by Violet Blaze
“I wanted to see the dogs,” she tells me, turning to stare into my eyes. Her gaze is dead serious. I think she really means that. “And anyway, you have a better kitchen.” A long pause. “And a better bed.”
“Oh, Pint-Size, you slay me,” I murmur, leaning close and getting a face full of wolf tongue instead. I push Lake gently off the bench and slide close, but Lyric stands up, turning to stare down at me with a very businesslike expression on her small face.
“We have a lot to talk about, Royal,” she tells me and I sigh, running a hand down my face. I've been talking all damn day. Last thing I want to do right now is fucking talk. But she's right. “I stopped at the store and bought stuff for chicken fettuccine alfredo. I want to cook together.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Getting all domestic on me, Pint-Size?”
“I said cook together. Like equals. Like adults. Like—”
“Partners?” I ask as I stand up and the dogs start to twine around our legs, tails wagging furiously. I lift up a hand to brush back some of Lyric's brunette hair. It was straight and sleek and shiny this morning. Now, it's starting to wave gently around her face. Sure paints a pretty picture against the dying sunset and the navy waves. “Did you pack some clothes?”
Lyric rolls her green eyes at me.
“Do you ever stop?” she asks, but I'm already smirking.
“Not until I get what I want. I warned you, love. I'm all in. And I don't take no for an answer.”
“Well then, that's something we're going to have to work on.” I laugh. Can't help myself.
“Does that mean you're in?” I ask her as I drop my hands to her hips and she sucks in a deep breath. “Because that's what I'm hearing.”
“You have selective hearing then,” she quips, pushing my hands away and moving towards the front door. “Like a wolf.” Lyric pauses and narrows her eyes at me. “Like a dog.”
I grin and follow her into the house, my eyes glued to that curvy little body beneath the jumpsuit. As we walk past the hallway, I can't help but remember undressing her here, dropping her leather riding jacket to the floor. My cock hardens in response and I groan, reaching a hand down to rub at the bulge in my jeans.
“Johnnie Walker?” Lyric asks as she pulls a bottle from a paper bag, and I can't help it; I laugh again. “Yeah, sure. Make fun of me. But with all the crap that's gone down this week, I need more than just a glass of wine.”
“Same here, love. Pour me a big one.” I try to make myself smile, but it's not really a joke. The meeting at the clubhouse was tense, and the boys … they didn't take the news well. A group like the Saldaña Cartel is a hell of a lot more difficult to get rid of than another MC from down south. In fact, there's a good chance I might have to call up some of our boys from the other US chapters of the Alpha Wolves. There are seven of us in total: Anchorage, Alaska; Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; St. Louis, Missouri; Columbus, Ohio; Billings, Montana; and of course, Trinidad, California.
Lyric pours us both healthy glasses of whisky before passing one over to me. I find myself enjoying watching her move around the kitchen, opening cabinets, testing drawers as she looks for and finds a cast iron skillet and a spatula.
“I told the boys everything I learned from the FBI,” I start as Lyric tips her drink back and I watch that delicate throat as she swallows. “Agent Shelley told me that they've been aware of Brent's involvement with the cartel for a long time now. From what I can tell, they're convinced that it's all tied together: his death, Landon's disappearance, the beating I gave Sully.” I pause and stare down at the glass in my hand for a moment. “What they can't figure out is how the Alpha Wolves tie in.” I meet Lyric's gaze head-on. “It's fucking vital now that we get Sully to cooperate. His story could change the entire narrative for us. We need to let the FBI know that we're the good guys here.” Lyric raises her brows at me. “Well, at least give them the impression that we're nothing but your friendly neighborhood pot dealers. We need to redirect their focus. Pit the cartel and the FBI against each other.”
“Why do you think he did it?” Lyric asks me as she pulls out a block of cream cheese and some parmesan from a reusable grocery bag. “Landon, I mean. Your VP. Why would he join up with a cartel?”
I look away as pain crashes over me. Fuck. I don't have an answer to that question and it's killing me inside. My best friend, my brother, he betrayed us all and I can't for the life of me figure out why. There's an idea, hidden deep down, that I don't want to acknowledge. I want to believe that there's some twisted, complicated reason for Rebecca and Landon's betrayal, some sinister plot. But the thing that I fear most, that haunts my dreams at night, is that it's simple. Too simple.
“I …” There's a long pause as I struggle to make myself say what I've been refusing to think about this whole time. Now that I know where Mile Wide is getting their money from, that they've been paying off anyone and everyone to get their way, I have a guess. It's a sick, fucked-up disgusting guess, but there it is. The easiest answer is usually the simplest, right? “Money.”
I slug back my drink and try not to choke.
Money.
I think my brother betrayed me for money.
Lyric doesn't say anything for a long moment, letting me revel in my despair in peace.
“I found the name of that nurse: Clint Woodrow. He lives a few blocks away from my sister actually. He's been working at the hospital since he got his nursing degree, but he called in sick today.” I nod my head and glance up at Lyric as she passes over a piece of paper to me. Our fingers brush, sending a hot wave of fire through my body. Fuuuuuck. I want to throw her over the counter and screw her until she comes all over me. “If he hasn't skipped town, I'd be shocked.”
“Oh, you'd be surprised,” I say with a slight smile I don't really feel. “Idiots will be idiots.” Lyric sets her glass aside as I stare down at the page in my hand. Well, I'll be damned. It's a photo of our good friend, Mr. Woodrow. Perfect. If the man's still around, we'll find him. “Good work, Pint-Size,” I say as I slide the picture across the counter and lean in towards her. “You're a right proper outlaw now, aren't you?”
She gives me a small smile, but it doesn't quite reach those gorgeous eyes of her. No, she's holding something back. I stand up straight and watch as she fishes out the rest of the ingredients for our dinner. Not that I'm complaining about having a girl this beautiful at my place, but … it'd be nice to take her out sometime, do the whole romance bit. But I can only do that if she decides she wants this, if she decides to go all in with me. Then, if the town gossips, they can go fuck themselves.
Unconsciously, I find myself squeezing my hands into fists. I've never wanted anything as badly as I want this, and I knew better than to let it get to this point. But it's done, and I'm falling for this girl hard and fast.
I rake my fingers through my hair.
“Alright, spill it,” I growl at her, because I can see distrust lingering behind Lyric's eyes and I don't like it. Her sudden exhale gets the hair rising on the back of my neck as I watch her aggressively tear into a box of dried fettuccine. Wish she'd told me her plan first because I know how to make the good stuff—from scratch. That's right, one-percenter with a pasta maker and damn proud of it.
“That talk I had with Glinda today,” she starts, and I clench my teeth. Fuck. I knew it, just fucking knew it. Of course that bloody bitch said something she shouldn't have. When Lyric glances my way, her expression is tinged with some of that anger I saw at the clubhouse when I brought up her job. “It was a little more … revealing than I would've liked.”
“Yeah? And how's that?” I ask, leaning against the wall of floor to ceiling cabinets behind me.
“Well, she, uh, pretty purposefully let something slip.” Lyric drags the shopping bags off the counter and starts to wad them up one by one, her actions more forceful than necessary. “Something about the barbecue.”
I raise my brows at that.
“Alright then, and?
Out with it now.” Lyric flicks a frustrated glare in my direction as I beckon with tattooed fingers for her to continue. “I'm not much for suspense, Pint-Size.”
“Glinda was just curious about whether or not I'd say yes tomorrow.” It takes me a long, hard second to figure that one out. Ah shit. “You know, when you proposed?”
“Listen, Pint-Size …”
Lyric bends down and digs in the cabinet for a stainless steel pot, slamming it down on the countertop and making me grit my teeth.
“You really asked your buddies permission to marry me? Brought it up in a boardroom like it was some kind of business decision? Real classy, Royal. What every girl dreams of.”
“That's not at all how it was,” I snarl, but she's not done and she's sure as shit not afraid of me. I love it; it turns me on.
“Did you vote on it, too?” she snaps, running her fingers through her short hair and ripping open the package of cream cheese.
“No, because if we had, you would've lost. Sorry, Pint-Size, but you're a liability to them, not an asset.”
“Exactly,” she says, throwing her hands up and spinning to face me. “I'm a liability. An extra. Some inferior creature whose place is in the kitchen, on the back of a bike, a supporting role. I'll never be anything more than your wife.”
“And that would be a fate worse than death, would it?” I growl, my temper getting hot, shooting thrills of excitement into my cock. My heart and my head might be frustrated with the situation, but my dick … eh, he kind of likes it. “Love is precious, Pint-Size. It's rare. It's fucking fleeting. When you find it, you embrace it.”
“If you'd waited until tomorrow to ask me, put all that pressure on me in front of your friends, you know what I would've said?”
“Enlighten me, sweetheart,” I say, and I know I sound condescending, but I can't help it. We're both angry right now. I take a step towards Lyric, my boots squeaking against the floor, my eyes tracing the pale lines of her shoulders, that deep V neckline, the soft curves of her breasts.
“I would've said no,” she snaps, getting up close to me, a full fourteen inches shorter but wildly fierce. I feel my pulse start to race and my body respond to her nearness. Jesus Christ. I never thought I'd get so turned on at being turned down.
“And I told you,” I snap back at her, my fingers gliding up the outside of her arms. My touch leaves a trail of goose bumps, and I grin. “That I don't ever take no for an answer.”
I slip my hand into the pocket of my cut and draw out an intricate gold ring. It's got no box, and it's old as fuck, but it belonged to the sister I never talk about. Just putting my fingers around the metal makes my teeth clench tight against the memories. I figure if I repurpose them, if I slip this ring on Lyric's finger, all of that bad shit will fade behind the glare of happy memories.
Or maybe I'm just full of crap.
I snatch Lyric's hand in mine and she gasps, letting me pull our bodies together with those green eyes shining, those full lips parted in anticipation of pleasure. She might not like what I have to say, or what being together might mean, but she sure as hell seems to like this.
Without a word, I slip the gold ring down the finger on her left hand. It's a little big, so it'll have to be resized, but it's close enough. My sister was little; Pint-Size is even smaller.
That sharp gaze of hers drifts to the ring, to her left hand cradled in mine, wrapped in fingers covered with roses and vines, dotted with thorns. Lyric's fingertips are so soft, pressed tight against my calloused ones. I think I can even feel her heartbeat through them where they meet up with mine.
“Royal,” she says, her voice a warning, the cloud of sex and want and need in her eyes dimming a little. “I can't do this. It's too much. It's too fast.” When Lyric tries to pull away, I let go of her hand and grab her hips, spinning us both around until it's her back pressed tight to the cabinets.
“Maybe I made a mistake mentioning it to the boys, but what's done is done. If you tell me no now, this,” I gesture between us with my ringed hand, “this is over, Pint-Size. And I really, really don't want it to end. I'm sorry it has to be this way, sorry that I am who I am. Never in my life have I regretted my involvement with the club.” I let go of a sad smile. “Not until I met you. But if we don't make this official, you're nothing but a loose end to them.”
Lyric's full chest rises with a gaping breath as she lifts the ring to her face and examines it. It's some relic from the 1890's that my sister inherited from my mum who got it from her mum, and so and so forth. If she hadn't died, she'd probably still be wearing it to this day. I watch carefully, quietly as Lyric examines the yellow gold band, the opal-shaped ruby in the center, the ten seed pearls that surround it. The damn thing was never supposed to be mine, but here it is.
“It was my sister's,” I admit, and I realize this is the first time I've spoken about her in ten fucking years. When I joined the club, I joined a new family and left the pain of my old one behind. My poor dead Gram, my mum, my sister. All gone. And now Landon along with them.
I exhale sharply and close my eyes, realizing that I've been holding a lot of rubbish in for a long fucking time. I think it's finally starting to get to me. And that's just one of the reasons that I know I'm ready for this. Holding all of this in is killing me, and I have nobody to talk to. I want that. And I want that person to be the bloody mayor's daughter.
“She killed herself in our flat. That's why we moved to the States. My mum just wanted to get as far away from there as she could.”
Lyric clears her throat, but my eyes are still closed, so I can't see the expression on her face.
“I'm sorry, Royal,” she says, but the words don't sound as automatic as I think she wants them to be. No, they're laced with emotion. Dripping with it maybe. When I open my eyes, I can see her gazing up at me with a curious expression on that heart-shaped little face of hers. “If you don't mind my asking …”
“Haven't the faintest,” I admit. “My mother kept the suicide note from me, and my grandmother never talked about it. That's about all the family I ever had, and they're all dead. I imagine I won't ever know.” I run my tongue across my lower lip as Lyric drops her hand to her side and closes her own eyes, taking her own calming breaths. I stay right where I am, leaning over her and breathing against the top of her head, but I can only take so much and eventually I have to step away.
I turn back to the counter and grab the loaf of French bread she brought home, cutting it in half and frowning at the pre-made garlic butter spread on the counter. With a curl of my lip, I shove the damn thing aside and grab a stick of butter, some parmesan cheese, parsley, and pressed garlic. A little salt and pepper and there's a spread that's ten times better than that store bought shite.
I pull a knife from the drawer, spin it around my fingers and start buttering the bread.
“Impressive,” Lyric says as she steps up next to me and slides the chicken breasts across the counter. I watch from the corner of my eye as she adds some olive oil into the cast iron skillet and then salts and peppers the meat. Once that's on the heat, she adds butter to another pan and starts to melt it down with a little pressed garlic she steals from the unused pile in front of me. “I'm obsessed with imitating Olive Garden recipes,” she tells me with a small, forced smile. She's nervous, frustrated, confused. But she doesn't take off the ring. “This is my best guess at how they make that goddamn alfredo sauce.”
She adds some parmesan and stirs the sauce gently with a wooden spoon. It's obvious Lyric's no expert in the kitchen, but she moves like she knows what she's doing, adding each ingredient with confidence, keeping her shoulders back and her chin up.
“What you said to my dad,” she continues when I refuse to break the silence. I'm still waiting for an answer here, a solution to our problem. I figure if there's anybody that could come up with a clever trick to solve all our issues, it'd be her. “Did you mean that? About me being the liaison for the club? How will your brothers respond to that?”
/>
I shrug my shoulders and turn to face her, leaning back against the counter and crossing my arms over my chest. Now it's Lyric's turn to watch me from the corner of her eye.
“My old lady's the mayor's daughter, so it only makes sense she'd be the one to handle him. If anybody can keep that uptight twat in line, it'd be you.” I almost smile, but it falls flat, and I end up sliding my hand over my face instead. “You need to get him—and Sully—onboard before this gets out of hand.”
“Isn't it, already?” Lyric asks, but she's not looking at me, pouring some milk into the pan with a steady hand and then moving over to flip the chicken. When she bends down to put the bread in the oven, I check out her ass. Can't help myself. “He'll do it. Trust me, it's in his best interest if he does. As soon as he hears about the Saldaña Cartel, he'll roll over. If there's anything Sully truly loves, it's himself. Waiting around to be picked off by fugitives isn't really his style.” A pause as Lyric washes her hands at the sink and grabs a dish towel to dry them, leaning a hip against the countertop. “But none of that solves this,” she lifts up her left hand with the ring facing out and grimaces, “does it?”
“Ball's in your court, Pint-Size,” I say as I slide a pack of cigs from my pocket and slip one between my lips. Before I can head outside to light it, Lyric's tearing the smoke from my mouth and tossing it into the sink.
“Why the .. FUCK did you do this?” she snaps, her breath coming in sharp bursts. “Get me all twisted up like this? I knew better than to get involved with you.” Lyric pokes me in the chest and I capture her hand with my own, drawing her to me. “If I say no to your stupid proposal, you lose face with the club; I become a liability. Everything goes to hell in a handbasket. If I say yes … I lose my chances of becoming something.” A sob catches in her throat, tears at my chest in the worst fucking way.
