I gape at him, but he's not done.
“I didn't ask you to date me so I could have you share your bed with my brothers, and I sure as shit don't expect you to roll over and be some club bitch. If I was interested in that, I could've found someone who'd do all that and more.” I pinch my lips, but Royal doesn't stop, moving back towards me again, looming over but not touching me. “I like you, Pint-Size, because you're wild but you try to stay contained. I like you because the only person who has a cage over you is yourself.” Royal smiles slightly. “It's bloody fascinating.”
I blink back at him, unsure of what exactly I'm supposed to say.
Because he's right. He's exactly right.
I tuck some hair behind my ear and reach out to lift a lid off a pot.
“You want some leftover soup?” I ask, but Royal just slides his hands along my face and drops his mouth to mine for another one of those brutal kisses of his, the ones that taste like violence and passion and need.
The metal lid clatters back into place as I move my hands to his wrists, fingers sliding across the tattoos, nails digging into Royal's skin as I try to match the power in his kiss. His tongue takes me over completely, obliterates the thoughts from my mind and kills the protests in my throat.
I almost choke on them when he pulls back with a grin and puts a cigarette to his lips.
“You got your things packed, you lucky little bird, you?”
I raise my eyebrows at that and smooth my hands down the front of my white button-down. I thought about changing for Royal, but then I knew that he'd know I'd done it for him. And Mug was here and all that. It just seemed safer to stay in my work clothes.
Now I wish I had changed.
“And I'm lucky, why?” I ask as Royal leaves his unlit smoke hanging from his lips and peeks inside the pot. I guess he likes what he sees because he starts searching for a bowl. I don't bother to tell him where they are, observing him as he raises his dark brows at my perfectly organized and labeled cabinets (sad, I know).
“Because you get to have an indefinite sleepover at chez moi, Pint-Size. You know how many women would kill for that?”
“Oh, I'll make sure to call them and let them know I've been so generously offered the position.” I keep watching as he spoons out some of my kale and sausage soup. I've been trying to imitate that zuppa toscana stuff from Olive Garden, but I'm not sure I'm there yet. I'm not exactly the world's best cook. “Then I can have two rival groups trying to kill me: Mile Wide MC and Royal's exes.”
“Don't got any,” he says, pausing as he slides the spoon between his lips and smiles across the kitchen at me. He's a thick wall of muscle with perfectly sculpted biceps, a strong stubbled jaw, and a tattoo that says Raw and Dirty yet … Royal has a great smile. And he's … kind of actually a nice guy? An outlaw motorcycle club president maybe, and a guy who shoots people on the weekends and has them buried by his brothers, but hey, he has a good sense of humor and he grins at me a lot.
I am in deep shit.
“No exes then. But a whole sea of random, faceless … fucks.” Royal raises his eyebrows at me again.
“You jealous, Pint-Size? And after I found out you slept with that FBI Douche. If anyone should be hurting here, it should be me.” I roll my eyes, but the mention of Brent reminds me that we have a whole lot to talk about besides past bedroom partners.
“Mile Wide, they drove an awful long way just to kill you, don't you think?” A shrug of those powerful shoulders. “Is my brother working with them? Or was it just Brent and your old VP, Landon?”
“Aw, fuck,” Royal says and lets his spoon clatter in his empty bowl. When he scowls, it's only half-serious. “Mug, that loudmouthed motherfucker. What the hell else did he tell you?”
I feel myself smile as I cross my arms over my chest and lean back against the plain gray granite of my countertop.
“Enough,” I say, trying to be cryptic. Honestly, I don't have a lot. Mug himself didn't seem to have the whole story, but I got what I could out of him. A bowl of warm soup and half of a buttered French baguette, and he was mine. “Enough for me to keep questioning this whole moving in together thing.” I cross my arms over my chest and try to look smug, just so Royal can have some idea of how he looks on a regular basis. “Why am I in danger if this is all about a,” I pause, trying to think about how Mug phrased it, “a turf war? In fact, the farther I am from you, the better off I'll be, right?”
Royal rakes his fingers through his hair and drops his bowl in the kitchen sink with a clank.
“That fucking pillock,” he curses as he takes a deep breath and reigns in some of that violent anger I can see bubbling beneath the surface. So far, Royal's been pretty goddamn good to me, but there has to be a reason he's the president of his club, and I'm fairly certain it has nothing to do with nice. I have a feeling Mug's going to get a talking to later. Hopefully, Royal will have cooled down by then and there won't be any violence involved. “What did you do? Suck him off or something?”