Kristen Ashley - Fire Inside

Instead, I wrapped my arms around him and held tight.

“What’re we doin’ for dinner?” he asked.

I closed my eyes and held tighter.

He was letting it be.

I so totally loved him.

I opened my eyes and dropped my head back. “Takeout?”

“Works for me.”

I gave him a shaky smile.

His return smile wasn’t shaky.

“Hop?”

“Right here, lady.”

“Find it in you to give Shy and Tab a chance.”

“You already talked me to that conclusion, babe.”

Yes. I was in love with Hopper Kincaid.

“Good,” I whispered.

“Chinese, pizza, or Mexican?” he asked.

“You pick.”

“Mexican,” he decided.

“Perfect,” I agreed.

He dropped his lips and brushed them against mine, his ’tache tickling me.

Then he let me go and went to the fridge to get a beer.

I watched him, thinking, a badass biker in faded jeans, a faded black henley and beat up motorcycle boots. He needed a haircut and a shave. He used profanity way too often. And there were shadowy things in his life he had to protect me from.

But, yes.

All that was perfect.

Absolutely.

Three days later…

I stood at the sink in Hop’s bathroom, wearing nothing but my underwear, looking at myself in the mirror, so I didn’t miss it when Hop, in a pair of cutoff black sweats, slid in behind me.

I watched with some fascination as he wrapped his flame-tattooed arms around me and dropped his head to touch his lips to my shoulder.

His mustache tickled and I felt that thrill on my shoulder and down my spine.

He needed a shave, like four days ago.

I didn’t tell him this because, although he needed one, I liked it that he was a man who didn’t care.

He lifted his head and caught my eyes in the mirror.

“You good?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Sure?” he pushed.

“No,” I whispered.

Today was the day.

I’d told him the night before that I was ready. I was going to take off work a bit early the next day, hit Ride and talk to Tyra.

I’d had several conversations with Tyra since the Tabby and Shy drama went down to make certain all was well, and because she shared that prior to the faceoff in the Compound, she and Tabby had had a scene. Ty-Ty felt badly she jumped to conclusions about Shy and she’d hurt Tabby, who she adored.

Further, we’d learned that Tabby’s mother had shown on Chaos when she was not wanted (and when the boys told you that you weren’t wanted, any sane person would stay away) to share the news that Tabby’s grandmother had died. So I also wanted to see if Tabby was okay without bothering Tabby, who’d had a rough couple of days, in order to ask.

So I was going to Ride to take my friend’s pulse.

I was also going to Ride to talk to her about how I felt about what befell her because of Elliott and the decision I made and… God… to find out how she felt about it.

Last, I was going to tell her that Hop and I were together, I was in love with him, and I hoped we’d be together for, well… ever.

And I was terrified.

“She loves you,” Hop told my reflection, pressing his front deeper into my back. “She doesn’t blame you. But she worries about you. This will make her feel better and, however that monster is twisting it inside you, lady, I swear to fuck, it’ll make you feel better too.”

I hoped he was right.

Hop watched the anxiety move through my features and his arms got tighter.

“Baby, seriously, it’s been fuckin’ years. You think she’d drink with you, let you spend time with her boys, make you a part of her family, if she held a grudge?”

“This feeling isn’t logical, Hop.”

“This feeling, honey, isn’t about Tyra.”

I blinked.

“What?”

He held my eyes in the mirror then he kissed my shoulder again before looking back at me. “You get this step done, we’ll get into the rest of it later.”

My hands moved quickly to his arms when he made a move to let me go, so he stopped.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Proud of you,” he replied and that was nice but it didn’t answer my question so I opened my mouth to speak but he kept going before I could start. “This is a big step. I see it’s takin’ a lot out of you. But you know in your gut she doesn’t blame you. You blame yourself. That’s somethin’ else to get over. But, baby, this is about that and it’s more. No one, man or woman, lies bleedin’ on a floor with someone they love lyin’ dead feet away and comes away from that unmarked. Your issues don’t end here, lady. My guess, you’re focusin’ on this so you won’t focus on that. So we’ll focus on this, get past it, then I’ll help you focus on that. But bottom line, step by step, we’ll beat this shit.”

“I’m not sure that makes me feel better, Hop,” I confessed.

“And you aren’t gonna feel better for a while, Lanie,” he told me flat out. “You go into battle, it fucks you up. Then you come out a winner, you’re just that, a winner.”

“Okay, that’s nice and all but, I have to admit, now I really don’t feel better. I’m not big on being fucked up,” I told him and he grinned.

Then he asked, “Where am I?”

I didn’t understand the question so I asked back, “What?”

“Where am I?” he repeated and when I still looked confused, he went on, “Right now, Lanie, where am I standing?”

It sifted through me what he meant and left warmth in its wake.

“At my back,” I answered softly.

“At your back, baby, now and always,” he replied, kissed my shoulder again, gave me a squeeze and another sexy grin. Then he let me go and walked away.

I looked at myself in the mirror.

And I felt better.

I wasn’t feeling better as I walked up the concrete stairs that led to Tyra’s office at Ride.

That feeling had worn off now that the time had come.

Tyra was the office manager at Ride and had been since before she and Tack got married. They’d met because she got hired there. That was, the weekend before she started work, she’d gone to what she thought was a company party but was really a Chaos hog roast blowout. Tack plied her with tequila and shrouded her with his hot guy, badass aura and she’d fallen in his bed and in love with him in one night.

Unfortunately, at the time, Tack just thought she was a piece of ass and made that clear to Ty-Ty. He also didn’t know she was his new office manager. When he found out, he tried to fire her, but she lost her mind. He woke up when she served up the Ty-Ty attitude and, from that point on, went balls to the wall to win her.

He succeeded.

The rest was history.

I was thinking this instead of re-rehearsing (for the seven thousandth time) what I was going to say when I opened the door and moved into Tyra’s office.

I got two big smiles.

Elvira was there.

This was good. Elvira might be crazy but she was also honest and loyal. Further, the woman was pathologically social but it wasn’t about not being alone or collecting all the friends she could get. It was just that she had a lot of goodness to give and she gave it without hesitation. I’d seen her make BFFs in a bar with a woman on the stool beside her that she’d never met and she broke the land speed record doing this. She was so infectious with her personality and so obviously someone you’d want to know.

Hop—right then I knew since he promised he would be—was in the Compound waiting for me to come to him after this was over. He figuratively had my back from afar.

Elvira being there meant she’d have it from up close.

“Hey,” I called as I closed the door behind me.

“Hey honey,” Ty-Ty called back.

“Get this,” Elvira announced in greeting. “After the big to-do with Tabby, now we’ve learned Hop’s got some bitch he’s nailin’ on the sly and the boys won’t say who she is.”

I stopped dead and blinked.

Oh God!

“What I want to know is, why it’s a secret,” Tyra said to Elvira. “I mean, I understand why Tab and Shy kept their secret, but why Hop? He isn’t a secretive guy.” She grinned. “I’m guessing she’s a librarian.”

Elvira threw her head back and laughed at the very idea of Hopper Kincaid and a librarian.

“Maybe a female cop,” Ty-Ty went on, her voice trembling with amusement. “The boys would freak if he was doing the nasty with a cop.”

Elvira, clearly finding this the height of amusement, which I did not, kept laughing.

“What we know is,” Tyra carried on, “she isn’t a stripper at Smithie’s, a cocktail waitress, again at Smithie’s, or one of those women who wears their tank tops cut off so it shows the bottom of their boobs while they stand on a podium with a new bike at shows and does the old, ‘you buy this bike, you might be able to lay a biker babe like me,’ gig.” Tyra’s dancing eyes came to me. “Hop’s usual biker babe of choice.”

My breath caught in my throat.

Elvira kept right on laughing.

“Though that’s good,” Ty-Ty unfortunately continued blabbing. “Biker babes like that get it when it comes to bikers like Hop.”

My stomach clenched.

What did that mean?

“Bikers like Hop?” Elvira, always one for juicy gossip, immediately quit laughing in order to hone in on this snippet and do what she always did. Draw it out.

“Yeah,” Tyra said. “He’s a good guy, I like him. Seriously, and I know it’s going to sound crazy because, well, I somehow feel like I shouldn’t but I just do. Maybe it’s because Tack likes him and respects him. Maybe it’s because I know he’s down with the brotherhood in a big way and he’d do anything for Tack, me, my boys. Maybe it’s just because he’s mellow and good to be around. Still, unlike the other guys, with Hop it’s a struggle.”