Rock Chick 01 (15 page)

I walked out of the bedroom to make coffee
and stopped dead, staring at the Command Center door, which was
open.

I expected that Lee was gone, off for a run,
off to command mercenary troops in a drug war in Peru, off to put
tracking devices on my car.

Instead I heard him talking on the phone like
it was an everyday room and not the nerve center for an
international commando cartel.

Normally, curiosity would have forced me to
walk right in or at least eavesdrop on his conversation.

Instead, I went straight to the
coffeepot.

Priorities.

The pot was almost full.

I emitted a sigh of delight.

I filled a cup, splashed in the milk and
walked it to the balcony off the living room, sipping my coffee and
staring at the beauty of the Front Range.

Lee had a killer view.

As the caffeine permeated, I allowed my foggy
brain to plan my day.

I was going to call Jane and Ally and go put
a note up at Fortnum’s. I was going to go get Tod and Stevie’s car,
go home and make macaroni salad so it had time to ferment before
the barbeque. Then I was going to go to bed until I had to wake up
to make the brownies and get ready for the barbeque.

If I felt like it, I might lay out in the sun
rather than sleeping in my bed.

That was going to be my day.

It sounded like a good day.

Two hands, undoubtedly connected to arms
which connected to Lee’s body, settled on the balcony railing on
either side of me. I felt his warmth at my back.

I had a moment where I felt I should turn
around, screaming like a banshee and scratching his eyes out for
having the audacity to handcuff me to his bed.

Then I thought about how he held me while I
trembled and played with my hair until I fell asleep and decided
against it.

“Hey,” I said as he moved my hair with his
chin and kissed my neck.

“How’re you feelin’ this morning?” His voice
sounded in my ear and tingles slid across my skin.

“Okay.”

I realized I forgot to factor Lee in my plans
for the day.

I didn’t have time to perform any mental
recalculations as he turned me around, took the coffee cup and put
it on the teak table that was just within reach. Then his arms slid
around me, I opened my mouth to say something, anything, and then
he kissed me.

The tingles intensified by about one hundred
percent and started to target specific zones.

After the kiss, his lips trailed along my
cheek to my ear, I had my hands pressed against his chest and I
said, perhaps stupidly and definitely shakily, “What are you
doing?”

He answered, “Saying good morning.”

He said, “good morning” really, really well.
Far better than he said, “thank you”.

Okay, I decided, something had to give
here.

All this playing around was all well and good
(some of it
really
good). The thing was, I’d made a decision
about keeping my distance from Lee a decade ago and I wasn’t so
sure I wanted to go back on that decision.

Well, if I was honest, I had to admit I
wanted to, no doubt about it. It was Lee and I’d spent a lifetime
wanting exactly this.

But, there was a lot at stake here. What
happened if it didn’t work out? What happened if he got bored and
moved on? It would change everything. I’d be devastated but also
there were relationships to consider, family, people that meant a
great deal to both of us.

“Lee, we need to talk.”

“Mm?” This was mumbled before his tongue ran
from the skin at the hinge of my jaw, down the line of my neck.

“Lee!” My toes were curling, my nipples were
hard, this was getting serious.

“Talk,” he said. “I’m listening.”

He was
not
listening. His hands had
gone up under my shirt and were sliding up my sides.

“We need to talk about what’s happening
between us.”

His mouth came to mine again. “Okay,
shoot.”

Then he kissed me, this time serious tongue
action and I was forced to put my arms around his neck to remain
standing.

When his mouth went away, one of his hands
went to cup my ass and pull me closer and I could feel his
God-given talent pressing against my belly. Tingles shot down the
insides of my thighs.

“I’m not sure about this,” I told him even
though I was kind of sure and my body was definitely sure and
getting surer by the second.

“No?” he asked, his head coming up and he was
looking at me. His brown eyes were melty-chocolate and one look at
them made me catch my breath.

The hand at my ass came up and in and then
cupped my breast, the rough pad of his thumb sliding across my
hardened nipple. I bit my lip as electricity shot straight from my
nipple to my nether regions.

“That feels pretty sure,” he said.

“That’s not what I mean,” I whispered.

“I see. You mean something else. I’ll check
there too,” He grinned, his hand moving from my breast down my
belly straight to…

“Lee!” My body jerked, half to get away from
him and half in surprise but I had nowhere to go, except over the
railing and to an icky death on the sidewalk fourteen stories
below.

He smiled, full-fledged, causing my stomach
to do a quick dip and his hand detoured back to my ass. “Let’s have
this talk
after
I make love to you.”

My stomach had lurched at the smile, my legs
went even weaker at his hand at my ass and I knew I couldn’t take
much more and somehow, don’t ask me why, that made my eyes sting
with tears.

Both his hands went to my ass and he lifted
me up. I gave a small cry of surprise and my arms tightened around
his neck as I threw my legs around his hips.

Holding me by the bottom, he turned and
strode back into the condo. One hand left my ass and went into my
hair and he tilted my head back with a soft yank, kissing me as he
walked me to the couch. He put me down and came down right on top
of me, his mouth still on mine.

I moved my head and, using the last shreds of
my ragged control, tried one last time to talk. “We fuck this up,
Lee, we fuck everything up. Ally, Hank, your folks, my Dad, are you
prepared for that?”

His body became still.

After a moment he slid a hand in the hair at
either side of my head and held my face to look at him.

And when I did, it felt like a lead weight
settled in my chest at what I saw.

Something significant had changed. Something
significant
and
scary. He wasn’t happy, the melty-chocolate
look was gone and something hard had come into his face.

“You think I want a quick fuck?”

I shook my head and bit my lip. Honestly, I
didn’t know what he wanted but at that precise moment, I wasn’t
going to say that.

“You think I’d touch you unless it meant
something?”

Holy crap.

I held my breath thinking about what that
might mean, my eyes widened, the tears stinging them began to
threaten to fill them.

His hands moved from my face to my hips.

“Christ, Indy, there’s more to me than this.”
He yanked my hips, putting them in brutal, intimate contact with
his and the hardness between them.

He held me there for a minute and stared into
my eyes.

Then he said, “Forget it.”

He put his hands on the couch, pushed himself
up and got off me.

“What?” I asked, dumbfounded, my body in
temporary shock at the loss of the weight of his, my brain not
caffeinated enough to think clearly.

He stared down at me, his face hard and
blank. Just like it was when it closed down when Dad asked him if
he hit me.

“Get dressed, I’ll take you home.”

I blinked.

“What?” I asked again.

He hauled me off the couch and set me on my
jellied legs.

“I said, get dressed, pack your shit. I’ll
take you home.”

I blinked again. Then I did it again.

Say what?

“Hang on a second…” I started.

He was walking away, muttering to himself. “I
knew I shouldn’t have started this. You’re more trouble than you’re
worth.”

Um,
say what?

I narrowed my eyes at his back. “Excuse
me?”

He was gone.

The tears were no longer threatening in my
eyes, they’d filled them and they were flowing over. But instead of
them being full of the confused emotions of a woman who was close
to getting everything she ever wanted and was scared to death of
it, they were tears of a pissed off woman-on-the-edge who was close
to murdering someone.

Emotional tears were unacceptable.

Pissed off tears were perfectly fine, so I
let them flow.

I stomped into the bedroom and started to
tear through it. I pulled on a pair of jeans, my bra and my Def
Leppard T-shirt, my black belt and boots from the night before. I
found my handbag sitting on my clothes in the armchair which Lee
must have recovered for me last night.

He’d get no thanks from me for that act of
thoughtfulness.

I shoved anything I found that was mine in my
bag, rifling through drawers and the closet, making an utter mess
along the way. I didn’t care, I was way beyond caring about
tidiness.

I went into the bathroom and got my face
soap, he could keep the goddamn toothbrush, and saw that Lee was
leaning against the doorjamb when I walked back into the room.

“Ready?” he asked, his face stony.

“Damn straight,” I answered, stalking to my
bag and pushing stuff into it, zipping it with a vicious tug.
“You’re a crazy man. You’re nuts. You and Tex should form a club.
After years and years, you think you can crook your finger and I’d
come running, no questions asked. I just wanted to talk! I wasn’t
asking for an act of devotion akin to wrestling a tiger.” Some of
my stuff poked out of the bag and I jammed it in and carried on
with my rant. “Getting me all hot and bothered,
twice…
” I
stopped and held up two fingers at him as he stood in the doorway,
then I went back to my bag, lugged it up and looped the strap over
my shoulder. “Then walking off leaving me that way.
I’m
more
trouble than
I’m
worth? Ha!”

I grabbed my handbag and stomped toward him,
with the intention of going right by him.

“Don’t bother taking me home. I’ll call a
taxi. I’ll call Ally. I’ll call my Dad. No more favors from
you!
”

I had made it to him and said (maybe yelled)
the last bit up on my toes and leaning into his face.

When I was done ranting, he stood in the
doorway and I stood in front of him, too close for comfort. I was
still crying and I was sure my face was red and wet with angry
tears.

“Get out of my way,” I demanded.

He didn’t move.

“I said,
get out of my way
!” I
shouted.

“Why are you crying?” he asked
conversationally.

“Because you piss me off.”

“You’re crying because you’re angry?”

“Seems like it, now get out of my way.”

Quick as a flash, he grabbed my purse and
threw it across the room.

I watched it sail, land in the armchair again
and then I turned back to him, eyes wide.

“What the –” I started.

He pulled the bag off my arm and also threw
that across the room. It landed on the floor with a soft “phunf” a
foot away from the armchair.

I watched it go and then turned back to him.
Words escaped me, so I just stared.

His hands came up to my face, his thumbs
running along the tears on my cheeks.

“Stop crying,” he demanded.

My mouth dropped open.

“You can’t just tell me to stop crying,” I
informed him.

“How hot and bothered were you?” he
asked.

That was the time to try my “knee him in the
balls” maneuver, I was pretty much sure of it.

“Get out of my way,” I jerked my face out of
his hands and started to walk back to my bags.

He stopped me with a hand on my arm and swung
me around.

“Quit it!” I yelled as he pulled me to him.
His face was no longer blank and stony, it was soft again and I was
pretty certain he was a raving lunatic.

“No. Now, I’m gonna take you to bed and make
love to you. Later, we’re gonna go to your Dad’s barbeque. After
that, we’ll talk.”

I shook my head and tried to pull free.
“Sorry, I have different plans for the day.”

His arms slid around me. “Honey, it occurs to
me from what you asked me earlier that you have the wrong
impression about me. Today, I’m gonna show you who I am. Tonight,
I’m gonna tell you what I want. Tomorrow, you can make up your
mind.”

I blinked at him.

“I’ve known you all my life,” I reminded
him.

“You have no fucking clue.”

I stared for a beat and fear, curiosity and
elation shivered through me at the promise I saw in his face.

I shook my head. “I have to go to the
bookstore, get Tod and Stevie’s car, make macaroni salad.”

“Matt returned your neighbor’s car last
night. Ally can go to the Fortnum’s. King Soopers has macaroni
salad.”

“No.”

One of his hands slid into my hair and pulled
my head back and to the side, exposing my neck. His mouth, all of
sudden, was there.

“Yes,” he said against my neck while walking
me back to the bed.

“Stop it, you’re crazy! One second you tell
me to pack my bags, the next second you’re on me like white on
rice.”

The backs of my knees hit the bed and we both
went down, him on top of me, his lips on mine. “Gorgeous, give me
ten minutes and I’ll be
in
you.”

At that promise, and him calling me
“gorgeous”, an electric spasm went straight through my lower belly
and he kissed me and that was it.

I’m a slut. I don’t know what to say, even
with the emotional scene, I gave in.

To tell you the whole truth, I wanted him to
show me who he was and tell me what he wanted, and I didn’t want to
wait another second to find out.