Fire Inside

by Kristen Ashley

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “You can ask me anything,” he replied.

  Another excellent answer.

  I smiled and leaned farther in, something Hop liked and I knew it when he twisted to me, lifting his arm to lay it on the back of my chair as he moved closer.

  “You know the Club talks,” I started and watched his face change. His expression wasn’t guarded but it was clear he was bracing for what I’d say next.

  “Yeah,” he prompted when I said no more.

  “Well, all the boys have nicknames,” I told him something he knew. “But you don’t. Your name is Hopper which is kind of… unusual.”

  His expression cleared and he moved closer to me as he grinned. “You wanna know how I got my name.”

  “I’ve always been curious,” I shared.

  His grin got bigger and his eyebrows inched up. “Always?”

  I took a breath.

  Then I let him in farther.

  “Yeah. Since I found out that was your real name. Always,” I confirmed.

  He took his arm from the back of my chair, slid his fingers through the hair at the side of my head, then rested it back on my chair, all this while grinning, this time with approval.

  Only after that did he begin.

  “My dad, if given the choice, which he wasn’t, would have been in an MC. No doubt.”

  There was not much there and yet, there so was.

  “Uh…” I mumbled in an effort to communicate this to him. Hop’s grin became a smile and his arm gave my chair a jerk so our thighs were plastered together and I was super close.

  “My younger brothers are named Jimmy and Teddy,” he told me. “Jimmy’s a high school gym teacher and basketball coach. He’s got an ex-wife who married a man who makes a lot more than Jimmy does and she doesn’t hesitate to rub his nose in it. They have two boys. Now he’s got a new woman who is the shit. She treats him like a king, loves his kids. So his ex can be as big a bitch as she wants. He’s got it good so he doesn’t give a fuck.”

  I nodded and Hop went on.

  “Teddy apprenticed to be a cabinetmaker, made journeyman and about two days later, decided he wanted to be an electrician. He went all the way with that and now he’s apprenticing as a plumber. His whole life, he’s been restless. The fact that he’s had three professions and five ex-wives and he’s in his early thirties lays testimony to that bullshit.”

  Although this was all fascinating, most especially how it was even possible to have five ex-wives and be in your early thirties, it didn’t explain Hopper’s name.

  “Well…” I started and Hop kept smiling at me.

  “What I’m sayin’ is, Dad got in there before Mom could do shit about it and he named me a name he liked. The name he thought sounded like the name for a biker. Hopper, James, and Theodore don’t go together, so you can take it as Mom learnin’ her lesson and layin’ down the law after me. Mom was good at layin’ down the law. Dad was good at gettin’ his balls busted. Lookin’ back, I get this. She was a knockout and still is. Beautiful. But hard. Tough. Bossy. And sometimes mean. He took it as long as he could, and when I say that I mean he ate that shit every day of his life until he couldn’t eat it anymore. He left her and the next day bought his first Harley. Now he has three. I reckon it was part born in me, part given to me by my old man, since he took me, not Jimmy or Teddy, to the bike shops all the time. He talked to the salesmen, the customers, practically fuckin’ salivatin’, wishin’ he was livin’ his dreams. Now he lives the life he always wanted but he doesn’t live it how he wanted because she’s not in it.”

  Oh dear.

  “So, you’re saying, he still loves her?” I asked carefully.

  “Yeah. I’m sayin’ that and I’m sayin’ the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I’m a lot like my dad, includin’ the fact I found a hard, bossy, tough-as-nails woman I thought I could fix and make happy. Unlike my dad, when I could take no more, I moved on. He didn’t. Like me and Mitzi, my parents don’t get along. This is because Mom still wants to control Dad and he’s not down with that, but Dad still loves Mom so he’s always strugglin’ with the idea that maybe he should be. It’s not cool and it’s hell on the kids. Dad comes out two or three times a year but he only does it anytime he hears word Mom’s thinkin’ of comin’ out. So he makes his plans and she gets shitty and backs off. Kids see their granddad but they haven’t seen their grandma in three years. He plays that shit with her all the time just to dick with her ’cause he’s pissed she isn’t what he needs her to be. Drives her nuts and she gives that anger to me, and while he’s here I have to listen to his shit when he crows about stickin’ it to her. It’s insane and a pain in my ass.”

  It sounded like a pain in the ass.

  “That isn’t very nice,” I noted, again carefully.

  “Nope,” Hop agreed. “But I can’t find it in me to say she doesn’t deserve it. The best day of my life up to then was the day he left her. She busted his balls and he took it but that didn’t mean he didn’t go down without a fight. They fought all the fuckin’ time. Morning, noon and night. Loud. Vicious. Told you kids suck shit up like a sponge. With that, Jimmy, Teddy, and me didn’t have to suck it up. It was shoved down our throats. She was still a bitch after he left but at least we didn’t have to listen to our mother and father tearing into each other all the fuckin’ time. It was a relief.”

  I wrapped my fingers around his thigh and said quietly, “That doesn’t sound like a fun upbringing.”

  “It wasn’t,” Hop confirmed. “Dad’s a good guy but eventually boys grow up and look at their old man and they can do one of two things. Have somethin’ they wanna emulate or get scared shitless that they’ll grow up just like him. Jim, Ted, and me, we got the last. Jim, like me, fucked up and moved on. Teddy’s so busy movin’ on, he hasn’t settled so he fucks up constantly. Not a great legacy for either of my folks to give their boys. Honest to Christ, babe, if they weren’t such good grandparents, I’d be done with the whole fuckin’ thing. But they love Molly and Cody. My kids and Jimmy’s kids do not get any of the shit we were treated to, and I want my kids to have that. So even though they bite at each other and that reminds me of unhappy times, I put up with it because the kids have to have one set of grandparents who love them unconditionally, and not with the haze of hatin’ their mom and dad hangin’ over every damned thing.”

  “That makes me sad not only for you but for Molly and Cody,” I admitted, and after the words left my mouth, his hand curled around the back of my neck and he leaned in so he was all I could see.

  “That’s why you make buttermilk pancakes and, when the opportunity for a weekend in the mountains comes up, you jump on it. Why, when a beautiful woman offers to make dinner, you take her up on it immediately ’cause you wanna be with that woman but you also want your kids to be around beauty and the goodness of a home-cooked meal. Why, when the last thing you wanna do is play fuckin’ Pictionary, you do it ’cause you don’t remember one single good time in your life that involved both of your parents that didn’t end in ugly words or an out-and-out fight. Why, they laugh and you hear it’s carefree, you feed on that shit because you know they know you hate their mother but they still got it in them to laugh real, deep, from their fuckin’ gut. So even though that shit is all shit and they know it as much as you do, it didn’t seep into their blood like you were scared as fuck it would and you rejoice in that.”

  When Hop was done talking, I was staring at him and I wasn’t breathing.

  All I could do was take him in and let each of his words, the depth of love he had for his kids, settle straight into my soul.

  I must have done this for a while because I felt his fingers tense at my neck and he called, “Lanie?”

  I pulled in a breath and then told him straight. “You’re a good man, Hopper Kincaid.”

  His expression changed again, surprise sifting through then warmth settling in.

  “That beats out you telling me I’m di
stracting for the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” he replied.

  I closed my eyes.

  “Babe,” he called.

  I opened my eyes and his hand sifted up into my hair.

  “I liked you asked. I liked you were curious. I liked gettin’ to share. I want you to know my history but what I want you to take from what I told you is, I didn’t learn my lesson from my dad goin’ through that. I learned it by goin’ through it. But I learned it, Lanie. That monster in you I gotta beat, that isn’t me pickin’ through hard ice hopin’ to find a warm core. Women twist shit in their heads, even innocent shit you say. Don’t twist any of that. You know a lot of the reasons I’m sittin’ here with you right now. I’ll tell you another one and that is, you’ve been around. I’ve watched you. I know you. And I know you’re the kind of woman who can sit in a bar, eat shit food, drink beer, laugh and enjoy herself without any games or bullshit. A good night. An easy night.” He grinned. “It took a while for me to get to it but now that I got it, it’s what I expected. Somethin’ I knew I’d like a fuckuva lot.” His hand slid back to my neck before he whispered, “And I do.”

  I had no idea what to say to that so I just said a breathy, “Okay.”

  His repeated, “Okay,” was not breathy but I got breathier, and this was because his hand at my neck was putting pressure on, his eyes dropped to my mouth and I knew he was going to kiss me.

  I wasn’t wrong.

  In a rough but cool bar, with the delicious mix of beer and Hop on his tongue, Hopper Kincaid kissed me like he always kissed me, thoroughly and beautifully.

  I kissed him back like I always kissed him, happily and dazedly.

  He pulled back but even as he did, his hand slid from my neck to my jaw and his thumb swept out and he did what he sometimes did after we had sex (or before or, it could happen, during). His thumb moved over my lips, putting pressure on, dragging my lower lip with it as he watched my mouth intently.

  There was something about this crude but intimate gesture I didn’t quite get but I liked. It was claiming. It was like he was taking me in, through touch and sight.

  No, not taking me in, branding me. My lips were his. No one else’s. Hopper Kincaid’s. And doing that, beyond my lips, everything that was me, staking his claim at a place so intimate as my mouth, was his too.

  Me.

  All of me.

  His.

  I felt that warmth settle around my heart at the same time I felt a tickle up my spine and the tip of my tongue slid out slightly, tasting the salt of his thumb.

  His eyes watched my tongue before they cut to mine. His thumb swept away and the pads of his fingers dug in as he yanked me to him, this time forcefully. His mouth slamming on mine, again Hop kissed me like he often kissed me, thoroughly, beautifully but also deep, wet, rough and long.

  And I kissed him back like I always kissed him. Happily and dazedly but, this time, more of both.

  The kiss only ended when we heard the sounds of a live (loud) rock band suddenly crashing our way. At the sound of cheers from the crowd, Hop’s lips left mine and we both turned to the stage.

  Five men, all Hop and my age, all around (but not quite) Hop’s gorgeousness (except the drummer who was, alas, not all that good-looking but his manic smile and his clear talent with a backbeat made up for it in a huge way), were on the stage rocking right the heck out.

  Within the first few notes, the crowd went wild, especially the women—whose ages ranged from too young to be in a bar to women who either had ten decades on me or needed more moisturizer—that were dancing up front.

  During the first two songs I realized I’d been so into Hop I hadn’t noticed that this wasn’t a live-band-at-the-local-biker-bar crowd, but that the vastness of bodies taking up the soon heaving space in front of the stage meant this band was a big draw.

  There was a reason why.

  The band wasn’t good. They were fantastic.

  So fantastic, I wondered why they were playing a local biker bar. The only reason I could come up with was that the music they played with ease and sheer, swelling rock goodness, were all covers.

  Luckily, the stage was up high so the mass of bodies out front didn’t limit our view. Although every muscle in my body was screaming at me to get up and move to the beat, sing out loud and enjoy the vibe, Hop’s arm around my chair kept me anchored, slouched into him, tapping the beat with my toe.

  But I did it smiling.

  It was after song five when the lead singer stopped the music in order to speak into his microphone.

  “Those of you who been with us for years, you’ll know, sixteen years ago, we lost the best front man in the business. Tonight, you give him a yell, he might come up here and show you how we used to do it. Caid! Why don’t you get your ass up here?”

  I found this confusing—not only the wall of sound from the crowd that concluded this announcement, but also the fact that the lead singer seemed to be looking directly at Hop.

  It hit me that “Caid” was Hop when I heard him mutter, “Fuckin’ shit.”

  Part of the older contingent of groupies started to chant, “Caid, Caid, Caid!”

  Still, I was stunned when Hop leaned into me and murmured in my ear, “Be back, babe,” before he straightened from his chair and headed around the table.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered to no one as I watched Hop wind his way through the crowd to pats on his back, applause, and come-hither eyes.

  He took a big step up to the stage, and I watched him do a man hug with the lead singer before moving to shake hands with the bassist and give a chin lift to pianist, keyboard guy, and drummer. A guy who appeared to be a roadie ran on stage with a guitar.

  “Oh my God,” I repeated as Hop looked at the guitar, then wrapped a hand around its neck and lifted the strap over his head.

  Hop played guitar.

  Hop had been in a rock band.

  Oh my God!

  He was looking down, strumming the instrument like he was getting used to it, when the roadie handed him an amp plug and he shoved it into the guitar.

  Another cheer rose from the crowd.

  He was going to sing.

  And play.

  Hopper Kincaid, badass biker and hot guy, was going to sing and play with a rock band.

  I wasn’t surprised when I immediately felt my panties get wet (or wetter, considering his last kiss started that action).

  I watched Hop do a lips-to-ear brief chat with the lead singer. The lead nodded enthusiastically, grinning like a lunatic, then he turned to his band and shouted something I couldn’t hear.

  Hop went to the microphone that was front and center.

  I again stopped breathing.

  “Gotta do this shit again, gonna make it count,” he growled into the microphone, his voice coming through the speakers rougher and sexier than ever, and the crowd again went wild. He started strumming and my heart stopped beating when he finished, “This is for Lanie.”

  When the bassist kicked in, my hand darted out to wrap around the edge of the table, to hold on even though I was sitting, eyes glued to Hop as he started singing about gypsy wind and scarlet skies in that growly, sexy voice of his, his eyes locked to mine.

  Then Hopper Kincaid, badass biker and hot guy, sang Bob Seger’s “You’ll Accomp’ny Me” straight to me.

  Straight.

  To.

  Me.

  Words I’d heard time and again (and enumerable times recently) came from his beautiful lips and pummeled right into me.

  Exquisite pain.

  The kind you wanted to feel every day for the rest of your life.

  It was the pain of finally having something you wanted. Something you’d longed for. Longed for since you had memories. Something life taught you to believe you’d never have. Something, if you lived without it, it left a void in your soul you knew would never be filled. Something, without it, you knew you’d never be whole.

  It was something you needed.

  It was
as necessary as breath.

  It was what was required to complete you.

  And, I found in those four minutes as Hopper sang to me, when you got it, it filled you so full you thought you’d rupture but it was so precious, you would do anything to hold it all in and not lose a drop.

  Not one drop.

  That was what Hop gave to me by telling me through Bob Seger’s words exactly how he felt about me.

  And what he intended to do about it.

  By the time he was done, every inch of my skin was tingling, my eyes were burning from holding back tears, and my fingers hurt from gripping the table.

  And when he was done, I had no idea what to do. How to communicate what I was feeling. How to tell him what he needed to know.

  But I was Lanie Heron and even if my mind was scrambled by the beauty of all Hop had just given me, my body knew exactly what to do.

  So I straightened from my chair. I put one high-heeled boot into the seat, pulled myself up and turned to Hop. Then I lifted the fingers of both hands to my lips and threw them out toward a good man, a handsome man…

  My man.

  Then I shrieked like a groupie, “You are the shit, Hopper Kincaid!”

  It was the right thing to do. It got me a sexy smile that I was pretty sure melted my panties clean away (and those of most of the women in the audience) before he followed the Nine Tonight (Live) playlist, turned to his friend. His mouth moved and they went right into “Hollywood Nights”.

  I danced on my chair until a bouncer told me I had to get down.

  Hop finished the first set with his boys and then the entire band joined us for a drink at both their breaks.

  Hop held me so close while he was talking to his buddies I was practically in his lap.

  Later, looking back, I had no idea if I even spoke a word.

  But I do remember smiling so big and for so long, the next morning, my face hurt.