Raw and Dirty (Bad Boys MC Trilogy #1) (24 page)

My lashes flutter as I come hard around him, bearing down with every muscle in my body, sighing against the bite mark on his shoulder. As soon as I relax, as I let go, he slides out of me and stands up, jerking his pants back into place.

“Wait,” I say as I stand up and try to tuck my robe back around me. My legs feel weak and shaky and my head is spinning. “Royal, please.”

He ignores me, his leather vest hanging teasingly over those gorgeous muscles of his, those rock hard pecs, those perfect abs. I can see his tattoos in the muted darkness, and they're brutally beautiful. Almost as brutally beautiful as the expression on his face.

“I realized after I left that I forgot to say goodbye,” Royal says, sliding a cigarette from his pocket and putting it between his lips. “So, goodbye Pint-Size. Cheers. Hope you have a nice life.”

He turns and walks away, boots loud against the wood floors.

I think about following after him, calling out, saying the thing I'm thinking but that I shouldn't be.

I love you. Maybe. Or I could, one day. I don't know.

Instead I sit down hard on the edge of the bed and bury my face in my hands.

Leaving Lyric is the hardest thing I've ever done. How fucked is that?

“And we stopped here, why?” Glacier asks, leaning back on his bike and giving me a look like he knows I'm up to something I shouldn't be. I ignore him and straddle my own ride, a five hundred pound beast in black and red and chrome, all of the factory extras stripped off and tossed aside until I'm left with nothing but a sixteen inch front wheel, a leather seat, and the machine's wicked metal soul.

My hands are shaking as I light up and pretend I'm not still thinking about Lyric's warm, wet heat wrapped around my cock, her fingers in my hair, the soft, supple smoothness of her breasts—or the gentle yield of her body beneath me as she gave in and gave me everything I asked for.

Mine,
I said when I walked in there.

Yours.

That's the only word I needed to hear.

If she wasn't the mayor's daughter, if she hadn't called the FBI on the club, if I was a braver, stronger, better man, she really would be mine.

“Goddamn it!” I flick my cigarette across the yard and grab my helmet, jamming it onto my head as my pulse pounds in my skull. I can't think straight right now. There's too much shit going on. But yet, when we passed by her house, I stopped. Just stopped and climbed the fuck off my bike, walked in there and found her goddamn door unlocked. “Wait here.”

I stand back up as Glacier rolls his eyes and shakes his head at me, watching as I move across the lawn, open the front door and reach in to twist the lock on the front of the knob. When I pause for a second, the sound of Lyric's crying reaches my ears and I almost go ballistic.

Thank God we're on our way to see Brent.

I grit my teeth against the sound and slam the door.

“Did you really just do that?” Glacier asks as I pause in front of him and seriously consider breaking his bloody fucking face. “Did we really just stop here so you could bang the mayor's daughter?”

“You want to do something about it?” I ask him, realizing that starting a fight with my brother is the last thing I need to be doing right now. Glacier narrows his eyes, but doesn't push the matter, shaking his head and waiting for me to climb back on my bike.

“You really shouldn't be here,” he says, which is true. The president isn't supposed to get his hands dirty. It's not my job, none of this is. Finding Landon, dealing with Sully, heading over to the hotel to find Brent. At this point, my hands are filthy when they should be squeaky fucking clean. But I don't know what Brent might say about Lyric, and I'm not taking any chances. “Why don't you head back to the clubhouse and play with a club whore? There's a new girl that's been hanging around lately, big tits and legs for days.”

“If you don't shut your goddamn mouth right now, I'll shut it for you.” I glance up just in time to see Lyric peeking at me from her bedroom window.
Shit.
My brain is all arse backwards right now. I need to get the hell out of here.

“Smoky's gonna be pissed.”

“Let him be,” I say, starting my bike and peeling out of there before I can change my mind.

If I do, if I go back in there, I'm never letting Lyric go.

“I don't fucking believe this
shit,
” I snarl, kicking a toy truck across the living room. It's one of a very few things left in Rebecca and Landon's house, and it's almost as empty as Brent's recently vacated hotel room. “How the hell did this happen?”

“She was gone when we got here,” Smoky says, standing at the front door, a hand on either side of the doorjamb. “Came as fast as we could after our guy called us and said Brent had checked out of his hotel room. I sent a few guys over there and came here myself.” A chill crawls down my spine. If the boys had gotten here before me, I'd be babysitting Rebecca's kids while the boys took her on a little coastal tour of Trinidad Head and sent her for an icy swim. Wouldn't have been a damn thing I could do about it. The Wolves don't make a habit of hurting women, but a rat's a rat. I already saved one woman tonight, saved her life or at the very least saved her from a good, long, painful hurting. There's no way I can put the club on the line for another, even my best friend's wife.

What the hell has happened to my life?

“Find her,” I say, lighting up a cigarette. Two of my prospects, the ones I had stationed here to watch Rebecca, they're gone. Chances of them being alive? Almost zero. There's nothing I can do for her now. “Figure out what happened. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say Mile Wide's in town.”

“Maybe they just forgot to pay us a visit?” Glacier asks, smiling wide, his teeth too white and his enthusiasm too real. This is what he lives for, the chase.

“Maybe they're all too familiar with the sort of welcome you like to give,” Smoky says, running his fingers through his red hair as he looks around, his face holding that same tired melancholy that's reflected in my own. Glacier, he lives for drama and bullshit and pain. Me and Smoky, we prefer a smooth ride, a cold beer and a beautiful woman. Why any asshole would get off on this shit is beyond me.

“Wipe that fucking smile off your face, boy,” Dober says, appearing in the archway to the kitchen, his dark glare narrowed in and focused on Glacier's face. “Our brother is dead and his wife's just cost us
two
more people. You think that's funny? You have a hell of a lot to learn.”

Glacier's smile fades and he tucks his fingers into his front pockets. Landon was his friend, too, our friend. The three of us went to high school together, so why the fuck did things end up like this?

“I'm going to cut Clayton Moore's balls off and mail them to his mum.” I toss my cig to the carpet and let it smoke the fibers.

“Maybe you should go home and get some rest first?” Dober says, the voice of reason as always. “We know what you want, and we'll get the job done, okay, boss? Take a breather and regroup on this one.” His subtle way of telling me to get the fuck out of here and go home before I do something I'll regret, like ride down to Ukiah and burn down the Mile Wide clubhouse.

Or go back to Lyric's house to hash all of this rubbish between us the fuck out.

I make myself take a deep breath, eyes scanning over my boys before I turn and leave Landon's house for the last time.

Didn't sleep a fucking wink last night. Not one wink. Instead, I went to the clubhouse and paced a rut into the floor while I waited for someone to call me with a bit of good news. Must've been a sore sight the way the girls avoided my ass and the boys stayed quiet at the bar.

This is the last thing I needed to hear.

“He's dead,” I repeat, tapping my fingers against the table in the chapel while I wait for Smoky to explain. His red hair is a mess, and there are dark shadows under his eyes, but also just a hint of relief. He knows how to get the job done, but he's not a monster. The fact that somebody else took Brent out for us must've come as a nice surprise.

“Suicide apparent,” he drawls without an ounce of belief in him. “Somebody probably shot him and stuck the gun in his hand. It's a botch job, but I guess nobody will ever know unless the FBI sends their own people out here. The Trinidad Police Department is a joke.”

I nod, my mind running over all the possibilities. If Mile Wide got rid of Brent, then I can only hope that Rebecca really did get the fuck out of here. If not … shit. I can't think about that right now. One step at a time.

“Why would they take out their very own FBI man? Can't reflect well on the club.”

“Who the hell knows? At this point, I'm just glad he's gone.” Smoky sighs and rubs his hand over his face. “Mile Wide's just cleaned up all our loose ends for us. At this point, we've done all we can do. I have a couple boys out canvassing Rebecca's neighborhood, but they've got squat so far.”

I lean back in my chair and weave my fingers together behind my head, trying to keep my eyes from straying back to my laptop. I emailed Lyric the papers she wanted this morning, and now I've got a meeting with the mayor on my schedule for next week. Guess the club's gettin' a key to the city for our outstanding rescue of his asshole son. Lucky us. Business should boom after this.

“I want Glacier looking into that bullshit with our weapons shipment from Seventy-Seven Brothers. After all this crap with Mile Wide, it'd be bloody fucking ridiculous not to assume they were behind that, too.”

“Got it,” Smoky says, turning to leave and then pausing. “There something else eating you beyond the obvious?” I give him a look that says I'm not buying what he's selling.

“Are you trying to have a heart to heart with me, you blithering twat. Get the fuck out of here.”

Smoky smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes, turning on his heel and letting the heavy wood doors swing shut behind him. The hush of the chapel falls over me, a soothing balm that smells like tobacco and leather, the history of the club seeping into my lungs with every breath.

Lyric.

Her name starts small in my mind and grows big until she's all I can think about again. The thoughts come and go, letting themselves be pushed from my brain for brief moments in time, making room for more pressing matters. But then they come raging back with a vengeance. If I'm this bad after a day, what the hell am I going to be like next week?

But then I think about the fact that she was pulling one over on me, playing politics behind the scenes at the same time she was on her knees sucking my cock. How can I forgive that? How can I even
consider
starting some sort of relationship with a girl who was lying to my face from moment one?

I sigh, running my tongue across my lower lip, my body reacting to thoughts of Lyric like she's right here with me. I can still taste her, that wicked wild sweetness that turns my cock into a shaft of diamond.
So fucking hard.
I groan and grab my crotch, pleasure flooding my blood in an instant. I'm about to split my pants and rub one out to her when the doors to the chapel open and Smoky comes back in, hands tucked in his pockets, a wry expression on his face.