Rock Chick 01 (22 page)

No one said anything. There was nothing to
say.

Hank stopped in front of Lee’s condo building
and Lee unbuckled and slid out, then unbuckled me and grabbed my
arm, pulling me out with him.

I was a little surprised. I thought he was
still pissed about what happened at the barbeque. I was pretty
certain I was going home that night, not to Lee’s. Furthermore, I
wanted to go home. Lee might be pissed about me and my stupid
mouth, but I had more reason to be angry.

“Liam,” Dad called and Lee kept his hand on
my arm but bent at the waist to look in the backseat.

“Yeah?”

“You take care of her,” Dad said, his voice
gruff and the Guinness folks could have popped by to record the
occasion, such was my world-record pissed-offedness.

I mean, no one makes my Dad sound like that.
Those fucking kidnapping losers.

“Yes sir,” Lee replied.

I bent over too and blew Dad a kiss. He
smiled at me, Lee closed the door and they idled at the curb while
Lee propelled me into the building. I probably should have told him
I wanted to go home but I thought everyone had enough drama for one
night.

Hank didn’t take off until the door closed
behind us and we were well into the foyer.

There was no chit chat between us. Lee took
the bracelets off in his bedroom with a universal key.

Once he threw them on a dresser and turned to
me, I crossed my arms on my chest, hitched a hip and said, “You
still mad at me?”

He ignored my belligerent stance, a stance
that communicated an unequivocal, “stand back” to every other man
I’d known. Not Lee, he walked right up to me and put his hands on
my hips.

“No.”

“Then what’s your problem?”

He didn’t even hesitate, he answered me. He
actually answered me, and it sounded like the honest-to-goodness
truth.

“I’m angry at myself for reacting the way I
did to what you said when you meant no harm and I’m angry with
myself for leaving you unprotected.”

I stared at him for a beat, hiding my
surprise, and then said, “Good. Now that’s settled, I’m taking a
shower.”

His hands tightened on my hips and his eyes
narrowed on my face. It was his turn to stare at me for a beat,
then he said, “I take it I’m not invited to this shower.”

I pulled away from him. “Nope.”

I took my shower, washed my hair and surveyed
my new cuts and newest bruises while I let the water run over
me.

When I’d stepped out of the shower, I noticed
that, unfortunately, when I went into the bathroom, I didn’t take
any clothes with me. I had to grab Lee’s light blue, cotton robe
from the hook on the back of the door. I wrapped it tight around me
and tied it secure.

I went into the bedroom and Lee was lying in
bed, his chest bare and the sheet pulled up to his waist. He was
reading. Believe it or not, casually lying in bed
reading
.

Grr.

If I’d had something, I would have thrown it
at him. Instead, I went straight to my bag, rooting through it to
find underwear. I found it, straightened and glanced at Lee. He’d
put the book down and was lying on his side, his head in his hand,
watching me.

“It’ll be a wasted effort, puttin’ those
on.”

I sent him my best Polar Freeze Glare, turned
my back on him and pulled up the panties.

“Talk to me, Indy,” he said on a sigh.

I turned and put my hands on my hips.

He wanted me to talk? Then, I’d talk.

“I’ve had some time to think, what with being
kidnapped, cuffed and tied to a chair for part of my evening and
then spending the rest of it sitting in a hospital waiting room.” I
was lying about thinking while I was kidnapped, but he didn’t need
to know that. Anyway, it made my introduction more dramatic. “This
morning, you told Hank you had a client. I thought you meant me,
but I was wrong, wasn’t I?”

Lee continued to watch me.

I went on. “The thing is, when this all
started, you were in DC and Ally said you weren’t due back. Then,
all of a sudden, you were back and you knew about the diamonds. You
knew about everything.”

He kept watching me.

I went into accusatory mode. “You came back
to look for the diamonds. You have another client. You’re working
for someone else.”

Lee came up on his elbow.

“Smart girl,” he murmured then patted the bed
in front of him. “Come here, let me explain.”

Ha! Not even.

“You walked into your own condo and I
practically delivered the diamonds to you by bringing Rosie here.
Then, you tried to extort sex from me in payment for a job you were
already getting paid to do with diamond man lying on the couch for
all you knew!”

“Indy –”

I cut him off.

“No explanation necessary, Lee, I’m sleeping
on the couch and tomorrow I’m going home. We’re through. The
end.”

On that I huffed out of the room, put on the
lights in the living room and grabbed the remotes. It took me ten
minutes to figure out how to use them, five more minutes to set the
sleeper timer on the TV and ten minutes to find something to watch.
I turned off the lights and settled in.

Throughout this time, the light came through
the open bedroom door but not a sound from Lee. This ticked me off
more. Five minutes into my program, the light went off in the
bedroom. My anger hit uncharted levels. Five minutes after that, I
realized that was it, when I’d said “the end”, Lee didn’t have a
problem with it.

Okay, great, wonderful, that was fine by
me.

Luckily, I’d had a pretty traumatic day, what
with being kidnapped and shot at, twice.

Not to mention two emotional dramas with
Lee.

Even though my mind was racing, my body was
crashing from adrenalin withdrawal. Before the sleep setting turned
off the TV, I was already in snooze land. When the TV switched
itself off, it woke me up. This wasn’t too annoying seeing as I
didn’t fully wake me up, I was three-quarters asleep and
one-quarter dozing.

The next thing I knew, I was being lifted in
the air.

Lee was carrying me to the bedroom.

“What are you doing?” I asked, half-sleepy,
half-angry.

“Takin’ you to bed,” he answered, fully
awake.

“I’m sleeping on the couch,” I told him as he
dropped my legs and stood me at the side of the bed. His hands went
to the belt of the robe and he didn’t respond.

“What are you doing?” I asked again.

“Gettin’ you ready for bed.”

“Stop that!” I slapped at his hands and he
ignored me so I grabbed the lapels of the robe and held them shut.
“I’m nearly naked under this.”

The belt came loose and he leaned into me. I
reared back, nearly toppling on the bed. He straightened and held
in front of me what I had, until a few hours previously, considered
my confiscated Night Stalkers tee.

Since the likelihood of me winning a physical
tussle was in the negative percentile and I was tired down to the
bone, I snatched the tee from him and whirled around to give him my
back.

I could sleep with him, I told myself as I
pushed my head through the neckline of the tee. I’d slept with him
the last however-many nights and I’d survived. One more night
wouldn’t kill me.

I slid the robe off my shoulders and let it
drop to the ground and, as fast as I could, I pushed my arms
through the holes of the tee.

I wasn’t fast enough.

Lee’s hands settled on the skin at my hips,
just above my panties, as the t-shirt dropped into place, its hem
came to rest on his hands.

His chin rested on my shoulder.

“How long are you gonna be mad at me?”

His voice was deep and kind of husky and I
felt a quiver in my nether regions.

“Forever,” I answered.

His hands slid from hips to belly and he
pulled me into his body.

“I can’t discuss clients with you, Indy. I
offer confidentiality with my services. I won’t be able to talk
about my work, it’s something you’re gonna have to get used
to.”

That was hardly the point.

Okay, it was
a
point, just not
the
point.

It was my longstanding theory that men missed
the
point on purpose.

His chin moved to pull the hair away from my
neck and his mouth went to my ear.

Then he got to
the
point.

“You’d been dodgin’ me for a decade and then
you presented me with an opportunity to get your attention. I’m not
big on missin’ an opportunity, so I took it. It worked. I got your
attention. I don’t regret it and I’d do it again, even considerin’
in the process I lost ‘diamond man’.”

Hmm, it was annoying but it was honest and it
was annoying because it was honest.

I pushed forward and broke free of his hands,
putting a knee on the bed.

I could have pushed the sleeping-on-the-couch
business but I feared a wrestling match and he’d already gotten a
nether-region-quiver. I’d never survive a wrestling match.

I crawled across the bed and stationed myself
at the far edge, pulling the sheet up over me.

I felt the bed move as Lee got in and the
light went out.

Then I was hauled across the bed and
positioned in the half spoon/half pin he was so good at carrying
off.

I didn’t struggle, I was doing pretty good at
the silent treatment so I just stayed tense and used my body to
communicate that all was not forgiven. The Silent Treatment/Cold
Shoulder was a perfectly honed weapon in my arsenal and I was not
afraid to use it.

Apropos of nothing, Lee told the back of my
head, “The last time I remember feelin’ fear was during survival
training. I thought if the good guys could think up that shit for
training, what were the bad guys gonna do?”

Um.

Yikes!

It was apparently story time for bad little
girls.

“Then I realized I might not be able to
control what they were doing, but I could control my reaction. Fear
breaks your focus, makes you lose control, makes you weak. It gives
the enemy the edge. That was the last time I felt fear and the last
time I lost control.”

I was still tense but now for a different
reason, waiting to hear what he was going to say next.

“Tonight Ally called and told me you’d been
taken. I left you there and they came to Tom’s fucking front door
and grabbed you. When I heard that, I lost control.”

Holy shit.

What did that mean?

What was he saying?

Was he scared?

About me and the idea of maybe losing me?

Oh… my…
God
.

I waited for him to say more, to explain, but
he didn’t.

So I waited some more.

Nothing.

“What does that mean, you lost control?” I
whispered.

More nothing.

After awhile, his fingers brushed my hair
aside and his lips touched my nape.

I let it go at that and listened to his
steady breathing. I knew he wasn’t asleep and I also knew our talk
was over. No way was Liam Nightingale going to admit, out loud, to
being scared. That was as good as I was going to get.

And it was all I needed.

I let the tension go out of my body and
settled into him, wriggling my bottom into his groin.

There was a time to hold a grudge, this
wasn’t that time.

I Did My Duty to the Pot

I woke up when I felt the sheet go down my
hip and a hand go up it.

I turned bleary eyes to Lee, who was sitting,
from what I could tell in the dawns early light, fully-clothed on
the side of the bed.

“I need coffee,” I mumbled.

“You don’t have to get up, I’m just sayin’
good-bye,” he answered.

I blinked in the semi-darkness.

“Where are you going?”

But I’d lost his attention, he was looking in
the vicinity of my hips.

“Do you always wear underwear like this, or
is it for me?”

I rolled to my back and pulled the sheet to
my waist.

“It isn’t for you, I’ve been wearing
underwear like this since Gram gave me my first Frederick’s of
Hollywood box on my sixteenth birthday. Now, I owe Victoria’s
Secret my first-born child.”

Before speaking again, Lee waited several
seconds that can only be described as “loaded silence”. While this
silence was going on, he pulled the sheet back down.

“You’re tellin’ me that since you were
sixteen you’ve been sittin’ next to me every year at Christmas
Dinner wearin’ underwear like this?”

I was having trouble processing all that was
happening, seeing as it was oh-dark-hundred, Lee was dressed and
leaving and we were talking about my underwear.

Had I sat beside him at Christmas Dinner
every year?

I had. At first because I finagled it, the
last ten years by a cruel twist of fate.

“I didn’t sit by you,” I kind of lied.

“No,
I
sat by
you
.”

At that unbelievable announcement, I got up
on my two elbows and winced. Another learning experience, rolling
around in bushes with your arms cuffed behind your back made you
ache.

I glanced at the clock, five after five.

“It’s five after five! Where are you
going?”

He leaned forward and brushed my lips with
his.

“Hunting.”

The way he said it made me fear for all the
furry little creatures in the woods. Then I realized that Lee
didn’t hunt, at least not furry little creatures.

Yikes.

I considered what to say and settled on, “Be
careful.”

An arm went around me and he pulled me to
him. I was not a big fan of morning kisses before brushing your
teeth, especially if tongue was involved.

His kiss was so fine, I made an exception and
kissed him back.

He dragged me across his lap and deepened the
kiss. If the kiss got any deeper, my lovely sage green satin undies
with smoky gray lace were going to spontaneously combust.