Duke (The Henchmen MC 5)

"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.