Out of the Ashes (Sons of Templar MC 3)

“Morning, sweetie,” I greeted cheerfully, passing her a cup of coffee.

She sipped it then eyed me cautiously. “Has there been some horrific national disaster?” she asked.

I glanced up from the griddle where I was scrambling eggs, frowning at the strange morning greeting. “Not that I know of,” I answered.

She shuffled to the breakfast bar. “Have any of our friends or family died?”

I gaped at her. “Of course not!” Maybe her weird half sleep phrases were making another appearance.

She sipped her coffee, looking slightly more alert. “Has Hell frozen over?” she continued.

I put my hand on my hip. “I sure hope not. If Little Nicky has anything right that would not be a good situation,” I replied. “Now what’s with the twenty, Sherlock?”

“You’re cooking,” she observed.

“I can cook,” I defended myself.

“If held at gunpoint, yes,” Lexie conceded. She paused, looking me up and down. “You’re dressed,” she also pointed out.

I looked down at my pencil skirt and heels. “People look at me weird if I go out in only my underwear,” I answered, sliding eggs onto a plate with toast.

“It’s 7 a.m.,” she said.

“I own a watch,” I told her, passing her the plate.

“Is this—”

“Gluten free? Yes, weirdo, it is. I wouldn’t dare poison my favorite daughter with wheat,” I interrupted her, topping up my own coffee.

“Only daughter,” she countered, taking a bite of her toast.

“That you know of,” I shot back.

“Anyway, as I was saying—” She glared at me accusingly. “It’s 7a.m. Never in my life, apart from that one time you decided we had to get up and watch the Olympics, have you been up dressed and coffee’d before this time,” she said in between bites. “And I can count on one hand the times you’ve cooked me breakfast.”

“Hey! Don’t make me sound like a terrible mother. I’ve cooked you breakfast since you were born,” I said defensively. “Starting with these puppies.” I pointed at my breasts, which she put in danger of ruining for good until I changed to formula.

She gave me a disapproving look before ignoring the breast milk reference. “Toasting Pop Tarts and putting milk in cereal doesn’t count,” she offered.

I leaned against the counter. “I respectfully disagree.”

“I’m not discussing the semantics over our differing definitions of cooking with you,” Lexie said exasperatedly. “I’m asking why, at 7 a.m., are you up, dressed and cooking?”

I stiffened slightly. “I woke up. Was feeling energetic,” I lied.

I had never lied to my daughter, save the one I had told her about her father. Though that one was for her own safety, and I still felt sick over it. I felt no better about this one. I could hardly say I was across the road at Zane’s having crazy animal sex all night, had only got home a couple of hours ago, and decided I couldn’t sleep so had consumed copious amounts of coffee and decided to cook breakfast.

“You were feeling energetic?” she repeated suspiciously.

“Mmhmm,” I said into my coffee mug.

She gazed at me disbelievingly and for a moment, I thought the interrogation would continue. But thankfully she focused on her breakfast and said nothing more on the subject.

Zane and I hadn’t exactly fleshed out terms of our sex arrangement. Namely because most of last night was spent discovering each other’s bodies and him giving me insane orgasms. I was delightfully sore, and more than a few places on my body had small discolorations from the grip of his hands. It was rough. The sex. He was rough in everything he did. I knew he held back; a man that size had to. But not much. He was rough and I loved it. Before him, I didn’t consider myself exactly adventurous in the bedroom. I certainly wouldn’t say I liked rough sex. With Lexie’s father we had been fumbling teenagers for a start, so it wasn’t exactly good. Then he learned and it got better. Then he turned into a monster and his touch repulsed me.

The couple of men I’d had since then weren’t anything to write home about. They did the job, but they didn’t set my entire body on fire as Zane had. So last night was spent with little to no talking. And in the early hours of the morning, when we had finally finished, we lay in silence for a long while, neither of us sleeping.

“I should go,” I had whispered, breaking the spell.

His grip had tightened around my middle.

“Yep.” His breath tickled my ear.

He held me for a moment longer, then released me.

I had dressed silently in the dim morning light as he watched me.

“So um,” I said awkwardly, “I’ll see you.”

He was silent. I almost turned to leave, but he knifed up before I could move.

“Need one last taste,” he muttered, gripping my hips as he stood.

His hand clutched my head and he pulled me into a brutal kiss. It seemed the passion of our entire night poured into that kiss.

When he let me go I blinked, momentarily stunned. “Bye,” I said quietly, regaining motor skills.

He did that thing where he ran his thumb from my temple to my jaw. “I’ll see you,” he promised me quietly.

I had wandered home in the dim morning light, luckily unseen by any neighbors. Because of the sheer amount of thoughts racing through my brain, once I was safely in my house I couldn’t sleep. So I cleaned. Did laundry. And cooked my daughter breakfast. Something that was obviously an oddity, thanks to the reaction it got. But I needed to keep busy. Otherwise I would think about what I had just done. Gone back to the bed of a broody, dangerous, menacing man who had treated me like a leper for weeks, then a whore, then with confusing tenderness. I would also think about how I had waltzed over there and hopped back into bed with him after barely giving him a verbal lashing for the way he treated me. Then there was the small fact he was in a motorcycle club. Now I wasn’t one to judge. I had been a single teenage mom. I had my fair share of judgment in my life so I knew how crappy it felt. Therefore, I considered myself pretty open-minded. From what I could see, his “club” was full of scary, seriously hot nice guys. But it wasn’t just me I had to think about.