Fire Inside

Chapter Three My Eye on You

Three weeks later…

“Uh… Lanie, honey, where’s the frame?”

I was smiling at Tack, who was standing in my doorway waiting for Tyra to pull the lead out and follow him to his bike, but at my best friend’s words I felt my smile freeze on my face.

Tack didn’t miss it.

Tack, the single-most decent man I’d ever met (regardless of how much he swore, which was maybe more than Hop did), was also the smartest.

He didn’t miss anything.

So when my smile froze, his sapphire blue eyes dropped to my mouth and his dark brows snapped together.

I pulled in breath and looked to Ty-Ty.

“What frame?” I asked. It was a lie and worse, I knew Tack would know it.

Tyra did, too.

This wasn’t a surprise. She knew me well. We’d been friends a long time.

Kane “Tack” Allen was tall, dark, handsome, and rough. He was also very smart, very loyal, very funny, and very in love with my best friend.

Tyra Allen was curvy, redheaded, green-eyed, and not rough in the slightest. She was also far from dumb, very loyal, very funny, very in love with her husband, and very true to me.

She and I had been through a lot even before we’d been kidnapped together years before because of Elliott’s problems with the Russian Mob. Although she’d been tied up and kept in a dark room while I was interrogated by the Mob, and we’d been rescued separately, when you shared something like being kidnapped, bonds formed even if the bonds already there were strong.

Sometime later, the day I’d been shot and Elliot had been killed, Tyra had been kidnapped, tied to a chair, and stabbed repeatedly.

Tack pulled out all the stops and paid a fortune to have a plastic surgeon erase her scars.

Mine still marred my skin. A reminder, a strong one, never to forget.

Tyra also came and got me from Connecticut, rescuing me from the dysfunction I’d moved to Denver to escape in the first place. She thought she was rescuing me from something else and I let her think that. I don’t know how convincing I was. I just knew Ty-Ty was letting it lie. She had me in Denver, under her watchful eye and close enough to feel her comforting hand. When that hand needed to form a velvet-gloved iron fist was anyone’s guess.

I just knew by the look on her face it would not be now.

Even so, Tyra had looked askance at that frame of Elliott and me tons of times. I even once caught her giving Tack eyes about it, jerking her head toward it, whereupon he shook his head. She bugged out her eyes. He rolled his to the ceiling. She crossed her arms on her chest and glared at him. As for me, I pretended I missed all this when I didn’t.

Suffice it to say, Elliott wasn’t her favorite person. He got me kidnapped. He got her kidnapped, twice. He got me shot, repeatedly. He got her stabbed, repeatedly.

So Elliott, even dead, was persona non grata.

As he should be.

For years, Ty-Ty had simply looked askance at the photo but ignored it and didn’t mention Elliott. I knew this was partially because, even though he was dead, she was pissed at him for getting me hurt, not to mention getting her hurt. This was also because her husband was loyal and he adored her and Elliott got her hurt. Even if Elliott was still breathing, it was pretty clear that Tack would make sure he wasn’t doing that for much longer. The breathing part, that was.

As for me, I didn’t mention Elliott. Not ever. My fiancé nearly got my best friend dead. Once we found out about his dealings with the Mob, Tyra advised me strongly to break it off with him. I stuck by his side. She was right. I was wrong. But we both paid for me being wrong and I didn’t go there. I didn’t go there because all I had in me was the ability to rejoice that she didn’t turn her back on me after I nearly got her killed. I held onto that like the lifeline it was. Like I was never going to let it go and no way I was going to bring him up, my decision to stay with him, and rock that boat.

So, obviously, it being an unspoken bone of contention, she wouldn’t miss the photo being gone.

And equally obviously, I was not going to share that I’d thrown it against a wall, shattering the glass. I also was not going to share that I then obsessively listened to Bob Seger singing “We’ve Got Tonight” because every word in that song was true even as I wouldn’t allow myself to admit that it was. I was further not going to share that I’d had my “night”. That night was with Hop (as were the thirteen before—and I was not going to share that either) and, at the time, it hadn’t even been a day but I was already jonesing for a drug I had to get off cold turkey.

No rehab to help me deal with losing my high.

I had to get through it on my own.

And I damned well would.

So the frame and glass and the stupid picture of me and my dead fiancé had long since been taken away by the garbage man. As had all the other pictures I had in albums upstairs. As had my wedding gown that I didn’t get to wear that I kept for some ridiculous reason, that cost a mint but I didn’t even give it to Goodwill or anything.

No one needed that bad juju.

So the garbage man took it to where it belonged. The dump.

At my fake-innocent question as to what frame they were referring to, Ty-Ty’s eyes slid to Tack. Mine did too.

He was looking at his boots.

In the years I’d known Tack Allen, I’d learned all the meanings of him looking at his boots. These were threefold.

One, he didn’t want Ty-Ty to see he found her amusing and this was solely when she was ticked at him which she would not find amusing that he found amusing but he mostly always did.

Two, he was ticked at one of his kids—the older two, Rush and Tabby, that he’d had with another woman—not Cutter and Rider, the boys he had with Tyra. As an older dad on his second time around, he had all the patience in the world with Cut and Rider. This was good, seeing as they were still little boys, but they were also total hooligans (and thus why they weren’t with us right then, ruining a relaxing dinner, but with Big Petey, a vintage member of the MC, likely destroying his house). Tack being ticked at Rush and Tab came rarer now, as they were older, and he looked at his boots when he was trying to stop himself from shouting or, maybe, strangling them.

Three, he was with Tyra and me and—for whatever reason we were squabbling, gossiping or giggling—he was not going to get involved.

Luckily, my eyes went back to Tyra before hers came to me.

I tried to come up with an answer to anything she might say.

Surprisingly, she didn’t say anything. Not about the frame or my lie.

Instead, she said, “Nothing, honey,” as she walked to me, wrapped her arms around me, tighter than usual, and gave me a long hug. “Thanks for dinner,” she said in my ear.

“Yeah, babe, good food,” Tack called to me from his place at the door, and my eyes moved over Tyra’s shoulder to him.

I smiled.

Tack did not.

He tipped up his chin but his gaze stayed glued to mine, intense. Somewhat like how Hop looked at me, minus the admiration and, obviously, the sex or foreplay, but adding open contemplation I had a really bad feeling about.

Tyra let me go and I tore my eyes from Tack to smile into hers.

“Thanks for coming,” I said to her and I chanced looking back at her husband.

“Don’t have to thank me for sittin’ down at a table with two beautiful women and good, bona fide, Southern cooking,” Tack replied and, finally, I smiled a genuine smile.

One thing my mom didn’t try to leave behind in Tennessee was her cooking. She did it all the time and she taught me and Elissa how to do it like her momma did with her and Mamaw’s mom did with her and so on.

She did this because she often tried to be a good mom. She also did this because it was tradition. But it stunk because I knew she did this mostly because Dad loved her cooking. Or, more aptly, he loved that whenever they had dinner parties, people would shower him (yes, him) with glowing compliments about how he was smart enough to marry a woman who knew how to make honest-to-goodness, down-home meals.

Needless to say, learning to cook in the Southern tradition, I grew up in Connecticut but I didn’t know you could steam vegetables until I moved to Denver. As far as I knew, they were either fried in an iron skillet with butter or breaded or battered and dropped in hot fat.

Luckily, I had the metabolism of a sixteen-year-old high school point guard.

Also luckily, my cooking was good enough for Tack to mention it (again) and get everyone’s mind off the frame.

“Anytime, anything you want, Tack. Just call and your wish is my command,” I offered as Tyra and I walked to him at the door.

“Don’t offer that. He does most of the cooking. He’ll be over three times a week to get a break,” Tyra told me, a smile in her voice.

I kept my mouth shut mostly because having them come over three times a week would be fine by me, and I didn’t want them to know that. It would expose too much. But the truth was, I’d run an advertising agency and I’d rush home and fry chicken and make a pecan pie from scratch all the way down to the crust if it meant three nights of not being alone, watching TV or worse, what I’d been doing lately: listening to Bob Seger’s slow songs with candles burning and doing everything to ignore the gaping void in my belly, which meant I did nothing but think of the gaping void in my belly.

“Next time, my turn,” Tack rumbled, bending to touch his lips to my cheek.

His goatee tickled my skin.

At the feel of it, the memories it invoked, that gaping void I could never stop thinking about widened, consuming vast areas of my body, making me feel empty from throat to toes.

I hid this as his head came up and I smiled into his eyes.

He stared into mine even as his hand came out, and his fingers curled around mine tight before, just as quickly, they disappeared.

Tack Allen never missed anything.

Not anything.

Ever.

Damn.

I gave Tyra another hug and then stood on my front porch, lights on, another Southern tradition my mom taught me, and waved at them until they were out of sight.

This bugged Tack. I knew it because Tyra told me he wanted me to stop doing it. He wanted me in the house, door closed and locked before they rolled away.

That was sweet and I tried but I couldn’t do it. Years of training ingrained in me forbid it. I shared this with Tack; he roared with laughter and shut up about it.

I went into the house, turned off the porch light, closed the door, and locked it.

Then I went to the windows, opened the plantation shutters, and peeked out.

Long moments elapsed before I heard the roar of his bike then I saw them slide by.

Yes, Tack shut up about it.

He also rounded the block and came back to check all was quiet at Lanie’s house before he and Tyra headed up the mountain.

I watched them disappear and smiled at the street, happy I had good friends, and happy my best friend had found a good man.

Then I slid the shutters closed and headed to the bottle of wine.

Minutes later, glass of wine in hand, candles lit, I moved to the stereo.

I lay there bleeding, the phone I used to dial 911 several feet away.

Too far to reach. I could hear the voice of the 911 operator calling from the phone but I was too weak to reach for it.

All I could do was lie on the carpet and feel the warm, sickening rush of blood pooling around my body.

And all I could see was Elliott, five feet in front of me, on his back, his head turned to the side, his eyes open, wide and lifeless.

He was dead but he still looked surprised.

I put myself in front of bullets for him.

He didn’t put himself in front of me. I put myself in front of him.

I knew this was not why he was surprised.

I knew he was surprised I didn’t save him.

I came awake with a jerk, my torso swinging up, breaths coming in gasps, heart beating a mile a minute, the dream still having a hold of me.

No, not a dream.

A nightmare.

A memory.

I sucked in breaths. They came shallow so I forced them deep and I listened hard.

They weren’t out there. They were never out there. It was memory coming through as a dream. Just as it often did.

Tack had taken care of Gregori Lescheva. The Russian Mob was no longer interested in me. They had their revenge. It was lying in a grave fifteen miles away from my house.

I was safe.

I didn’t feel that way.

I jerked my head around and looked at the clock.

Twelve-oh-two. I’d been asleep about an hour.

I pulled in one last breath then threw the covers off me. I got up and went to the walk-in closet. I flipped the switch on the outside and walked in, looking around at the rails stuffed full of clothes.

Mom and Dad got me gift certificates for everything. If I took a breath, one would wing its way from Connecticut and land in my mailbox as a celebration.

Guilt money. Guilt for Dad being a jerk and Mom being weak. Just like my car. They knew I left Connecticut to escape their lunacy, the heartbreak that lived and breathed and festered all around. So, in true Dad fashion, he’d bought me a car that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to try to wash away the feel of living amongst love gone bad.

I accepted it. I accepted everything. It was too much hassle not to—Mom’s pouting, Dad’s disappointment.

Elissa didn’t buy into the lie. My sister didn’t go home for Christmas. She didn’t call on Thanksgiving. She didn’t put up with their shit. She’d drawn that line years ago and lived without parents.

“Why do I need them when I’ve got you?” she’d asked me.

Sweet, loving, loyal. Then again, that was my Lis. All of that in spades.

By the way, Lis hated Elliott too. She’d loved him, probably for the reasons I loved him, before he died. After he’d died and how he did, nearly taking me with him, not so much.

I carefully selected an outfit and shoes. Grabbing them I dashed to my bed and laid them out. At the dresser, I carefully selected underwear. I had a lot to choose from. I didn’t pay attention to just how much lingerie was shoved into my drawer or to my room, with its cream walls that held a hint of pink, the tall, huge king-sized bed with its colossal, sweeping, padded headboard and matching footboard. The expensive sheets and shams. The wide, round, antique white nightstands with their curved, elegant legs. The smooth, shining, crystal-based lamps.

All the trappings of home.

Thinking of it, suddenly feeling suffocated, I rushed to the bathroom, bent under the vanity, and pulled out my basket of makeup. Leaning over the basin, I applied it, all of it, and there was a lot.

On to my hair, spritzing and squirting and spraying and teasing until it was out to there. I pulled just the top back in pins an inch from my forehead then teased and sprayed the hair at my crown so it was taller.

Sluttier.

Out to the bedroom I went and pulled on the scanty, sexy, lacy black demi-bra and teeny-weeny panties. The short jeans skirt. The tight, nearly see-through white blouse with its wide collar, close sleeves, long cuffs with a dozen small pearl buttons each, the buttons down the front didn’t start until mid-cleavage.

On to the jewelry box. Big hoops. A wide silver choker. Lots of silver rings.

Spritz of perfume. Another one. More.

High-heeled platform sandals with sassy ankle straps.

I turned out the lights, teetered downstairs, grabbed my purse and keys, and headed to my car.

I’d never done this before, not in my life.

But I was alive, breathing.

Alive.

Hop told me so.

Time to start living.

I walked through the courtyard, opened the back door to the garage, hit the garage door opener, swung into my car, pulled out and headed into the night.

I was alive, breathing.

Living.

And I’d fucked everything up.

I knew this because I was in the dark parking lot of a biker bar, lured there because I was more than a hint drunk, far more than a hint stupid, and thus an easy mark.

The guy said he had big tires on his truck, huge, taller than me.

That was something I had to see.

The girl came with us. She was there to set me up. What she thought would happen to me after she backed away and disappeared into the night, I didn’t know. I just knew she didn’t care, which made her, officially, the number one biggest bitch in history.

Setting up a sister?

She should be stripped of membership.

Of course, if I made it through this alive and breathing and hopefully not violated, I would approach the Council of the Sisterhood and ask them to see to this immediately.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a Sisterhood Council to report bitches to.

Alas.

Also unfortunately—much more so—it didn’t look like I would make it through this not violated.

The alive and breathing part was up for grabs.

“Seriously, I want to go back inside,” I told him, pushing against his big, doughy body, smelling beer on his breath.

He had me pinned up against the tire of his truck and, bad news, it was taller than me. So was he.

“Baby,” he ran his hand up the outside of my hip, “don’t play this game. You were all over me.”

“We danced,” I reminded him, trying logic first. Just in case a miracle happened, he’d see it and back off without an ugly scene. At the same time, pushing harder, wishing my purse, which he’d pulled off my arm and thrown to the ground, was closer since my phone was in it, and wondering if anyone would hear me scream. “That’s hardly all over you.”

His head dipped and his mouth went to my neck. I felt his tongue, damp and sloppy there.

At that, I also felt bile slide up my throat and pushed harder, definitely deciding to scream.

“You danced close,” he muttered against my neck, pushing me further into the tire, which didn’t feel real great.

“I did not.” And I hadn’t. We were line dancing, for goodness’ sakes!

His hand was gliding up my side and getting close to my breast.

Okay. Time to scream.

And, possibly, engage my fingernails.

I opened my mouth to do just that, heaving at the same time when, suddenly, his face was not in my neck and his body was not pressing me into the tire.

No, I watched with some fascination, some awe, and some queasiness as his head snapped back unnaturally and his body went with it. The former did this because Hop had his fist in the guy’s hair and the latter did this because Hop had his arm around the guy’s chest.

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.

I dropped my head to his pec and slid my hands up to curl around the side of his neck as his finger hit the spot and swirled.

God, God.

The best.

He pressed his face in my neck and muttered, “You’re wet. Ready. Not your mouth, baby, your pussy. Get your panties off.”

I nodded, my forehead rolling on his chest, and moved back. I pulled my skirt up at the sides, feeling his eyes on me but I was concentrating. I yanked my panties down, dropped to a hip and peeled them along my legs, over my ankles, and tossed them away.

Back to my knees I went and saw he had his jeans tugged just to his hips, and he was rolling on a condom.

God.

Hot.

“Climb up, Lanie.”

My eyes went to his. I wet my lip with my tongue, his face got hungry, and I wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Then the other one. Then a leg around his hip. I used his shoulders for leverage, did a knee hop to get the other one up and around. He bent into me to catch me at my ass at the same time he dropped me to my back in the bed and then he was inside me.

Yes.

Yes.

Injected, the drug that was Hop coursed through my veins. I had it back in a way I couldn’t believe I’d ever managed to live without it.

“Fuck me, your pussy,” he groaned into my neck, his hips moving, slow, steady, sweet. His head came up and his eyes captured mine. “So tight, baby. Wet, sleek glove. Nothin’ like you, lady. Nothin’ like that beauty.”

I lifted my head, pulling him to me with one arm, pressing my chest to his as my other hand slid over the skin of his back and I urged, “Faster, honey.”

“Takin’ my time, Lanie.”

“Faster, baby.” This time it was a plea.

“You take me as I give it and I’m takin’ my time.”

I moaned my disappointment against his mouth.

Hop kissed me.

That was better.

He took his time but he did it while kissing me.

Then he went faster.

That was also better.

Then harder.

That was even better.

Then his hand slid over my belly, down and his thumb found me.

That was the best and I knew it because I came. Hard. The explosion excruciating in its beautiful intensity.

“Look at me, Lanie.”

With effort, as what he gave me swept through me, I righted my head and slowly opened my eyes.

He stared into mine as he moved inside me.

“Most beautiful eyes I’ve ever fuckin’ seen,” he part muttered, part growled, going faster, deeper, his thumb pressing in and swirling, and my hips jerked.

“Hop,” I breathed, not quite done coming when the impossible happened and it started building again.

“Missed your eyes, baby,” he whispered, his hips powering fast, his thumb pressing deep.

“Hop,” I panted, my limbs around him tensing.

“Missed you, lady.”

Oh God.

I pressed my mouth to his. He drove hard with his hips and pressed his thumb tight then circled.

The best.

I just had the best and, God, God, he made it better.

“Missed you too, honey.”

That was me, sharing what I shouldn’t, doing what I shouldn’t, holding tight, lifting my hips to get as much of him as I could, seeking his thumb, pressing against his body, my lips moving against his.

“I know you did, baby,” he groaned before his tongue slid into my mouth, his thumb executing a maneuver that should be patented. My second orgasm seared through me so deep, it had to have left an internal scar and I whimpered down his throat.

He planted himself to the root and his grunt turned into a groan that drove down mine.

We kissed through our orgasms and heavy breathing, miraculous and beautiful, and only when it slid away did his mouth and his ’tache glide down my cheek to my neck where he gave me the sweet crash after the mind-blowing high.

I held on, felt it, memorized it, every inch, his cock buried deep, his weight on me, the smell of him, his warmth, his mouth, the tickle of his whiskers, his everything.

Before I could accomplish this feat, he spoke.

“You’re sleepin’ here.”

I closed my eyes and my limbs convulsed before they loosened so I could prepare to push him away.

His hips pressed into mine. That felt really good, which was really bad, and I was dealing with that when his head came up.

“You’re sleepin’ here. When I let you sleep, you’re doin’ it not in your slut clothes but in my tee and tomorrow, when we wake up, we’re talkin’.”

“Hop—”

“Shut it.”

I shut it but my confused, scared, post-orgasmic haze lifted so I shut it on a glare.

Before I could take him to task for telling me to shut it, he began talking again.

“Tonight, you got drunk and you nearly got yourself raped. Tomorrow, we talk about what’s in your head, what’s in our future, and how we’re gonna play it. You are not closin’ down on me. You are not shuttin’ me out. I tried to give you that, you nearly got raped. I’m done givin’ you that.”

“We don’t have a future,” I informed him.

“We have a future,” Hop informed me.

“We don’t.”

“Lady, we do.”

My eyes narrowed and I snapped loudly, “Don’t!”

He grinned and pointed out, “Seated deep, babe. I get rid of this condom, gonna eat you until you come ’cause I miss you on my tongue. Then I’m gonna fuck you again and maybe let you go down on me before I fuck you again. You wanna keep arguing, we’ll do it tomorrow when… we…” his grin didn’t leave as his face dipped closer, “talk. Now, I gotta go get rid of this condom. You gonna do somethin’ stupid so I have to cuff you to the bed?”

His last words made me blink in surprise, and such was my surprise that I forgot how much his first words turned me on and how his words before that ticked me off.

Therefore, it was with curiosity as well as stupidity that I asked, “You have handcuffs?”

Hop moved, swiftly and unexpectedly. He pulled out. I gasped. He kissed my throat then my body was hauled around so I was righted in the bed. Before I knew it, one arm was up and one bracelet from a set of handcuffs was on my wrist, the other around a slat in his headboard.

My head tilted way back. I stared at my wrist cuffed to the bed.

“Yeah, Lanie, I got handcuffs.” Hop stated the obvious.

My eyes went to him.

He grinned.

I growled.

Yes, actually growled.

He smiled.

“Uncuff me!” I cried.

“Maybe, when I’m back from the can.”

“Hop, do not move before you uncuff me,” I demanded.

He bent and kissed my chest, then he did precisely what I told him not to and rolled off the bed, yanking his jeans up his hips.

“Hopper Kincaid, uncuff me!” I shrieked.

He stopped on his way to the bathroom and turned to me. “Don’t know, honey. It’s a crapshoot. They’re here often so Tyra and Tack could be just down the hall.”

My mouth snapped shut.

Hop burst out laughing.

This miffed me because he looked good doing it.

He always looked good laughing but somehow, even infuriated, cuffed to his bed, it hit me that he looked better doing it in his room, shirtless, jeans undone, after just having bedded me.

Damn!

I glared at him and watched as he and his great ass sauntered into the bathroom.

I flopped on the bed and jerked my cuffed hand around to see if the slat might be loose.

It wasn’t.

I stopped doing that, stared at the ceiling and seethed.

Mostly I seethed about Hop cuffing me to the bed, grinning and looking good laughing when I was angry, and I did this so I wouldn’t seethe at me getting out of bed at midnight, inexplicably finding trouble that could have been life-altering in a bad way, and ending the night somewhat naked, cuffed to Hop’s bed on Chaos.

I felt Hop come back into the room but I was concentrating so deeply on seething, I didn’t look at him. This got harder when the bed moved as he got in it. It got even harder when his hands wrapped around my ankles, pulled them apart and up, cocking my legs at the knees and planting my feet on the bed.

“You gonna stay pissed as I go down on you?” he asked. I tipped my chin down and saw him up on his forearms between my legs and something about that was exceptionally sexy.

Maybe it was because he was hot and he looked amused and…

Damn.

Happy.

I spoke no words. I just glared.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he muttered.

“Take whatever you want, you’re going to anyway,” I snapped.

“Damn straight,” he stated, dropped his head, kissed my belly then moved down to grasp my ankles.

He threw them over his shoulders.

I closed my eyes and, against my will, my body braced for bliss. It did this from experience. Hop liked the taste of me. He didn’t hide it and he also didn’t hide he liked me wrapped around him when he buried his face between my legs. When he ate me, he did it with my legs over his shoulders so he could eat with me all around, feel my excitement when I dug my heels in his back, scoop me up with his hands at my ass, suck hard and bury his tongue deep.

He lowered his mouth to me.

At just a touch, the heels of my platforms dug in and my neck arched in ecstasy.

Just a note: it was impossible to stay pissed at a handsome man when he had his mouth between your legs.

Especially if he really, really knew how to use that mouth.

So I didn’t.

Our night progressed just as Hop said it would.

Exhausted, I fell asleep against him.

Wearing his dirty tee.