Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC #5)(28)
“You’re something,” I replied, almost lower than a whisper. Something was dangerous. Especially when I’d almost killed myself to escape something in pursuit of nothing.
As soon as we got in the cab he seemed to sense my unease. Though it wasn’t exactly easy to hide. And I was doing a crappy job.
“You gonna tell me what’s wrong, or am I going to have to torture it out of you?” he asked blandly, putting his hand over the back of my seat so he could reverse out of the lot.
I stared at the caramel, sinewy, tattooed flesh. I had an unbearable urge to lick it. That’s all my body and mind was it seemed—animal urges. Lick people, get high. Whatever.
“Torture what?” I asked, my response slightly delayed as I watched the journey of his arm back to the steering wheel, hypnotized by the way his veins pulsed from his skin.
His eyes flickered to me. His voice and face may have been easy, as was his default, but the depths of those hazel irises showed something different. Something that unnerved my newly sober eyes. Everything off the junk was clearer, starker, and not in a refreshing way. The world was jarring, and it rubbed up my skin the wrong way. Seeing it without the film of a high was uncomfortable because it was reality. I thought the worst thing was looking in the mirror, but it wasn’t.
It was looking at Lucky.
I’d convinced myself that my feelings for him were intermingled with my feelings for junk, and going cold turkey would wash away the daydreams of the cheerful yet deadly biker.
Oh, how wrong I could be.
The air in the cab of the truck was so stifling I felt like I might choke on it. Or throw up. I really hoped I didn’t throw up.
Somehow Lucky’s attention was on me even though he was in control of a motor vehicle. It should have unnerved me, but it didn’t. I felt safe with him. That’s what unnerved me. I wasn’t safe with anyone, not even myself. Safety was an illusion and surrendering to the feeling was the moment you opened yourself up for destruction.
“The reason behind this,” he answered my question, his jaw hard as his eyes flickered up my seated body.
I clasped my hands together at my knees. I knew I looked like shit. Even though I’d tried my best to paint my face and disguise the toll the loss of my ‘medicine’ had taken, it was impossible. My arms were skinny and my face was sallow. I was always pale, but now my skin had a grayish sheen to it and the bags under my eyes couldn’t be covered with industrial strength concealer. So not cute.
“I ate a bad burrito a couple days ago,” I lied. “What doesn’t kill you makes you thinner, right?” I went for bravado but fell short. Everything was falling kind of short. It was hard to make an effort on maintaining the fa?ade while battling the itch beneath my skin at the same time. It didn’t help that a renewed itch prickled my arms with Lucky’s gaze.
“You’re full of shit,” he ground out, not taking his eyes off me. “Tell me the truth.”
I glanced at the windshield to escape his gaze. “Shouldn’t you be watching the road?” I asked, changing the subject. “When I die I want to be wearing a better outfit than this. Also I’d quite like to turn up to my death a little drunk.” The joke was a little too close to home. I’d almost turned up to the pearly gates, or more likely the entry to the nine levels strung out in a dirty bathroom stall.
My gaze flickered to the steering wheel as Lucky’s hands tightened on it. His eyes still didn’t leave mine. Seriously? The truck was still dead center in the right lane. Was he Superman under that cut?
“Let’s get one thing clear here. You got a smart mouth. You make jokes, not as well as I do, but your sense of humor was bestowed on you by the devil himself and I dig that.” His eyes burned into mine. “One thing you don’t joke about, you don’t ever f*ckin’ utter it again, is the prospect of you disappearing off the face of the earth,” he growled
I was stunned silent. That didn’t happen very often. I not only had a response any time someone tried to tell me what to do or say, but I had a multitude of responses, usually liberally peppered with curse words. Theoretically, a big alpha male badass telling me what to say and not to say would have exploded Volcano Bex. Not this time.
Maybe it was because I didn’t have the energy to throw sass when I was too busy fighting my body’s scream for junk. Maybe it was because I was feeling all weird after watching my friend tie the knot which challenged all my assumptions about true love being a crock of shit. It could have been any of those things. But it wasn’t. It was the way he was looking at me coupled with the fact that sentence communicated his care for my well-being. Someone other than Lily or Faith actually giving a shit about me.
Because he was Superman, or Superman’s evil biker older cousin, he sensed the intensity of the moment and my inability to handle it. A grin tickled the corner of his face.
“You especially aren’t allowed to speak of you leaving this earth without giving me a taste of that sweet ass.”
He winked at me and his eyes flickered back to the road, finally. We were pulling into the clubhouse. Thank Lucifer for small favors. Not thanking God because I was sure he or she had given up on me a long time ago. Or I’d given up on him.
I scowled at his profile. “You bet this ass is sweet. Sweeter than any club skank you’ve sunk your teeth into. But do you know where this sweet ass is going?” I timed my line perfectly as he pulled into a park. “Out of this car and away from you. Have fun watching me walk away because that’s the closest you’ll get.”