WOUNDED SOULS MC
His Beauty
LEAH SHARELLE
Copyright © 2018 Leah Sharelle
His Beauty (Wounded Souls MC Series – Book 3)
By Leah Sharelle
All Rights Reserved.
Chief Editor: Colleen Snibson
Co-editor & Interior Design: Rogena Mitchell-Jones
Photography: Christy Van Elsen, Chic Professional Photography
Cover Design: Mayhem Cover Creations
Models: Katrina Leckie and Rhyce Price
This book may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. All characters and storylines are the properties of the author, and your support and respect are appreciated.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
This author writes in both American English and Australian English and may include Australian diction.
Table of Contents
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
Epilogue
About the Author
Thank you, Julie Pfeiffer, for your friendship and your constant support. To my beautiful daughters—Katrina, Meagan, and Tamara—I love you chicks to the moon and back.
To my dear friend Julie Pfeiffer, a.k.a. Vegas. I still think your life is much more glamorous than mine.
And to blue eyes, thank you, handsome.
A very special thank you to Lila Rose. You, lovely, have been an inspiration, kind, and your friendship means the world to me. I hope you enjoy the Wounded Souls men as much as I enjoy your Hawks. Also, thanks for letting me use your name.
Special thanks to Colleen Snibson, editor extraordinaire. Your patience has no limits.
Rogena, my interior designer and co-editor—you make my books so pretty, and you are nice, too.
Sometimes, what may seem is the second choice is really the only choice. The heart’s choice is always the right one.
Prologue
STEEL
I ran as fast as I could out of the compound to my bike, my leg screaming at me to take it slower, but I couldn’t.
Mia was in danger.
Stella’s pain-laced words echoed in my mind as I jumped on my bike, and it roared to life. My brothers knew I was heading to the strip club, so I didn’t even waste time telling them. Booth had to get to Stella before it was too late.
I saw Booth’s SUV peel out in the opposite direction, but I also heard the thunder of two exhaust pipes behind me. Without even looking, I knew it was Creed and most likely Darth coming with me. I ground my teeth thinking about Creed. Even though we were brothers and former teammates on the best sniper team in the commando’s history, we had also clashed heads since the day we met—but I would die for the broody fucker any day of the week. However, his interest in Mia was irking me. Don’t ask me why because I couldn’t figure that fucking shit out.
Mia was my best bartender and my friend. She was also the sister of the woman who had just knocked back my proposal of marriage, laughed in my face, insulted my president, and was just banned from the compound. I couldn’t even begin to compute what went down with Callie, or why I had let her lead me around by my dick. Nope, I was not going there. My primary concern was getting to Mia and seeing with my own eyes that she was safe. Yeah, I was not going to compute that yet, either.
Barely missing going through a stop sign, I gave myself a mental kick in the arse. Creed pulled up beside me and gave me a chin lift, asking if I was okay. Nope, not even a little bit, brother. But I nodded my head anyway. How I got shit so sideways in my life with these women was beyond me. Maybe I was just gifted that way. The rueful thought entered my head as I pulled on the throttle and sped across the intersection.
“Mia,” I shouted as loud as I could the second I entered the main part of the strip club. The bar was in chaos. Tables and chairs were overturned all over the place, bottles of expensive grog had been smashed to smithereens, and glass littered the floor, but none of this meant shit to me. My only focus was finding Mia and Rainn.
A muffled cry caught Creed’s and my attention. Darth left us at the front door to run around to the back entrance, wanting to make sure it was secure.
“Brother, it’s coming from the dressing room area.” As he spoke, Creed pushed me towards the back of the bar that led to a long hallway. There were at least five individual dressing rooms for the dancers, plus three supply closets off the hallway.
“Mia,” I shouted again. My mind raced with so many scenarios after seeing the state of the bar. Had she been hurt? Rainn? The thought that someone would hurt a woman as sweet and as beautiful as Mia had my blood boiling.
“Steel.” Mia’s innocent voice called my name.
My heart rate calmed slightly. Thank the fucking Lord. I rushed to the end of the corridor and saw the door to a supply closet cracked open, and the long, ruby-red locks of the club’s best and most popular dancer were sticking out.
“Guys, in here.” She motioned with her hand, not opening the door completely.
“Rainn, are you okay?” Opening the door, I bit back a curse when I saw a very red, very hard slap print across the sexy Rainn’s face. Creed had no problem letting a stream of expletives rip from his lips as he took in the sight.
“The fucking fuck is going to fucking die,” he said between clenched teeth as he took Rainn into his arms, the fiery redhead unusually sombre. Her usual attitude to something like this happening would have been fireworks going off but not so tonight. It was a bit worrying, but my mind was on Mia, who I couldn’t see.
“Mia? Beauty, where are you?” The closet was dark except for the dim light coming from the corridor, but I could see a figure hunched over in the corner, and I breathed a sigh of relief—my first since listening to Stella on the phone. “Mia, come here, sweetheart.” I kept my voice low and gentle. She was obviously scared, and I would be fucked if I was going to cause her anymore horror.
She turned her body in my direction, and I had to hold myself back from going postal. Her shirt was ripped at the neck, exposing a part of her bra, and there was a scratch on her throat. Mia took no more than a second to decide before launching herself into my arms. The impact caught me off guard, and my legs nearly gave out from underneath me for the second time tonight.
Once again, Creed had my back and helped me right myself so I didn’t have to take my arms from around Mia’s shaking body. Her sobs pulled at a deep part of me that I’d thought was once dead.
“Hey. Hey, Beauty, calm down. Come on, Mia. Breathe for me, sweetheart,” I said in a soft and soothing voice. I wrapped her tightly against me and did my best to absorb her shaking. Jesus Christ, what did they do to her?
“Brother, let’s get them out
to the other room,” Creed said, already leading Rainn out with his arm around her shoulders.
Nodding my head, I lifted Mia easily into my arms, her slight weight not impacting my leg at all. Callie was a bit heavier than Mia, and she liked me to carry her, insisted on it most times. Said it sent a message to those watching. What message, I had no fucking clue—she’d never informed me of that part—for some reason, I never bothered to ask her.
I steeled myself against the feeling of having Mia’s arms around my neck. Her face burying in my throat and her warm breaths were doing some weird shit to my heart and dick. What the fuck is wrong with me? This is Mia, for fuck’s sake. The questions went unanswered as I walked us back into the bar. I tried to settle her into one of the booths, but she wasn’t having it as she tightened her grip on me.
“Beauty, I need to get this shirt off you. It’s ripped, and we need to look at your scratch, then see if there are any more.” I noticed Darth had come into the room from one of the back rooms with a first-aid kit in his hands. The big prick had been an army medic in our team. There wasn’t one of us he hadn’t doctored up more than once during our service.
Reluctantly, Mia let go, and I slid her down my body, causing a faint stirring behind my zipper. Fuck me! I am a sick prick. Focus, Cooper, I admonished myself.
“They wouldn’t take me,” Mia whispered against my chest, her small body shivering against mine.
I removed my cut and quickly pulled off my long-sleeved tee. I had a short-sleeved shirt under it so I wouldn’t be shirtless.
“What, Mia?” I asked softly, not understanding what she meant.
“I begged them to leave Stella and not take her from Booth. To take me as I wouldn’t be missed, and no one would care if I was dead.” Her words were quiet and resigned.
She fucking believed this shit? I heard Creed as he took a deep breath in and Darth’s muttered curse.
“Mia, no. That’s bullshit,” I argued, but she was already shaking her head back and forth.
“No! It’s true,” she shouted, her eyes filling with more tears. Mia pulled away from me completely, and I instantly felt the loss of her sweet body. “I’m unlovable,” she whispered brokenly before she snatched the tee out of my hands and ran over to Rainn.
The dancer wrapped Mia in her arms and turned to lead her somewhere more private—presumably to give Mia some privacy to change—but not before she sent me a scathing look. A look that said ‘You are an arsehole, Steel.’
Looking at Creed, I could see the disbelief on his face as he watched Mia disappear. He had another look on his face, too, one I couldn’t read. Longing? But I would be fucked if I was going to let him play his games with Mia. I may have been an arsehole and deserved to be strung and quartered for hurting Mia as much as I had—I felt ashamed of myself for doing it—but he wouldn’t get her. Not if I had any say in the matter.
Not happening.
1
Steel
“VP, is Booth due back today?” Seb called from across the yard. He was on Shiloh detail today, and the club princess was playing with Trigger and Winnie the cat.
She was so upset when we told her about Bullet, and my heart nearly broke when she cried in my arms. It did break, though, when she gave me her favourite stuffed plush dog shaped like a German shepherd. Just like my Bullet.
“Take this, Unca Coop. I sleep wif him, but now youse can. But if I can’t sleep wifout him, youse is going to hafta give him back. Okays, big fella?”
I chuckled at the memory of Shiloh handing over the stuffed toy, which I still had sitting on my bed. There was no way I was giving it back. That toy meant the world to me now just like Shiloh did.
“Yeah, brother, they should be rolling into the compound in a few hours.” There’s a big family get-together planned for the pres and his wife when they return from their wedding slash honeymoon. I was happy my former CO got the girl, especially after a lot of fucking about on his part. Stella was good for Booth, and she loved him with a fierceness just like Charlotte did Deck.
I felt the familiar pang in my chest. Did I miss Callie? That had to be the pang, right? It couldn’t be for anyone else. But the idea of missing her felt wrong. Sure, Callie had been in my life for three years now and in my bed just as long. But not on a regular basis, I conceded. Callie was never a one-man kind of woman. I wasn’t completely fucking stupid, and I knew she went around with some of the prospects. She was even with Darth before he and Vegas became whatever it was they were. But it never worried me. She always came back when she felt the need for me. Like the dumb arse I am, I waited for her. What a sap! I was just missing the ring in my nose for her to lead me around.
Pissing myself off with my train of thought, I slowly eased myself up from my seat at the picnic table. My leg wasn’t happy after the last few weeks of unnecessary action, and being in charge of the club in Booth’s absence meant I had been on my feet more hours a day than usual. Being the VP of the Wounded Souls MC, I had to fill Booth’s shoes at not only his gun shop and shooting range but also his duties at the club on top of my regular duties at my business, the Bar and Grill.
Basically, I was fucking stuffed. The club has been on high alert since someone took Stella—well, before that, really. The shit with Rogue has us pissed off, trying to keep our women safe, but since the bombing of Mia’s car and Bullet shot, both happening on club property, we’ve been on full alert.
The personal shit in my life had to take a back seat. I hadn’t laid eyes on Callie since that fucked-up night when she laughed at me when I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. What the fuck was I thinking? Seriously? Marriage to Callie? Yeah, right. I might have liked her being in my bed, but I knew she had many flaws, her selfishness being a big one, but I always found myself gravitating back to her. Callie had never stayed at the compound for more than a week or so at a time when she was welcome, so I was used to her being gone. Sometimes she called, and I went wherever she happened to be at the time and spent a few days with her. Sex was our main connection.
Callie loved sex, but what she didn’t love was my leg—or lack of it. Running a hand through my hair, I stopped my mind from going where it was heading. I had too much to do today before my president got back, and self-analysing my non-relationship with Callie was not on my to-do list. That could happily wait for another decade.
Two hours later, I pulled into my appointed space at the Bar and Grill. I really wanted to ride my bike, but my leg needed a break, plus I had a shopping trip planned. First, I needed to pick up my shopping partner.
Going in the back entrance, I made my way through the kitchen. I took the time to say hello to the kitchen staff as they were getting ready for a busy Friday night, serving customers simple home-cooked food to soak up the copious amounts of alcohol they would consume.
“Seen Mia?” I asked Jimbo, the best cook the Bar and Grill had ever had. In the early years of opening the place, we went through a few cooks before Jimbo applied for the job. He was ex-military just like the rest of us, his experience in Iraq not a good one. But was there such a thing as a good experience in war? Not to my knowledge.
He helped revolutionise the menu of the place, and simple fun food became a big drawcard. The place was booming, and a lot of that credit went to Jimbo, who wasn’t only a good employee but a trusted and valued friend of the club.
“Yep. Cellar,” the large, quiet man said as he continued to marinate pork and beef for the night’s menu. I guessed meat subs were on for tonight. He gave Stella a run for her money in the cooking department, not that I would ever tell her that.
Giving him a chin lift and getting one in return, I made my way to the cellar door.
“Mia? You down here, sweetheart?” I called from the top of the stairs before I carefully made my way down. She had been plenty jumpy lately after the shit with Rogue and Stella’s stepfamily, not that I could blame her. But she had also gone into herself a bit, and her usual friendliness had turned more guarded. She wa
s still friendly for sure, but there was sadness behind her remarkable chocolate-brown eyes. Sadness that I probably put there—well, okay, I had definitely put it there—but that was why I was here now instead of catching up on some sleep and resting my leg. I wanted to make Mia smile, and I had the perfect way to do that.
“Yeah, VP, I’m here.” Her soft voice carried up to me, and I flinched a bit at her use of my club position. She usually called me stud, and it wasn’t until then that I realised I liked that she did. I think I was in for some significant grovelling.
“Hey, Beauty, got a minute?” I didn’t miss the way her eyes softened at my endearment for her. She is a beauty. Fucking classically beautiful with her dark-brown hair that sat a smidge below her shoulders, her oval face and pretty shaped lips and the cutest button nose, but it was her eyes that hauled you in. The brown was like melted chocolate and almond in shape, giving her a sultry, sexy come-hither look. She had no idea of her pull for men—she was actually oblivious to it, in fact... unlike her older sister.
Callie was what some called ‘packed and stacked’ with platinum blonde hair, pouty, full lips, and big full breasts—all three bought and paid for. Callie would never think of leaving a room without a full face of make-up, perfectly curled hair, and dressed to the nines. Whereas I rarely saw Mia with make-up on as her lips had a natural dark-pink tint to them, her tanned skin offered up the foundation look, and she was happy in jeans and her silly slogan T-shirts. Today’s shirt had a picture of a roll of toilet paper and a toothbrush with the words ‘I hate my job’ coming from the toothbrush and the toilet paper saying ‘Seriously????’
Callie had a strict ‘don’t touch my hair’ rule. Mia kept a hair band around her wrist so when she got sick of her hair down, she could just put it up in a type of messy bun like she had now. Mia was uncomplicated where her sister was mind-boggling complicated. Callie had a mean streak she’d tried to keep hidden, and Mia was the sweetest, most thoughtful person I had ever met—well, along with Teach and Stella. The two sisters could not be more different.
His Beauty_The Wounded Souls Page 1