Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC #5)(82)

Everything.

And what had changed about how I felt for him.

Nothing.

The previous morning, it changed.

“I made a mistake,” he said, jaw hard. The outburst came out of the blue, but the impact of the words hit me hard. So hard I was happy I stayed upright.

“A mistake?” I repeated. “Yeah, that tee with those jeans? Not cute.” I shook my head at him, trying to hide behind the bravado that served me so well in the past.

His gaze tattooed my soul. “I tried to make you mine. Tried to play by a book that was already written. Written for somebody else.” He stepped forward, clasping my hands in his and I let him. Despite the ice that settled under his grasp, the dirt that sank in, I let him. His touch was pain, but I feared the absence of it may be agony. “That’s where I f*cked up. Rules for trying to win you, trying to make you mine, aren’t in any book ever written. ’Cause you ain’t one in a million, firefly—you’re one in a lifetime. I thought I could make you mine, make you belong to me. I didn’t see that you don’t belong to anyone but yourself. That’s why I could never grasp you in two hands… before.” His eyes flickered with demons before he chased them away. “Now I intend to keep you in my arms for good. And not as something that I own, that I possess, but that you give me. As a gorgeous, chaotic soul, with warrior’s eyes and a f*ckin’ saint’s heart. I can’t possess your chaos, but I can let it possess me.” He lifted my hand up to his lips. “And it does. Every inch.”

Then he stepped back and walked away.

Fucking walked away.

I’d stood there like an idiot, shivering at the loss of his touch and the icy grasp of the flashbacks that came with it.

So that’s when I made the decision that brought me here. Gabriel, and his words, and his f*cking soulful stare drenched in sorrow.

I kept my back straight and my steps purposeful as I crossed the parking lot. Tried to tell myself I wasn’t going to freak out.

Fake it till you make it.

Which was what I did when I walked through the doors and passed my old place of employment. I purposefully averted my gaze from the stage in the middle of the room.

I wasn’t ready for that just yet.

It was empty, eerily so.

“Bex,” a low voice rumbled.

I almost crawled up the wall until I saw the owner of that voice.

Cade’s expression was how I imagined a ranger might approach a wild horse—cautious, ready for it to bolt. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

I straightened my spine. “You didn’t scare me,” I lied.

He gave me a contemplating look before nodding, then gestured to a seat at the bar.

I sat down. He sat beside me. “How you doin’?” he asked, his voice softer than I ever imagined he’d be capable of. I didn’t exactly know the biker ‘prez’ except in passing when I’d worked here. He’d technically been my boss, since the club owned this place and he was in charge of the club.

But since I’d become employed, Gabriel seemed to magically take over the running of this place, namely making sure the patrons didn’t get within breathing distance of me. Killed my tips, but they paid well so I hadn’t complained.

Obviously he didn’t run the place anymore, which was a huge f*cking relief. When I’d told Rosie my plans, she had looked at me sideways for just a second before putting me in touch with Cade.

“I’m fine,” I lied, glancing anywhere but his kind yet hard eyes.

He nodded again.

“I want my job back,” I blurted, wanting to do away with any talk of my current state of mind.

The only change in his expression was a slight raise of his brows. “Thought that might be the case.”

I drummed my fingers on the bar, mostly to distract me from my unease, from the constant itch.

“You sure you’re up to it?”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

He regarded me. “Yeah. It won’t go down well. With him.”

I stopped drumming. “Yeah, well, it’s a good thing this has nothing to do with him.”

“Babe, it has everything to do with him.”

I gave him my best level stare. “Nope. I know you guys take this ownership thing pretty f*cking seriously, despite the women’s protests, but this woman”—I pointed to myself—“isn’t owned by anyone, not even Gabriel. Especially not Gabriel. Men have been in control of what they do with my body, and I didn’t like it. Not one bit.”

I ignored Cade’s flinch.

“So I’m here, controlling what I’m doing with my own body. Me. No one else. And if you won’t give me my job back, I’ll go somewhere else.”

I made to stand up, though my threat was empty. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I had no money, and there wasn’t exactly a plethora of strip clubs within spitting distance. I sure as shit wasn’t going back to Carlos’s. I couldn’t, even if I were deranged enough to go back to the employer who had me kidnapped and raped—and trust me, I wasn’t. I heard he dropped off the face of the earth and the club had burned down to ashes not a day after this one had.

Faulty wiring was the official story.

Cade’s hand on mine stopped me. I flinched as his skin came into contact with mine and he clocked my reaction immediately, taking his tattooed hand away.