Fire Inside

Chapter One Cheese Whiz

I was on a hand and my knees. My other arm was straight out, hand flat against my cream linen padded headboard, Hop behind me, fucking me hard.

I was close. This was good, the best.

The best I ever had.

Then he did what I knew he’d do—four nights, no matter how many times we did it, he always ended it the same way.

He pulled out and my head jerked around, my eyes went to him and I pleaded, “Hop. Please don’t. I’m close.”

He dropped to a hip at my side and pulled me over him. Head to my pillows and God, God, he looked hot, all that messy hair, that biker ’tache, his badass gorgeousness framed by my pale pink pillowcase.

“Ride me, lady,” he muttered and I didn’t make him ask twice.

I lifted up to straddle him, wrapped my hand around his cock, guided the tip inside and slid down until he filled me.

My head dropped back. I loved this, I missed it. He’d been pounding inside me not ten seconds before but having him back, it felt like I hadn’t had him in years.

Hop shifted then I felt his fingers slide into my hair so his hand could cup the back of my head. He tilted it down. I opened my eyes to see he’d knifed up so I was staring into his, close.

His eyes were intense. Always when we were like this, they were intense in a way I never felt before. Like he could read my thoughts. See into my head. Touch my soul through a gaze.

“Move, Lanie,” he murmured, and again, I didn’t make him ask twice.

My gaze held captive in his, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and moved. His arm snaked around my waist, holding me close so my body slid against his as I rode him, his hand cupped to my head pulling me down so my lips grazed his. Through this, his eyes held mine, not letting go.

My soft breaths whispered against his lips as it built again, just as his deep groans sounded against mine.

I was getting close. This was good, the best. The best.

The best I ever had.

His arm around my waist moved so his hand could glide over my belly and down. Suddenly, his thumb hit the spot and God, God, perfect aim.

Elliott couldn’t do that. Because I was me and more than a little crazy, I’d done the math and Elliott had hit the spot on his first try one out of every four times.

Hop never missed.

I closed my eyes as it shot through me, my head automatically arching back only to be caught in Hop’s grip, forced forward, my lips to his, my moans sounding in his mouth. I kept moving, faster, faster even as it shook me.

The best I ever had.

I finished and kept moving, my rhythm not breaking, needing to give to Hop what I’d just had. Needing to get it back. Needing it like a drug.

Hazy from my orgasm, I watched his face get dark, hungry. He was close.

Then he shoved my face into his neck as he shoved his into mine, his arm clamped around me, holding me down on his cock as he groaned deep, the sound vibrating against my skin.

Absolutely, bar none, the best I ever had.

Every time.

Damn.

After he came down, he loosened his arm around my waist but still held me close as his mouth worked my neck, his mustache tickling, making me shiver.

I returned the favor, gliding my lips along his neck, my tongue snaking out so I could touch the tip to his earlobe. When I did, his arm around me grew tighter.

I ran the tip of my tongue down his neck to his collarbone.

His arm again grew tighter.

He tasted good. He smelled good. Both man. All man. I couldn’t describe it. He didn’t wear cologne but his scent was spicy. Intoxicating.

It was… him.

His head went back, his hand in my hair relaxed and my head came up.

His eyes caught mine.

God, badass biker beauty.

Every inch.

“Climb off me, beautiful,” he murmured and I didn’t want to but I nodded, maneuvered up, sliding him out of me, and I moved off him, dropping to my side next to him.

That was when he did something that I was trying not to process. Something sweet. Something un-biker (or what I expected a biker to do). Something thoughtful.

Something gorgeous.

He pulled the sheet around my nudity and yanked a pillow down to shove it under me right before he bent deep and kissed the hair at the side of my head.

Damn.

I struggled. It was hard not to let his sweet actions penetrate and every night, every time he did something like that, it got harder.

Do… not… process, Lanie!

Curled around the pillow, my leg tangling in the sheets and comforter, straddling them, I managed to shove how I felt out of my head. Instead I watched him walk to the bathroom thinking that I liked how tall he was. Elliott hadn’t been taller than me. I’d towered over him in heels. I told myself I didn’t mind this and when he was alive and sweet and always being Elliott, I didn’t.

But having a tall man was fabulous.

And Hop’s sculpted ass made it all the more fabulous.

He hit the bathroom, the light went on and he disappeared.

I closed my eyes.

It was Saturday night. We’d started this at the hog roast on Wednesday.

Only bikers would have a blowout hog roast on a Wednesday night but then again, most of them had jobs where it didn’t matter that they showed up late and/or hungover and their hangers-on had jobs in bars or strip clubs; their shifts didn’t start until late so they had time to recuperate.

As for me, I came back to Denver and was greeted warmly (and in some cases with relief) by a number of old clients, so I made the mammoth decision to be my own boss. That was, the boss of an advertising agency, which was not conducive to having sex all night long and dragging into work the next morning. And Hop and I had been going at each other all night long, from dark to dawn, every night for four nights. I was exhausted.

Still, I wanted him to come back so I could have more. I was just going to have to inform him that he needed to do all the work.

He would not quibble. Unlike Elliott, Hop had staying power. He actually liked taking over, dominating, doing the hard work. Sure, I rode him on occasion but he didn’t lie back and enjoy it. He participated fully, like just now.

Elliott could start giving it to me but then he’d stop, panting and grunting, and ask me to take over and I always did. I didn’t mind. I liked the top.

Then again, I’d been in love with Elliott and you do stuff like that when you’re in love. You shove to the back of your head little things that bother you. Things you had before that you missed. Things like having a man who was all man fucking you until you ached but ached in a good way.

In my experience, which wasn’t vast but it also wasn’t limited, a man who was all man was usually a total jerk and an asshole and took both of these to extremes.

I felt Hop’s presence, opened my eyes and watched him walk back into my bedroom.

The back view, fabulous.

The front, God… staggering.

Never, not ever in my life, would the man I was staring at right then be a man I would expect to be in my bed.

But he was and he was, for the first time in my life, in my bed on my own damned terms.

When I met Hop years ago, I’d been in a drama because I’d just learned my fiancé was whacked. Even so, Hopper was the kind of guy that his looks, his charisma, all that was him, and there was a lot, could cut through anything. I was engaged to be married and in the throes of a crazy situation that only got crazier, so my mind didn’t go there but it did process all that was him. It was impossible for it not to.

When I got back from Connecticut, with Elliott gone but Hop alive, breathing and so freaking good-looking, my mind went there.

Again and again and again.

Thick, black, unruly hair that was long in front, often fell into his face and had little flips and waves all through it but especially around his neck.

Gray eyes with lines radiating out the sides, that stated not only did he not have a desk job but that he lived his life, didn’t exist through it. Whether those lines were from squinting, laughter or frowning, they were intriguing and took your attention to the gray that was a pure gray, not slightly blue, not dark to black, just a startling gray.

His mustache, facial hair something else I didn’t like on a guy, was the epitome of biker cool. Thick along his upper lip and down the sides, bushier at either side of his chin.

He had no body fat in evidence, at all. He was tall, lean. There wasn’t bulk to his muscle but the definition stated without doubt there was power in his frame and that power wasn’t insignificant.

A dusting of black chest hair, not a thick mat. Short, rough, sparse but not meager, arrayed across his pecs and ribs, hair that felt crazy-good against my skin.

The best part, defining the center ridge in his six pack, the hair got thicker, darker, leading in a thin line from the valley of his pecs to his navel, then got thinner as it led down to one of the best parts of him.

I loved his chest hair. I loved his height. I loved the power behind his body. And, if I was honest, I loved the beauty of his cock, perfectly formed, both thick and long, and it helped a whole lot that he knew what to do with it.

I also found that I loved his tats, something on other men I wouldn’t like. The Chaos emblem on his back. Another one all the men had that Hop had had inked into the inside of his right bicep, a set of scales, unbalanced, reapers, scythes, and the words, “Never Forget” at the bottom. There were also black, yellow, and red flames dancing from wrist to elbow on both of his forearms.

Badass.

Hot.

Fantastic.

And last, Hop was the only man I’d ever had who wore jewelry. He wore a lot of it and, as with everything else, he looked good in it. Bulky silver rings on his fingers, sometimes two or three, sometimes five or six. Leather bands or silver bracelets at his wrists. A tangle of chains with medallions at his neck. Stud earrings in both ears, the same every day: a small silver cross in one, a tiny silver profile of a skull, the back of its head a set of flames, all this set in black in the other.

No man looked good in jewelry.

No man except a biker in a motorcycle club that had great chest hair, zero body fat, and flame tattoos up his arms could carry off that jewelry.

The man in my bed.

I watched as he came toward that bed then stopped, bent and tagged his jeans.

At that, my belly hollowed out.

He never left. Not until dawn.

Now it appeared he was preparing to leave.

I didn’t lift my cheek from the pillow I was cradling when I asked, “What are you doing?”

His gaze came to me even as he tugged up his jeans. “Chaos business, babe.”

I tipped just my eyes to the clock on my nightstand. Eleven thirty-six.

It was late and I could use some sleep.

I still didn’t want him to leave.

Damn.

Do… not… process, Lanie!

I didn’t process and therefore said nothing.

Hop dressed, yanking his black tee over his head, pulling it down, and I watched with some fascination as it sculpted itself to his torso as if by magic.

Nice.

Unbelievably nice.

He nabbed his boots and socks and sat on the side of my bed.

I didn’t move.

He tugged them on then turned to me and bent in, his hand shifting the hair off my neck, his face coming close.

I wanted to ask if he was coming back the next night. Maybe the next morning. Whenever. I didn’t care. I just wanted him to know whenever he showed, I’d be there.

I didn’t say this. I couldn’t say this. I wouldn’t allow myself to say this. It would expose too much. It would give too much. I didn’t have it in me. I had nothing left to give. Whatever I’d once had leaked out of my body in the form of blood on a floor in Kansas City while my eyes stared into the dead ones of my fiancé across the room.

So I just tilted my eyeballs up to look at him.

His hand moved to my cheek, the pad of his thumb gliding whisper-soft on the skin just under my eye as his eyes studied mine, not like he was looking in them but at them with an expression on his face that said, quite clearly, he liked what he saw.

This was another thing he did frequently that was something I was trying not to process. I liked that he liked looking at me. I liked that he didn’t hide that he liked what he saw. He certainly wasn’t the first man to do that.

What could I say? I wasn’t blind. It wasn’t like I didn’t know God had been generous with me. It wasn’t like I didn’t appreciate it. But with every blessing, there was also a curse and my curse was that I was a dick magnet.

Handsome men knew they were handsome and it was my experience this did not skip a single good-looking guy. It was also my experience that they thought the world should throw roses at their feet just because they were hot. They definitely thought their women should bow down or eat shit.

If they weren’t exactly handsome but still smart, confident, charismatic, and successful, they were worse.

Hop was good-looking, smart, confident, and charismatic. What he wasn’t was a man who hid that he liked what he saw.

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.

“So, you goin’ to bed?” he asked.

“Yeppers!” I answered fake-chirpily. His brows snapped together and his mouth got tight again.

Yeppers?

Yes. I was being an idiot.“Yeppers?” he asked and that word coming from his beautiful lips surrounded by his badass ’tache made me want to start giggling.

It also made me want to kiss him.

And last, it made me want to snap at him because, really, couldn’t he just let it go?

I decided speaking was not going well for me so I stopped doing it.

Hop again held my gaze.

Then he looked to the floor while straightening to tower over me, and he did this muttering, “I don’t get this from her. Complicated.”

He didn’t get this from me and I didn’t get it from him, either.

Had I mentioned my life stunk?

I held my breath and tipped my head back to look at him. He continued to stare down at me before he shook his head a couple of times, and I watched as he moved to the mess of my clothes he’d thrown on the floor a few hours earlier after he’d peeled them off me. He kicked some aside with his black motorcycle boot, unearthing his wallet. He bent, nabbed it, shoved it in his back pocket and came back to me.

His hand again wrapped around the back of my neck and then his face was in mine.

“Sleep, lady,” he ordered, sounding disgruntled, but still it came out gentle.

It sounded nice, even the disgruntled part.

Damn.

“Okay,” I replied but didn’t move.

Hop stood there, hand at my neck, and he didn’t move either.

Then he prompted, “Like, now, Lanie.”

I stared at him a second, nodded, my teeth coming out to graze my bottom lip, something his eyes dropped to watch, that something making me want to kiss him again but I didn’t.

I broke from his hold, stretched out and he flipped the covers over me.

Then, God, God, I used everything I had left not to process him tucking them tight all around me.

So sweet.

Too sweet.

Damn.

He bent low, kissed the side of my head and said against my hair, “See you tomorrow night, babe.”

Tomorrow night. Thank God.

I tried not to process that I thought that and mumbled, “Okay, Hop.”

I got another kiss and my eyes watched him move to the light. He turned it off, plunging the room into darkness.

I didn’t watch, didn’t hear his boots on the carpet, but I still felt him leave.

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath.

I opened my eyes as I let the breath go.

“Complicated,” my lips mouthed without sound.

After a few more seconds, I heard a Harley roar.

I listened and I did it hard until I could hear the roar no more.

Only then did I close my eyes.

But I did not sleep.

Hop

“Repeat it,” Dog clipped, and Hop watched as the junkie Dog had pinned against the brick wall with his hand in his chest and the barrel of Dog’s gun to the flesh under his chin, swallowed.

Then the junkie stammered, “I… I won’t… won’t ever make a buy on… on Chaos again.”

“Right now, I’m a little put out,” Dog informed the junkie, shoving the gun deeper into his flesh, making him squeak in terror. “I see you on Chaos doin’ anything but helpin’ an old lady cross the street, I’ll be unhappy. Heads up, you don’t want to make me unhappy.”

The junkie, eyes enormous, gulped and nodded.

Dog let him go, saying, “Outta my sight.”

The junkie took off.

Hop looked to the dealer he had shoved face-first to the wall with his forearm against the man’s shoulders. Hop had disarmed him and currently had the dealer’s as well as his own firearm shoved in the back waistband of his jeans under his cut.

Hop’s turn.

“Empty your pockets,” Hop growled.

“Fuck, man,” the dealer whined, and Hop pressed him deeper into the wall, making his face scrape against the rough brick.

“Empty your goddamned pockets,” Hop bit out.

With difficulty, the dealer put his hands in his pockets, pulling out small packets of ice and dropping them to the ground. As he did this, Dog moved them aside with the toe of his boot, then he brought the heel down, crushing the methamphetamine into dust as the dealer whimpered.

After this, Dog moved to their bikes and Hop moved closer to the dealer.

“You know, five miles,” he reminded the dealer. “Five miles around Ride is Chaos. You don’t sell here. What the fuck?”

“Benito’s claimin’ this block,” the dealer told him.

“Benito doesn’t get to claim this block. He knows it, you know it. So again, what the fuck?” Hop asked.

“I go where Benito says,” the dealer replied.

Dog was back with a bottle of water, pouring it over the meth dust on the sidewalk and the dealer groaned.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars washed away.

Benito would be pissed and not just at the dealer.

Hop didn’t care.

“You stay off this block. You do not come back. Benito sends you back, you find a way to explain to him; you’re here, his product is in the sewer. You got this one warning. Chaos doesn’t have patience with this shit. You see me, you’re fucked, and I don’t mean you goin’ back empty-handed to that dickhead. I mean, you’ll find it difficult to go anywhere ’cause you’ll find it difficult to move. You get me?” Hop asked.

“I don’t go where Benito sends me, I’ll find it difficult to do anything seein’ as I won’t be breathin’,” the dealer returned.

“Not my problem. You picked the wrong profession, motherfucker,” Hop pointed out, pushing him farther into the wall, his arm sliding up to the back of the dealer’s neck, extending it unnaturally. “I gotta teach you this lesson now?” Hop asked.

The dealer, hoping for mercy, decided to get generous and shared, “Benito wants Chaos territory.”

“No shit?” Hop shot back.

“No, I mean he really wants it,” the dealer clarified.

Dog entered the conversation. “I think we get that, dealin’ with motherfuckers like you.”

“He’s kinda determined,” the dealer went on.

“Again, man, you think we’re not in on this fuckin’ information?” Hop asked, shoving him hard against the wall before he twisted him around and then slammed him back into the wall with a hand wrapped around his neck. “What Benito has got to get is that Chaos is more determined. You feel helpful, you share that with him and try to be convincing. But don’t matter if you are. We’re happy to put in the work to convince him. What you gotta take with you when we let you walk away right now is, he sends you out of the trenches, we see your head pop up, we’re aimin’ at you. We gotta get our message across to him, we’ll use any means necessary and that means takin’ out every soldier he sends our way until we drive it back to him.”

“Chaos isn’t ready for this fight,” the dealer replied, and Hop moved so he was in the dealer’s face.

“My brothers bled to keep this pavement, fuckwad,” he ground out. “You got a brother’s blood in the sidewalks, it never goes away, you never let it out of your control, you keep what you fought and bled for. Benito needs to get that. You can’t convince him, the other dealers and whores we send back to him can’t, we will.”

The dealer pulled breath in through his nose, stared at Hop before his eyes shifted to the side and he took in Dog then he came back to Hop. What he saw on their faces must have convinced him because he nodded.

“Again, one warning. Next time, you don’t walk away,” Hop stated.

The dealer nodded again.

Hop jerked his hand up to the dealer’s jaw, yanked him away from the wall then slammed his head into it. The dealer cried out before Hop let go and stepped back.

The dealer crumpled to his knees, one hand to his throat, the other one to the back of his head. He tipped his head back, looked at Hop and Dog, got to his feet, and took off.

Hop and his brother watched until the dealer was out of sight.

Then Hop asked, “You callin’ this into Tack or you want me to do it?”

“I got it,” Dog grunted, pulling out his phone.

“Brother,” Hop called and Dog looked from his phone to Hop. “We patrol every night. Used to be, few and far between, we find this shit. This is the second night this week.”

“Escalating,” Dog agreed.

Hop turned his head to look down the sidewalk where the dealer had taken off.

Benito Valenzuela had been a minor player years ago but one Tack had heard about and intuitively kept his eye on.

Tack’s intuition, as usual, was right.

When things shifted in the underworld of Denver—big players like Darius Tucker opting out of the drug trade, Marcus Sloan downsizing operations, the Russian Mob losing its leader and reorganizing, amongst other things—Valenzuela saw his opportunity and didn’t waste time. He quickly amassed territory however he needed to do it, negotiating for it or going to war for it.

But Benito didn’t bother approaching Chaos for a piece of their island.

For over a decade it was known the five square miles around the auto supply store and custom car and bike shop the Chaos MC owned and ran was clean of drugs and whores. The brothers fought for it to be that way and went out every night to keep it that way.

Benito knew better than to ask.

So he was going to take.

Everyone who tried before Benito, and they were very few, left with a Chaos warning.

But the battle to free Chaos, inside and out, of all that shit had been fought so long ago, new players like Valenzuela didn’t know or didn’t remember how brutal it was. He didn’t know how far Chaos would go to keep their patch clean.

Hop remembered how brutal it was. That memory was burned in his brain and inked into his skin, the last just like every Chaos brother.

They didn’t need this shit.

Dog started talking and Hop turned his eyes to him.

They didn’t need Benito’s shit but they were ankle deep in it.

And it was rising.

Hop turned his eyes back to the night, listened to Dog reporting in, and he did this thinking… fuck.

After patrol, he wanted to go to Lanie’s, take off his clothes, lay his body down in her soft sheets, curl her warmth into his and fall asleep smelling her perfume.

He couldn’t do that, for a variety of reasons.

Instead, he did what he had to do. When Dog finished his call with Tack, they moved to their bikes, threw their legs over and resumed patrol.

And when they were done, Hopper went home and laid his body down in his empty bed.