“It wasn’t my idea,” Blade groused, holding his hands out in front of him.
“It was Logan’s,” Priest said, shooting a grin at me. “You know he can’t say no to Logan.”
“Right,” I said, but I was distracted, already stuck on another detail.
Three months. Three fucking months I was stuck with Dante. I’d done a lot of grunt work as a prospect: working in the shop, cleaning members’ bikes, fixing up the gym, yard work, grocery runs, all kinds of things. I’d pick another three months of incessant prospecting tasks over this any day. How was I supposed to cope for that long, being in such close proximity to him? One minute I was anxious, the next I was hungry to get closer to him. It was like whiplash every time we were together.
“Remind me what your class schedule is,” Blade said, “so we can start scheduling these sessions.”
“They’re all morning and afternoon classes this semester,” I said. “As long as we’re scheduling things after four, I won’t have any conflicts.”
“Great. That makes it easy.” Blade flipped open a calendar on his desk and furrowed his brow. “All right, Gunnar and I will start scheduling. Kid, show Dante around the clubhouse.”
“Now?” I asked, as nerves gripped me. I’d thought I’d at least get some time to adjust to the idea of being Dante’s chaperone—the title still sounded laughable in my head—but apparently Blade wanted me to jump right in.
“Yeah.” Blade didn’t look up from his calendar. “Now. No reason to wait.”
Finally, Dante turned away from Blade, looking over his shoulder to pin me with that pale blue gaze again. This time it looked like a challenge.
“Kid,” Priest said.
I forcibly tore my gaze from Dante’s, and found Priest’s to be warm and concerned. He looked at me with a deep furrow in his brow, and a slight twist to his lips—he didn’t have to say anything for me to see the out he was giving me. If I refused to give Dante the club tour right now, Priest would accept that, and he’d probably give me an out on the task altogether.
It was almost tempting, except—I’d joined this club not only for the structure, and the family, but to start to get over the issues I knew were holding me back. I’d come a long way, but I obviously still had even farther to go. And if Blade thought this was the way for me to do it, I wasn’t going to let him down.
I’d deal with all the shit Dante seemed to bring up in me on my own. It’d be fine. It had to be.
“Sure.” I squared my shoulders. “Come on, Dante. I’ll show you around.”
5
Dante
After shaking hands with Priest, Blade, and Gunnar, I followed Heath out of Blade’s office and into the hallway.
The Kid was waiting for me, hip cocked, arms crossed over his chest. As soon as I closed the door to the office, he took off, walking down the hallway and into the kitchen.
I was trying not to stare, but it was hard to look away from the elegant lines of his small body: narrow waist, slim hips, curved ass, lean thighs and calves. He was light on his feet, not quite like a dancer, but like someone who was aware of his body, who knew how to step without making a sound.
I’d always gone crazy for guys like Heath—small, slight, feminine guys, guys who were a little submissive, who went pretty and pliant under my hands. I knew looks could be deceiving, especially when it came to roles in the bedroom, but everything I’d seen so far—from the way he carried himself around his club members, to the way he responded to Blade’s authority, to the way he refused to meet my eyes—screamed submissive.
And I could be wrong, but I couldn’t help but think he needed someone to take care of him.
He reminded of my ex, in that way. Eddy had been the same when we’d first met; he’d had a natural inclination to submissiveness, and I’d been the one to nurture that inclination and open his eyes to an entirely new way of experiencing sex. It’d been fun, and hot as hell, and I thought it was rooted in the deep connection we had together. But it turned out he didn’t like me for me—he liked me as a Dom, but not as his Dom. One he could use for sex and fun until he got bored. Until he wanted a new, sexier, upgraded Dom.
The fallout had not been pretty, and those were months of my life I’d never get back, months that I wasn’t the business owner and VP and friend I wanted to be.
Well, it’s not like I had to worry about anything actually happening with the Kid. Heath had made it extremely clear he was not exactly happy about this arrangement. From the way he was walking, he hardly even wanted to show me around the clubhouse.
“Rooms are up there,” he said, gesturing up the stairs. “You’ve seen the back deck. Kitchen doubles as our meeting spot when we hold church.” He was barely even pointing, moving like a surly teenager.
Tex, Jazz, Raven, and Logan were sitting around the kitchen island, with coffee and the remains of the muffins I’d brought, and looked at us questioningly.
“Dante’s going to be helping out with the self-defense training,” the Kid said shortly. “And baking lessons, I guess.”
“Oh, hell yeah!” Logan said triumphantly. “It’s actually happening!”
“Looking forward to it, guys,” I said diplomatically.
“All right, come on. Gym’s downstairs,” Heath said with a tone that sounded a lot like annoyance. It made the guys at the table peer curiously at us, and then share a confused look, but no one said anything. Still, it answered my question—it was just me Heath acted like this toward. Great.
Heath hurried down the stairs and flicked the lights on. The basement gym was decently sized, and looked like it’d been recently fixed up. It had unfinished concrete floors, a squat rack, bench press, treadmill, and even a beat-up old heavy bag in the corner.
“So that’s it.” He turned, ready to head right back up the stairs, though I was sure we hadn’t been in the gym longer than thirty seconds. I’d barely had a chance to take in the layout of the space, and I was going to need to be at least decently familiar with the room and its equipment if I was going to plan decent classes.
Finally, my irritation got the better of me. “What is your problem?” I asked, a little harshly.
Heath paused with one foot on the stairs. He didn’t turn to face me, and he didn’t answer.
“Seriously,” I pressed. I was annoyed, and frustrated. If he already disliked me so much, I’d rather get it out into the open and deal with it like adults. “What is with your attitude?”
“There’s no problem,” Heath said. He didn’t turn around.
This was so fucking annoying. I rolled my eyes, even though he wasn’t looking. “Don’t bullshit me.”
He flinched a little, and then turned around to face me, but didn’t meet my eyes. “I’m just—” Heath cringed at the shaky sound of his own voice. “I’m just not good with new people.”
“That all?” Some of the frustration bled out of me. I didn’t want to actually upset him. Maybe I’d been wrong about the Kid. Maybe he really was just shy. But I couldn’t get a good read on him while he was busy staring at his shoes. “Can you at least look at me?”