Rock Chick 05 Revenge (18 page)

“Luke,” I whispered, not knowing what I was feeling just knowing it felt really,
really
nice.

He squeezed my neck one last time then his fingers wrapped around my wrists, pulled them away from his shirt and he said, “Later.”

Then he was gone.

I watched the door close behind him and Vance.

“Oowee, now I’m thinking Monday’s odds aren’t good,” Shirleen, eyes on me, declared to the room.

* * * * *

This was my afternoon:

Tex, the coffee guy, was a huge, blond man with a wild russet beard, even wilder eyes and a very loud voice. And Luke was right, Tex made me a skinny, vanilla latte and it was so good, it totally soothed the cookie craving.

Lee and Matt escorted all the girls to Las Delicias and we had Mexican food. Lee, by the way, was absolutely gorgeous and very nice but even so he kind of scared me. He was intense the way Luke was intense. A tough guy, bad boy so deep to the core, you just knew that you did
not
mess with him.

Luckily, all through lunch no one mentioned when I was going to “get the business”. After Las Delicias Matt followed Sissy and I home, did a walkthrough of the house before he let us in, stood and chatted for awhile and then he left.

The minute he was gone and we’d locked the door, Sissy turned to me. “You want to talk about Luke?” she asked.

No, I definitely didn’t want to talk about Luke. I didn’t want to talk about him, think about him or see him ever again (liar, liar,
liar
).

“I need to get some work done,” I said.

“Do you want to talk about the kidnapping?”

I shook my head and gave her a small smile. “It wasn’t as bad as it sounds.”

She stared at me a few beats to assess if I was lying, since I wasn’t (really) she nodded. “Get some work done, I need to call my Dad.”

I went upstairs and worked for a couple of hours. Around five o’clock, Sissy walked in and started to sort through her suitcases. A few minutes later there was a knock on the door.

“That must be Dad,” Sissy said.

What?

I swiveled around in my chair. “What’s your Dad doing here?”

“I’m staying with him for a couple of days.”

What, what,
what?

I got out of my chair and followed her down the stairs. She was carrying one of her smaller suitcases.

“I thought you were staying with me,” I said to her.

“I was, now I’m going to stay with my Dad.” She was at the door and unlocking it.

“Why?” I asked.

She opened the door so I didn’t get my answer. Though I knew my answer.

Shit!

 
“Hey Dad,” she said.

Mr. Whitchurch smiled at his daughter and gave her a big hug. I could see straight off he looked worried because of the strain around his mouth. This meant Sissy must have told him what was going on and I tripled-vowed revenge against Dom because he made Mr. Whitchurch worried.

I’d known Mr. Whitchurch since forever and liked him. It was a bummer when he and Sissy’s Mom got divorced and Mrs. Whitchurch moved to Wyoming. Fortunately (for me), Sissy stayed in Denver with her Dad. Mr. Whitchurch and I got along great, most recently because we both hated Dom.

“Beautiful Ava,” he said, kissing my cheek. He’d always called me “Beautiful Ava”, even when I was Fatty, Fatty Four-Eyes.

“Hey Mister Whitchurch.”

“Hear you been takin’ care of my daughter.”

“Nothing she wouldn’t do for me,” I told him.

He stared at me and sighed. “Dom’s a shithead,” he said.

“Dad!” Sissy snapped.

“Well, he is,” Mr. Whitchurch was not to be denied.

Sissy glared at him. He took her glare in stride. He’d been getting Sissy Glares for twenty-nine years and he knew she never meant them.

“Um, Mister Whitchurch,” I interrupted the Sissy Glare, “can Sissy and I have a second?”

He looked at me a beat, correctly assessed I had something weighty on my mind and nodded. Then he took her suitcase and walked to his car.

I closed the door and turned to Sissy. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to stay with your Dad?”

“I wasn’t going to stay with him.”

“Well, you’re staying with him,” I pointed out.

“Yeah,
now,
” she returned.

“Why now?” I asked even though I knew the answer.

That’s when she gave me the answer I knew. “I know Noah was an asshole and Dom treats me like shit. I know Dave was weird and Rick was a jerk. I know your Dad broke your heart when he left. I know you don’t ever want to get hurt again. But I also know you’ve been in love with Luke Stark since you were eight years old and now he looks at you like you’re lunch and he missed breakfast
and
dinner.”

“Sissy –”

“No, Ava. I know about your vow and I know you like your vibrators and I know you think all men are shit but there are good ones out there and I think Luke is one of them. I’m not standing in the way of that and, I’m telling it to you straight, girlfriend, neither should you.”

Jeez.

Was no one on my side?

I’m not,
Bad Ava said.
I want to get MORE of a taste of Luke.

I’m not either,
Good Ava agreed.
I think Luke is lush.

Argh!

I focused on Sissy. “Seriously, I told you how he’s been behaving since I saw him again. He’s
not
a normal guy.”

Her hands came to either side of my face and she looked me in the eyes. “No, he’s not and that’s a
good
thing,” she pulled my face down to hers so our foreheads were touching. “Call me a hopeless romantic but I want to see my friend with the guy she’s been pining for forever,” her voice dropped to a whisper. “I want that more than anything on this earth.”

Oh crap.

Tears filled my eyes but before I could let them loose her hands moved away, she gave me a smile and a wink then she was gone.

I locked the door behind her and rested my forehead against it.

“My life is shit,” I told the door.

The door had no response.

I went back to work. Half an hour later, my phone rang.

“Yo.”

“Babe.”

Hell and damnation.

It was Luke, my knees wobbled and I wasn’t even standing.

“Did you get my cookies?” I asked.

I heard his soft laughter then, “Not yet.”

What was I doing?

I was trying to be cute and funny. I wasn’t supposed to be trying to be cute and funny with Luke. I was supposed to drive him away by behaving like a screaming shrew.

Bad,
bad
Ava.

“Why are you calling?” I asked, trying to pull up the Barlow Super Bitch but it sounded halfhearted.

“I’ll pick you up at seven. We’re goin’ to Lincoln’s for dinner, my place to talk afterward. Sissy got anybody who’ll stay with her or do I need to arrange company?”

“Sissy’s gone.”

Silence.

“Luke?”

“Come again?”

“Sissy’s gone. She’s staying with her Dad for a couple of days.”

“You’re alone in your house?”

“Well… yeah.”

“Fuck,” he clipped, sounding pissed.

“What?” I asked.

“Tell me your doors are locked.”

“Of course.”

“Somebody will be there soon. If it’s someone you haven’t met, I’ll call you to tell you who to expect.”

“Luke, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Right. That’s what Lee thought when he left Indy at her house before they let off a car bomb that drew her out and she was kidnapped and nearly taken to Costa Rica.”

Oh yeah. I forgot about that.

Belated
eek!

“Don’t open the door to anyone but one of Lee’s boys, got me?”

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you at seven.”

Disconnect.

Oh shit.

I didn’t even get a chance to argue with him to tell him I wasn’t going anywhere with him that night. My mortal danger was getting in the way of me protecting myself from the carnal danger that was Luke.

I mentally shrugged it off and went back to work. I was making some good headway on my deadline so at least
that
wouldn’t be stressing me out along with everything else.

Five minutes after I put down the phone from Luke, I heard a floorboard creak in my office. I swiveled in my chair expecting to see Luke (who, incidentally, I noticed pocketed the extra set of keys I gave him last night).

Instead, I saw Dom.

I shot out of the chair, opened my mouth to scream, Dom was on me in a flash and everything went black.

* * * * *

This was my early evening:

I woke up in the back of Dom’s BMW. I’d been in Dom’s BMW, like, a gazillion times but I’d never been lying in the back unable to move my limbs (okay, so a few drunken times I’d been lying in the back but I’d been able to move my limbs).

The inability to move my limbs freaked me right the hell out.

“Dom,” I whispered.

He didn’t reply, maybe he didn’t hear me, maybe he was concentrating on driving. I started to get tingling in my extremities which I took as a good sign while I felt the car moving, like it was going in long circles. I was getting my strength back and was just able to pull myself into a sitting position when Dom parked and got out of the car then got in the backseat with me.

“Hey, you’re awake,” he said, settling next to me and turning toward me. Then for some bizarre reason, he pulled my still not entirely under my control body across his lap and leaned into me.

I blinked. “What did you do to me?” I asked.

“Stun gun. Sorry, Ava, but we need to talk and I didn’t want to put up with your mouth.”

Stun gun?

Stun gun?

Dom stun-gunned me?

I’d never even seen a stun gun. I saw a video of someone getting Tasered on YouTube (and I might add I was not at all happy that Dom had done that to me) but I’d never seen a stun gun.

What a jerk!

“You stun-gunned me?” I asked.

“We need to talk.”

I was getting back to fighting fit (read: could control my hands) and I shoved against him but his fingers wrapped around my wrists and he held on tight.

“We don’t need to talk,” I told him then said, “What are you doing here? Where have you been? The police said you were missing.”

His eyes narrowed. “You talked to the police about me?”

“No, the police talked to
me
about
you
. Your living room was shot up and for some reason a Mister Zano sent some henchmen to kidnap me and it has something to do with you. Is this Mister Zano related to you and Uncle Vito?”

A weird look crossed his face before he muttered, “Fuck.”

“Fuck is right!” I snapped. “What’s going on?”

“I got a problem at work, I’m fixing it,” he said, passing it off like it was nothing. “Listen, Ava, you and me –”

“There is no you and me,” I interrupted him.

His hands tightened on my wrists. “Listen!” he clipped. “I know you got a problem with the whole Sissy thing –”

The whole “Sissy thing”?

Oh… my…
God
.
 

 
I vowed quadruple-revenge against Dom, rat-bastard.

He went on. “I’m leaving her.”

“You can’t leave her, she already left you,” I reminded him.

“Then I’ll give her a divorce, no contest.”

Well this was good news.

“Wonderful. I can’t wait to tell her. She’ll be over the moon.”

Obviously, Dom didn’t care that his wife of five years would be thrilled at his granting a no-contest divorce.
 

I knew this mainly because he said, “Then you and I can hook up.”

I blinked again.

Was he insane? Why were men such total assholes?

“We’re not hooking up,” I snapped.

I watched as his face changed in a soft, sexy way and I felt a weird moment of sadness. Mainly because he was hot and that look on his face was even hotter. If he’d been a good guy, some woman (read: Sissy) would have been very lucky. Instead, he was a rat-bastard, tore through women’s lives and left devastation in his wake.

“You changed. Noah fucked you over and you changed,” he said, his voice just as soft and sexy as his face and I stared at him. “You got this…
attitude
,” his eyes dropped to my mouth. “Fuck, makes me hard just thinkin’ about it,” he muttered.

Ho-ly
crap
.