“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.”