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?
“Talk to Dog or Brick. Got somethin’ on tonight,” Hop told him and I closed my eyes.
“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.