Lazarus (The Henchmen MC 7)

"Come on, you hungry?" I asked, pulling her with me toward the kitchen where some much-needed coffee was waiting for us.

"My stomach is a little off," she said when I offered chili for an option.

"Right. Plain is probably better for the next week or so. "Eggs?"

"I can..." she started to object when I started cracking them into a bowl.

"Sit your pretty ass on the counter while I make my woman some food? You sure can do that."

Her smile was the likes I had never seen before on her face- completely unguarded, open, warm, unafraid. I decided right then and there that it was my fucking mission to make her have a reason to smile like that as much as possible until it became as natural to her as breathing.

Whether she knew it or not, she deserved that.

She had led a hard life. Not by the standards, maybe, of my fellow Henchmen or their women, but by normal standards because she was, at the root of it all, just a normal girl who got caught in a shit situation. But she had a fuckwad of a father who taught her to be distrustful. She had a mother she loved deeply and had to stand by helplessly and watch as her body turned on her before inevitably killing her. She tried to put her life on track, got hurt, and got caught in an impossible situation.

And because she was just a normal woman, there was a bone-deep kind of shame in that for her. Guilt because she knew she was raised better, because she knew better, because she never believed herself the kind of person who could become an addict.

It was going to take time to get her to a place for her to see that it was just a small part of the bigger picture of her life.

"What's that look for?" She was perched where I directed her, right beside where I was standing at the stove, her feet swinging a little restlessly, likely because her body was still trying to adjust to sobriety.

"Nothing, babe."

We ate.

I took her to bed.

I fucked her until she came too many times to count, until her body was too drained to do anything but to slip into a deep sleep.

Then I climbed out of bed, got dressed, and headed out to round up Edison and Pagan.

We had some wrongs to right.FOURTEENBethanyI woke up groggily, too tired, too sore in delicious places to even open my eyes for a long time as sleep slowly pulled away. Then and only then, I remembered where I was- in Lazarus' bed at The Henchmen compound.

My eyes sprang open to find the room dark. That meant nothing, though, because the bedrooms of the compound were completely windowless. It could have been three in the morning or three in the afternoon for all I knew.

But one thing was painfully clear- I was alone.

My hand went instinctively for the spot beside me where I had fallen asleep beside Lazarus, his arm heavy over my hip, his hand stroking lazily up and down my back.

But the sheets were cold.

He hadn't been there for a while.

But, again, I had no idea what time it was. Maybe he had gotten a full night of sleep and went out into the clubhouse to eat or hang with his brothers or whatever.

I climbed out of bed, took a shower, redressed, found out it was only about seven at night, and headed into the main room.

In doing so, conversation halted between Penny and Duke and Reeve.

And I knew.

I knew.

He left me.

Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. I knew he was going to handle the situation with Mitch and his sons. But I had figured there was no hurry in that. I thought he was going to spend some time with me. He needed to rest. If he had reached me the day before, it obviously meant he hadn't slept the night before. He was going on forty some-odd hours with no rest.

It wasn't like Mitchell, Chris, and Sunny were going anywhere.

And it wasn't like they were an immediate threat.

We had been safely inside the walls of a seemingly impenetrable building with fences and guards and guns and big, scary biker guys.

Suddenly, I cursed myself for saying I didn't want to know. Maybe if I demanded details and he told me his plan, I could have talked him into giving it some time, not going in so hot.

Not sure what to do, I went into the kitchen, got some coffee.

And I paced.

I had never been a pacer in my life before. In general, I was a 'throw myself in bed and lose myself in mindless TV' kind of person when I was stressed out. It was likely my body's new response to withdrawal to flood me with adrenaline. My stupid, confused body.