Kicked: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (81 page)

“Royal,” Lyric begins, sensing my hesitation and trying to pull her wrists from my grip. But when I look at her, holy hell, it's like I'm a man possessed. I push the head of my cock against her opening and slide into her, inch by achingly painful inch.

When she winces, I pause.

“Too big for you, baby?” I ask, a small smirk curling my lips.

“No,” she grunts, her lashes fluttering as her back arches, pushing her hips towards me, taking me until I'm damn near balls deep. “I got kneed in the vagina, remember?”

If she wasn't wrapped around me, her pussy tight and throbbing against my shaft, I'd probably laugh at that. But for whatever fucked up reason, hearing her say the word
vagina
casual as can be when we're pelvis to pelvis like this, it turns my desire up a notch.

“Then I'm not holding back,” I warn, my voice dropping down into dangerous territory, the way it does when I have to shut off my emotions just to keep going. But this time, it's like I'm overwhelmed by them, drowning in lust and sex and desire. This girl's as bad as any high I've ever had; I can only hope the comedown isn't a bitch.

“Don't,” she whispers, her eyes focused on the ceiling and not on my face. Something about that pisses me off and I release her wrists, grabbing her chin and tilting her gaze towards me until our eyes lock. Then and only then do I begin to move, the mattress creaking beneath us as I thrust into her, her small heart-shaped face clutched in my tattooed fingers, her green eyes wide and moist as I slam my hips against hers hard, harder, fucking hardest.

“So tight, Lyric,” I growl, letting go of her face and putting my hands on either one of her knees, pushing her legs open, giving me deeper access. She cringes a little when my fingers brush across her still bleeding wounds, but I don't stop. A little bit of red never hurt anyone, right? If it did then I'd be quite rightly screwed. I'm swimming in blood, drenched in it. “You are so fucking tight.”

She bites her lower lip and slides her hands up her body to squeeze and caress her own breasts. The sight un-fucking-does me, and I groan as I pick up my pace, balls slapping hard against her ass as that wicked beast of pleasure curls in my body and unfurls with a growl. I collapse against her and come so hard it knocks the air right out of me. Before I can even catch it, she's sitting up and shoving me back with a palm to the chest.

The movement catches me off guard enough that I lose my balance on the edge of the mattress and stumble back, just barely managing to stay on my feet.

“What the hell, Pint-Size?” I ask as Lyric stands up and yanks her skirt back into place. “We're not finished here yet.”

“Says who?” she asks me, trying to sweep past me and out the door. I slam my palm against the wood and it clicks back into place at the same moment I grab her wrist and spin her around, putting her back to the wall next to the desk.

“Says me,” I snap, dropping my mouth to hers, thrusting my tongue between her teeth and drinking in the taste of her. “I don't usually let the pretty birds fly away without a souvenir to remember me by.” Before she can comment on that, I kiss her hard and fast, my right hand grabbing the fabric of her skirt and yanking it up to her hips. Lyric struggles a little bit, but she's still kissing me back and when my fingers dive into her slick wetness, she groans into my mouth.

Thumb on her clit, two inside her tight pussy, I work her body until she's thrashing against my grip on her wrists, biting my lower lip as her back arches and a rush of wet heat soaks my fingers in the wake of her orgasm.

When I finally let go of her, I'm grinning from ear to ear.

She takes one, long look at me and then slaps me across the face.

CHAPTER SEVEN
Lyric

I'm not exactly sure
why
I slapped Royal in the face. Maybe it was because he gave me my first orgasm in two years? I know, it's sad, but good sex doesn't always have to come with an orgasm. Great sex … well, wow, I don't actually think I've ever had great sex.

Until today.

I lift my wineglass to my lips and take a drink, pretending that I'm still listening to my father drone on about his new campaign promises. My mother watches and smiles politely, frustrated that her birthday dinner's turned into just another campaigning platform but too uptight to say anything about it.

“What the hell happened to you in there?” Kailey whispers for what has to be the hundredth time since I appeared frazzled and disheveled at the front door of the clubhouse. She's not an idiot; I know she knows. But she'd rather needle and pick at me until I give the answer she wants.

Across the table, my big brother glares at me, his mouth downturned, his green eyes staring straight into mine. He doesn't like the story I fed him about falling down my front steps. It's a lame story, even I know that, but I was so frazzled from my encounter with Royal that my mind felt like a pan of scrambled eggs. I couldn't come up with anything else.

“You can tell me anything, you know that, right?” Kailey asks, playing the sympathetic big sister card. I'm not falling for it. If I flat-out admit to having sex with Royal, she won't let me live it down. In fact, she'd probably save that secret for my future husband and surprise him with the revelation on our wedding day. She doesn't mean to be like that, but with our Mom and Dad for parents, it was kind of inevitable.

“How are things going with the Alpha Wolves?” my dad asks, pausing in his self-important rant long enough to gaze across the table at me, a fork in one hand and a smile on his lips. His hair is dark and perfect, not a hint of gray or white to be seen. I think he dyes it, but if I ever asked, he'd deny it.

I set my wineglass down and lift my napkin to my lips, dabbing at a pretend drop of liquid.

Well, Dad, I fucked the sexy British president of the MC in one of the club dorm rooms today. That was nice. Oh, but right before that, I got in a fight with one of his … groupies. I think I held my own in the fight though.

“Royal McBride is a difficult man to pin down,” I say with a self-deprecating smile. “He blew off our last meeting, but we have another scheduled for Friday. I have our proposals written up and ready to go; all he needs to do is sign them and we can schedule the photo op.”

My dad's gotten it into his head that a picture of his staff with a few choice members of the Alpha Wolves would make a great front page piece for the paper.

Local Government Takes Down Organized Crime Ring With Careful Bureaucracy.

Oh God. The day that Royal lets the press print something like that is the day that pigs fly. I don't even know the guy, but one look at him and I knew that he wasn't about to roll over for the mayor's office.

My dad nods briskly, dismissing me just like that. It should hurt that he doesn't care more, that he doesn't want to know more about me and what I do, but I've long since outgrown that. If it doesn't involve work or parties or what the neighbors think, then Philip Rentz isn't interested.

“Wonderful. You keep working your charm on those bikers, Lyric, and get the job done.”

“I always do,” I say, but my stomach's dropping faster than a stone in water. I have a meeting with Royal on Friday. And I just had sex with him. If I close my eyes, I can still feel his fingers on my chin, his body buried deep inside of mine. The whole encounter's a bit of a blur if I'm being honest with myself, but the feelings are there, the scorch of his flesh across mine. I feel like I've been burned.

A waiter sets a plate of food in front of me, but I'm not hungry.

Not for steak and salad and a twice baked potato.

I'm hungry for Royal McBride, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do about that.

My house is dark when I get home, the only one on the block without a porch light on. It burned out weeks ago, but I've been too busy with work to bother with it.

After Toni left the office and moved back to Eureka, I was left with a mess of paperwork to sort through and a puzzle to try and figure out. How, exactly, does the mayor's office get an outlaw biker club to agree to anything? Money helps, but they already have plenty of that. Grabbing them a get out of jail free card from the feds? Helping them avoid a RICO—Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations—case … priceless. A lot of big words, sure, but it all comes down to one thing: that RICO acronym there, it lets the government charge and convict the
leaders
in a criminal organization, whether or not they're actually the ones who got their hands dirty. Money laundering, obstruction of justice, even murder.

I never would've had that carrot to dangle if I hadn't done what I did.

Philip Rentz doesn't care about the feds, doesn't have any political ambitions past the mayoral elections.

But I do.

A chill travels down my spine as I open my driver's side door and climb out, scanning the street around me for a moment before I slam it closed behind me. A quick push on my key fob locks the doors of my black Chrysler, and I head towards the front steps, pausing when I feel a little tickle on the back of my neck.

When I glance over my shoulder, there's no one behind me, but the feeling of being watched doesn't go away, not when I put my key in the lock, step inside and close it just as quickly.

I flick the deadbolt and the chain back into place and peek out the purple curtains that line my front window, but there's nothing and nobody there. I'm just being paranoid.

With a sigh, I toss my purse onto the coffee table behind me, running my hands down the front of my plain black dress, the one I always wear out with my family. Well, okay, so I have four or five different versions of it in my closet, but they're all so similar, they might as well be the same dress.

I looked so ridiculous in Kailey's dress. Hell, even calling it a dress is being generous. There was hardly any fabric there.

But Royal made me feel … not quite so silly in it.

He made me feel sexy as hell.

I slump down on the couch and run my hands over my face. I can't even believe that I slapped him. At the time, it seemed like just about the only thing I
could
do. Besides, he deserved it, didn't he? He led me upstairs and into that room with an agenda in mind—and I let him do it.

I stand up and start to pace, my conscience gnawing at me in a way I never expected.

I
blew the whistle on the Alpha Wolves. Me. Not my dad. And I didn't even have anything on them, just a favor and a friend from college. I did my best not to think too hard about that when Royal had me pinned against the wall, when he asked point blank about it. But I didn't technically lie about anything, did I?

No, I didn't lie. All I did was sleep with the guy.

I take a deep breath and stop pacing for a moment, putting my hands on my lower back as I try to force my pounding heart to calm. But it's not beating that quickly because I lied, because I'm getting myself tangled in something as dangerous as this; it's beating because I'm letting myself get tangled in
him.

A knock at the door startles me so badly that I jump, my heart slamming into my throat as I turn towards it and pause. It's only eight-thirty, so it's not like it's late or anything, but I don't often get unexpected visitors after dark.

“Coming!” I call as cheerfully as I can, sneaking to the curtains and taking another peek outside.

It's my brother.

Goddamn it.

“What do you want, Sully?” I ask as I open the door a crack, leaving the chain intact. “There is such a thing as text messaging, you know. Or phone calls, remember those? Email?”

“Stop being a smart ass and let me in, Lyric.” I sigh and push the door closed, removing the chain and stepping back for all six foot three of my brother's imposing frame. He's almost as big as Royal. Almost. Although if I had to make a comparison between the two of them, I'd say they were complete opposites. My brother is all spit and polish while Royal is raw and unfinished. Nobody would ever mistake one of them for the other.

“I know you called Brent.”

I cringe. Crap. I was kind of hoping to keep that under wraps for the time being. Having Sully know is like having my father know.

“I talked to Dad about it after dinner tonight,” he says and my heart plummets to my feet. Of
course
he did. I kick off my heels and bend down to grab them, trying to keep my cool and not descend into any sort of panic.

“All I'm trying to do is get Dad re-elected,” I say, which is at least partially true. I
do
want Dad to get re-elected, but I also want the entire office to know I mean business, that I can get things done that nobody else was capable of. Not even Toni Gladstone. “Brent's not even here on a real investigation. He's just looking around, trying to scare up some concern, so I can get Royal and the Wolves to sign on the dotted line.”

Sully tightens his mouth and slides his fingers through his dark brown hair.

“If Brent's not here on business, then why the hell does have an informant? An informant for what?”