Those eyes, bedroom eyes.
That perfume, f**k me perfume.
Jesus, he’d been catching whiffs of it now for years and it never failed to do a number on him. He didn’t know what it was—the fact that it smelled expensive, the intense femininity of it that said, point blank, “I am all f**king woman,” or the fact that it was elusive. If you got one smell of it, the woman who wore it owned you because you’d do anything to go back for more. Any time Lanie got near him, Hop hoped to catch her scent. Sometimes he would. Sometimes he wouldn’t. But every time, he hoped for it.
Now, though, smelling her scent was a very bad thing.
“Not sure that’s a good idea, Lanie,” he told her, gentling his voice as he gave her the honesty.
“Why?” she asked immediately, and he felt his eyes narrow on her before he answered.
“Maybe ’cause you’re best friends with Tack’s old lady. I respect him, I respect her, and shit like this, babe, it gets complicated. Any complication sucks but a complication like this,” he shook his head, “no one needs that.”
She threw out a hand and declared casually, “It won’t get complicated.”
Okay, maybe she was messed up, f**ked up, a drama queen, high maintenance and a nut.
“Bullshit,” he replied. “It always gets complicated.”
She moved closer and Jesus, her scent, that hair, those eyes, all so close. If she got any closer he’d physically have to set her away or pick her up and carry her to his room.
“Do you want to f**k me?” she asked. Her voice, sweet and feminine normally, was soft now, a little hesitant, a little excited, and that intoxicating combination was doing a number on him too.
“Babe, you looked in the mirror lately?” he asked back by way of answer. “Man would have to be dead not to wanna f**k you.”
A little smile twisted her pretty mouth and he knew he was screwed because that was cute and f**king sexy as all f**king hell.
Shit.
She got closer and Hop braced. Any closer and she’d be cozied up to him. She was inches away.
“Do you like me?” she asked.
“Everyone likes you,” he answered.
“I’m not asking about everyone, Hop,” she told him and he held her eyes.
“Yeah, babe, you know I do,” he finally answered when she didn’t move or speak, just waited. “You’re funny, you’re cute, you’re hot, and you got no problem letting it all hang out. That’s why everyone likes you. That’s also why I do.”
To that, she returned, “Okay. Good. Then no complications, Hop. Just you and me and tonight. Tomorrow, I won’t expect flowers. I won’t expect a belated courtesy date. I won’t even expect you to take me out for a cup of coffee. This isn’t about that. I don’t even want that. I just want you and sex. No expectations. Nothing but what we have tonight,” she told him. “Tack and Ty-Ty, or anyone, they never even have to know.”
He pushed away from the pole, reached out an arm to put his beer on a nearby picnic table and took a huge chance straightening to her because it meant they were closer. But it also gave him the half an inch he still had on her when she was in those heels and he needed it.
“Don’t wanna be a dick, lady,” he warned softly, “but bitches say that shit all the time. Then, in the morning, they expect breakfast, coffee, and to come home from work to roses with a note sayin’ the guy never had better. You got a man who thinks to buy you roses, says he’s never had better, big chances are he’s lyin’. He just wants it regular and he’ll take it as it comes.”
He knew every word out of his mouth made him the dick he told her he didn’t want to be but she needed to move on. If she was in the mood to get laid, she needed to find herself some not on Chaos. Tack’s woman Cherry had chosen Chaos but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t lose her mind if her best girl hooked up with a brother. She would. Hop knew it. But if that shit happened anyway, Cherry would want to handpick the brother who got in there and Hop also knew that brother would absolutely not be him.
“Then take it as it comes,” she shot back, not appearing offended in the slightest, her words coming out almost like a dare.
“Lanie—” he started but she leaned in and, f**k, if he moved his mouth a quarter of an inch, it’d be on hers. She was all he could see, all he could smell, and all he could think was that she was also all he wanted to feel.
“You know my story,” she whispered. “You think I want another guy?” She paused then finished with emphasis, “Ever?”
He got her. Her dead old man was a moron and she’d paid for his shit in the worst way she could. Her loyalty had bought her nothing but pain, bullet wounds, and heartache. Not to mention, her man might have been good at what he did for a living, the computer geek to end all computer geeks, but he was nothing to look at. So she not only gave love and loyalty but she stepped out of a zone no woman who looked like her had to step out of in order to give it.
So, yeah, Belova was a moron and she chose that. He could see her wanting to get back in the saddle but being skittish about buying the horse.
She just wasn’t going to get back in the saddle with him.
Hop started to lift his hands to curl them around her upper arms and set her away but she moved fast, lifting her hands to curl them around the sides of his neck. They felt warm. Her perfume assaulted him straight on and he stilled.
“I do not want that,” she carried on. “What I want is… you. For one night. Just one night.”
Fuck him.
Fuck him.
“Lady,” he muttered but before he could say more, she kept talking.
“It was… I know you know where I was back then and who I was with and I know you had a woman then too, Hop, but still, that night I met you, I couldn’t help but notice you were good-looking. But you’re not with anyone anymore and I’m seriously not with anyone anymore and I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, just too scared to do anything about it. Now I’ve decided I’m doing something about it.”
“I gotta say, I like that you’re into me, babe,” he returned gently. “Already told you that you’re beautiful and under any other circumstances, I would not hesitate to take you up on an offer this sweet. So you gotta know it’s killin’ me even as you gotta trust me when I say this is not a good idea.”
“I’ve had no one since him,” she whispered and, acting on their own, Hop’s hands came up and settled on her waist, giving it a squeeze. The move was intimate but comforting. The news that this woman, this crazy-gorgeous woman and all that she was hadn’t had a man between her legs in f**king years moved him even as it troubled him.