Risky and Wild
Caitlin Stunich
There's an outlaw motorcycle club president sitting outside the mayor's office.
He's leaning against his bike, a mountain of steel and leather and hard planes—and I'm not just talking about the motorcycle. Royal McBride is a wall of lean, sculpted muscle wrapped in dark wash jeans and a belt with a metal buckle in the shape of a skull. He has his black riding boots crossed at the ankles, a leather vest slung over his muscular shoulders. In one tattooed hand, he's holding a cigarette. In the other, a phone. One look at him and my entire body flushes from head to toe. I feel warm and cold all at once, and my thighs clench tight with a rush of memories and heat.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper, but it's hard for me to sound as freaked out as I should. I spent all day yesterday in this guy's bed, I think as I swallow hard and reach up to check on my bun. I made sure it was extra tight, extra smooth, extra perfect today. I feel like I have to try twice as hard to be boring with this raw and dirty little secret tucked under my heart. Like somebody will see it if I don't.
I'm asking you to be my woman, Lyric.
Oh my God.
I'm dating a one-percenter. Like, a criminal. Like, a real life mob boss or something.
That's scary as hell … but his smile … it's magnanimous.
Royal grins at me, big and wide and open. He has a nice smile, too nice maybe.
“Don't give me that shit-eating grin,” I scold as I get close, just close enough to smell him, that wild mix of wet earth and wild things, like he really is part wolf or something. It mixes with the urban scents of oil and leather, turning my insides into an infinity twist. “You really shouldn't be here.”
Royal flicks his cigarette to the cement and slides his phone into his pocket, giving me a slow, penetrating once-over that curls my toes inside the boring black kitten heels on my feet. It hits me then, in the bright early Monday morning sunshine what I agreed to yesterday.
I agreed to be this guy's girlfriend.
Oh dear God, I think I must be losing my mind.
“Lucky you, I've got a legitimate reason to be at the mayor's office,” he growls back at me, leaning in close, putting those full lips of his right up against my ear. I take a sudden step back and smooth an imaginary wrinkle from my skirt. Everything is different now, I tell myself, yet it feels like yesterday never even happened. It was too surreal. I got … kidnapped by rival bikers on Saturday, woke up in Royal's bed on Sunday. And then I shared ice cream with pet wolves for hours until he came home and ravaged me. Again. And again. And oh God, again.
I'm still sore between my legs, but I won't let him know that.
“A legitimate reason?” I ask as I reach a gentle hand up to my cheek, like I can check if my makeup's still in place just by touching it. My nose aches from that elbow I took to the face, and my chest is throbbing from the burn of the seatbelt. Mostly my heart thumps and pulses and beats like a drum as I stare back at Royal and let the risky and wild little secret between us flower and blossom.
If my dad found out I was dating him, he'd fire me. If the world found out, I could lose my chances of ever becoming a somebody in politics. Nobody's going to vote for a woman who dated a criminal like Royal McBride.
“I have a right proper meeting with the mayor, Pint-Size,” he says, standing up straight and smirking at me, looking me over again like he can see the pink crotchless panties I'm wearing beneath this stupid skirt. When he looks at me like that, I want to tear it off and climb on the back of his bike, tell him to get me the hell out of here.
Instead, I cock my head at him and try to remember what's going on in my life besides Royal McBride. For the past week, he's pretty much consumed my every waking thought. I glance up at the old Victorian that's currently serving as my father's office. It's tall and green as mint ice cream, decorated with a nautical theme of ropes and seagulls and buoys. Inside, it has boring blue carpet and way too many desks for the size of the space.
It's the complete opposite of Royal.
It's also the center of my life, my world—or at least, it was.
“About the agreement?” I ask, the one that I drafted up, the one that's mostly a bunch of fancy fluff about the local government and the Alpha Wolves MC working together amicably to reduce local crime, clean up local highways, and make nice with each other. In all reality, it pretty much does nothing. To the people of Trinidad though, it'll mean something. To my career, it's pretty much everything.
And my brother got beat up because of it. Sort of. I really have no idea what Sully and Brent are … were? … up to. Still, I can never forget that I was the one that called Brent in, that this is partially my fault—even if Royal told me to never speak of it again.