Fire Inside: A Chaos Novel (13 page)

All of this was true too.

Very true.

Hop continued, “Other Clubs might be about the brothers, the bikes, the carousing. You look at our leader, you know
exactly
what this Club is about. So do not lie there and tell me you know differently.”

Obviously, I’d struck a nerve and, unfortunately, he was right, I was wrong,
very
wrong, and worse, I felt terrible about it.

So terrible, I couldn’t let it stand. It was only fair that I admit I was wrong.

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” he replied.

“Well, I’m sorry I said that since you’re right. I know it’s not true,” I told him. “Not with Chaos.”

“Was gonna let it lie, seein’ as your head’s fucked up, but you keep fightin’ me, had to point it out,” Hop returned.

Okay, I was beginning to feel less terrible and more annoyed.

“I’d like to request that you stop telling me my head’s fucked up.”

“Let me help you get it straight, I’ll quit tellin’ you that shit,” he retorted.

I clenched my teeth.

Then I unclenched them to say, “Hop, I keep telling you that isn’t going to happen.”

“And Lanie, clue in, I’m not
not
gonna let it happen.”

My heart started beating hard and I brought us full circle.

“Who’s Benito?” I asked.

“Told you, you know as much as you’re gonna know about Benito.”

“Who’s Benito?” I repeated.

“Babe—”

“Who’s Benito?”

“Lanie—”

“Who’s Benito?”

His brows drew together. “Goddamn it, lady—”

All of a sudden loud and shrill, I shrieked in his face,
“Who’s Benito?”

Hop went perfectly still on top of me but his eyes grew intent, watchful, concerned as his fingers flexed into my jaw.

“Who’s Benito, Hop?” I asked.

“Baby, please, breathe deep, calm down and let’s be quiet a few seconds. You calm down, I’ll get us some coffee and we’ll talk.”

“Answer my question,” I demanded.

“Lanie—”

“God!” I shouted. Unable to roll him off, I scooched up, shoved out and, miracle of miracles, found myself free so I scrambled across the bed.

Hop reached for me but stopped when I did, on my knees in his bed a few feet away from him. Without hesitation, my hands went to his tee and yanked up. I tossed it aside so in his bed he saw nothing but me in a pair of teeny-weeny, black lace panties.

I didn’t hesitate to reach out and grab his wrist, pulling it to me and flattening his hand to the scar under my breast.

I leaned in and reminded him, “I had a man, Hop, who did dangerous stuff and didn’t tell me.”

Realization dawned clear in his features. He adjusted, coming to his knees, his eyes glued to me. They were pained, troubled,
disturbed
, and I noted this as he whispered, “Lady.”

I jerked his hand down to the mutilated skin on my belly.

“Wanna guess how big I am on letting
any
man in my life and then wanna guess again how big I am on letting in a man who lives dangerously?” I shook my head and didn’t give him a chance to speak. “Don’t bother. I’ll tell you.” I pressed his hand into my flesh. “It is
not
gonna happen.”

He shifted closer, his free hand moving to my hip and around. I felt his body heat as he gently pulled my chest toward his and his chin dipped down to keep hold of my eyes.

“I don’t live dangerously, Lanie,” he said softly.

“Who’s Benito?” I repeated yet again.

His mouth shut and his jaw clenched.

I closed my eyes and turned my head away.

He forced his hand out of my hold and brought it up to wrap around my jaw, forcing me to face him so he could again capture my eyes.

When he accomplished this task, he said quietly, “I would never let anything hurt you.”

My reply was not quiet. “I don’t believe you.”

“Give me the chance to prove it to you,” he requested.

“No,” I answered. His hand slid from my jaw, up and back so his fingers sifted in my hair even as his face dipped super close, his eyes scanning my features before locking to mine.

“Lanie, baby, I can see what you can’t. This shit is eating you alive.”

“Good. At least that shit is company,” I snapped and watched him wince.

He recovered and stated, “You gotta get rid of it. Let me in. Let me help you get rid of it.”

“Not a chance.”

His hand slid back into my hair, fisting gently, and I knew what that meant.

He was not going to let me move. He was not going to release my eyes.

I would understand why when he admitted, “Last night, you didn’t hear me.”

This came out of the blue, surprising me, so I asked, “What?”

“I know the story. Fuck, babe, everyone does.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You put yourself in front of him. Boy that drilled holes in you, that the cops found, thought he could lessen his sentence by sayin’ you weren’t the target. He didn’t go there to hurt you. Wasn’t gonna touch you. Certainly not pump rounds into you. Says, first, you threw yourself in front of Belova and then, second, Belova used you as a shield.”

At his words, I jerked violently in his arms.

This got me on my back with him on me, his hand still in my hair, his eyes still imprisoning mine.

“Not that that shit is ever fuckin’ gonna go down again, but luck turns sour. If it does, no way, babe. No way would you be my shield.”

“Get off me,” I hissed.

“No way would I let you put yourself in the path of a bullet for me.”

“Get off me!” I snapped.

“No way I’d let you put yourself in the path of
anything
for me.”

“Get…
off!
”

He didn’t get off.

He kept right on talking.

“That’s the point I’m tryin’ to make. If you don’t know shit, you don’t feel shit. You breathe easy if you take a chance on me. What I do, I do. What the Club does, it does. You’ll learn to trust me, the brothers, Tack. I don’t use you as a shield. I
am
the goddamn shield, and I’m not talkin’ about bullets because shit like that does not touch old ladies.
Ever.
I’m talkin’ about assholes with monster trucks. I’m talkin’ about Club business, life, every second you live, every breath you take. You take a chance on me, your biggest worry is your 7Up fizzing over.”

“You can’t promise that,” I told him.

“Yes, I can,” he told me.

“You think Tack promised that to Tyra before they took her and stuck her until she almost bled to death?”

His face got soft and his voice was cautious but tender when he returned, “I think you don’t wanna go there since it wasn’t Tack who got Tyra stuck.”

It was my turn to clench my jaw and, unable to turn my head away, I closed my eyes tight.

He was right, it was Elliott who did that and, through Elliott, me.

“Lady, look at me,” Hop ordered gently.

I opened my eyes.

“Take a chance on me,” he whispered.

“No,” I whispered back.

“Take a chance on me,” he repeated.

“No,” I repeated too.

“Baby,” his lips dropped to mine but his eyes didn’t let mine go, “Christ, I’m beggin’ you, let me in. Let me help. Let me in so I can untie that shit you got wound up inside you.”

I held his eyes.

Then I pushed my head in the pillows. He got my message, lifted his lips from mine and I announced, “I stepped in front of those bullets.”

I felt his body jerk then still.

I wasn’t done.

“He let me,” I shared.

He closed his eyes and murmured, “Fuck me, Lanie.”

“Look at me, Hopper.”

He opened his eyes and God,
God,
they were so intense it was a wonder they didn’t burn two holes straight through me.

“I’m not taking a chance on you,” I declared. “I am not taking a chance on anybody.”

His eyes started burning a different way.

“He was alive, I’d fuckin’ kill him,” he clipped.

“Well then, it’s good he’s dead. Now get off me,” I returned.

“Seven years, Lanie, you’ve held that monster inside and, I’ll repeat, it’s eatin’ you alive.”

“I know that monster, Hop, I understand it,” I sort of lied. I knew it before. Since I propositioned Hop at a hog roast, it was acting unpredictably. “It’s the world outside I don’t understand,” I finished and that was the honest to goodness truth.

“Then come full into Chaos, Lanie. Our world is simple. You got nothin’ to understand but family.”

God! He had an answer for
everything.

“Please listen to me. That’s not going to
happen,
” I stressed.

He went quiet.

So did I.

He ended the silence.

“I’ll wear you down,” he proclaimed.

“No, you won’t,” I denied.

“You won’t let me in, I’ll break in, sneak in, blast in,” he promised.

“You won’t
get
in,” I contradicted.

He shut up again and stared at me.

After long moments, I watched as suddenly, weirdly and, most of all, scarily, he saw something in me that made his face clear.

I didn’t think that was good.

I would find out I was right.

“Let you in on a secret, babe, and you think on this,” he told me.

I was not going to think on
anything.

“Hop… get…
off…
me,” I snapped.

His body pressed into mine so he could lift his hands up and frame my face.

“I’m
already
in. Just gotta wait for you to realize it.”

This, unfortunately, was a scary statement because, more unfortunately, I suspected he was not wrong. Furthering my misfortune, he’d read that in my face, which meant he knew or was learning how to read me.

This was not good.

At all.

Hiding my discomfiture, I advised, “Don’t hold your breath.”

He dropped his head, touched his lips to mine then lifted, shifting to plant his forearms in the bed at my sides. “You want me to take you back to your car?”

“Not on your life,” I answered.

His mouth twitched.

Then he asked, “Want me to ask one of the boys to do it?”

“Absolutely not,” I answered.

His mouth curved.

“Wanna fuck real quick before you go?”

I didn’t “wanna fuck real quick”. I actually wanted to fuck real slow.

I didn’t tell him that.

I demanded, “Get off me.”

He rolled off me.

I tried not to feel disappointment and rolled the other way.

As I hastily dressed, I informed him, “I’m stealing your tee since you messed up my blouse.”

“I’ll buy you a new one,” he said from the bed.

“Don’t bother,” I muttered, then felt it important to note, “And I’m not stealing your tee because it’s yours.”

It was his turn to mutter and when he did, he muttered, “Right.”

“I’m not,” I declared, zipping up my skirt.

“I believe you, lady,” he stated like he absolutely did not.

I decided to let that go and get out of there.

Sandals in hand, I moved to his jeans on the floor and yanked out my phone before I moved to my purse in his easy chair. I grabbed it and walked to the door barefoot.

I did this intent on leaving, intent on not looking at him. Just as, when he left me, he didn’t look at me.

So intent, I didn’t think when he called my name when I was at the door, and I looked at him.

He was lying naked across the bed, up on an elbow, head in his hand, eyes on me, looking so amazing I had absolutely no idea how I didn’t throw my stuff aside, rush across the room, take a flying leap and join him.

“See you tonight,” he stated. My head jerked because I was focused on my thoughts, so his words came as a surprise.

“What?” I asked.

“See you tonight,” he repeated.

I finally got it together and therefore was able to lie. “I’m busy tonight.”

He didn’t say anything.

“So I won’t see you,” I went on.

“You’ll see me,” he declared and my eyes narrowed on him.

“Hop—”

“Tack’s comin’ down the mountain, lady. You wanna be gone before he gets here or any boys around get up, you better haul ass,” he advised.

Damn!

“Careful of High,” Hop went on. “He’s curious so he’s gonna be lurking.”

Double damn!

“You sure you don’t want me to take you to your car?” he asked.

“I don’t want anything from you,” I answered.

He grinned.

I glared.

This went on for some time before he prompted, “Babe, you don’t want anything from me, why are you standing in my room staring at me?”

Gah!

“I’m not staring, I’m glaring,” I countered.

“What you’re doin’ is hangin’ on to an argument that’s long since over ’cause you don’t wanna leave me,” he shot back.

God.

I gave him one last glare, opened the door and shot through it.

I didn’t slam it.

I walked as quietly as I could through the Compound, calling a taxi service while I made my way to the door. I then walked as quickly as I could through the forecourt of Ride while I ordered my taxi. Last, I sat on the bench of a bus stop a block away to wait for my taxi and, while I waited, I put my sandals on my now filthy feet.

And I did all this not thinking that I was looking forward to seeing Hop that night.

No, I wasn’t thinking that.

Definitely not thinking that.

Absolutely not.

Even though I was.

Damn.

I was in my office at work.

I had taken the morning to fight back the overwhelming craving the promise of seeing Hop that night caused, created a plan to avoid him and put it in action.

Therefore, I had not hung at home or at Tyra’s, went out to get a pedicure, or done anything I normally did on a Saturday.

I had bought a big sub, a bag of chips, a six pack of diet cherry 7Up and a huge chocolate chip cookie, and went to my office in downtown Denver. I picked my office as shelter from the storm because I had a strict rule that I didn’t work weekends. My weeknights might end at nine, ten, even ten–thirty, but my weekends were my own so no one would think I’d be there. I also picked my office because it had a good security system, the kind where you could arm the door but move around the offices without tripping it.