Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC) (13 page)

“Stop,” he growled, his body stiff.

I tilted my head. “Stop what?”

He leveled me with his gaze. “Calling yourself that.”

I didn’t back down. “That’s what I
am
, Lucky. If you can’t handle hearing it out loud, then drive me back to Amber and let me take care of my own shit.” My voice rose to a near shout while I ignored the little blossom of fear at him doing just that. I didn’t understand that fear. Of being alone. Of being without him. So I ignored it.

“Take care of your own shit?” he repeated, his quiet voice juxtaposing my shout, but somehow holding more volume to it.

I nodded.

“Taking care of your own shit almost got you fuckin’
dead
!” he roared, pushing out of his chair so hard it rattled to the ground.

I didn’t flinch at that. The rage. I was used to it. Welcomed it, in fact.

He stalked around to me, yanking my own chair around and bending to get in my face. “There’s no fuckin’ way I’m leavin’ you alone with this shit. Riskin’ a repeat of your overdose and this time you actually pump enough shit in there to actually leave this earth,” he growled. “So, to answer your earlier question, no, I don’t have anything fuckin’ better to do than make sure my firefly’s light doesn’t go out.”

I blinked at him. Again. And again.

“Yours?” I repeated on a whisper.

He nodded, his face still inches from mine. “Yeah. Mine. Since the moment you bared your tits on stage and threw your sass off it.” He paused, and for one terrifying and glorious moment I thought he might cross the distance between us and kiss me. Instead, he spoke. “And I can’t hear you call yourself that shit, not again. Not because I don’t know it’s true. I’m more than fuckin’ aware of that truth.” His gaze flickered down to my bare arms. “I can’t hear it again because I know that, despite your best efforts to appear otherwise, you’re fragile as fuck. So fuckin’ desperate to appear hard when you’re the most breakable. So I can’t hear it ’cause I’ve got a tenuous fuckin’ hold on my rage, and if I hear it too much, I’ll let go and break you without meanin’ to.” He reached up to brush my hair out of my face with a tenderness that didn’t match the fury on his face.

“Your rage?” I repeated. “You’re angry? At me?”

He nodded. “Fuckin’ furious.”

“Why?” I whispered. My heart sank with his admission, which was very un-Bex of me. Usually I didn’t give two shits if people were angry at me. In fact, I preferred that so idiots I didn’t want to waste time on didn’t talk to me. But Lucky wasn’t in that category. Despite everything, he was the only guy I wanted to waste time on.

“Because you’re blind. Blind to what you are. What you really are. If you could see what I see, no fuckin’ way would you go so deep into the darkness that you have to inject yourself with poison to see again.” He paused, and I was pretty sure it was because he could hear the way my heart was beating out of my fucking chest. I didn’t know it did that in real life. Didn’t know guys could actually make that happen. But there we were. It didn’t feel nice either. It felt uncomfortable, painful, like I might have a heart attack.

Lucky was unaware of my potential coronary. “I’m angry at myself for not finding you earlier, not being there to steer you away from that shit. Now I can only just watch and do everything I can to help you find your way out. ’Cause no matter how much I wish it was different, it’s not up to me. It’s up to you and you only. So you’re here to make that decision, and I’m here with you to watch you hopefully make the right one.”

The air turned cold as he pushed away from me, turned on his heel, and left, along with the elephant left the room. And yet it still felt so full I couldn’t breathe.

* * *

I
stayed longer
than two days.

Almost two weeks, in fact. It wasn’t just Lucky’s huge admission that had me reluctant to leave, though it was a huge fucking factor. It was the peace.

I’d never had it before.

Peace. Quiet.

Since birth, my entire life had been chaos, had been loud. It had been constant motion. Stopping meant destruction. Quiet usually meant that something, somewhere, was gearing up to strike.

But not there. Not in that little cabin with the biker I’d promised myself I wouldn’t let in.

I let him in.

Not literally, though I craved that on about the same level as the junk. Actually more because there in the peace, the craving slithered away. Not completely, of course; it would always be there, present, taunting, tempting. But enough so I could take a breath without pain.

I guess you could say I wasn’t really recovering, just replacing one addiction with another, but whatever.

Not that Lucky was making any moves. The opposite, in fact. He still cooked me breakfast, told stupid jokes, and treated me to my daily ab show when he went surfing, but no funny business. I didn’t normally wait for something; if I wanted it, I went out and got it. Even with guys.
Especially
with guys. I didn’t believe in gentlemen making the first move, mostly because I had no experience with gentlemen, but still.

But it was different with him. Every fucking thing was different with him.

I talked to him. Actually
talked
to him.

I didn’t talk to anyone except Lily. And, more recently, Rosie.

But even with them I didn’t share like I did with him. Sometimes it was easy, just stupid surface stuff. Mostly bickering and me insulting him for liking Nickelback. But other times it wasn’t surface.

“What made you do it?” he asked suddenly, making me look up from my book.

It was after dinner, another great one he’d cooked and I actually ate.

“Do what?”

He gave me a serious look, one that said exactly what he was asking.

I sighed and put my book down. I should have told him to fuck off. Mind his own business. Or even walked out of the room. That’s what the old Bex would have done to anyone else. Heck, that’s what this new, clean Bex would still do to anyone else. But he wasn’t anyone else.

“Why does anyone do anything that threatens destruction and yet promises escape?” I looked anywhere but him. “Because I was willing to risk it all just for a moment of escape. And then I couldn’t stop.” I shrugged.

I felt his presence more than saw it. But I couldn’t avoid his gaze anymore when his hand came to my jaw, bringing it down to meet his eyes. He was close, bent down in front of me. Inescapable.

“What’s so bad that you needed to escape, Becky?”

I laughed nervously. “Um, in case you hadn’t noticed, I wasn’t exactly living the dream. I was—no, wait,
am
—a medical school dropout who took her clothes off for money. Though, now I’m a medical school dropout, unemployed stripper, and ex-junkie. I was wrong. I’m totally living the dream.”

Lucky searched my face. “Why did you drop out? Of medical school? Really tell me, none of the ‘I just didn’t belong’ crap.”

I shrugged. “I realized it was never going to work out. That I was never going to work out. It had been a dream, trying to be something better than I was born to be. Seriously, me? A doctor? Could you actually see me doing that? Saving lives? I can barely save my own. Actually, I wasn’t even the one who did that,” I said quietly, remembering waking up in that hospital bed.

Lucky grasped my neck. “I can see you doing that,” he argued. “I can see you doing anything that you fuckin’ want to do. The only thing that doesn’t suit you, no matter how fuckin’ good you look doin’ it, is taking your clothes off in some shithole for a bunch of perverts. Only thing you’re not born to be is someone who lives in the shadows.”

I swallowed the tears that he seemed to fish out with his words. “You don’t know that. Can’t say that. I was born for the shadows. You don’t know where I come from,” I whispered.

“Don’t need to know that. I want to, one day, when you feel like tellin’ me. But for now, I don’t need to know where you come from to know you deserve more than the scraps of life you give yourself. I know that where you are,
what
you are, means you deserve more.”

We were at that moment again, that moment when his face lingered inches away from mine and his lips were as intoxicating as any substance, chemical or natural.

That time I didn’t give him the chance to pull away. I dived in, unable to fight the craving any longer.

His lips crashed into mine in a beautiful collision, and the high was instant and magnificent. It wasn’t tender or gentle like his words. It was fierce and crazy, a furious struggle between the two of us for control.

Then it was nothing.

The hands at my neck tightened and he pulled away, using gentle force to pry our lips apart.

“Hey,” I protested.

He rested his forehead against mine. “I won’t do this, not now,” he rasped, his voice thick. “Not until you’ve fought this shit off and I don’t feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”

I fought against his hold. “You’re not taking advantage of me,” I argued.

He held firm but the veins in his neck pulsed. “Yeah, I would be. Plus, I’m a selfish bastard. I want
all
of you. I want you to give me everything. I’m not takin’ it when you’re still strugglin’.” His eyes burned into mine. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to. I fuckin’ want to. I should get a fuckin’ medal for my restraint right now. But I’m willin’ to be patient ’cause I know you’re worth it.” He stood. “Now I’m going for a drive ’cause I can’t be in the same room as you right now.” His eyes burned into mine. “If I stay much longer, all my self-restraint will disappear and I’ll fuck you into oblivion right there on that sofa.”

Then he left.

Fucking
left
after saying that.

The asshole.

I was angry. Pissed. I’d paced, sworn, and sent mental daggers to wherever he was. I’d planned on staying up and unleashing my anger. But he didn’t come back, not until I was long asleep on the sofa. I only awoke to his arms encircling me and laying me down on my bed. Because I was sleep-zombie Bex, I wasn’t myself. Which was how I explained away clinging to him when he tried to let me go.

“Don’t leave me,” pleaded the stranger Bex.

And he didn’t. The sound of boots hitting the floor followed and I was bundled up in strong arms. I nuzzled deeper.

“This is nice,” I mumbled.

A hand stroked my head. “Sleep, firefly.”

“I do,” I whispered, already half in the dream world. “Knowing I’m with you, near you. I sleep for the first time since it happened. I’m safe.”

Then I drifted off and didn’t feel the way his body stiffened at my words.

And in the morning, he was gone.

“
D
o not fall
in love with me, for I’ll break your heart, long before you realize you are going to break mine.”

-Atticus

I
got it
. Peace. Just a taste. Nearly two weeks of it. The only slice I’d ever have. Because everything comes to an end, right?

The good news is nothing lasts forever.
That’s what I’d tell myself when I was at a shitty foster home where we got dressed in dirty clothes and slept in scratchy sheets. That’s what I told myself… after, when I thought I’d go crazy with the demons pounding at my skull that night. They were still pounding, even now. But it wasn’t forever yet; there was still time for them to leave the building.

That’s what I told myself now, that forever wouldn’t be fighting the urge for a craving, counting every second as a small victory in an exhausting fight.

Then there was the bad news: nothing lasts forever.

My peace was shattered two weeks into our little stay. Or, more aptly, I shattered it. Two weeks was a long time to be cooped up in an isolated cabin with someone, but I wasn’t getting cabin fever. I was starting to like it. Too much.

I was starting to like Lucky.

A fucking lot.

He’d just come in from his surf, wearing low-slung board shorts and nothing else. You’d think I would’ve found a way not to be struck silly by his washboard abs covered in tattoos. And I mean
covered
. There was only a small space above his heart that was naked, unblemished skin.

It was getting harder not to pounce on him. Especially when I needed something. Needed escape.

But he didn’t promise escape.

I think he promised damnation.

So something had to give.

“Why?” I snapped at him as soon as he closed the sliding door.

He threw a towel onto the counter and shrugged. “I don’t know, I was just born this beautiful. Sure, I work out, but this bone structure?” He gestured to his face. “God-given.”

Now that I was sober, my emotions were volatile, like constant PMS. Which was why I may have let out a shrill, frustrated, embarrassingly girly scream.

“Be serious for once in your fucking life!” I shouted, stomping into his face. “Why? Why did you bring me here? Hit the pause button on your life for two fucking weeks for someone you barely know? And don’t hit me with the romance novel ‘you are mine’ bullshit. We’re not in a fantasy world. This is the real world and that’s not how it works. This”—I gestured between us—“doesn’t make sense. I’m not someone anyone ‘falls’ for. So give me the fucking reality, Lucky. The sense. The why.”

His eyes were blank, unflinching in the face of my—potentially unreasonable—fury. “I can’t,” he answered, his voice flat.

“You can’t what?”

He ran his hand over his smooth head in frustration, turning to regard the sea. “Give you a reason. Sense. I fucking got none. All I know is that this”—he turned so he could gesture between us like I did—“isn’t fantasy. It’s reality. Because it’s not nice and easy and good. If it was good, I wouldn’t be a man who knew what life looked like leaving a man’s body, to be the one taking that. And you wouldn’t have darkness behind your eyes, track marks on your arms, and a job that took a little of your fuckin’ soul every time you took your clothes off.” He stepped forward so he could clutch my neck in his hand. “It’s not good. But it’s reality, and it’s inescapable. I don’t fuckin’ want to escape it, no matter how difficult this shit is. I don’t want to escape. I want to save you.”

His words punctured me. Struck me dumb, and I didn’t know which of my raw emotions would win its race to the top.

Anger won.

Which was good.

Safer.

“You brought me here to save me?” I asked shrilly, yanking from his grasp.

“I took you here for you to save yourself. I’ll do anything I can to help with that.”

I let that bounce off me. “Well, you’re twenty-three years too late, buddy,” I said, my voice like ice. “You think it’s just a little drug addiction that damages the image of whoever the fuck you see out of those baby browns?” I laughed. “Yeah, tip of the iceberg. See, I was born damaged. I’ll die that way, and everything in between is gonna make sure I stay that way. I don’t pity myself. There are kids in Africa who have to drink poisoned water and who most likely won’t make it to their twenties. Being abandoned at birth and bounced around from shitty to shittier foster homes isn’t exactly the worst thing that could have happened.” I swallowed. “It could have been worse.” I chased away the memory of the creaking of the door in the darkness and the horrors that happened after the door creaked shut again and the darkness settled deeper into my soul. “I was the one who picked up that needle, I know that. That’s on me. I was the one stupid enough to overdose, and I’ll take all that.” I leveled my gaze at him. “What I won’t take is some perpetually happy biker spiriting me away for God knows why trying to make me better when he has no fucking clue what he’s talking about.”

Lucky’s jaw was granite and not an ounce of humor lurked behind his eyes. It was unnerving, and I found myself almost regretting my monologue. I opened my mouth to do something I didn’t have much experience in doing—apologize.

He beat me to it.

“You know why I’m called Lucky?” he asked.

“’Cause you always win at bingo?” I retorted sarcastically.

“Because the first time I ever shot a gun, it plowed through the skull of some guy in a rival crew. Luckiest shot my homies had ever seen,” he explained in a flat voice. “I was twelve.”

I gaped at him. At the transformation of his attractive face. The strength was still there, but everything else was stripped away and I saw what he’d been hiding, what I hadn’t even made an attempt to see. His demons. His damage.

“Didn’t exactly grow up in suburbia, Becky,” he continued. “I spent the first thirteen years of my life in an area of East LA where you either get a crew or roll the dice with your life.” He paused, eyes far away. “I got a crew. Thought I was hot shit, fuckin’ invincible. The big man with the weight of a gun in my trousers when I hadn’t even shaved.” He shook his head. “Was a stupid fucking kid. My momma hated it, but she couldn’t do much. She was working two jobs to put food on the table, trying to raise my two little sisters and control my wild older one. She loved me, which meant she hated what she knew I was going to turn into. I loved her too. My little sisters. Alexis, despite the fact she got into trouble every time she left the house. Which was exactly why I picked up the piece in the first place. I loved them and knew I needed to protect them. I was the man of the house since my dad was facing life in prison after he fucked up a burglary, shot a cop.” He paused again. “Dad wasn’t a bad guy either, at least not what I remember of him. Just made some fucked-up choices and panicked at the wrong time. He told me before he died that he saw the face of that cop every time he closed his eyes. I didn’t understand it at the time. Not until I earned my nickname and took my first life.” He stared at me, unblinking. “Not until I closed my eyes that night and saw that kid’s face for that night and every fuckin’ night since. Though, he’s not the only face I see.” He swallowed visibly, his fists clenching at his sides.

I knew it then. Something was coming. Something terrible, something fucking horrific. It was like the air churned with the expectation of it, tasted bitter. I knew it because horrors in different people have a way of recognizing one another.

“Lucky,” I whispered.

He jerked, like he didn’t realize I was still there. “It’s Gabriel, actually,” he said. “That’s the name my momma called me, despite everyone else going with the nickname I earned with blood. That was what
they
called me. Sofia, Camila, and Alexis.” He choked their names out like they were daggers on his tongue. “Alexis was the oldest. Fifteen going on twenty-five. A handful, and not one either me or my mom could contain.” He smiled, not at me but at a memory. “She had spirit. Fire.” His eyes settled on me. “You remind me of her. Chaos and spirit barely contained in one human being. Beautiful. Disastrous.”

I flinched. Not because I was insulted but because I was touched. He’d found it. My soft spot. By comparing me to the sister he obviously loved. Adored.

“They were twins, Sofia and Camila,” he continued. “Six years old. I was meant to take care of them that day. It’s what I thought I was doing. Out in the streets protectin’ our turf, making the neighborhood safe for them.” He sucked in a breath. “Our house was shit. No matter how much Mom tried to make it different, it was shit. It was small, falling apart, and gray. Only color came from the girls. We didn’t have much except a front yard where the girls liked to play in the sunshine. Every day they played out there, pretendin’ they were somewhere else, somewhere they deserved.” His voice was hard, cold. But I wasn’t fooled. I could feel the sorrow drenching the room. I don’t know how the heck I hadn’t seen it before. I thought I was good at hiding my demons, but this guy was the fucking king.

And it broke my shriveled heart.

“’Cause I wasn’t where I was supposed to be that day, taking care of my girls, they did get to go somewhere else. Somewhere I hope to every fucking thing that is holy is somewhere better. That’s the only thought that keeps me upright. That and the knowledge that they didn’t feel a thing. Didn’t know what was happening until they left this world.” His hazel eyes weren’t liquid; they were solid and they punctured through me. “See, the guys searchin’ for retribution for their fallen homie were good shots too. Not lucky, like me. Practiced. Ruthless. Didn’t fuckin’ blink at putting bullets in two little girls’ heads.” His face was a mask. “Though they did regret it. I made sure of that.”

I shivered at the ice in his tone, the violence. It was a stranger to me. The person those demons transformed Lucky—no, Gabriel—into.

“Tore me apart, Becky. Till there was nothin’ left. Broke my momma. She never spoke to me again, still won’t.” He swallowed roughly and found a way to meet my eyes. I got sucked into them. Entangled in his nightmare. “Alexis overdosed a few months later. Not on purpose. She loved life too much, even with the babies gone.” His eyes glistened. “She was tryin’ to live. Burned too bright too quick and she exploded, like a supernova,” he whispered. “I went dark after that. I went fuckin’ black. Fell deep into a world that still gives me fuckin’ nightmares. That makes this one look like Candyland. Chanced upon Asher after a few years in that world. He was running from his own shit. Not my story to tell. But somehow, both of us recognized that we couldn’t stay where we were without turning into the monsters who’d taken my sisters from me. So we got out. And the rest, shall we say, is history.” He didn’t move his gaze from mine. “So it wasn’t fantasy that drew me to you. It was reality. My ugly, dark reality. And that’s why I dragged you here. To fuckin’ save you, even if that pisses you off. ’Cause I’m not lettin’ another supernova explode in a ball of brilliance and leave my world just that bit darker.”

The silence that descended after he finished speaking was so heavy it seemed to darken the room, despite the sun shining through the windows. I was shocked silent, shocked still.

God, I’d been such a bitch to him. So self-important about my own suffering, so sure I was the only person between us battling demons so I had the authority to act how I wanted. How could someone who seemed to derive so much joy from the stupid aspects of life be someone who’d tasted the worst suffering this stupid ball of water had to offer? How the fuck could he spend the day laughing when the universe gave him every reason to turn into a monster?

“I’m not sayin’ this for pity, Becky. Or to belittle your own shit. I’m only saying it so you understand you’re not alone. You’re not the only one the devil took some shots at while the big guy was lookin’ the other way.”

“You believe?” I asked in shock. “In God, in something bigger than this, after what you’ve been through?”

“You got another option for slogging through the shit that’s unfortunately a part of life? ’Cause death’s a part of life. Shouldn’t have been a part of Sofia and Camila’s, not for a long fucking while. Or Alexis’s. But since it was, and I can’t change that, I’ve got to believe that someone, somewhere, is takin’ care of them. Only thing that’ll keep me sane. That and the knowledge of the fact I got my revenge. Guess it’s kind of a paradox in believing in heaven when my revenge got me a one-way ticket to hell. But I’m okay with that, if they’re in that place and the people who put them there are roasting with the Devil himself.”

It broke then. My shield, my armor, whatever it was that stood between me and him. Fell into a thousand pieces, and I didn’t give a shit. I didn’t have words. I wasn’t a warm and tender woman who could heal hurts with soft whispers. So I did the only thing I knew to do, the only thing that came to mind, that felt natural.

I stepped forward, kept walking until my body pressed to his. I soaked it up, every ugly and thorny emotion rolling from him. I moved my hands up the sides of his neck and gripped it tightly, pulling it slightly so I could reach his mouth, so we were inches away from each other.

“Becky,” he warned.

“No talking,” I murmured.

Then I pressed my lips to his. It was a first for me, kissing someone like that. Kissing someone I actually gave a shit about. Kissing them and wishing that my lips would do something, cure something. A sensation rolled from that kiss, spreading to every part of me.

I didn’t have time to inspect it. The pivotal change that came with that kiss. The earthquake it triggered between us, changing the landscape of our relationship. I didn’t have the time nor the brainpower because seconds into the most gentle and profound kiss of my life, it changed. Gabriel’s hands moved to my hips, biting into the flesh as his mouth took control of the tender kiss. Though it was no longer tender. It was carnal, animalistic. It was the earthquake that didn’t just change the landscape, but shattered it.

He growled into my mouth and moved back. “Fuck, Becky. You got to stop this now if you ain’t ready. If you want me to be the gentleman. ’Cause I’m fuckin’ seconds away from losing every ounce of gentlemanly thoughts and taking you hard and fast against that wall.” His voice, his words, the bulging cords in neck, the sex in his eyes all set me alight and drenched my panties.