Fire Inside: A Chaos Novel (28 page)

Whatever. Bottom line: in the end, all would be well.

Looking at Hop, I realized he would not be at one with my plan.

“Come again?” he asked, and his tone was scary.

I threw out my hand with the wineglass in it, thankful it was low so the wine didn’t slosh out. “They’re worried I’m not healing, moving on appropriately after Elliott, burying myself in work, so they’re setting me up.”

“They’re setting you up,” he repeated, his voice still scary.

“Hop, it isn’t a big deal,” I told him and watched his head jerk.

“Are you going?” Now he didn’t sound scary. He sounded disbelieving and more than a little bit angry.

“It isn’t a big deal. I’ll go and, after, explain I wasn’t attracted to him. They’ll think I’m moving on and all will be good.”

“You’ll go,” Hop stated.

“Just one date,” I assured him.

“Just one date,” Hop again repeated after me.

“Hop—”

I stopped abruptly when he leaned into me and roared,
“Are you outta your fuckin’ mind?”

Yes, definitely not at one with my plan.

I lifted both hands placatingly and started, “Hop—”

He took two steps toward me, his body shuddered to a halt like he was controlling his movements, but just barely and he clipped, “Tell me
exactly
what went down.”

I held his eyes and explained exactly what went down.

Hop held mine when I was done and asked, “And your solution to this problem is to go out with this fuckin’ guy?”

“It’s the easiest solution I can think of.” I told him something I thought was obvious.

“I don’t know, Lanie. I can think of an easier one,” he retorted, and his sarcasm wasn’t lost on me.

“Hop, honestly, you don’t—”

He interrupted me, “You wanna know my solution?”

I figured I knew it, I didn’t want him to verbalize it, but I nodded anyway.

“Maybe, I don’t know, but it might be easier, babe, just to fuckin’
tell them
you got a life and that life is movin’ on
with me.
” He planted his hands on his hips. “Fuck, I don’t even know why you didn’t tell Tack that shit straight out when he proposed that ludicrous fuckin’ idea.”

As he spoke, his mood deteriorated. This was reflected in the way he rapped out his words.

But at his words my lungs seized, so I had to force out my cry of, “We can’t do that!”

He threw his hands up in the air. “Why the fuck not?”

I knew he was ticked. I knew why he was ticked.

But something was happening. Something I was trying to ignore. Something that was building inside me so huge it was impossible to ignore.

Panic.

Sheer, unadulterated
panic.

“We can’t do that,” I repeated.

“And why the fuck not, Lanie?”

“We just can’t,” I told him.

“Are you shitting me?” he asked.

“No, I’m not,” I answered, that feeling growing, eating away huge, gluttonous bites of me.

Hop studied me a moment, his expression shifting, and he was talking quieter when he asked, “Ever?”

“Ever what?” I asked back.

“You don’t wanna tell them now. Are you ever gonna wanna tell them?”

Oh God.

How could I be standing there at the same time being eaten alive?

“Lanie?” Hop called but I just stood immobile, losing entire chunks of me to my monster. “Lanie!” Hop clipped, before he strode toward me, pulled the glass out of my hand, set it aside and wrapped his fingers around my upper arms. “Jesus, babe, what the fuck?”

“No, not ever. We can’t ever tell them about us,” I whispered, staring into his eyes.

He moved his hands to either side of my head and dipped his face close.

His eyes roamed my features before he murmured, “It’s got you. Fuck, Jesus, I’m standin’ here watchin’ that monster tear you apart.”

“We can’t tell them,” I stated.

“Why?” he asked.

“We can’t ever tell them,” I declared, my voice getting loud.

“Why, baby?” he asked, his voice going gentle.

“I don’t want them to know,” I told him.

“Why don’t you want them to know, honey?” he pushed.

“They can’t know.”

“Lanie, get this shit out.”

I stared into his eyes, feeling his warm hands on either side of my head, his body close. and the monster shoved its arm down my throat and dredged up, “She told me.”

“Keep goin’,” Hop encouraged.

“To break it off with him.”

Hop closed his eyes.

“I didn’t.”

Hop opened his eyes.

“Tyra told me to break it off with Elliott after we got kidnapped by the Russian Mob that first time.”

“Okay, Lanie, baby, that’s good, it’s enough. Shut this shit down now.”

I didn’t shut it down. The monster was dragging it out.

“I didn’t listen. I told her through better or worse.”

“Fuck,” he murmured, shifting so he could curl me in his arms.

I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my cheek into his shoulder.

“It got worse,” I whispered.

Hop didn’t answer. He just stood there holding me tight.

I held him back the same way.

After this went on for a while, Hop gave me a squeeze and asked, “You with me?”

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Breakin’ that shit down and, lady, stop me if I got this wrong, but you made a decision about your man, it got your girl hurt and you’re carryin’ that shit around, transferrin’ it on your new man.”

I hadn’t thought about it that way. In fact, I hadn’t thought about it at all.

“Maybe,” I told his shoulder.

“You wanna end this?” he asked.

“End what?”

“End us.”

I felt my entire body wind so tight, I feared it would snap, hurtling me across the room like a broken rubber band. I pulled my head back to look at him.

“Do you?” My voice trembled on those two words.

“Fuck no,” he replied instantly and I felt my brow furrow.

“Then why did you ask?”

“Because, babe, neither of us wants to end this, she’s your girl, Tack’s my brother. How the fuck are we gonna go on hidin’ what we have from them?”

He had a point.

“We have to.”

My mouth said it before my brain caught up and I watched his head jerk to the side.

“Lady—”

“For a while,” I finished and he stared at me.

“You wanna know it’s solid,” he guessed.

“I want this monster out of me,” I confessed, pressing closer. “I want… I wanna be able to face them both and know. Know I believe. Know I’m right this time. After what happened last time, how bad it was, how we nearly lost Ty-Ty, I
have
to know this time. It
has
to be solid. For you. For me. So Tyra can believe.”

His face changed, unease washing through his expression and he told me, “You were right the last time, baby. He did wrong but you did right.”

I shook my head and Hop watched me do it.

Hop let me go, shifted us both into the couch, tucking me tight to his side. I lifted up my legs and curled them on the couch beside me as I snaked an arm across his stomach and pressed my forehead into his neck.

“For a while, babe, we’ll keep this between you and me,” he gave in. “But you gotta remember that I’m easin’ you into my kids’ lives and I’m not gonna ask them to lie. Kids say shit and they are not strangers to Chaos. You also gotta be aware that High picked me up here so he knows and I asked him not to talk but I am not gonna get in his face if he does. So if you keep this from your girl, you’re walkin’ a tightrope, baby, and the longer this carries on, if she finds out before we share, the more you’re gonna have to explain.”

I nodded.

I’d worry about that later.

A lot later.

“Right,” he muttered and I pressed closer.

We fell silent and neither of us broke it for a good long while.

Finally, Hop did.

“Don’t know who won this one, the monster or us,” he mused.

I didn’t either.

I just knew it was an entirely different experience, battling that monster with Hop at my back.

“You sensed something was up, called Sheila to stay with the kids and drove all the way here to talk with me,” I reminded him.

“Yeah,” he agreed and I lifted up to look at him.

“That monster always bests me, honey, but I’m thinking you did great.”

Another expression washed through his features, this one better. Surprise and satisfaction.

I got to enjoy it for half a second before he kissed me.

When he broke the kiss, I noted, “I hate to bring this up but we have to figure out what to do about this set up.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll deal with it.”

I stared at him. “How are you going to deal with it?”

“I’ll think of something.”

After Hopper Kincaid said those four words, there was one thing I knew with a surety that was astonishing.

He would.

One way or another, Hop would think of something and make my troubles go away.

I liked this so much, to communicate just how much, I pressed my forehead back into his neck and burrowed close.

Letting go of that scene, a thought came to me.

“So, uh… I’m taking it from this conversation that you want us to be exclusive?” I asked and felt his body tense before it shook slightly with laughter.

“Uh, yeah, babe. I want us to be exclusive,” he confirmed, his words also shaking with laughter.

Good to know.

No.
Great
to know.

I burrowed closer before I told him, “If we’re exclusive, you should know, I have the birth control thing covered.”

There was no laughter in his voice. He sounded surprised when he asked, “You good with me ungloved?”

I pulled my face out of his neck and again looked at him. “I don’t know. What did you mean when you said, ‘shit happens’ that night you got angry with me?”

“It means, for your peace of mind, I’m visiting a clinic.”

Hop, for me, was visiting a clinic.

Yes, oh yes, it just kept getting better.

I smiled at him. He smiled back before his hand sifted in my hair and he pressed my forehead against his neck. He held me for a while before he told he had to get back to his kids.

He kissed me again and I walked him out to his bike, where I kissed him.

Then he told me he wasn’t leaving until he saw my outside light go on and off, indicating I was safely locked inside.

That was sweet and protective so I kissed him again.

Ten minutes later, I flicked my light on and off, indicating to Hopper I was safely locked inside.

But I stood inside feeling something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

Safe.

One week and three days later…

“So, how did it happen for you?”

“How’d what happen for me?”

I moved my face out of Hop’s throat and looked down at him. “How did you find Chaos?”

It was Sunday morning and we were in his bed in the Compound. Considering we were still keeping our relationship a secret, this was a risk. However, last night, I’d joined Tyra and our friends Gwen and Elvira at the Compound for drinks prior to going out. This was at Tyra’s invitation, and even though I would have preferred to spend my Saturday evening with Hop, in order to hide what we had, I’d agreed.

Tack, Brick, Shy, Tug, and Big Petey were all there so we ended up not going out and instead, we all got plastered in the common room.

Later in the evening, after some clandestine texting to let Hop know where I was, he showed.

This was fun, too fun. Then again, times with Ty-Ty always were. Throw Elvira and Gwen in the mix, it went off the charts.

Elvira was a black woman who was totally crazy (but in good ways). Gwen was a white woman who was only slightly less crazy than Elvira but I figured this had to do with the fact that she was married to Hawk Delgado. I wasn’t sure since Gwen didn’t talk about it, but considering he always wore cargo pants, skintight shirts, sturdy boots, a forbidding expression and a gun belt, I figured Hawk was a commando.

An actual commando.

My guess was, being married to a commando curtailed your level of craziness, because no one wanted to call home to a hubby who was a commando and explain the trouble they’d got themselves into. I didn’t know but I figured commandos had enough trouble professionally. They didn’t need their wives buying them more.

Though, Gwen being Gwen, even though she was a mom married to a commando, still knew how to have herself a good time.

Elvira, on the other hand, was seeing a very good-looking, African American cop. Unlike Hawk, Elvira’s man Malik thought her craziness was hysterical and cute. I knew this because I’d been around them and he’d said it. A lot. Because she was crazy. A lot. And it was good he thought this because it meant the drama she liberally injected into their relationship was something he enjoyed, rather than something that set him running for the hills.

Needless to say, we got plastered and men like it when women get plastered. Therefore, Tack took off with Ty-Ty in tow so they could enjoy her being drunk in their house in the mountains. Hawk showed and guided his tipsy wife and Elvira to his SUV while Elvira talked on the phone with Malik, which meant Malik was going to catch the hint his woman was blotto and I figured he’d meet her at her house in order to take advantage.

As for me, I kept drinking and enjoying my time with the guys until High showed. Although I was inebriated, it looked to me like Hop gave him a signal and High somehow managed to talk the other boys away from the bar and off on some Chaos errand.

Alone in the Compound with Hop, he wasted no time leading me to his room, where we had wild, crazy, drunken sex (okay, that last bit was just me) and it… was…
fabulous.
More fabulous now since Hop’s visit to the clinic brought good news. He could go “ungloved,” which meant it was just him and me with nothing in between.

I promptly passed out, only to be awoken by my man forty-five minutes ago, whereupon he made sweet, slow love to me.

It was debatable but that might have been more fabulous.

I was slightly hungover.