Battles of the Broken (Sons of Templar MC 6)

Yeah, he looked pretty darn serious.

So I thought on it.

Weighed the options.

Riding a motorcycle was already dangerous enough. And that was if the rider had on all the right safety gear and kept within the speed limits. Gage was wearing a cut and a thin henley. His boots were the only thing that would’ve offered any protection, and I guessed that wasn’t why he was wearing them. So driving at high speeds, without the proper gear, the helmet wouldn’t do much more to save his life. There was a reason they called motorcycle riders ‘organ donors.’

My stomach clenched at the mere thought of it.

“Cigarettes,” I said quickly.

I loved the smell of smoke on him, the gravel in his voice, but I knew that even if he’d been smoking his entire adult life, stopping in his mid-thirties would decrease a lot of the risks of cancer and other health complications.

He only nodded once.

And I gaped.

He’s going to give up smoking. For me?

I doubted he was a man who gave up anything for anyone.

“Babe, we’ve made our deal. That means you put the helmet on and get on the back of my bike,” he barked.

And on autopilot, I did just that.

The ride to the office took a handful of minutes.

The entire time, I tried to think about what that morning meant.

A few minutes gave me no insight.

I reasoned a fricking lifetime wouldn’t.

Gage

He had no fucking clue how he’d found himself parking his bike in front of her apartment, knocking on her door.

Not in the way he’d used to find himself in places not knowing how he got there. Not battling against the blackout brought on by booze and junk and the decisions he’d made when he mixed the two.

Or more accurately, the bodies he’d made. And then he’d have to bury the bodies without any memory of creating them.

Six years sober and he made sure everything he did now was purposeful. Planned. He created bodies. Plenty of them. And he had lucid and stark realness every step of the way. He liked to blow shit up. That also required presence. Planning. Sobriety.

Then again, his whole fucking life required sobriety. Required him to fight against that itch in his skin that he woke up with. That he slept with. That he fucking breathed with. It was his penance. His punishment. He wondered now and again what Hell would be like when he finally ate a bullet. Because there wasn’t more to be done to him.

And maybe that’s what had him in front of that door. Because when she opened it, Hell felt a little bit like Heaven.

Everything about her face had flushed when she locked eyes with him. She fucking brightened, from the inside out.

At him.

She didn’t blanch. Didn’t harden herself.

Not that he guessed she even knew how to harden herself. She was soft, beautiful edges. Her full curves that she tried to hide with her conservative fucking librarian outfit, but it did the opposite.

He was already hard as a fucking rock just staring into her eyes. Her fucking eyes framed by glasses that shouldn’t have been sexy.

But they were.

Oh fuck, were they.

Her skirt, brushing over her knees, only showing a small length of her milky and lean legs shouldn’t have either. But it hugged her long form, spanned hips that he wanted to bury himself between.

And then he didn’t give a fuck how he got there, right where he shouldn’t be, on her doorstep.

He knew he had to find himself there every fucking day. Because even if he was bringing his own Hell into her life, he wouldn’t be able to deny her Heaven. He was already fighting too many battles of resistance. He should’ve fought against this one.

But he wasn’t going to.

Especially not when her hot and soft body pressed against him on his bike—once she finally climbed on. When her skirt rode up and her fucking hot cunt was almost pressing into his back, he almost forsook it all and pulled over on the side of Main Street to fuck her on the back of his bike.

Regardless of who was watching.

He’d done shit like that before, with plenty of women. A blur of bodies, of fucked-up sex, of empty orgasms.

He could only find pleasure in depravity.

And that’s what stopped him from taking her.

Not just on the street but at her apartment. When she’d run her eyes up him like some hungry sex kitten, not the shy librarian she convinced the world—and herself—she was.

There was something in there. Something wild inside her conventional and innocent little package. He saw it then. Fuck, he’d obviously seen it before. That’s what had him coming back. That’s what had him craving her almost more than junk these forty-six hours.

Almost more.

He’d never crave anything more than junk.

The roar of the bike left his ears when he pulled up outside her offices, which meant there was nothing but the itching need for junk to distract him from the way she was pressed against his back. The way her hands were interlaced at his midsection, how her palms were flat against his torso, almost brushing his belt buckle.