Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC 5)

“I’ll be here when you’re done,” he repeated.

I rolled my eyes. “Bloody bikers,” I muttered as I climbed out and shut the door.

Yeah, bloody bikers. In the week since our confrontation, Gabriel made good on his promise. He was there, at Rosie’s, every single day. Not for long, and he didn’t even come in, though I knew he wanted to. Come in and try to save me from it all.

But he didn’t.

It was as if he sensed that trying to save me would be the very thing to destroy me, that being in his presence for more than a handful of minutes was a mixture of torture and ecstasy I was only just mentally competent enough to handle.

So that’s all he gave me.

Those minutes were too much and not enough all at the same time. Mostly he asked how I was doing; told me to eat more; gave me the long, soulful, demon-filled stare; and left. Showing me what had changed about him.

Everything.

And what had changed about how I felt for him.

Nothing.

The previous morning, it changed.

“I made a mistake,” he said, jaw hard. The outburst came out of the blue, but the impact of the words hit me hard. So hard I was happy I stayed upright.

“A mistake?” I repeated. “Yeah, that tee with those jeans? Not cute.” I shook my head at him, trying to hide behind the bravado that served me so well in the past.

His gaze tattooed my soul. “I tried to make you mine. Tried to play by a book that was already written. Written for somebody else.” He stepped forward, clasping my hands in his and I let him. Despite the ice that settled under his grasp, the dirt that sank in, I let him. His touch was pain, but I feared the absence of it may be agony. “That’s where I fucked up. Rules for trying to win you, trying to make you mine, aren’t in any book ever written. ’Cause you ain’t one in a million, firefly—you’re one in a lifetime. I thought I could make you mine, make you belong to me. I didn’t see that you don’t belong to anyone but yourself. That’s why I could never grasp you in two hands… before.” His eyes flickered with demons before he chased them away. “Now I intend to keep you in my arms for good. And not as something that I own, that I possess, but that you give me. As a gorgeous, chaotic soul, with warrior’s eyes and a fuckin’ saint’s heart. I can’t possess your chaos, but I can let it possess me.” He lifted my hand up to his lips. “And it does. Every inch.”

Then he stepped back and walked away.

Fucking walked away.

I’d stood there like an idiot, shivering at the loss of his touch and the icy grasp of the flashbacks that came with it.

So that’s when I made the decision that brought me here. Gabriel, and his words, and his fucking soulful stare drenched in sorrow.

I kept my back straight and my steps purposeful as I crossed the parking lot. Tried to tell myself I wasn’t going to freak out.

Fake it till you make it.

Which was what I did when I walked through the doors and passed my old place of employment. I purposefully averted my gaze from the stage in the middle of the room.

I wasn’t ready for that just yet.

It was empty, eerily so.

“Bex,” a low voice rumbled.

I almost crawled up the wall until I saw the owner of that voice.

Cade’s expression was how I imagined a ranger might approach a wild horse—cautious, ready for it to bolt. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

I straightened my spine. “You didn’t scare me,” I lied.

He gave me a contemplating look before nodding, then gestured to a seat at the bar.

I sat down. He sat beside me. “How you doin’?” he asked, his voice softer than I ever imagined he’d be capable of. I didn’t exactly know the biker ‘prez’ except in passing when I’d worked here. He’d technically been my boss, since the club owned this place and he was in charge of the club.

But since I’d become employed, Gabriel seemed to magically take over the running of this place, namely making sure the patrons didn’t get within breathing distance of me. Killed my tips, but they paid well so I hadn’t complained.

Obviously he didn’t run the place anymore, which was a huge fucking relief. When I’d told Rosie my plans, she had looked at me sideways for just a second before putting me in touch with Cade.

“I’m fine,” I lied, glancing anywhere but his kind yet hard eyes.

He nodded again.

“I want my job back,” I blurted, wanting to do away with any talk of my current state of mind.

The only change in his expression was a slight raise of his brows. “Thought that might be the case.”