroom door yesterday while I professed my … bloody hell, what do I call it, love? Is it love? Oh, who the hell cares? “I haven't made it official, but I will.”
I flick my cigarette into the grass as Lyric heaves a deep breath, like she's getting ready to run a marathon.
“You know,” she adds softly, the wind teasing her hair around her face as she turns back and opens the sliding glass door again. “There's still a pile of pesto, pasta and broken glass on the floor in here. I don't know how things work with the other ladies in the club, but I don't scrub up other people's messes.”
Lyric smiles tightly at me as I turn towards her, slinging my thumbs under the waistband of my sweats.
“You're gonna be a real handful, aren't you?”
“You have no idea,” Lyric says as she slips inside and pauses with a palm on the glass. “I hope you're ready for this.”
“When's your pretty little photo shoot with the mayor?” Dober asks as he lifts a beer to his lips and pretends he doesn't notice me fidgeting with my phone. I'm waiting for a call from Glacier. A fucking important call.
That guy, the asshole that stole my truck and my woman, he's hanging out with the MC's enforcer right now, probably in a world of pain, wishing he were dead.
I almost feel sorry for the bloody bastard.
“Stop fidgeting around and have a fucking beer, for Christ's sake. You're making me nervous.”
I slam the phone down on the bar top and look my new vice president over, from his thick brown beard to the black dragon tattoo on his left arm. He's not happy with me, not at all. The unspoken words in the air between us are filled with Lyric's name. Wasting club time and resources on the mayor's uppity little daughter isn't going to sit well with anyone. He knows it; I know it.
“Photo shoot's on Friday,” I say as I tap my fingers against the bar and try to decide which of these assholes looks the least threatening. We need Trinidad to see us as an asset, an indispensable part of the local economy. It wasn't even a decade ago that the city was picketing outside the compound, turning customers away from the garage and the showroom. It was impossible to maneuver with the cops breathing down our necks and the FBI threatening RICO charges against the previous president. Thankfully, we're past all that, but I'm from a new generation and I do things bloody differently.
Like dating the mayor's daughter.
I curl my fingers around my beer and lift it to my lips, my eyes scanning the room, taking in the few lone figures sprawled on couches and chairs, drinks in hand, watching the TV in the corner or playing pool on the black surface of the table to my right.
“I want Mug and Jack with me, and whoever's the most popular with the women in the garage. Nobody's afraid of fucking gingers, and Jack has that unthreatening old grandpa vibe.” I set my beer down and slide a pack of fags from my pocket. “If I could get away with it, I'd slap Glacier on there, too, just for shits and giggles. You think his psychopathic tendencies would translate digitally?”
“Hell if I know,” Dober chuckles as he shakes his head. “He's pretty to look at, I guess. The ladies seem to like him, but putting him in a photo for the world to see … I don't think I'd take the risk on that one, Pres.”
I give him a tight-lipped grin and light up, flipping my phone around in the opposite hand. I spent last night nailing Lyric into my mattress, tucking her sweaty body up against mine, breathing in the scent of her hair. Even as I'm standing here embroiled in club business, she's not far from my mind. Now that I've let myself think it for even a second, considered having her as my own, I can't stop. Because why not, right? Why the fuck not? Dober's wife, Janae, runs a fucking Sunday school class for Christ's sake.
“We'll be taking over the cleanup for Redwood Highway starting this week. Get some hang-arounds on that, and let's figure out a security detail for Lyric Rentz. I want eyes on her twenty-four seven.”
Dober scoffs and I pause, giving him the look that got me this job in the first place, the one that says absolutely do not fucking fuck with me. I've already told him about Lyric and me, but I think he's still praying I'll change my mind.
“This isn't going to go over well, you know that, right? Particularly with the other women.”
“You think I give a shit about that?” I snap, dropping my cigarette to the floor and crushing it out with my boot. “They'll get over it.”
“You can't bring someone into the club who's tied up in politics, Royal.”
“Let me worry about that,” I say as my phone finally rings and I get a chill down my spine. Yep. Guess Glacier's special talents really do translate over space and time. Fuck. I look Dober in his brown eyes and point at him with my mobile. “Just get it done; when it comes to Lyric, I've already decided to make her mine and nobody's going to change my mind about that.”
Glacier's grinning when I meet him outside the clubhouse, his blond hair twisted and mussed, damp. Probably just showered to get all that blood off. I turn my brain off and smoke another cigarette. It's quite likely I'll end up with lung cancer in the near future, but right now, I've got bigger problems.
“Give me a summarization,” I say before he starts off on one of his stories. And trust me—you definitely don't want to hear any of Glacier's tales. They'll haunt your fucking nightmares.
“Aw, come on boss, you sure you don't want all the little details?” he asks, blue eyes shimmering as he runs the fingers of his tattooed right hand down his left arm, the knuckles spelling out BURY in bold, black script. I always thought of it as a natural adaptation, like a brightly colored snake advertising its venom.
“Not particularly,” I say as I blow out a puff of gray smoke towards his face and wait for the other shoe to drop. Because it just has to. Nothing is ever easy, and I know when life gives, it also takes. Might have actually found something meaningful with Lyric, so I figure I'm due for a serious shit storm. “Just tell me it's all cleaned up, and give me the rundown.”
Glacier climbs off his bike and cricks his neck from side to side as he glances up at the gray clouds above the compound. There's a storm rolling in. It's electric in the air; I can feel it.
“Consider our problem dead and buried,” he says with a chuckle as he ruffles his hair with his fingers. “He was a fighter, that one.” I grit my teeth and narrow my eyes. Glacier challenges me for a moment before looking away, like two wolves in a stare down. If he was any less loyal, I'd have killed him already. He really is scary as hell. “Anyway, I think I've got what we were looking for.” The suddenly sober note in his voice turns my insides. Jesus, L
andon, what did you get us all into? “Mile Wide's looking to expand their business, and they've got their eye on Trinidad. They've already got the I-5 under their belt, and if they pass through here and snatch up the rest of the 101, they'll have sole access to every major city on the West Coast north of San Francisco.”
“I see,” I say as Glacier falls into step beside me and we start moving down the road towards the cliffs, the distant murmur of the ocean. “That's what this shit is all about? A turf war?”
“Our friend didn't have much to say about Landon except to confirm that he was working with Clayton. Couldn't get him to tell me why.” Glacier tucks his hands into his front pockets and pulls out a stick of gum. The asshole always smells like mint, never smokes, like he's not the worst human being that ever lived. “He kept telling me to call Clayton, gave me his cell number and everything. It's all up here,” Glacier tells me, tapping at his temple with a dirty fingernail. Pretty sure that's dried blood under there. “Anyway, they only came up here to try and kill you. If you'd been in that truck instead of Miss Deputy Mayor, they would've capped your ass right then and there.”
Glacier shrugs his shoulders at me and then flicks his tongue out to play with one of his lip rings.
“And the agreement with the mayor? Tell me why Clayton gave two fucks about that.”
“The more embroiled we are with the city, the harder it is to get rid of us. We make friends with the citizens, become a part of this community, and getting rid of the Wolves becomes almost impossible. If I were you, I'd be real nervous about the next few weeks.”
We pause at the fence that borders the edge of the cliff, and I curl my fingers into the mesh to keep myself from punching something.
