Fire Inside

by Kristen Ashley

  “Okay, so, when I infer you’re a bigot or something equally distasteful, I can rest in the knowledge you’ll be cool in the face of me being an asshole?”

  His jaw tensed hard before he replied, “No, babe, I get where your anger is comin’ from but you gotta rein in the drama and see where I’m comin’ from.”

  “Your turn to tell me what you mean,” I snapped.

  “I’ve met your parents,” he began. “I know how you grew up, who you grew up with, and how they think. And you know, babe, they raised you and so it isn’t a leap to think there’s a possibility that at least some of that shit is in you.”

  He could not be serious!

  “First, Hop, it is since you’ve known me years and you’ve been getting to know me for weeks and you know that’s not right. Second, I thought you didn’t care what people thought of your lifestyle.”

  “I don’t but you aren’t people, Lanie. You’re mine and I care a fuckuva lot what you think about me, about the way I live my life, about how you feel you’ll fit in it, about fuckin’ everything when it comes to you.”

  Okay, that was nice, very nice but I was still ticked.

  Too ticked.

  And too Lanie Heron to fight back the drama.

  Therefore I fired back, “Right now, I’m rethinking that life option,” and I felt him lose it.

  I didn’t see it. I didn’t hear it.

  I felt it.

  Then I heard it.

  “Everything,” he said in a sinister whisper, “everything about you, I like. Including the drama. I’ll stop likin’ it if you blow shit like this out of proportion and you say shit you can’t take back.”

  “So far, I haven’t said anything I’d like to take back,” I replied and his eyebrows shot up.

  “So you’re good with threatenin’ to take you away from me, you, somethin’ you know I want and I want it bad, bad enough to work at it, bad enough to twist myself in fuckin’ knots for it because you’re justifiably pissed but unjustifiably not opening your mind to where I was comin’ from and therefore not seein’ I’m explaining myself or givin’ me a shot at apologizing?”

  That shut me up because unfortunately he was right. I was mad. I wasn’t listening. And I’d threatened to take me away from him when he was definitely working on us and doing it by twisting himself into knots.

  I didn’t speak. Hop didn’t either.

  This lasted a very long time. So long, I was inwardly squirming and it was so uncomfortable, I was about to say something to smooth things over, get us back on track.

  Unfortunately, I waited one second too long to do this.

  “Fuck me, I can add fuckin’ stubborn to high maintenance and a drama queen. Not good, babe,” he bit off.

  My temper, which was cooling, flared again.

  “I’m not high maintenance!” I exclaimed and he pushed away from the sink.

  “Seriously?” he asked incredulously. “Been in your bed when you get up at fuckin’ five thirty in the fuckin’ mornin’ to do your gig in the bathroom before you go to work and I’ve hauled your shit up to my bedroom so you can do it at my place. Lanie, you live fifteen minutes away from your office and you get there at eight. Over two hours every day just to do your hair and makeup. Diana fuckin’ Ross in her heyday probably took less time to get ready for a show. Babe, if that isn’t high maintenance, I do not know what is.”

  The Diana Ross comment was funny but I didn’t laugh.

  “I eat breakfast in that time too, Hopper,” I reminded him.

  “You swallow down some yogurt and suck back coffee, lady. You don’t bake a quiche and eat it at your dining room table with cloth napkins and mimosas,” he fired back.

  It was unfortunate he was amusing when he was angry. Hop even saying the word “quiche” was hilarious.

  I wanted to laugh. I really did.

  I didn’t.

  He wasn’t done.

  “Fuck, you stand in your closet for a full fifteen minutes every fuckin’ time I’ve been at your house in the morning like you’re makin’ your wardrobe selection of the day to announce your candidacy for president.”

  “Stop being funny, Hopper,” I hissed, leaning toward him, and he leaned toward me.

  “Baby, I am not bein’ funny.”

  I took in his expression.

  He wasn’t being funny. Definitely not. He was funny but he wasn’t being funny.

  He was angry and this was serious.

  “You cushioned my fall.”

  That came out of my mouth and I knew Hop didn’t get it when he blinked.

  “Say again?” he asked.

  “Chaos. You. Tyra. Tack. Big Petey. Brick. Dog.” I threw a hand out toward him. “You all cushioned my fall, Hop. You all knew how far I fell and landing after a fall like that could destroy you. It didn’t destroy me because Chaos cushioned my fall.”

  The anger slid out of his face as his lips muttered, “Baby.”

  I shook my head and kept talking.

  “You all mean something to me. You’re family and you intimating that I might think I’m better than you or think badly about you…” I drew in breath before I admitted, “I went over the top when I got ticked because you all mean something to me and I don’t want any of you, because of my clothes or house or job or car, thinking I’d ever think bad things about you. And, for obvious reasons, I especially don’t want you to think that way.”

  After I finished speaking, Hop held my eyes and I let him because I was soaking in the look he was giving me.

  It was a look I’d never seen from him or anyone.

  Not aimed at me.

  But I’d seen it. I’d seen it hundreds of times.

  I saw it when Tack was watching Ty-Ty with their sons. Or when she was giggling with his daughter Tabby. Or when she was goofing around with the guys and he was distanced but watching and liking what he saw.

  Or, my favorite times, when he just caught sight of her walking into a room.

  It was a look filled with warmth. A look filled with intimacy. A look of harmony.

  The look of love.

  Yes, right then, Hopper Kincaid was giving that look to me.

  “Come here, lady,” he ordered gently and when I stayed frozen, stuck in the glow of his look and didn’t move immediately, he leaned toward me, hooked a finger in the belt loop of my jeans and he brought me there.

  When I was close, he wrapped his arms around my waist and, automatically, I lifted my hands and rested them on his chest. But I was careful not to lose contact with that look in Hop’s eyes.

  Hop didn’t seem to notice I was mesmerized because he started talking.

  “I fucked up, jumped to conclusions, said somethin’ stupid and you were right to get pissed,” he told me and I stared up at him, stunned, pleased, warm…

  Happy.

  Hop wasn’t done.

  “I hear you about your work and I won’t get involved.”

  My body gave a slight, surprised jerk, taking me out of basking in the glow of his look and I felt my eyes get wide.

  “Are you serious?” I asked breathily.

  “Yeah,” he answered. “But I reserve the right, that shit ever turns ugly, to have another conversation about it. And if I feel you need me, that conversation might have a different ending.”

  Oh my God.

  It just kept getting better.

  Compromise.

  Hopper Kincaid, member of Chaos Motorcycle Club, badass biker who could beat unconscious a mountain of a man who owned a monster truck and do it in three minutes, was willing to compromise.

  “Wow,” I whispered, and my whisper encompassed a lot of things and even more feeling and I watched Hop grin.

  But his face got serious and his arms got tight when he continued, “You need to take two things from that. What you obviously took and that you do not bury shit because you’re worried about my reaction to it. You need to get it off your chest, lady, I’m here. It starts messin’ with your head, your sleep, y
our enjoyment of the work you do, that’s when I’ll expect to have our conversation. You down with that?”

  It was my turn to grin but I suspected it was less of a grin and more a beaming smile.

  “I’m down with that, Hop,” I agreed.

  His eyes moved over my face and his grin came back. “Good. Now the dishes are done. You wanna watch TV or you wanna go upstairs and fuck?”

  Fight over and the way Hop ended it, a way I liked, liked in a way I knew I could like for a lifetime, I melted into him and asked, “Do we have to go upstairs to fuck?”

  He dipped his face closer and answered, “In the mood to dominate, babe, and not big on givin’ my old lady carpet burns.”

  He was in the mood to dominate.

  Yes.

  It just kept getting better.

  I smiled at him and slid my hands up so my arms could round his neck before I suggested, “How about we break in the couch?”

  His eyes flared and his lips hit mine.

  “That works.”

  An hour later, I found Hop was right.

  It worked.

  We worked.

  We so worked.

  In a lot of ways.

  Chapter Eleven

  Safely Locked Inside

  A week and two days later…

  I was in my office and running late.

  I had to go home, change, and then meet Hop and the kids at Beau Joe’s for pizza.

  This wasn’t big but this was bigger than my “surprise” showing up at a dance recital.

  I was meeting them there. This meant, even the kids at their ages would soon get that them seeing me occasionally at Chaos family events then suddenly seeing me everywhere meant something.

  I wasn’t nervous, as such. I knew they liked me.

  But liking me as Lanie, some woman their dad knew and liking me as Lanie, their dad’s woman, were two different things.

  So even though I wasn’t nervous, I still kind of was.

  To get home and change, I should have left ten minutes ago. But the new client was taking a lot of time, my day had gotten away from me (in all fairness, this had happened before the new client and it happened frequently) and I was considering, since Hop had his kids for the weekend, coming in on Saturday and getting caught up.

  This wouldn’t exactly be breaking my rule of not working weekends since I was already breaking my habit of working late into the evenings.

  I had Hop to go home to, eat dinner with, and go to bed with. With that to look forward to, staying late at the office had lost its allure.

  I was closing down programs on my computer, at the same time shoving stuff in my purse when I sensed movement so I looked out my wall of windows.

  At what I saw, my breath froze in my lungs.

  Tack was walking my way, his eyes on me, his face serious.

  Tack had been to my office on several occasions, usually when I had plans with him and Tyra to go out to dinner after work, which meant he always drove so Ty-Ty and I could tie one on if we felt in the mood. Therefore Tyra always came with him.

  He’d never been here alone and unannounced.

  He knew about Hop and me.

  Oh God, he knew about Hop and me!

  I sat immobile, staring at him walking my way, my insides inexplicably seized with panic.

  His gaze never left me as he walked through the open door, but once he got inside, he greeted, “Hey Lanie.”

  “Uh, hey Tack,” I replied. “Is everything okay?”

  He stopped in front of my desk and answered, “You tell me.”

  I blinked.

  “I’m sorry?” I asked.

  “You tell me, Lanie. Is everything okay?”

  Oh God, he knew. Damn! He knew!

  “I, uh…”

  God!

  What did I say?

  Tack moved to one of my chairs, sat in it and again looked at me.

  His voice was soft when he said, “Gave it time, babe. A fuckuva lot of time. After dinner at your place a while back, thought on it and decided I can’t give it more.”

  Okay, now I was confused. That didn’t sound like he knew about Hop and me.

  “Gave what time?” I asked.

  “You,” he answered.

  Right, now I was really confused.

  “Me, what?” I queried and he leaned toward me, his eyes intense, searching but kind.

  “You and Belova,” he replied and I felt my insides seize again. “You were not movin’ on. Years passed, you didn’t move on. Tyra, she was not good about this, babe. She might get pissed at me sharin’, seein’ as my woman doesn’t know I’m makin’ this stop, but you gotta know. She’s been worried and when I say that I mean worried. She just didn’t know what to do. She didn’t wanna say somethin’ and set you off. She didn’t wanna not say somethin’ and watch you waste your life away. Now she’s even more worried, that photo’s gone, what that might mean. And you haven’t said shit about it.”

  Oh.

  This was about the photo.

  “Tack—” I started and he shook his head.

  “That path, Lanie, that path that leads to healing, you can get blinded, think there’s only one path to choose but there isn’t. There are lots of different paths but some of them don’t lead to healing. They lead to other shit that is not good and, darlin’, you’ve been on the wrong one.” He leaned into me and his voice dipped quieter, rougher, “Trust me on this, I know, watchin’ you go through it and watchin’ my daughter go through it.”

  I swallowed.

  About a year ago Tack’s girl, Tabby, had lost her fiancé suddenly in a car crash only three weeks before their wedding. It was tragic and Tabby put on a brave face, but everyone knew she was suffering. How could she not? But with that brave face, it was hard to know what path she was on.

  Unless you were as observant as Tack.

  He leaned back and kept talking, “Shit you endured, Red, me, all of us had to put on kid gloves with you. I don’t wanna freak you but, that frame gone, means you made a decision, a decision you aren’t communicating about, so those gloves gotta come off.”

  “Tack—”

  “You gotta move on… the right way.”

  “Well—”

  “You gotta find a life outside this office,” he threw out a hand then pinned his eyes on me. “You gotta find a man.”

  My back snapped straight. “Tack, really—”

  He didn’t miss my response. He just misinterpreted it.

  “Don’t go woman on me and tell me you don’t need a man to complete you. It’s bullshit. Woman looks like you, goddamn waste. But a woman who has the love you got to give, that’s not a waste. That’s a crying shame.”

  I closed my mouth because that was sweet.

  Then I opened it to remind him, “Uh, FYI, I can’t go woman on you since I am a woman, so going woman is redundant.”

  He grinned. “Just sayin’, got a good one but that don’t mean I don’t notice other good ones, darlin’. You’re a good one and a man would be lucky, he got you.”

  Wow, that was really sweet.

  I held his eyes then I leaned toward him. “Thank you for coming, saying what you’ve said and caring, Tack, but I promise you, everything is good.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I blinked at his reply.

  “You’ve thrown away that frame and locked yourself in,” he declared.

  “Locked myself in what?” I asked, again confused.

  “Days here, nights here, your life… here… ” He lifted a hand and pointed to the floor. “In this office. Buried in your work. Sure, you go out with your girl. You do yourself up. You spoil our sons. You show on Chaos and laugh with the brothers. But the majority of your life is this job, Lanie, and that shit can’t go on.”

  Oh dear.

  How did I play this?

  “Tack, really, I promise you, I’m fine.”

  “A life that’s work is not fine. It isn’t even half a life. I dig you enjoy what you do and
that’s cool. You bein’ so good at it is cooler. But the world is full, darlin’. You’re only eatin’ off half the plate, you’re missin’ the meat and, worse, you’re missin’ dessert.” He paused a moment before he said quietly, “You need to live your life, Lanie.”

  “I promise you, Tack, I am.”

  “Then why is it after six and you’re still at the office?” he returned.

  I couldn’t tell him I was heading out to meet Hop and his kids and thus I couldn’t tell him I was late doing that and should have left fifteen minutes ago. I also couldn’t tell him that my life was very much not all work. Not anymore. It was dance recitals. It was broiled pork chops. It was listening to Hop tell me the story of taking one of his “bitches” to a Seger concert. She got high before they went, lost herself in the vibe and threw her t-shirt toward the stage. I laughed through this because Hopper also told me she wasn’t wearing a bra and they were nowhere near the stage so Bob nor any of the Silver Bullet Band could appreciate her gesture.

  However, I had to tell him something. I just didn’t get the chance.

  “Talked with Mitch and Lucas, they got a buddy, say he’s a good man,” Tack started.

  Oh my God. Was he talking about setting me up?

  Tack continued, “Don’t know him. Don’t wanna lose one of my girls to a guy on The Force but they say he’s a good man, I believe them. They’re gonna set you up.”

  Oh my God!

  Tack was setting me up!

  It was nice he thought of me as one of his girls but this was a disaster.

  Truth be told, I knew Mitch Lawson and Brock Lucas and I liked them. They were both good cops. They were both good guys. They were both friends of Tack’s. They, and their wives, Mara and Tess, and their kids would often come to Chaos functions. This was incongruous, cops and bikers, but there was history, serious history that made it not only understandable but imperative. So, knowing Mitch and Brock and knowing they were good guys, I knew they wouldn’t set me up with a jerk or a loser.

  That didn’t make this any less of a disaster.

  “Tack—” I began but he again talked over me and he did it while standing.

  “Goin’ home, talkin’ to Red about this. She’ll hook up with Mara and Tess and they’ll sort it. You just gotta look beautiful and show up. The first part comes natural. The second part will be where I’ll trust you not to fall down.”