Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC #5)(84)

He snatched my arm and hoisted me to the floor, then began to drag me towards the door.

His hand on my bare arm immediately drenched my body in ice. The dirt came to the surface and I struggled to get free. “What are you doing?” I shouted. “Let me go.”

He kept dragging me. “I’m gettin’ you the f*ck out of here and somewhere where I can shake some f*ckin’ sense into you,” he growled, bursting through the double doors and into the parking lot.

I started to panic as the dirt became unbearable and his touch had my mind flickering between the parking lot and that room.

The room where I was covered in dirt. Nothing but dirt and ice.

“The man who is dragging me bodily is talking about sense?” I shrieked. I kept struggling against his grip. “Let me go,” I ordered.

Gabriel ignored me, just kept dragging me through the parking lot.

I didn’t notice anything except the way his hand on mine made the grime unbearable. It was creeping up my arm like a flesh-eating virus and it had to stop. I wrenched my hand from his grasp but it didn’t work, so I stopped, forcing him to stop too. It was either that or drag me. The look on his face might’ve been foreign, but I didn’t think he was about to drag my limp body on the ground through a parking lot.

“Let me go!” I screamed, unable to hold the panic and terror in anymore. Because the longer his touch remained on me, the longer I was in that place, in that room.

He did so immediately. My voice had been unrecognizable even to myself.

“You can’t touch me,” I said, my voice lower, hoarser. “I can’t have that.” I rubbed my arms in an effort to get it off. “I can’t have people touching me,” I muttered, trying desperately to escape that little room.

“Fuck,” he whispered, all rage gone from his voice. Only sorrow and regret was left. I felt him more than saw him step back.

I blinked and was back in the parking lot, looking at Gabriel put his hands to the back of his neck, his face tortured.

There was silence in that moment, enough of it for me to get my breath back, to convince myself that there was nothing under my skin.

His eyes burned into mine and he moved his foot an inch, then froze, as if he realized I needed the distance. “You’re safe, Becky,” he whispered, his hands clenched at his sides. “No one’s touching you. No one’s hurting you.”

I clung to his words like a life raft.

“I—” He took a breath. “Fuck, I didn’t mean to come in there like that. Do this to you.” His gaze flickered up my body. “I’m sorry, Becky. So f*ckin’ sorry. I didn’t realize—”

“It’s fine.” I was finding my strength now that the images were gone. Now that his touch was gone. “I’m fine,” I lied.

He wasn’t convinced.

“Apart from being moderately pissed off that you came into my place of work shouting and acting like a maniac,” I added icily.

He clutched the back of his neck once more, his jaw hard. “I didn’t mean to lose it, Becky. I f*ckin’ promise. Jesus, I know I need to handle you with care. I only just got you back. I didn’t recognize that.” He nodded to the building. “But when Gage told me you were going back to work, I saw red.” His eyes went hard. “What the f*ck are you thinking, Becky?” His voice was soft, but the edges were rough with fury.

I folded my arms. “I was thinking that this is my life and I’m in control of how I live it.” I paused. “And I’m totally not inviting Gage to my next sleepover. That mute can’t keep a secret.”

The cords in his neck pulsed, I was guessing at the effort it took to stay calm. “Yeah, babe. It’s your life. I want you to live it. You don’t, I don’t f*ckin’ live mine,” he declared. “So I don’t want you self-destructin’, doing something you think you need to do to prove to people, to yourself. Jesus.” He ran his hands over his head. “After what you went through? Puttin’ yourself on stage?” He shook his head. “I can’t let you do that, Becky.”

I glared at him. “I wasn’t asking permission.” I sucked in a breath. “I didn’t ask for any of this.” I waved my hands down my body, between us. “For you to come into my life. To get so wrapped up in you I don’t know where you begin and I end. I certainly didn’t ask for that…. I may have set events in motion to make it so, but I didn’t ask for them to take me. To do what they did to me. To turn into this person, this thing I am now. No, it all just happened. I had no control. I don’t have control over any of that shit. Over the fact I can’t even stand my best friend f*ckin’ hugging me because any human touch sends me right back into that room. That all hurtles out of my control. That”—I pointed to the building—“is something I can control, screwed up as it sounds. It’s the only thing I can control right now. So I’m doing it, whether you like it or not. And I’m sorry if it hurts you or damages your ego or whatever, but I don’t care. I can’t take on your shit as well as mine. I’ve got to be selfish right now or I’ll lose it.”

I was breathing heavily by the time I finished on a whisper. I didn’t exactly mean to blurt all of that out, but it had come to a bottleneck.

Gabriel wasn’t breathing heavily. He didn’t look like he was breathing at all. He was a statue, a beautiful, damaged statue, coated in rage and regret. The moment yawned into silence that filled the open air with my words. I was tempted to do something to break it, but I’d said enough. Far too much.