Fire Inside: A Chaos Novel (36 page)

“You know, this reminds me of Mom and my old man. All this bullshit fighting about fuckin’ nothin’, two people just so shit scared of the love they feel for each other, they’d rather drive each other away than take a risk on feeling the fullness of that feeling.” And if that wasn’t enough, then came the coup de grâce. “So I guess that means I
didn’t
fuckin’ learn after Mitzi.”

Did Hop just kind of say he loved me?

“You love me?” I breathed.

“You’ll never know,” he replied, turned, slid the door to and walked away.

Two weeks and three days later…

I was at the Chaos hog roast, freaking out.

Hop had not yet showed and the longer I was there, the longer I courted running into him.

I had not called, texted or hung out at Chaos for a second chance at a second chance with Hop. Hop’s finale was final. The pain was immense. I couldn’t do it, not again.

I had to let it go. Try to find a way to survive. Not court more pain I wasn’t strong enough to endure.

I had to move on.

I hated it.

I missed him so badly, it was an ache. I fell asleep with it. I woke up in the middle of the night feeling it. I pushed through the day suffering it.

But I had to hope it would dull. Someday.

And maybe it would. In about fifty years.

I had not told Tyra about what happened between Hop and me. Not yet.

I was not procrastinating.

We were gearing up at work for a couple of campaigns going live so work was insanely busy. And I’d found a short-term counselor I liked so I started seeing her.

This was, surprisingly, working, and it had from the very first visit. That was to say, before talking to Tyra and going to the counselor, I didn’t have that dream about Kansas City every night but it came frequently. I hadn’t had it now since talking to Tyra.

So that was one bit of good.

I still wasn’t sleeping well but the reason wasn’t Elliott and Kansas City.

The reason was that Hop wasn’t lying beside me and I ached for him to be close to me.

But, as Hop said, we were done.

Also taking my headspace, Tyra had told Mitch’s wife Mara to get Mitch to give that guy my number and he’d called, four times.

His name was Jed. He had an unbelievably attractive voice and, back in the day when I was the old Lanie, I would have jumped on meeting him for coffee and, if his face or personality equaled the beauty of his voice, I would have hoped he’d jumped on me (and not end up being a jerk).

Alas, I was in love with another man and I felt terrible since I was going through the motions with Jed. I had absolutely no intention of taking it any further but I had to do it for Tyra.

I had a feeling Jed knew I wasn’t into it about two minutes into the first conversation, when getting-to-know-you discussions that might lead to coffee, a date and maybe sex turned into getting-to-know-you discussions that would lead to just getting to know you.

In other words, he didn’t only have a beautiful voice, he seemed like a nice guy who was giving me what I needed to keep my friend happy without putting on any pressure or blowing me off when he could totally do that. He just didn’t. I didn’t know why. I just knew it made him a nice guy.

If that wasn’t enough, I spent a goodly amount of time licking the wounds I’d opened myself by having and then losing Hop.

So there wasn’t time to sit down with Tyra and tell her about Hop.

Therefore, when Ty-Ty called to tell me there was a hog roast, asked me to come and I demurred, since I hadn’t yet told her, I knew just how deeply I’d worried her and I knew she wanted me to live my life, when she pressed me to go, I had no excuse not to.

So here I was.

Though I did tell her I couldn’t stay long.

My out. I went but I intended to leave as soon as it was seemly.

It wasn’t time yet for Hop and me to have moved past what Hop and I were and lapse into distant acquaintances that had to share each other’s space on occasion.

With the number of times I’d turned to wine and Bob Seger the last couple of weeks, torturing myself and barely containing the pain, I knew that would take about seventy-five years.

The good thing about the hog roast was that I got to see Tabby and Shy together for the first time and meet Shy’s good-looking, very nice brother Landon. Tab and Shy were cute together and someone would have to be blind not to see they were over-the-moon in love and happy.

I was thrilled for her. She was so young and still, her road to love had been bumpier than most that had decades on her. But she was Tabby. She had been a good kid who grew into a lovely woman, funny and sweet. She deserved that.

And seeing her happy with Shy, it made it worth coming to the hog roast and possibly seeing Hop, having those festering wounds I was trying and failing to anesthetize with work, wine and the stylings of the Silver Bullet Band open further, spreading the pain, lacerating my heart.

So the time had come. I’d had a couple of beers, a pulled pork sandwich, gabbed with Tyra, Tack, Sheila, Brick, Big Petey, saw and was seen.

And Hop hadn’t showed.

So now it was time to go.

I was moving through the forecourt of Ride, avoiding people and skirting big drums filled with fire when I felt a vice-like grip clamp around my arm.

I gave a small cry of surprise and my head whipped around just as my body started moving without me moving it.

Hop had hold of me and, if his profile was any indication, he was
ticked.

This wasn’t good.

“Hopper, let go,” I hissed, struggling and losing as he yanked me around the outskirts of the party toward the garage.

“Shut it,” he growled.

“Let me go!” I snapped.

He let me go after forcing me into the corner in the area behind the concrete steps that led up to Tyra’s office, and then pinning me there with his body.

With no escape route available, I glared at him. “Are you crazy?”

“You’re talkin’ to that guy,” he snarled.

Oh dear.

I should have known this would happen. It was nearly impossible to keep anything under wraps in families.

And Chaos was family.

Damn.

“Hop—”

“Scrape me off, in just
weeks
you replace me?” he bit out and I felt my eyes get wide.

“No!” I clipped. “I didn’t
scrape you off
for one, and for two, it’s a few phone calls, nothing more. I haven’t even met him! And it won’t
be
anything more. I’m just doing it to make Ty-Ty happy.”

He moved forward, which was a miracle since I was already pressed into the cinderblocks that made up the garage and he didn’t have much room to move.

“Stand back,” I demanded.

“No fuckin’ way,” he replied.

With him that close, that spicy scent of him in my nostrils, his badass gorgeousness all I could see, I lost it.

“God, Hop! Move away! It’s not a big deal and anyway, even if it was, it wouldn’t be any of your business.”

He lost it, too. I knew it when he pressed even closer, changed the subject and growled, “Can’t sleep. Not hungry. Can’t concentrate. If I don’t pay attention, my mind wanders to you.” His face dipped close as I started hyperventilating at his words. “I tried to give you what you needed, to stay away, let you live your fucked-up life, but I can’t. Taste you in my mouth, lady. See you in my dreams.”

Oh God.

He was killing me.

I couldn’t bear this, therefore I whispered, “Stop it.”

“No,” he replied.

“We cause each other pain,” I reminded him.

“I get it,” he returned. “I get that you bury the good we got that’s way fuckin’ bigger than the bad to protect yourself from losin’ it, seein’ as you’ve lost everything you had that matters, startin’ with your mom and dad.”

Why did he have to be so
smart?

“You aren’t gonna lose me,” he promised.

“You can’t promise that,” I snapped.

“Yeah, I fuckin’ can,” he shot back.

“Life happens, Hop,” I told him.

“It doesn’t if you don’t live it,” he retorted.

See? Smart!

Gah!

“Well, this isn’t going to happen,” I declared.

“Fuck yeah, it is. I’m done with this shit. Weeks, nothin’ on my mind but you. Weeks, goin’ to bed alone when you’re a fuckin’ twenty-minute drive away. Heard you were talkin’ to that fuckin’ guy and lost it. I ate shit, did shit I hated, scored marks on my goddamned soul to fight for the life I wanted. Bein’ that man, do you think I’m gonna let the first woman in my life who makes me happy slip through my fingers?”

Uh-oh.

That was beautiful. No matter how crazy scared I was, I couldn’t deny the beauty of what he said.

“I’m not,” he stated.

“Hopper—”

I got no more out because Hop pulled me in his arms and kissed me. It was hungry, even desperate.

And gorgeous.

Still, I fought him, pushing at his shoulders.

This lasted about five seconds before the taste of him, the feel of him, his scent penetrated, and it hit me I was getting my fix. It hit me I’d gone cold turkey and that ache I carried with me was me jonesing for nearly a month. It hit me all I needed to reach that unbelievable high that beat out everything in sheer beauty was holding me in his arms.

I slid my hands from his shoulders, wrapped my arms around him, and I kissed him back.

When I did, Hop growled down my throat, the sound shooting through me, bursting in pure goodness between my legs. He bent into me, twisting me, and deepened the kiss.

Ecstasy.

I was gone, coasting on bliss when he tore his mouth from mine, stepped back, let me go but curled his fingers in a tight grip around mine and started walking, dragging me with him.

In my high-heeled boots, I hustled after him.

He kept us to the shadows rimming the revelry. We hit the Compound and he continued to waste no time pulling me through to the back hall and into his room.

He closed and locked the door as I threw my purse on the floor and yanked off my pashmina. Then he turned to me. Herding me backwards to the bed as his hands went to my sweater, he pulled it up and it was gone.

His lips hit mine and a second later, my back hit bed.

We kissed deep and wet as I tugged at his cut to yank it down his arms. Hop broke the kiss to arch back, yank it off, then tug off his black thermal.

Yes.

My hands went to the skin of his chest, my fingers curling in, nails scraping down, one scoring through the denser hair along the line between his abs.

He growled, took my mouth in another kiss as he jerked down the cup of my bra and his thumb and forefinger homed in.

I moaned into his mouth.

Hop pressed his hard hips into my soft ones.

I couldn’t wait any longer.

I tore my lips away. “Now, Hop, honey. I need you now,” I begged.

“You got it, lady,” he replied, his voice thick, his hand moving from my breast to my belt buckle.

I tugged and pulled at his. He did the same with mine. My hands were shaking with need so he got his task completed faster and I lost purchase on his jeans when he pulled mine down my legs.

“Fuck. Your boots,” he grunted. “How do I get these fuckers off?”

“Zip at the side,” I wheezed, pulling down my panties.

Off went my boots then Hop curled his fingers in my panties and they were gone.

“Lay back. Open,” he ordered.

I did as asked.

Hop covered me then Hop entered me.

Even as my back arched, I rounded him with all my limbs.

Oh yes.
God,
yes.

This was what I needed. I couldn’t live without this. I couldn’t beat this habit.

I didn’t even want to.

“Beauty, fuck, missed how beautiful you feel,” Hop murmured, pounding hard and deep.

“Yes, but the beauty is you,” I gasped, lifting my head, shoving my face in his neck.

“Head back, baby. You know I like havin’ your eyes.”

I did know that.

I dropped my head back.

Hop thrust fast and hard, lifting a hand to frame my face, his thumb swept out to press against my lips, dragging at the lower one, claiming what he already owned.

I roamed his skin with my hands, scoring my nails into it, tightening my legs around his hips, claiming, in my way, what was mine.

All mine.

Suddenly, what he was giving me between my legs started overwhelming me.

“Hop,” I breathed.

“Yeah, baby, I feel it,” he grunted.

“Hop!” I cried.

“Fuck, so beautiful,” he groaned and it hit me, I climaxed, my head going back, my body arching into him, my arms and legs convulsing around him as I heard him growl, “Yeah, so fuckin’ beautiful.”

Then I had his mouth on mine and the grunts of his orgasm driving down my throat.

He was right.

So fucking beautiful.

I knew his climax left him when his tongue swept my mouth then his lips moved away, down to my jaw to stop at my neck and work there.

I turned my head and whispered in his ear, “You’re right. I’m shit scared of taking the risk of feeling the fullness of how much I love you.”

His mouth stopped working, his body went still, except his hips pressed into mine.

Then his head came up and I felt his eyes on me in the dark but he didn’t say a word.

So I did.

“I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you.”

“Fuck me,” he murmured, his voice gruff, and not from just having come.

“My mom loves my dad like that. She took that risk. And she’s lived a lifetime of paying for that decision.”

“Baby.”

“I’m scared, Hop. I have been since I was eleven and I understood. And everything that happened with men all my life ending in what happened in Kansas City proved me right.”

“Fuck, baby,” he groaned, dropping his head so his forehead rested on mine.

“I pushed you away. I jerked you around. I built walls and held onto stupid excuses to keep us apart all because I was scared,” I admitted and he slanted his head, his lips brushed mine then gently, he pulled out of me.