Rock Chick 01 (4 page)

“I bought you Christmas presents!”

“That doesn’t count.”

I made a choked sound. “So you’re saying you
didn’t like the Billie Holiday boxed set?”

“I’m sayin’ it doesn’t count.”

“I thought you liked blues!”

He edged in closer, predatory and angry.
“Indy, this isn’t something you can cute your way out of.”

Okay, so, maybe in the past I’d used my
girlie status to cute my way out of things. Numerous things. Most
especially using it with Lee, Hank and Malcolm. Dad always saw
through it.

“Fine!” I stalked to the bed, giving in
mainly to get away from him. He was too overpowering at close
range. Then I whipped around when I reached the foot of the bed.
“What are you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna calm down your friend, make a call
that should set some minds at ease and tomorrow, I’ll take him to
get the diamonds and make the delivery.”

“Well then,” I said snottily, the wind out of
my sails, “thank you.”

Lee started to turn, stopped, dropped his
head back and looked at the ceiling and then turned around and came
back to me. Again, he was so close I could feel his heat.

“Normally, I charge five hundred dollars an
hour for this.”

I sucked in breath.

“For what?” I asked.

“This go-between shit,” Lee answered.

My eyes rounded in shock.

Wow.

No wonder he could afford this condo with a
view and an office in LoDo. Not to mention his car, he had a great
car. And he still had a bike.

“You do? Why?”

He came closer, so close he was all I could
see.

“Because, I make the call tonight that puts
me in the middle of this mess, and, if tomorrow I don’t have the
diamonds, then it’ll be
me
they shoot at. I don’t like
getting shot at.”

I shook my head, bit my lip and agreed
wholeheartedly, “Me either, it’s not very fun.”

He didn’t move and I realized he expected a
different response.

“I don’t think Rosie has that kind of money,”
I noted. “You wouldn’t consider doing this on, say, family
discount?”

He shook his head. “We’re not family.”

“I meant you and me”

“We’re not family either.”

“Yes we are, ten years ago you told me I was
like your little sister.”

He waited a beat.

Something dawned on him. I could see the
flicker in his eyes as it registered. I didn’t understand it but he
did and whatever it was made his face soften a little from the
seriously pissed off angry look he’d been wearing all night. In
fact, he looked almost…
pleased
.

“That was then, this is now.” Even his voice
was quieter and less hacked off.

“Well, how many hours will this take? It
could be thousands of dollars. Rosie doesn’t have that kind of
money, even with his side business.”

“It’s not Rosie who’s gonna pay.”

My head did an involuntary little jerk when I
understood what he meant.

“
I
don’t have that kind of money.”

“You aren’t gonna pay me in cash.”

My stomach clenched and my heart stopped for
a couple of beats.

“How am I gonna pay you?”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“We’ll talk about it now!”

“Get in bed, go to sleep.”

“Quit bossing me around!”

He came closer and I let out a little peep. I
couldn’t help it, he was pressed up against me, I had nowhere to go
and the backs of my knees were up against the footboard. And I’ve
already told you Lee’s a seriously scary, badass individual.

“You get in that bed yourself or I tie you to
it.”

His face had gone back to the seriously
pissed off angry look and I decided from the hard glittering in his
eyes that he was not making an idle threat.

“Okay.”

Shit, I was
such
a wuss.

I’ll Choose Door Number Two

I tried to stay awake and listen to what was
happening between Lee and Rosie but it was hard because I was
tired, getting shot at takes a lot out of you. Anyway, whatever was
happening took a really long time and I’m a girl who likes her
sleep.

When I did wake up, it was still dark and my
back was pressed up to something hard and warm and something heavy
and warm was wrapped around my waist.

Lee.

Liam Nightingale was in bed with me.

Holy fucking shit.

You see, there were women in Denver who would
pay a lot of money to be in this situation. Hell, there were likely
women across the country who would do it.

Not me.

No way.

That boat had sailed.

There was a time when we were kids that Lee,
Ally, Hank and I slept together all the time. Our parents would
have dinner parties and we’d be tucked into Kitty Sue and Malcolm’s
big bed, all four in a row, according to age. This put me between
Lee and Ally. Of course, once we got older, we were separated.

Then there were the times when we were in the
tent when Dad and Malcolm would take us camping in the mountains.
Always, I was stuck between Lee and Ally in my sleeping bag. As I
tumbled headlong into my teens, and thus more and more desperate
for Lee to declare his undying love for me, this was a form of
torture. I couldn’t exactly throw myself at him when Hank, Dad and
Malcolm were around (Ally would have slept through it).

And then there was that brief time when Ally
and I were nineteen and had gone off rock ‘n’ roll and discovered
cowboys. Lee took us to Cheyenne for the rodeo and we got a motel
room that just had a big king-sized bed. Out of necessity, we all
slept in it together and I slept in the middle. Or at least I slept
in middle until Lee moved to the floor, likely to give me room to
move. I never woke Ally up with my restless sleeping. Ally could
sleep through an earthquake.

So it wasn’t as if I hadn’t already slept
with Lee.

But not alone, not just the two of us, not
when we were full-fledged, consenting adults, not ever in
his
bed.

I moved forward, thinking the floor sounded
quite comfy.

The heavy warm thing around my waist
tightened.

“Don’t move,” Lee mumbled, his voice kinda
husky.

My stomach fluttered and as Lee’s hand was
splayed and pressed against it, I was pretty certain he could feel
it.

Shit.

“What’re you doing?” I asked.

“I
was
sleeping.” His voice was still
husky.

“I mean in this bed,” I clarified, what I
thought was unnecessarily.

“It’s my bed.”

True enough.

Time for a different tact.

“I’m gonna sleep on the floor,” I said.

“No you’re not.”

I hesitated for a moment, confused, and then
tried Plan C.

“Then I’m gonna sleep on the other side of
the bed.”

“No you’re not.”

What in
the
hell?

I didn’t get it.

“Why?”

“Because you were sleepin’ over there and you
hit me in the chest twice and kicked me in the shin three
times.”

Oopsie.

I’d heard that before.

“I’m kind of an active sleeper.”

“No kidding.”

I thought about my options.

There was the floor, which apparently was not
an option for me.

There was the Command Center, which I
probably couldn’t breach and likely didn’t have a couch or bed
considering in my imagination it was filled with supercomputers
that had a direct link to the Pentagon.

My cobwebby mind chugged along for minute,
registering somewhere deep down how warm and cozy I currently
was.

Rosie was a little guy, at least three inches
shorter than me and wiry. Rosie was also kind of asexual, never had
a girlfriend, his life was coffee, pot and rock ‘n’ roll.

Lee on the other hand was not asexual. He
might think of me as his little sister and could calmly sleep next
to me without his nipples getting hard (or anything else getting
hard for that matter) but I was pretty certain I could not do the
same.

Lee had one of those big, deep-seated
couches, the better to sit on and watch
Monday Night
Football
.

Maybe both Rosie and I would fit on the
couch.

“I’ll go sleep with Rosie.”

The reply was instantaneous.

“The hell you will.”

Hmm, all sleepy-husky gone from his
voice.

Lee was now all business and using that
“brook no argument” tone.

I was stuck.

See, I was too afraid to go against Badass
Lee Nightingale and I was too tired to try to get comfortable with
Rosie.

Actually, bottom line, I was just too
comfortable even to contemplate moving.

So, I went back to sleep.

It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would
be.

* * * * *

I woke up again hours later in an entirely
different position. Lee was on his back and I was sprawled half-on
him, half-off him.

Yikes.

I blinked at the clock on the bedside table.
It was seven after six.

I might be a party girl but I’d never been
able to sleep late. Even when I fell into bed at four a.m., I woke
up before seven.

This caused me, over the years, to perfect
the art of the mid-day Disco Nap.

Today was going to be a Disco Nap Day, I
could feel it.

There was no way I was getting back to sleep
and no way I was gonna remain sprawled all over Lee.

I moved to get up and the arm he had wrapped
around my lower back tightened and his fingers dug into my hip.

“Jesus, what is it with you?” he
grumbled.

“It’s morning.”

He opened an eye and glanced at the
clock.

Then he closed it.

“Barely.”

“I’m gonna make coffee.”

This was apparently an acceptable reason to
move as his arm fell away.

“Do you have an extra toothbrush?”

“Probably.”

That was a stupid question. Lee may not still
be the dawg he was in high school, but that didn’t mean he didn’t
nail his fair share of anatomically impossible babes. He probably
had a box full of extra toothbrushes.

“Do you have two?”

The eye opened again and focused on me.

Yikes part deux.

I jumped out of bed, grabbed my clothes and
ran to the bathroom. I located one extra toothbrush still in its
packaging and went to town on my teeth.

I took care of my teeth, I made a promise to
myself that I’d die with my original set and that’s what I intended
to do.

I opened the door to the bedroom. “Do you
have floss?” I called.

“For Christ’s sake.”

Obviously, Lee didn’t care that much about
his teeth.

That’s okay, Lee seemed to be doing a
very
good job at taking care of other parts of his body.

I pulled on my jeans and struggled into my
bra under the wife beater (because I’d decided to steal the wife
beater if I could get away with it, to keep as a little memento)
and padded into the kitchen trying to be quiet for Rosie.

Rosie had a big day today and he needed his
beauty rest.

The living room, dining room and kitchen were
open plan in an L shape. The condo was on a corner, the entirety of
it had a balcony wrapped around. French doors from the dining room
which was across from the kitchen, French doors from the living
room which was an extension of the dining room and French doors in
the bedrooms. Big money for this kind of location, the huge, airy
rooms and the view afforded.

The kitchen was state-of-the-art and mostly
hidden from the living room behind the wall that made up the
bathroom and extra bedroom.

Still, I had to be quiet.

Normally, I’d have the coffee ready to roll
the night before so I could just flip a switch after I’d stumbled
out of bed and down the stairs.

Normally, my coffeemaker had a cup under the
spout rather than a pot so I could just stand there and wait until
it was done filling the cup and then switch it over to the pot so I
didn’t have to wait until the pot was full.

Normally, I didn’t function properly until
cup number two.

Caffeine was my drug of choice.

It took me awhile to find all the coffee
paraphernalia. I lucked out because obviously Lee liked his coffee
and he had a high quality bag of java.

I made it strong and did the cup thing. It
was pretty clear from his Mr. Grouch impersonation that Lee wasn’t
getting up anytime soon and there was not a sound from the couch so
I could be greedy and selfish with the coffee.

I was concentrating on the stream of
life-affirming joe filling the cup so I was a little surprised when
hands settled on the counter on either side of me and I felt the
warmth of a body against my back.

They weren’t Rosie’s hands.

I looked over my shoulder.

Lee had fenced me in.

His dark hair was wild in a very sexy way and
his eyes were soft as were his features. His chest was bare. I knew
this because I could see his shoulders.

I didn’t dare look down.

After ten years of practice, I was able
(barely) to put the wild, sexy hair out of my mind and to ignore
(barely) the fact he was bare-chested. However, it was kind of hard
to ignore his proximity.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He glanced over my shoulder.

“You makin’ coffee for everyone, or just
you?”

There were certain times when honesty was the
best policy. In my life, those times didn’t come very often but if
there was the possibility that you might not get the first cup of
coffee, and brutal honesty would get it for you, you had to be
brutally honest.

“Just me, for now.”

I turned back to the coffee, deciding I
didn’t want an answer to my question about what he was doing.
Something was going on and I was three quarts low on caffeine, not
to mention sleep. I could hardly think past the next second, much
less figure out what game Lee was playing. Likely he was still
pissed at me for bringing trouble to his doorstep and decided to
make my life miserable as repayment. I could understand that, I’d
probably do the same.