Page 11 of Blood Revealed

“All I have is worry, Dawna. My life is one big worry.”

“Running?” she asks, and I nod. “Bad or really bad?”

“Really,reallybad,” I answer honestly. Dawna reaches her frail hand out to take mine resting on her lap. She squeezes it gently.

“Had a feeling when you walked in,” she says. “The brothers will take care of you.”

That would be great. I’ve been around bikers my entire life and can tell simply by the four I’ve met that the Lords are different.

Duke clomps back inside the bedroom wearing a hardened scowl that he shoots directly at me. “Time to go,” he says.

Well, it was good while it lasted. I raise my hand to gently cup her cheek. “I’ll be back, okay?”

“Okay,” Dawna answers, closing her eyes. A single tear slips down over her cheek to hit my hand. But it’s not my place to stay. I push up from the bed and walk over to Blood, who’s waiting in the doorway.

The man simply takes my breath away. I consciously try to hide it when the gasp obviously leaves my lungs. He’s so tall with all that strong, lean muscle. Not bulky like Boss who looks like his father might have been a tank. Even when Blood’s upset seeing a woman he cares about dying in her bed, he stands straight, shoulders back, square chin up. The man carries himself with confidence. He knows who he is and moreover, likes who he is. From that thick head of feather soft strawberry-blond hair I’ve been itching to run my fingers through since I realized he had such thick hair after the emotion of knowing I was safe from that trucker eased, all the way down to the shine on his motorcycle boots.

While waiting for me to reach him, Blood sucks in on his bottom lip. My eyes zero in on the plump, luscious target and I never wished to be a body part so badly until now. His bright eyes shine gray with flecks of blue and a dusting of yellow. I shouldn’t be turned on. Not after the last few days and how we met. Someone tell my body that. He holds his hand outstretched to me. This moment feels weightier than simply a man holding a hand out for a woman. An epiphany moment where I know down to the pit of my belly, that if I take his hand now, my life will change in a way I never dreamt possible growing up in my dad’s club.

Do I or don’t I take that chance? Glancing from him to his hand and back to his face again, I swallow down my fear to place my hand in his.

His strong one closes gently around mine as we leave the house quietly. And that’s it. I’m in it now. Whatever ‘it’ turns out to be, I’m taking the chance. We’re outside before Blood slows us down. “Duke says you can stay here until you find a place.”

“Wow,” I reply. “That’s… That’s fantastic. Thank you.”

“Wasn’t gonna throw you to the wolves. You got no money. Anyway, there’s an empty room in the clubhouse I’m supposed to show you. It’s close to mine.”

We begin walking again. He holds the door open to the clubhouse for me. I’ve never had a man hold a door before and I don’t know how to react. Do I saythank youor do I let it pass without acknowledgement?

Instead of words, I go with a smile and chin lift. His returning smile, besides being a thing of beauty, eases my worry. Our hands linked again he leads me through a big, dingy room with old veneer paneling. There’re water spots on the drop ceiling. It’s the same kind my high school had. Boys in class would throw sharp pencils at it and try to get them to stick. That was before I dropped out two years ago when I was legally able to do so without truancy officers poking their noses in my dad’s club. My wonderful father decided I didn’t need any more education than that and the club’s president agreed with him.

The Lords have a quintessential biker’s pool table. Because what biker clubhouse would be complete without it? There’s a bar, too. Again, bikers like to drink. So, it appears not all aspects of the Lords are different.

They have these cool chairs that look like they were made from barrels sitting around a felt-topped poker table. And there’s a sofa, ripped arms with stuffing falling out. There’s probably enough semen soaked into that thing that if an ovulating woman sat on it, she’d get pregnant without the need for sex.

Still, I’d like to look around, but Blood wants me to follow him and we move through an archway into a hallway that runs to the left and right parallel with the big room. He turns us left.

“Most of the brothers’ rooms are on the right,” he says.

We stop in front of a door two down from the archway and he opens it. It’s not lockable, which isn’t ideal. Until I know the lay of the land, I’d prefer to have a lock. Locks kept me out of trouble back home too many times to count.

The room isn’t big, but it’s clean-ish. The carpet hasn’t been scrubbed—probably ever. There’s a curtain-less window above the bed. Not big enough for a person to slip through. Well, not an adult man, but I bet I could squeeze through it if it became necessary to escape. The bed is a double. It reminds me of the cheap hotel bed we slept in on our way here. Not that I have many belongings to put away, but there’s an old dresser to the wall opposite the bed, and there are two doors made of that hallow, cheap plywood. One must be a closet. The other… a bathroom? One can only hope. Having my own bathroom would be a godsend.

Blood confirms my thoughts, pointing to the closet door. “Closet,” he says. Then pointing to the other, he says, “Bathroom. We all have our own bathrooms.”

“Thank you. Thank you for everything.”

“Like I told you in Missouri, you remind me of my sister, Liv. I couldn’t leave you with that fuck. I got this bad feeling when I saw him,” he says. That’s another can of worms needing to be opened, though I really don’t want to. I mean, shouldn’t I feel more? In the moment, I was sure I was going to die. Once he left the interstate my suspicions went up. When he took us down roads most cars never travel, I figured it out. Almost too late. Almost. If it weren’t for Blood and his brothers… I let that thought trail off. Still, shouldn’t I be more upset? Now it simply feels like something that happened. It’s over. Time to move on. Maybe I’m broken. Maybe I’m deranged.

Oh, hell if I know.

He walks over to sit on the bed. Undershooting the spot next to him, I walk over to drop down close enough for our thighs to brush. I didn’t mean to, but he keeps me there and I don’t really want to move away if I’m being honest. There are worse things in life than sitting close to a ridiculously handsome man who happens to be nice to boot. Well it’s nice to know I’m not broken when it comes to Blood.

“What do you need from me?” I ask.

“Well, you’ll probably need a job.”

“Noprobablyabout it,” I agree.

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