Outside the Lines (Sons of Templar MC #2.5)
Anne Malcom
Club whore. Not my favorite title, but one that held so much more than the immediate connotations most people connected with it. It wasn’t something I aspired to be as a little girl dreaming of a bright future, but that future dimmed when life delivered me too many of the ugly truths of the universe in too few years.
I’m not going to sit and whine about a happy childhood that was shattered and turned into a nightmare after one horrible night, nor am I going to recount the year I spent dancing on a pole to put food on the table and a roof over my head. That ain’t me. I’m a survivor. I’ll take what life throws at me and figure out a way to catch it with a smile. I find solace in worlds of fantasy and magic, places where I can escape the darkness and evil of the real world. I laugh as much as I can, try not to take life too seriously. Otherwise, I’d never get out alive. No matter what, I’m not letting the bitterness of this world settle in and taint my soul. I did what I could to claw my way out of a life that threatened to ruin me, to find one that suited me, where I fit, where I had a family.
“Macy!” Jagger yelled at me.
I whirled around on my barstool. I’d been alone at the bar, enjoying an unusual moment of silence. I was never silent. And around here, I was hardly ever stationary.
“Yeah, hon?” I replied with a small grin.
“Get me a beer, and get your sweet ass over here,” he commanded from his spot at a table where he was flanked by Charley and Levi.
I rolled my eyes and bent over to snag a beer from the fridge.
“I got it, kiddo,” I reassured the Prospect, who had rushed to help me.
I gave him a wink. They got enough shit from the boys, I didn’t mind doing what I could to make their lives easier.
I sauntered up to the table, my eyes on Jagger. I stopped just out of his reach and dangled the beer from my hand.
“Anyone ever teach you a word that, in polite society, comes after a request? Rhymes with cheese?” I asked with a sickly sweet tone.
Jagger shook his head and Levi chuckled.
“Beautiful and intelligent, Macy. Won’t you please hand me that chilled beverage and sit that tight behind on my knee?” his gravelly voice requested.
He didn’t wait for me to move, just leaned out of his chair and tagged my waist, yanking me onto his lap. I let out a small squeal but laughed.
He nuzzled my neck affectionately and I leaned into his hold.
I liked Jagger. Had a soft spot for him. He wasn’t what most women would call handsome, given the fact he had a scar that marred half of his face, from his temple to the side of his nose, it was jagged, angry and puckered. His jaw was sharp and masculine, although it was covered by a long beard. His hair was unruly and inky black, but always shiny and clean. He wasn’t tall—he was taller than me, even in heels, but that wasn’t saying much—but he was stocky and packed with muscle. It was his eyes that captured me the most. They were the most vibrant green I’d ever encountered, like two emeralds shining from his head. He also had the most gifted tongue I’d ever experienced. Plus, he treated me with respect. Most of the boys did, but he treated me like a friend as well as a bed mate, and we’d spend hours talking after he’d used that gifted tongue along with other appendages.
“You looked mighty deep in thought over there darlin’,” he commented giving me a squeeze. “Anything me and my most knowledgeable advisors can help with?” He nodded to Charley and Levi, who did their best to look wise.
I gave them a look, then burst out laughing.
Charley was little more than a kid, he’d prospected straight out of high school and earned his patch before he could even legally drink. He was still only twenty and his boyish looks were yet to be corrupted and hardened by the life he’d chosen to lead. His close-cropped blond hair and classically handsome face made him easily mistaken for a college kid. Though, you only needed to get a look at his patch and the tattoos already serving as a patchwork over his muscled body to learn the truth. He even had SONS tattooed on his knuckles, in addition to the tattoo spanning his back. The MC was his life. He’d leave it only in a coffin—or handcuffs.
Levi was one of the older members, he’d been with the New Mexico chapter of The Sons of Templar for as many years as I’d been alive. His shaggy graying hair brushed his shoulders and he was clinging to his Chopper style mustache, despite it leaving the right side of trendy decades prior. His tattoos were faded and his belly protruding from too much beer, but he was still someone you’d be pretty stupid to get on the wrong side of, especially since you never saw him without a big scary knife strapped to his belt.
“Nothing that I want to trouble you three with,” I said taking a pull of my beer. “I’ll leave you to solving things like world hunger and global warming,” I teased fondly.
Though they were hardened men, who I knew could be scary as shit did the occasion arise, they were also my family. Loyal to a fault, they would die for each other. I’d been with them for two years and felt like maybe they’d stick their necks out for me too. Or maybe that was my darned optimism shining through.
After laughing and shooting the shit with the men, more members arrived and the start of the weekly Friday night party began. Not that these men needed a designated night to get loose.
More club girls, namely Scarlett and Kimberly took it upon themselves to get up on the pole in the corner of the room and do a strip show for the boys at one point, not that they had much covering themselves to begin with. Here, there were two kinds of club girls. Scar and Kim, who were all about the shortest skirts, the highest heels, and the most skin. They weren’t fazed about having relations in public. Evidenced by the fact, Scar just let one of the guys yank her off the stage and drag her into a dimly lit, but still visible corner to do the nasty. Then there were girls like me. Sure I liked my heels, but my clothing erred on the hippy side. I was less than likely to be found sprawled across the hood of a car and photographed for a men’s magazine editorial. And, I was not into public sex. Luckily, the men respected this, and never tried to go past heavy petting at these things.