Fire Inside by Kristen Ashley
I dropped my head to his pec and slid my hands up to curl around the side of his neck as his finger hit the spot and swirled.
God, God.
The best.
He pressed his face in my neck and muttered, “You’re wet. Ready. Not your mouth, baby, your pussy. Get your panties off.”
I nodded, my forehead rolling on his chest, and moved back. I pulled my skirt up at the sides, feeling his eyes on me but I was concentrating. I yanked my panties down, dropped to a hip and peeled them along my legs, over my ankles, and tossed them away.
Back to my knees I went and saw he had his jeans tugged just to his hips, and he was rolling on a condom.
God.
Hot.
“Climb up, Lanie.”
My eyes went to his. I wet my lip with my tongue, his face got hungry, and I wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Then the other one. Then a leg around his hip. I used his shoulders for leverage, did a knee hop to get the other one up and around. He bent into me to catch me at my ass at the same time he dropped me to my back in the bed and then he was inside me.
Yes.
Yes.
Injected, the drug that was Hop coursed through my veins. I had it back in a way I couldn’t believe I’d ever managed to live without it.
“Fuck me, your pussy,” he groaned into my neck, his hips moving, slow, steady, sweet. His head came up and his eyes captured mine. “So tight, baby. Wet, sleek glove. Nothin’ like you, lady. Nothin’ like that beauty.”
I lifted my head, pulling him to me with one arm, pressing my chest to his as my other hand slid over the skin of his back and I urged, “Faster, honey.”
“Takin’ my time, Lanie.”
“Faster, baby.” This time it was a plea.
“You take me as I give it and I’m takin’ my time.”
I moaned my disappointment against his mouth.
Hop kissed me.
That was better.
He took his time but he did it while kissing me.
Then he went faster.
That was also better.
Then harder.
That was even better.
Then his hand slid over my belly, down and his thumb found me.
That was the best and I knew it because I came. Hard. The explosion excruciating in its beautiful intensity.
“Look at me, Lanie.”
With effort, as what he gave me swept through me, I righted my head and slowly opened my eyes.
He stared into mine as he moved inside me.
“Most beautiful eyes I’ve ever fuckin’ seen,” he part muttered, part growled, going faster, deeper, his thumb pressing in and swirling, and my hips jerked.
“Hop,” I breathed, not quite done coming when the impossible happened and it started building again.
“Missed your eyes, baby,” he whispered, his hips powering fast, his thumb pressing deep.
“Hop,” I panted, my limbs around him tensing.
“Missed you, lady.”
Oh God.
I pressed my mouth to his. He drove hard with his hips and pressed his thumb tight then circled.
The best.
I just had the best and, God, God, he made it better.
“Missed you too, honey.”
That was me, sharing what I shouldn’t, doing what I shouldn’t, holding tight, lifting my hips to get as much of him as I could, seeking his thumb, pressing against his body, my lips moving against his.
“I know you did, baby,” he groaned before his tongue slid into my mouth, his thumb executing a maneuver that should be patented. My second orgasm seared through me so deep, it had to have left an internal scar and I whimpered down his throat.
He planted himself to the root and his grunt turned into a groan that drove down mine.
We kissed through our orgasms and heavy breathing, miraculous and beautiful, and only when it slid away did his mouth and his ’tache glide down my cheek to my neck where he gave me the sweet crash after the mind-blowing high.
I held on, felt it, memorized it, every inch, his cock buried deep, his weight on me, the smell of him, his warmth, his mouth, the tickle of his whiskers, his everything.
Before I could accomplish this feat, he spoke.
“You’re sleepin’ here.”
I closed my eyes and my limbs convulsed before they loosened so I could prepare to push him away.
His hips pressed into mine. That felt really good, which was really bad, and I was dealing with that when his head came up.
“You’re sleepin’ here. When I let you sleep, you’re doin’ it not in your slut clothes but in my tee and tomorrow, when we wake up, we’re talkin’.”
“Hop—”
“Shut it.”
I shut it but my confused, scared, post-orgasmic haze lifted so I shut it on a glare.
Before I could take him to task for telling me to shut it, he began talking again.
“Tonight, you got drunk and you nearly got yourself raped. Tomorrow, we talk about what’s in your head, what’s in our future, and how we’re gonna play it. You are not closin’ down on me. You are not shuttin’ me out. I tried to give you that, you nearly got raped. I’m done givin’ you that.”
“We don’t have a future,” I informed him.
“We have a future,” Hop informed me.
“We don’t.”
“Lady, we do.”
My eyes narrowed and I snapped loudly, “Don’t!”
He grinned and pointed out, “Seated deep, babe. I get rid of this condom, gonna eat you until you come ’cause I miss you on my tongue. Then I’m gonna fuck you again and maybe let you go down on me before I fuck you again. You wanna keep arguing, we’ll do it tomorrow when… we…” his grin didn’t leave as his face dipped closer, “talk. Now, I gotta go get rid of this condom. You gonna do somethin’ stupid so I have to cuff you to the bed?”
His last words made me blink in surprise, and such was my surprise that I forgot how much his first words turned me on and how his words before that ticked me off.
Therefore, it was with curiosity as well as stupidity that I asked, “You have handcuffs?”
Hop moved, swiftly and unexpectedly. He pulled out. I gasped. He kissed my throat then my body was hauled around so I was righted in the bed. Before I knew it, one arm was up and one bracelet from a set of handcuffs was on my wrist, the other around a slat in his headboard.
My head tilted way back. I stared at my wrist cuffed to the bed.
“Yeah, Lanie, I got handcuffs.” Hop stated the obvious.
My eyes went to him.
He grinned.
I growled.
Yes, actually growled.
He smiled.
“Uncuff me!” I cried.
“Maybe, when I’m back from the can.”
“Hop, do not move before you uncuff me,” I demanded.
He bent and kissed my chest, then he did precisely what I told him not to and rolled off the bed, yanking his jeans up his hips.
“Hopper Kincaid, uncuff me!” I shrieked.
He stopped on his way to the bathroom and turned to me. “Don’t know, honey. It’s a crapshoot. They’re here often so Tyra and Tack could be just down the hall.”
My mouth snapped shut.
Hop burst out laughing.
This miffed me because he looked good doing it.
He always looked good laughing but somehow, even infuriated, cuffed to his bed, it hit me that he looked better doing it in his room, shirtless, jeans undone, after just having bedded me.
Damn!
I glared at him and watched as he and his great ass sauntered into the bathroom.
I flopped on the bed and jerked my cuffed hand around to see if the slat might be loose.
It wasn’t.
I stopped doing that, stared at the ceiling and seethed.
Mostly I seethed about Hop cuffing me to the bed, grinning and looking good laughing when I was angry, and I did this so I wouldn’t seethe at me getting out of b
I felt Hop come back into the room but I was concentrating so deeply on seething, I didn’t look at him. This got harder when the bed moved as he got in it. It got even harder when his hands wrapped around my ankles, pulled them apart and up, cocking my legs at the knees and planting my feet on the bed.
“You gonna stay pissed as I go down on you?” he asked. I tipped my chin down and saw him up on his forearms between my legs and something about that was exceptionally sexy.
Maybe it was because he was hot and he looked amused and…
Damn.
Happy.
I spoke no words. I just glared.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he muttered.
“Take whatever you want, you’re going to anyway,” I snapped.
“Damn straight,” he stated, dropped his head, kissed my belly then moved down to grasp my ankles.
He threw them over his shoulders.
I closed my eyes and, against my will, my body braced for bliss. It did this from experience. Hop liked the taste of me. He didn’t hide it and he also didn’t hide he liked me wrapped around him when he buried his face between my legs. When he ate me, he did it with my legs over his shoulders so he could eat with me all around, feel my excitement when I dug my heels in his back, scoop me up with his hands at my ass, suck hard and bury his tongue deep.
He lowered his mouth to me.
At just a touch, the heels of my platforms dug in and my neck arched in ecstasy.
Just a note: it was impossible to stay pissed at a handsome man when he had his mouth between your legs.
Especially if he really, really knew how to use that mouth.
So I didn’t.
Our night progressed just as Hop said it would.
Exhausted, I fell asleep against him.
Wearing his dirty tee.
Chapter Four
Take a Chance on Me
The bed shifted.
Or, more accurately, Hop shifted in the bed and I woke.
Keeping my eyes closed, I noted we were spooning. I could feel Hop’s chest against my back; his arm was heavy on my waist and he had one knee cocked into both my bent legs.
All of this felt nice but his knee felt the nicest. It was forced between my legs so his thigh was resting, warm and hard, against the heat of me.
My first thought was to rub myself against his thigh.
My second thought was, I’d forgotten how fabulous it was to wake up next to a warm body cuddling me.
My third, far saner thought was how the hell I was going to get out of there.
This thought flew from my head when he shifted again, and I felt his lips at my shoulder where he kissed me then I felt his body slide gently away.
Gently and carefully, going slow, his hand copped a feel of the skin on my hip, exposed by his tee, which had ridden up. Other than that, it was clear he thought I was asleep and he was doing everything he could not to wake me.
This was, unfortunately, what I was coming to realize was Hop. He tucked me in bed. He kissed my hair, forehead, temple, or shoulder soft and sweet whenever he left me. And he moved carefully in order not to wake me.
Making matters worse, he obviously thought I was asleep.
Still, before he left me, he kissed me.
The gesture didn’t even count for brownie points since he thought I was asleep and he still did it.
I didn’t want more confirmation of knowledge I was trying not to process and I wished I didn’t have it.
So I shoved it into the back of my head.
Then, as I lay there alone in his bed feigning sleep, the events of the evening before crashed over me. This forced me to exert not a small amount of sleepy effort in order not to process the fact that the evening before, I found out a badass biker cared about me and thus kept an eye on me, saved me from being raped, gave me honesty I refused to acknowledge, and then gave me four orgasms before he let me fall asleep in his tee.
This took a lot of effort, which was near on impossible without coffee. Therefore I heard the toilet flush before I realized that I should have taken the opportunity while Hop was in the bathroom to get dressed and get the heck out of there.
This was a moot point because I felt his presence in the room right before I heard a knock on the door.
I tensed.
I didn’t want anyone to know I was there.
I loved Ty-Ty. She’d been my family for a long time—true family, real family, the kind you choose, not the kind fate chooses for you. Tack and the boys had all welcomed me when they welcomed Tyra. They’d gone all out to protect Elliott and me, Tack especially. When I returned to Denver, they folded me in Chaos arms. Growing up close to a country club with a banker father and a wealthy, Southern farmer princess mother, I would not have expected I would feel comfortable in the bosom of that particular family. But if Chaos adopted you, the way they did it, it was impossible not to feel comfortable.
So I didn’t want whatever might come of someone finding out Hop and I hooked up. Even if it was over (something I would share with him again when we talked), it was not anyone’s business. I had an agency to run. I had employees and clients who depended on me. I had something happening to me that I didn’t quite get and didn’t have the energy to find a way to understand. I didn’t need to deal with whatever reaction anyone would have, most especially Tyra and Tack, if they found out about me and Hop.
No, I couldn’t deal.
So I didn’t want to be in the position of having to.
“Brother,” I heard Hop greet whoever it was quietly. “Not a good time. We’ll talk later.”
A knowing smile in his voice, I heard the reply, “Got gash in there?”
This voice I knew. High, one of the brothers. I liked High even if he was less approachable and good-humored than some of the other guys. He’d always been nice to me.
But at his words, my body tensed. “Gash” was one of the not-so-nice words the guys used to refer to women, not so nice in a way that I hated it, as any woman would.
“You like your nose like it is?” Hop growled and my eyes opened so they could blink.
He had been talking quietly, thinking I was sleeping.
Now he was unmistakably ticked in a way it was clear he didn’t care if he woke me.
“Come again?” High asked. His tone no longer smiling. He sounded surprised.
No, shocked.
“You like your nose like it is, brother, you shut your fuckin’ mouth,” Hop warned.
This was met with silence.
Hop broke the silence. “You not leavin’ tells me you got somethin’ to say. Say it. Got shit to do.”
“Tug and Roscoe were on patrol last night,” High declared.
Patrol?
“And?” Hop prompted.
“Three of them on the corner of Broadway and Mississippi.”
I stared at the pillow uneasily and with some confusion, since I didn’t know what these words meant, but I could feel a hostile wave rolling through the room.
“Benito put three bitches on a four-lane road that leads into the heart of the city?” Hop asked, his voice dripping with disbelief that was less incredulity and more hope that High would tell him he was joking.
“Dick has balls,” High answered, which I took as affirmative.
“Christ,” Hop muttered.
“Tug says they ousted them but those bitches know we got no beef with them so they got no danger from us. This means they ain’t scared of us. They’re scared of Benito. And you know that means, Benito sends them to a corner on Chaos, they’ll go back,” High stated. “Tack’s up the mountain, comin’ down. Roscoe reported in to him, Tack called me. You and me are up for patrol tonight. We find gash, he needs us to make a stronger statement than Tug and Roscoe can make.”
Oh dear.
What did that mean?
“Tack wants you. You got a way with gash,” High replied, and I didn’t like the sound of that at all so I closed my eyes tighter.
“Talk to Dog or Brick, High. I got somethin’ on tonight,” Hop repeated, his voice low and impatient.
This was met with another long silence. Then, “I’ll talk with Dog or Brick.”
“Obliged,” Hop muttered and I heard the door click.
Moments later, the bed moved as Hop got back in it.
His body shifted right to mine, curving in, his hand finding the bunched up end of his tee and moving in, up my skin, toward my breast.
My body tensed.
His fingers curved around my breast, warm, claiming.
Sweet.
I pressed my lips together.
I felt him shift again before I felt his ’tache at my ear.
“Babe, know you’re not sleeping,”
I said nothing and continued to feign sleep.
Hop pressed closer. “Lady, you sleep loose and you’re wound up tight. I know you aren’t sleeping.”
I kept my eyes closed but asked, “Who’s Benito?”
His fingers around my breast curled tighter before they relaxed and his hand moved up to my chest. His body moved away from mine and I found myself on my back because his hand on my chest pressed me there.
Then his hand moved out of his tee as he rolled over me. I opened my eyes just as his fingers slid into the side of my hair and his thumb stroked light at my temple.
He looked good in the morning, his stubble around his mustache thick and dark, his eyes still holding a hint of sleep.
Not to mention, the thumb at my temple thing felt nice.
Gah!
“First,” he began softly, “good morning.”
“Good morning,” I replied, then asked again, “Who’s Benito?”
He grinned before his head dipped closer and his lips brushed mine.
That felt nice, too.
Then again, it always did.
He lifted his head and caught my eyes as he muttered, “She starts right up, not even waitin’ for coffee.”
“Who’s Benito?” I repeated.
He studied me.