by KB Winters
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Beautifully Broken
Reckless Bastards MC
By USA Today and Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author
KB Winters
Copyright © 2018 KB Winters and BookBoyfriends Publishing LLC
Published By: BookBoyfriends Publishing LLC
Copyright and Disclaimer
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 KB Winters and BookBoyfriends Publishing LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of the trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Contents
Beautifully Broken
Copyright and Disclaimer
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Free Book!
Acknowledgements
About The Author
Chapter 1
Max
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Doc. It wasn’t even long enough to be a fucking nightmare. I closed my eyes and there I was on the transport vehicle, seconds later the explosion happened that deafened me and made it damn hard to see. Body parts went flying and then everything went black. I woke up a sweaty and panting mess.” I looked over at Dr. Singh, a tall lanky man with dark brown skin who’d perfected the look of wearing dad sweaters. In the fucking desert.
He nodded, ankle resting on the opposite knee while his hands were clasped on top of his notebook. “Nightmares have no designated length, Max as I’m sure you know. What did you do after you woke up?”
I couldn’t tell him that I’d reached for that hidden bottle of Maker’s Mark because he’d already bitched me out about my drinking. “I played some video games and stared at the fucking stars. What else could I do?”
Dr. Singh sighed. “Max, you have to develop healthy coping mechanisms. Having a drink once in a while is fine, but you can’t use it to dull the pain or shutdown the memories.”
“Yeah, no shit.” I smirked and even the Doc couldn’t help but join in. “So something other than video games?”
He nodded. “Something outside of your house, maybe that involves other people. Would that be so terrible?”
Shit. I sat back in the stylish chair that was not meant for a man of my size and sighed. “No, I guess not. But I don’t know, shit I haven’t done anything for fun in a long damn time.”
He nodded and his perfectly styled hair never moved. “How about you go do some things just for fun. Sleep with a pretty lady. Go out for a meal, Vegas is off in the distance and I hear they have some decent restaurants.”
I glared at him. “Everyone’s a fucking comedian.”
Dr. Singh laughed. “The point is, Max, that you need to do some things for fun. Not to forget and not to dull the pain. You said you used to draw, why not sign up for a class?”
Sign up for a fucking class? “No offense but I’m a little old for that.”
“Not at a college. This is the twenty first century, Max. There are adult classes, even businesses that cater to this kind of thing. Your job, before our next session is to go out there and find an art class. Sign up and just fucking do it.”
I shrugged, taken aback by hearing his cultured accent say the word fuck. “You got it, Doc.” I hated having to see a fucking head shrink but Singh seemed to know his shit and he didn’t treat me like a fucking headcase. “I’ll see you next week.”
“I look forward to it.”
My boots sounded loud on his hard wood floors as I walked out. The lobby was empty, not that I gave a shit, but I didn’t have to do that fake smile bullshit people expected. These days I was much better on my own because I was a cranky, miserable bastard. Had been ever since I was medically discharged from the Navy.
I spent nearly all of my adult life in the Navy and most of that as a sniper for the elite, SEALs. I loved it, all of it from recruit training to BUD/S and jump school. It was the most exciting shit I’d ever done and I ate it all up, doing good and saving the world, all while being a badass. It meant something to me just like it meant something to all of us. Our unit was family. We’d trained together, fought together, spotted together and killed together. And one damn day in that dirty fucking desert, many of us died together. The only problem was only some of us came back.
Sometimes I think it would’ve been better if we’d all died out there that day because this life, filled with nightmares and paranoia, it was just bullshit. Coming back like this was worse than not coming back at all, because at least if you were dead this shit just stopped. The memories were gone. The pain was gone.
Now though, the pain was constant. Never fucking ending.
The sun helped and every day when I woke up and had coffee out on my deck, I thanked fuck that I’d chosen to come to the desert. Nonstop sun and heat was good for my mental health according to the good doctor, and sun all day made me feel lighter. Freer.
But the sun alone wasn’t fucking working so now I had to look for an art class.
Fuck. My. Life.
Chapter 2
Jana
My favorite part of working from home, other than the distinct lack of people, is the fact that I rarely got interrupted. It meant that I could get lost in the structure of accounts and spreadsheets, the tedium and organization of receipts. Accounting wasn’t the sexiest job in the world, but it was a necessity. So when the bell rang for the third time, I could no longer pretend to be deaf. “This better be good.” As in it better be that old guy with a check for a million dollars or I might scream. I stopped at the door and saw my one and only friend glaring at the peephole.
“Who else would it be Jana? Let me in!”
Teddy and I couldn’t be more different if we tried. Where I was short with more curves than I needed, Teddy was tall and thin with curves only in the right places. She was a fiery red to my plain long almost white blond hair, and her business required her to be out in the thick of things whereas I’d tailored mine to ensure minimal human contact. But she put up with my grumpy, anti-social ways. To an extent. I shook away all signs of annoyance and opened the door. “Teddy. This is a surprise.”
&nbs
p; “It is. If I would’ve called, you’d have been mysteriously absent or come up with a good reason to stay inside. Get dressed girl, we are going out.” She rolled her slender hips in a suggestive figure eight that spelled trouble for me.
“What? No.” I shook my head, looking at her like she’d grown a second one of her own. “I have to finish these expense reports, plus I’m not ready.” Not physically and or mentally, or by any other societal standard. My long blond waves were tied in a knot on top of my head and I wore baggy red cotton pants and an oversized t-shirt from my alma mater, Michigan State. Yeah, it was the only good thing about growing up in foster care, plenty of scholarships for an orphan with perfect grades. “I need time to prepare for that.”
“Bullshit. You need to get dressed and make yourself presentable, that’s all.”
I glared up at her nearly six-foot frame. “Yeah that’s kind of the problem, isn’t it?”
Teddy rolled her eyes and pushed past me, like I was somehow in the wrong. “Jana I love you girl, I really, really do. But if you don’t get over that slight imperfection on your beautiful face, I’m just going to bash your face in.” She grinned and flipped her silky red curls behind her shoulder. “It’s one tiny scar.”
“It’s six fucking inches!” More like six and three-eighths of an inch if we were going to be exact about it. And it was deep. And jagged. And long, stretching from the corner of my right eye, cutting a pink path straight to the corner of my mouth. It was big and hideous and ugly as fuck. And it was all mine.
Aren’t I a lucky fucking girl?
Teddy stomped her Jimmy Choo’s on my hard wood hall like a perturbed child. “Jana, seriously girlfriend, I need you to stop this. It’s noticeable, yes. But it’s not hideous. The only reason people notice it is because you make it so damn noticeable.”
My hand automatically went to the object of our discussion, touching the offending scar because home was the only place I ever wore my hair up. When I wore it down, hiding the scar was easier. It made my life easier. A lot easier. “It’s pretty hard to ignore.”
“It is when you’re drawing attention to it every five seconds.” She whirled on her heels and I had to jog to keep up with her as she made her way to my bedroom. “Go shower. I’ll take care of the rest.”
I glared up at her for several long minutes, but Teddy was one tough chick. Probably the toughest I’d ever met, which is saying a lot considering I went into foster care when I was eight. But Teddy’s tough act wasn’t an act to hide a fear or a vulnerability, it was hard earned and impressive to watch. That’s how I knew it was a losing battle and my shoulders fell. “Fine.” I took a quick shower and blow dried my hair before reentering the bedroom. “Oh, hell no. Absolutely not!”
“Why not?” She held up a pair of jeans I hadn’t worn, or been able to wear, in two years along with a long sleeve tunic that hugged my curves. “This is casual and sexy.”
“For starters I can’t fit in those jeans.”
“Try them,” she held them out to me and I snatched them from her, letting the robe fall to the floor and grabbing a pair of black lace panties.
I stepped into the jeans and my stomach tightened. I wasn’t one of those girls who constantly worried about what she ate. I ate healthy and turned part of my basement into a gym, but the curves had proven they had more staying power than I did, and all I could do was accept it. So I did. But still, the dark wash denim was at least two sizes too small in the hip and ass area the last time I tried them on. Then something weird happened. They slid up easily over my hips and ass, problem areas all women know well, zipping with the barest hint of resistance. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
“Sure it does. I told you before that you dropped a few pounds. Are you sure there isn’t a man hiding in your love shack out back?”
I rolled my eyes. Teddy was unnaturally curious about my girl cave in the backyard. It had plenty of light from three sides and temperature control but beyond that, it was bare bones. I spent time in there painting and sketching, and I never let anyone inside. Not even Teddy. “It’s just art, Teddy.”
She huffed. “Right. Finish getting dressed and I’ll wait up front.”
“Teddy what the hell is going on? We never go out.” She knew how much of an ordeal it was for me and usually she didn’t push.
“No we rarely go out because you’re a pussy and I let you be one, because I’m kind of one too. But not anymore. We’re going out to enjoy tacos, nachos and margaritas. And maybe meet some guys.”
I groaned at the last part. I loved Teddy for seeing any beauty in me, but she was my friend. She had no idea what it meant to be disfigured because she was the exact opposite. Beautiful. Perfectly so. The definition of beauty in the world today. Beside her, I only looked worse. “You can meet some guys, just be happy I’m going at all.” I didn’t bother with any makeup other than a colored gloss as I fluffed big fat curls around my right shoulder. I slid on a pair of strappy heels so I wouldn’t like a child beside her tall frame. “It’s not going to get better,” I mumbled, spritzed some perfume and took the long, slow walk to the living room.
“Damn girl, you look hot enough to screw.”
“I think you’re confusing me with your reflection behind me,” I deadpanned and grabbed a sweater as I stood near the door. “Ready?”
“Damn straight,” she grinned big and put on her best runway walk, the limp that ended her modeling career barely noticeable when she put a little swing in her hips.
***
“I’m so hungry today! I had an early morning Skype meeting with Charlene Simms and I didn’t get to eat breakfast.” Teddy barely stopped to take a breath as she told me all about the reality songbird with the golden voice. “The girl doesn’t know what she wants, no colors or themes or anything. And what she does want,” she scoffed, “is the very worst and gaudiest of Vegas style.” I listened to her complain but not really complain. Teddy dealt with difficult clients with more money than sense. It was a stressful job but she loved it.
“I guess it’s a good thing she’s paying you well.”
Teddy’s smile lit up her whole face, big ocean blue eyes glittering like jewels. “Very well. It’s my favorite part of having rich clientele.”
The cute young waitress set down a pitcher of margaritas along with hot tortilla chips and fresh made salsa. I took a sip and listened as Teddy talked gold cummerbunds and top hats for bridesmaids, effortlessly swatting three interested suitors. They were all of the same type, the kind of guy way too arrogant to think anyone, never mind one as beautiful as Teddy, could not be interested in them. Thankfully they didn’t spare me a look. “You always figure it out,” I reassured her because that’s all she really wanted.
“It is kind of my thang,” she said, grinning and making her perfect eyebrows dance.
“I would love to be your thang,” a dark haired man said as he leaned against the edge of the table, his back to me. Because I’d learned soon after I got the scars, that I was invisible.
I bit back a smile, but Teddy did what beautiful women do in this situation. She laughed. “My plaything or just any old thing?”
“Whatever you want, babe.”
Her phone rang and vibrated on the table, and Teddy grinned up at him. “What I want is to finish this call so I can finish hanging with my homie. ‘Kay?” She patted his shoulder as she slid from the booth, answering the call as she headed toward the door.
I didn’t bother looking up, just continued to eat chips and salsa, between sips of strawberry margarita. Teddy was lucky I decided to drive, because these margaritas needed at least two more shots of tequila. I hated being out because people stared. People were cruel and they simply thought it was okay.
“You don’t stand a chance with the smokin’ redhead, she’s got expensive tastes. But take the ugly fat friend, she’ll be grateful for a night with a stallion like you, Greg.”
The other one, Greg I assumed, laughed with too much energy like he was trying
too hard to impress. “She might not be ugly and I don’t mind having something to grab on to. Fat chicks love a good hard fuck.”
I didn’t bother to turn around because I could guess what they looked like. One would have dark hair and the other blond, dressed like some after work office drones. One would probably be better dressed because he made more money, probably not Greg. They were both players, probably even had some kind of scoring system for their conquests. Not Greg laughed. “Damn man, you’re making me want to change my mind about which one I want to stick it to.”
I rolled my eyes, grateful when Teddy returned to drown out their asshole bro chatter. “Good news, she’s decided on old Hollywood. She’s got an audition for some gangster flick set in the twenties and wants these photos to help her land the role.” She rolled her eyes and took a long sip from her glass.
We placed our orders and as soon as the waitress rushed off, the two dickheads screwed up their courage and approached our table. The stupidly good looking one, not Greg, trained his focus wholly on Teddy while not Greg turned to me, practically pinching his nose just to inch closer. “So,” he began but I put up a hand to stop him.
“I’ll stop you right there, Greg, the fat ugly chick isn’t interested a good hard fuck with your tiny limp dick. Go back to the bar and wait for your bro to strike out with the hot one.”
He looked at me, eyes flashed surprise for a moment and then anger. “Whatever.”
“Oooh, good comeback,” I scoffed and rolled my eyes before returning to my margarita. I might not be much to look at but even with the scar I was average looking. I knew my strengths and weaknesses and one day I might find someone who could tell them apart. Until then, it was just me. Not Greg continued to lay down every cheesy pickup line and compliment he downloaded from some pickup artist website, while I dug into my fish tacos. Teddy looked longingly at her spicy beef nachos while Todd—because of course, Todd—did his best impression of the hot jerk from every teen movie and soap ever created.
Finally, she called time of death. She turned her big blue eyes up to him, just a hint of a smile in them and flicked her hair off her shoulders. “Todd I’m going to be honest with you because you are seriously hot and I think we have a connection.” It was a total lie, but it was part one of her best letdown. “I’m not looking for casual sex. I want a husband and kids and I plan to have both within the next eighteen months. I’m not sure that’s what you’re looking for, is it?”
