1980: You Shook Me All Night Long (Love in the 80s #1) (5 page)

B
efore we could take a step
, Officer Hammond was there, yelling at Luke to stop running from the law. For a few minutes after the quake, I lost my mind. Luke was in trouble. I believed him when he told his brother he hadn’t really stolen the car. But he was trying to sneak out of jail! I didn’t believe for one hot minute that he’d forgotten about the charges he was facing.

“Hammond! We need a pair of hands. We found Murphy! He’s pinned beneath some file cabinets.”

“Shit,” Hammond cursed. He slapped one end of his cuffs on Luke Davis and grabbed my hand, slapping the metal against my wrist. It tightened and locked.

“I didn’t do anything!” I shrieked.

He pointed at us both, eyebrows high and drawn. “You two come with me and stay put until I can help.”

Hammond sat us in two chairs in the tiny lobby and ran into the fray. “I’m coming, Murphy!”

“Fuck. I can’t stay here,” Luke raged, standing up and kicking the leg of the chair behind him.

“Like
I
want to.”

He paced, which meant I paced. We were locked together. A hundred passes by the tiny window and Luke stilled. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he whispered. “The keys!”

“No. No no no.” The keys to the Firebird, silver and shiny with a black leather keychain sporting a golden bird on it were just lying on the desk.

Luke reached his hand through the hole, his biceps were too big and stopped him a couple of inches away from reaching the treasure. “Fuck,” he whisper-yelled, bracing himself against the glass and pushing harder. His skin would break.

I was going to be in so much trouble. “Move over,” I said, easing my left arm out of my jacket.

“What?” he grumped.

“Move over!”

Luke eased his angry, red arm from the window hole and I replaced it with my free one. Snatching the keys was easy. Coaxing my hand to let go of them and hand them to Luke was hard. This was the point of no return.

“Trust me?” he asked, his eyes boring into me. Luke was trouble. Boys were trouble. This was not the plan. Neither was jail time.

“Let’s go.”

W
e ran
. We didn’t look to see if the officers were busy. I gave Luke the keys to the car and we ran toward a glossy-black Firebird, parked right in front of the precinct. Luke unlocked the passenger door and then looked at our hand-cuffed hands. “We have to get these off.”

“We don’t have time, I’ll have to drive,” I said, looking at the stick shift like it was an alien. Dad couldn’t afford for me to have a car back in Portland, and my after-school job bagging groceries at the Hog Mart didn’t pay much. So, my options were my bike, my feet or public transportation when he wasn’t around to give me a lift.

“Need help shifting?”

I looked at his sexy, gray eyes. “Please.”

I was about to drive a stolen car. It hit me as I shimmied across the console into the driver’s seat. Luke stuck the key in the ignition.

“You’ve driven before, right? You know the basics?”

“I can figure it out.”

“Fuck me. Get your foot on the clutch! It won’t start if you don’t hold it down.” Which one was the clutch? I pushed pedals randomly and revved the gas, stalling the car out. I smiled, used my left hand to brush the hair out of my face and pulled his hand over to start the car again.

“This time, more clutch, less accelerator, sweetheart.”

Grinning, I did as he asked. Easing the car onto the street was easy. Stopping and accelerating again? Not so much. In my defense, I only stalled the car seven times in the first block.

Luke groaned as loud as the engine. “This is the worst car heist in history.”

“That shit’s not even funny, Luke. Really.”

“Like, totally,” he deadpanned.

Once we got the hang of working together, it was easy peasy and Luke wasn’t nearly as growly. “Pull into that drive.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.” Hello, Mr. Irritable.

I eased the car in and hit the brake a little too hard, lurching us forward. Good thing for seat belts.

“I need you to come with me,” Luke said, removing the keys from the ignition and pulling me out of the car by my unshackled arm.

When my feet were planted on the solid ground, I smacked his arm. “Stop manhandling me, you ogre!”

“Ogre?”

“Yes,” I stomped. “Ogre.”

Lights were on in the small house with pale yellow siding. Luke dragged me up the front walk to the door, but didn’t ring the bell. He rummaged around beneath a mat and produced a key. “Bingo.”

My wrists were burning and raw from being jerked around. He eased the key into the lock, turned it and pushed it in. “Joey!”

No answer.

The living room was warm, but obviously a guy’s pad. I mean, there were mismatched couches and a television. That was about it other than the unfolded newspaper, smudged with something black and a dirty coffee mug beside it. Kitchen chairs huddled around a table piled high with boy stuff. Car magazines, tools, dirty plates.

A simple lamp illuminated their sad situation. “You and Joey must live here alone.”

Luke stopped stalled like the Firebird. “Why do you say?”

“There’s no woman’s touch.”

“Woman’s touch,” he snorted.

“You wouldn’t know what that was, though, right?” I smarted off.

He wheeled around, grabbing me around the waist beneath the leather jacket and pulling my chest tight against his. My breath escaped like car thieves in the night. “Holy hell,” I whispered.

His lips, the top one thinner than the bottom, but both delicious, hovered over mine. “I know all about a woman’s
touch
, sweetheart.” I could feel his harness pressing against my stomach. I bet he knew all about it. I bet he could write sweet books and poetry about that shit. I wanted him to write it about me.

He rubbed the scruff of his jaw over mine and I whimpered, my taut body melting into his.

Then he let me go. “We need to get these off,” he said, as if nothing had happened, as if I wasn’t a panting, wanting mess in his freaking living room.

With a smirk, he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward a door just off the kitchen. Luke reached across me to flick the switch and the lightbulb illuminated the garage like the sun, burning my corneas.

“Sorry about that. I have to keep it bright to see inside the engines.”

I blinked the spots away and followed him into his domain. It was clear that this was his. I’d noticed the dark rims around his cuticles, clean and tidy but stained. And in his living room? I’d felt the callouses of hard work and sexy man beast.

Across the room was a work bench with a zillion tools that had names I didn’t know. He rifled and rummaged until he found a giant pair of what looked like medieval scissors.

“I do not want you to use those!” I squealed, tugging away from him.

“Those...are bolt cutters and will get the damn handcuffs off us.” He pulled me to him. “Unless you think we can find a better use for them.”

I
gasped
. He was a kinky one! Dirty mechanic. Hot brother. Kinky motherfucker. Who knew?

Faster than I could protest, he eased the cutters over the chain between our wrists and used his thigh and hand to clamp down. With a quick crunch, we were free, both donning a bracelet as a reminder of tonight’s illegal activity.

The doorbell sounded, ringing into the garage. Luke’s eyes got wild. He placed a finger over his lips, so I did, too.

“Luke Davis?”

“It’s Hammond,” Luke whispered. “We have to get out of here. Follow me.”

I grabbed hold of his hand and he led me across the room to a back door, easing the screen door open with a squeal. We froze. Hammond hadn’t heard, though, so he pushed the back door open and we took off running into the back yard. Making a step with his hands, Luke gave me a boost over their chain-link fence.

He hopped over gracefully and we took off running, hands clamped by choice.

What seemed like a mile away, we stopped at the edge of a park. A homeless person was curled up on one of the benches.

“Hold on a sec,” I told Luke, reaching into my pocket. I still had a ten from the concert. I ran over and tucked it into the old man’s hand. Maybe he could get a nice breakfast in a couple of hours.

Luke was smiling when I ran back to him. He caught me in his arms. “That was rad,” he said sincerely.

I thought he was pretty rad, too.

“
S
o
, where are we going?” I asked as we passed a fountain in the middle of the park. It was an angel, wings outstretched, arms up toward the heavens, water flowing out of her mouth, down the front of her garments and cascading over the feathers of her wings. The water trickled happily into the fountain beneath her. She was lit and beautiful. I couldn’t help but stare.

When I looked away from her, Luke was looking at me with the same reverence in his eyes. He wrapped his arms around my back, pulling me close to him. “Tell me this is okay,” he whispered at my ear.

“It’s more than okay.”

Luke’s lips found mine, searching me as much as those cool greys. The reverence of his stare was infused into his lips, passion flowing from his mouth to mine. His teeth grazed my bottom lip and I raked my fingers through his hair—like I’d wanted to all night—pulling him closer. He groaned and pressed against me, revealing exactly how much he wanted me. And he wanted me a lot.

I giggled and then kissed him again, pushing against his erection. He pulled me toward a nearby bench, hidden by some trees and hedges and settled into it, easing me onto his lap. I straddled him and nearly drown in his kisses. The man was a siren and I was under his spell, beneath the waves of pleasure. He traced my body like he was memorizing it, like he loved the feel of it. And I loved the feel of him.

I slid my fingers under his shirt, revealing his abs and raking my fingers down them, hooking them into his jeans. He was strong and chiseled. I swallowed his gasp and reveled in the moans that tore from his throat.

Luke smelled like soap and grease and something spicy. His fingers squeezed my thighs as he moved up them, sliding under the tiny shorts to cup my buttocks with one hand. With the other, he grabbed my hair and arched my back, laving at my taut peaks through my shirt. He was driving me crazy with every touch, every taste.

Rustling in the bushes nearby made us freeze in place, his mouth still wrapped around my flesh. When he pulled away, the cool night replaced his warm mouth. When a squirrel jumped out of the bush and scurried to find a nut, we laughed. I rested my forehead against his as he rubbed the small of my back. Night was lifting and the sun had almost risen in the east.

“You’re something else, Tina.”

He was probably just saying that because I’d temporarily lost my mind. “Because I let you pass second base?”

“No,” he stilled, tipping my chin up so I’d look at him. “I like you.”

“You don’t know me.”

He stared at me intently. “Let’s fix that.”

“Okay,” I breathed as he placed a sweet kiss on my lips, chaste and meaningful.

“First, I need to find a friend to fix this mess with the car.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

I did. For some reason, I knew in that moment that Luke Davis was honest. He wouldn’t hurt me, wouldn’t paw me unless I gave him the green light, and would never steal a car...twice.

“Then we’d better go find my buddy and get help before Hammond catches up with us.”

B
rian Garrett lived across town
. I’d worked on his cruiser last month and we’d become fast friends. My bus pass was in my wallet, which was still at the police station. Joey had my car somewhere. The Firebird was not an option. So we walked. Tina’s feet had to be blistered from the heels she wore. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” She looked over and smiled. The early morning sunshine lit her hair up like an angel. She was hotter than Madonna, and sweet, too. The best part? She loved my hands on her and the feeling was mutual. I wanted to bury myself deep in that tight, hot...

“Luke?”

“Yeah?”

“How is your friend going to help us?”

“He’s a cop. LAPD, but out of a different precinct.”

She clutched her chest. “Oh, thank God. I thought he was a gangster!”

“Where are you from?” I tilted my head to look at her better. We were still in a nice part of the city. Not like we were walking through Compton.

“Outside of Portland.”

I stopped. “Wait. Doesn’t Portland have quakes?”

“We have tiny tremors, not like that!” She threw her hands in the air.

I laughed at her. “That was nothing. Not even a four.”

“Not even a four,” she mocked, stomping away. She didn’t even know where she was, much less where we were going, but she looked cute swaying that ass back and forth.

I walked behind her, enjoying the view and the fact that it riled her up that much more, nudging her in the right direction when she was about to take a wrong turn. She would huff and keep marching away. Tina was a fiery little thing. I’d pegged her for a bimbo at first glance: tall blonde hair teased a mile high, almost as high as those tiny shorts. I also learned that I loved and hated hose all at the same time. They were sexy as hell and stronger than a chastity belt. Fucking things.

Red and blue lights flashed over Tina’s pale face as she stopped dead in her tracks. “Don’t bother running!” came from the car’s mic. Hammond threw his cruiser in park and approached. “Hands above your heads!”

He approached with one foot forward, gun drawn, and overkill in full effect. “Move to the building and put your hands on the brick.” Tina eased toward the brick facade, face taut with panic. Her eyes pled for me to do something, anything. But there was nothing I could do but move slowly to the building and put my palms against the gritty stone.

Hammond radioed for backup. “I have the perpetrators. Toledo and Grand. Hammond out.” He frisked me quickly and twisted one arm back cuffing it, following with the other. Shoving my face into the building? That was just for sport.

It was a good thing he cuffed me first. His hands on Tina made me rage like a bull. Sobbing quietly, tears dripped off her jaw, splashing onto the sidewalk at her feet.

“You are under arrest for grand theft auto. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say can and will be used against you...”

I pulled, testing the cuffs. The bastards were too strong.

Soon, he was giving me the same spiel. Two other cruisers pulled up, his buddies with the same mustaches and aviators. They shoved me into the back of one cruiser. When I saw they were taking Tina in a separate car, I called out to them. “Let her ride with me.” I thrashed in the back seat, squishing my head against the glass to get a look. They put her in a car around the block and behind us. “Tina!”

“That’ll be enough of that outta you!”
Fucking Hammond.

H
ammond drove
like a bat out of hell. He steered right onto a side street, screeching the tires and overcorrecting the wheel. “Why didn’t I get a seatbelt?” I grumbled.

“I’m gonna enjoy this. Think you could just sneak away from me? Huh-uh. I’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been alive, boy.”

“I didn’t steal the car!”

“We have you on tape the second time. Ha!”

I beat my forehead against the window. “I didn’t steal it the first time. Todd Armistead, in his stupid flashy suit came by my shop Friday morning. He wanted me to fix it right away, but I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with his car. He gave me till Monday morning, said he’d be back then.”

“Sure he did,” Hammond scoffed.

I shut up and listened to the beeps and chatter on his scanner. Talking to him was pointless. And God, I’d pulled Tina into this damn mess. She was just a kid like Joey.