“No you don’t!” I bucked, twisted, struggled against his heavy weight and tried to shove off the tee.
Luke “helped” and the tee was gone in a flash. Wordlessly, he seized my wrists, slapped a bracelet on one and then, without apparent effort and clearly with a good deal of experience working with struggling people, the other and I was cuffed to the bed.
I stilled, a tremor of fear (and excitement, I had to admit) ran through me and I glared at him in the dimly lit dark.
“Uncuff me,” I demanded.
He ignored my demand and declared, “Now, payment.”
Ho-ly shit.
Definitely not giving up. His mouth came to my neck and ran the length of it. A shiver shuddered through me.
At my ear he said, “We’ll save punishment for later. Coupla days,” he informed me conversationally before his lips moved along my jaw then to my mouth. “You gave me a fuckin’ great idea.”
Uh-oh.
I didn’t think that I would think it was a great idea.
He went on, proving me irrevocably correct. “I’m thinkin’ I’ll watch while you make yourself come.”
Oh… my… God.
Me and my bright ideas. I was such a dork!
“Get off!” I cried.
He kissed me. I bucked and twisted these being the only options for me. He didn’t budge.
I tore my mouth from his. “Seriously, Luke, this is not cool.”
His hands ran down my sides and I couldn’t help it, my body trembled because his hands on me felt nice. I knew he felt it, he had to have felt it.
Hell and damnation.
“No?” he asked, sounding satisfied.
Yep, he felt it.
“Go to hell!” I snapped.
He touched his mouth to mine then he moved lower, his mouth on my neck, my throat. Then lower, spending some time at my breasts. Then lower, at my belly. By the time his tongue traced the top edge of my panties, it was like I hadn’t had an orgasm a few hours ago; it was like I hadn’t had one in ten years.
He went lower and my legs opened immediately in invitation.
Damn it all to hell.
He kissed me over my panties. I moaned and lifted my hips, more than ready for him. His hands slid under my ass and that was it. All vows to vibrators and swearing off men were history.
This was quite simply hot. His mouth moved on me over my panties and it felt good. Even better, it felt naughty and slightly pervy not being able to touch him. I wanted to touch him, needed to put my hands to his head in encouragement, keep him there and not let him stop. Not being able to do that, having no control over the situation, was sexy as all hell.
He moved away and I made a sound of protest low in my throat. But he only moved to pull my panties down my legs. Then he was back and he hit the target immediately.
“Oh my God,” I breathed, bucking now to get closer to his mouth. I was out-of-control moaning and panting. I couldn’t help it and didn’t try.
It was better than that morning, it was better than my self-gratification that afternoon (far better), it was better than anything I’d ever had.
It was exquisite.
I was there, right there and I gasped, “Luke.”
Then his cell rang. His mouth stilled. Then his head came up.
Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. Not again.
“No!” I cried aloud.
He moved up and over me. “Fuck,” he muttered, sounding pissed and full of regret at the same time.
It was the regret that penetrated my pre-orgasm fog.
I stared at him. “Go back. Don’t stop,” I whispered.
He kept his body on me but reached to the nightstand.
“Luke, please,” I begged and I didn’t care what I sounded like, this was not going to happen to me again.
“Sorry, babe. That’s Lee’s tone,” Luke whispered, hand at my jaw, thumb running along my lower lip. One thing you could say, he did sound sorry, very sorry. But I didn’t care that he sounded sorry, I didn’t care at all.
He flipped open the phone. “Yeah?”
This was not happening.
He listened for a few beats then said, “I’ll be there in ten.”
What?
He flipped the phone shut.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I breathed, half-still turned on, half-totally pissed off, not just at him but at myself.
“Lee’s workin’. He’s in a situation where he needs backup. The boys on call are busy with somethin’ else. I gotta go,” Luke told me.
I glared at him not knowing what to think.
He looked at me, likely sensing my mental battle to decide how I felt that he’d leave me in this state to go do backup for Lee so he said softly, “No way I’d leave, Ava, but Lee needs a man at his back. He knows you’re here and wouldn’t call unless it was important. I have to go.”
Fuck that.
I kept glaring at him. He ignored the glare and touched my mouth with his then moved away.
Then things, already bad, got worse.
He pulled the covers over my body but left me cuffed to the bed. Then he got up and started dressing. In stunned, angry silence, I watched him pull on his pants then tug on his shirt. He sat on the edge of the bed to put on his boots.
Finally I called, “Luke?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you forget something?” I asked.
“What?”
“Uncuff me.”
He tugged on his second boot, twisted toward me and put his lips to my jaw. “Quick, three things,” he said there.
I got the feeling that these three things weren’t going to be good for me. My body, already solid with fury, felt like it was going to shatter in a million pieces.
He lifted his head but kept his face close to mine, his hand at my belly over the covers. “One,” he started. “Leavin’ you cuffed means you can’t do anything stupid.”
One, two, three, four…
“Two,” he continued. “I like thinkin’ of you cuffed naked to my bed.”
Five, six, seven, eight…
“Three,” he went on. “This won’t take long and we’ll finish when I get back.”
Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…
Nope, it wasn’t going to work.
“You leave me cuffed, I’ll never speak to you again,” I told him.
“Babe,” now he sounded amused, “that’s a good thing. You got a mouth on you.”
Then to my utter disbelief, he was gone.
* * * * *
Luke had been wrong. It did take long. So long, I had time to let it penetrate that Luke was off somewhere being the man at Lee’s back during a “situation”. I didn’t want to care but I got worried. Then I got scared. The longer it took for him to come back, the more scared I became. I should have been scared about being cuffed to a bed if something happened to Luke, and thus, who knew how long it would take for someone to find me, if ever (I had, in my state, forgotten about the cameras). Instead, I was just scared for Luke.
Then I got angry. Angry at Luke for leaving me the way I was, angry at him for having a scary-as-shit job and switching my anger to Lee for existing at all.
Finally, tiredness overwhelmed me, I was forced to roll to my side, find a somewhat comfortable position and I fell into a fitful sleep.
I woke up when the bed moved and I felt hands working efficiently at my wrists. Then I was free. I pulled my arms down and pins and needles attacked them viciously.
I bent my elbows and circled my hands at my wrists. Luke pulled me up to a sitting position in the bed, moved his body so his legs were around me, his front pressed against my back. Both of his hands worked at my arms, his fingers pressing in, forcing out the angry tingles.
“Babe,” he said softly against my neck.
I was silent and, even just awakened, absolutely furious.
“It took longer than I expected,” he continued.
No kidding, I thought but kep
t my mouth shut.
“I got away as soon as I could,” he told me.
Rat-bastard, I thought.
“Christ, Ava, I’m sorry.”
I don’t care. Go to hell. I hate you. I kept my silence.
The pins and needles subsided and I leaned forward, pulling away from his hands.
His arms went around my waist and kept me there, his mouth at my neck. “Ava,” he said against my skin. I jerked my neck away from him.
“Shit,” he muttered and moved away from me.
I scrambled and got my panties and the Triumph tee (let us not forget, I was naked as a jaybird). I noticed he’d come straight to the bed fully-clothed to release me and now he was taking off his clothes. I tugged on my stuff and walked directly to my suitcases. I rummaged through them, found what I wanted and went to the bathroom. I yanked off the Triumph tee and put on a pair of pajama pants striped in yellow, green and pink and a fitted tee in matching pink. I walked out, threw the Triumph tee on the bed not even looking to see where Luke was. I grabbed a pillow and stomped to the couch.
I threw the pillow down, lay on the couch, tucked myself in a ball and wrapped my arms around my knees. I’d barely got in this position before Luke was there, lifting me up and carrying me to the bed. I didn’t struggle and I didn’t say a word.
He put me in bed. I scooted as far away from him as I could and settled. He yanked me to him, my back to his front, and held me close. I didn’t struggle against that either.
“I’m thinkin’ you givin’ up my tee isn’t a good sign,” he said into my hair.
He was so right.
I didn’t answer.
I was giving him the Ava Barlow Silent Treatment. I was famous for my silent treatment. Once I didn’t talk to Noah for a week after he’d done some stupid thing to piss me off. It drove him crazy and in the end he begged me to talk to him. This was one of the very few happy memories I had after he cleaned me out. I was figuring, cuffing me naked to the bed and going out to do backup during some dangerous situation (not to mention, leaving me at all during my second on-the-verge-of-having-a-Lucas-Stark-induced-orgasm in one day) was worth at least twenty-seven years of the Ava Barlow Silent Treatment.
Luke just held tight. I stayed tense. After awhile, I felt his bodyweight relax into me as he fell asleep.
I didn’t fall asleep. I needed advice and not from Good Ava and Bad Ava. I needed someone to talk to about my life and what I should do. I had people kidnapping me, rear-ending me and pursuing me in car chases down busy streets. I had Luke thinking we were together and what we had was a “fuckuva lot more” than nothing.
I couldn’t talk to Sissy, she wanted me with Luke. I couldn’t talk to my Mom, she was shit at advice and usually didn’t spend much time listening before she turned the conversation to herself. I couldn’t talk to my sisters because I tried not to talk to my sisters if I could help it. I couldn’t talk to Uncle Vito because he was scary. I couldn’t talk to Mrs. Stark because she also wanted me with Luke.
I could have talked to my Dad. He was a great listener and even better at advice.
I felt trapped, scared, sad and because of all that, tears slid out of the corners of my eyes.
I pressed my lips together. Luke’s arm went tight around me and he buried his face in my hair.
“Babe,” he said softly and I knew he wasn’t asleep and he knew I was crying.
Hell and damnation.
I kept silent but took a deep, broken breath to control the tears. When he heard the breath, his arm went even tighter but he didn’t say anything else.
After awhile, I fell asleep.
* * * * *
Sometime in the middle of the night, Luke moved me, rolling under me, situating me at his other side.
I tried to turn my back to him but he didn’t allow that, caught my leg behind my knee and hooked it over his waist.
I didn’t struggle nor did I say a word.
Luke’s hand ran from my knee, up my thigh, over my ass, halting at my hip. “Ava Babe, you awake?”
I told him I was by pressing my forehead to his throat but also told him, even so, I wasn’t speaking to him by keeping silent.
“Jesus, you could bring a man to his knees,” he muttered, but his tone didn’t sound angry, it sounded resigned, as if he knew this was to be his fate. Worse, it sounded like he didn’t really mind. Worse than that, I found this moved me in such a profound way it was so big I couldn’t bury it, I had to carry it with me and that I didn’t like at all.
It took awhile but I fell back to sleep.
* * * * *
I woke up in the same position as ever when I was in bed with Luke and I immediately remembered I was in the throes of my Silent Treatment.
Without a word and without looking at him I rolled away. I threw my legs over the side, went directly to the kitchen to nab a diet, got my stuff and went to the bathroom. I didn’t come out until I was dressed and ready for my day.
When I got out of the bathroom, the bed was empty. Luke was in the kitchen making coffee, chest bare (of course), wearing his sweatpants from last night.
I went about the business of making myself toast and calling Sissy to ask her to come and take me to the gym (she decided to come with me). All the while I acted as if Luke didn’t exist.
I was wiping my hands on a kitchen towel after rinsing my plate when Luke tagged me around the waist, backed me against the opposite counter and moved in, hands on the counter on either side of me.
I tilted my head back to look up at him (silently).
“How long you gonna keep this up?” he asked.
I just stared at him.
His hands moved from the counter to either side of my neck, thumbs of both hands stroking my jaw. This felt nice and the warm look in his eyes was so killer, my dedication to the Silent Treatment took a direct hit.
Sucking it up, I recovered.
He kept talking. “I fucked up, Ava, I apologized. Not much more I can do.”
I kept staring at him.
One thumb slid along my lower lip and he watched it go then his eyes came to mine.
Gently he said, “Someone apologizes and they mean it, you should accept. Doesn’t say much about you if you don’t.”
I swallowed because he sounded disappointed in me and I never wanted Luke to be disappointed in me. In fact, I spent six years of my growing up life twisting myself into pretzels so that I would make him anything but disappointed in me. Not to mention, an entire year of my adult life changing my appearance to make sure, when he saw me again, he wouldn’t be disappointed in that either.
It wasn’t like a slap in the face but it didn’t feel good either.
Right after I had that thought I got angry because I wasn’t the one who cuffed me to his bed and left me there way longer than expected with nothing to do but worry and freak out. I didn’t want or ask to get kidnapped, shot at, manhandled, ordered about, taken to the verge of orgasm twice to be left wanting. In fact, I’d made it perfectly clear I didn’t want any of those things.
Furthermore, he had a scary job where he got called late at night to do scary things. And that scary job or the old “doing crazy shit” one got him that vicious scar slicing across his belly because he sure as hell didn’t have it when he left the neighborhood (I would have noticed or his Mom would have told my Mom). I wasn’t going to ask about it because I really didn’t want to know. Even if I wasn’t sworn off men, I didn’t know if I could hack being with who Luke had become. But I had to remind myself, I was sworn off men.
I just kept staring. The buzzer went. Sissy.
I slid away from him, grabbed my workout bag and headed to the elevator.
When I got in, hit the button and turned, he was leaning against the bar, arms crossed on his (bare) chest, eyes on me.
The doors slid shut.
* * * * *
I spent the rest of the day seeking advice.
Sissy (next to me on a stair machine in the gym):
&n
bsp; “I’ve already told you what I think about Luke. In regards to Ren, just tell him you’re with Luke, he’ll back off. In regards to scary guy trying to run us down, just talk to Luke, he’ll take care of it. Simple.”
Okay. No.
Rock Chick Revenge Page 22
