This plan kept me silent as Hop parked next to two other bikes in front of the Compound. It kept me silent when he twisted his neck and scowled at me, which I accurately took as my cue to get off the bike. I stayed silent as I swung off. Hop swung off, grabbed my hand, and dragged me and my platform sandals to the Compound. I remained silent as he dragged me through the door, through the beer-sign-decorated, pool table- and beat-up couch-filled, rounded bar-bedecked common room to the back hall, down it and into his personal room at the Compound.

He tugged me in and I took the four steps the momentum of his pull forced me to take before I stopped and turned to him.

He slammed the door, walked three steps but stopped to the side of me, keeping a distance, at the same time shrugging off his leather cut. Tossing it to an easy chair in the corner, he turned to me and stopped.

Okay, now, I decided, it was time to talk.

I opened my mouth.

His hand sliced up, palm out toward me, and he shook his head. “Don’t, Lanie. Don’t say a f**kin’ word.”

I closed my mouth.

It was at this juncture that I thought maybe I should have formed a different plan, one that involved running and not talking.

He dropped his hand and glowered at me.

I pressed my lips together and waited.

His eyes slid from hair to platforms to hair again, then down to my br**sts then to my face.

I knew what he saw.

What he saw wasn’t me.

I pulled my lips between my teeth.

Finally, he shook his head before he dropped it, lifting a hand to wrap around the back of his neck, and he stared at his boots.

I had been around Chaos for a goodly amount of time. Nearly eight years. And I’d been paying attention to Hop for a lot of the time I’d been around.

Still, unlike Tack, I didn’t know what it meant when Hop stared at his boots.

When he did this for a very long time, so long I was inwardly squirming, I couldn’t stop myself.

I broke the silence.

“Do you, uh… go to that bar often?”

His head snapped up, his hand dropped, his eyes narrowed on me, and he asked, “Are you shitting me?”

It seemed like it was maybe time for more silence so I went with that.

Hop, unfortunately, didn’t feel it was time for more silence.

He declared, “Babe, you are so f**ked up you’re the f**kin’ definition of f**ked up. You think, you bein’ fucked up and me knowin’ just how much, I haven’t kept my eye on you?”

My breath froze in my lungs.

He’d kept an eye on me?

Hop wasn’t done.

“I see you take off after midnight, go to the f**kin’ lousiest joint in all of goddamned Denver. A place, except for where bangers hang out, that’s also the f**kin’ riskiest. Then you pick a lunatic to f**kin’ line dance with. You’re talkin’ to his girl, I take a chance and go to the can, come out, you’ve disappeared. I look every-fucking-where for you and I find you pressed against a monster truck tire with an ass**le’s mouth on your neck and his hand nearly on your goddamned tit.”

This was a regrettably accurate recount of the evening.

“So no,” he continued. “To answer your question, Lanie, I do not go to that bar often. I go to that bar when a beautiful woman I care about decides to get a wild hair up her ass, take off in the middle of the night, and put her life in jeopardy.”

My breath unfroze only to start burning in my lungs.

A beautiful woman I care about…

“You know,” he stated conversationally before he socked it to me, “your mind mighta been shut down, babe, but your body wasn’t and it fought to keep breathin’, keep you alive. Story I heard, story that holds true with the marks you carry—gut shot, lung shot—it was a miracle you survived. The story I know is true is that your goddamned ass was in Critical Care for six goddamned days and you were in a coma most of that time. Your body goes all out to heal and pull you through and you repay it with that f**kin’ garbage?” He swung a hand to the door.

A beautiful woman I care about…

“Lanie, what did you think you’d find there?” he asked when I said not one word.

I pulled in breath, opened my mouth and closed it.

Hop’s mouth got tight, then it loosened so he could declare, “Babe, you wanna find me, you want more of me, you know where I am. You do not go lookin’ for rough trade in hopes of getting back what you gave up. I’ll tell you now, I do not have a replacement. There’s only one me. You want it, you find,” he jerked his thumb at his chest, leaning toward me and concluded, “me.”

I blinked. My lungs stopped burning as my eyes started flaming, not in despair but in fury as I stared at him.

Then I asked, “You think I was out looking for your replacement?”

“You ever been to that bar before?” he asked back.

“No,” I answered. “But I was most certainly not out looking for your replacement.”

“What were you lookin’ for then, babe?”

This was, alas, an interesting question.

“Not your replacement,” I snapped, my tone sharp to hide my sudden uncertainty.

“Christ, we’re back to your bullshit,” he clipped, scowling at me.

“You’re very arrogant, Hopper Kincaid,” I told him, my tone now so sharp it was cutting, and there was no hidden uncertainty.

“Yeah, well, man gets that way when a woman that looks like you comes as hard as I can make you come and, when you lose my dick, you go out searchin’ for more of what you lost. Stupid shit is that you looked in the wrong place when you know exactly where to find me.”

He could not be serious.

“Okay, tell me you didn’t say that,” I invited.

“You heard what I said, Lanie, and, gotta tell you, not a word of it I’d take back because you and I both know every word is true,” he returned.

“Okay, don’t take it back. Instead, take me back to my car,” I demanded.

“Five beers, three shots of vodka says you are not gettin’ behind a wheel tonight,” he shot back.

Oh dear. He’d been paying a good deal of attention.

Time for a new tactic.

I pulled my purse off my arm, starting to dig through it, declaring, “Right, then I’ll get a taxi.”

Suddenly my purse was yanked out of my hand and I was staring at Hop digging through it. He pulled out my phone, shoved it in his pocket, then tossed my bag across the room where it landed with a bounce on the ratty easy chair that was mostly covered in dirty clothes as well as his leather cut.