Rock Chick 01 (45 page)

“You can also run,” Lee replied.

“Not in these sweats, I can’t. They’re seven
sizes too big.”

Lee didn’t answer, he also didn’t put me down
until we got to the passenger door. He pressed me inside, slammed
the door and he and Tex put my stuff in the trunk.

Tex waved as we drove away.

Traitor.

I said nothing all the way to the condo. Once
Lee pulled up the parking brake in the garage, I got out and
shuffled on bare feet to the elevator, clutching the sweats at the
waistband.

Lee grabbed the plastic bag filled with my
Chinese Food clothes, my purse and my shopping bags from the trunk
and followed me.

We remained silent all the way up the
elevator and Lee let me in the condo. I went straight to the
bedroom to the drawer where Judy the Housekeeper put my undies. I
dropped the sweats, put on some panties, left the flannel shirt on
and slid into bed, on my side, with my arm wrapped around the edge
and my hand tucked between the mattress and box springs. I was
holding on for dear life, there was going to be no cuddling
tonight.

I heard laundry noises, obviously Lee was
taking no chances with my Chinese Food clothes and was relegating
them to the washing machine without delay.

I refused to be embarrassed by this.

Lee entered the room and I ignored him. I
heard the rustling of clothes, I felt him get into bed and he
settled. He didn’t touch me or pull me to him like he normally did.
I stayed tense and waited, five minutes, ten. Then, when I was
this close
to falling asleep, his arm wrapped around my
waist and he pulled me across the bed and half-pinned, half-spooned
me.

I went rigid.

I felt him bury his face in the back of my
hair and then he said, “I’m an ass. I shouldn’t have said that in
front of Eddie. I’m sorry.”

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

Not only could you not be mad at someone who
apologizes, straight out, you couldn’t hold a grudge either. It was
a double whammy.

I kept silent, not being a bitch, I just
didn’t know what to say.

“I really don’t like your flirting,” Lee
continued.

“I’m getting that.”

His hand came up and brushed the hair away
from my shoulder and neck. Then it slid down my arm until it
encountered my hand and his fingers laced with mine.

“We aren’t doin’ very well at this, are we?”
he asked.

“Not really,” I answered.

He sighed.

“I saw Cherry Blackwell tonight,” I told
him.

Silence for a beat and then, “I heard.”

“She was in fine form.”

Silence.

“She said, right in front of your mother,
that you like blow jobs in the morning.”

Another beat of silence.

“She’s wrong,” Lee finally said, “I like ‘em
anytime.”

This time I was silent for a beat, not
certain I liked this answer. Then I said, mainly because I couldn’t
help myself, I had residual anger and Lee was the only one
around.

“Is she better in bed than me?”

Another sigh and his fingers tightened on my
hand. “Indy, don’t ask questions like that.”

Oh… my… God.

She was!

Cherry Blackwell was better in bed than
me.

If she wasn’t, he would just say. He was a
straight-talker, he
never
lied, just avoided the truth on
occasion.

“Right,” I returned, all pissed off, and then
flipped around and pushed at his shoulders until he was on his
back. My mouth was at his chest and moving down when he hauled me
back up.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m going to give you something to compare.
You can score us, me against Cherry, like the ice skaters in the
Olympics.”

“The Head Olympics?” Lee asked, his voice
amused.

“Something like that,” I replied, totally
angry now because he thought I was funny. I broke free of his hold
and started down again.

He hauled me back up.

“Your mouth isn’t gettin’ anywhere near me
when you’re pissed off,” he said.

I tried to carry on and he kept hauling me
back. This became somewhat of a wrestling match, which, with even a
small amount of effort, Lee could have won. I could tell he was
being gentle and trying not to hurt me, which put him at a
disadvantage.

We tussled, tangled in the sheets, rolled,
tussled more and ended up falling on the floor, me on the bottom.
Luckily, Lee’s arm was around my waist and it tightened and he
threw his other one out to break our fall, doing kind of a one arm
push up with me in the middle. Still, my ass slammed against the
floor and Lee’s hips mashed into mine.

This nearly knocked the wind out of me but I
continued, rolling him over, then he rolled me over.

Then somehow arms, legs and rolling were
joined by lips, tongues and groping and the wrestling match got
interesting.

We were both breathing heavily, I was
seriously hot and bothered, when all of a sudden, the flannel shirt
was whisked over my head, my panties were gone and Lee slid inside
me.

I instantly stopped wrestling, wrapped my
legs around his thighs and my arms around his back.

He was moving inside me and I was moving with
him, our lips touching but not kissing, our breath coming fast. I
lifted my head to kiss him but he pulled away and kept moving
inside me. Then his lips came back to mine and I tried to kiss him
again but he pulled away again.

“Lee…” I whispered, I was going to tell him I
wanted to kiss him and he should stop messing around.

He drove in deep and said against my mouth,
“There it is.”

Then
he
kissed
me
.

* * * * *

After, my legs were still wrapped around his
thighs, one of my hands was in his hair, the other one on his ass.
Lee’s face was tucked into my neck and he was still inside me.

“Cherry’s a four. You’re off the scales,” he
said to my neck.

I might have thought this was bullshit, but
one thing Lee wasn’t was a bullshit artist.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” I said.

“No, you shouldn’t.”

He pulled away, carted us both into the bed
and he settled me against him, full-frontal.

“I didn’t mean to flirt with Eddie,” I told
his throat. “It was a reflex action.”

One of his arms tightened around me, the
other hand started fiddling with my hair.

“I’ll try to do better… with the flirting,” I
said.

“I’d appreciate that.”

“You need to do better… with the jealousy
thing, not every guy wants to get in my pants.”

“You’re wrong, every guy does want to get in
your pants,” Lee said.

“Tex doesn’t.”

“Tex isn’t every guy. Tex is a crazy guy and
he’s old enough to be your father.”

“Duke doesn’t,” I tried.

“Dolores would chop Duke’s dick off if he so
much as looked at another woman and he’s old enough to be your
father.”

“Hank doesn’t,” I persevered.

“Hank doesn’t count. He thinks of you as his
little sister.”

“Darius doesn’t.” I was a dog with a
bone.

“Darius doesn’t fuck white women.”

Jeez.

I tried a different tact.

In a quiet voice, a
very
quiet voice
(because I kinda hoped he wouldn’t hear me), I whispered, “You know
it’s only ever been you.”

He heard me.

His body went still. Then his hand fisted in
my hair and he tugged my head back. He kissed me, long and sweet
and when he was done, he tucked my face back into his neck.

I took in a deep breath and then let it
out.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he asked
softly.

It was harder than hell, it was scary and it
made me feel vulnerable.

Since I felt I’d done my sharing for the
night, I stayed quiet.

Lee let me have my emotional space.

“Ally tried to take the earrings back to
Tiffany’s. They refused the return. I’m not approaching Coxy, for
various reasons. You’re stuck with them.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ve decided to give
them to charity.”

“Good plan,” he said and then, “I was in the
surveillance room and saw them come in. You thought they were from
me.”

“Yeah.”

“You want anything, just say and we’ll get
it. You can pick out what you want.”

I held my breath.

“Seriously?” I said when I let it out.

“I’m not gonna try to read your mind when
there’s something you want. Just tell me and I’ll get it for
you.”

Well, hell. That made things easy for
him.

He didn’t have to ask clever questions, do
any detective work, put any effort into it at all if I just told
him what I wanted.

I decided to change the subject because that
one very well might tick me off.

“What was Eddie so hot to see you about this
morning?” I asked.

Lee rolled onto his back and I snuggled into
his side, my cheek on his shoulder.

“Darius has some trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“The kind Eddie can’t get involved with. He’s
got some pressure from the Department about Darius, they don’t like
the relationship and they want Darius out of commission.”

“Eddie won’t do it?”

“Eddie’s a Mexican-American, family is all
important. He thinks of Darius and me as brothers. It’s one of the
reasons why he and I survived both of us being in love with you.
Eddie would never take Darius down.”

I wrapped my arm around his waist.

“What happened to Darius?” I asked.

“After his father was killed, the life
insurance covered funeral expenses and some bills. Not enough money
comin’ in, standard of living crashed. All of a sudden, Darius and
his Mom were responsible for a house and Darius’s three younger
sisters. It was hard, he was young. Darius was offered an easier
path and he took it. No one would have guessed he’d make that
choice but after what happened to his father, Darius was one
seriously pissed off black man. He was lookin’ for trouble and
found it.”

“Can he get out?”

“Easier to get in than out, but yeah. Anyone
can do anything if they want it bad enough.”

“Does he need help?”

Lee’s fingers had been drawing randomly on my
back but they stopped, his arm came around me and his other hand
tilted my chin to look at him.

“Do not try to save Darius,” he said.

I made a huffy sound then told him, “That
sounded like an order.”

“The brothers are not fond of women messin’
in their affairs. Especially white women. This includes Darius. The
guy you knew in high school is gone.” His voice got kind of
scary.

“All right,” I gave in. “You don’t have to
get all freaky about it.”

He let go of my chin and I snuggled into him
again.

“I’m beginnin’ to feel my mother’s pain. I
just have you to worry about and it’s doin’ my head in. She had all
four of us,” Lee said.

“You’re a big, tough, badass dude. You’ll
survive,” I told him.

He rolled into me and ran his mouth down my
jaw to my ear. “Your job is to make it worthwhile.”

I had a feeling I could do that.

A Metallica Moment

We were sitting in Lee’s teak chairs on the
balcony. It was post morning sex, I was wearing one of Lee’s tees
and a pair of hot pink lace hipsters, drinking my coffee, my feet
up in Lee’s lap, zoned out with my gaze settled on the Front Range.
Lee was also drinking coffee, but he wasn’t zoned out. He was
reading the paper which was spread out on the table. He was
absently stroking one of my feet and was wearing a pair of gray
sweat pants and nothing else.

Even though it had been an active morning, I
was still only on coffee number one and my mental processes hadn’t
yet kicked in. Regardless of this, I realized the feeling I had was
contentment and yes, even happiness. Maybe even
real
happiness. Maybe even off the charts happiness.

Lee put the paper down, sat back, stretched
his legs out in front of him, crossed the ankles and took a drink
of his coffee. His gaze leveled on me, although I wasn’t looking at
him, I could feel it.

He put his coffee down and started to massage
my foot, this time with both hands. It felt super nice, he had
strong hands and he knew how to use them.

“I’ve asked Dawn to get some guys to come in
and pack up your stuff and move it and your furniture to storage.
Today, you need to pack anything you want to bring over and I’ll
come around tonight and we’ll move you in.”

Happiness fled instantly and panic seized
every cell in my body, my eyes moved from the Front Range to Lee
and I stared, unable to speak.

Lee kept talking. “I know a property
management service. I called them yesterday. They’ll rent your
place, make sure it’s a good tenant and maintain it for a fee.
We’ll get it advertised next week.”

I finally found my voice. “I know I promised
to move in by this weekend but… isn’t this going a bit fast?”

Lee’s hands moved to my other foot.

“Yep,” he answered.

“Don’t you think we should slow down?” I
asked.

“Nope.”

“Why?”

Okay, you could hear the panic edging my one
word question, but still.

Instead of answering, he dropped my feet,
bent double to get up and kissed my forehead as he did so. Then he
walked into the condo.

I stared at him moving away from me.

He walked well, confident, close to a swagger
but not quite. His sweats were drawstring and rode low. His back
was beautifully muscled. I kept staring into the living room even
after he was gone, zoned out again, the image of his back
pleasantly burned on my eyeballs like after you accidentally looked
directly at the sun.

Then I saw him come back.

He sat down, lifted my legs at the calves and
put my feet back in his lap and threw a little pink case at me
across the table.