Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC 5)

He led me into the bedroom as he spoke, his eyes darkening as he did so.

His mouth captured mine once more. “Clothes off, now,” he ordered.

The tone of his voice had me instantly wet, his eyes almost black as I stripped and stood naked in front of him. He didn’t touch me, but the weight of his gaze was a thousand hands on my body. In a good way.

“On the bed.”I did as he asked, watching as he shrugged off his cut and yanked off his tee. I drank in his body hungrily.

He rounded the bed slowly, lithely, like a panther. Opening the drawers beside his bed, he unearthed two sets of cuffs. Unease tainted the desire in his eyes. “You sure, Becky?”

“I’m sure.”

I was, like eighty percent. But this was Gabriel. I was safe with him.

He nodded and bent down, but he didn’t cuff me immediately. Instead, he kissed me, rough and brutal. Then he moved down, past my neck and aching nipples to my shoulder. He trailed kisses all down my arms until it was white-hot with his touch. That was when the icy steel encircled my wrist. I flinched at the click but managed to chase the ice away.

Gabriel’s gaze burned into me as he climbed over my body to reach my other hand. He repeated the same process, trailing his other hand past my bellybutton to my magic spot. I cried out in pleasure as he clicked the second set of cuffs on.

He kept working me while he moved his mouth to my nipples, giving them the attention they yearned for.

On the edge of release, he stopped.

I wanted to scream in frustration at his wicked grin.

“You don’t come on my hand,” he growled. “You’ll come in my mouth, and then around my dick.”

He lowered his head and moved down. Slowly, to torture me. Then his lips fastened around my clit, working it relentlessly until reality become fluid and soft and I exploded into a million pieces.

My hands rattled against my cuffs as I struggled to touch him. Realizing they were bound, the ice came back.

Gabriel’s body was on mine before it could settle and corrupt the moment. He clasped my neck. “Becky?” he rasped.

“I’m okay,” I whispered.

His eyes searched mine. “Gonna fuck you now. Hard. Can you take me?”

My entire body twitched at the sex in his tone. “Yes,” I breathed.

The word was barely out before he surged into me, his hands curling up with mine.

“Fuck,” he growled.

Then he fucked me. Hard.

And it was brilliant.

Magnificent.

I never feared cuffs again.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“The enemy doesn’t stand a chance when the victim decides to survive.”

-Rae Smith

You’d think after committing murder life wouldn’t start looking up.

But since my life was upside down since the moment I was born, it did.

Every day wasn’t better. Some days were worse, and I had to literally battle through the air like it was made of jelly. Had to constantly fight the temptation to find nothingness.

Not because my somethingness was bad.

Because it was good.

So good I couldn’t understand it.

Couldn’t breathe around it.

The good wasn’t pure and white and sunshine. It was clouds, murky gray and polluted by the demons of before and memories of yesterday.

But I think that was better than any kind of pure goodness.

Because it was real.

Too real.

Which was how I found myself blowing off work in the middle of the day and searching for nothingness.

“A glass of your crappiest red, please,” I said to Laura Maye, flopping myself on the barstool. I resisted the urge to lay my head on the bar and smack at it repeatedly.

Laura Maye was the woman from that day at the supermarket, the one who had grinned like a kid on Christmas as Gabriel dragging me away.

Rosie had introduced us.

Which should have said it all.

The woman, like Rosie, was insane.

Completely and utterly. Like Rosie, in the best way.

I could only do well around women who only flirted with sanity, never embraced it completely.

She raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow, though her face was kind. Even underneath all that totally amazing makeup, she managed to relay a variety of emotions. I dug that. If I had that much makeup on, I think my face would crack if I tried to mimic her look of concern and hesitation. Though, maybe that’s exactly what I needed. The only thing I had was a heavy-handed kohl liner, my trademark. I’d been experimenting with toning down my mask, trying to let my real face peek out and not be shocked by it. It had been going well, until that day. It was a day when I was caught by surprise by the demons I thought I’d tamed. They’d shown up just to let me know how feral they were. So I needed more than winged eyeliner. I’d asked her to borrow her hot pink lipstick. You know, just to shake things up a bit.