Out of the Ashes (Sons of Templar MC #3)(31)

She gazed at me disbelievingly and for a moment, I thought the interrogation would continue. But thankfully she focused on her breakfast and said nothing more on the subject.





Zane and I hadn’t exactly fleshed out terms of our sex arrangement. Namely because most of last night was spent discovering each other’s bodies and him giving me insane orgasms. I was delightfully sore, and more than a few places on my body had small discolorations from the grip of his hands. It was rough. The sex. He was rough in everything he did. I knew he held back; a man that size had to. But not much. He was rough and I loved it. Before him, I didn’t consider myself exactly adventurous in the bedroom. I certainly wouldn’t say I liked rough sex. With Lexie’s father we had been fumbling teenagers for a start, so it wasn’t exactly good. Then he learned and it got better. Then he turned into a monster and his touch repulsed me.

The couple of men I’d had since then weren’t anything to write home about. They did the job, but they didn’t set my entire body on fire as Zane had. So last night was spent with little to no talking. And in the early hours of the morning, when we had finally finished, we lay in silence for a long while, neither of us sleeping.

“I should go,” I had whispered, breaking the spell.

His grip had tightened around my middle.

“Yep.” His breath tickled my ear.

He held me for a moment longer, then released me.

I had dressed silently in the dim morning light as he watched me.

“So um,” I said awkwardly, “I’ll see you.”

He was silent. I almost turned to leave, but he knifed up before I could move.

“Need one last taste,” he muttered, gripping my hips as he stood.

His hand clutched my head and he pulled me into a brutal kiss. It seemed the passion of our entire night poured into that kiss.

When he let me go I blinked, momentarily stunned. “Bye,” I said quietly, regaining motor skills.

He did that thing where he ran his thumb from my temple to my jaw. “I’ll see you,” he promised me quietly.





I had wandered home in the dim morning light, luckily unseen by any neighbors. Because of the sheer amount of thoughts racing through my brain, once I was safely in my house I couldn’t sleep. So I cleaned. Did laundry. And cooked my daughter breakfast. Something that was obviously an oddity, thanks to the reaction it got. But I needed to keep busy. Otherwise I would think about what I had just done. Gone back to the bed of a broody, dangerous, menacing man who had treated me like a leper for weeks, then a whore, then with confusing tenderness. I would also think about how I had waltzed over there and hopped back into bed with him after barely giving him a verbal lashing for the way he treated me. Then there was the small fact he was in a motorcycle club. Now I wasn’t one to judge. I had been a single teenage mom. I had my fair share of judgment in my life so I knew how crappy it felt. Therefore, I considered myself pretty open-minded. From what I could see, his “club” was full of scary, seriously hot nice guys. But it wasn’t just me I had to think about.

I eyed the girl who was turning into a woman, munching on gluten free toast and organic eggs. The girl that was my entire world. I would protect her with my last breath. Do anything to keep her safe and happy. And I wasn’t sure having connections with the Sons of Templar would accomplish that.





Bull pulled up to the clubhouse, and for once it didn’t give him that feeling of relief. Of purpose. The sight of the clubhouse, the garage and the club’s flag flying in the wind didn’t do their job of keeping the demons at bay. That’s because something had already done that. Not something. Someone.

Mia.

He could still feel the sweet taste of her cunt on his tongue. Feel her nails raking into his back, drawing blood, making his cock pulse. Christ, he could still smell the vanilla, as if she was right there with him, on his f*ckin’ bike. He had f*cked up. Not only by f*cking her in the first place; that was the huge colossal f*ck up. Because now he was like an addict who had his first taste. He thought he could withstand her after the first time. But then he heard the f*cker Lucky flirting, trying to lay claim on her. She was his. The thought of her with his brother made him grip the handles of his bike as he pulled up.

Then she turned up on his doorstep in the middle of the night. Fucking barefoot. Wearing a scrap of lace barely covered with a flannel. The tiny thing was like a goddamned wet dream with her tousled hair and rosy cheeks. Then she started at him. Yelled at him. He had a f*ckin’ gun in his hand, for crissakes, but that didn’t stop her, not his Wildcat. She had pounced.

The moment he opened the door to her his cock hardened. But then, seeing her face redden, watching her throw him sass, it barely stayed in his pants. He had no choice but to claim her mouth. And when she fought him, slapped him, it had taken every ounce of his control to wait while she chewed it over in her mind. He was beyond f*ckin’ glad the moment she launched her little body at him. He shuddered to think of what would have happened had she not.

Then he had tasted every inch of her. Fucked her with abandon. With a fury he had never unleashed. She took it. She f*ckin’ loved it.

And then he had seen it. In her eyes. He had seen something that threatened his very core. Something he couldn’t describe but something that planted deep. Something that had him, right now, sitting on his bike in front of his clubhouse, feeling the closest thing to satisfied he had been in forever. Which made him f*ckin’ furious. He couldn’t have this. Couldn’t have her. But he couldn’t not have her either.