Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC 5)

“I ate a bad burrito a couple days ago,” I lied. “What doesn’t kill you makes you thinner, right?” I went for bravado but fell short. Everything was falling kind of short. It was hard to make an effort on maintaining the façade while battling the itch beneath my skin at the same time. It didn’t help that a renewed itch prickled my arms with Lucky’s gaze.

“You’re full of shit,” he ground out, not taking his eyes off me. “Tell me the truth.”

I glanced at the windshield to escape his gaze. “Shouldn’t you be watching the road?” I asked, changing the subject. “When I die I want to be wearing a better outfit than this. Also I’d quite like to turn up to my death a little drunk.” The joke was a little too close to home. I’d almost turned up to the pearly gates, or more likely the entry to the nine levels strung out in a dirty bathroom stall.

My gaze flickered to the steering wheel as Lucky’s hands tightened on it. His eyes still didn’t leave mine. Seriously? The truck was still dead center in the right lane. Was he Superman under that cut?

“Let’s get one thing clear here. You got a smart mouth. You make jokes, not as well as I do, but your sense of humor was bestowed on you by the devil himself and I dig that.” His eyes burned into mine. “One thing you don’t joke about, you don’t ever fuckin’ utter it again, is the prospect of you disappearing off the face of the earth,” he growled

I was stunned silent. That didn’t happen very often. I not only had a response any time someone tried to tell me what to do or say, but I had a multitude of responses, usually liberally peppered with curse words. Theoretically, a big alpha male badass telling me what to say and not to say would have exploded Volcano Bex. Not this time.

Maybe it was because I didn’t have the energy to throw sass when I was too busy fighting my body’s scream for junk. Maybe it was because I was feeling all weird after watching my friend tie the knot which challenged all my assumptions about true love being a crock of shit. It could have been any of those things. But it wasn’t. It was the way he was looking at me coupled with the fact that sentence communicated his care for my well-being. Someone other than Lily or Faith actually giving a shit about me.

Because he was Superman, or Superman’s evil biker older cousin, he sensed the intensity of the moment and my inability to handle it. A grin tickled the corner of his face.

“You especially aren’t allowed to speak of you leaving this earth without giving me a taste of that sweet ass.”

He winked at me and his eyes flickered back to the road, finally. We were pulling into the clubhouse. Thank Lucifer for small favors. Not thanking God because I was sure he or she had given up on me a long time ago. Or I’d given up on him.

I scowled at his profile. “You bet this ass is sweet. Sweeter than any club skank you’ve sunk your teeth into. But do you know where this sweet ass is going?” I timed my line perfectly as he pulled into a park. “Out of this car and away from you. Have fun watching me walk away because that’s the closest you’ll get.”

I darted out of the car before my speech filtered into his mind. These guys were weird as fuck, taking rejection to be foreplay. Not what I had in mind. I slammed the door and sauntered towards the clubhouse. I didn’t look back but I still heard his shout.

“You’re killin’ me, firefly.”

I gritted my teeth. “Nope. Saving you, actually,” I muttered.

Chapter Seven

“Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”

-Morticia Addams

I’d clutched my beer so hard I thought it might snap, and somehow resisted Gwen and Amy’s offer for cocktails. I wanted hard liquor more than I wanted a new pair of Doc Martins, but I knew it was a slippery slope. The minute that drink trickled down my throat was most likely the minute I lost it all. So I said no. Being stone-cold sober at a biker clubhouse wedding reception was like being at a One Direction concert—not fun.

Being stone-cold sober on Planet Earth was not fun.

In addition to Lucky’s stare and pretending not to watch him shrug off the girls, I had to deal with the narrowed eyes of Evie, who had been perusing me since I walked in the door. Or, more accurately, watching Lucky watch me. I’d been the object of disapproval many a time, so I recognized it on her face. Mostly, it didn’t hurt; I’d learned to let such gazes bounce off the hard shell I created. But this one slithered through the cracks and stung because I knew what she was. The matriarch of this little family. Motley it may be, but this gathering of outlaws and ‘whores’ and the rugrats running around was a family. One Lily had been welcomed into with open arms. One that, despite my outward protests, I yearned to be a part of.