“Yeah.”
They stared at each other and I had visions of them wrestling to the ground in a tough guy death match and this made me ultra uncomfortable.
“I need cookies,” I blurted and both men looked at me.
Luke’s mouth twitched. Riley’s brows drew together.
“You gonna be okay with this guy?” Riley asked what I thought was a question that proved he was a lunatic.
Luckily Luke showed no reaction to this in your face question.
“Of course,” I said.
Riley looked like he didn’t believe me. Then he did the wrap his hand around my head kiss my forehead thing again but left his hand where it was and looked me in the eyes.
“See you tomorrow?” he asked softly.
I nodded.
Riley threw a scowl at Luke who was back to looking unhappy in a way that made Riley’s scowl seem amateur. He got in his Pathfinder and took off. I turned to Luke.
Now he was glaring at me.
“You have something to give me?” I asked.
“In the house.”
“Luke, I need to get some work done, I haven’t had –”
“In the house.”
Jeez.
All right, in the house if that’s what he wanted. The sooner I did what he wanted, the sooner I’d get this over with.
I stomped up to the house and let us in. I walked into the living room, threw my keys and purse on the couch and turned to Luke.
“Okay, Luke, we’re in the house,” I put my hand out, palm up. “You have something to give me?”
“Who’s that guy to you?”
“Riley?”
“No, Jack Lemmon,” he said and I couldn’t help it, I laughed mainly because it was funny.
He advanced so fast, I barely got my feet coordinated to retreat. But I did, all the way across the living room until my back hit the wall and Luke came up close. One of his hands hit the wall by my head, the other one wrapped around my waist and pulled me into his body.
I stared at him, shocked breathless at his behavior and every thought flew from my head.
“You like playin’ games?” he asked and his eyes were shining dangerously.
“No.”
“You like yankin’ men’s chains?” he asked.
Holy crap. Where was this coming from?
“No!” I shouted.
“Lose weight, get contacts, dye your hair, become a knockout and make all the men pay who wouldn’t look at you before?” he clipped.
At his words, I lost it. I mean, how dare he?
“Fuck you!” I yelled.
“Why did you come to the offices yesterday?” he asked.
“Go to hell, Lucas Stark.”
His palm pounded on the wall next to my head and his face got right in mine so he was the only thing I could see and this scared the shit out of me.
“Don’t fuck with me, Ava.”
“I’m not fucking with you,” I whispered, totally freaked out.
“Who’s Riley to you?”
“He’s my personal trainer,” I said immediately.
“You fuckin’ him?”
My eyes rounded and I instantly answered, “No!”
“He wants to fuck you.”
“He does not. We’re friends.”
“He does.”
“No he doesn’t.”
“Yes, Ava, he does.”
“Step back.”
He didn’t step back, he came closer, or more to the point, brought me closer. Both arms wrapping around me, he hauled me tight against his body.
“You just earned a preview of tonight,” he told me, face so close his mouth was nearly on mine.
“I don’t…” I cleared my throat and that pissed me off because it made me sound scared. I was scared, I just didn’t want to sound scared. “I don’t want a preview.”
“Too bad.”
“Luke.”
“You’re gonna be in my bed and not like last night. I’m gonna give you a taste of me and I’m gonna take more than a taste of you.”
Ho-ly, fucking, shit.
“Luke,” I repeated.
“One thing you need to know, while you’re sharing my bed, I don’t share your body.”
At this, I blinked, thinking I saw red film covering my eyes but he went on before I could say a word.
“Until we’re done, however long that takes, no one touches you, not even to kiss your goddamned forehead. Got me?”
Um.
One, two, three… oh fuck it.
“You are fucking kidding me,” I snapped.
“Not even a little bit.”
“What about Sandra?”
“Sandra is gone.”
“Her food is in your fridge!” I yelled.
“She’s gone.”
“Have you told her that?”
“Not yet, but she’s my next visit.”
Oh my God, he was a jerk. He was beyond a jerk. He was the jerkiest jerk I’d ever met.
“You’re a jerk,” I told him.
His brows snapped together. “You want me to fuck Sandra while I’m fuckin’ you?”
“You’re not gonna fuck me.”
“Yeah, I am.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“Ava, you missed it when it happened so I’ll clue you in. Last night, around the time you fell asleep against me, you became mine.”
My eyes went huge. “How do you figure that?”
All of a sudden, his face changed. He was watching me and I could tell he was thinking about something and by the look of him whatever it was didn’t bode well for me.
“Luke, step back,” I demanded.
“No,” he said softly but it wasn’t to my demand, it was to himself. “I’m thinkin’ you’ve been mine a lot longer than that.”
I stopped breathing and stared at him, scared far, far more now than I had been when he was angry.
His eyes roamed my face and hair again then they locked on mine. “I’m thinkin’ you been mine since about the time your Dad left your Mom.”
Whoa.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
This was not happening.
“Step back,” I whispered.
“Maybe before,” he was still talking to himself.
“Please, step back.”
His eyes had gone far away but they came back and focused on me. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
“You’re crazy and an out-of-control macho man is what you are.”
“I’m right.”
“You’re nuts.”
“Think about it.”
I wasn’t going to think about it. I was going to move to Wyoming and live with Sissy and her mother to get away from Luke.
That was when I realized something and my eyes snapped back to his. “How did you know my phone number? It’s unlisted.”
His face began to relax from its trip down memory lane intensity but I was way behind him, still back at being pissed off.
“Babe, I work at a private investigations agency.”
“Is that how you found out where I live?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you follow me from here last night?”
“Yeah.”
I found that my hands were holding onto his waist and there was no way to put them between us so I grabbed at his tee and tried to shove.
He didn’t move.
“Luke, forget finding dirt on Dom. You’re fired. I’ll hire another investigations agency.”
“First they’ll have to find Vincetti, which they won’t do nearly as fast as Vance’s gonna do and he’s already working on it.”
“Goddamnit,” I shouted, foiled again.
He did the half-grin. I glared at him.
“Don’t fight it,” his voice was soft, gentle and affectionate and I had to claw at my anger to keep it with me, I liked that voice so much.
“Please go.”
The grin didn’t fade but he did let me go to move away about two inches. Then he
dug in his pocket, pulled something out and shoved it in the front pocket of my Levi’s.
His eyes came to mine and he said, “See you tonight. You get drunk, you call me. I’ll come get you.”
I didn’t answer, I just glared at him. He ignored the glare, touched my nose with his finger and then he was gone.
Oh my. I’ve got goose bumps, that was INTENSE, Good Ava told me.
I think I had an orgasm, Bad Ava shared.
I slid down the wall and put my head on my knees.
Yep, I was right, my life just got pretty fucking complicated.
Chapter Six
What I Don’t Get
Once I got off my ass, I called Sissy and told her about the state of her living room (and her pottery) and told her not to come home. Whatever Dom was caught up in, I wanted her to be far, far away from it.
Then because she was my bestest best friend, I told her about Luke. Every last detail about every second from the minute I walked into the Nightingale Investigations offices to the minute he walked out of my house, including being there during the shooting, which made her scream a little bit.
“Wow,” Sissy said when I was done, sounding like she’d just run the hundred yard dash.
Wow didn’t cover it.
“You don’t have to worry, Sis,” I told her. “I get the impression from Luke’s loft and Porsche and what I saw of the Nightingale Investigations offices, people pay a high premium for their services. They’ll find Dom and get the dirt on him. You just stay safe with your Mom.”
“Okay,” Sissy said then she paused and went on. “Ava?”
“Yeah, honey?”
In a very quiet voice, she whispered, “Luke called you a knockout.”
I hadn’t let that penetrate until the moment Sissy repeated it to me.
“Holy crap,” I whispered back.
“I think you may want to rethink your vow to hate men forever,” Sissy advised.
Not gonna happen.
“Yeah, and maybe Sandra Whoever-She-Was rethought her vow to give up on men when she got hooked up with Luke and filled his fridge with healthy food thinking thoughts of a long and happy life together. Now she’s crying her eyes out and eating her way through a three pound bag of M&Ms.”
Sissy remembered what Luke looked like as a teenager. Sissy knew Sandra Whoever-She-Was was definitely crying her eyes out with a three pound bag of M&Ms.
“You have a point,” she conceded. “We’ll see how this goes.”
I didn’t say anything because I knew how this was going to go, this wasn’t going to go anywhere.
I got off the phone with Sissy and dug in my pocket to see what Luke gave me. His remote, a key and a business card with his name on it and his home and cell numbers written in black ink on the back.
I picked up the phone, called his office and shoved the card in my back pocket.
“Nightingale Investigations,” Shirleen answered.
“Hey Shirleen, this is Ava Barlow, from yesterday?”
“Girl, how’re you doin’ today? Heard you spent the night with Luke.”
I sat, stunned speechless, and stared at my computer.
Then I said, “Matt’s got a big mouth.”
“They all got big mouths, girl, learn that quick. These boys talk more than a pack of women. I lost fifty bucks on you.”
I was stunned speechless again, this time it didn’t last as long.
“What?”
“See, Lee nailed Indy the first night they were together. Not nailed her nailed her but she was in his bed. Eddie, with Jet, it took a few days. Hank and Roxie, like, a day. Vance, like three, but Jules was a virgin and he had to interrupt the festivities once to go out and shoot someone.”
I was blinking rapidly and feeling kind of faint at the amount and sensitivity of information Shirleen was imparting, not to mention what it might mean to me.
“So we had a pool. Everyone threw down money on when they thought Luke would nail you. Mace won five hundred dollars.”
Ho-ly crap.
“So,” she went on. “Did he nail you nail you or did you two just sleep?”
For some reason, I answered her unbelievably nosy question. “We just slept.”
“New pool!” she shouted.
Oh my God.
Wyoming all of a sudden looked even better.
“Shirleen,” I cut to the chase because I was beginning to feel sick. “I’m calling to set up an account. Luke and Vance are doing some work for me and I need you to invoice –”
“Oh girl, I don’t think so. Luke already told me you’d try something like this. He says you two got something worked out and we don’t want to step on that do we?”
“Yes, we do,” I told her. At least I wanted to step on it. I wanted to stomp all over it.
She laughed in my ear, loud and happy. “This is gonna be fun. First one of these I been in on, on the ground floor.” I could almost hear her rubbing her hands together.
“That means you’re mine,” she declared I thought bizarrely. “See, Ally got Indy ‘cause no one knew them then. Daisy got Jet. Everyone took care of Roxie ‘cause that was some serious shit that went down. May got Jules because they knew each other beforehand but we all kicked in, seein’ as she was a virgin and all. Though, I wasn’t in on the cherry poppin’ discussion, I’ve seen the tape.”
The tape?
“Anyhoots,” she went on. “See you at The Hornet tonight. I can’t wait.”
Then she hung up.
I put down the phone kind of in a daze and picked it up immediately and called Sissy.
* * * * *
I got about an hour of work done before I started my preparation for the next nightmare of the day.
I decided to go heavy on the makeup and the silver. I spent ages on my hair, pulling it back away from my face smooth in parts, other parts in twists and even other parts in braids and clipped it at the back of my head with a huge silver barrette leaving the back long. I also decided to wear my kickass, rock ‘n’ roll, deep-green, fitted, long-sleeved tee that had such a wide neckline, it fell off my shoulder. This meant, since I didn’t have a strapless bra (and no way I’d go braless sporting c-cup boobs), I had to wear my baby pink, satin bustier-slash-teddy-like contraption with snaps at the crotch. It fit like a glove, had beige triangles of lace at the hipbones and cups at the brassiere area and some soft boning that moved with my body. I’d bought it to wear with a strapless dress I wore to the New Year’s Eve party Dom, Sissy, Noah and I went to the year before last and it was the only time I wore it. Noah loved it, thought it was hot. For my evening at The Hornet (and the rest of forever), it had only a utilitarian purpose. I kept on my faded jeans, ran a long, silver scarf through my belt loops, buckled on a pair of matte-silver strappy sandals and called a taxi.
By the time I got there, I was ten minutes late.
I walked into The Hornet and it was packed. It was a warm Friday in late March, so Denverites were ready to roll to summer. The bar area was shoulder to shoulder, the seating area was entirely filled and neither area had a seat with Indy’s and Ally’s asses sitting on them.
I went to the back room where the pool tables were and immediately to my left I saw them. Indy, Ally and eight other people, including Tod and Stevie, Indy’s neighbors who I’d met several times before (gay, partners, totally fucking cool), Shirleen and the other black lady from the offices yesterday, not to mention the black-haired, violet-eyed Glamour Girl.
Holy cramoly.
“Ava!” Indy called and everyone’s gaze swung to me.
“Hey,” I said weakly, deciding that, yes, this was the next nightmare of my day.
I was introduced to the rest, a honey-blonde with green eyes and a fantastic smile (Jet); a dark blonde with blue eyes and a great outfit (Roxie); a platinum blonde that looked so much like Dolly Parton I thought she was Dolly for a minute (including the cleavage and a denim jacket with so many silver studs and rhinestones she lit up the dim room, her name was Dais
y); the other black lady, older than the girls, with a Jacqueline Kennedy hairdo (May); and Glamour Girl (Jules).
Indy, by the way, was a tall, built, fantastic redhead and Ally was tall, lean and gorgeous with shiny, dark brown hair.
“Sit down, sit down. Let’s get to it. Someone get this girl a drink.” Shirleen had a seat saved for me, right next to her, right smack in the center of the long table. She was patting it and grinning at me huge.
“I’ll get you a drink,” Stevie mumbled getting up. “What’ll you have?”
“Cranberry juice and vodka. Let me give you some money,” I told him.
“Girlie, sit! Gay men don’t get to buy women drinks very often. Live it up,” Tod shouted.
Stevie moved off, I sat and Shirleen yelled after Stevie. “Hurry with that drink, you don’t want to miss anything.” Then her eyes moved back to me. “All right, girl, tell us all about it.”
“Maybe we should tell our stories first,” Jet suggested.
“I’m thinking that’s a good idea,” Indy put in.
I was happy to be off the hot seat even if it was for five minutes so I nodded.
It wasn’t for five minutes. It was for a helluva lot longer (two full drinks longer).
Indy told me her story. As she did, I was glad when Stevie brought my drink because Indy’s story included the car bombs (yes, bombs, plural).
Even though Luke gave me the scary-ass flavor of Jet, Roxie and Jules’s stories, he didn’t get into the half of it (not even a quarter of it). What he missed out was the part that included Eddie making Jet move in with him during her drama (and she never moved out). Hank and her uncle conspiring to move Roxie in with Hank after her drama (and she did). And lastly, Jules doubling up on toiletries in about ten days between her place and Vance’s place (she was still doubled up as they had her place in the city and his cabin in the mountains).
Every single one of them had been nailed and then nailed within a week.
“I need another drink,” I whispered when Jules was done.
May patted my arm and Stevie disappeared for more drinks.
“Now, your turn,” Shirleen said.
Instead of launching into my story, I turned to Jules who’d been the last one to share and said, “I know you got shot and I’m sorry about that but I think what you did was brave.”
Jules stared at me.
Rock Chick Revenge Page 9
