“Not sad,” he returned. “Danny’s livin’ the same life, babe. No growth. Nothin’ to show for it. They got a loyal following that’s a f**kuva lot bigger than what we had back then which means they have a decent manager who keeps them in gigs and they can pay two roadies so they don’t have to lug equipment. But every night it’s a different bar, a different body in his bed, a different hotel. Every day it’s back in the RV, on the road, headin’ to more of the same. His life is still narrow. I think he digs it and if he’s down with that, cool. But he and me are both forty. In ten years, fifteen if he’s lucky, those broads up front are gonna look as tired as he is. It won’t matter how great he can sell “Feel Like a Number”, fresh pu**y is gonna dry up and the gigs are gonna be fewer and farther between and, I guarantee you, lady, he’s gonna find himself at a time where he’ll look back and reflect and he’ll have regrets.”

I nodded because this was likely true.

Hop carried on.

“I gave it up and found Chaos. I got kids. I got brothers. I got a home. I got work I like doin’ at the garage, the store, with my Club. I got family.” His arm gave me a squeeze and his lips tipped up. “I got a beautiful woman in my bed and I’ve had her enough times, I know what to do to make her moan for me. If I don’t f**k that up with her, I keep that and no matter what women think, a real man wants to know how to make his woman moan and takes up the challenge of keepin’ that up and makin’ it better. Not starting that shit up time and again with another bitch. What I’m sayin’ is, I landed in a good place, baby, and I never looked back. I got no regrets.”

His words about me, how he knew how to make me moan, how a real man wants to keep that up and make it better meant everything to me.

Everything.

If I could give him words to say to make me know my heart and gut led me straight to where I should be, na**d in Hop’s waterbed, they might not have been exactly the same since I wasn’t a badass biker.

But they’d have the same meaning.

Therefore, I found myself whispering, “I love the song you sang for me.”

His face got soft but his smiling mouth said, “I think I got that when you stood on a chair and screamed I was the shit then jumped me the minute we got in your front door. Seriously, babe, I think I got carpet burns on my ass and shoulder blades, you rode me so hard.”

I smiled back but still gave his shoulder a puny slap and returned, “You don’t have carpet burns.”

He kept smiling through his muttered, “Feels like it.” I kept smiling too and Hop went on, “Good you got a rug inside your front door, lady. You rode me like that with my back on your tile, I wouldn’t be able to walk but that would be the least of my worries seein’ as I’d probably have a concussion.”

“Shut up,” I mumbled, still smiling and his smile got bigger. “Dad knows about us.”

Yes, that was what I blurted. I knew it actually came out when Hop’s eyebrows shot up.

“Come again?” he asked.

I pulled in a breath.

I said it. I said it in Hop’s bed. I said it after making the unconscious but undeniable decision to let him in so I decided it was time to give him more.

“That was what that thing was about in Vail,” I admitted.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“Yeah,” I muttered back, and his hand slid out of my hair to wrap around the back of my neck.

“Can’t say that’s too surprising, baby,” he said gently. “We were shit at hiding it.”

“Yeah,” I repeated.

“He’d have to be stupid and blind and your old man is neither. Caught your mom givin’ us looks too and, I don’t know, not gonna go there with her until you and me decide it’s time but I don’t think it escaped Molly either,” he told me and my stomach lurched.

“Really? Molly?” I asked.

“She loves her dad. She pays attention. She’s a girl. Even at her age, she swoons over boy band crap and guys on TV she thinks are cute. Romantic fantasy is ingrained in chicks. It might come out slow but it’ll always come out. You look great. You dress great. You smile at her like she’s the only girl in the world and you make her old man happy. She’s gonna get ideas. In this instance, they just happen to be the right ones.”

“This is true,” I murmured, and he grinned then his grin faded.

“So he said shit to you about me?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

“And you packed your shit and walked out.”

It wasn’t a question, since he didn’t have to question seeing as he rode to my rescue, but there was something in his tone. Something that made my heart seize. Something important.

“Well, yeah,” I stated. “You rode to my rescue, remember?”

“Your dad said shit about me and you packed your shit and walked out.”

Again with the tone. Heavy.

No, weighty.

Meaningful.

Something was happening here.

“Hop—” I started but stopped when he rolled us so he was on top, and his hand came up to cup my jaw and I noted he was no longer just looking at me.

His eyes were burning into mine.

“All that shit you no doubt had to live through with your mom, you ever do anything like that before?” he asked.

“No,” I whispered.

“But your dad trash talked me, you threw a drama and walked out.”

“Yeah,” I replied, although I wouldn’t refer to it as “throwing a drama.” I couldn’t debate that I didn’t since, technically, I did.

And anyway, Hop was still being intense so I needed to concentrate and not debate terminology.

“So he trash talked me?”

I squirmed a little but stopped when Hop’s fingers dug lightly into my skin.

“He said you were a mistake, like Elliott,” I admitted cautiously.

“He’s wrong,” Hop growled, not cautiously.

“Hop—”

“He’s wrong, Lanie,” he bit out.

“Okay,” I said slowly.

“Do not let him feed that monster in you. Not about me,” he ordered.

“Okay,” I repeated.

“With women, it’s about the slow soak, babe. Assholes pour shit on the surface and women keep goin’ not even knowin’ that shit is soakin’ in. Then one day, out of f**kin’ nowhere, that acid has burned deep in a way it leaves a wound that will never heal. Wipe that shit away, Lanie. Don’t let it soak in. He doesn’t know me. He cannot make that call about me.”