Next!
Riley (after my workout and I cornered him even though he still looked pissed off at me, which, I might add, if Luke lost Riley as my friend I’d tack another ten years onto his Ava Barlow Silent Treatment Sentence):
“Jesus, Ava, what the fuck?” he breathed when I shared most of the story leaving out all of the sex stuff and Luke’s brutally honest proclamations. Then his face went gentle and I saw for the first time that Luke was right. Riley wanted to fuck me.
Jeez.
What was going on? How on earth did this happen?
“Do you want to stay with me?” Riley asked.
Hell no!
“Thanks, Riles. That’s sweet of you but I can’t,” I said softly.
Next!
Shirleen (at Fortnum’s, where Sissy and I went after the gym to get one of Tex’s unbelievably divine coffees):
“Child, tune out your head and follow your heart.” Her tawny eyes had gone soft.
Following my heart meant holding onto Luke and never letting go, that was until he got tired of me and scraped me off or he got filled with bullets and killed in a gunfight.
Not gonna happen.
“What are you doing here? I thought you had a day job,” I asked Shirleen. She was relaxed in one of the couches at the front of Fortnum’s where the espresso counter was.
“I’m pickin’ up orders for the boys in the surveillance room,” she said, tossing back another gulp of her cappuccino.
I hoped “the boys” weren’t hankering too much for their coffee, by the looks of Shirleen they were going to wait awhile.
Next!
Tex (while handing me my skinny, vanilla latte):
“Go on vacation…”
Hmm. This had merit.
“With Luke,” he finished.
I did not think so.
Next!
The Rock Chicks:
Jet: “Don’t fight it.”
Next!
Ally: “I don’t get it. Luke’s hot.”
Next!
Indy: “Do you want me to talk to Lee about this guy who chased you in his SUV?”
No!
Next!
Daisy (over the phone while Sissy was dropping me back at Luke’s):
“Sugar, take it one minute at a time. Life will lead you where you need to be.”
That’s what I was afraid of.
Then she went on. “And don’t worry about whoever is after you. When one of the Rock Chicks finds trouble, every one of the Hot Boy Brigade kicks in. Whoever-it-is will have to take ‘em down one by one to get to you and that’s just not gonna happen.”
Eek!
Next!
Jules (after Sissy dropped me off, I had a shower, picked up Luke’s newest clothing additions from the floor, started a load of his laundry and sat at my computer to research all-inclusive vacations in Jamaica):
“Give him time, Ava. There’s more to Luke than you know.”
“I’ve known him since I was eight!”
“I know, but you want the truth?”
No, I did not want the truth.
She gave it to me anyway. “I don’t think you know who he is now. If you did, there would be no question.”
Shit.
* * * * *
I finished my deadline project, e-mailed it off and was working on clearing all my other projects in order to send them in well ahead of the due dates which would cause client-wide strokes as I always worked right up to deadline.
I had a plan. I intended to clear my workload and disappear to Jamaica for a month, taking Sissy with me. By the time we got back all the macho men in my life, undoubtedly needing to give someone the business, would have moved on to a new girl and I’d be off the hook. Then it would be back to just me and my vibrators.
The elevator doors slid open and I knew it was Luke just because. It might have been a long time since I’d seen him, but my Sixth Luke Sense was instinctual and kicked in immediately, like riding a bike.
And anyway these days, I’d been getting lots of practice.
I ignored his presence, kept my back to the room and kept clicking through holiday getaway packages.
I heard his keys hit the bar and then he came up behind me. “Goin’ on vacation?” he asked.
I stayed silent and kept clicking. He waited a beat and then pulled out my chair at least four feet, me still in it.
My head shot up to look at him, my mouth opened and I almost cried, “Hey!” but just stopped myself.
He bent low, took a wrist and threw me over his shoulder. It took a lot of control but I didn’t struggle and stayed completely limp. He carried me to the bed, tossed me on it and followed me down. He settled part at my side, part on top of me and his hand came to my jaw.
“You don’t want to talk, Ava, we’ll do something else. We don’t have to talk to fuck.”
Uh-oh.
Escape!
I pulled out from under him and rolled away. He caught me and brought me back.
I glared at him. He ignored the glare and his face (and I might add his fantastic mouth) started to come closer.
“You scared me,” I blurted in a whisper, do not ask me why. He still had twenty-six years, three hundred and sixty-four days left on his Silent Treatment Sentence.
His head stopped moving and he looked from my mouth to my eyes.
Go on, Ava, share. Pour out your heart, Good Ava said softly in my ear.
Quiet! Shut down, Ava. He’ll just use it to hurt you eventually, Bad Ava was sounding desperate.
“You were gone a long time. I was worried something happened to you.” Now why did I say that? Why was I talking at all?
Still in a quiet voice I kept sharing, unable to stop myself. “I don’t know you anymore. I don’t know who you are, what you do. But I know that scar on your belly isn’t from an appendectomy.”
Oh… my… God.
Someone shut me up.
He rolled me to my side facing him and both his arms came around me as he said, “Ava.”
“No, Luke. I thought I was protecting myself against all things men. After last night, I’m protecting myself from something a lot scarier. I’m not one of those women who can hack that kind of life. I don’t want any part of it.”
“So this is your new excuse?” he asked, instead of being accusatory, his voice was soft, gentle, affectionate.
“It’s not an excuse, Luke. I figure you’ll screw me over or leave me, one way or another, and I’ll end up alone. I’m alone now and I’m happy with it. Why go through the pain of losing someone again?”
“Someone you care about,” he said.
“What?”
“Go through the pain of losing someone you care about.”
Whoa.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
We were not going to go there.
Time to change the subject.
“What’s the scar from?”
“Bullet to the gut,” he shared without hesitation.
I closed my eyes tight, visions of Luke with a gaping, bloody wound at his belly danced unhappily through my head. I didn’t like the visions, they scared the shit right out of me so I opened my eyes again.
“When?” I asked.
“Last summer.”
“How?”
“Babe,” he said softly and with a hint of regret. “I can’t tell you that. The cases we work are confidential.”
“Right,” I said.
“I’m good at what I do.”
“I’m sure you are.”
His hands drifted up my back, pulling me closer. “You’re hangin’ on to this to hold me back. You’re a lot stronger than you’re sayin’ and you know it,” he told me.
“How did Vance feel when he was trying to staunch the blood pouring out of Jules?” Luke’s body went still at my soft words and I knew it was wrong to use this against him but I kept at it. “I get the impression from both you and Jules that you two are close. You were there. How did you feel seeing her lying ther
e bleeding?”
His face changed, to my shock he let me see the pain slice through it and it hurt like hell to watch.
Then he said, “Quiet, Ava.”
“You want me to go through that?”
One of his hands slid up my neck into my hair, twisting it gently in his fist. “You wanna know what I want?” he asked.
Um. No. I definitely didn’t want to know what he wanted.
Before I could get a word in, he told me. “I want the old you to come back and make me laugh. I want the new you to toss your attitude around and make me hard. I liked comin’ home tonight to you, even knowin’ you were pissed at me. I liked leavin’ last night for work, knowin’ you were in my bed. I might like it for a week or I might like it for a lot longer. I can’t make any promises. All I know is, I want you now and you want me even though you won’t admit it. And I’m gonna do whatever it takes to give us what we want for as long as it lasts until however it ends.”
“You never listen to me,” I told him, beginning to get angry because I was right, if his latest speech was anything to go by he didn’t.
“I listen to you,” he said.
“Then you don’t hear me.”
“Ava, I hear you,” he was beginning to sound impatient.
I stared at him. He stared at me. This went on for a while.
He sighed and touched his lips to mine then said, “I’ll take you to dinner.”
“I don’t want dinner,” I shot back.
His eyes started to melt. “All right. I’m hungry but I’m happy to eat somethin’ else.”
Ee-yikes!
“I’ve just realized, I’m hungry. Let’s go to dinner.”
He gave me a half-grin.
We went to dinner.
Chapter Thirteen
Solid
It was the middle of the night again when Luke rolled, taking me over the top of him, settling me on the other side of the bed.
“Why do you do that?” I mumbled sleepily.
I was about to fall back to sleep, feeling his hand tag the back of my knee and pull it over his hip when he murmured, voice husky, “You’re on the wrong side of the bed.”
I cuddled into him, sliding into dreamland. “Then I’ll sleep on this side.”
I was so out of it, I didn’t realize all that my words said nor what it meant when, upon hearing them, Luke’s arms went tight around me, pulling me deep into his body.
“This side’s the wrong side too,” he told me.
That got my attention, because it made no sense.
I tilted my head back and looked at him in the dark. “What?”
“I can’t sleep on one side too long, the wound still gives me some pain.”
For some reason, I felt imaginary pain in my own belly at his words.
To hide my reaction, I stated the obvious, “Then just roll over.”
“If I roll over, you won’t be in arms reach.”
I blinked then, sleepy or not, I started to get angry. “Luke, I’m not going to sneak out of your bed in the middle of the night and do something stupid.”
“That’s not why I want you in reach.”
Whoa.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Stop right there.
Time to go to sleep.
I dipped my chin and closed my eyes. Then because I had Barlow Bitch Blood pumping through my veins, I muttered, “You do that with all your women, they’ll think you’re nuts.”
“I’ve never done it with another woman.”
Really.
Stop.
Time to nap for fifty years.
“Babe?”
“Yeah?”
“If you’re awake…”
I cuddled into him again. “Very sleepy,” I whispered, feigning a sleepy voice.
I felt his body start shaking with silent laughter and somehow, while he was laughing, I fell back to sleep.
* * * * *
My eyes opened and I saw a wall of chest.
My first thought was, Crap, Luke’s not in the shower.
Okay, so that was actually my second thought. My first thought was, Hmm. Yum.
Last night Luke and I walked from his loft to Wynkoop’s Brewery and had beer and dinner. During dinner, he took a call that made his mouth go tight and his eyes move to me. I had an Eek Moment thinking he’d found out about my visit to Uncle Vito through his varied tough guy, macho man, bounty hunting, private eye sources.
Relief flooded through me when he got off the phone and said, “Sorry babe, something’s come up. After dinner I gotta meet Hector. I don’t know how late I’ll be.”
Therefore the mouth tightening meant, for Luke, him missing another opportunity to “give me the business” and for me, relief that I’d dodged the bullet again.
“That’s okay,” I told him breezily.
He gave me a half-grin, totally knowing my thoughts.
He had walked me home and left me in his loft after giving me a hot and heavy kiss that left me in a Luke Lip Fog.
Looking at my face he said, “If you take care of yourself again, you’ll owe me.”
All righty then, I could scratch that off my list of Things to Do While Luke’s Away.
I wasn’t big on watching TV so I’d putzed around his loft all night. I spent my time calling Sissy to chew over the latest Luke episode, doing more of Luke’s laundry and tidying his magazines and mail into neat piles to the extent of putting notes on top: “To be opened”, “Deal with this”, “This needs to be filed”, etc. What could I say? I was an organizer.
Then I went to bed. Later, Luke woke me up by shifting me and we had had our scary chat.
Now, morning.
Ee-yikes.
I tried to slide away without him noticing. He rolled and his arms came around me.
“Babe,” he said, sounding very awake.
Foiled!
I looked up at him and he had his chin dipped toward me so I looked right in his eyes.
“Hey,” I mumbled.
“Hey,” he replied.
“I need to brush my teeth.”
His arms got tighter. “Later.”
“No. Now. I can’t face the day without brushing my teeth.”
“Your day can start later,” he said, his eyes turning inky and his thigh sliding between my legs to rest at the heart of my special girl parts.
“Luke –”
His mouth came to mine his eyes still open so I kept mine open too, captivated. Then he pressed his hard boy part into my belly.
Wow.
“I’m not waitin’ to get inside you any longer, Ava, this is happening now.”
Before I could say a word, he kissed me. It became very clear he was quite intent on this happening now.
I wore the Triumph tee to bed and it was gone within seconds. Then his hands were on me, all over me, all the while his mouth on mine. It didn’t take long for me to fall into a Luke Lip Fog and fall I did, head long.
In fact, he was so serious, it didn’t take long for me to surpass his dedication to the cause to the point where I tried to shove him on his back to get more of him. He stayed firm, mouth at my neck, hand trailing down my belly, his destination clear.
I planted a foot in the bed and heaved, rolling him to his back and dislodging his hand.
“Babe…”
He thought I was going to move away. I didn’t.
Instead I straddled him, bending over to use my mouth on him. I put my lips against his neck using my tongue, my teeth, I went down his chest, running my nails through his chest hair and over his nipples while my mouth explored. I went lower to his abs then lower and stopped. I sat up astride his thighs and got my first full look of all that was Luke.
Yowza.
Nice.
So nice, he should be cast in bronze.
Rock Chick Revenge Page 23