Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC #5)(7)

I swallowed the cocktail of emotions that came with his proximity, chasing away the worst of the itch. It wasn’t gone, not completely—it never would be—but his tobacco scent was like a salve. “You come to a strip club for conversation?” I repeated, finding sarcasm as a shield to stop my voice from shaking. “That’s like going to a hooker for a hug.”

“Well, I do need a hug,” he teased.

My skin went cold. “I’m not a hooker. Even if I was, you couldn’t afford me. Or be able to handle me,” I purred, my voice velvet and steel at the same time.

His eyes flared with intensity. “Oh baby, I could handle you,” he rasped.

I swallowed, the pure sex in his tone like a physical caress. “No, buddy, you can’t. Your muscles aren’t big enough to contain me,” I croaked finally.

Something moved behind his eyes, like he was seeing something I didn’t even realize I’d exposed. Then they flickered back to the teasing glint. “Well, that’s just mean. I work very hard on these.” He stroked his arm. “You know, that’s going to do shocking things to my self-esteem.”

I let out an unladylike snort. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s in the gutter. You’ll survive. How about you go and engage in some riveting conversation with Nat.” I nodded to my friend and coworker who had professed her utter jealousy that I had my very own ‘pet biker.’ She could have him. He was more trouble than I needed and I was more than he could handle. I cloaked my face before regarding him again. “I’ve got to get to work.”

Before I could turn away from him and the complicated emotions he seemed to arouse in me, he stepped even closer, so his body brushed mine. All humor flickered out of his face. It was unnerving, the quick transition, and also hot as f*ck.

“I want to see you,” he half growled.

I swallowed. “You will.” I nodded to the stage. “You and everyone else.”

I tried to turn again and that time he snatched my hand in his, maneuvering it so the meatheads at the corner of the room couldn’t see the gesture, his muscly body working like a shield.

“I don’t want to see what everyone else sees,” he murmured, his voice rough. “I want you to give me something. Give me you.”

I was paralyzed, only for a split second but long enough for his words to filter through the utter f*cking chaos of my mind and settle somewhere. I ripped my hand out of his grasp.

My eyes met his. “There’s nothing to give,” I whispered, and before I could inspect the way his face changed at my words, I turned on my heel and walked away. As soon as I left his presence the itch came back, more ferocious than ever, more intense and unbearable than before.





Chapter Two





“Numbing the pain for a while will only make it worse when you finally feel it.”

-Albus Dumbledore



I had to get myself sorted. In the far reaches of my mind that weren’t captured by the villain in the syringe, I knew it was getting bad. The need, the thirst, the necessity of that rush. Of what I felt when I got it. What I didn’t feel.

I was a slave to it.

But I wasn’t dirty when I was high. I wasn’t filled with sorrow. I wasn’t broken.

I was nothing.

Nothing was hard to give up. Even when I was starting to realize I was becoming a slave to it.

I couldn’t become a slave to it. Not when the horrors of my childhood already had me in chains.

So I sat on the sofa, rocking slightly, trying to figure a way out. To find out how to free myself.

“Bex?”

I jerked at the soft voice.

“You okay?” Lily asked.

My gaze darted up to my best friend, who was regarding me with concern. I noticed she looked better. She was eating more, which meant she was slowly putting on the weight she’d lost through the horrors of the past few years. Three of them. Caring for her sick mother.

Her dying mother.

Trying to care for me when I was intent on hitting the self-destruct button that had always been just out of reach, until it wasn’t.

Her eyes still danced with grief but she seemed stronger somehow, more sure of herself. Her golden hair shone with health and tumbled down her back, no longer lank and lifeless. The dark circles were disappearing from underneath her eyes, and the pallor that had worried me was now disappearing. I knew it had a lot to do with Asher, the hot biker who seemed to believe she invented the Harley Davidson. He did what I couldn’t, pulling her out of the abyss when I only yanked her back in.

I owed him a lot. I was also weary. For the three and a half years we’d know each other, it had been my job to protect Lily. She was shy. More than that, she suffered from social anxiety, stuff that made her vulnerable to the shitty world. That’s how I’d met her, on her first day at college, on the verge of a panic attack. She looked so tiny, a f*cking child, and something drew me to that. Some carnal part of me recognizing that vulnerability painted on her pretty face, that same vulnerability that was stolen from me when I was a kid. Something clicked, made me determined to make sure that wasn’t stolen from her like it was stolen from me. I couldn’t control it then, but I sure as shit could control it now. Since that day, it was my job to protect her. Asher had taken over that job. He was much better at it than me.