Raw and Dirty (Bad Boys MC Trilogy #1) (6 page)

“Doing? Just pulling the shades up on your pretty, love.” Royal makes a clicking sound and the wolf dogs' ears perk up as they move away from me and my sister and start to follow him. I glance over at my sister again, but she's staring at Royal's tight ass as he moves away.

“I set up a meeting for Friday,” I tell him as I struggle to catch up, taking three steps for every one of his. Surprisingly, Royal notices and slows down, matching his pace to mine. “With Janae,” I add, in case there was any doubt I was telling the truth.

“I know what your dad's getting out of all this,” he begins and my heart sinks a little. Business. But of course he wants to talk business. What else did I think he was going to say? We met yesterday; we're complete opposites. There's literally nothing between us
but
business. “But nobody from the mayor's office has ever asked me what the club's getting out of our agreement.”

“No,” I respond, my heart rate slowing as I adjust to the conversation. Yes, my hair's fluttering around my face in the breeze, the taste of salt kissing my lips, but I can do business. It keeps me calm and comfortable, in my zone. “Because that's not important. Mr. Rentz,” I say and pause when Royal tosses me a weird look. I know it's odd that I call my dad Mr. Rentz, but it helps people take me more seriously. Imagine saying
Daddy this
and
Papa that
to your arrogant asshole male coworkers.

I clear my throat and start again.

“Mr. Rentz isn't concerned with the club's business,” I begin, reciting part of a practiced speech, one that I'd cooked up exactly for a meeting like this. First time I saw Royal, it all flew right out my ears and disappeared on the breeze. This time though, I've got my head on straight. Last night was a bit of a wake up call; I won't make the same mistake. As of right now, nothing's happened. Imagine if I had actually had sex with the guy?

Good God.

“Mr. Rentz sure seemed concerned with club business when he sent the feds our way,” Royal says, his voice shifting dangerously. By the time I realize what's happening, we've turned a corner at the end of the road and my back's to the brick wall of the shop. Not a half mile behind Royal, the earth drops down in a series of dips and swells, dotted with small trees and tangles of blackberry bushes, until it dips into the navy blue of the sea.

“The feds?” I ask, blinking up at him. He's not even touching me; it was just his presence that caused me to back up into the wall. “Like the FBI?” The FBI's always sniffing around outlaw MCs, looking for some way to nail them to the wall. It's notoriously difficult. Usually they can snag a few of the low ranking members, but they never get guys like Royal. “My dad …” I feel my brows furrow, but force myself to take a deep breath. Royal's leaning over me now, his arm against the wall above my head, his gaze focused down on my face.

He looks unassuming, but I can taste the danger in the situation. I'm not sure what happened to cause the shift in his personality, but it's a little bit scary.

“Mr. Rentz doesn't care about anything—
anything—
but this town and looking good for his friends. He wants to get re-elected, sure, but that's as far as his political ambitions go. I can promise you, he doesn't know or have anything to do with anyone in the FBI.”

“You sound pretty confident for a
Deputy Mayor,
” Royal growls, sliding his left hand up and over my hip. A small gasp escapes my lips before I can fight it back, keeping my gaze focused on the sea behind him, refusing to look at his face. The Pacific Ocean roils and froths, throwing up white foam against the rocks. It's beautiful to look at, but it's also deadly.

Like Royal McBride.

“There are
some
perks to being the mayor's daughter,” I whisper as Royal's hand slides up my side. I should tell him to stop, to back off, but a part of me, long buried and aching, doesn't want him to let go. I almost wish … No. No, I can't have anything to do with this man outside of city business. “Royal,” I begin, but his hand grazes the edge of my breast and even through the suit jacket, I can
feel
him. My nipples harden into peaks and my back arches.

“That's a good girl,” he growls, tilting my chin up and dropping his mouth to mine. Before I can even
think
about protesting, his tongue is diving between my lips, unleashing a surge of fire in me that burns straight through my inhibitions.

I lift my hands up and wrap them around Royal's neck, drawing a groan from his throat that I feel against my mouth. My back arches even more, pressing my breasts against the biker's hard body while his right hand drops down and slides around my waist.

I can hardly breathe. Hell, I'm not sure that I even
want
to. Royal's kiss … this is the kind of kiss you only get once in a lifetime—it's a promise of fire but also a promise of pain. He tastes like risk and rawness and everything I've ever wanted but never had.

Brutal.

Our kiss is brutal and pummeling and completely unexpected.

My knees feel shaky and I give my weight over to Royal, letting him hold me up as his left hand reaches down and yanks the fabric of my button-down out of my skirt, running his cold calloused fingers up my warm side.

“Boss.”

The sound of an unfamiliar voice startles me and I jump, pulling back against Royal's touch as our mouths part and I suck in a heaving breath.

The look on his face is murder.

I watch as he turns to glare at a man with a thick brown beard and a black dragon tattoo that curls down his left arm like a snake.

“Sorry to bother you,” he says though he doesn't sound sorry at all. “But we have a problem.”

Royal sucks in a massive breath, his eyes flicking back to me.

Refusing to meet his gaze, I turn away and start tucking my shirt back into place. If Kailey's still here … God, she'll know. She'll take one look at me and she'll know.

“What kind of bloody fucking problem?” Royal snaps as I slink away around the corner and start walking as fast as my heels can carry me. Time to get the hell out of here and regroup.
What the heck just happened back there? I almost screwed a stranger against a wall!

I run my fingers through my hair and make a beeline towards my car. Unfortunately, Kailey's still there, flirting with some blond guy near the gates.

“Hey you.”

A woman's voice catches my attention and I pause, twisting my skirt back into place and glancing over towards the deck of the clubhouse.

A slender brunette with a wild purple streak in the front of her hair is glaring at me from the bottom step, one hand curled around the railing, her makeup thick and dark like a rock star's, dressed in leather and a blue halter that she manages to pull off even though it's not quite ten in the morning.

“Can I help you?” I ask, reaching up to smooth my bun out of habit.
Oh yeah. No more bun.
Instead, I fluff my hair and take a deep breath, trying to smile as pleasantly as I can. Truthfully, my mind is nowhere near my body right now. I think it's floating somewhere out in space, dazed by the memory of Royal's body pressed tight to mine.

“Actually yeah, you can.”

She comes down the last step and moves toward me in a pair of black platform heels. Her arms are literally covered in tattoos from shoulder to wrist, swirls of hearts and rainbows and butterflies. She's pretty, but a little scary, too. And she looks pissed.

I do not have time for this.

I keep smiling anyway. Well, until she gets
way
too close to me, invading my personal space bubble and leaning close to my ear.

“Stay the fuck away from Royal.”

“Excuse me?” I ask, reeling back and giving her a look that's got to be pretty similar to the one Kailey threw at me when Royal pulled down my hair. “I'm sorry, I think I misheard you.”

“No,” the girl says, standing up straight and glaring down at me. She's a good six inches taller than me. Add in the three inch heels she's wearing and our height difference is almost as extreme as mine and Royal's. “You heard me right.”

I lift my hands up in mock surrender.

“Look, I don't know who you are—”

The girl cuts me off before I can finish.

“That's exactly right. You
don't
know who I am because you appeared out of thin air yesterday. You don't know anything about this club and you sure as shit don't know anything about its president. I've been here too long, been through way too much crap to lose out to some bitch in a suit.”

“I think we might have a slight misunderstanding,” I say, hoping I can cool this situation down before Kailey realizes that something else is going on. I've given her enough dirt for today. Not that I think she'd ever use it, but it never hurts to be cautious. “My name is Lyric Rentz, and—”

“I don't give two
shits
about who you are,” she hisses at me, crossing her arms over her flat chest. Her eyes are dark, like Royal's, but instead of a feral wildness, she just looks mean. I hate to judge, but what the hell did I do to deserve this? “He's
this
close to picking me up as his old lady, and I don't need you to waltz in here and screw things up.”

“Old lady?” I ask, my voice rising in pitch as I look her up and down. She's hot enough, that's for sure, tall and skinny and flawless. It wouldn't surprise me if he
was
interested in her.
But then why was he just kissing me?
I don't know what she thinks I'm up to, but all I'm trying to do is figure out what the hell I did to provoke her.

“You don't think I'm good enough?” she asks me, her red painted mouth turning down in a deep frown. The expression should look silly on her, but it doesn't. Every movement she makes oozes sex and sensuality.

“No,” I start, but what I really meant to say was
No, I don't think that at all.
Instead, I barely get the single syllable out before the woman's throwing herself at me, hitting me right in the eye with an impressive right hook.

My head snaps back and I stumble, but I'm not about to go down without a fight. I'm not exactly sure
what
it is that we're fighting for, but I won't be pushed around.

I duck down and avoid a second hit to the face, bringing my left fist up and under the woman's chin. I don't wait, following that up with my right, drawing a bright bloom of blood from her nostrils as I slam my palm into her nose.

A wild shriek escapes her lips as she full on launches herself at me, knocking us both to the pavement as the skies crack and rain starts to fall with a wild vengeance. When it rains, it pours, right?

We scramble around on the ground for a moment as I struggle to shove her off of me, instead settling on flipping us over so that I'm on top. While I attempt to grab her wrists and stop the fight in its tracks, Tattoo Girl is far more intent on getting in as many hits as she can. Her knee comes up and hits me right in the lady parts, hard enough to make me scream as she tosses me aside, my own knees skimming across the pavement and drawing blood.

When she climbs on top of me and grabs my hair, all bets are off. I don't start fights, but I'm a woman in politics; I know how to finish them.

“Get the fuck off me!” I scream, slamming my elbow back and hitting the bitch right in the tit.
Goddamn it! I'm fighting over a guy I don't even know, that I don't even want. More proof that I need to run away from all of this while I still can.

If I'd only known then how much worse it would all get.

Ah, hindsight. You're always twenty-twenty, aren't you, you sadistic bastard?

I throw my elbow back again and draw a satisfied grunt from Tattoo Girl, her grip loosening on my hair. That's when I hear the pound of boots and Kailey's shocked scream. In an instant, the weight is off of my back and I'm being hauled to my feet by rough, calloused hands—hands covered in roses.

It's Royal. Of
course
it's Royal.

“Ladies,” he says, his voice holding that false brightness, that wry amusement that lets him pretend he's normal and nice when he's everything but. I jerk my arm from his grip and he lets me go. “There's no need to fight, plenty of me to go around.”

“Royal,” Tattoo Girl whines and I want to hit her so hard right then that I have to clench my hands into fists by my sides. “She—”

“It's not my job to police this shit. If you want to cause trouble, go do it elsewhere,” he snaps, what little patience he has falling away like it was never there. Whoa. Scary. With tears sparkling in her eyes, Tattoo Girl turns and runs up the steps and into the clubhouse.

With everything going on in my life, I don't need a distraction, especially not one handpicked and sent to screw me over from the mayor's office. It's like the bloody bastard knew what his daughter would do to me. One day in and my head's already gone to shit.

“Are you okay?” I ask, trying not to grit my teeth. Christ. Mia and I have had some good times, but what the hell got into her? We're not nor have we ever been any sort of serious; she knows that.

Not that Lyric and I are either.