Duke (The Henchmen MC Book 5)

by Jessica Gadziala

  And then I realized they were. He had come in with the cot under one because the other one was holding up a tray positively piled with food.

  "Hungry much?" I asked, smiling.

  "For you," he explained, moving toward the bed, half-sitting down and putting the tray between us. "No idea what you eat, so I got a bit of everything."

  And he had.

  There was what looked like a BLT with fries, a grilled cheese sandwich, a plain bagel with egg and cheese, a whole apple and banana, an avocado, a bag of chips, a bottle of water, and a premixed cold coffee drink.

  "You... went out to get food for me?" I asked, my voice a little in awe of that. I guess I had been taking care of myself for so long I almost kind of forgot what it was like to have another person do anything, even something as small as fetch food, for you.

  It was nice.

  I liked it more than I should have.

  "You gotta eat," he said, playing it off. But from the looks of it, he had needed to hit multiple places to get such an array of food.

  "Sure," I said with a small smile as I reached for the coffee drink, finding it was mocha flavor and saying a silent 'thank you' to the universe for pushing him in that direction. "But I figured you guys would throw a hunk of red meat at me and call it a day."

  To that, his lips twitched and the skin beside his eyes crinkled a little. It was way too attractive. "That high an opinion of us, huh?"

  "Well, when you think 'biker' you generally don't think culinary experts."

  "I'll make sure that shit doesn't get back to Repo."

  "Repo?" I asked, taking a long swig and it took everything in my aching body not to moan as the milky sugary chocolate mix coated my tastebuds.

  "One of the big guys. There's Reign and then his brother, Cash. Then there is Wolf and Repo."

  "You guys all have ridiculous names."

  "In my, Reign, Cash, Renny, and Wolf's defense, we were all born with them."

  "Seriously? Who names their kids Wolf or Cash?"

  "Bikers, babe," he said with a shrug. "You can't survive on coffee alone," he reminded me as I took another long swig.

  "Wanna bet?" I asked, but put the cap back on, put the bottle down, and reached for the bagel with the egg and cheese. I had no idea what time of day it even was, but after waking up, you generally wanted breakfast foods. I took a bite and closed my eyes on a small groan. "Food," I said with a nod as I chewed.

  "Knew you were bullshittin' Renny."

  "You guys have stuff going on. It could wait."

  "Now that our meeting is over, you can head down to the kitchen when you're hungry. I'll show you tomorrow."

  I felt myself nod, equal parts happy and uncomfortable with that idea. Happy because, well, it was weird to be holed up in a room all day and night. Uncomfortable, because I had no idea how I felt about walking around a biker compound where a bunch of hard-looking men were bound to be hanging around.

  "You're safe here," he said, as if reading my thoughts. "Know that sounds crazy because everyone here looks like trouble, but no one will lay a hand on you here."

  I nodded, mostly believing him. "There's no way I am eating even half of this," I said, gesturing toward the tray. "Have you eaten?"

  He shook his head and reached for the BLT, taking a big bite.

  A silence fell then that was both comfortable and awkward. I had a feeling that I would, in normal circumstances, be comfortable being silent around Duke. I was never a huge small-talker and, in my humble opinion, there was nothing more annoying than being around someone who had to fill every silence. But these weren't normal circumstances and I was beat up and wearing his clothes, sitting in his bed, eating food he brought me. And I didn't know anything about him. Or the place I was staying either.

  "Can I ask you something?" I asked and he gave me a grunt, mouth full. "What do these Henchmen do?"

  He chewed for a long minute and I got the impression that maybe a part of it was so he could think. Though I had no reason to believe when he spoke that he wasn't truthful. "Reign has invested in a bunch of businesses. There's a garage that Repo runs. Cash and his wife Lo and Wolf's woman, Janie, all run a gym that specializes in self-defense and kickboxing and shit."

  I ate and watched him a bit thoughtfully as I reached for a fry. "That's not all though, is it?" I asked, having a gut feeling that, while maybe they had legit businesses, there was something he wasn't telling me. Because why else would they have an enemy that they wanted to take down that would hurt women just for associating with them?

  "No, that's not it," he admitted.

  I knew better than to ask. If they had some kind of criminal business going on, no way were they going to tell some random chick what it was.

  "Tell me the truth," I said, just to move the topic forward. "How bad is my face?"

  His head jerked over to me, brows knitted for a second. And then he looked at me. I mean he looked at me. I was pretty sure he could tell a police sketch artist how many eyebrow hairs I had it was so intense. "It's beautiful," he said, voice low and deep, and... earnest.

  He meant that.

  And there it was again.

  The fluttery thing in my belly.

  He thought I was beautiful?

  Normally, that meant nothing. Guys just said that. It was an easy-in pick-up line-wise. They tell you that you're beautiful and you have to thank them and then they are in. It never meant anything and I had never had a reaction to it before, except maybe an internalized eye roll.

  But something about the intensity in the way he said it, in the way he had looked at me before he did so, it was a compliment that seemed to slide over me and slip under my skin and settle inside.

  And the depth with which I felt that made me truly uncomfortable so I rolled my eyes at him with a small smile. "Oh, please. I got a look in the mirror earlier. It's not pretty."

  It wasn't.

  Honestly, I thought it would be worse than it was. The way it was throbbing made me think that parts of me would look warped and broken. But when I had slowly gotten off the bed and made my way to the bathroom, I had been somewhat pleasantly surprised to find that I was still me. Nothing was broken. I was just a smattering of purple, blue, red, and yellow. My eyes were the worst, both were blackened not only under but above up to my eyebrows. There was a red and yellow bruise beside my temple where I had been slammed into the ground. And then there was a deep purple and blue one to my left cheek.

  But that was it.

  I mean... that was it was a pretty messed up way to phrase it, but it wasn't any worse than that.

  I had tried to take a deep breath in relief and had the stabbing of my ribs to remind me that while I hadn't had my face too damaged, I was messed up elsewhere.

  "Wasn't lookin' at the bruises," he said effortlessly, truthfully and I found I had to look away from him lest the reaction I felt to that become clear to him. He let me have my silence for a long moment, both of us watching the overly manicured man with the hair that was so gelled it looked like a Ken doll hold up a frying pan as some idiot babbled on over the phone lines. I hated home shopping shows. I hated the callers more.

  "In the market for frying pans?" Duke asked, obviously as clumsy at small talk as I was.

  "I'm new here," I explained instead, waving a helpless hand at the remote. "I don't know where any of the good channels are."

  "Chances are," he said, reaching for it, "wherever you are, the good shit is never on the single or double digit channels. Want a movie?" he asked, going onto the On-demand menu and clicking through the subscription channels.

  "Suspense," I said immediately, always being my poison though not knowing why. I hated that antsy, edge-of-the-seat feeling. It annoyed me. It made me angry. But, boy, it was always worth it once you got to the grand finale of things. I put the rest of my bagel down and reached for the rest of the coffee drink as I tried to sit back, momentarily forgetting about my back before pain made me let out a loud hiss.

  Duke'
s head snapped to me, wincing. "We have more of the pain medicine if you want," he offered.

  "Not just yet," I said, knowing I would eventually reach for it if nothing else but to get some decent sleep. "Hey," I said when his attention turned back to the TV. "What time and day is it?" I asked, needing to know.

  "Same day. More or less. It's two in the morning."

  I nodded as he picked the newest movie of the bunch and put it on. Despite having seen it in theaters, I watched as if it was the most exciting thing in the world. Mainly so I didn't keep noticing things.

  Things about him.

  Like the fact that he had kicked out of his big, clunky combat boots and stretched his long legs out on the bed and sat back against the headboard as he ate. Then when he was finished, he raised his hands up, cocking them out as he rested his hands behind his head. I also tried to ignore the way his already massive chest seemed to spread when he did that and how his arms strained against the material of his tee and his tattoos danced as he moved. I also tried to not notice how the smell of his room that, earlier, I had found so appealing, was all over him.

  Why I was noticing those things? Yeah, that was the question.

  I was going to go ahead and blame the fact that I had just been through a pretty big ordeal after already uprooting my life and moving somewhere new and all the stress that came with worrying about my grandmother and making sure things went to plan or I would run through my savings way too fast.

  Yeah, that was definitely it.

  I was just stressed.

  And, apparently, when I got stressed, I felt weird attraction to a virtual stranger.

  "Penny," Duke's voice called, a little low.

  My head jerked in his direction to find him watching me. "What?"

  "You've been watching a blank screen for five minutes," he told me and when I looked to the TV, sure enough, it was black. "Want to talk about it?" I shook my head. "Want some Vikes and sleep?" he asked and I felt myself nodding without even thinking about it.

  He nodded and jumped up, taking the tray and putting it on the dresser. He grabbed the pill bottle off the nightstand and handed me two pills.

  With that, he let me settle in as he went into the bathroom. A minute later, the water of the shower turned on. I listened to that and did not, absolutely did not, think about him under that spray. Because women who were just beaten and dumped like a dead dog on the side of the road did not have sexual thoughts about the man who held her down while she got stitches. Even if that man smelled like comfort and security and that his deep voice whispered reassurances to you while you cried.

  Even if.

  Because that was not normal. Right?

  I fell asleep before I could decide if maybe I was going to need therapy after all was said and done.

  There was a crash, a shout, a shriek.

  I woke up, heart already hammering, my body starting to sweat.

  Another crash.

  Cursing.

  Crunching. Bones.

  I wasn't overly familiar with that sound, but I knew it when I heard it.

  I tried to fight the way my belly was swimming, trying to convince myself to take a breath, to believe I was safe behind the closed door. But there was fighting going on outside. And I had no idea if it was just a disagreement between bikers or an unknown foe.

  And, ribs busted, there was no way I could scramble away if someone burst through that door.

  "Duke," I called, voice a whisper, worried of being overheard in case it was a bad situation outside the door. "Duke," I tried again, looking over at his form in the dark.

  He must have turned out the lights before bed.

  I always slept with something on. The bathroom light or the TV. I wasn't afraid of the dark per say, but I preferred light.

  I slowly inched my way up off the bed as a crash hit the wall of Duke's room hard enough to make the TV wobble on the dresser. I scurried around the bed then. I reached down and moved to put my hand on Duke's back.

  The second my finger touched, his entire form moved, whipped over onto his back as I found my wrist snagged in a punishing grip.

  "Ow," I yelped, trying to pull it free.

  "Penny?" he asked, voice rough, not fully alert. How that was possible when he had just moved and grabbed me in the course of a second was completely beyond me.

  His grip immediately lessened but he did not release me. Instead, his thumb stroked over the skin that he almost bruised like an apology.

  "There's..." I started and there was another slam that made me jump hard.

  Duke curled slowly upward, still holding my wrist. "Just the guys fucking around," he told me, his other hand landing on my hip with a squeeze. "Go back to bed."

  "But," I said, shaking my head as I looked down at him, only able to make out the shine of his eyes and the outline of his face in the dark. "Are you sure? Couldn't it be maybe..." I said, my voice a little weak and wobbly.

  Scared.

  I wasn't sure I understood that sound on my lips until that moment. I had never heard it there before.

  Duke exhaled as he slowly unfolded, taking his feet. For some reason, my mind didn't tell my body to take a step back and give him space. So when he stood, my breasts brushed his chest and the intimacy of that made my belly go liquid as my nipples hardened. And, judging by the way his body stiffened, Duke felt the response of my body to his as well.

  But he didn't say anything.

  And for a long moment, he didn't move.

  His hand still held my wrist as I could feel, rather than see, his eyes on me as my breathing got more shallow, as my skin started to buzz. As a thought formed in my head. An insane, out of character, silly thought.

  I wonder what it would be like if he kissed me.

  As if the words didn't slide silently through my body and instead flashed across my forehead like a neon sign, his hand dropped my wrist and his entire body moved sideways and away from me. In the process, my hardened nipples scraped across his broad chest and a rush of wet met my panties.

  He moved across the room and the door flew open, flooding the room in light from the hall.

  "Ay," he yelled, deep voice so demanding that I even felt myself stiffen. "Take that shit outside," he growled and, incredibly, the shuffling, the slamming, the cursing... stopped immediately.

  Duke nodded at something, moved back in, closed the door, and moved back toward me.

  Eyes adjusted, I could suddenly see him almost as well as I could in the light. I could see his long hair free around his shoulders. I could see the way his eyes were on me again, taking me in, reading me. I could see the way he walked, heavy, determined. He moved in beside me, running his fingers down my arm.

  "Come on, go back to sleep. They'll keep it down now."

  I felt myself turn toward him fully again, my head turning up. "I'm not tired," I said, half-true.

  My eyes dipped and found his lips, looked over the stubble on his jaw. My gaze went back up again and I could feel the heaviness of my eyes.

  "Gotta stop lookin' at me like that, baby," he said, voice lower, an edge to him I couldn't quite place.

  "Why?" I asked, hearing the same edge in my voice and recognizing it for what it was- attraction.

  "You know why," he said, his entire body rigid.

  I wasn't that girl. I didn't flirt. I didn't lean in. I didn't raise my hand and let a man's hair run through my fingers and marvel at how it felt even more silky than my own.

  I wasn't that girl.

  But right then, I was.

  "Penny..."

  "I know," I said with a small nod as I tucked it behind his ear.

  "You've been through some shit," he went on.

  "I know."

  "You don't know what you're doing," he added.

  I felt the reality of that. He was right and wrong. I knew what I was doing. And I understood that it was unlike me and it was likely a response to the crazy course of events my life had taken and I was probably turning to him
because he showed me kindness after other men offered me pain. I knew that. I knew that, after a day or two, I would look back on this moment in the dark and shake my head at myself, at being so needy.

  But it didn't matter.

  In that moment, what I needed was more comfort.

  And I couldn't find the strength of will to deny myself that.

  "Yes, I do," I countered.

  There was a rumbling sound in his chest as I pressed mine against his, my hands sliding up his sides and going around his neck.

  And I guess the shameless plastering of my form to his was about all he could take.

  I expected a loss of control. Everything about him was so masculine, so primal. I thought kissing him would be no different.

  But when one hand raised, it whispered up my thigh, my hip, then gently settled at the lowest point of my back where it was safe to rest. The other tickled up my arm, over my shoulder, then settled on my neck, his thumb under my chin, angling it up. Gentle. His touch was so gentle for someone so big.

  His body curled, bringing his face closer to mine.

  My breath caught as my eyes fluttered closed.

  His warm breath was on my cheek and my fingers dug into the back of his neck.

  He murmured something then. Something I knew I must have misheard because it didn't make sense otherwise.

  Because what it sounded like was: too clean for me.

  Then his lips sealed over mine and pesky things like thoughts fell away among the rush of feeling.

  Like how his lips were both gentle, but firm. They pressed into mine, seeking a response that I readily gave as I angled my head up further as my lips came alive under his. I felt the tip of his tongue move out and touch my lips and my mouth fell open on a quiet whimper of need and he moved inside to claim me further. I pulled him tighter as my thighs pressed together tightly to try to ease the insistent throbbing there. My fingers moved up, tangling into his soft hair and tugging slightly when his lips closed over my tongue and sucked hard for a second. A moan escaped me and he released me to take my lips again, harder, hungrier, just shy of demanding.

  Against my stomach, I could feel his hardness press into me and I felt the hopelessness of being too short. If only I were taller, it would nestle against me, press into where I needed it most. It could offer friction and relief.