Rock Chick 05 Revenge (21 page)

“What?”

“Jesus. I want to think you aren’t playin’ games but I know you’re fuckin’ playin’ games. Nobody’s that stupid.”

My fine and loose feeling slipped a notch mainly because, again, it felt like he’d slapped me across the face.

He watched my face change in the streetlight.

“I’m not stupid,” I whispered.

He got close and backed me against the car again. I went, my head tilted back to look at him, my feelings still smarting from his comment.

“So you’re sayin’ you don’t know that every fuckin’ guy’s dick is hard from watchin’ you move. Christ, give you a pole and put you in a g-string, you wouldn’t have been more effective.”

My mouth dropped open. Then I snapped it shut.

“I was just dancing,” I told him.

“Right.”

“I was.”

He watched me but stayed silent.

“I like to dance,” I said softly. “I was just dancing.”
 

He kept watching me and it seemed like he did this for a long time. Finally, his hand came to my neck with his thumb out to touch my jaw.

“Jesus, you aren’t lyin’,” he muttered.

I shook my head because no, I wasn’t lying. Instead I was freaking out about what he said.
 

“I’m never going to dance again,” I said, quietly to myself on a little tremble, so upset at the thought of people watching me,
men
watching me and having that reaction that I didn’t even care I was quoting bad eighties music. Serious yuck.

“Ava.”

My eyes had slid to the side and they came back to Luke. “Men suck,” I whispered. “They take everything.
Everything
.”

Before he could respond, I slid out from between him and the car and turned to the door. He didn’t say a word just bleeped the locks. I opened my door and got in. He shut it for me, got in on his side and we glided out into the street.

I watched Denver pass me as Luke took us to his loft. Neither of us spoke. I was still drunk and I wanted to be happy but I couldn’t stop the dark “all men are bastards” thoughts from flooding my head.

He parked and we took the elevator to his loft. He switched on the lamps and I went directly to the Triumph t-shirt which was sitting, folded, on the barstool where I left it two days ago. I dumped my purse on the bar, grabbed the tee and walked to the bathroom.

“I’m going to bed,” I announced and then walked into the bathroom, shut the door, took out my contacts, got ready for bed, put on my glasses and walked out. I dumped my clothes on my suitcases and headed toward the bed.

I saw that Luke was in the kitchen. I grabbed a pillow and walked to the couch. I threw the pillow down, threw myself on the couch and settled on my side. I was going to sleep there, without a blanket if I had to, I didn’t care.

On this thought, Luke’s legs came into my vision. I looked up. He was holding a glass of water out to me.

“What’s that?”

“Ibuprofen and water. Take it, you’ll need it for the morning.”

“I don’t get hangovers,” I informed him, again not lying. I had to be far more drunk than I was to get a hangover. Sissy called it my gift. She got a hangover after two beers.

“Take it,” he demanded.

I was in no mood to argue. I was in the mood to go to sleep for fifty years, wake up an old maid and live out my life in a nursing home with my only excitement being Friday Night Bingo.

I sat up, took the pills he had in his fist and drank the water. When I was done, he pulled the empty glass from my hand and put it on the coffee table. Then he came back to me and, I kid you not, picked me up (again!), turned and sat on the couch, settling me in his lap, his arms around me.

“Luke, it really bugs me when you haul me around,” I told him, sounding bitchy.

He ignored my bitchiness. “We’re gonna talk.”

Right then, still drunk and feeling in a shitty mood, I thought this was an
excellent
idea.

“Good. I have a few things to say,” I informed him.

He stared at me a beat then said, “Shoot.”

“First, I’m confiscating this t-shirt,” I announced.

He kept staring at me. Then he said, “Come again?”

“From this point on, your Triumph tee is now
my
Triumph tee,” I declared.

His lips did that twitch thing like he was trying not to laugh.

I crossed my arms. “I’m being perfectly serious.”

“Babe, I’ll make you a deal. As long as you share my bed, the t-shirt is yours.”

“No. The t-shirt is mine
forever
,” I countered.

He shook his head. “You’re not sharin’ my bed, the tee stays here.”

“I’ll give you twenty-five dollars for it,” I started to haggle.

The lip twitch came back and it looked like he was losing his battle at biting back his smile. “No,” he said.

“Fifty.”

“No.”

“One hundred dollars!” I cried a little loudly because I had never paid a hundred dollars for a t-shirt in my life and I was worried he would accept.

“I gave you an offer, it’s the only one you’re gonna get.”

“Okay then, I’ll steal it,” I blabbed.

His body started shaking and I was pretty sure it was with silent laughter. “Probably shouldn’t tell me your plan to steal my tee,” he advised.

“Forget I said anything,” I told him.

He shook his head still silently laughing and when he was done, his arms got a little tighter. “Now we’re talkin’ about what I want to talk about.”

“I’m not finished.”

“We’ll get back to your shit later.”

I made a “harrumph” sound and glared at him.

“You owe me,” he said (again).

“I don’t –”

He interrupted me. “Your first payment is to tell me who else got a piece of you.”

Was that it?

I thought he was going to make me clean his bathroom with a toothbrush (or something else, something that required me being naked but I didn’t want to think thoughts of being naked with Luke not when I was sitting in his lap, on his couch, in his loft, wearing his t-shirt, not
ever
).

“Okay,” I said happily, shuffled my bottom in his lap, settling in, and I began.

“There was Dave. He was a sex pervert. Wanted me to go to swingers parties with him and had a huge collection of porn. He tried to convince me this was perfectly normal, which, I’ll grant it is but it wasn’t my scene. He ignored me telling him it wasn’t my scene and he got pushy then he got pouty then he got angry then he started being mean to me so I kicked him out.”

Luke was silent but he moved, he fell to his side and stretched out on the couch. During this he took me with him. I was so intent on my story, his actions barely registered and I just stretched out too.

“Before him, there was Rick. He was hot. Seriously. He knew it though. He cheated on me right off the bat, wasn’t good at hiding it probably because he knew I’d put up with it. I did, because I was so into him but warned him not to do it again, full of piss and vinegar and thinking he just strayed. He did it again, I found out again we had a rip-roarin’ and he promised never to do it again. Which, in like a month he did. Three strikes, he was out.”

Luke was still silent and since I was sharing (and still drunk) I didn’t notice that, even in his silence, he was communicating to me, communicating something that should have made me keep my mouth shut. He moved under me like he did in bed so that for a few seconds I was on top of him. Then he slid to his side so his back was to the room mine to the couch. Through all this, I kept blabbing.

“Then there’s Dom, you know about him. Then there’s my sister Marilyn’s
first
husband, who was a slimeball cheat and a drunk. I think he might have slapped her around a bit but she would never say. I saw her once with a black eye and she said she fell down the stairs. A, they didn’t have stairs at their house and B, how do you get a black eye by falling down stairs?”

Luke didn’t answer. I kept gabbing.

“Then there’s Marilyn’s
second
husband who made her first husband look like a choirboy.
Total
slimeball. I don’t like Marilyn ‘cause she’s kind of a bitch but I truly think she loved her first husband and it hurt when he fucked her over. She’s my sister, even though I don’t want to hurt, I hurt when she hurts. Do you know what I mean?”

I didn’t wait for him to reply (not that he would have), I was on a roll so I just kept talking.

“Then there’s Dad, you know all about that. He never came back, never called, never sent a card, nothing. Not when I turned sixteen, when I graduated from high school or college, nothing. Disappeared. Gone.”
 

I realized belatedly where I was and what position I was in but I didn’t care, it was rather comfy really so I went on.

“Noah was hot too, really handsome and I thought totally into me. He was super sweet, bought me flowers, shit like that. Acted like there was no other woman in the world but me. At first I wasn’t into him, after Dave, well, you can guess. But he worked at it hard, convinced me he was a good guy. I fell for it. All that time, he was planning on screwing me over. Not nice. He left, cleaning me out, and still
I
felt like a moron. Rat-bastard.”

I sighed, searching my memory banks for more jerks to dredge up, found I was empty, looked Luke in the eyes and decided it was time to sum up.

“So you see, men suck. They’re all jerks. I vowed never to get caught up with one again. Ever. Ever.
Ever
. That brings us to now. That’s why you and I can’t get together because I’m not going through that again. Once I help Sissy get revenge on Dominic Dickhead, no more men in my life, ever. And that’s also why you need to send me an invoice. I don’t mind paying, really. Noah didn’t get the inheritance money Aunt Ella gave me, I’m not loaded but I’m also not hurting –”

“Babe,” Luke finally spoke.

“What?” I asked.

“You can shut up now.”

I blinked then I thought maybe that was a good thing. “Okay,” I agreed then I asked, “So, are we square?”

“You owed me triple, that was the first part, I’m gonna tell you the next part and I’m keepin’ one in reserve.”

“What’s next?” I asked, thinking this was easy, in fact thinking that hadn’t been hard at all. I thought it would be but after six Fat Tires and two shots of tequila, it had been totally cool.

Luke’s arms, which had been loosely holding me, tightened so I was pressed to him full frontal. He also threw his thigh over my legs. Normally, I would have seen this as the warning sign it was. After six Fat Tires and two shots of tequila, I missed it.

Then he spoke. “The next part you pay is letting me cuff you naked to my bed and you stay that way while I eat you ‘til you come and then fuck you ‘til you come again.”

“Holy shit,” I breathed aloud, which was a feat considering the fact that my lungs had seized.
 

He didn’t allow me to process his demand, he kept talking. “Not tonight, not when you’re shitfaced. I want you clearheaded when I do that to you. Tonight, after your rubdown, I’ll fuck you normally. Tonight, I want your hands and mouth on me.”

It took me a few seconds to pull myself out of the complete and utter shock his brutally honest (and unbelievably sexy if my hard nipples had anything to say about it) words caused.
 

Not to mention this was Luke Stark talking to
me
, Fatty, Fatty, Four-eyed Ava Barlow. It was so incomprehensible he would say such things I thought there was a good possibility that Satan had ordered a fur coat.

“Didn’t you hear anything I just said?” I asked.

“I heard it.”

“No more men.”

“I heard it.”

“That includes you.”

“Did you bring lotion with you?”

I shook my head at what I thought was his strange question, tried to pull away and didn’t get anywhere. So, I narrowed my eyes. “Why do you want to know?”

“Rubdown.”

“Luke, you aren’t rubbing me down.”

His hands moved, one went up my back, his fingers sifting into my hair, one went down to rest on my bottom.
 

“We could go straight to the sex,” his mouth came to mine but his eyes were open and watching me. I saw the warmth there, but there was something else, something I couldn’t put a finger on, something assessing. Before I could figure it out, he continued. “That will work out the kinks.”

“I’m sleeping on the couch.”

“You’re sleeping beside me.”

“I’m sleeping on the couch.”

“Then we’ll sleep here. And, if you want, we’ll fuck here too.”

“Luke!” I yanked my body backward, found nothing but the very solid couch hampering any retreat and realized too late I was in a very dangerous position.

“Ava, this is what’s gonna happen,” Luke said in a firm voice.

Uh-oh.

I can’t WAIT to see what he says next,
Bad Ava was nearly drooling.