Fire Inside

  He could act the player. He could pretend he could take it or leave it. He could hide his attraction to me in order to gain the upper hand. He could even begin to lay the groundwork of tearing me down, making me feel less than I was, trying to make me feel lucky I had in my bed all that was him and, in doing that, embarking on a campaign that was usually scary successful not to mention swift, to make me feel like I was nothing.

  He didn’t.

  He liked looking at me, my eyes especially, like just then but particularly when he was inside me. I never came without my eyes to his and his to mine; Hop made it that way. I’d never had a man look me in the eyes so intently, so steadily, so hungrily, as Hopper.

  I found my hand lifting even as the rest of me didn’t move, cupping his jaw, my eyes watching my thumb trail the side of his ’tache, moving over the thickness of his whiskers at his jaw, and he muttered, “You really like that, don’t you?”

  My gaze went to his and I kept my hand where it was. “Yeah.”

  That was an understatement. It looked good on him. It felt good on my skin. It felt better between my legs.

  Heaven.

  “Before you, was thinking of shaving it off. Growing a patch.” He lifted his hand, touched his middle finger to the indent under his lower lip and I took in his rings.

  A plain silver band on his thumb and three rings, side by side, index, middle and ring finger, one that said “Ride”, one that said “Free”; the last said “Chaos”.

  Badass, biker, cool.

  “I’ll wait until we burn out before I do that,” he concluded.

  My eyes cut up to his.

  I’ll wait until we burn out before I do that.

  His tone was light, his lips surrounded by that ’tache tipped up. He was teasing.

  I didn’t like it. Teasing, I could take. A reminder we would burn out, I couldn’t.

  I didn’t tell him this mostly because I refused to process it.

  “Not that you need it but you have my encouragement to grow the patch,” I said instead then clarified, “Along with the mustache.”

  His face dipped closer, taking my hand with it, his eyes never leaving mine as he whispered against my lips, “Then I’ll grow the patch.”

  I smiled against his mouth.

  “Gotta go, honey,” he went on and there was one good thing in that. He sounded like he didn’t want to.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay,” he replied but didn’t move, didn’t let go of my eyes, nothing. When this went on for a while, he prompted, “Forgetting something?”

  “Uh…” I mumbled.

  “Lady, kiss me.”

  Lady.

  I’d been around Hop and all the Chaos boys for some time. They called women a lot of things, some of them good, some of them not so good.

  Not one of them, not one, called any woman “Lady”.

  This was something else he gave me. Something gorgeous. Something I wouldn’t let settle in my soul or I’d be lost, lost again. Not lost to a jerk or an asshole who played games or had to cut me down so he wouldn’t feel I overshadowed him. Lost in what I’d discovered the hard way was worse. Lost to a dangerous man who could not only get me hurt but who could hurt me worse by getting himself that way.

  I didn’t share any of this either. I tilted my head, lifted it, pressed my lips to his, slid my tongue in his mouth and I kissed him. Hard. As hard as I could. As hard as I knew how. And I did it deep.

  This lasted for a while then it lasted even longer when Hop’s arms closed around me. He hauled me out of bed, across his lap, arched me over his arm, and he kissed me. Deep and long.

  When he broke the kiss, he twisted me back in bed, pulled the covers up under my arm, tucking them around my back (something else sweet and gorgeous I tried to forget the minute he did it, though not entirely successfully, alas) and he bent in to kiss my temple.

  “Later, babe,” he muttered then pushed to his feet.

  I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t call, “Tomorrow?”

  I knew it would come out eager or desperate. I wasn’t about to be either.

  Not again.

  I’d learned that lesson the hard way too.

  I just curled back around my pillow and watched him round the bed until he disappeared.

  Once he did, I waited until I knew he was downstairs before I reached and turned out the light on my bedside table. Then I swung my legs over the side of the bed and got out, yanking hard at the sheet to free it from the end of the bed to take it with me. I wrapped it around my body, tucking it tight, and went to one of the two wide double windows that looked out to the courtyard of my house. Carefully, I slid up one side of the plantation shutters and looked out.

  The courtyard was in darkness. My outside lights were not on but the space was dimly lit by streetlamps in the alley. I saw him move through. I liked the way he moved, just walking. I liked the way he moved other places better.

  He went through the back gate and disappeared down the side of my garage.

  I slapped the shutters closed, leaned my forehead against them and closed my eyes.

  “One night,” I whispered. “It was supposed to be safe. Just one night.” I pulled in a breath and let it out on a “damn.”

  I’d picked Hop because I was attracted to him. I’d picked Hop because he was hot. I also picked Hop because I figured he wouldn’t say no and he’d also say yes to no strings, no complications, and no entanglements. All the boys were good ole boys, few rules and the ones they had were unwritten and pertained mostly to how they treated their bikes and how they treated their brothers. Anything else went. No. From what I could tell, everything else went.

  It was not lost on me, however, that there were men amongst Chaos who fell hard and fast and not only didn’t mind the fall but also got off on staying down. Tack, Ty-Ty’s husband, was one of them. Dog, also a Chaos brother, was another. Brick got lost in every woman he was with. He just didn’t pick good ones so eventually they took off, but they did it with him not wanting to let go even when they did not nice stuff like stealing his money or making a pass at one of his brothers.

  So when I decided I was going to approach one of them to get what I needed, what I’d let go on for so long, I was beginning to crave, I needed one who would break the seal and then move on without complications.

  I picked poorly because I picked so damned well.

  I sighed and banged my head lightly against the shutter.

  What I needed.

  What I craved.

  Gah!

  I opened my eyes, slid open the shutters, and stared out to the empty courtyard.

  “You are seriously stupid, Lanie Heron,” I told the window.

  I did this because I knew what I craved.

  A taste.

  Just a taste.

  A small, sweet, short taste, even if it was pretend, even if it was milk and I had to imagine it was a thick, rich, vanilla shake, a little sip of what Ty-Ty had with Tack.

  I didn’t have that with Elliott. I loved him, no doubt about it. I was ready to spend the rest of my life with him. I missed him even though he was totally whacked. I’d even made the decision to stay with him knowing he was totally whacked.

  I loved him so much I’d taken bullets for him.

  But I’d never seen anything like what Tyra had with Tack. I’d never seen a woman get that from a man. I’d never seen the naturalness, the ease of what she gave back. I’d never seen a man and woman able to be just who they were and yet make it so plain to each other and anyone watching they appreciated what they had more than anything.

  Anything.

  I wanted a taste of that.

  “Boy, you got it, Lanie, you big, stupid, crazy, idiot.” I kept beating myself up just as my phone rang.

  My head twisted around to look at it and my eyes narrowed even as my heart skipped.

  I knew who it was because this happened all the time.

  Nearly midnight my time, wee hours of the morning hers.

/>   “Shoot, shoot, damn,” I mumbled as I wandered to the phone knowing I shouldn’t pick it up. My sister Elissa always told me I shouldn’t pick it up. She didn’t pick it up. She’d learned years ago and stopped doing it, so now she’d stopped calling my sis and called me instead.

  Exclusively.

  Because I stupidly picked up.

  I got to the bed, saw the display on my phone told me I was right and still—stupid, stupid, stupidly—I picked up.

  “Hey Mom,” I answered.

  “Lanie, baby, howeryoudoin?”

  I switched on the light, turned, sat on the side of the bed, lifted my feet up to the padded footboard, knees closed, and dropped my forehead to my knees because I could hear it.

  She was gone.

  Sloshed.

  Well past three sheets—she was five sheets to the wind and sailing.

  I was “darling” when she was sober. When she had it together to keep up appearances. When she expended all her energy to be the Connecticut banker’s wife and buried the Tennessee farmer’s daughter. Even if that Tennessee farmer had enough acreage to build three malls and had been the richest man in the richest family in town, she was still a farmer’s daughter and that didn’t do, according to her, in Connecticut.

  “Good, Mom. It’s late. What’s up?” I answered.

  “Oh, nuthin’. Just wan’ed to talk to my lil’ girl.”

  “You’re talking to her, Mom, but it’s nearly midnight here. I’m really tired and I should get some sleep. It’s even later there so you should get some sleep, too.”

  “Doan need sleep but you need some fun, Lanie. What you doin’ home? You shud be owd on the town, paintin’ it pink or, bedder, on a date,” Mom told me, a bit of what I thought was the cute, countrified twang she’d worked for decades to get rid of coming out in her voice.

  This was a constant refrain even when she wasn’t drunk out of her mind. Heck, she’d started in on me about five days after I left the hospital, after everything happened with Elliott and the Russian Mob.

  Then again, she’d never liked Elliott. “He may be brilliant, darling, but men like him never get very far. Middle ground. My girl? My Lanie? Looks like yours?” She had flicked my hair off my shoulder before she finished by declaring, “Breeding and beauty like yours, darling, you deserve to be on the arm of a star!”

  I shoved this memory down and replied, “I’ve had a tough week at work.” This wasn’t a total lie. “So I need a quiet weekend.” That wasn’t a total lie either.

  “Okay, quiet is good,” Mom returned. “Bedder than you rubbing elbows with Tyra’s family. Whad she was thinking, I will nod ever know. Such a priddy girl, too. Total waste. Her parents must be devastated.”

  Suffice it to say, not only the Connecticut banker mom but also the Tennessee farmer’s daughter mom did not approve of the Chaos MC.

  “They’re good people, Mom,” I told her for the four hundred and fiftieth time.

  “They’re bikers, Lanie.”

  She said the word “bikers” like uttering those two syllables spontaneously filled her mouth with acid.

  “Can we not talk about this?” I asked on a sigh. “Really, it’s been a tough week and I’m exhausted.”

  “Okay, wad d’you wanna talk about?”

  I didn’t want to talk at all.

  I didn’t want a lot of things and I hadn’t wanted most of them for a long freaking time.

  I didn’t want my fiancé to be dead.

  I didn’t want my fiancé to be dead by being whacked by the Russian Mob.

  I didn’t want to live with the knowledge, and the guilt, that his antics with the Mob got my best friend kidnapped, twice, and the second time it got her stabbed. Repeatedly.

  I didn’t want to be alone.

  I didn’t want to be so damned lonely.

  I didn’t want to live like I was living—the nightmares, the fear, something no one would understand, something I had to hide so people I cared about didn’t get worried.

  I didn’t want my Mom to be wasted… again.

  I didn’t want to know she was sitting alone in the big house on all that land in that exclusive estate where I grew up, close to the country club, every single resident a snob.

  I didn’t want to know she was alone because Dad was either working or on a business trip.

  I didn’t want to know these were his ready and oft-used excuses, otherwise known as flat-out lies, for leaving Mom alone for a night, a weekend, a very long weekend and all of this so he could be with his mistress of thirty years.

  I’d seen him with her more than once. He wasn’t careful. He was arrogant. He kept up the pretense of the secret even knowing it wasn’t a secret and hadn’t been for decades. He even gave Mom filthy looks when she was drinking even though she was drinking because the love of her life had two loves of his and he expected her to share though he’d never asked if she would. So she’d made the decision to do so because he was the love of her life but also because, without him, there would be no big house close to the country club and she wouldn’t be getting slaughtered on forty dollar bottles of wine and top-shelf martinis.

  “Mom, how about you call me tomorrow? We’ll talk then. Now, I really have to get some sleep.”

  This got me nothing and I knew what that meant. She was pouting. When I was a kid, I wondered if Dad wouldn’t have found another woman if Mom hadn’t acted like a spoiled brat. It was only later, when I grew up, that I knew it didn’t matter if she pouted or was spoiled. You didn’t do that to someone you loved.

  Not ever.

  Elliott would never have cheated on me. Other boyfriends had and it hurt. No, it killed.

  Elliott did not, would not. He didn’t even glance at other women when we were out.

  For Elliott, it was only me, and if I’d had him for the lifetime I was meant to have him, I would have lived that lifetime knowing, without a doubt, it would always only be me.

  “Okay, baby girl,” Mom slurred, bringing my thoughts back to her. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  She didn’t sound disappointed, she sounded crushed. She was hurting. She was lonely. She was wondering, as she had been for decades, where she’d gone wrong.

  So, of course, I felt daughterly guilt. I should be there for her.

  I just couldn’t help. I’d tried. I’d failed. Taking these phone calls. Having gentle discussions trying to bring her around to talking about what she was drowning in booze, discussions she always firmly veered in another direction. Sensitive talks about how she might want to lay off the wine a bit, more talks she firmly took in another direction.

  Years of it.

  I had nothing left to give.

  Still, I tried again, “We’ll have a long chat, Mom. Promise.”

  “Okay, baby,” she whispered.

  “Love you, Mom, to the moon and stars and beyond,” I whispered back what I’d whispered to her since I could remember, since I was little and she tucked me in my pink bed with my pink sheets and pink, filmy canopy, my stuffed unicorns all around.

  “Love you, Lanie, to the moon and the stars and beyond,” she replied quietly the words she’d taught me to say.

  “ ’Bye, Mom.”

  “ ’Bye, baby girl.”

  I sighed, hit the off button. Then, with my fingers curled around my phone, I put my forehead to my knees.

  My life stunk.

  Every bit of it.

  Therefore, I started crying and did it like I did just about everything. I let it all hang out and thus, got lost in it.

  This meant, when a hand curled warm and tight around the back of my neck and I heard Hop mutter, “Jesus, baby, what the fuck?” I jumped a foot, screamed a little bit as my head flew up.

  He was crouched in front of me, staring at me with his usual intensity but there was more, a lot more, and all of that was about concern.

  When my head came up, his hand didn’t move. It tightened.

  Warm.

  Warm and sweet.


  Do… not… process, Lanie!

  I stared at him.

  Then I blurted, “What are you doing here?”

  “Wallet fell out of my jeans,” he muttered, his eyes holding mine in a way that, even if I had it in me to try, which I didn’t, I couldn’t break contact. “Now, what the fuck?” he asked.

  “What the fuck, what?” I asked back, trying for innocence. And failing.

  His eyes narrowed. It was a little bit scary. Then they dropped to the phone in my hand and came back to mine.

  “You’re crying.” He pointed out the obvious.

  “Uh… I do that, like, for no reason. You know, like Holly Hunter in Broadcast News? I just cry but, unlike her, I don’t do it at my desk at work. I do it at night, um… alone.”

  He stared at me.

  He didn’t believe me. This was wise since I was lying.

  “It’s just a release.” I kept lying.

  “You gotta wrap your hand around a phone when you do it?” he semi-called me on my lie.

  “Wrong number,” I lied again, and his eyes stayed narrowed but this time his hand tightened a bit on my neck.

  “At midnight,” he stated, not hiding he didn’t believe me.

  “Someone at a party,” I told him (lying). “They asked for Cheese Whiz.” More lying. “It’s the munchies hour.” This wasn’t a lie, exactly. It was the munchies hour if you were doing what one should do on a Saturday night, which was having fun. It was just that no one had accidentally called me erroneously to ask me to bring the Cheese Whiz.

  Hop held my gaze.

  I tried not to squirm.

  Hop continued to hold my gaze.

  I continued to try not to squirm.

  Hop’s mouth got tight.

  I switched to trying not to think that was really sexy, then I switched to trying not to think how weird it was that I thought him looking annoyed was sexy.

  He gave up waiting for me to admit I wasn’t being honest and slid his hand from my neck while asking, “You done releasing whatever you gotta release at midnight, alone in your room?”

  That sounded insane. Mostly because it was.

  Oh dear. I was being an idiot.

  “Yeah. All good,” I lied again.

  He didn’t believe me and didn’t hide that either.