Fire Inside

by Kristen Ashley

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 pul
ling 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.

  He rolled, taking me with him as he scooted us up the bed and settled on his back with me in his arms.

  I pressed closer. Winding an arm around his middle, I rested my cheek on his pec.

  “I didn’t want just one night,” I shared.

  “I know,” he said softly.

  “I’d been watching you for years.”

  “I know, baby.”

  “I was ready to take the risk again. I just wasn’t ready to admit it until just now, outside, when you said the things you said, which were exactly what I was going through then you kissed me, and I knew I couldn’t live without you. But all that happened before, I put you through hell.”

  “Lanie—”

  I closed my eyes tight then opened them. “I’m sorry I put you through that.”

  “I’m not, lady, because I loved every fuckin’ second.”

  I blinked in the dark then lifted my head to look at him. “What?”

  “Not havin’ you these past weeks sucked, but it led to me comin’ that hard, that fast and givin’ that same thing to you, it was worth it. And here you are in my bed, tellin’ me you love me and I’m gonna keep you here, so fuck yeah. It was worth it.”

  He caught my chin with his finger and thumb to hold my face toward his as he went on.

  “But before that, I loved every fuckin’ second, Lanie. Even when we were fightin’. And babe, you’re too hard on yourself. I threw my punches too and I know I can be a dick when I do. So don’t do what you do, take all this shit on your shoulders.”

  “You were always up front. I didn’t know it but I was playing games.”

  “Your head was messed up, Lanie. That wasn’t games. That was your way of straightening shit out.”

  I liked that he thought that and I hoped he was right.

  Still.

  “We fight dirty, honey,” I noted.

  “No, we fight honest. Trust me, I know when fighting comes from someplace ugly, someplace cold, someplace jacked. I got that shit from Mitzi. I also know when it comes from someplace else, feelings that are good, fights that are worth it to get past shit and learn about each other and I know that because that’s what we got.”

  “Do you think so?” I asked.

  “I know so,” Hop answered and his words were firm.

  I pulled my chin from his grip and pressed my face in his neck.

  “It hurts,” I told him.

  “It hurts because you give a shit.”

  This made sense but still.

  “You said I made you genuinely happy,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah, I said that,” he confirmed.

  I lifted my head to look at him again. “How? I jacked you around. I lied about what I wanted from the very beginning. Even though I didn’t do it consciously, I still did it. I screwed things up and then did it again and again and—”

  “Baby,” he interrupted me, his body suddenly shaking with laughter, “didn’t you hear me when I said I like a challenge?”

  “There’s a challenge, Hop, and then there’s a pain in the ass.”

  Still laughing, he rolled us again so I was on my back and he was pressed into me.

  “You’re beautiful, fuck me, seriously, so goddamned beautiful sometimes, swear to God, I think I can’t look at you any longer because if I do, your beauty will burn out my eyes.”

  Oh my God!

  That was so sweet.

  “You’re funny. You’re crazy,” he carried on. “You’re just you and to hell with what people think. You’re total class. You could be a snob because you come from money and you got your kind of beauty but, because you’re you, you fit
anywhere. You treat my kids good. You’re a fantastic fuckin’ cook. You let go in bed and come hard, givin’ me even more beauty. I lay in bed with you, tellin’ you stories about bitches I used to date and you giggle your ass off, you don’t get in my face about reminding you I used to date those bitches. I lay in bed, tellin’ you stories about my life and you look at me with those beautiful eyes of yours and listen like I’m tellin’ you God’s secret plan for harmony. And I sing you a song and you stand on a goddamned chair and shout I’m the shit then jump me when we get home. None of that, none of it, lady, is a pain in the ass. All of it, every bit, is worth fighting for.”

  Oh.

  My.

  God!

  That was so sweet!

  “Hopper,” I whispered.

  “Babe, hear this. I figured something out about Mitzi. She didn’t want that guy because he had her heart. She wanted that guy because her dad made shit but they lived in a part of town where she went to school with kids that had serious money. Don’t know but I guess, for her, bein’ poor around the rich fucked with her head. And that guy’s dad made money. The kind of money that meant he had it easy in life, doors opened for him. So by the time I met him, he had a wife who couldn’t give him kids but he still had a six-bedroom house in Cherry Creek. He drove a BMW. She drove a Merc. He wore fuckin’ loafers shined so bright, I fought against puttin’ on shades to battle the glare. And she was so tricked out, it didn’t take a psychologist to figure out she was usin’ money to buy her happiness. Mitzi wanted that. She wanted the Merc and designer gear. She didn’t want him.”

  I didn’t know where he was leading with this so I just said, “Okay.”

  Hop got I didn’t understand so he explained.

  “What I’m sayin’ is, fucks with a man’s pride, his woman steps out on him. But when Mitzi sorted her shit and figured out she’d wasted most of her life on a dream she wouldn’t live because she wasn’t woman enough to keep a decent man, she came crawlin’ back to me. She didn’t step out on me. She didn’t give a shit about me. I was just there to keep her from bein’ lonely and to get her off. She was steppin’ out on our life. She understood, too late, that flashy cars and big houses were not where it was at. A man in your bed who’s gonna be true to you and whose highest priority in life is lookin’ after you and the kids you make together is.”

  Well, that was the God’s honest truth.