Fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck.
I noticed instantly he looked even better than ever. Tall (at least four inches taller than me and I was five foot eight), lean and built, wearing a skintight black t-shirt, black cargo pants and black boots. His thick hair was clipped short to his head, not a buzz cut, but short. The beard was gone and in its place was the baddest-ass mustache I’d ever seen; thick and black across his lip and trimmed neat down the sides of his mouth.
Holy cramoly! I wanted to know at that very moment what it felt like to have that mouth, with that ‘tache, on me; on any part of me. I didn’t care which part and I wouldn’t have been choosy.
His eyes came to me, slid to Mace then back to me.
Then one side of his mouth went up in a half-grin. At the sight, I melted into Mace and even though he had to feel the fight had gone out of me he didn’t let me go.
“Too late again,” Luke muttered, sounding amused, his eyes on me but I got the feeling he wasn’t talking to me.
“Not quite,” Shirleen told him and she sounded like she was trying hard not to laugh.
This exchange confused me but I had no time to ask or say anything at all. Luke’s eyes moved away from me and scanned the room. Obviously looking for something then not finding it they sliced back to Shirleen.
“Where’s Ava?” he asked, his eyes narrowed, the arms around me tightened and both my captor and I straightened.
“What do you mean, where’s Ava? Boy, you looked right at her,” Shirleen answered.
I heard a door open but, since it was behind my back and there was a big, solid guy there I couldn’t look. Not that I would have. Luke’s eyes had cut to me and pinned me to the spot.
I went still and he stared at me.
“Hey Luke,” I said, feeling and sounding stupid.
His brows came together. “Ava?” he asked.
“In the flesh,” I tried for a jaunty smile even though Mace still hadn’t let me go and I felt like a big dork.
Luke did a body scan then his eyes came back to mine. “What the fuck happened to you?”
There was definitely a sort of pissed off accusation in his tone. Not the reaction I had dreamed of (quite a lot) when Luke saw the new me.
“I got contacts,” I told him.
He glared at me.
“And I dyed my hair.”
The glare turned scary.
“And I lost seventy-five pounds.”
For some reason, at this Shirleen burst out laughing and I could hear other laughter in the room as we’d been joined by more people that I couldn’t see. I just kept my eyes on Luke who looked, for some insane reason, about to blow.
His jaw clenched and his gaze moved to the man behind me. “You wanna let her go?” he asked but it wasn’t really a question and the tone of his voice was downright frightening.
The arms around me loosened and I took a step away.
Luke stayed where he was. “What’re you doin’ here?” he asked, still weirdly pissed off and still angrily glaring at me.
I decided instantly I didn’t need a tough guy. I was going to go it alone so I lied, “Thought you might want to get a beer.”
“I called you,” he said, changing the subject suddenly, seemingly oblivious to our audience.
Crap, I was worried about this.
He had called me, half a dozen times after his father’s funeral. Two, I missed because I was out. Four, I had listened to, sitting there while he was leaving the messages and I didn’t answer. None of them I returned.
“I know,” I said softly.
“After my father died, I called you,” he repeated and the laughter swept out of the room just as quickly as it came in.
“I know,” I repeated.
“You didn’t call back and now you wanna have a beer?”
His tone was even more frightening than before. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible but there it was.
“Um… maybe not,” I muttered, deciding that perhaps I should go home, go to bed and get up again and try the day differently, next time making smart decisions about my actions (read: not going to Nightingale Investigations).
“What’re you doin’ here?” he asked again.
“I told you,” I answered.
“You lied,” he stated.
My mouth dropped open. I had lied of course but how could he know that? And anyway, he was accusing me of lying in front of other people.
I felt my temper flare.
“I did not,” I snapped (and lied again).
“Bullshit.”
“Don’t you say ‘bullshit’ to me, Lucas Stark.”
“Don’t lie to me, Ava. What’re you doin’ here?” He wasn’t going to let it go.