*
I finished my deadline project, e-mailed it off and was working on clearing all my other projects in order to send them in well ahead of the due dates which would cause client-wide strokes as I always worked right up to deadline.
I had a plan. I intended to clear my workload and disappear to Jamaica for a month, taking Sissy with me. By the time we got back all the macho men in my life, undoubtedly needing to give someone the business, would have moved on to a new girl and I’d be off the hook. Then it would be back to just me and my vibrators.
The elevator doors slid open and I knew it was Luke just because. It might have been a long time since I’d seen him, but my Sixth Luke Sense was instinctual and kicked in immediately, like riding a bike.
And anyway these days, I’d been getting lots of practice.
I ignored his presence, kept my back to the room and kept clicking through holiday getaway packages.
I heard his keys hit the bar and then he came up behind me. “Goin’ on vacation?” he asked.
I stayed silent and kept clicking. He waited a beat and then pulled out my chair at least four feet, me still in it.
My head shot up to look at him, my mouth opened and I almost cried, “Hey!” but just stopped myself.
He bent low, took a wrist and threw me over his shoulder. It took a lot of control but I didn’t struggle and stayed completely limp. He carried me to the bed, tossed me on it and followed me down. He settled part at my side, part on top of me and his hand came to my jaw.
“You don’t want to talk, Ava, we’ll do something else. We don’t have to talk to fuck.”
Uh-oh.
Escape!
I pulled out from under him and rolled away. He caught me and brought me back.
I glared at him. He ignored the glare and his face (and I might add his fantastic mouth) started to come closer.
“You scared me,” I blurted in a whisper, do not ask me why. He still had twenty-six years, three hundred and sixty-four days left on his Silent Treatment Sentence.
His head stopped moving and he looked from my mouth to my eyes.
Go on, Ava, share. Pour out your heart, Good Ava said softly in my ear.
Quiet! Shut down, Ava. He’ll just use it to hurt you eventually, Bad Ava was sounding desperate.
“You were gone a long time. I was worried something happened to you.” Now why did I say that? Why was I talking at all?
Still in a quiet voice I kept sharing, unable to stop myself. “I don’t know you anymore. I don’t know who you are, what you do. But I know that scar on your belly isn’t from an appendectomy.”
Oh… my… God.
Someone shut me up.
He rolled me to my side facing him and both his arms came around me as he said, “Ava.”
“No, Luke. I thought I was protecting myself against all things men. After last night, I’m protecting myself from something a lot scarier. I’m not one of those women who can hack that kind of life. I don’t want any part of it.”
“So this is your new excuse?” he asked, instead of being accusatory, his voice was soft, gentle, affectionate.
“It’s not an excuse, Luke. I figure you’ll screw me over or leave me, one way or another, and I’ll end up alone. I’m alone now and I’m happy with it. Why go through the pain of losing someone again?”
“Someone you care about,” he said.
“What?”
“Go through the pain of losing someone you care about.”
Whoa.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
We were not going to go there.
Time to change the subject.
“What’s the scar from?”
“Bullet to the gut,” he shared without hesitation.
I closed my eyes tight, visions of Luke with a gaping, bloody wound at his belly danced unhappily through my head. I didn’t like the visions, they scared the shit right out of me so I opened my eyes again.
“When?” I asked.
“Last summer.”
“How?”
“Babe,” he said softly and with a hint of regret. “I can’t tell you that. The cases we work are confidential.”
“Right,” I said.
“I’m good at what I do.”
“I’m sure you are.”
His hands drifted up my back, pulling me closer. “You’re hangin’ on to this to hold me back. You’re a lot stronger than you’re sayin’ and you know it,” he told me.
“How did Vance feel when he was trying to staunch the blood pouring out of Jules?” Luke’s body went still at my soft words and I knew it was wrong to use this against him but I kept at it. “I get the impression from both you and Jules that you two are close. You were there. How did you feel seeing her lying there bleeding?”
His face changed, to my shock he let me see the pain slice through it and it hurt like hell to watch.
Then he said, “Quiet, Ava.”
“You want me to go through that?”
One of his hands slid up my neck into my hair, twisting it gently in his fist. “You wanna know what I want?” he asked.