I slowly stood and turned to face him. He walked directly to the semi-circular bar and dropped a pair of cuffs and what looked like a weird gun on it.
I stared at the cuffs and the weapon, thinking upsetting thoughts.
He rounded the bar and came into the kitchen area. He stopped, put a palm on the counter and leaned into it. The whole time he did this, he kept his eyes on me.
“Hey,” I said, trying for innocent and casual. “You have a good afternoon?”
“Come here,” he replied and he did not use his soft, gentle, affectionate voice.
Eek!
“Everything okay?” I asked, still clinging onto innocent and casual with all I had.
“Come here,” he repeated.
Okay, innocent and casual weren’t working.
“What’s going on?”
“Ava, if you make me say it again…”
I went silent.
He moved, just slightly but it was enough to make me jump. This made him smile, not a Sexy Luke Smile, a Dangerous Luke Smile.
“Luke, tell me what’s going on!” I demanded, beginning to freak out.
This was not smart. He bit his bottom lip with his teeth and looked away from me. When his eyes came back to me, my body went still.
Oh dear, Good Ava muttered.
Holy SHIT! Bad Ava exploded.
One could say I knew Luke pretty well. I hadn’t been around him in a long time but I had watched him grow up (with avid interest). His Mom was friends with my Mom. He and I had shared some laughs and some intense moments. Still, you didn’t have to know Luke to know that grown up, tough guy, macho man Luke was barely controlling what appeared to be a very scary fury.
“Was it good?” he asked.
I blinked, not expecting that question not even understanding it. “What?” I asked back.
“When you touched yourself, was it good?”
My mouth dropped open and my lungs seized.
Ho-ly crap.
“How did you –?” I breathed.
“Cameras,” he told me and my body jerked. My eyes swung around the loft but Luke started speaking again and they went back to him. “You won’t see them. I had the place wired, surveillance put in so when I wasn’t here with you, the boys could watch out for you. When I’m not here, they’re monitoring the loft.”
Ho-ly crap.
“Did they see –?”
“Jack turned it off. He knew I’d break his neck if he watched you do that. He gave you some time. Apparently too much time. By the time he turned on the cameras, you were gone.”
I was certain I was going to die. I actually wanted to die. The very idea of the Nightingale Investigations men knowing what I’d done, it was mortifying.
“Where’d you go?” Luke asked, breaking me out of thoughts of how best to off myself.
“I spent some time with Sissy,” I told him immediately and that wasn’t a total lie.
“And Shirleen and Daisy?” Luke pressed.
I didn’t know how he knew this, but I thought it was safe to say, “Um… yes.”
“Spent some time being pursued by a dark blue SUV down Hampden Avenue? Your back bumper completely fucked up. Losing him after nearly rolling onto I-25?”
Holy crap!
How did he know this shit? It was just bizarre.
I kept my mouth shut. I thought that was the sensible way to go.
“It was reported to the police, by about two dozen other drivers. In detail, with license plates and descriptions of the people in the vehicles.”
Crapity, crap, crap, crap.
“Luke –”
“Come here,” he said quietly and his voice was not affectionate, it was lethal.
“I don’t think I want to,” I told him.
“That may be the smartest decision you’ve made today,” he said back.
Okay. Hang on a second.
Firstly, he was not the boss of me. Secondly, I was a free woman. I could do what I wanted, when I wanted, where I wanted, with whom I wanted. I didn’t need his permission for one goddamn thing. Thirdly, no one asked him to be Mr. Over-Protective. He’d given himself that role. He even put cameras in his house, cameras he didn’t tell me about which was a serious invasion of privacy beyond making me move in with him, sleep beside him and the list could go on (and on). Fourthly, he was not the boss of me.
I’d had enough.
“You’re not the boss of me,” I told him.
“Ava, I’ll give you one last chance to get your sweet ass over here.”
“No!” I snapped. “I’m not going to be freaked out by you. I’m not going to be pushed around by you. And I’m not going to be told what to do by you. I’m alive, I’m breathing. So are Sissy, Daisy and Shirleen. I don’t know what happened and I don’t care. I’m ignoring everything, including you having your buddies watch me when I didn’t know they were doing it. I’m ignoring everything. I’m going to live my life and let all this shit blow over.”
“You haven’t clued in yet but this shit is not gonna blow over. Who was the guy in the SUV?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never seen him before. Maybe he had road rage. Maybe I pulled out in front of him and didn’t notice it. Who cares?”
“I care.”
“Well I don’t!” I snapped.
“Why are you all of a sudden the focus of some seriously scary shit?”
“How should I know?”
“Maybe because it’s happening to you?”
“Well, I don’t know!” I yelled. “I don’t even want to know!”
He glared at me. I glared back.
We were locked in another Luke vs. Ava Glare of the Century Contest when my phone rang. I was kind of glad it did because I was about to back down from the glare and this gave me an excuse.
To save face, I made a “huh” sound and grabbed my phone from the desk, flipped it open and put it to my ear. “Yo.”
“Ava?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Ren.”
Oh fuck.
My eyes snapped to Luke. “Hey,” I said.
“Hey, Uncle Vito told me about Dom. You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You okay after Uncle Vito sent his goons after you?”
I blinked in surprise at his question and turned away from Luke. “What?”
“Santo and Lucky are idiots. They were supposed to be cool, tell you it was Vito who wanted to see you. Not scare you half to death and send you running through traffic on Broadway.”
Wow. That was news.
“Sorry about that,” he went on like he apologized for mistaken kidnappings every day.
I moved away slowly and went to the window at the side of the loft. All the while, I was very conscious of Luke watching me. “Um, that’s okay.”
Did I just tell Ren it was okay that his uncle had me kidnapped? Maybe I was nuts.
“Listen, Ava, don’t worry about Dom. I’ll take care of him,” he assured me.
Oh no.
My eyes went back to Luke. He was still leaning on the counter, still watching me and now his eyes were narrowed.
I looked away again. “I think someone’s already working on that,” I told him.
“I know, you got Stark doing it. Tell him to back off. We want to take care of this in the family.”
Oh shit.
No way was I going to tell Luke that Ren Zano was going to take care of Dom for me and he could back off. No way in hell.
I would never have expected my life could get more complicated but there it was.
“Ren,” I said softly and stupidly for the minute I uttered his name, the air in the room changed and not in a good way. It took all my efforts to keep my eyes looking out the window and ignore the scary air.
“I’ll take you out to dinner tomorrow night, apologize properly for all this shit.”
“I’m busy,” I said immediately.
“Tuesday.”
I felt Luke get close rather than seeing him do
it. I felt this because the not good air in the room started pressing on me.
“Erm…” I said, too focused on the scary air to come up with another excuse to avoid a date with Ren.
“I’ll take you to Carmine’s on Penn. You love it there.”
I did love it there and I thought it was kind of sweet that Ren remembered. We’d all gone out, Sissy and Dom, Noah and me and Ren and one of his women; I forgot her name (Ren had a lot of women). We’d had a good time and the food was orgasmic.
“Seven o’clock. I’ll pick you up at your place. See you then.”
Before I could say a word, he disconnected.
Okay, there were a lot of not good things happening in my life at the moment but this was seriously not good.
I flipped my phone closed and turned.
I was right, Luke got close. Real close.
And I was also right about the not good air.
If Luke had been barely controlling fury before, he was visibly losing his battle with controlling rage now.
Eek.
Chapter Twelve
Pins and Needles
Luke’s hand came up to rest on my neck, his thumb under my jaw.
“Why is Ren Zano phoning you?” he asked softly.
I needed to make a split-second decision and I made it. I wasn’t going to live in fear of tough guy, macho man Luke Stark. He was nuts and he was a badass but he wasn’t going to hurt me. Sure, most of the way he behaved, and nearly all of the brutally honest shit that came out of his mouth, was shocking but he would never hurt me. Maybe he would cuff me to the bed again or do some other macho man shit but I could handle that.
I was in control of my mind and my body (okay, the last one wasn’t really true but I did have a pretty magnificent orgasm not too long ago so I should be topped up).
I wasn’t his woman. It was time to stop acting like I was.
“He says you should back off from Dom, he’ll take care of it,” I told him, instantly going back on my pledge never to tell him that, ever.
Luke’s fingers tensed at my neck. “That it?”
I took hold of my liberated woman and shared further. “He’s taking me out to dinner on Tuesday to apologize for everything.”
I felt Luke’s body go still as he stared at me. “You’re tellin’ me you made a date with Zano while you were standin’ in my living room?”
I was not going to think “Eek!”
“It isn’t a date. I don’t date. I’ve sworn off men. This is an apology dinner.”
Luke stared at me, one beat then two. Then surprisingly he dropped his hand from my neck and walked away. I watched as he lifted his hands to his shoulder blades, pulled off his tee and dropped it to the floor (incidentally this annoyed me, considering I’d spent ten minutes that afternoon gathering his clothes and throwing them in the laundry hamper in the utility area that was tucked behind the bathroom). Then he sat on the bed and yanked off his boots. Then he stood and started to unbuckle his pants.
Oh crap.
I turned and sat back down at the desk, ignoring what his actions might mean to me. I heard drawers opening and closing then rustling. When I heard the elevator doors slide open, I twisted in my chair and saw Luke walk into the elevator, wearing running clothes (all black, except his shoes). The elevator doors closed and he was gone.
Weird.
Way weird.
I took a deep breath, got back to work and tried not to wonder about Luke (and failed).
About an hour later he came back. I watched from my chair as he walked directly to the bathroom without a word to me. I heard the shower running while I closed down my files and shut down the computer. I decided to move away from Sailor Jerry because I needed to be drunk for whatever was going to happen next like I needed a hole in the head. I found a box of Sandra Whoever-She-Was’s peppermint tea and was boiling the kettle when Luke came out of the shower, wearing nothing but a silvery-gray towel around his hips.
Seriously, he was worse than Captain Kirk. Luke hardly ever had a shirt on.
I looked away from his body, bit my bottom lip and watched the kettle boil. I felt him behind me and tensed. My hair was swept off my shoulders and his lips touched my neck.
Um.
What?
His arm slid around my waist and he pulled me into his body. “You want to order Chinese or pizza?” he asked.
I blinked at the kettle.
What was happening? Where was Pissed Off Luke? He sounded completely calm, normal, un-pissed-off.
“You have tons of food in your fridge. You don’t eat it, it’ll go bad,” I told him.
“You wanna cook?” he asked.
“I could cook,” I answered.
“Works for me,” he said and let me go.
Holy cramoly.
What was going on?
I made tea. Luke put on black sweatpants with a thick line of dark gray running up the sides and a black tee with a black insignia you could barely see on the front that looked like a set of wings. I made dinner (Sandra’s long and happy life with Luke healthy living options of salmon fillets, broccoli and cous cous). I brought the food to the couch where Luke was watching TV. I sat down and we both ate silently. Then I took the plates back to the kitchen and did the dishes. When I was done, I came back and sat on the couch.
This was freaking me out. He didn’t carry me around, making grand statements about how he was going to fuck me, how I belonged to him, demanding I not go out with Ren. He seemed relaxed and mellow. I didn’t like it and I didn’t trust it one bit.
I started to watch the game, my mind sliding from thought to thought when Luke’s arm came out and pulled me against his side. He was slouched into the couch, feet up on the coffee table. I decided not to poke the sleeping tiger by struggling. I slouched pressed next to him and put feet up on the coffee table by his.
After awhile I could take it no more. I wanted to allow myself to sit next to Luke, pressed to his side, in a happy, pretend world of what it could be like with Luke. Instead, I was freaking out wondering what he was playing at.
I got up announcing I was going to bed. Luke let me go without a word. I went to the bathroom, got ready for bed, spent some time trying to decide if the Triumph tee was the way to go (I went for it, it was snuggly) and I came out of the bathroom.
Hmm. Conundrum.
I should sleep on the couch, make a statement. But Luke was watching the game on the couch. I figured I could move to the couch later and I got in bed.
Half an hour later, Luke switched off the TV and I heard him moving around the loft. He turned off the lamp and he took off his clothes (probably dropping them to the floor, argh!). The bed moved and he got in.
I tensed. He didn’t touch me.
I kept tense. He still didn’t touch me.
This made me tenser.
My mind whirled. Maybe he’d given up. Maybe he thought I wasn’t worth the effort.
I didn’t know what to think of that. I should have been relieved but I had to admit I was not.
You really messed things up this time, Good Ava sounded angry.
That’s okay. Ren’s taking you out to dinner on Tuesday and Theresa Bianchi said he was a GOD in bed, Bad Ava was moving on to new game.
We don’t want Ren, we want Luke. We’ve ALWAYS wanted Luke, Good Ava snapped at Bad Ava.
We’ll take what we can get. Ren Zano is hardly sloppy seconds, that man is FINE, Bad Ava informed Good Ava.
I forced my body to relax and my mind to go blank. I was drifting off to sleep when Luke tagged me around the waist, turning me to my back.
“What are you doing?” I asked, finding myself instantly alert.
He didn’t answer. He covered me with his body and before I knew it his hands were in the Triumph tee and it was up and over my head. He didn’t pull it off, he stopped it when my arms were up, the tee bunched at my elbows.
I was taking this as a sign he hadn’t given up.
Ho-ly crap!
�
�What are you doing?” I screeched.
He twisted his torso, nabbed something off the nightstand and came back to me. I heard a clink and realized what was happening.
Rock Chick Revenge Page 21