Rock Chick 05 Revenge (22 page)

Mm,
Good Ava mumbled dreamily.

“You’re gonna get your lotion and I’m gonna work out the stress in your back. Then together, were gonna work out the tension of the last couple of days. Tomorrow, or however long it takes, I’m gonna deal with Vincetti and Dexter. You want a shot at Dexter when I find him, your call. We’ll have him in a safe place where you can say, or do, whatever you want to him and I’ll be there if you need me when you do it. After that, you and I are gonna ride this out, see where it takes us. If you’re even close to the promise you gave me this morning or what you showed on the dance floor tonight, that’s gonna take awhile. We’ll see how it goes. Got that?”

He had it all figured out and apparently he didn’t think I had a choice.

Fuck that.

I didn’t even try to count to ten I just pushed against him. “No, I do not
have
that. You can’t just pick up Noah and…” I stopped and glared at him. “What are you going to do when you pick up Noah?”

“I’m gonna tell him who I am and what I am to you and then I’m gonna beat the shit out of him.”

I quit pushing and stared. I would have said it was impossible for him to shock me further but there it was.

“You can’t do that,” I whispered.

“I can.”

“You can’t.”

“Ava, this isn’t up for discussion.”

“I don’t even want you to do that.”

“It isn’t for you to say. He took somethin’ that was mine, I’m gettin’ it back.”

Oh… my… God.

“You’re nuts!” I cried. “I’m not yours. I haven’t even
seen
you in five years.”

“You’ve been mine since you were eight.”

That cut right to the bone.

Crapity, crap, crap,
crap
.

To hide it, I shoved hard. He rocked back an inch and then moved forward and his arms got so tight, they crushed me to him.

“I’m not yours. I’m not anyone’s ever again!” I shouted in his face, getting pissed instead of scared because pissed was a whole lot better place to be. “And I’m not paying the second part of your deal. No way. No fucking way.”

“All right, then you pay by telling me why you didn’t pick up my calls or see me after my father’s funeral. That was before all the shit went down with those fuckin’ guys takin’ you away, piece by piece. I wanna hear why you stood by my father’s grave and made me a promise and days later you reneged.”

My mouth snapped shut and my body went statue still.

Okay, then there was really, really,
really
no way I was going to tell him
that
. I was never going to tell him it embarrassed me that he held me when I was Fatty, Fatty Four-Eyes. No way I was going to tell him that I lost weight, dyed my hair and got contacts because I’d been in love with him since I was eight (he wasn’t wrong about me being his but I wasn’t going to tell
him
that) and I wanted him to notice me.

No way in hell.

In fact, there was
so
no way in hell that I made a split-second, dangerous decision that would protect that knowledge forever.

“I’ll get the lotion,” I told him.

He stared at me a beat then pressed his lips together and tilted his chin up looking for patience then his eyes came back to me.

“Jesus, you’re a pain in the ass,” he said.

“Are we doing this or what?” I asked, sounding bitchy which was a relief considering I
felt
hysterical but I didn’t want Luke to know that.

His arms went loose, I pushed up, scrambled over him, got to my feet and I shot to the bathroom like a rocket.

Chapter Ten

Mrs. Stark

It was the dead of night when Luke moved me, arms around me, up and over him to his other side. He hooked my leg over his hip and I snuggled in.

“You’re nuts,” I mumbled into his throat.

Then I went back to sleep.

* * * * *

I woke up alone in Luke’s bed.

I stared at the pillowcase, quiet, still, listening and at the same time assessing my situation. I heard the shower. I took a deep breath, rolled on my stomach, pulled Luke’s pillow into my belly and held it tight.

Last night, I’d dodged the bullet. As I lay in Luke’s bed thinking back, I decided this was because I was on an adrenalin crash after Dom’s kidnapping, because I was drunk, but most especially because Luke gave really great rubdowns.

I got the lotion, gave it to Luke, took off my glasses and lay down on my belly, all bitch attitude like a rubdown from Luke was akin to torture in an iron maiden. Just to be difficult, I kept on my tee and my panties (which, thank
God,
were mocha-colored satin hipsters with a load of beige lace and not ratty old ones that sagged at the ass). Luke pushed up the tee, up, up until I was forced to do a back arch and he whipped it over my head. He warmed the lotion in his hands and went to work on me.

I wanted to stay tense, just to be contrary, but I couldn’t. His hands were strong and you could tell he had done this before (another thought I clung to, telling myself it proved he was a womanizing rat-bastard). He went right to the kinks and worked them out. This was not a sensual massage to get me turned on. He genuinely was trying to relieve my stress.

When I wasn’t freaked out that I was lying, in my undies, in Lucas Stark’s bed (which was, at the beginning, my prevailing thought), I found this show of kindness disturbing but in a good way. I was trying very hard to hold on to thoughts of him being an ultra pushy, unbelievably blunt, tough guy, macho man and Sandra Whoever-She-Was crying into her M&Ms. But it was hard when underneath everything Luke did it seemed like he truly was a nice guy trying to protect me and keep me safe (but in an ultra pushy, unbelievably blunt, tough guy, macho man way).

Then again I thought that about Rick when he promised not to cheat on me, and Noah when he worked so hard to win me before screwing me over. And mostly my Dad when I thought it was him and me against the Barlow Super Bitches and he left me.

Slowly, as Luke worked at my back, all these thoughts sifted out of my head and I fell asleep.

That was it.

Except for Luke’s weird habit of rolling me to the other side of the bed every night, all we did was sleep.

I pulled the covers to my neck and was about to move to my second mental topic, how to successfully flee to Wyoming, when the bathroom door opened. That was when I realized my mistake. I should have gotten up and got dressed.

Instead, like the big dork I was, I lay in bed and let my mind wander, so much so I hadn’t even heard the shower go off.

Fuckity, fuck, fuck,
fuck
.

When was I going to
learn?

I reviewed my options, waited for Good Ava and Bad Ava to give their input (they were still sleeping, which figured, always chattering away when you didn’t want them to and never there when you needed them) and decided to pretend that I was still asleep. In fact, if I was good at it, maybe Luke would get sick of waiting and go out and hunt down my ex-boyfriends and beat the shit of them while I escaped and drove to Wyoming.

I was putting this plan into action, eyes closed, when I felt the bed depress as Luke sat on it.

Uh-oh.

I continued to feign sleep. The covers slid down my body.

Ee-yikes!

Luke may have felt gentlemanly enough to let me sleep after his rubdown but he hadn’t been gentlemanly enough to put my tee back on me.
 
Therefore, I was wearing nothing but my satin panties.
 

First, I had a silent freak out that I slept next to Luke mostly naked. Then I had a silent freak out that he could see most of my body. I didn’t know what Jennifer Aniston looked like naked (and didn’t want to know) and I was probably far off that mark but Riley hadn’t done badly with me. Still, I wasn’t ready for this.
 

Un-unh.
 

No way.

Luckily, I had the pillow pressed to my belly so all he could see was my naked back. Covers gone, the bed moved and I felt heat against my back as Luke settled in. This was not getting any better.

Then I was turned.

Seriously not better.

I held the pillow close to me like a shield still pretending to sleep. Luke tugged it gently and I had to make the decision whether or not to let it go. If I held on to it for dear life like I wanted to he’d know I was awake which would foil my plan.
 

I let it go.

Second string defense, I moved my body into his to cover myself, pressing my chest to his, tucking my face into his throat and snuggling in, in the hopes that he would think I was giving him a sleep cuddle.

This was a bad idea. I knew it the minute my mostly naked body hit his bare chest. It felt nice, as in ultra nice.

Shit.

“Ava,” he called my name softly, his arms around me, one hand sliding up my back, fingers of the other hand trailing across the top, lacy edge of my underwear.

I kept pretending to sleep. This was hard, the trailing touch at my underwear felt good.

His fingers went into my hair at the back of my head. “Babe, wake up.”
 

Hmm.

I couldn’t ignore him much longer, he would think I was dead.

I was realizing my plan was going south, way south, when his fingers sifted through my hair a few inches then twisted around it. I felt his hand fist and my head was pulled back gently.

Not good.

I felt his mouth against mine.

Worse!

“Babe,” he said against my lips and I couldn’t pull it off anymore. Slowly, I opened my eyes.

As his lips were against mine, I was close enough to see, even without my contacts, his eyes were ink.

“Hey,” I whispered and luckily my voice sounded sleepy.

“Hey,” he said against my mouth and something about that soft word, said by Luke, in his bed, in the morning, against my mouth made me melt.

When my body pressed deeper into him, his eyes went molten and that was it. No more stall tactics. I was going to be screwed, literally.

He kissed me. Maybe I should have pushed it, torn away and stood firm to my vows. But he was a seriously good kisser.

Added to that, our mostly naked bodies were pressed up against each other. His chest hair felt sexy-rough against my breasts and his hand at my underwear was keeping up the lovely torture.

And this was Lucas Stark and he had always, in my heart, been my special guy.

I gave up the ghost and kissed him back. When I did, he groaned into my mouth, rolling me to my back, him on top of me. The groan sounded and felt good, so good I wrapped my arms around him and started to explore with my hands, wanting to make him do it again.

This was when I discovered he was naked, mainly because my fingers drifted over his tight ass.

Holy cramoly.

Nice
.

His head came up and I focused on him, barely. I was half in a Luke Lip Fog and half in a Luke Tight Ass Fog. I knew my eyes were hooded and I was already breathing heavily.

“Christ,” he muttered. “You look like that after I kiss you, what are you gonna look like when I make you come?”

My hands slid up his back and I answered him even though his question wasn’t one you answered. “I don’t know,” I whispered.

“Let’s find out,” he murmured against my mouth.

I found myself thinking that was a
great
idea.

Then Luke got down to “giving me the business”.

I discovered in short order that Luke’s lips were not just good at kissing. They were good at a lot of things. They were good at my neck, behind my ear, trailing down my chest and they were
especially
good at my breasts.

In what seemed like five minutes (but was longer, time flies when you’re getting so turned on you feel like you’re going to explode) he had me wild. I gave Bad Ava what she wanted and I tasted more of Luke, my tongue and mouth moving to any piece of skin that came near it, my hands drifting, my nails dragging. I wanted all of him, every rock-solid inch I could get (and every one I encountered was just that) and for some reason I wasn’t scared that he knew it.

He released my nipple after a delicious tug and a finishing swirl of the tongue and came back over me, kissing me again, hard, wild, his tongue teasing me and making me follow it which I did, gladly. Then his hips slid to my side, his mouth still kissing me and his hand went into my panties. I gasped against his tongue as with no fooling around, no fumbling, no exploration, no hesitation, his finger hit the target.

“Holy crap,” I whispered against his mouth, my eyes flying open.

He was watching me, his gaze so hot I felt the heat of it through my body.

“You’re dripping wet,” he told me, his voice sexy-hoarse. Before I could react to this statement, his mouth came to mine again; my eyes stayed open and so did his. “I can’t fuckin’ wait to get a taste of you,” he said against my mouth in a fierce way that I knew he
really
meant it and his finger did an unbelievable roll that was so good, my neck arched and I sucked in breath.