Fire Inside

by Kristen Ashley

Adorable, actually.

  Fuck. It was going to take a serious amount of work for this not to get complicated.

  “Maybe,” he lied. “Now back to work.”

  “Ty-Ty told me you guys take bossy to extremes and do whatever it takes to get your way. That was why I snuck out of your bed this morning. I told you we shouldn’t sleep together. It seemed you weren’t going to take no for an answer so I had to get creative,” she shared and there it was.

  Cherry blabbed so Lanie was prepared.

  He’d have to take that into account in the future.

  “You’re telling me this instead of going down on me because…?” he prompted.

  “Because I want your promise I can finish what I started later,” she explained.

  “Lady, you can do it now. In fact, I’d be obliged if you would,” he told her.

  She scrunched up her nose. “Like we were before.”

  Hop shook his head. “I said, no. Not like that.”

  Her hand came to his cheek and her face got close. “Hop, what you said was sweet and I liked that but I also liked what I was doing and—”

  He rolled on top of her and he moved his hand to her cheek, thumb to her lips, pressing in and his face got close.

  “I’m guessin’ you get what this is. We played with fire, we got burned now we gotta contain the blaze, but sayin’ that, I got no intention of puttin’ it out and babe, I’m gettin’, since you left me a trail of breadcrumbs to this room, you don’t either.”

  She tried to turn her head to get away from his thumb to say something but Hop kept going.

  “We get it, we don’t gotta talk about it. We know what we got revolves around bein’ naked in a bed so you shouldn’t get what I’m gonna give you right now. But I’m gonna give it to you. Never had class. Never had beauty. I’ll repeat, never… had… class. I’m not gonna fuck over Cherry, who I care about, or Tack, who’s my brother, and I know you don’t wanna do that either, so this is what we got for as long as it’s good. But it’s a clean, pure beauty the like I’ve never had, I’m gonna respect it like I feel like I gotta and you’re gonna let me.”

  He paused, bent his face closer to hers and dipped his voice lower.

  “So, no, Lanie, you are not gettin’ down on your knees like every biker skank or groupie, or drunk, high piece of ass before you dropped to hers and sucked me off. You go down on me, you do it like who you are. Respect. You don’t want that, you’re looking to play with rough trade to get you off, find another guy to make you skank. That is not what you’re gonna get from me. Now, are you gonna finish givin’ me a blowjob or are you gonna fight me on this?”

  She laid there and stared up at him, not saying a word, so Hop gave her an alternate option.

  “Or are you gonna lie there and stare at me?”

  “I think I need to lie here and stare at you for about thirty more seconds,” she whispered and Hop felt his lips twitch.

  Then he offered quietly, “Have at it, baby.”

  “Though, while lying here staring at you, I’m just going to say, I really like your mustache,” she told him.

  “Good to know,” he muttered, his lips still twitching.

  “It’s badass biker cool,” she went on.

  “Right,” he kept muttering, now through a grin.

  “And it feels good on my neck and, well… other places,” she continued and his grin turned to a smile.

  “Also good to know.”

  “I think I’m done staring at you,” she announced.

  “So, you gonna get busy?”

  She’d lied.

  She wasn’t done staring at him. He knew this because she kept staring for a beat before she lifted her head and touched her mouth to his.

  “Yeah,” she whispered.

  He grinned against her mouth before he kissed her, rolling her with him as he turned onto his back.

  When he broke the kiss, she got busy and sucked him off in bed.

  Like class.

  Like a lady.

  * * *

  Dressed and sitting on the side of her bed, Hop shifted the soft, heavy hair off Lanie’s neck, leaned in and put his lips there.

  “Tickles,” she murmured. He lifted his head and caught her eyes. “In a good way,” she finished.

  “Good,” he murmured back and dipped his already close face closer. “Sun’s up, honey.”

  “Yeah,” she whispered.

  “Later,” he said.

  “Yeah.” She drew in breath then asked, “Tonight?”

  “You want that?”

  She nodded her head on the pillow.

  Excellent. He did too.

  He lifted his lips to her temple, kissed her there, moved them to her ear and said softly, “You got it.”

  Then, without another look at her in her bed, sleepy, sexy and sated, something he knew he couldn’t walk away from, he walked away from her, through her house and out the sliding glass door, putting Lanie Heron out of his mind.

  Until tonight.

  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 vi
brating 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.