Fire Inside

Like I said.

  Exquisite pain.

  Chapter Nine

  No Regrets

  “So, you were a rock star?”

  I grinned as I watched Hop press his handsome head into the pillow and burst out laughing.

  It was Tuesday night.

  I was in Hop’s bed at Hop’s house. It was the first time I’d been there.

  I found, after following his directions, that Hopper Kincaid lived in a nondescript split-level on a cul-de-sac in a regular neighborhood, not a clandestine biker bunker I had to be led to blindfolded.

  This was a surprise but not a disappointment.

  The house was nice although it was clear he could spend more time on the yard. The moment after I had this thought, my mind purged it. Hopper Kincaid and yard work didn’t go together. What did go together was, if his neighbors didn’t like it, since he was a badass biker, they probably didn’t complain and just put up with it.

  The minute I walked in (after Hop laid a hot and heavy one on me in the open doorway), I was assaulted by décor that shouted, “A man lives here!”

  The prevailing colors were black and brown. Dark brown. The feel wasn’t “sit and stay a while,” but “kick back and lounge for however long you want, preferably with a beer.”

  It was not the way I would decorate but I had to say, I liked it.

  It was pure Hop.

  There was framed rock memorabilia everywhere. Signed pictures of Springsteen, Seger, Clapton, Page, these intermingled with framed tickets, rock concert posters, and posters from motorcycle rallies.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to peruse this Museum of Rock (and Motorcycle Rallies) because dinner was ready and I got surprise number two of the night.

  Hop could cook.

  He made a meatloaf that had been basted in a sweetened tomato sauce that was out of this world. It was so good Mamaw would approve, and that was saying something.

  When I shared this information, he grinned at me and stated, “Don’t get excited, lady. I can kick ass with ground beef and I can broil the fuck out of a pork chop but outside that, my cooking is not much to write home about.”

  I was looking forward to him “broiling the fuck out of a pork chop” for me, but I didn’t share that mainly because I was shoveling meatloaf in my mouth.

  Now, the dirty dishes were in the sink and we were in Hop’s bed. This was because he didn’t waste time after dinner in starting the tour of his house. This included a lot more man stuff, the not-surprising knowledge that Hop wasn’t exactly tidy, and the equally not-surprising knowledge that Cody was a Hop Mini-Me (seeing as his room was filled with motorcycle and rock stuff).

  The revelation was Molly’s room, which was painted a pastel yellow and decorated effusively in every shade of purple under the sun, with a liberal sprinkling of daisies in the form of daisy lamps, a daisy motif to the bedclothes, daisy prints on the walls, and a daisy nightlight.

  Glancing into Molly’s room was more proof badass biker Hopper Kincaid loved his daughter. It didn’t belong in this rambling, split-level man cave.

  And yet, getting to know Hop, it absolutely did.

  The end of the tour was Hop’s room, and I was again surprised when confronted with a mammoth, black leather-padded waterbed. Although it looked incredibly cool, I’d slept on a waterbed twice in my life and, albeit an adventure, being tossed on the waves every time you twitched wasn’t my idea of a restful night.

  I didn’t have a chance to think much on this because Hop wasted no time ending the house tour and beginning another one.

  The new tour lasted two hours.

  During it, it took Hop thirty whole minutes to take all my clothes off me. It took ten more for me to get all his off him.

  In other words, it was about taking our time. It was about exploration, rediscovery and memorization, of touch, taste, sound, and sensation.

  Two hours.

  Two hours of making love.

  It was phenomenal and, by the time Hopper slowly slid inside of me, his eyes holding mine, I was so primed, I came instantly. I did it hard and it lasted a long time.

  And it was the best I ever had.

  Every time with Hop seemed like new.

  And every time with Hop was a new best.

  So now I was lying on top of him, his dark sheets pulled up over my booty, his chest hair rough against my breasts, his fingers curved around the cheeks of my ass, pads digging in, and I was doing something I knew in that instant I could do for a lifetime.

  Watching him laugh.

  When his laughter died down to chuckling, he dipped his chin and focused on me to say, “I was never a rock star, babe.”

  “You seemed pretty comfortable up there,” I noted.

  “Yeah, guess it’s like ridin’ a bike,” he mumbled and I pressed closer, sliding my hands up his chest to wrap my fingers around the sides of his neck.

  “Tell me,” I urged softly and he bit his lip, his strong white teeth sinking into the flesh of his full lower lip and I had to beat back a shiver, it was so sexy.

  He stopped biting his lip and started, “Right.”

  I tore my eyes from his mouth to look into his.

  He went on, “After a fight, Dad bought a guitar. Pissed Mom off, which was his intention. She went fuckin’ ballistic. When he came home with that guitar, it was the worst fight up until then, but she was dedicated to upping the game so it wasn’t their worst fight ever. Still, she was off on one. Dad, for once, didn’t back down and return the guitar. He was out in the garage all the time, plucking at it. The whole point was him bein’ shit at doin’ it, and since it was electric and he also got an amp, him makin’ nothin’ but noise and that noise bein’ loud sent her over the edge time and again.”

  “I’m beginning to think your childhood was worse than mine,” I shared and watched Hop’s face get warm and intent.

  “How long’s she been at the bottle?” he asked quietly.

  “One year, she tripped and spilled a glass of red wine on my fabulous gypsy Halloween costume,” I answered instantly. “Since it wouldn’t do for me to go out in a wine-stained gypsy costume, no matter how fabulous it was, Dad had to cut holes out of a sheet from the guest bedroom so I went as a blue paisley ghost. The sheet was so huge I tripped on it and chipped my front tooth on the sidewalk outside our neighbor’s house. My tooth is capped. I was nine.”

  “Babe,” he murmured, his voice low and gruff, filled with feeling.

  Feeling for me.

  That feeling coming from Hop felt nice, but the reason he was giving it to me didn’t, so I shrugged. “Something life has taught me over and over, it can suck.”

  “That it can, lady,” he agreed.

  “So anyway,” I moved to change the subject. “I take it you confiscated your dad’s guitar.”

  Hop thankfully, but not surprisingly, went with me but he did it while both of his hands drifted up my back, gathered my hair away from my face and one hand held it bunched at the back of my head while the other one moved to stroke my spine.

  This felt nice too.

  Or, nicer.

  “Yeah,” he confirmed. “Dad got sick of drivin’ Mom ‘round the bend and I was curious. Picked it up. To this day, don’t know how it happened but I just took to it. No lessons, nothing. Just started strumming and made music. Dad was fuckin’ thrilled. Thought it was the shit. Mom was pissed. Thought it’d give me ideas of bein’ a juke box hero. I didn’t care what either of them thought. Two things took me out of the shit that was my life with them and that was bein’ at a bike shop with my dad or sittin’ in the garage, fuckin’ around with that guitar.”

  “How old were you?” I asked.

  “Twelve,” he answered.

  “Wow, that’s young,” I remarked and it was Hop’s turn to shrug. “That’s also really cool,” I continued.

  That was when Hop grinned. “I thought so too. When I was fourteen, met Danny from last night. He took lessons, his parents wanted him to play classical
guitar but it was all about the rock riff with him. They were disappointed but he didn’t give a shit. That bug bites you, no cure for it.”

  “Obviously there was a cure for you,” I said and his hand stopped stroking my spine as he wrapped his arm tight around me.

  “For me, it wasn’t about the same thing as it was for Danny,” Hop shared. “He feeds off what you saw last night, standin’ in front of a mic, makin’ music, women pressed to the front of the stage, shouting, dancing. He gets high off that vibe and he works through that high in a hotel room later with a couple of bottles of bourbon, some grass and as many warm, soft bodies as he can get. When we recruited the guys and formed a band, if he turned up for rehearsals, it was a miracle. But he never missed a show.”

  “What was it about for you?” I asked.

  “The poetry,” Hop answered and I was so surprised by this answer, I blinked.

  “What?”

  “Music is poetry, babe. Each note is a word that’s uniquely crafted to go with the next note. For me, the only way it gets better is if you put that to lyrics. You take them apart, any good song tells a story separately, through the music and through the lyrics. What makes it grab you by the balls is when you put them together. I didn’t have a lot of beauty in my life. Found it in that.”

  This was deep, another revelation about Hop that didn’t surprise me but I felt my brows draw together.

  “So why did you quit?”

  “I quit because I had a way with notes. Bog, the bassist we had back then who now lives in LA and produces records with some pretty big fuckin’ names, had a way with words and Danny didn’t want to move from covers. He didn’t think we could compete with the likes of Seger and Springsteen. He didn’t think, the bars we were playing, we’d draw crowds with original music. He said people wanted to hear what they knew.”

  I thought this kind of made sense but I didn’t share that because Hop continued.

  “Under all that, he was shit scared. We started to play gigs in high school, which, by the way, did not make my mother happy. We were good, even better back then. Didn’t have the practice but we had the passion. We had a good thing and people felt it. We got more gigs. We made money. We did some traveling. Saw a lot of bars, a lot of road and laid a lot of women. He didn’t want to fuck that up. Didn’t have it in him to take a risk. He didn’t get it wasn’t about besting the rock gods. Seger, Clapton, the greats laid down such fantastic tracks, nothing, no one, no matter how talented they are, would outshine that. Music isn’t about competition. It’s about communication. There are countless stories to be told, lady, and even if your story isn’t so fantastic it will live for eternity, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be told.”

  I had to admit, he was right about that and that also was deep.

  And cool.

  Hop kept talking.

  “Bog got frustrated then pissed, took off, formed his own band. That didn’t work but at least he tried. I figure he’d prefer to be makin’ his own music now but he isn’t complaining since he lives his life in the life. And Bog takin’ off pissed me off. I couldn’t do much with words but I could with music and without a lyricist, I was stuck. Loved music. Loved playing. Didn’t like that it was the same thing every night. Danny and I were tight, us playin’ together since we were kids were some of the only good times I had. I figured, I kept goin’ with that and my world being so narrow, I’d begin to resent it and I’d lose what I had with Danny. So to preserve that, I took off too.”

  “Did you join another band?”

  Hop shook his head. “Auditioned for a couple of them but that band with Danny was my band, our band and,” he grinned, “I’m not a man who follows, who likes to be told what to play, what to do so I knew it wouldn’t work for me and I gave it up.”

  “That’s kind of sad,” I told him. “If last night is any indication, you’re really, really good.”

  He gave me a soft smile in appreciation of the compliment but did it shaking his head again.

  “Not sad,” he returned. “Danny’s livin’ the same life, babe. No growth. Nothin’ to show for it. They got a loyal following that’s a fuckuva lot bigger than what we had back then which means they have a decent manager who keeps them in gigs and they can pay two roadies so they don’t have to lug equipment. But every night it’s a different bar, a different body in his bed, a different hotel. Every day it’s back in the RV, on the road, headin’ to more of the same. His life is still narrow. I think he digs it and if he’s down with that, cool. But he and me are both forty. In ten years, fifteen if he’s lucky, those broads up front are gonna look as tired as he is. It won’t matter how great he can sell “Feel Like a Number”, fresh pussy is gonna dry up and the gigs are gonna be fewer and farther between and, I guarantee you, lady, he’s gonna find himself at a time where he’ll look back and reflect and he’ll have regrets.”

  I nodded because this was likely true.

  Hop carried on.

  “I gave it up and found Chaos. I got kids. I got brothers. I got a home. I got work I like doin’ at the garage, the store, with my Club. I got family.” His arm gave me a squeeze and his lips tipped up. “I got a beautiful woman in my bed and I’ve had her enough times, I know what to do to make her moan for me. If I don’t fuck that up with her, I keep that and no matter what women think, a real man wants to know how to make his woman moan and takes up the challenge of keepin’ that up and makin’ it better. Not starting that shit up time and again with another bitch. What I’m sayin’ is, I landed in a good place, baby, and I never looked back. I got no regrets.”

  His words about me, how he knew how to make me moan, how a real man wants to keep that up and make it better meant everything to me.

  Everything.

  If I could give him words to say to make me know my heart and gut led me straight to where I should be, naked in Hop’s waterbed, they might not have been exactly the same since I wasn’t a badass biker.

  But they’d have the same meaning.

  Therefore, I found myself whispering, “I love the song you sang for me.”

  His face got soft but his smiling mouth said, “I think I got that when you stood on a chair and screamed I was the shit then jumped me the minute we got in your front door. Seriously, babe, I think I got carpet burns on my ass and shoulder blades, you rode me so hard.”

  I smiled back but still gave his shoulder a puny slap and returned, “You don’t have carpet burns.”

  He kept smiling through his muttered, “Feels like it.” I kept smiling too and Hop went on, “Good you got a rug inside your front door, lady. You rode me like that with my back on your tile, I wouldn’t be able to walk but that would be the least of my worries seein’ as I’d probably have a concussion.”

  “Shut up,” I mumbled, still smiling and his smile got bigger. “Dad knows about us.”

  Yes, that was what I blurted. I knew it actually came out when Hop’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Come again?” he asked.

  I pulled in a breath.

  I said it. I said it in Hop’s bed. I said it after making the unconscious but undeniable decision to let him in so I decided it was time to give him more.

  “That was what that thing was about in Vail,” I admitted.

  “Fuck,” he muttered.

  “Yeah,” I muttered back, and his hand slid out of my hair to wrap around the back of my neck.

  “Can’t say that’s too surprising, baby,” he said gently. “We were shit at hiding it.”

  “Yeah,” I repeated.

  “He’d have to be stupid and blind and your old man is neither. Caught your mom givin’ us looks too and, I don’t know, not gonna go there with her until you and me decide it’s time but I don’t think it escaped Molly either,” he told me and my stomach lurched.

  “Really? Molly?” I asked.

  “She loves her dad. She pays attention. She’s a girl. Even at her age, she swoons over boy band crap and guys on TV she thinks are cute. Romantic fantasy is ingr
ained in chicks. It might come out slow but it’ll always come out. You look great. You dress great. You smile at her like she’s the only girl in the world and you make her old man happy. She’s gonna get ideas. In this instance, they just happen to be the right ones.”

  “This is true,” I murmured, and he grinned then his grin faded.

  “So he said shit to you about me?”

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  “And you packed your shit and walked out.”

  It wasn’t a question, since he didn’t have to question seeing as he rode to my rescue, but there was something in his tone. Something that made my heart seize. Something important.

  “Well, yeah,” I stated. “You rode to my rescue, remember?”

  “Your dad said shit about me and you packed your shit and walked out.”

  Again with the tone. Heavy.

  No, weighty.

  Meaningful.

  Something was happening here.

  “Hop—” I started but stopped when he rolled us so he was on top, and his hand came up to cup my jaw and I noted he was no longer just looking at me.

  His eyes were burning into mine.

  “All that shit you no doubt had to live through with your mom, you ever do anything like that before?” he asked.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “But your dad trash talked me, you threw a drama and walked out.”

  “Yeah,” I replied, although I wouldn’t refer to it as “throwing a drama.” I couldn’t debate that I didn’t since, technically, I did.

  And anyway, Hop was still being intense so I needed to concentrate and not debate terminology.

  “So he trash talked me?”

  I squirmed a little but stopped when Hop’s fingers dug lightly into my skin.

  “He said you were a mistake, like Elliott,” I admitted cautiously.

  “He’s wrong,” Hop growled, not cautiously.

  “Hop—”

  “He’s wrong, Lanie,” he bit out.

  “Okay,” I said slowly.

  “Do not let him feed that monster in you. Not about me,” he ordered.

  “Okay,” I repeated.

  “With women, it’s about the slow soak, babe. Assholes pour shit on the surface and women keep goin’ not even knowin’ that shit is soakin’ in. Then one day, out of fuckin’ nowhere, that acid has burned deep in a way it leaves a wound that will never heal. Wipe that shit away, Lanie. Don’t let it soak in. He doesn’t know me. He cannot make that call about me.”