Duke (The Henchmen MC 5)

She was still passed out when I got back and I went to sleep.

Which brought us to the fact that I might have been able to detonate a bomb in the room without her waking up.

She was curled up on her good side, face buried in her obnoxiously girly body pillow, her arm wrapped over it and her leg cocked up on it too. Like it was a lover. Her hair was a knotted blonde mess but at some point during the night, she had stripped out of two layers of clothes, leaving her in a tee and leggings again.

"Penny, come on," I said, half-laughing, as I reached out to touch her arm.

Apparently noise didn't wake her, but touch did. She flew up on a slight shriek, eyes huge.

"Hey, it's alright. Just me. Been trying to wake you up for a couple minutes already."

She slow-blinked at me twice then ran a hand through her crazy hair to settle it. "Um. Why? What's the matter?"

"Nothing is the matter. I figured we would check out your back. Then you can finally take a shower."

"You're waking me up for that?" she grumbled, scrubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

"Well, I figured you'd want to clean up before going to go see your grandmother."

"What?" she said, coming immediately alert. "Really?"

The hope in her voice was all the proof I needed that it was worth the extra shuffling of men around to give me a couple hours to take her. And the call I had to make to have a tube of the tattoo cover-up dropped off.

"Yeah, really. Figured you would feel better if you saw her."

"How's my..." she started, bringing a hand up to touch her face.

"Beautiful," I cut her off. She flushed and gave me a weak smile, shaking her head. "I got some of this for you," I said, reaching for the tube and handing it to her. "It covers tattoos so I'm sure it will cover what's left of the bruises. So, up," I said, whipping the blanket down the bed. "Visiting hours start in twenty and go to four."

"You called the care center?" she asked, like it was a completely foreign concept to her.

"Yeah, babe. Called them, told them to expect us so your grandmother isn't taken by surprise." She sat there silently, her lips parted, her brows furrowed. "What's with the look?"

She shook her head and the expression fell. "Nothing. It's just... weird to not have to do everything myself, I guess."

"Never had a guy take care of you before?"

"I," she started, then stopped to think. "I guess not. It's always kind of been more like... I handle my stuff and they handle their stuff and we share meals and things like that."

"Penny, I ain't exactly the kind of man who operates as a seat-filler. You're with me, we share shit. And not just food and a bed."

She moved slowly off the side of the bed, yawning hard once then looking up at me. "I think I like that," she said, moving past me toward her boxes and searching inside for clothes.

I watched as she grabbed dark skinny jeans and a simple black t-shirt with the name of some store or something across the chest. It didn't exactly escape me that she grabbed a matching purple bra and panty set.

I snagged the bra as she moved past me to go toward the bathroom, making her stop short. "Still can't wear a bra, Pen."

She snatched it out of my hands, cheeks a little red. "I have to wear a bra. I always wear a bra when I leave the house."

"Not for the next couple of weeks you don't. Besides, your tits are perfect. They don't need the support."

She shot me a look and moved into the bathroom, piling her clothes on the sink counter and going to grab a towel out of the closet.

"Alright, so um..." she started, shuffling her feet uncomfortably.

"Take your shirt off, babe," I said, going into the drawer beneath the sink for scissors.

"Duke I..."

"Purely medical motives here," I said, giving her what I hoped was a convincing smile.

"Yeah, sure," she said, knowing better. But she turned her back on me and pulled the shirt over her head, but didn't drop it. I moved in behind her, first unwrapping the elastic bandages. She let out a slow breath as soon as they fell. "Feels like the first time I could really breathe in days," she admitted as I grabbed the edge of the gauze and pulled it up so I could slide the scissors under and slice upward.

I took my own deep breath as I made the last snip, putting the scissors back down and reaching to slowly pull the gauze away. I knew Ashley and Lo had checked it out, but a part of me was worried it would be infected. When I removed the gauze, however, it was much better than the last time I had seen it, bleeding and jagged. The skin was pulled tight with the little black stitches. But there was no redness or irritation. For as crude an injury it had been, it would heal cleanly. There would be a scar but it wouldn't be particularly raised.