Fire Inside: A Chaos Novel (26 page)

The grin faded clean from his face and it got hard before he asked, “A reputation you don’t need?”

Uh-oh.

He took that the wrong way.

“You know that wasn’t what I meant,” I said.

“Then, babe, it’d be good you tell me what you did mean and do it real fuckin’ quick,” Hop shot back and I stared at him as an unpleasant burn hit my belly.

Then I said softly, “That isn’t cool.”

“Damn straight it isn’t,” he retorted and I shook my head.

“No. You don’t understand me. That isn’t cool, not even close to cool, Hop, that you’d think for
one second
that’s what I meant.”

“Again, lady, you need to
tell me
what you meant.”

“Not once,” I pulled in a calming breath before going on, “not once, Hopper, not since that very first moment when Brick walked into my house with Tyra, when she told me Elliott was making whacked decisions and then you showed later to put me on the back of your bike and take me to Ty-Ty’s, have I ever,
ever
,” I leaned in again, “done one
stinking thing
to indicate I was a biker bigot.”

“Yeah, until you just told me you’d get a reputation, I get involved in your life,” he returned, not letting it go.

“No, I didn’t say that. I said I’d get a reputation if you got involved in
my business,
” I amended sharply. “And it wouldn’t matter if you were a biker or a businessman, Hop. I’m a businesswoman and we’ve come a long way but it’s still a man’s world and
any
man sticking his nose into my business makes it look like
I
can’t see to my business. I’ve worked too damned hard to prove I’m good at what I do, to demand credit for my work when some ass was taking it from me, to prove I can manage accounts, staff, an entire agency, to compete for business and best the competition, to have another man, no matter he’s my man, I care about him and he thinks he’s looking out for me, make me look like I’m not strong enough to do it.”

I was glaring at him and breathing heavy when I was done with my speech so it took a few moments for me to see the hard had gone out of his face and his eyes had warmed.

He understood me.

I didn’t care.

What he said was bad and I was still ticked.

He made a move to take a step toward me but since I was still ticked, I stepped back. He stopped and his eyes locked on mine.

“Not lost on me the way you live,” he said low, his hand swinging out to indicate my house. “Your office. Your clothes. The sweet ride you drive. Your parents. That fuckin’ condo that was three times the size of the one I gave my kids.”

“And?” I prompted acidly.

“Eventually we were gonna have this conversation,” he explained, but it didn’t explain a thing.

“Why?” I asked.

“Babe, you are not of my world,” he informed me.

“Really?” I retorted. “So do I have a Biker Babe Lanie Clone I don’t know about who’s been going to hog roasts and shooting the breeze in the Compound the last seven years?” I asked sarcastically.

He rested his weight in a hand on the edge of the sink and said in warning voice, “Tone it down, Lanie. We gotta talk this out but we don’t have to do it ugly.”

“Okay, so, when I infer you’re a bigot or something equally distasteful, I can rest in the knowledge you’ll be cool in the face of me being an asshole?”

His jaw tensed hard before he replied, “No, babe, I get where your anger is comin’ from but you gotta rein in the drama and see where I’m comin’ from.”

“Your turn to tell me what
you
mean,” I snapped.

“I’ve met your parents,” he began. “I know how you grew up, who you grew up with, and how they think. And you know, babe, they raised you and so it isn’t a leap to think there’s a possibility that at least some of that shit is in you.”

He could not be serious!

“First, Hop, it is since you’ve known me years and you’ve been
getting to know me
for weeks and you know that’s not right. Second, I thought you didn’t care what people thought of your lifestyle.”

“I don’t but you aren’t people, Lanie. You’re mine and I care a fuckuva lot what you think about me, about the way I live my life, about how you feel you’ll fit in it, about fuckin’
everything
when it comes to you.”

Okay, that was nice, very nice but I was still ticked.

Too ticked.

And too Lanie Heron to fight back the drama.

Therefore I fired back, “Right now, I’m rethinking that life option,” and I felt him lose it.

I didn’t see it. I didn’t hear it.

I
felt
it.

Then I heard it.

“Everything,” he said in a sinister whisper, “everything about you, I like. Including the drama. I’ll stop likin’ it if you blow shit like this out of proportion and you say shit you can’t take back.”

“So far, I haven’t said anything I’d like to take back,” I replied and his eyebrows shot up.

“So you’re good with threatenin’ to take you away from me,
you,
somethin’ you know I want and I want it bad, bad enough to work at it, bad enough to twist myself in fuckin’ knots for it because you’re justifiably pissed but unjustifiably not opening your mind to where I was comin’ from and therefore not seein’ I’m explaining myself or givin’ me a shot at apologizing?”

That shut me up because unfortunately he was right. I was mad. I wasn’t listening. And I’d threatened to take me away from him when he was definitely working on us and doing it by twisting himself into knots.

I didn’t speak. Hop didn’t either.

This lasted a very long time. So long, I was inwardly squirming and it was so uncomfortable, I was about to say something to smooth things over, get us back on track.

Unfortunately, I waited one second too long to do this.

“Fuck me, I can add fuckin’ stubborn to high maintenance and a drama queen. Not good, babe,” he bit off.

My temper, which was cooling, flared again.

“I’m not high maintenance!” I exclaimed and he pushed away from the sink.

“Seriously?” he asked incredulously. “Been in your bed when you get up at fuckin’ five thirty in the fuckin’ mornin’ to do your gig in the bathroom before you go to work and I’ve hauled your shit up to my bedroom so you can do it at my place. Lanie, you live fifteen minutes away from your office and you get there at eight. Over two hours every day just to do your hair and makeup. Diana fuckin’ Ross in her heyday probably took less time to get ready for a show. Babe, if that isn’t high maintenance, I do not know what is.”

The Diana Ross comment was funny but I didn’t laugh.

“I eat breakfast in that time too, Hopper,” I reminded him.

“You swallow down some yogurt and suck back coffee, lady. You don’t bake a quiche and eat it at your dining room table with cloth napkins and mimosas,” he fired back.

It was unfortunate he was amusing when he was angry. Hop even saying the word “quiche” was hilarious.

I wanted to laugh. I really did.

I didn’t.

He wasn’t done.

“Fuck, you stand in your closet for a full fifteen minutes every fuckin’ time I’ve been at your house in the morning like you’re makin’ your wardrobe selection of the day to announce your candidacy for president.”

“Stop being funny, Hopper,” I hissed, leaning toward him, and he leaned toward me.

“Baby, I am
not
bein’ funny.”

I took in his expression.

He wasn’t being funny. Definitely not. He
was
funny but he wasn’t being funny.

He was angry and this was serious.

“You cushioned my fall.”

That came out of my mouth and I knew Hop didn’t get it when he blinked.

“Say again?” he asked.

“Chaos. You. Tyra. Tack. Big Petey. Brick. Dog.” I threw a hand out toward him. “You all cushioned my fall, Hop. You all knew how far I fell and landing after a fall like that could destroy you. It didn’t destroy me because Chaos cushioned my fall.”

The anger slid out of his face as his lips muttered, “Baby.”

I shook my head and kept talking.

“You all mean something to me. You’re family and you intimating that I might think I’m better than you or think badly about you…” I drew in breath before I admitted, “I went over the top when I got ticked because you all mean something to me and I don’t want any of you, because of my clothes or house or job or car, thinking I’d
ever
think bad things about you. And, for obvious reasons, I especially don’t want
you
to think that way.”

After I finished speaking, Hop held my eyes and I let him because I was soaking in the look he was giving me.

It was a look I’d never seen from him or anyone.

Not aimed at me.

But I’d seen it. I’d seen it hundreds of times.

I saw it when Tack was watching Ty-Ty with their sons. Or when she was giggling with his daughter Tabby. Or when she was goofing around with the guys and he was distanced but watching and liking what he saw.

Or, my favorite times, when he just caught sight of her walking into a room.

It was a look filled with warmth. A look filled with intimacy. A look of harmony.

The look of love.

Yes, right then, Hopper Kincaid was giving that look to me.

“Come here, lady,” he ordered gently and when I stayed frozen, stuck in the glow of his look and didn’t move immediately, he leaned toward me, hooked a finger in the belt loop of my jeans and he brought me there.

When I was close, he wrapped his arms around my waist and, automatically, I lifted my hands and rested them on his chest. But I was careful not to lose contact with that look in Hop’s eyes.

Hop didn’t seem to notice I was mesmerized because he started talking.

“I fucked up, jumped to conclusions, said somethin’ stupid and you were right to get pissed,” he told me and I stared up at him, stunned, pleased, warm…

Happy.

Hop wasn’t done.

“I hear you about your work and I won’t get involved.”

My body gave a slight, surprised jerk, taking me out of basking in the glow of his look and I felt my eyes get wide.

“Are you serious?” I asked breathily.

“Yeah,” he answered. “But I reserve the right, that shit ever turns ugly, to have another conversation about it. And if I feel you need me, that conversation might have a different ending.”

Oh my God.

It just kept getting better.

Compromise.

Hopper Kincaid, member of Chaos Motorcycle Club, badass biker who could beat unconscious a mountain of a man who owned a monster truck and do it in three minutes, was willing to compromise.

“Wow,” I whispered, and my whisper encompassed a lot of things and even more feeling and I watched Hop grin.

But his face got serious and his arms got tight when he continued, “You need to take two things from that. What you obviously took and that you do not bury shit because you’re worried about my reaction to it. You need to get it off your chest, lady, I’m here. It starts messin’ with your head, your sleep, your enjoyment of the work you do,
that’s
when I’ll expect to have our conversation. You down with that?”

It was my turn to grin but I suspected it was less of a grin and more a beaming smile.

“I’m down with that, Hop,” I agreed.

His eyes moved over my face and his grin came back. “Good. Now the dishes are done. You wanna watch TV or you wanna go upstairs and fuck?”

Fight over and the way Hop ended it, a way I liked, liked in a way I knew I could like for a lifetime, I melted into him and asked, “Do we have to go upstairs to fuck?”

He dipped his face closer and answered, “In the mood to dominate, babe, and not big on givin’ my old lady carpet burns.”

He was in the mood to dominate.

Yes.

It just kept getting better.

I smiled at him and slid my hands up so my arms could round his neck before I suggested, “How about we break in the couch?”

His eyes flared and his lips hit mine.

“That works.”

An hour later, I found Hop was right.

It worked.

We worked.

We
so
worked.

In a lot of ways.

A week and two days later…

I was in my office and running late.

I had to go home, change, and then meet Hop and the kids at Beau Joe’s for pizza.

This wasn’t big but this was bigger than my “surprise” showing up at a dance recital.

I was meeting them there. This meant, even the kids at their ages would soon get that them seeing me occasionally at Chaos family events then suddenly seeing me everywhere meant something.

I wasn’t nervous, as such. I knew they liked me.

But liking me as Lanie, some woman their dad knew and liking me as Lanie, their dad’s woman, were two different things.

So even though I wasn’t nervous, I still kind of was.

To get home and change, I should have left ten minutes ago. But the new client was taking a lot of time, my day had gotten away from me (in all fairness, this had happened before the new client and it happened frequently) and I was considering, since Hop had his kids for the weekend, coming in on Saturday and getting caught up.

This wouldn’t exactly be breaking my rule of not working weekends since I was already breaking my habit of working late into the evenings.

I had Hop to go home to, eat dinner with, and go to bed with. With that to look forward to, staying late at the office had lost its allure.

I was closing down programs on my computer, at the same time shoving stuff in my purse when I sensed movement so I looked out my wall of windows.

At what I saw, my breath froze in my lungs.

Tack was walking my way, his eyes on me, his face serious.

Tack had been to my office on several occasions, usually when I had plans with him and Tyra to go out to dinner after work, which meant he always drove so Ty-Ty and I could tie one on if we felt in the mood. Therefore Tyra always came with him.

He’d never been here alone and unannounced.

He knew about Hop and me.

Oh God,
he knew about Hop and me!