Kristen Ashley - Fire Inside

Bar none.

I’d done the right thing, marrying Hop.

And evidence was suggesting it was the same for my man.

Liberace told us no one had ever shouted like that after a ceremony. He did this making it clear he wished everyone did.

Liberace with his purple pompadour was also in some of our wedding photos. He was grinning like a lunatic. It was hilarious. But there was no doubt he genuinely loved his job.

Hop was right.

The dress, ring, flowers, all of it terrified me because that was what had led me and Elliott to Kansas City.

But jeans, roses, and Liberace were perfect.

“Is everything okay?” Tyra asked.

“Yes,” I answered in a massive understatement. “Just, can you call Tabby and Shy and ask them to watch the boys so you and Tack can go out to dinner with us?”

“Sure, honey.”

“I gotta go,” I told her and I did. I had to call my assistant at home on a Sunday and tell her I wouldn’t be back in the office until Tuesday.

But first, I had to cuddle a little bit more with my husband.

“Okay. See you soon.”

“Right. ’Bye, sweetie.”

“ ’Bye, Lanie.”

I tossed my phone on the bed then moved my fingers to Hop’s forearm and traced the pattern of fire. After I did that a while, I moved my finger to trace my shield.

“My name is Lanie Kincaid,” I told his chest.

“Sure the fuck is,” Hop replied on a growl and I lifted my head to look at him.

His handsome face was set hard, determined much like he looked when he talked about what he did to get Chaos out of the bad place they were in to a good place of family.

Family.

“Are you genuinely happy, Hopper Kincaid?” I asked softly.

“Abso-fuckin’-lutely, Lanie Kincaid,” he stated firmly.

Wow.

That sounded beautiful.

I lifted a hand to his face and traced the side of his mustache with my thumb, watching it go before I lifted my eyes to him.

“For the first time since I was eleven and for the first time in my whole life, it being totally honest and completely real, I am too.”

He knifed up, his arms going around me, and he rolled us so he was on top then he kissed me.

“I think I have a clue how much you love me now, Hop,” I told him when he broke the kiss.

“Good to know, baby,” he said through a grin.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“So far from a hardship, it isn’t funny, lady, but you’re welcome.”

I lifted my head, sifting my fingers in his overlong hair, smelling his spicy scent, feeling his ’tache tickle my skin and I kissed my husband.

It was the best kiss of my life.

Up until then.

I would find that Hop, as ever, would keep making them better.

One week later…

His phone rang and Hop opened his eyes feeling his wife’s weight pressed to his side, their legs tangled, and her cheek on his pec.

She shifted sleepily as he reached out a hand to the nightstand to grab his phone, seeing from the alarm clock it was early morning. As in way early morning. He looked at his display and saw it was Tack calling. They’d had dinner with him and Cherry the night before, where they shared their good news.

All of it. Tack and Tyra had been happy for them, Tyra over the moon. So much so Hop didn’t know if she was happier about the baby than the marriage.

It didn’t matter.

His woman had beamed through dinner, showing off her ring, touching her hand to her stomach, and Hop again didn’t know if Lanie was happier about their baby or their marriage.

That was what mattered.

All was good in the family.

But a middle-of-the-night phone call was never good news.

Ever.

He put the phone to his ear and muttered, “You got me.”

“Callout, brother,” Tack replied. “Benito.”

Fuck, he thought

“Be there in fifteen,” he said.

“Later.”

“Later.”

He tossed his phone to the nightstand as he felt Lanie stretch, pressing into him.

“Is everything okay?” she murmured, her voice drowsy and sweet.

“Yeah,” he lied.

His woman was good in all the ways she could be. The short-term therapy counselor had suggested long-term therapy and Lanie had found someone she liked working with. They were winding things up seeing as his woman… no, his wife… had moved beyond the heavy shit and had been given the tools to deal with how her thoughts and memories twisted themselves and tortured her.

She still threw dramas but they were not embedded in dysfunction.

She came home from work and ranted about shit that was fixable, thus mostly unimportant, but was important to get off her chest.

She hilariously lost it when she got caught up in something and burned her first attempt at making Cody’s birthday cake.

And she bitched while he bit back laughter at the antics of her mother and father; strike that, her sober, seriously pissed off mother and her asshole father. Lanie and Lis were Team Joellyn all the way as Joellyn made maneuvers to take her husband to the cleaners. Edward had backtracked, saying he wanted her back, and none of the Heron women could tell if he said that because he knew he’d lose a vast chunk of his fortune or he was falling back in love with the woman he’d married now that she was sober. None of them cared, either. It was an all-out female Heron offensive to make that dirtbag pay.

Hop was loving it and, even if she bitched, he knew Lanie was too. She had one parent back and she’d learned the hard way how precious life was. She wasn’t wasting any of it on an unnecessary grudge.

But the business with Benito Valenzuela was something else.

He wouldn’t let her worry. He wouldn’t let her think anything about Benito if he could control it.

So he was going to control it.

Even if he had to lie.

But he was worried about it. The one thing that could set her to sliding back was this, if she found out how bad it was, and how it kept getting worse.

“Gotta go do something with Chaos,” he told her, rolling her to her back and leaning in to kiss her throat but bracing for her reaction.

“Okay, honey.”

Okay?

He lifted his head up and looked at her shadowed face.

She turned to her side, curled her legs up but stretched her neck to brush her lips against his collarbone.

Then she settled back in.

He stared at her.

Fuck. She trusted him.

Fuck. She was good with letting him go out in the middle of the night on unknown business for Chaos.

Hop gave it a beat to let that settle then bent and kissed her neck again, smoothing a hand over her hip then in, up her nightie and to her stomach. “Take care of Ellie while I’m gone.”

“Happy to take care of Butch while you’re gone,” she mumbled dozily, and he felt his lips tip up.

He wanted a daughter who looked like his wife. His wife had informed him she wanted a son who looked like her husband.

God would decide but it was fun arguing about something that meant everything knowing neither of them really cared which way it went.

But “Butch” was new.

“Butch?” he asked.

“Ty-Ty took all the cute baby boy biker names. I’m calling him Butch until I can come up with something else.”

Fuck yeah, she was sleepy and joking.

She trusted him.

Hop stifled laughter and told her, “Ellie’s a girl, Lanie.”

“Butch is a boy, Hopper.”

“We’ll see,” he muttered, leaning in to give his wife another light kiss.

“Yeah. We will,” she replied, cuddled deeper into the bed and he rolled out.

Hop got dressed and went back to find his woman sleeping. He reached out, pulled the covers high and tucked her in.

Then he grabbed his phone, went downstairs to the locked cabinet, got his knife, moved to his safe and tagged his gun.

Then he walked out to his garage and hopped on his bike.

“Do not fire! Chaos, do not fire!” Tack roared and Hop, crouched behind a hospital bed on a goddamned fucking porno set of all fucking places, with his arms up and resting on the bed, gun pointed at one of Benito’s men, stayed still but kept his finger on the trigger.

He took his eyes off his mark to look at Tack who had his mouth tight. His gaze was on Shy, who had blood oozing down his neck because he just got winged by a ricochet bullet from one of Benito’s men’s guns.

Tack looked back at Benito and Hop looked back at his mark as he heard Tack growl, “Jesus Christ, are you shittin’ me?”

They were there to rescue Tabby’s best friend Natalie. Tabby had been tight with Natalie for years. Hop knew her. The girl had been on Chaos and he’d seen her around. She was bad news in that sad way you knew, just looking into her eyes, that she’d chosen her path in life to numb some pain she didn’t have the courage to face.

They’d been briefed, before they went to extract her from her film debut, that she got herself a habit to numb that pain. Then she got in deep with Benito and he was taking it out in trade. In other words, she had a bit part that was very active in his latest porno flick.

She wasn’t big on doing this, so she called Tabby for a Chaos rescue. Shy stepped up for his woman and the boys rolled out.

Strategically, this was not good. Benito kept pushing, Chaos kept pushing back. So far, they had been able to keep Benito and his pushers and whores out of Chaos territory, but it was an ongoing battle. Regardless, hostilities had not escalated.