“We danced,” I reminded him, trying logic first. Just in case a miracle happened, he’d see it and back off without an ugly scene. At the same time, pushing harder, wishing my purse, which he’d pulled off my arm and thrown to the ground, was closer since my phone was in it, and wondering if anyone would hear me scream. “That’s hardly all over you.”

His head dipped and his mouth went to my neck. I felt his tongue, damp and sloppy there.

At that, I also felt bile slide up my throat and pushed harder, definitely deciding to scream.

“You danced close,” he muttered against my neck, pushing me further into the tire, which didn’t feel real great.

“I did not.” And I hadn’t. We were line dancing, for goodness’ sakes!

His hand was gliding up my side and getting close to my breast.

Okay. Time to scream.

And, possibly, engage my fingernails.

I opened my mouth to do just that, heaving at the same time when, suddenly, his face was not in my neck and his body was not pressing me into the tire.

No, I watched with some fascination, some awe, and some queasiness as his head snapped back unnaturally and his body went with it. The former did this because Hop had his fist in the guy’s hair and the latter did this because Hop had his arm around the guy’s chest.

Although I was thrilled beyond belief that I was no longer against the tire and someone was there to save me (although I wouldn’t have picked Hopper for obvious reasons, at that point, I was also not going to quibble), I wasn’t sure this was good. The guy was a jerk. Not to mention, he was huge. He had to have three inches and fifty pounds on Hop.

It was then I watched with some fascination, a lot more awe and no queasiness—because there was so much awe there wasn’t room for queasiness—as Hop beat the absolute crap out of the guy.

He did this swiftly, methodically, effortlessly, viciously, and with what appeared a good deal of practice.

It took him, maybe, three minutes.

I watched the whole thing, frozen, with my mouth open.

When the bloodied, unconscious mountain of beefy jerk dropped to the pavement of the dark parking lot, I stared at him lying there, not moving.

“You. Bike. Now.”

The queasiness came back but it was different. This time it came in the form of fear. Fear caused simply by the low, lethal, enraged tone of Hopper’s voice.

Slowly, my eyes rose to his.

Yes, enraged.

And lethal.

Oh dear.

“Hop—”

“Lanie, swear to God, swear to God… ” he trailed off, lifted a hand in my direction, palm up, and scowled at me. Then he dropped his hand and bit off, “You. Bike. Fucking now.”

I decided it might be prudent to go with him to his bike even though my car was right here in the parking lot.

The problem was, I didn’t know which one was his bike. There were around seven thousand of them lined up outside the bar.

“Uh…” I mumbled. He lunged toward me and I found myself back against the tire again but this time I’d pressed myself there.

I wasn’t there long.

Hop clamped his hand around mine. He yanked me away from the tire, pulled me three steps, stopped only to bend and snatch up my purse, twist around and toss it at me. Luckily, I caught it. Then I and my platform sandals teetered unsteadily but very quickly behind Hop as his ground-eating strides took us to a black Harley.

He let me go and threw a leg over.

As he did this, still being prudent (belatedly), I studied his movements.

Big Petey, a member of Chaos, a founding member, thus not a spring chicken, had taken me out on his Harley Trike and he’d done this numerous times.

Big Petey was in his sixties and a Harley Trike was not even close to what this sleek, kickass machine was in front of me.

Big Petey was nice and he cared about me.

He was not lean, mean Hopper Kincaid, who might want to kill me but was definitely furious enough to do it.

I had never ridden on a Harley that had only two wheels. I’d never ridden on any motorcycle that had only two wheels.

Necessity, the mother of invention and the savior of stupid women in biker bar parking lots, came to my rescue. I found the foothold, told myself it was good no one was around to catch a glimpse of me not being a lady as I swung my leg over to get my short, jeans skirt-clad booty on the seat behind Hop and I settled in, hands on his waist.

The instant I settled, bike already growling, he backed it out. Then his hands came to my wrists, yanked them roughly around his middle so my front slammed into his back, and I had no time to say or do anything, just hold on, as we shot from the parking lot.

The wind in my hair, a monkey on my back, I didn’t enjoy the ride.

I fretted the entire way from the bar to Ride Auto Supply Store, otherwise known to those in the know simply as “Chaos”. The store, the big-bayed garage behind it where they built custom cars and bikes, the massive forecourt of tarmac in front of it, the large building beside it, known as the Compound, was all Chaos. The boys owned Chaos collectively. The boys were Chaos.

And, according to Big Petey, five square miles around it was known as Chaos territory.

But we weren’t just in Chaos territory.

We were on Chaos, an island of land in the city of Denver that was biker-controlled.

This was not good.

You could get lost on Chaos. It was theirs. They owned it. They ruled it. They didn’t let in anyone they didn’t want there. They also didn’t let out anyone they didn’t want to go.

Tug, another one of the members, told me even cops knew that unless they had to turn into the forecourt and onto Chaos, they didn’t. It was sacrosanct. It was its own little mini-nation, ruled by Tack. The knights at his rectangular table wore leather cuts with Chaos patches sewn on the back.

Therefore, riding back there with a knight in his cut with the Chaos patch stitched on the back, who also happened to be very angry, I knew I could get lost.

Which meant I was in trouble.

Although slightly inebriated but mostly, literally, scared straight, I was able, through the drunkenness and fear, to form a plan. And my plan was to go with the only option I had. That was, try to talk my way through this. However, I would need to pick my moment.

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 fuckin’ 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 breasts 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 fucked up you’re the fuckin’ definition of fucked 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 fuckin’ lousiest joint in all of goddamned Denver. A place, except for where bangers hang out, that’s also the fuckin’ riskiest. Then you pick a lunatic to fuckin’ 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 asshole’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 fuckin’ 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.