Duke (The Henchmen MC 5)

"She alright?" he asked, watching the door like she was going to run screaming from it at any moment.

"Honestly? Dunno. She's skittish and freaked. Lo told me to try not to worry about it too much, that she would be fine. Not sure I believe it though."

Wolf nodded, pushing off the wall. "Get some sleep," he said as he wandered off.

So then I went in and woke her up as I dropped her shit.

It wasn't like me to pass out like I had. I was never an easy sleeper. It usually took me hours to pass out. But it had been a hell of a couple of days and I was out before I could even think to move to the cot.

Waking up to her moving up on my chest, yeah, that was a real test to willpower right there. Took every fucking thing I had in me to grit my teeth and not react to the fact that her body wiggled against mine and she sighed in her sleep, making me hard as fuck with no effort on her part.

I almost fucked up and kissed her again too. Right before she talked about her hair being dirty. I was close. She was all sleepy-eyed and sweet and I had been up for hours trying to list the million or so reasons why fucking her would be a complete disaster for the both of us.

Then when she looked up at me a while after when I was done washing her hair, eyes heavy, lips begging to be kissed, breasts rising and falling too fast to be anything other than turned on, yeah. I deserved a fucking award for the restraint I showed.

And, watching as she chopped tomatoes to throw in the God damn quesadillas she was making, enough of them to feed the entire compound, I realized it was good. It was good I wasn't complicating things by making it physical between us.

True, there was an attraction.

But therein was the problem.

She was attracted to me because she was alone and scared and hurt and confused and I was the one who was there to hold her, to feed her, to give her reassurances.

I was attracted to her because, well, I was worried it was because what Renny said was right. I was worried it was a cycle.

And fuck if I hadn't spent my entire God damn adult life trying to break it, trying to get free from all that shit.

But there was no way to tell if what I felt was just a genuine reaction or something deeper, something more vile.

Which was why nothing was going to happen. No matter how much my sheets and my tees all smelled like her. No matter how much she looked up at me with need in her eyes. No matter that she was five feet away from me all night in a bed I knew she would happily share with me.

It was a bad idea.

"Ah, Duke?" she said, snapping me back to the present. Her head was cocked to the side, her hair halfway dry, her lips quirked up at one side.

"Sorry. Spaced out," I admitted.

"Guess culinary arts isn't a huge interest of yours," she said with a shrug, not offended. "I asked if maybe you would bring some of these out to the guys?"

"You should bring them out. You made them."

"Yeah, but..."

I shook my head, grabbing the plate piled with the damn things and shoving it into her hands. I grabbed a pile of paper plates, put a hand on her shoulder and steered her out toward the main room.

"Penny made everyone food," I declared, making all the heads turn in our direction, causing Penny to go back a foot and almost bump her back into me before I pushed her forward again. If there was one way to get the attention of a room full of bikers, aside from telling them that the bitches had showed up, it was to declare that there was food up for grabs.

Repo was the first to walk up, taking a plate from me and putting a wedge on it. "Making me look bad here, honey. I'm usually the one to cook."

"Well, I, ah, was teaching Duke to, um, cook so..."

"Oh yeah?" Cash asked, walking up, giving her one of his smiles. "How'd that go for you?"

Penny looked over her shoulder at me, giving me a lopsided smile. "He's not the... best student."

When the guys laughed, she looked over her shoulder at me again, her smile maybe a little victorious, like she was glad she got on their good side.

The smile fell, however, when the door flew open and Reign came barreling in, face grim.

"What is it?" Wolf asked immediately, body going tense.

"The garage was torched an hour ago."

"The garage?" Repo repeated. "My garage?" he added, shoving his plate to one of the guys who was passing him. "To the ground?"