Fire Inside (Chaos, #2)(14)

He stared at me.

He didn’t believe me. This was wise since I was lying.

“It’s just a release.” I kept lying.

“You gotta wrap your hand around a phone when you do it?” he semi-called me on my lie.

“Wrong number,” I lied again, and his eyes stayed narrowed but this time his hand tightened a bit on my neck.

“At midnight,” he stated, not hiding he didn’t believe me.

“Someone at a party,” I told him (lying). “They asked for Cheese Whiz.” More lying. “It’s the munchies hour.” This wasn’t a lie, exactly. It was the munchies hour if you were doing what one should do on a Saturday night, which was having fun. It was just that no one had accidentally called me erroneously to ask me to bring the Cheese Whiz.

Hop held my gaze.

I tried not to squirm.

Hop continued to hold my gaze.

I continued to try not to squirm.

Hop’s mouth got tight.

I switched to trying not to think that was really sexy, then I switched to trying not to think how weird it was that I thought him looking annoyed was sexy.

He gave up waiting for me to admit I wasn’t being honest and slid his hand from my neck while asking, “You done releasing whatever you gotta release at midnight, alone in your room?”

That sounded insane. Mostly because it was.

Oh dear. I was being an idiot.

“Yeah. All good,” I lied again.

He didn’t believe me and didn’t hide that either.

“So, you goin’ to bed?” he asked.

“Yeppers!” I answered fake-chirpily. His brows snapped together and his mouth got tight again.

Yeppers?

Yes. I was being an idiot.“Yeppers?” he asked and that word coming from his beautiful lips surrounded by his badass ’tache made me want to start giggling.

It also made me want to kiss him.

And last, it made me want to snap at him because, really, couldn’t he just let it go?

I decided speaking was not going well for me so I stopped doing it.

Hop again held my gaze.

Then he looked to the floor while straightening to tower over me, and he did this muttering, “I don’t get this from her. Complicated.”

He didn’t get this from me and I didn’t get it from him, either.

Had I mentioned my life stunk?

I held my breath and tipped my head back to look at him. He continued to stare down at me before he shook his head a couple of times, and I watched as he moved to the mess of my clothes he’d thrown on the floor a few hours earlier after he’d peeled them off me. He kicked some aside with his black motorcycle boot, unearthing his wallet. He bent, nabbed it, shoved it in his back pocket and came back to me.

His hand again wrapped around the back of my neck and then his face was in mine.

“Sleep, lady,” he ordered, sounding disgruntled, but still it came out gentle.

It sounded nice, even the disgruntled part.

Damn.

“Okay,” I replied but didn’t move.

Hop stood there, hand at my neck, and he didn’t move either.

Then he prompted, “Like, now, Lanie.”

I stared at him a second, nodded, my teeth coming out to graze my bottom lip, something his eyes dropped to watch, that something making me want to kiss him again but I didn’t.

I broke from his hold, stretched out and he flipped the covers over me.

Then, God, God, I used everything I had left not to process him tucking them tight all around me.

So sweet.

Too sweet.

Damn.

He bent low, kissed the side of my head and said against my hair, “See you tomorrow night, babe.”

Tomorrow night. Thank God.

I tried not to process that I thought that and mumbled, “Okay, Hop.”

I got another kiss and my eyes watched him move to the light. He turned it off, plunging the room into darkness.

I didn’t watch, didn’t hear his boots on the carpet, but I still felt him leave.

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath.

I opened my eyes as I let the breath go.

“Complicated,” my lips mouthed without sound.

After a few more seconds, I heard a Harley roar.

I listened and I did it hard until I could hear the roar no more.

Only then did I close my eyes.

But I did not sleep.

*





Hop


“Repeat it,” Dog clipped, and Hop watched as the junkie Dog had pinned against the brick wall with his hand in his chest and the barrel of Dog’s gun to the flesh under his chin, swallowed.

Then the junkie stammered, “I… I won’t… won’t ever make a buy on… on Chaos again.”

“Right now, I’m a little put out,” Dog informed the junkie, shoving the gun deeper into his flesh, making him squeak in terror. “I see you on Chaos doin’ anything but helpin’ an old lady cross the street, I’ll be unhappy. Heads up, you don’t want to make me unhappy.”

The junkie, eyes enormous, gulped and nodded.

Dog let him go, saying, “Outta my sight.”

The junkie took off.

Hop looked to the dealer he had shoved face-first to the wall with his forearm against the man’s shoulders. Hop had disarmed him and currently had the dealer’s as well as his own firearm shoved in the back waistband of his jeans under his cut.