Page 12 of Blood Revealed

“Okay, well, the club is in the process of acquiring a few different businesses. Legit ones. We’re tired of death and jailtime. But we’re not there yet. Right now—and please don’t take offense at this—there’s a club across the river, a strip club. They’re hiring dancers. You might want to check it out.” His eyes harden, searching mine when he makes this offer, almost as if he’s challenging me to turn it down. I need money. That’s a legitimate means of obtaining money.

A dancer, though? Do I have it in me? Those stupid tears begin to rim my eyes, and I can’t help think,this is what makes me cry?Not Cassandra, Escalante or my near rape and murder, but the idea that I might take my clothes off in front of horny men. There has to be something wrong with me. I once again blink them back. Tears have no place in my life. What else is there for me to do? I’m a high school dropout. What skills do I have besides waiting tables or working behind the counter at a fast food joint? Neither of those would give me the income of dancing.

But… I don’t know if I could do it. I’ve never taken my clothes off in front of one man, let alone a room full.

He sits silently watching me. I don’t know what to tell him. Do I sayyes? “I…” I start then stall.

“You can just go topless if that’s what you’re worried about.” He cuts into my thoughts. “They won’t make you go full nude.” His eyes remain hard, as if his words and his thoughts are at war with each other. If he doesn’t want me to do it, why make the offer? Probably because he’s a man of the world. I’ll bet he can sense that I have no skills—aside from cooking, cleaning and patching up biker injuries.

That’s not great, but at least it’s something. I’m not completely useless. Those won’t bring me big enough paychecks to save up in case I need to make a fast getaway. Dancing, however, would. I sigh. “Can I check it out first?” I ask. “See what the other women there do?”

“It’s fine. I can take you there tonight if you want.”

“That’ll work. I’d like to rest first, though, if you don’t mind.”

“No problem,” he says. “I’m two rooms down from the archway in the other direction, on the left. Come get me there if you don’t see me in the common. Oh, brothers might hit on you because you’re here and shit hot, but they won’t get mad if you turn them down.”

There’s something new in his voice—insecurity? Like does he think after he rescued me from death and defilement that I’d really hit up on his brothers? I’m not that kind of girl. I’d go elsewhere if that were the case regardless. But it’s not.

“Right.” He runs his hands through his lightly blushed, soft hair, brushing it back from his face and I find myself aching to touch it to the point that I begin to reach up before catching myself and in a swift evasive maneuver, itch a spot on my nose that doesn’t require itching. I—damn. That was close. Blood is hot, too hot for my own good. Surface of the sun, burn my retinas beautiful.Enough, Hannah.“I’ll go then. When you’re hungry, there’s a kitchen behind the bar. Help yourself to anything. Or I can show you around the rest of the way if you want.” He sounds nervous. I don’t think this guy has ever sounded nervous in his life.

“I’m good for now. Thanks,” I say and smile at him again. “I’m going to rest now. But if you get hungry, let me know. I’m a pretty good cook. We can have dinner together if you want.”

His head turns in order for him to stare at me and I can’t discern what his stare means. Just that I feel like an idiot now.We can have dinner together? Really, Hannah? Why not just invite him to jump your bones while you’re at it?God, he must think I’m an idiot. Some girl he had to rescue now throwing herself at him.

“Never mi—” I start to tell him, but he doesn’t give me the opportunity to take it back.

“Dinner sounds good,” he says as he stands. But I kid not, he bends in to kiss my forehead before walking out the door. Like he didn’t shift my entire reality with that one little peck. My whole stinking body heats up. Heats up in a way I’m not accustomed to. It was innocent, but damn. I so want more of those. It has to be hero worship, right? Blood is the first man I’ve ever met who makes me want to give it up.

I keep staring at the door after he’s long gone, willing my thoughts to return back to the grateful ones of earlier—oh, who am I kidding? They’ve been in the gutter since the hotel, I think. All that hot man lying next to me. He had my girl parts in overdrive.

Because I don’t know who has slept on this bed or the last time the bedding was washed, I lie down on top of the shabby comforter and close my eyes. I must have dozed off because the next thing I know, there’s knocking on my door.

“You up?” the voice—Blood’s voice—calls through the door.

“Yeah, come on in.” I sit up, smoothing down my hair so I don’t look like a mess in front of him. He peeks his head in.

“I was hungry.” Oh my god. Could a biker be any cuter? He’s hungry.

“Sure. Let’s see what I can whip up.”

He has his hand outstretched waiting for me to take it when I hit the threshold to the room. The man certainly likes to hold hands. It’s not something I’m used to, but boy, I’m starting to be. He keeps this up, I’ll end up following him around like a puppy.

Behind the bar in the big room, or the common, as he calls it, there’re three rooms. One is the president’s office. The next is what they call their rally room, where the men take their meetings, so like a biker conference room, and the third is the kitchen. Whoever does the shopping has the cupboards stocked the way a man would stock a pantry. Lots of beer, chips, snack cakes. Everything is prepackaged. These men don’t actually cook. Well, that has to end. I can’t live on prepackaged foods for the foreseeable future. They don’t even have spices.

“Okay,” I start. “If I’m going to cook, I need actual ingredients to cook with. I’ll throw something in, but dude, you don’t even have spices aside from salt and pepper. My sister can take sawdust, a paperclip, and an orange peel and create a gourmet dish that even Gordon Ramsay wouldn’t hate. I’m not my sister. I need ingredients.”

“Make a list. We’ll get one of the prospects to go to the store or I can take you if you want to do it yourself,” he offers. He’ll take me to the store? Who is this guy? I guess they grow bikers differently in Chicago than in Houston. Or maybe they grow them differently in Kentucky and he’s reformed.

For now, I find a couple of boxed lasagnas and a bag of vegetables in the freezer. So that will have to do. As the pasta bakes in the oven, I go through the cabinets and the fridge to make a list of ingredients. I’m bound and determined to get Blood to eat a salad. He doesn’t know it yet.

As the smell of the pasta wafts throughout the clubhouse, several men gather in the kitchen. So far, I’ve met Sneak, Butch, Carver and the two prospects not on the gate. Sneak is hot but not too hot. He has this soft brown hair and a lithe build. Nowhere near the manly beauty of Blood, but I doubt too many men aside from Boss or Chaos come close. Carver has blond hair, a goatee and arms covered in so much ink, I can’t see skin, but he somehow has this dignified air about him. A dignified biker? That’s an oxymoron. Somehow it fits him.

Sneak is dating a school teacher. A school teacher? Boy, they really do grow them differently around here. Carver is as free as they come, according to him, which gets him a scathing look from Blood. Butch has long, blondish, stringy hair. He looks like the stereotypical grease monkey. He’s out on bond for something that has to do with the club’s past—Blood wouldn’t let him go into details—but he goes to trial soon. Now that’s what I’m used to with bikers.

They don’t offer me the prospects’ names because according to Carver, they haven’t earned having a pretty girl ask for them by name. I’m not sure, but I think Carver might be hitting on me. Blood seems to think so, the way he punches Carver’s shoulder.

These are good-natured men, though. They laugh a lot. When the timer goes off, I take the pasta from the oven. “Plates?” I ask Blood.

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