Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC #5)(4)

I was trying to help the best way I knew how. The only way I knew how. Dragging her around to parties where she knew no one and could embrace the anonymity. Be someone other than herself. Hide from the pain. Escape with the help of a cocktail or five.

I was a f*cking terrible friend.

Bringing my socially anxious best friend to the strip club where I worked, which was full of disgusting *s who would eat her alive.

Yeah, a bad friend. The worst.

Just add another stroke to the lines staining my soul.

My step stuttered slightly when my gaze landed on her. And on the hawt-as-balls biker who had his hand firmly around her neck. Then moved quickly to two more bikers, their eyes on me. I didn’t have time to focus on them more because I was flying. Flying meant thought was hard to capture, like that f*cking snitch in those Harry Potter movies. I gave up on the golden f*cker and did the thing, the only thing I was good for.

I embraced the dirt.



“Fuck, babe, I’ve seen a lot of strippers in my time. A lot,” a deep voice exclaimed from beside me. “But you transcended mere stripperdom and became a celestial being. An angel sent down from heaven, designed by God to pursue a career in exotic dancing.”

I rolled my eyes, sucking down the last of my drink and pushing off the bar where I had been leaning. This was the part I hated. I could shake my ass, show my tits, and objectify myself on stage without blinking an eye. Even before the drugs, I was fine with that. Fine with the lap dances where I had to get up close and personal with a wide variety of perverts with body odor issues or drunken frat boys, provided I had some form of mood-altering substance flowing through my bloodstream. Before, I’d had wine. Now I had better.

But this part blew.

Carlos insisted that, after our performances, we ‘mingle’ with the customers. We weren’t at some f*cking corporate mixer. There was no need to mingle. Unless, of course, you were soliciting; then the mingling was necessary. I would rather chew off my own arm than do that, as Carlos well knew. It didn’t stop him from aggressively insisting I ‘get to know’ my customers, as if communing with the dregs of society, AKA patrons of a strip club, would convince me to let them pay to f*ck me.

I had one small shred of self-respect, of dignity, left. I clutched it in a death grip and I wasn’t ready to let it go, even though I’d let poison into my veins. A girl’s got to have her hard limits.

Prostitution was a hard limit. Pretty much my only one.

“I can die happy, then, knowing that I’ve pleased you,” I retorted sarcastically.

I may have to mingle, but I didn’t have to be polite. I was also cranky because my palms itched and a cloud descended over my mind as I came down. I needed another fix.

“I’ll have to return the favor, firefly,” the voice said, a hint of promise tingling his playful tone.

I finally jerked my head from the perusal of my glass to face what was a no doubt middle-aged man with a beer gut and receding hairline. His voice may have been manly, but I knew I wouldn’t be so lucky to meet the man I’d imagine having such a deep rumbling voice. Such men didn’t frequent establishments like this.

“What? You gonna get up on stage and provide me with a strip show?” I asked seriously as I turned.

When my eyes drank in the owner of that voice, I found my sarcastic question being rendered to a hopeful plead. The man in front of me was most definitely not middle-aged, and from what I could see from the tight black tee clinging to his flat stomach, there was no beer gut in sight. I’d wager a six-pack lay under there. Ditto with the hair prediction, though he didn’t have any hair at all; his head was shaved to the scalp, and man, did he work the ever-loving shit out of a bald head.

There was another bulky guy standing next to him, but my eyes were like steel drawn to a magnet.

I moved my gaze down to his muscled arms, which were covered in ink, impossible to decipher in the dingy light. His leather vest had my slow mind realizing he most likely belonged to the biker gang Lily seemed to be tangled up in. I’d seen him earlier, with Lily and the man who’d dragged her out of here. Asher, the man who’d taken her virginity three years ago, who she’d pushed away when she found out her mom was dying of cancer. Selfless as always, she sacrificed her happiness and one seriously hot biker for her mom. The thought punctured through my weary mind.

I was happy that it seemed he’d come back to give her the happiness she deserved. I wasn’t the best person to yank her out of this pit of grief we were both treading water in. Fuck, I was yanking her further down. It made me sick, that thought, but I didn’t know how else to help. I didn’t know how to bring the light back in because my life had been devoid of light the day I was born.

I shook away the self-deprecating thoughts to focus on the hot guy in front of me. Well, two. The other big one with ribbons of scars on his arms was nothing to sneeze at either. But it was the bald one who captured my attention, which was a feat in itself as my mind was becoming jerky and unhinged as it sobered.

“You ask me nice, I’ll don a feather boa and do my best,” he deadpanned. “Though, I don’t think I’ll be getting the same reaction as the little firefly here,” he teased lightly.

I met his eyes and, even through my residual haze of blurriness, arousal settled in my stomach. Yeah, this guy was hot. His features were sharp and pronounced, masculine. He was Hispanic, I guessed, from his latte-colored skin. His hazel eyes were soft around the edges and focused on me. They were also familiar.