Kristen Ashley - Fire Inside

She laid there and stared up at him, not saying a word, so Hop gave her an alternate option.

“Or are you gonna lie there and stare at me?”

“I think I need to lie here and stare at you for about thirty more seconds,” she whispered and Hop felt his lips twitch.

Then he offered quietly, “Have at it, baby.”

“Though, while lying here staring at you, I’m just going to say, I really like your mustache,” she told him.

“Good to know,” he muttered, his lips still twitching.

“It’s badass biker cool,” she went on.

“Right,” he kept muttering, now through a grin.

“And it feels good on my neck and, well… other places,” she continued and his grin turned to a smile.

“Also good to know.”

“I think I’m done staring at you,” she announced.

“So, you gonna get busy?”

She’d lied.

She wasn’t done staring at him. He knew this because she kept staring for a beat before she lifted her head and touched her mouth to his.

“Yeah,” she whispered.

He grinned against her mouth before he kissed her, rolling her with him as he turned onto his back.

When he broke the kiss, she got busy and sucked him off in bed.

Like class.

Like a lady.

Dressed and sitting on the side of her bed, Hop shifted the soft, heavy hair off Lanie’s neck, leaned in and put his lips there.

“Tickles,” she murmured. He lifted his head and caught her eyes. “In a good way,” she finished.

“Good,” he murmured back and dipped his already close face closer. “Sun’s up, honey.”

“Yeah,” she whispered.

“Later,” he said.

“Yeah.” She drew in breath then asked, “Tonight?”

“You want that?”

She nodded her head on the pillow.

Excellent. He did too.

He lifted his lips to her temple, kissed her there, moved them to her ear and said softly, “You got it.”

Then, without another look at her in her bed, sleepy, sexy and sated, something he knew he couldn’t walk away from, he walked away from her, through her house and out the sliding glass door, putting Lanie Heron out of his mind.

Until tonight.

I was on a hand and my knees. My other arm was straight out, hand flat against my cream linen padded headboard, Hop behind me, fucking me hard.

I was close. This was good, the best.

The best I ever had.

Then he did what I knew he’d do—four nights, no matter how many times we did it, he always ended it the same way.

He pulled out and my head jerked around, my eyes went to him and I pleaded, “Hop. Please don’t. I’m close.”

He dropped to a hip at my side and pulled me over him. Head to my pillows and God, God, he looked hot, all that messy hair, that biker ’tache, his badass gorgeousness framed by my pale pink pillowcase.

“Ride me, lady,” he muttered and I didn’t make him ask twice.

I lifted up to straddle him, wrapped my hand around his cock, guided the tip inside and slid down until he filled me.

My head dropped back. I loved this, I missed it. He’d been pounding inside me not ten seconds before but having him back, it felt like I hadn’t had him in years.

Hop shifted then I felt his fingers slide into my hair so his hand could cup the back of my head. He tilted it down. I opened my eyes to see he’d knifed up so I was staring into his, close.

His eyes were intense. Always when we were like this, they were intense in a way I never felt before. Like he could read my thoughts. See into my head. Touch my soul through a gaze.

“Move, Lanie,” he murmured, and again, I didn’t make him ask twice.

My gaze held captive in his, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and moved. His arm snaked around my waist, holding me close so my body slid against his as I rode him, his hand cupped to my head pulling me down so my lips grazed his. Through this, his eyes held mine, not letting go.

My soft breaths whispered against his lips as it built again, just as his deep groans sounded against mine.

I was getting close. This was good, the best. The best.

The best I ever had.

His arm around my waist moved so his hand could glide over my belly and down. Suddenly, his thumb hit the spot and God, God, perfect aim.

Elliott couldn’t do that. Because I was me and more than a little crazy, I’d done the math and Elliott had hit the spot on his first try one out of every four times.

Hop never missed.

I closed my eyes as it shot through me, my head automatically arching back only to be caught in Hop’s grip, forced forward, my lips to his, my moans sounding in his mouth. I kept moving, faster, faster even as it shook me.

The best I ever had.

I finished and kept moving, my rhythm not breaking, needing to give to Hop what I’d just had. Needing to get it back. Needing it like a drug.

Hazy from my orgasm, I watched his face get dark, hungry. He was close.

Then he shoved my face into his neck as he shoved his into mine, his arm clamped around me, holding me down on his cock as he groaned deep, the sound vibrating against my skin.

Absolutely, bar none, the best I ever had.

Every time.

Damn.

After he came down, he loosened his arm around my waist but still held me close as his mouth worked my neck, his mustache tickling, making me shiver.

I returned the favor, gliding my lips along his neck, my tongue snaking out so I could touch the tip to his earlobe. When I did, his arm around me grew tighter.

I ran the tip of my tongue down his neck to his collarbone.

His arm again grew tighter.

He tasted good. He smelled good. Both man. All man. I couldn’t describe it. He didn’t wear cologne but his scent was spicy. Intoxicating.

It was… him.

His head went back, his hand in my hair relaxed and my head came up.

His eyes caught mine.

God, badass biker beauty.

Every inch.

“Climb off me, beautiful,” he murmured and I didn’t want to but I nodded, maneuvered up, sliding him out of me, and I moved off him, dropping to my side next to him.

That was when he did something that I was trying not to process. Something sweet. Something un-biker (or what I expected a biker to do). Something thoughtful.

Something gorgeous.

He pulled the sheet around my nudity and yanked a pillow down to shove it under me right before he bent deep and kissed the hair at the side of my head.

Damn.

I struggled. It was hard not to let his sweet actions penetrate and every night, every time he did something like that, it got harder.

Do… not… process, Lanie!

Curled around the pillow, my leg tangling in the sheets and comforter, straddling them, I managed to shove how I felt out of my head. Instead I watched him walk to the bathroom thinking that I liked how tall he was. Elliott hadn’t been taller than me. I’d towered over him in heels. I told myself I didn’t mind this and when he was alive and sweet and always being Elliott, I didn’t.

But having a tall man was fabulous.

And Hop’s sculpted ass made it all the more fabulous.

He hit the bathroom, the light went on and he disappeared.

I closed my eyes.

It was Saturday night. We’d started this at the hog roast on Wednesday.

Only bikers would have a blowout hog roast on a Wednesday night but then again, most of them had jobs where it didn’t matter that they showed up late and/or hungover and their hangers-on had jobs in bars or strip clubs; their shifts didn’t start until late so they had time to recuperate.

As for me, I came back to Denver and was greeted warmly (and in some cases with relief) by a number of old clients, so I made the mammoth decision to be my own boss. That was, the boss of an advertising agency, which was not conducive to having sex all night long and dragging into work the next morning. And Hop and I had been going at each other all night long, from dark to dawn, every night for four nights. I was exhausted.

Still, I wanted him to come back so I could have more. I was just going to have to inform him that he needed to do all the work.

He would not quibble. Unlike Elliott, Hop had staying power. He actually liked taking over, dominating, doing the hard work. Sure, I rode him on occasion but he didn’t lie back and enjoy it. He participated fully, like just now.

Elliott could start giving it to me but then he’d stop, panting and grunting, and ask me to take over and I always did. I didn’t mind. I liked the top.

Then again, I’d been in love with Elliott and you do stuff like that when you’re in love. You shove to the back of your head little things that bother you. Things you had before that you missed. Things like having a man who was all man fucking you until you ached but ached in a good way.

In my experience, which wasn’t vast but it also wasn’t limited, a man who was all man was usually a total jerk and an asshole and took both of these to extremes.

I felt Hop’s presence, opened my eyes and watched him walk back into my bedroom.

The back view, fabulous.

The front, God… staggering.

Never, not ever in my life, would the man I was staring at right then be a man I would expect to be in my bed.

But he was and he was, for the first time in my life, in my bed on my own damned terms.

When I met Hop years ago, I’d been in a drama because I’d just learned my fiancé was whacked. Even so, Hopper was the kind of guy that his looks, his charisma, all that was him, and there was a lot, could cut through anything. I was engaged to be married and in the throes of a crazy situation that only got crazier, so my mind didn’t go there but it did process all that was him. It was impossible for it not to.