I remember discovering Kristen Ashley in 2012. I picked up Rock Chick and laughed and laughed, and then devoured this author’s backlist. Contemporary, Fantasy… it didn’t matter. I just kept going and going until I’d read everything. Looking back I know that so much of her stuff is problematic, and she tends to describe everything in such detail, from the curtains to the throw pillows to the shoes the female main character is wearing. It didn’t matter to me at the time though.
I haven’t read this author in a while, but when I went looking for a book for Scenic Sunday Lanie and Hop popped in my head. Fire Inside is one of my favorite books in the Chaos series and I can’t help but skim through my favorite scenes on occasion.
In this scene, Lanie and Hop have been estranged since Lanie accused Hop of cheating on his first wife and then he ghosted her. It’s all come to a head and she’s scared to get back with him, while he thinks she might be seeing someone else. Enjoy!
With him that close, that spicy scent of him in my nostrils, his badass gorgeousness all I could see, I lost it.
“God, Hop! Move away! It’s not a big deal and anyway, even if it was, it wouldn’t be any of your business.”
He lost it, too. I knew it when he pressed even closer, changed the subject and growled, “Can’t sleep. Not hungry. Can’t concentrate. If I don’t pay attention, my mind wanders to you.” His face dipped close as I started hyperventilating at his words. “I tried to give you what you needed, to stay away, let you live your fucked-up life, but I can’t. Taste you in my mouth, lady. See you in my dreams.”
Oh God.
He was killing me.
I couldn’t bear this, therefore I whispered, “Stop it.”
“No,” he replied.
“We cause each other pain,” I reminded him.
“I get it,” he returned. “I get that you bury the good we got that’s way fuckin’ bigger than the bad to protect yourself from losin’ it, seein’ as you’ve lost everything you had that matters, startin’ with your mom and dad.”
Why did he have to be so smart?
“You aren’t gonna lose me,” he promised.
You can’t promise that,” I snapped.
“Yeah, I fuckin’ can, ” he shot back.
“Life happens, Hop,” I told him.
“It doesn’t if you don’t live it,” he retorted.
See? Smart!
Gah!
“Well, this isn’t going to happen,” I declared.
“Fuck yeah, it is. I’m done with this shit. Weeks, nothin’ on my mind but you. Weeks, goin’ to bed alone when you’re a fuckin’ twenty-minute drive away. Heard you were talkin’ to that fuckin’ guy and lost it. I ate shit, did shit I hated, scored marks on my goddanmed soul to fight for the life I wanted. Bein’ that man, do you think I’m gonna let the first woman in my life who makes me happy slip through my fingers?”
Uh-oh.
That was beautiful. No matter how crazy scared I was, I couldn’t deny the beauty of what he said.
“I’m not,” he stated.
“Hopper–“
I got no more out because Hop pulled me in his arms and kissed me. It was hungry, even desperate.
And gorgeous.
Fire Inside (Chaos #2) by Kristen Ashley
I’m sorry, but I just can’t with Kristen Ashley. All those dropped g’s. I know I sound like a grammar snob, but a writer only has to use a dropped g in dialog a couple of times for the reader to get that this a character who does the “Darlin’/Bein’/Goin’/Wantin’” thing. You don’t need to record it every freaking (or should that be “freakin’”? Lol) time he does it! And it seems as if all of her male MCs are verbally rendered that way. Just reading through that passage above gives me a headache: at least ten dropped g’s, not to mention multiple instances of “gonna”. I know many readers love Ashley, but, darlin’, that gal just ain’t gonna do it for me!