“You wanna know it’s solid,” he guessed.

“I want this monster out of me,” I confessed, pressing closer. “I want… I wanna be able to face them both and know. Know I believe. Know I’m right this time. After what happened last time, how bad it was, how we nearly lost Ty-Ty, I have to know this time. It has to be solid. For you. For me. So Tyra can believe.”

His face changed, unease washing through his expression and he told me, “You were right the last time, baby. He did wrong but you did right.”

I shook my head and Hop watched me do it.

Hop let me go, shifted us both into the couch, tucking me tight to his side. I lifted up my legs and curled them on the couch beside me as I snaked an arm across his stomach and pressed my forehead into his neck.

“For a while, babe, we’ll keep this between you and me,” he gave in. “But you gotta remember that I’m easin’ you into my kids’ lives and I’m not gonna ask them to lie. Kids say shit and they are not strangers to Chaos. You also gotta be aware that High picked me up here so he knows and I asked him not to talk but I am not gonna get in his face if he does. So if you keep this from your girl, you’re walkin’ a tightrope, baby, and the longer this carries on, if she finds out before we share, the more you’re gonna have to explain.”

I nodded.

I’d worry about that later.

A lot later.

“Right,” he muttered and I pressed closer.

We fell silent and neither of us broke it for a good long while.

Finally, Hop did.

“Don’t know who won this one, the monster or us,” he mused.

I didn’t either.

I just knew it was an entirely different experience, battling that monster with Hop at my back.

“You sensed something was up, called Sheila to stay with the kids and drove all the way here to talk with me,” I reminded him.

“Yeah,” he agreed and I lifted up to look at him.

“That monster always bests me, honey, but I’m thinking you did great.”

Another expression washed through his features, this one better. Surprise and satisfaction.

I got to enjoy it for half a second before he kissed me.

When he broke the kiss, I noted, “I hate to bring this up but we have to figure out what to do about this set up.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll deal with it.”

I stared at him. “How are you going to deal with it?”

“I’ll think of something.”

After Hopper Kincaid said those four words, there was one thing I knew with a surety that was astonishing.

He would.

One way or another, Hop would think of something and make my troubles go away.

I liked this so much, to communicate just how much, I pressed my forehead back into his neck and burrowed close.

Letting go of that scene, a thought came to me.

“So, uh… I’m taking it from this conversation that you want us to be exclusive?” I asked and felt his body tense before it shook slightly with laughter.

“Uh, yeah, babe. I want us to be exclusive,” he confirmed, his words also shaking with laughter.

Good to know.

No. Great to know.

I burrowed closer before I told him, “If we’re exclusive, you should know, I have the birth control thing covered.”

There was no laughter in his voice. He sounded surprised when he asked, “You good with me ungloved?”

I pulled my face out of his neck and again looked at him. “I don’t know. What did you mean when you said, ‘shit happens’ that night you got angry with me?”

“It means, for your peace of mind, I’m visiting a clinic.”

Hop, for me, was visiting a clinic.

Yes, oh yes, it just kept getting better.

I smiled at him. He smiled back before his hand sifted in my hair and he pressed my forehead against his neck. He held me for a while before he told he had to get back to his kids.

He kissed me again and I walked him out to his bike, where I kissed him.

Then he told me he wasn’t leaving until he saw my outside light go on and off, indicating I was safely locked inside.

That was sweet and protective so I kissed him again.

Ten minutes later, I flicked my light on and off, indicating to Hopper I was safely locked inside.

But I stood inside feeling something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

Safe.

Chapter Twelve

Knife in My Gut

One week and three days later…

“So, how did it happen for you?”

“How’d what happen for me?”

I moved my face out of Hop’s throat and looked down at him. “How did you find Chaos?”

It was Sunday morning and we were in his bed in the Compound. Considering we were still keeping our relationship a secret, this was a risk. However, last night, I’d joined Tyra and our friends Gwen and Elvira at the Compound for drinks prior to going out. This was at Tyra’s invitation, and even though I would have preferred to spend my Saturday evening with Hop, in order to hide what we had, I’d agreed.

Tack, Brick, Shy, Tug, and Big Petey were all there so we ended up not going out and instead, we all got plastered in the common room.

Later in the evening, after some clandestine texting to let Hop know where I was, he showed.

This was fun, too fun. Then again, times with Ty-Ty always were. Throw Elvira and Gwen in the mix, it went off the charts.

Elvira was a black woman who was totally crazy (but in good ways). Gwen was a white woman who was only slightly less crazy than Elvira but I figured this had to do with the fact that she was married to Hawk Delgado. I wasn’t sure since Gwen didn’t talk about it, but considering he always wore cargo pants, skintight shirts, sturdy boots, a forbidding expression and a gun belt, I figured Hawk was a commando.

An actual commando.

My guess was, being married to a commando curtailed your level of craziness, because no one wanted to call home to a hubby who was a commando and explain the trouble they’d got themselves into. I didn’t know but I figured commandos had enough trouble professionally. They didn’t need their wives buying them more.

Though, Gwen being Gwen, even though she was a mom married to a commando, still knew how to have herself a good time.

Elvira, on the other hand, was seeing a very good-looking, African American cop. Unlike Hawk, Elvira’s man Malik thought her craziness was hysterical and cute. I knew this because I’d been around them and he’d said it. A lot. Because she was crazy. A lot. And it was good he thought this because it meant the drama she liberally injected into their relationship was something he enjoyed, rather than something that set him running for the hills.