Chaos series by Kristen Ashley

“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.

Needless to say, we got plastered and men like it when women get plastered. Therefore, Tack took off with Ty-Ty in tow so they could enjoy her being drunk in their house in the mountains. Hawk showed and guided his tipsy wife and Elvira to his SUV while Elvira talked on the phone with Malik, which meant Malik was going to catch the hint his woman was blotto and I figured he’d meet her at her house in order to take advantage.

As for me, I kept drinking and enjoying my time with the guys until High showed. Although I was inebriated, it looked to me like Hop gave him a signal and High somehow managed to talk the other boys away from the bar and off on some Chaos errand.

Alone in the Compound with Hop, he wasted no time leading me to his room, where we had wild, crazy, drunken sex (okay, that last bit was just me) and it… was… fabulous. More fabulous now since Hop’s visit to the clinic brought good news. He could go “ungloved,” which meant it was just him and me with nothing in between.

I promptly passed out, only to be awoken by my man forty-five minutes ago, whereupon he made sweet, slow love to me.

It was debatable but that might have been more fabulous.

I was slightly hungover.

I was also not-so-slightly happy.

“How did I find Chaos?” Hop asked and I grinned at him.

“Yeah.”

“Tack came to a show.”

I tipped my head to the side. “What?”

“When I was still with the band, Tack came to a show. My family’s from Nevada. Mom and Dad still live there but Bog put out feelers everywhere so we got gigs in Denver. After a show, Tack came up to me and told me he dug what we did. Liked him, he seemed solid, and it was cool he went out of his way to say that shit to me. When I quit the band, I thought about where I wanted to land and by that time, even though I was only twenty-four, I had a lot of miles in. Place I liked best was Denver. Came here, remembered Tack. Not hard to miss, seein’ as he was wearin’ his cut, that he was in a Club and I rode into town on a bike. Seemed a fit. Sought him out, told him I left the band, he told me about Chaos. Invited me to a bash. I went.” He smiled. “The rest is history.”

“So you’ve been in the Club since you were twenty-four?” I asked.

“By the time I got here, made the decision, finished my time as a grunt, full membership at twenty-seven.”

“And you never looked back,” I noted.

The ease of our post-making love morning drifted from his face when he replied, “Never looked back.”

“What’s that?” I queried.

“What?”

“That look on your face,” I explained, and he hesitated before he rolled us. I had been lying on him. Hop situated us so I was on my back and he’d pressed his front to my side, his hand splayed on my belly.

“Tack didn’t invite me to join so much as recruited me,” he stated in a way that sounded weirdly like a confession and I felt my eyebrows draw together.

“I don’t get it. I mean, aren’t all the guys recruited?”

“Not for what Tack recruited me.”

I knew from his tone and the look on his face, our happy morning seemed to have gone south somehow.

I just didn’t get it.

“What are you saying?” I asked hesitantly, not wanting our morning to go south and not really sure I wanted to know what he was saying.

“What I’m sayin’ is, the Club was different back then. You and me, we stay solid, you’re brought officially into the fold as an old lady when we let out the news about us, you’ll hear talk.” He studied me a moment before finishing, “You might have already heard it.”