Deadline to Damnation (Sons of Templar MC 7)

I knew why.

It had lurked at the back of my mind all shift. Caused me to fumble with IVs, drop needles, beginner stuff. Luckily they were minor.

What wasn’t minor was the truth that was cloaked all over Asher’s touch.

He closed and locked the door silently. I dropped my purse on the counter by the door.

And I just stood there.

Usually the first thing I did was shower and get out of my scrubs, they so weren’t the sexiest thing ever, or at all, but Asher seemed to like using them in a number of role plays.

Asher was always waiting up, either to rip my scrubs off me, or to take a shower with me, or to make me a warm tea and hold me if the night had been bad.

Asher, my lighthouse, my steadfast man.

“I can’t believe I was away all night. With tomorrow,” I choked out. “I needed to be with you so I could—”

“You don’t need to be with me tonight, Flower,” he murmured, interrupting me and grabbing me so I was flush with his hard body. “Because you’re gonna be with me tomorrow night.”

“I’m scared,” I admitted.

He stroked my jaw with his thumb. “Me too,” he said back, barely a whisper.

My heart pulsated with the rawness of his tone, of his face. Of him. Asher was always real with me. He always shed the cut and the biker persona and was just him.

But this was something different.

This was a chance for me to be his lighthouse, his steadfast woman.

I went up on my tiptoes and brushed my lips against his.

He responded immediately.

I let the kiss go on, lazily, tenderly, like we had all the time in the world, like we had no outside worries. He let me take control.

Or I don’t even think he let me. He didn’t have the strength to take control anymore. And that was sexier than anything else, a man that wasn’t afraid to let me be strong for him. And I was able to do it. He taught me how, after all.

Bex

“It’s sexist, you know.” I cut through my steak viciously. “All you men going out to fight while the little women are locked down in the clubhouse.” I chewed. Swallowed. Glared at my husband. “Again.” I cut at my steak with more aggression.

“You know, baby, that cow is already dead,” Gabriel commented dryly.

I moved my aggression from my steak. “Yeah, but you’re not,” I shot.

He grinned and the truth came with his easy smile.

My cutlery clattered onto my plate and I pushed my chair back with a screech.

Gabriel had already turned his in preparation for me climbing onto his lap to straddle him. It was fucking infuriating how well he knew me. It was fucking terrifying. Because the man that knew me this well, who smiled when I threatened to kill him, who waited as I fought my way through my own battles, who adored me despite my many imperfections, he was not fucking dead.

Yet.

“I can’t do another lockdown,” I admitted, cupping his face, running my hands along his stubbled jaw, down his neck, covered in tattoos. Ink that I knew better than my own. “I can’t be stuck inside while you’re out there. It’s fucking—”

“Misogynistic, sexist, and the definition of patriarchal control over women,” Gabriel finished for me before I could. His hands moved from my hips to cup my ass, pulling me closer to him so my pussy pressed right against the flesh of his cock.

We were naked.

Because Gabriel had instituted Naked Wednesdays.

I had not complained.

He moved his head down to fasten his mouth over my nipple. I reveled in the pleasure for a moment before I smacked his head.

He jerked back. “That’s spousal abuse, you know.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s spousal abuse, but me handcuffing you to our bed making you fight so hard that your wrists bled wasn’t?” I asked dryly.

His eyes darkened. “No, because I got an orgasm after that. So you give me a blow job, I’d be willing to reconsider calling the authorities on you.”

I smiled. Even though I really fucking didn’t want to.

That was Gabriel. He made me happy even when I didn’t think I could be. Even when I didn’t want to be.

And the night before a war that seemed greater than anything we’d ever faced was a time when I really didn’t want to be happy. It was a time when I really want to find an eight ball, a needle and welcome oblivion.

Even being clean for as long as I had been, even being happier than I thought human beings like me were allowed to be, I was always going to be an addict. And when times got hard, dark and fucking scary, my kneejerk reaction was always going to be to think about a fix.

But the problem was, there was no fix for this. Nothing could take me away from this reality, not even heroin.