I closed my eyes.
He was so right.
“You wanna know what else I know?” he asked.
I opened my eyes.
“What do you know?” I asked back.
“No amount of your energy or head space is gonna change her. She’s lost, Tabby, in a way it’s a miracle if she’s ever found. Before you use yourself up, cut her loose. Don’t just say it to her, to me, to yourself. Do it.”
I swallowed.
Shy was right again.
Therefore I nodded.
His arms tightened and he pressed his lips into the top of my hair.
“You wanna know what else I know?” he asked.
“What do you know, honey?”
“My girl is gonna marry me.”
I blinked.
His arms broke free from my grip and he turned me. When I was face-to-face with him, he dug into his pocket. When his hand came out, he grabbed mine and slid the marquise diamond on my left ring finger.
I stared.
It was stunning, beautiful. Not too big that it would catch on stuff and make me worry. Not too small it didn’t say what it needed to say.
And what it said was what the sapphire earrings right then in my ears said:
I was loved by a badass biker.
I held my hand in front of my face, fingers extended, Shy’s hand wrapped around mine, thumb to the base of the ring, and I stared through the dark at its beauty.
“You didn’t get to go with but picking this out was too important, so I took Cherry,” he told me and my startled eyes moved to his face.
There it was again.
I was loved.
“She said that would be your thing so that’s what you got,” he finished.
“It is,” I said softly. “It is exactly my thing.”
He grinned at me. “And that’s what you got.”
I stared at him then right out of my mouth came, “I’ve wanted you since I was sixteen, Shy Cage.”
Shy’s hand moved to slide up my neck and stopped, cupping my jaw.
“Then I’m slow on the uptake, though wantin’ that would be illegal. But I’ve wanted you since you were nineteen and you stuck your tongue in my mouth,” he returned, then muttered, “Thinkin’ on it, even before.”
“I didn’t stick my tongue in your mouth. I touched the tip to yours to show you what you were missing,” I corrected, and his grin got bigger.
“Good job, sugar. Taste was so sweet, years passed and I couldn’t get it off my tongue.”
Suddenly, tears filled my eyes.
“We’re getting married,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he replied, still grinning.
“We’re getting married,” I repeated.
“Yeah, babe, and I like it that you like the way those words taste in your mouth, but I’d like it more if you’d shut up and kiss me.”
I didn’t kiss him. I said, “We’re getting married.”
Shy went quiet then he let my hand go so he could cup my jaw as he dipped his face close. “Yeah, Tabby, baby. We’re getting married.”
My head dropped forward, my forehead hitting his. I curved my fingers around his wrists and held tight.
“I’m gonna wear your mom’s diamonds at the wedding,” I told him.
“Good, I want her and Dad there with you and me,” he told me.
A tear slid down my cheek. Shy’s thumb shifted and caught it midrun.
I said nothing but I felt everything.
“Tabby, love you, honey but you’re kinda freakin’ me out,” Shy admitted.
“I don’t know what to do,” I confessed.
“About what?”
“Being this happy.”
His fingers flexed on my jaws as he pressed his forehead into mine.
Then he said, his voice rough, “Start now.”
“Pardon?” I asked.
“Start now,” he repeated.
“Shy—”
“Start now, Tabitha. Start gettin’ used to it.”
I stared into his eyes as another tear slid out of mine.
“I dreamed a dream,” I whispered.
His voice was gruff when he ordered, “Shut up and kiss me.”
I didn’t shut up. Another tear slid out of my eye and my voice was husky when I repeated, “I dreamed a dream, Shy Cage.”
He shifted so his lips were against mine and his voice was now raw when he ordered, “Shut up, baby, and kiss me.”
“I dreamed a dream when I was sixteen and here I am, standing with my dream, feeling it come real.”
“Fuck me,” he muttered.
Then I knew he’d lost patience, because Shy slanted his head and kissed me.
Yes.
I dreamed a dream and there I was, a ring on my finger, my man’s mouth on mine, standing with my dream, feeling it come real.
I was right about what I was feeling.
I was feeling everything.
And it was beautiful.
* * *
Six months later…
In front of the altar at our church, I stood next to Shy while holding a bouquet of ivory roses with white hydrangeas at the base, the stems wrapped in ivory satin ribbon, my hair up in a series of elegant curls and twists because, for some reason, Shy requested it be that way.
I was wearing an ivory gown, also sophisticated (to go with my hair), the garter Ty-Ty wore at her wedding to Dad around my thigh, Shy’s mother’s diamond earrings at my ears.
In this getup, I was getting married to Shy.
Tyra was my matron of honor.
Landon was Shy’s best man.
Dad, of course, gave me away.
We didn’t bother with a flower girl, since Rider and Cutter both played ring bearers.
Being a now-somewhat-experienced old lady, I managed to hold myself together and not cry when I said, “I do.”
I lost it when Shy said it, but I figured that was okay since I could hear Tyra crying right along with me.
The best part of the ceremony was after Shy kissed his bride, and when we were done, he didn’t let go. So I stood in his arms, my thumb stroking his jaw, my eyes gazing up at him. The world had melted away, so I didn’t hear the hoots and hollers of friends and family.
I only heard what he muttered in a voice that was weirdly raw but unbelievably beautiful:
“Like I’m the only man on the planet.”
In that minute, he was but then again, for me, really, when it came down to it, he always had been.
Though I didn’t understand why he said those words and even later, when I asked, he didn’t answer. He just smiled at me.
I figured I should let him have his secret. It didn’t matter anyway, because the words he spoke were true.
After the ceremony, we had a big blowout. The shindig to end all shindigs.
And the best part of that was after we had our first dance as husband and wife to a lame song I picked, Shy again didn’t let me go.
Seconds later, Jose Gonzalez’s “Heartbeats” started playing.
A very not-lame song that Shy picked.
It wasn’t exactly a song you could dance to, so we didn’t. We just looked into each other’s eyes, held each other close, and swayed as I let the words of the beautiful poem Shy chose for us wash over me.
It was the best day of my life, and a lot of that had to do with looking into my husband’s eyes and seeing, plainly, it was the best day of his.
The only man on the planet.
The only man for me.
* * *
And life was very, very good.
Paradise.
See the next page for a preview of
Fire Inside
the next Chaos novel…
Prologue
Complicated
Hopper “Hop” Kincaid watched her winding through the loud, rowdy, drunk bikers and their groupies, heading his way.
Lanie Heron.
He didn’t move. He kept leaning against the post that hel
d up the roof over the patio area of the Compound, holding a beer and watching her move.
Jesus, she was one serious class act. Even when she came to a barbecue, to the Compound to shoot pool, or to a hog roast, communing with the brethren of the Chaos Motorcycle Club, she didn’t dress down. Designer gear, head to toe. She looked like a fucking model except better, because she was real, right there, walking right to him, her eyes locked to his.
She was also one serious messed-up bitch.
This was not simply because the woman was pure drama. Fuck, he’d seen her create a scene because she wasn’t paying attention when she was pouring her Diet Cherry 7Up and it had fizzed over the top of the glass.
No, Lanie Heron was messed up because she stood by her man.
In normal circumstances, Hopper would find that an admirable trait in any woman, mostly because he knew by experience it was a rare one.
Not with Lanie.
This was because before he got shot to death, her man was even more messed up than she was. The proof of this was he was now very dead, and she had scars from the bullets her dead fiancé bought her because he wanted to give her some crazy-ass, out-of-season flowers for their wedding and he got involved with the Russian Mob to do it.
The fucking Russian Mob.
For flowers.
Not messed up, fucked up.
Before it all went down, she found out about him working for the Mob. Being a woman, of course, first, she busted his balls. Then she made a tremendously bad decision and stood by him even after his shit got her kidnapped. Then she watched him die and nearly got herself killed in the process.
Fucked up. Your old man gets involved with the Russian Mob, this gets your ass kidnapped, once you get rescued you kick him to the curb. No question. You just do it.
You don’t go on the lam with him and get yourself shot.
He watched her move his way, thinking all of this at the same time thinking about the moment he first saw her. It was the night she found out her old man was making whacked decisions in order to buy flowers. Even though, at the time, she was in full-blown drama mode, for once her drama being understandable, the second Hop saw her years ago, he’d thought she was definitely one fine piece of ass.
Watching her come his way, he had not changed his mind.
She was not his thing, normally. Too tall, too skinny, no ass, not enough tits and way too put together with her designer jeans and high-heeled boots that had to cost a fucking mint.
But there was no denying her glossy, long, dark hair was fucking gorgeous. And her green eyes defined what Hop always thought was stupid as shit, but in her case it was true. They were bedroom eyes. They were the eyes any man with a functioning dick would want staring into his as he was moving inside her.
Fuck, her eyes were amazing.
After she nearly lost her life standing by her man, she’d taken off, moved from Denver to be close to her family in Connecticut, and she stayed there for a while licking her wounds. This while lasted too long, according to Tyra, Lanie’s best friend and old lady to Kane “Tack” Allen, the president of Hop’s motorcycle club, the Chaos MC. Tyra, known to the boys as “Cherry,” flew out to Connecticut, reamed her ass, and hauled it back to Denver.
Lanie set herself up again in house and job, and now she was a staple at Chaos gatherings mostly because she was Tyra’s best friend. Also because the brothers liked looking at her so they didn’t mind her being around and even Hop had to admit her frequent dramas were pretty damned funny (when they weren’t annoying). You had to give it to anyone who was how they were no matter who was around, and that was pure Lanie. She was Lanie, she didn’t water that down, and she didn’t care what anyone thought of it.
This was the way of the biker, so men like Hop and his brothers could appreciate it.
That said, freaking out because your 7Up overflowed was over the top. Still, a bitch as gorgeous as Lanie Heron… fuck, you’d watch her sitting around and watching TV. Having a fit over spilled soda was definitely worthwhile. Especially if she did it like she did it, jumping around so that hair was swinging, those eyes flashing and what little tits and ass she had moved right along with her.
As she got close, Hop tore his eyes off her and moved them through the crowd.
Tack nor Cherry were anywhere to be seen. This was not a surprise. It was late, things were getting rowdy, but that wasn’t why those two had disappeared. Hop knew they were either on Tack’s bike going back up the mountain to their house or they were in his room at the Compound. They were married, had been together awhile, neither of them were anywhere near their twenties, they had two young boys, but still, they went at each other like teenagers.
This also wasn’t a surprise. Tyra did have tits and ass, lots of hair, and a serious amount of sass. A woman like that was built to be bedded and often, and Tack took advantage. Then again, that was why Tack accepted her ball and chain. Actually, not so much accepted it as much as forced her to clamp her shackle on his ankle. Given the choice of waking up to Tyra Allen every morning, not many men wouldn’t.
“Hey,” he heard Lanie greet him and his eyes moved back to her.
“Hey,” he replied.
Her head tilted slightly down, her ear tipping to her shoulder even while her neck gave a small twist but her eyes never left his as she remarked, “Getting rowdy.”
“Always does,” he murmured, his gaze moving over her shoulder while he thought, Jesus, she was tall. She had to be five-nine not in those heels. In them, she was six foot one. His height. They were eye to eye.
He didn’t like this, normally.
Lanie… eye to eye with those fucking eyes?
Shit.
“Wanna fuck?”
At her question, his gaze sliced back to hers as he felt his body jerk in shock.
“Say again?” he asked.
She leaned in slightly, never looking away, and repeated, “Wanna fuck?”
Hop stared at her. He’d just watched her walk to him, winding through loud, shitfaced bikers and their bitches, her gait steady. She didn’t move like she was hammered, nowhere near it. Even now, her gaze was clear as it held his.
Still, he asked, “You had one too many, babe?”
“No,” she replied instantly and moved closer.
This was not good because, when she did, he could smell her perfume.
Those eyes, bedroom eyes.
That perfume, fuck-me perfume.
Jesus, he’d been catching whiffs of it now for years and it never failed to do a number on him. He didn’t know what it was—the fact it smelled expensive, the intense femininity of it that said, point blank, “I am all fucking woman”—or the fact that it was elusive. If you got one smell of it, the woman who wore it owned you because you’d do anything to go back for more. Any time Lanie got near him, in the back of his head, Hop hoped to catch her scent. Sometimes he would. Sometimes he wouldn’t. But every time, he hoped for it.
Now, though, smelling it now was a very bad thing.
“Not sure that’s a good idea, Lanie,” he told her, gentling his voice as he gave her the honesty.
“Why?” she asked immediately, and he felt his eyes narrow on her before he answered.
“Maybe ’cause you’re best friends with Tack’s old lady. I respect him, I respect her, and shit like this, babe, it gets complicated. Any complication sucks but a complication like this—” he shook his head “—no one needs that.”
She threw out a hand and declared casually, “It won’t get complicated.”
Okay, maybe she was messed up, fucked up, a drama queen, high maintenance, and a nut.
“Bullshit,” he replied. “It always gets complicated.”
She moved closer, and Jesus, her scent, that hair, those eyes, all of that close, if she got any closer he’d physically have to set her away or pick her up and carry her to his room.
“Do you want to fuck me?” she asked. Her voice, sweet and feminine normally, was soft now, a little hesitant, a littl
e excited, and that intoxicating combination was doing a number on him too.
“Babe, you looked in the mirror lately?” he asked back by way of answer. “Man would have to be dead not to wanna fuck you.”
A little smile twisted her pretty mouth and he knew he was screwed because that was cute and fucking sexy as all fucking hell.
Shit.
She got closer and Hop braced. Any closer and she’d be cozied up to him. She was inches away.
“Do you like me?” she asked.
“Everyone likes you,” he answered.
“I’m not asking about everyone, Hop,” she told him, and he held her eyes.
“Yeah, babe, you know I do,” he finally answered when she didn’t move or speak, just waited. “You’re funny, you’re cute, you’re hot, and you got no problem letting it all hang out. That’s why everyone likes you. That’s also why I do.”
To that, she returned, “Okay. Good. Then no complications, Hop. Just you and me and tonight. Tomorrow, I won’t expect flowers. I won’t expect a belated courtesy date. I won’t even expect you to take me out for a cup of coffee. This isn’t about that. I don’t even want that. I just want you and sex. No expectations. Nothing but what we have tonight,” she told him. “Tack and Ty-Ty, or anyone, they never even have to know.”
He pushed away from the pole, reached out an arm to put his beer on a nearby picnic table and took a huge chance straightening to her because it meant they were closer. But it also gave him the half an inch he still had on her when she was in those heels, and he needed it.
“Don’t wanna be a dick, lady,” he warned softly, “but bitches say that shit all the time. Then, in the morning, they expect breakfast, coffee, and to come home from work to roses with a note sayin’ the guy never had better. You got a man who thinks to buy you roses, he says he’s never had better, big chances are he’s lyin’. He just wants it regular and he’ll take it as it comes.”
He knew every word out of his mouth made him the dick he told her he didn’t want to be, but she needed to move on. If she was in the mood to get laid, she needed to find herself some not on Chaos. Cherry had chosen Chaos, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t lose her mind if her best girl hooked up with a brother. She would. Hop knew it. But if that shit happened anyway, Cherry would want to handpick the brother who got in there, and Hop also knew that brother would absolutely not be him.