Rock Chick 01 (31 page)

It was fantastic, slightly naughty, slightly
illicit and you knew in the back of your head you’d remember it
when you were making coffee.

“Now who’s going fast?” I asked, wrapping my
legs around his hips.

He ground his hips into me and it felt so
fucking good, I bit my lip.

“Have anything more to say?” he asked.

I shook my head, then I said, “Wait a second,
I do. Do that again.” His body went still and his eyebrows went
up.

I put my mouth against his and said,
“Please.”

Then I got another version of The Smile, the
sexiest, the best and
the
most dangerous, the warm and
intimate smile you get when Lee’s moving inside you.

* * * * *

After, we had pie.

Then, we had a shower.

What with wet, soapy, naked bodies,
especially with one of them being Lee’s, things got out of hand and
we tumbled out of the shower onto the bath mat.

After that, I said a silent thank you to the
unknown Judy as the bathroom was sparkling clean and the bath mat
smelled of fragrant drier sheets.

Later, we were in bed and I was pressed up
against his side, his arm around my waist, my arm curled around his
abs. I’d thrown a leg over his thigh and I had my head on his
shoulder.

I was comfy, warm and very sleepy.

I felt good and if I allowed myself to think
about it (which I did but only a little), I was happy.

“About you lookin’ for Rosie with Tex, I’m
gonna have to ask you not to do it,” Lee said.

I didn’t want to have this conversation now.
I was tired, very relaxed, maybe even happy, I didn’t want a
conversation that might get heated.

So I ignored him.

He shook me a bit.

“Indy.”

“Mm?”I said into his shoulder.

“Did you hear me?”

“I heard you.”

He sighed.

“You’re thinking of cuffing me to the bed
again, aren’t you?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

I tilted my head to look at him without
moving my cheek from his shoulder.

“Why don’t you want me looking for
Rosie?”

“How many reasons do you want?”

“Two.” I was still relaxed but beginning to
feel snippy.

“You don’t know what you’re doin’ and Tex is
a fucking crazy man.”

“Both good points.”

Holy shit.

Did I say that out loud?

What was it with me? I was blurting out my
honest thoughts willy nilly.

He rolled into me, his thigh came between my
legs, forcing one of mine to hook around his hip and his hand went
to my ass and pressed me to him. His other hand tucked my head in
his neck.

I realized he thought I agreed with him and
this was my reward.

It was a good reward, being held by Lee like
that, really good.

He didn’t have to know that even though I
agreed with him, I was still going to do whatever the hell I wanted
to do.

* * * * *

I woke up when the bed depressed with Lee’s
weight.

I opened my eyes and blinked at him.

“Coffee,” he said and I saw the steam rising
from a mug he was holding.

I scooted up, arranged the pillows, pulled
the sheet up over my chest and took the coffee.

I took a sip, it was strong.

“My hero,” I breathed into the joe.

“What are your plans for the day?” he
asked.

Automatically, I lied, “I’m not caffeinated
enough to have plans.”

He stared at me.

He knew I had plans.

He stood, he was wearing a pair of seriously
faded, once-navy-blue sweats that rode low on his hips, bringing
the tops of his hip bones out in sexy relief. The sweats had been
cut off and the ragged edge hit mid-thigh. His hair was messy, not
only with sleep but because I’d made it that way. With the sweats
and the hair, I was beginning to feel mildly turned on.

He walked across the room and came back.

I took another sip and absently heard a clink
of metal but was still not awake enough to process the noise.

The mug was swept away, my wrist was seized
and halfway up to the bed stand when I realized he had cuffs.

Too late, he slapped it on my wrist and I
heard the ratchet of the bracelet. I twisted but I heard the second
ratchet and I was stuck.

I twisted back to him, pissed off.

“You’re kidding,” I snapped.

He slid in bed alongside me, pulling the
sheet down.

“Nope.”

His hands were on me and his mouth came to my
neck.

“Un-unh. No way.” I pushed at him with my
free hand. “You aren’t gonna cuff me to the bed and have your
wicked way with me.”

He grabbed my free hand by the wrist and
twisted it behind me.

“Wanna bet?”

His other hand pushed the sheet over my hip
and I was fully exposed.

“Are you gonna leave me here all day?”

“After… yeah,” he said into my ear.

Grr.

“Uncuff me!”

“No.”

“Lee, this is not funny. And anyway, morning
sex isn’t working for us. You start this and someone is gonna buzz
the door and tell you that The Alamo has been attacked and you’re
gonna take off.”

His hand had wandered to my ass, his mouth
came to mine.

“You’ll survive.”

“No I won’t!”

His mouth slid passed mine to my ear.

“You’ve done it before.”

“That was before I knew what I was
missing!”

His head came up and he grinned at me.

Fucking Lee.

“I’ll uncuff you if you promise me you won’t
go off looking for Rosie with Tex.” I opened my mouth but before I
could say anything he said, “Promise me and mean it.”

I closed my mouth.

If I could have crossed my arms on my chest,
I would have. Instead, I explained.

“Stevie’s mad at me because Tod was in the
line of fire. Ally’s chasing down bad guys, totaling her Mustang.
My life’s completely out of control and taking others with it. I
can’t sit around and wait, I have to do something. I’m tired of
being scared.”

I was trying to twist away. He threw a thigh
over mine and pinned me, let go of my wrist, got up on an elbow and
traced the line of my jaw with his finger, looking in my eyes.

He was deciding something.

“Then you work with me.”

My body stilled. Was he serious? Work
with
the Mysterious Badass Liam Nightingale?

“What?” I asked.

“We’ll look for Rosie together.”

My mouth dropped open.

“Seriously?” I breathed.

He nodded.

I started to smile but then he said, “There
are conditions.”

The smile went away and I narrowed my eyes at
him.

“What conditions?”

His eyes softened and crinkled at the
corners.

“You’re very cute,” he said.

Excuse me? Cute?

“Conditions?” I snapped, deciding to deal
with the “cute” comment later.

“You do what I say when I tell you to do it
and you keep your mouth shut. If we get into something and I get a
bad vibe and feel you shouldn’t be there, you don’t argue, you just
go.”

I thought about it and decided I could do
that.

“Uncuff me,” I said again.

“You agree?”

“I agree.”

He uncuffed me, I started to roll away but he
hooked me and rolled me back.

“Where you goin’?” he asked.

“Just ‘cause I agreed to work together with
you doesn’t mean I’m not angry with you for cuffing me. You want
honesty, I’ll give you honesty, you’ve pissed me off.”

He nuzzled my neck, apparently unaffected by
my announcement.

“I can help you work through that.”

“You’re way too cocky,” I told him.

“I know, but you still love me.”

I froze.

“Excuse me?”

His arms came around me, holding me tight as
if he knew I was about ready to bolt and he was preparing early. He
lifted his head and looked at me. His eyes were dark and warm.

“You love me.”

I stared at him and lied through my teeth
(glad to know I could still do it), “I
do not
love you.”

He pulled me even deeper into him.

“Liar,” he whispered. “You’ve loved me since
I held your hand at your mother’s memorial service when you were
five years old.”

It was then, my head exploded.

Must… Stop… Brain

“
What?
” I shouted.

He was watching me closely.

I bucked, pushed and tried to get away but he
held on tight.

“Let me go,” I demanded.

He didn’t say anything, just effortlessly
held me to him.

I stilled and looked at him.

There was no denying it. His intelligence
about when my infatuation started was too detailed to lie
about.

“How did you know about that? Was it Ally?” I
asked.

“I read your diary.”

Oh… my… God.

“What? When?”

“I don’t know, when you were fifteen,
sixteen. You were schemin’ and throwin’ yourself at me pretty
steady, recruitin’ your friends to help, some of it was ingenious.
I was lookin’ for ways to…” he hesitated then found the words,
“diffuse your eagerness.”

Holy shit.

How embarrassing was that?

It was a long time ago and I didn’t remember
what I wrote in my diary. What I
did
remember was that it
was nearly all about Lee and all of it was very personal.

I pressed my hands against his chest and
tilted my chin down so I couldn’t see him.

I was never going to live this down. It felt
like my whole body was on fire with mortification. I had to get the
fuck out of there before I exploded. I was the Embarrassment
Bomb.

“Indy.”

“You shouldn’t have read my diary. That was
low,” I told his chest. “But it was a long time ago. Things change,
I’ve changed. I don’t feel that way anymore.”

“That’s why you made chocolate cream pie last
night.”

I lifted my head and glared at him. “You’d
had a hard couple of days, I was trying to be nice.”

“Last night
was
nice,
very
nice.”

“Go to hell.”

I was too embarrassed for compliments or to
be fair or rational. I just wanted to get away.

“Considering I’ve finally had you, had you in
three different rooms, and feel pretty fuckin’ pleased about that,
I’ll let that comment slide,” he said, sounding like he was
beginning to get annoyed.

“Nice of you.”

I bucked again to get away and he rolled on
top of me.

“Settle down,” he ordered.

“Get off me.”

“Right,” he clipped, (yep, definitely
annoyed), “shut up and listen to me.”

My eyes rounded with anger, about to pop out
of my head. Before I could say a word, he started talking.

“First of all, back then, you were underage.
No way I could touch you, legally. Not the way I wanted to anyway.
There aren’t a lot of people whose opinions I care about but your
father’s is one of them. He’d have lost his mind if we’d hooked up
then because my reputation wasn’t exactly unearned.”

This was true.

I still glared at him.

“It wasn’t easy to keep sayin’ no, you’re
fucking gorgeous and always were. I wanted you then but you were a
wild child. Everyone knew you were a handful. I wasn’t gonna go
near you until you calmed down. It might be entertaining to watch
when you’re removed, but if you’d been mine, you’d have driven me
up the wall. I knew myself well enough to know that.”

This might have been true but I certainly
didn’t want to hear it.

“Regardless of that, I intended to have you,
one day, and that was always at the back of my mind, so I
considered you mine even when you weren’t. It was common knowledge
our families were close. Half the assholes I knew came to me
tellin’ me they wanted a piece of you, the other half lyin’ about
havin’ a piece. Why do you think I fought so goddamned much?”

Yikes.

That
was news.

He went on. “I knew I had to get my shit
together before I got us together. By the time that happened, you
were avoiding me. We’ve discussed this part, without much of your
honest participation. This brings us to now.”

He stared at me.

I kept my mouth shut.

“You can jump in anytime you feel like it,”
he said.

Hmm, sarcasm.

“You shouldn’t have read my diary,” I
snapped.

“Get over it.”

“I’m not gonna get over it. That’s personal.
How I feel about you should be for me to tell you.”

He waited a beat.

“Point taken.”

That’s as far as he went, no apology and no
remorse.

Jerk.

“I was a young girl with an infatuation. You
shouldn’t mistake who I was for who I am now.”

Lee made no comment.

“That said, I am what I am. I’m still a wild
child, I still do stupid, crazy things. I listen to rock ‘n’ roll,
loud. I lip sync with drag queens. I find it fun to try to
out-attitude the Sushi Den hostesses and sometimes, Ally and me
even joyride around Denver. I haven’t changed and you can’t control
me. If you even want to, I’m gone.”

“There’s a difference between controlling and
protecting,” he remarked.

“Yeah, be careful not to cross that line. A
line, I might add, you crossed this morning.” I was on a roll. “And
while we’re talking about control, I may not have changed, but
you
have. The Lee I thought I loved when I was a teenager is
not you.”

That
pissed him off and his eyes
narrowed. “
I’m
not hiding anything.”

“Do you mean to imply that I am?”

“Jesus, Indy, if you had the wall around you
any more fortified, it’d be so deep you’d be in fucking
Mexico.”

“I’ve always let it all hang out!”

“Bullshit.”

I made an angry noise that sounded like
someone had punched me in the stomach.

“You got something to say?” I demanded.