Kristen Ashley - Fire Inside

“We can’t do that,” I repeated.

“And why the fuck not, Lanie?”

“We just can’t,” I told him.

“Are you shitting me?” he asked.

“No, I’m not,” I answered, that feeling growing, eating away huge, gluttonous bites of me.

Hop studied me a moment, his expression shifting, and he was talking quieter when he asked, “Ever?”

“Ever what?” I asked back.

“You don’t wanna tell them now. Are you ever gonna wanna tell them?”

Oh God.

How could I be standing there at the same time being eaten alive?

“Lanie?” Hop called but I just stood immobile, losing entire chunks of me to my monster. “Lanie!” Hop clipped, before he strode toward me, pulled the glass out of my hand, set it aside and wrapped his fingers around my upper arms. “Jesus, babe, what the fuck?”

“No, not ever. We can’t ever tell them about us,” I whispered, staring into his eyes.

He moved his hands to either side of my head and dipped his face close.

His eyes roamed my features before he murmured, “It’s got you. Fuck, Jesus, I’m standin’ here watchin’ that monster tear you apart.”

“We can’t tell them,” I stated.

“Why?” he asked.

“We can’t ever tell them,” I declared, my voice getting loud.

“Why, baby?” he asked, his voice going gentle.

“I don’t want them to know,” I told him.

“Why don’t you want them to know, honey?” he pushed.

“They can’t know.”

“Lanie, get this shit out.”

I stared into his eyes, feeling his warm hands on either side of my head, his body close. and the monster shoved its arm down my throat and dredged up, “She told me.”

“Keep goin’,” Hop encouraged.

“To break it off with him.”

Hop closed his eyes.

“I didn’t.”

Hop opened his eyes.

“Tyra told me to break it off with Elliott after we got kidnapped by the Russian Mob that first time.”

“Okay, Lanie, baby, that’s good, it’s enough. Shut this shit down now.”

I didn’t shut it down. The monster was dragging it out.

“I didn’t listen. I told her through better or worse.”

“Fuck,” he murmured, shifting so he could curl me in his arms.

I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my cheek into his shoulder.

“It got worse,” I whispered.

Hop didn’t answer. He just stood there holding me tight.

I held him back the same way.

After this went on for a while, Hop gave me a squeeze and asked, “You with me?”

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Breakin’ that shit down and, lady, stop me if I got this wrong, but you made a decision about your man, it got your girl hurt and you’re carryin’ that shit around, transferrin’ it on your new man.”

I hadn’t thought about it that way. In fact, I hadn’t thought about it at all.

“Maybe,” I told his shoulder.

“You wanna end this?” he asked.

“End what?”

“End us.”

I felt my entire body wind so tight, I feared it would snap, hurtling me across the room like a broken rubber band. I pulled my head back to look at him.

“Do you?” My voice trembled on those two words.

“Fuck no,” he replied instantly and I felt my brow furrow.

“Then why did you ask?”

“Because, babe, neither of us wants to end this, she’s your girl, Tack’s my brother. How the fuck are we gonna go on hidin’ what we have from them?”

He had a point.

“We have to.”

My mouth said it before my brain caught up and I watched his head jerk to the side.

“Lady—”

“For a while,” I finished and he stared at me.

“You wanna know it’s solid,” he guessed.

“I want this monster out of me,” I confessed, pressing closer. “I want… I wanna be able to face them both and know. Know I believe. Know I’m right this time. After what happened last time, how bad it was, how we nearly lost Ty-Ty, I have to know this time. It has to be solid. For you. For me. So Tyra can believe.”

His face changed, unease washing through his expression and he told me, “You were right the last time, baby. He did wrong but you did right.”

I shook my head and Hop watched me do it.

Hop let me go, shifted us both into the couch, tucking me tight to his side. I lifted up my legs and curled them on the couch beside me as I snaked an arm across his stomach and pressed my forehead into his neck.

“For a while, babe, we’ll keep this between you and me,” he gave in. “But you gotta remember that I’m easin’ you into my kids’ lives and I’m not gonna ask them to lie. Kids say shit and they are not strangers to Chaos. You also gotta be aware that High picked me up here so he knows and I asked him not to talk but I am not gonna get in his face if he does. So if you keep this from your girl, you’re walkin’ a tightrope, baby, and the longer this carries on, if she finds out before we share, the more you’re gonna have to explain.”

I nodded.

I’d worry about that later.

A lot later.

“Right,” he muttered and I pressed closer.

We fell silent and neither of us broke it for a good long while.

Finally, Hop did.

“Don’t know who won this one, the monster or us,” he mused.

I didn’t either.

I just knew it was an entirely different experience, battling that monster with Hop at my back.

“You sensed something was up, called Sheila to stay with the kids and drove all the way here to talk with me,” I reminded him.

“Yeah,” he agreed and I lifted up to look at him.

“That monster always bests me, honey, but I’m thinking you did great.”

Another expression washed through his features, this one better. Surprise and satisfaction.

I got to enjoy it for half a second before he kissed me.

When he broke the kiss, I noted, “I hate to bring this up but we have to figure out what to do about this set up.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll deal with it.”

I stared at him. “How are you going to deal with it?”

“I’ll think of something.”

After Hopper Kincaid said those four words, there was one thing I knew with a surety that was astonishing.

He would.

One way or another, Hop would think of something and make my troubles go away.

I liked this so much, to communicate just how much, I pressed my forehead back into his neck and burrowed close.

Letting go of that scene, a thought came to me.

“So, uh… I’m taking it from this conversation that you want us to be exclusive?” I asked and felt his body tense before it shook slightly with laughter.

“Uh, yeah, babe. I want us to be exclusive,” he confirmed, his words also shaking with laughter.

Good to know.

No. Great to know.

I burrowed closer before I told him, “If we’re exclusive, you should know, I have the birth control thing covered.”

There was no laughter in his voice. He sounded surprised when he asked, “You good with me ungloved?”

I pulled my face out of his neck and again looked at him. “I don’t know. What did you mean when you said, ‘shit happens’ that night you got angry with me?”

“It means, for your peace of mind, I’m visiting a clinic.”

Hop, for me, was visiting a clinic.

Yes, oh yes, it just kept getting better.

I smiled at him. He smiled back before his hand sifted in my hair and he pressed my forehead against his neck. He held me for a while before he told he had to get back to his kids.

He kissed me again and I walked him out to his bike, where I kissed him.

Then he told me he wasn’t leaving until he saw my outside light go on and off, indicating I was safely locked inside.

That was sweet and protective so I kissed him again.

Ten minutes later, I flicked my light on and off, indicating to Hopper I was safely locked inside.

But I stood inside feeling something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

Safe.

One week and three days later…

“So, how did it happen for you?”

“How’d what happen for me?”

I moved my face out of Hop’s throat and looked down at him. “How did you find Chaos?”

It was Sunday morning and we were in his bed in the Compound. Considering we were still keeping our relationship a secret, this was a risk. However, last night, I’d joined Tyra and our friends Gwen and Elvira at the Compound for drinks prior to going out. This was at Tyra’s invitation, and even though I would have preferred to spend my Saturday evening with Hop, in order to hide what we had, I’d agreed.

Tack, Brick, Shy, Tug, and Big Petey were all there so we ended up not going out and instead, we all got plastered in the common room.

Later in the evening, after some clandestine texting to let Hop know where I was, he showed.

This was fun, too fun. Then again, times with Ty-Ty always were. Throw Elvira and Gwen in the mix, it went off the charts.

Elvira was a black woman who was totally crazy (but in good ways). Gwen was a white woman who was only slightly less crazy than Elvira but I figured this had to do with the fact that she was married to Hawk Delgado. I wasn’t sure since Gwen didn’t talk about it, but considering he always wore cargo pants, skintight shirts, sturdy boots, a forbidding expression and a gun belt, I figured Hawk was a commando.

An actual commando.

My guess was, being married to a commando curtailed your level of craziness, because no one wanted to call home to a hubby who was a commando and explain the trouble they’d got themselves into. I didn’t know but I figured commandos had enough trouble professionally. They didn’t need their wives buying them more.