Wanted By The Devil (Devil's Riders 1)

Kaylie picked up the pace and hurried down the hill toward North Avenue. She had just been to school to collect her diploma. She had missed the ceremony but she’d formally graduated.

Now she was carrying the pretty blue folder home, along with the contents of her locker. She'd missed the last few weeks of high school due to mono but her grades had carried her through.

Mono. What a joke. They called it the kissing disease.

As if anyone ever kissed her.

The boys in her school had never even tried in years. All around her people were partnering off and hooking up. But she was alone, with only her mom and a few friends to keep her company.

It wasn't like she was unattractive. Kaylie knew she was cute. Hot even. With long dark hair and big brown eyes, she knew she had a pretty face.

Her body was curvy too. It made her look older in a way that belied her innocence. And she was innocent.

Painfully so.

Halfway through her Sophomore year, all the boys in school had abruptly left her alone. They didn't just stop flirting with her or trying to get her to go out with them. They started avoiding her gaze, even ignoring her.

It was like they were pretending that she didn't exist.

The entire male population of her high school flat out ghosted her. Overnight.

It was weird.

That was around the same time she'd started noticing the bikes. Wherever she went, whatever time of day, it seemed like there was always a bike behind her. Not just a bike, either.

A bike.

It wasn't so crazy to see hogs around. She did live in California, and everyone knew the Riders ran the town. But still. It was weird.

It had all started when she was working the counter at Mae's, the old school diner that most people still called ‘the soda shop.’ She'd worked there since the age of fourteen when her mother had insisted she get a job. Her mom had been true to her word, helping Kaylie save her money for school and making sure the bare necessities were met.

But it wasn’t really enough. It never was. Even with the baby sitting jobs Kaylie took when she wasn’t on the schedule. Even with her mom working two jobs.

There they were, both of them working their tails off. They had what they needed. But Kaylie couldn’t afford to wear all the cute outfits that some of the girls at school wore. It hadn't stopped guys from asking her out, not until Sophomore year anyway.

She'd never let any of them get past first base though. She’d been too shy and too young. Plus none of the scrawny teenage boys she went to school with had been tempting.

And now, nada.

What was even the point anyway? She hadn’t noticed even one boy since she’d laid eyes on the gorgeous biker with the blue eyes. Not even on TV or magazines.

None of them were him.

Devlin McRae.

It had taken some doing, but she'd found out his name. He was a regular at Mae’s, but apparently only when she was working. In fact, he came in every time she worked a shift. She knew because Jeffrey, the short order cook, had told her.

She felt a shiver go down her spine at the memory. The moment she’d realized he was coming to see her.

The mysterious, ridiculously good looking guy with tousled dark blond hair and green eyes. He filled out his worn in jeans perfectly, not to mention the black leather jacket. He looked rough, like he had a past, but he was always polite and left her absurdly large tips.

Huge tips. Sometimes well over 200%. The guy tipped twenty bucks on an eight dollar ice cream sundae. Every single time.

In fact, his tips alone probably made up at least a third of her entire college fund.

Oh yeah, he was a mystery, alright.

Devlin looked like a bad boy and tipped like a billionaire. Plus those eyes of his seemed to stare right through her.

Of course she’d wanted to find out everything she could about him. What girl wouldn’t? But she hadn’t liked what she heard.

First, he was older. A lot older. He was in his mid twenties and she was just a teen. Then there was the whole ‘outlaw biker’ thing.

No one had wanted to talk about him at first. Getting his name had been hard enough, but finding out that he was the President to the local MC club had taken even longer.

Devlin was a rebel, riding the edge of the law. Way beyond being just a bad boy. He might as well be on the moon for all intents and purposes. He was most likely a criminal and definitely the leader of a bunch of criminals and soon to be criminals.

Off limits to someone like her certainly. Her mother would never approve. Kaylie wasn’t so sure she herself even approved, and that was while she sighed dreamily over his brooding eyes.