Fire Inside

  Although I was thrilled beyond belief that I was no longer against the tire and someone was there to save me (although I wouldn’t have picked Hopper for obvious reasons, at that point, I was also not going to quibble), I wasn’t sure this was good. The guy was a jerk. Not to mention, he was huge. He had to have three inches and fifty pounds on Hop.

  It was then I watched with some fascination, a lot more awe and no queasiness—because there was so much awe there wasn’t room for queasiness—as Hop beat the absolute crap out of the guy.

  He did this swiftly, methodically, effortlessly, viciously, and with what appeared a good deal of practice.

  It took him, maybe, three minutes.

  I watched the whole thing, frozen, with my mouth open.

  When the bloodied, unconscious mountain of beefy jerk dropped to the pavement of the dark parking lot, I stared at him lying there, not moving.

  “You. Bike. Now.”

  The queasiness came back but it was different. This time it came in the form of fear. Fear caused simply by the low, lethal, enraged tone of Hopper’s voice.

  Slowly, my eyes rose to his.

  Yes, enraged.

  And lethal.

  Oh dear.

  “Hop—”

  “Lanie, swear to God, swear to God… ” he trailed off, lifted a hand in my direction, palm up, and scowled at me. Then he dropped his hand and bit off, “You. Bike. Fucking now.”

  I decided it might be prudent to go with him to his bike even though my car was right here in the parking lot.

  The problem was, I didn’t know which one was his bike. There were around seven thousand of them lined up outside the bar.

  “Uh…” I mumbled. He lunged toward me and I found myself back against the tire again but this time I’d pressed myself there.

  I wasn’t there long.

  Hop clamped his hand around mine. He yanked me away from the tire, pulled me three steps, stopped only to bend and snatch up my purse, twist around and toss it at me. Luckily, I caught it. Then I and my platform sandals teetered unsteadily but very quickly behind Hop as his ground-eating strides took us to a black Harley.

  He let me go and threw a leg over.

  As he did this, still being prudent (belatedly), I studied his movements.

  Big Petey, a member of Chaos, a founding member, thus not a spring chicken, had taken me out on his Harley Trike and he’d done this numerous times.

  Big Petey was in his sixties and a Harley Trike was not even close to what this sleek, kickass machine was in front of me.

  Big Petey was nice and he cared about me.

  He was not lean, mean Hopper Kincaid, who might want to kill me but was definitely furious enough to do it.

  I had never ridden on a Harley that had only two wheels. I’d never ridden on any motorcycle that had only two wheels.

  Necessity, the mother of invention and the savior of stupid women in biker bar parking lots, came to my rescue. I found the foothold, told myself it was good no one was around to catch a glimpse of me not being a lady as I swung my leg over to get my short, jeans skirt-clad booty on the seat behind Hop and I settled in, hands on his waist.

  The instant I settled, bike already growling, he backed it out. Then his hands came to my wrists, yanked them roughly around his middle so my front slammed into his back, and I had no time to say or do anything, just hold on, as we shot from the parking lot.

  The wind in my hair, a monkey on my back, I didn’t enjoy the ride.

  I fretted the entire way from the bar to Ride Auto Supply Store, otherwise known to those in the know simply as “Chaos”. The store, the big-bayed garage behind it where they built custom cars and bikes, the massive forecourt of tarmac in front of it, the large building beside it, known as the Compound, was all Chaos. The boys owned Chaos collectively. The boys were Chaos.

  And, according to Big Petey, five square miles around it was known as Chaos territory.

  But we weren’t just in Chaos territory.

  We were on Chaos, an island of land in the city of Denver that was biker-controlled.

  This was not good.

  You could get lost on Chaos. It was theirs. They owned it. They ruled it. They didn’t let in anyone they didn’t want there. They also didn’t let out anyone they didn’t want to go.

  Tug, another one of the members, told me even cops knew that unless they had to turn into the forecourt and onto Chaos, they didn’t. It was sacrosanct. It was its own little mini-nation, ruled by Tack. The knights at his rectangular table wore leather cuts with Chaos patches sewn on the back.

  Therefore, riding back there with a knight in his cut with the Chaos patch stitched on the back, who also happened to be very angry, I knew I could get lost.

  Which meant I was in trouble.

  Although slightly inebriated but mostly, literally, scared straight, I was able, through the drunkenness and fear, to form a plan. And my plan was to go with the only option I had. That was, try to talk my way through this. However, I would need to pick my moment.

  This plan kept me silent as Hop parked next to two other bikes in front of the Compound. It kept me silent when he twisted his neck and scowled at me, which I accurately took as my cue to get off the bike. I stayed silent as I swung off. Hop swung off, grabbed my hand, and dragged me and my platform sandals to the Compound. I remained silent as he dragged me through the door, through the beer-sign-decorated, pool table- and beat-up couch-filled, rounded bar-bedecked common room to the back hall, down it and into his personal room at the Compound.

  He tugged me in and I took the four steps the momentum of his pull forced me to take before I stopped and turned to him.

  He slammed the door, walked three steps but stopped to the side of me, keeping a distance, at the same time shrugging off his leather cut. Tossing it to an easy chair in the corner, he turned to me and stopped.

  Okay, now, I decided, it was time to talk.

  I opened my mouth.

  His hand sliced up, palm out toward me, and he shook his head. “Don’t, Lanie. Don’t say a fuckin’ word.”

  I closed my mouth.

  It was at this juncture that I thought maybe I should have formed a different plan, one that involved running and not talking.

  He dropped his hand and glowered at me.

  I pressed my lips together and waited.

  His eyes slid from hair to platforms to hair again, then down to my breasts then to my face.

  I knew what he saw.

  What he saw wasn’t me.

  I pulled my lips between my teeth.

  Finally, he shook his head before he dropped it, lifting a hand to wrap around the back of his neck, and he stared at his boots.

  I had been around Chaos for a goodly amount of time. Nearly eight years. And I’d been paying attention to Hop for a lot of the time I’d been around.

  Still, unlike Tack, I didn’t know what it meant when Hop stared at his boots.

  When he did this for a very long time, so long I was inwardly squirming, I couldn’t stop myself.

  I broke the silence.

  “Do you, uh… go to that bar often?”

  His head snapped up, his hand dropped, his eyes narrowed on me, and he asked, “Are you shitting me?”

  It seemed like it was maybe time for more silence so I went with that.

  Hop, unfortunately, didn’t feel it was time for more silence.

  He declared, “Babe, you are so fucked up you’re the fuckin’ definition of fucked up. You think, you bein’ fucked up and me knowin’ just how much, I haven’t kept my eye on you?”

  My breath froze in my lungs.

  He’d kept an eye on me?

  Hop wasn’t done.

  “I see you take off after midnight, go to the fuckin’ lousiest joint in all of goddamned Denver. A place, except for where bangers hang out, that’s also the fuckin’ riskiest. Then you pick a lunatic to fuckin’ line dance with. You’re talkin’ to his girl, I take a chance and go to the can, come out, you?
??ve disappeared. I look every-fucking-where for you and I find you pressed against a monster truck tire with an asshole’s mouth on your neck and his hand nearly on your goddamned tit.”

  This was a regrettably accurate recount of the evening.

  “So no,” he continued. “To answer your question, Lanie, I do not go to that bar often. I go to that bar when a beautiful woman I care about decides to get a wild hair up her ass, take off in the middle of the night, and put her life in jeopardy.”

  My breath unfroze only to start burning in my lungs.

  A beautiful woman I care about…

  “You know,” he stated conversationally before he socked it to me, “your mind mighta been shut down, babe, but your body wasn’t and it fought to keep breathin’, keep you alive. Story I heard, story that holds true with the marks you carry—gut shot, lung shot—it was a miracle you survived. The story I know is true is that your goddamned ass was in Critical Care for six goddamned days and you were in a coma most of that time. Your body goes all out to heal and pull you through and you repay it with that fuckin’ garbage?” He swung a hand to the door.

  A beautiful woman I care about…

  “Lanie, what did you think you’d find there?” he asked when I said not one word.

  I pulled in breath, opened my mouth and closed it.

  Hop’s mouth got tight, then it loosened so he could declare, “Babe, you wanna find me, you want more of me, you know where I am. You do not go lookin’ for rough trade in hopes of getting back what you gave up. I’ll tell you now, I do not have a replacement. There’s only one me. You want it, you find,” he jerked his thumb at his chest, leaning toward me and concluded, “me.”

  I blinked. My lungs stopped burning as my eyes started flaming, not in despair but in fury as I stared at him.

  Then I asked, “You think I was out looking for your replacement?”

  “You ever been to that bar before?” he asked back.

  “No,” I answered. “But I was most certainly not out looking for your replacement.”

  “What were you lookin’ for then, babe?”

  This was, alas, an interesting question.

  “Not your replacement,” I snapped, my tone sharp to hide my sudden uncertainty.

  “Christ, we’re back to your bullshit,” he clipped, scowling at me.

  “You’re very arrogant, Hopper Kincaid,” I told him, my tone now so sharp it was cutting, and there was no hidden uncertainty.

  “Yeah, well, man gets that way when a woman that looks like you comes as hard as I can make you come and, when you lose my dick, you go out searchin’ for more of what you lost. Stupid shit is that you looked in the wrong place when you know exactly where to find me.”

  He could not be serious.

  “Okay, tell me you didn’t say that,” I invited.

  “You heard what I said, Lanie, and, gotta tell you, not a word of it I’d take back because you and I both know every word is true,” he returned.

  “Okay, don’t take it back. Instead, take me back to my car,” I demanded.

  “Five beers, three shots of vodka says you are not gettin’ behind a wheel tonight,” he shot back.

  Oh dear. He’d been paying a good deal of attention.

  Time for a new tactic.

  I pulled my purse off my arm, starting to dig through it, declaring, “Right, then I’ll get a taxi.”

  Suddenly my purse was yanked out of my hand and I was staring at Hop digging through it. He pulled out my phone, shoved it in his pocket, then tossed my bag across the room where it landed with a bounce on the ratty easy chair that was mostly covered in dirty clothes as well as his leather cut.

  I stared at my purse then I stared at his face, then I looked at his jeans pocket before I looked back at him, lifting my hand, palm up.

  “Give me my phone,” I ordered.

  “You want it, go for it,” he goaded.

  I crossed my arms on my chest, murmuring, “Oh, I see.”

  “You don’t see shit,” he ground out.

  My brows lifted. “I don’t?”

  “No, babe, so goddamned blind, purposefully, you’re stumblin’, bumpin’ into shit, but barrelin’ ahead anyway, bound for a world of hurt.”

  That was way too close to the bone so I ignored it, uncrossed my arms and lifted my hand his way again.

  “Hopper, give me my phone.”

  “You’re sleepin’ here tonight.”

  I planted my hands on my hips, leaned in and hissed, “Told you, I see. I know what you’re doing.”

  “You don’t know shit either.”

  “I know this is bullshit,” I fired at him.

  “Well, you got one thing right,” he fired back.

  Gah! He had an answer for everything. He was so annoying!

  I took a calming breath that didn’t calm me before I snapped. “Give me my phone.”

  “No.”

  “Hop, give me my damn phone!”

  He ignored me. “You sleep in one of my tees. The ones here are all dirty but don’t matter. Even dirty, they’re better than what you’re wearin’,” he stated as he flipped a hand out and up, indicating me.

  Backed into a corner, I decided to get nasty.

  “I’ve been around you a lot, Hop. I’ve seen you. I’ve seen what you like. This,” I swept a hand down my front, “is the way you like it.”

  Nasty was not—and I knew it, I’d learned that lesson before—the way to go.

  I learned it again then when, one second, he was three feet away. The next, he was right on me, hand in the back of my hair, arm wrapped around my back, his face in my face, lips nearly on mine.

  “Yeah, I liked skank,” he bit off. “Liked the taste. Wild, free, and easy. Went back for more. Repeatedly. But that was before I had my mouth between the legs of a lady. You get that, you don’t go back.”

  Oh no. The area between the legs where he’d had his mouth got wet at his words and it didn’t help he was so close; my breaths were mingling with his, my breasts were brushing his chest, and my mind was centering on the fact that I knew what it felt like, my breasts bared, his chest the same, and my nipples brushing against his chest hair.

  At the memory, my breaths got shallow but faster and those nipples swelled.

  He either felt or sensed my reaction and I knew this because his hand in my hair fisted, his lips moved so they grazed mine, and the mood of the room shifted so immensely it was a wonder we didn’t rock with it.

  In response to all that, my breaths got shallower and my legs started trembling so much I had to lift a hand and curl my fingers in the side of his tee.

  “Three weeks,” he growled. “I go to bed, lie there and think of you. Wake up, you’re the first thing on my mind.”

  Oh God.

  I liked that.

  Oh God.

  I couldn’t like it.

  I tried to wipe his words from my brain but he went on, “Tell me you don’t feel that.”

  I shook my head, short, sharp, and his fist in my hair tightened.

  No pain.

  Control.

  Possession.

  I liked that, too.

  Yes, when we hit Chaos, I hit trouble.

  My knees started to get weak and I lifted my other hand to curl into the other side of his tee.

  “You feel it,” he whispered against my lips. “You do the same, lady. You go to bed thinkin’ of me, wake up with me on your mind. You do the exact, fuckin’ same.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “Look at me,” he ordered.

  I opened my eyes.

  “Tell me,” he demanded. “You do the same.”

  “No,” I breathed.

  He held my eyes.

  Then I felt the tip of his tongue sweep my lower lip.

  Without my permission, my body swayed into his, pressing deep, and my eyes closed again.

  “Liar,” he whispered.

  He was right. I was lying.

  I felt the same. I did the same
. I went to bed thinking of him. I woke up, he was the first thing on my mind. Further, throughout the day, he slid into my brain constantly to torment me.

  I had to end this.

  I had to shut him up.

  In order to do that, for some insane reason, I kissed him.

  Not surprisingly, he kissed me back.

  His kiss was better and my whole body thought so, especially my mouth, which moaned into his and my arms, which wrapped around his neck.

  Seconds later I was on my back in the bed, Hop’s mouth still on mine, his tongue in my mouth.

  Needing his taste, craving it for weeks, not having it, my tongue forced its way into his mouth.

  Just as I remembered, he tasted great.

  Spicy.

  Manly.

  Intoxicating.

  Then his mouth and tongue were on my neck and my shirt was torn open, flimsy little pearl buttons giving up the fight easy, the ones that didn’t popped right off. Hop’s head moved as his fingers curled into the cup of my bra and yanked it down.

  I gasped.

  His mouth closed on my nipple.

  My back arched, forcing it deeper.

  Hop accepted the invitation and sucked hard.

  My fingers slid into his long hair, my head went back and a low moan escaped the back of my throat.

  This was good, so, so good to have back, what I needed, the only thing that filled the void in me.

  He paid delicious and long-lasting attention to one nipple, then yanked the cup at the other side of my bra down and paid the same attention to that nipple.

  Panting, moaning and squirming, even as I held his head to me, I begged, “My turn, honey.”

  Hop lifted his head then his torso and he was on his knees in the bed, straddling me.

  I knifed up as he yanked off his tee. Hands and mouth moving on him, his belly, his sides, his pecs, his nipples, my tongue sliding up that dense line of hair to the valley at his pecs and then it veered off to the side and my lips closed over his nipple.

  Hop cupped the back of my head with his hand as his hips moved forward and he pressed his crotch against my breasts.

  With his hardness against me, understandably, I lost interest in his nipple and went for his belt buckle. Scrambling to get my knees under me for better balance and maneuverability, I barely got them where I wanted them before Hop’s fingers curled into the hem of my skirt and yanked it up. Then his fingers went in and slid down, right into my panties.