“Babe, you looked in the mirror lately?” he asked back by way of answer. “Man would have to be dead not to wanna fuck you.”

A little smile twisted her pretty mouth and he knew he was screwed because that was cute and fucking sexy as all fucking hell.

Shit.

She got closer and Hop braced. Any closer and she’d be cozied up to him. She was inches away.

“Do you like me?” she asked.

“Everyone likes you,” he answered.

“I’m not asking about everyone, Hop,” she told him and he held her eyes.

“Yeah, babe, you know I do,” he finally answered when she didn’t move or speak, just waited. “You’re funny, you’re cute, you’re hot, and you got no problem letting it all hang out. That’s why everyone likes you. That’s also why I do.”

To that, she returned, “Okay. Good. Then no complications, Hop. Just you and me and tonight. Tomorrow, I won’t expect flowers. I won’t expect a belated courtesy date. I won’t even expect you to take me out for a cup of coffee. This isn’t about that. I don’t even want that. I just want you and sex. No expectations. Nothing but what we have tonight,” she told him. “Tack and Ty-Ty, or anyone, they never even have to know.”

He pushed away from the pole, reached out an arm to put his beer on a nearby picnic table and took a huge chance straightening to her because it meant they were closer. But it also gave him the half an inch he still had on her when she was in those heels and he needed it.

“Don’t wanna be a dick, lady,” he warned softly, “but bitches say that shit all the time. Then, in the morning, they expect breakfast, coffee, and to come home from work to roses with a note sayin’ the guy never had better. You got a man who thinks to buy you roses, says he’s never had better, big chances are he’s lyin’. He just wants it regular and he’ll take it as it comes.”

He knew every word out of his mouth made him the dick he told her he didn’t want to be but she needed to move on. If she was in the mood to get laid, she needed to find herself some not on Chaos. Tack’s woman Cherry had chosen Chaos but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t lose her mind if her best girl hooked up with a brother. She would. Hop knew it. But if that shit happened anyway, Cherry would want to handpick the brother who got in there and Hop also knew that brother would absolutely not be him.

“Then take it as it comes,” she shot back, not appearing offended in the slightest, her words coming out almost like a dare.

“Lanie—” he started but she leaned in and, fuck, if he moved his mouth a quarter of an inch, it’d be on hers. She was all he could see, all he could smell, and all he could think was that she was also all he wanted to feel.

“You know my story,” she whispered. “You think I want another guy?” She paused then finished with emphasis, “Ever?”

He got her. Her dead old man was a moron and she’d paid for his shit in the worst way she could. Her loyalty had bought her nothing but pain, bullet wounds, and heartache. Not to mention, her man might have been good at what he did for a living, the computer geek to end all computer geeks, but he was nothing to look at. So she not only gave love and loyalty but she stepped out of a zone no woman who looked like her had to step out of in order to give it.

So, yeah, Belova was a moron and she chose that. He could see her wanting to get back in the saddle but being skittish about buying the horse.

She just wasn’t going to get back in the saddle with him.

Hop started to lift his hands to curl them around her upper arms and set her away but she moved fast, lifting her hands to curl them around the sides of his neck. They felt warm. Her perfume assaulted him straight on and he stilled.

“I do not want that,” she carried on. “What I want is… you. For one night. Just one night.”

Fuck him.

Fuck him.

“Lady,” he muttered but before he could say more, she kept talking.

“It was… I know you know where I was back then and who I was with and I know you had a woman then too, Hop, but still, that night I met you, I couldn’t help but notice you were good-looking. But you’re not with anyone anymore and I’m seriously not with anyone anymore and I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, just too scared to do anything about it. Now I’ve decided I’m doing something about it.”

“I gotta say, I like that you’re into me, babe,” he returned gently. “Already told you that you’re beautiful and under any other circumstances, I would not hesitate to take you up on an offer this sweet. So you gotta know it’s killin’ me even as you gotta trust me when I say this is not a good idea.”

“I’ve had no one since him,” she whispered and, acting on their own, Hop’s hands came up and settled on her waist, giving it a squeeze. The move was intimate but comforting. The news that this woman, this crazy-gorgeous woman and all that she was hadn’t had a man between her legs in fucking years moved him even as it troubled him.

“Lanie, honey,” he muttered, not having the first fucking clue what else to say.

“I’ve thought on it and decided it’s you.” Her hands at his neck gave him a squeeze and fuck him, fuck him, that moved him even more. “I understand why you don’t want to but I promise, Hop, I swear, no kidding, seriously, no strings. No expectations. Just us. One night. Tomorrow, it will be like it’s always been. Like it didn’t even happen. I promise.”

Her hands slid down to his chest but she didn’t move away as she finished laying it out.

“Now, I’m going to your room and I’m going to wait there for fifteen minutes. If you don’t show, no harm, no foul. I promise that, too. Nothing changes between us. No one knows anything.” She sucked in a breath and took a half step back, her hands falling away when she concluded in a quiet voice, “But,” she took a deep breath, “I really hope you show.”

With that, not giving him a chance to say another word, she turned and strutted her narrow ass back through the loud, rowdy, drunk bikers and their bitches, her hair swaying, her arms moving gracefully, her scent still in his nostrils.

“Shit,” he whispered when he watched her haul open the door to the Compound.

“Shit,” he repeated when the door closed behind her.

He kept his eyes on the door and he did this a while.

That woman, that crazy-gorgeous woman, was right now in his room.

“Shit,” he whispered yet again right before he made his way to the door.

* * *

Hopper broke contact with Lanie’s hooded eyes, eyes that were a fuckuva lot sexier since he’d just come inside her and he did it hard and he did it long and he shoved his face in her neck.

All he could smell was her. All he could feel was her warm, soft body under his—one of her legs wrapped around the back of his thigh, the other one cocked high, her thigh pressed to his side but her calf swung in, her heel resting in the small of his back. Her arms were tight around him, one at his shoulders, one angled, resting along his spine. Last, he could feel his cock buried in her unbelievably tight, wet cunt.

He didn’t know what it was. Maybe it was that she’d never had kids. Maybe it was because it had been so long since she’d had a man. Whatever it was, her pussy was close to virgin it was so tight. Luckily, it was also sleek. Luckier, it tasted like goddamned honey.

He’d been right when they were talking outside.

This was about to get complicated.

Her head moved and he felt her lips at his ear even as he heard her soft, tentative words. “Was that all right?”

Hop closed his eyes even as his hips reflexively pressed into hers and he gently fisted the hand he had buried in her hair.

She was worried she was out of practice. She was worried it wasn’t good for him. And considering the fact that, if she was out of practice, when she got into the swing of things, she’d be off-the-charts, her worry was both cute and sweet and, like everything else about her, it did a number on him.

Yes, things were going to get complicated.

He opened his eyes, moved his head so his lips were at her ear, and murmured, “Lady, I don’t fake it. Not only because I can’t but because, even if I could, I wouldn’t.”

All her limbs convulsed around him even as her cunt did the same and, Jesus, God, it felt seriously fucking good.

Then it got better when her body started moving under him and he heard her husky, low chuckle in his ear.

He lifted his head in an effort to watch her face in laughter through the dark. Once she got back to Denver and Tyra got her hands on her, Lanie laughed a lot. He liked watching her laugh. It was always, every time he saw it, a good show.

It was better now because he could feel it. Even though he couldn’t see much, the little he saw was still pure beauty.

Totally complicated.

He liked her smell. He liked her feel. He liked the sound of her low laughter. He liked her uncertainty. He liked how hard she made him come. And he liked how hard she came for him, her pussy tightening around his cock, her long limbs wound around his body holding on, her soft pants and moans sweet to his ear and, best of all, the look on her beautiful face when he gave it to her.

Totally fucking complicated.

He waited until she stopped laughing before he slid his hand out of her hair to her jaw and then rubbed the pad of his thumb across her lips while he asked, “How you feelin’?”

“Uh… good,” she answered, her words meant to be an obvious understatement, her lips moving against his thumb tilting up even as she spoke.