Then again, I’d been in love with Elliott and you do stuff like that when you’re in love. You shove to the back of your head little things that bother you. Things you had before that you missed. Things like having a man who was all man f**king you until you ached but ached in a good way.
In my experience, which wasn’t vast but it also wasn’t limited, a man who was all man was usually a total jerk and an ass**le and took both of these to extremes.
I felt Hop’s presence, opened my eyes and watched him walk back into my bedroom.
The back view, fabulous.
The front, God… staggering.
Never, not ever in my life, would the man I was staring at right then be a man I would expect to be in my bed.
But he was and he was, for the first time in my life, in my bed on my own damned terms.
When I met Hop years ago, I’d been in a drama because I’d just learned my fiancé was whacked. Even so, Hopper was the kind of guy that his looks, his charisma, all that was him, and there was a lot, could cut through anything. I was engaged to be married and in the throes of a crazy situation that only got crazier, so my mind didn’t go there but it did process all that was him. It was impossible for it not to.
When I got back from Connecticut, with Elliott gone but Hop alive, breathing and so freaking good-looking, my mind went there.
Again and again and again.
Thick, black, unruly hair that was long in front, often fell into his face and had little flips and waves all through it but especially around his neck.
Gray eyes with lines radiating out the sides, that stated not only did he not have a desk job but that he lived his life, didn’t exist through it. Whether those lines were from squinting, laughter or frowning, they were intriguing and took your attention to the gray that was a pure gray, not slightly blue, not dark to black, just a startling gray.
His mustache, facial hair something else I didn’t like on a guy, was the epitome of biker cool. Thick along his upper lip and down the sides, bushier at either side of his chin.
He had no body fat in evidence, at all. He was tall, lean. There wasn’t bulk to his muscle but the definition stated without doubt there was power in his frame and that power wasn’t insignificant.
A dusting of black chest hair, not a thick mat. Short, rough, sparse but not meager, arrayed across his pecs and ribs, hair that felt crazy-good against my skin.
The best part, defining the center ridge in his six pack, the hair got thicker, darker, leading in a thin line from the valley of his pecs to his navel, then got thinner as it led down to one of the best parts of him.
I loved his chest hair. I loved his height. I loved the power behind his body. And, if I was honest, I loved the beauty of his cock, perfectly formed, both thick and long, and it helped a whole lot that he knew what to do with it.
I also found that I loved his tats, something on other men I wouldn’t like. The Chaos emblem on his back. Another one all the men had that Hop had had inked into the inside of his right bicep, a set of scales, unbalanced, reapers, scythes, and the words, “Never Forget” at the bottom. There were also black, yellow, and red flames dancing from wrist to elbow on both of his forearms.
Badass.
Hot.
Fantastic.
And last, Hop was the only man I’d ever had who wore jewelry. He wore a lot of it and, as with everything else, he looked good in it. Bulky silver rings on his fingers, sometimes two or three, sometimes five or six. Leather bands or silver bracelets at his wrists. A tangle of chains with medallions at his neck. Stud earrings in both ears, the same every day: a small silver cross in one, a tiny silver profile of a skull, the back of its head a set of flames, all this set in black in the other.
No man looked good in jewelry.
No man except a biker in a motorcycle club that had great chest hair, zero body fat, and flame tattoos up his arms could carry off that jewelry.
The man in my bed.
I watched as he came toward that bed then stopped, bent and tagged his jeans.
At that, my belly hollowed out.
He never left. Not until dawn.
Now it appeared he was preparing to leave.
I didn’t lift my cheek from the pillow I was cradling when I asked, “What are you doing?”
His gaze came to me even as he tugged up his jeans. “Chaos business, babe.”
I tipped just my eyes to the clock on my nightstand. Eleven thirty-six.
It was late and I could use some sleep.
I still didn’t want him to leave.
Damn.
Do… not… process, Lanie!
I didn’t process and therefore said nothing.
Hop dressed, yanking his black tee over his head, pulling it down, and I watched with some fascination as it sculpted itself to his torso as if by magic.
Nice.
Unbelievably nice.
He nabbed his boots and socks and sat on the side of my bed.
I didn’t move.
He tugged them on then turned to me and bent in, his hand shifting the hair off my neck, his face coming close.
I wanted to ask if he was coming back the next night. Maybe the next morning. Whenever. I didn’t care. I just wanted him to know whenever he showed, I’d be there.
I didn’t say this. I couldn’t say this. I wouldn’t allow myself to say this. It would expose too much. It would give too much. I didn’t have it in me. I had nothing left to give. Whatever I’d once had leaked out of my body in the form of blood on a floor in Kansas City while my eyes stared into the dead ones of my fiancé across the room.
So I just tilted my eyeballs up to look at him.
His hand moved to my cheek, the pad of his thumb gliding whisper-soft on the skin just under my eye as his eyes studied mine, not like he was looking in them but at them with an expression on his face that said, quite clearly, he liked what he saw.
This was another thing he did frequently that was something I was trying not to process. I liked that he liked looking at me. I liked that he didn’t hide that he liked what he saw. He certainly wasn’t the first man to do that.
What could I say? I wasn’t blind. It wasn’t like I didn’t know God had been generous with me. It wasn’t like I didn’t appreciate it. But with every blessing, there was also a curse and my curse was that I was a dick magnet.
Handsome men knew they were handsome and it was my experience this did not skip a single good-looking guy. It was also my experience that they thought the world should throw roses at their feet just because they were hot. They definitely thought their women should bow down or eat shit.
If they weren’t exactly handsome but still smart, confident, charismatic, and successful, they were worse.