Rock Chick 01 (5 page)

I went back to ignoring him as the coffee cup
was full. I expertly switched out the cup for the pot, intent on my
first sip all the while wondering why Lee still hadn’t moved.

Then he did, a hand disappeared and a second
later I felt my hair being swept off my left shoulder, around my
neck and over my right.

I jumped at this intimate gesture and so did
other parts of my anatomy. I didn’t even try to ignore it. Any
effort would have been futile.

Lee’s chin went to where my hair used to be
just as his hand slid across my abdomen and pulled me to him.

My entire body went still.

“We need to talk,” he said into my ear.

I stood there, frozen, coffee cup aloft,
nowhere near awake enough to process his extraordinary actions and
also in kind of
total
shock.

I said the only thing I could think to
say.

“I need milk.”

Without moving his body or head, his hand
left my middle, I heard the fridge open and the glug of milk
against plastic and then the fridge closed again.

Lee set the milk in front of me and his hand
went back to the counter, keeping me where I was.

Real slick.

My stomach fluttered.

“Thank you,” I said politely, blinking a lot
and wondering if I was still asleep and dreaming.

I poured some milk in my joe concentrating on
not letting my body tremble. I was trying to be cool but I was
confused. This kind of behavior from Lee had never happened
before.

As in, ever.

I took a sip of coffee and tried to get my
mind in gear.

“Do you want to explain to me why you have me
pressed up against the counter?” I asked, using what I hoped was a
questioning-yet-diplomatic tone rather than a freaked-out, ohmigod,
hell-has-just-frozen-over tone.

This was hard for me. I needed to be alert
and aware in any situation involving Lee in order not to snap and
declare my undying love for him but I’d only had one sip of
coffee.

And somehow, this was definitely a situation
involving Lee, in fact, it was more like a
dangerous
situation involving Lee.

I took another sip, going for the gusto and
burned my tongue.

“Yeow!”

While I was recovering, Lee turned me around
and moved further into me.

He did this well, considering there wasn’t a
lot of space to move and even less space to move into. Not to
mention, I had the coffee cup between us. He settled his hands on
the counter on either side of me again.

“Why have you been avoiding me?”

Yikes.

Direct shot.

He didn’t even lead into it.

Although his eyes and features were still
gentle, it wasn’t from just waking up. I could tell Lee was as
alert and aware as you could get. The gentleness was from something
else.

Shit, shit,
shit
.

What in holy hell was going on?

I decided to play stupid.

“What?” I asked.

“You heard me,” he answered.

Then there are those times when honesty was
not
the best policy.

“I haven’t been avoiding you,” I took another
sip thinking I should have put another scoop or two of coffee in
the filter.

“You’re lying. The last time we were both at
dinner, you got up in the middle of Mom’s fajita presentation and
said you forgot to feed your cat.”

Uh-oh.

“So?”

“You don’t have a cat.”

“I was cat-sitting,” I lied.

He smiled.

He smiled The Smile.

Fuck, fuck,
fuck
.

Man, Lee could smile.

Then he said, “All right, I’m all out of
patience with this one. You have two choices. Either you talk to me
about what’s been botherin’ you for the last decade or I tell you
how you’re gonna pay me back for this Rosie debacle.”

“Is there a choice number three?” I
asked.

He shook his head.

I slid my eyes to the right, chewed the
inside of my bottom lip and thought about my choices. I did my best
to forget about the glimpse of hard, muscled chest and six-pack I’d
seen in the weak moment I allowed myself to look down.

And, he was wearing faded jeans with the top
button not done up.

Yikes.

Okay.

Focus.

Choices.

Firstly, I was never, never, never in a
million years going to tell Lee Nightingale that I’d been in love
with him since I was five and he sat next to me during my Mom’s
memorial service and held my hand. I was never going to tell him it
was a Bon Jovi-style shot through the heart when he told me he
wasn’t interested in me because I was his little sister’s best
friend. And I was never, never, never,
ever
going to tell
him that something had changed in him and he scared the pants off
me.

Secondly, no matter what he said, he was Lee
and he was right all those years ago, in a way, we were family. We
did all our holidays together as family and went to Broncos games
with our Dads when we were kids. We had barbeques at each other’s
houses nearly every Saturday during the summer, even now. Hell, it
was mid-June and I’d just had the barbeque at my house two weeks
ago and Lee had been there. Even though he’d changed, he would
always be Lee. He probably wanted cheap maid service or something.
Someone to do his laundry. Take his car to have the oil
changed.

I could do that.

All this business with sleeping together and
swiping at my hair and talking in my ear was just him trying to
intimidate me. He probably wouldn’t let Ally sleep with Rosie or on
the floor either.

“I’ll choose door number two,” I decided.

The smile widened and something happened to
his eyes that made my nether regions quiver.

Uh-oh.

Clearly, I made the wrong choice.

“I was hopin’ you’d say that.”

I scrambled.

“Maybe I’ll rethink my choice.”

“Too late.”

I scrunched my nose and narrowed my eyes at
him.

“Why can’t you just be a nice guy?”

“I’ve never been a nice guy.”

This was true, mostly.

“Yes you have. You used to come pick Ally and
me up from parties so we wouldn’t get in trouble.”

“I hate to burst your bubble but that was for
entertainment value. You and Ally were hilarious drunks. Once, you
sang ‘My Favorite Things’ all the way home and got all the words
wrong.”

I made a frustrated noise.

“There was that time when I was grounded and
I was climbing out of my window so I could go to Darren Pilcher’s
party and I got stuck between the tree and the house and you came
over to get me down.”

“I could see up your skirt.”

I gasped.

Then I sighed.

Only I would try to climb out of a window in
a skirt.

I knew better than to argue. The only time
Lee could say for certain he was a good guy was when he was in the
Army and during some of that time I was ignoring him and most of
his missions were top secret so I had no examples to give.

I took another sip of coffee. “All right,
what do I have to do to pay you back for Rosie? And I’ll warn you,
I won’t clean your bathroom.”

“You sure that’s the only stipulation you
wanna make?”

I thought about it for a second, wondering
what else I should throw in when he said, “Time’s up.”

He was playing with me and I was losing my
temper.

“Oh for goodness sake, just tell me!” I
snapped.

No sooner had I got out the word “me”, he
moved.

And he moved fast, faster than I think I’ve
ever seen anyone move, especially at that hour of the morning.

My coffee cup was gone, he had his hands at
my ass and then I was going up, my behind settled on the counter
and Lee moved in. Both his arms went around my back, I had no
choice but to spread my legs or I’d gouge his abs with my knees,
his arms pulled me to him, my nether regions pressed to his crotch
and he bent his head and kissed me.

The first time in my life that
Lee
kissed
me
.

Holy shit.

Holy, holy, shit, shit,
shit
.

He was a fine kisser.

In fact, just that one kiss blew the entire
Joe Perry experience out of the water and that’s saying
something.

When he lifted his head, I said (or kinda
shouted, at this point I’d totally forgotten Rosie), “What the hell
was that?”

I was covering and
re
covering. My
mouth was the only thing that worked, every other part of my body
had been reduced to Jell-o.

“Advance payment on services rendered.”

I stared at him, thrown.

He looked down, likely to further assess my
reaction.

“Is this my shirt?” His hand came from around
my back and lifted to touch the wife beater, very close to my
breast. I slapped it away, feeling my nipple harden and thanking
the Lord above for lightly padded bras that hid hard nipples.

“Yes, it’s your shirt, and what do you mean,
advance payment on services rendered?”

His hand went to the side of my breast rather
than to the actual breast which was only a relief for about five
seconds as it then slid around my back, pulling me to him
again.

This was not brother-sister behavior.

What was he playing at?

He told me.

And he told me bluntly.

“I do this thing for Rosie, you sleep with
me.”

I stared at him, open-mouthed and in stunned
silence.

I did, of course, understand what he meant
but he explained further.

“Not like last night, we’ll both be naked and
sexual acts will be performed.”

My expression didn’t change except maybe my
mouth opened wider.

“I’ll expect your participation.”

Holy shit.

“Your avid participation.”

Dear Lord in Heaven.

Eventually, I whispered, “You must be
joking.”

He shook his head and watched me.

I dropped my eyes, unable to hold his
stare.

“I think I need more coffee,” I told his
throat.

His hand went into my hair and with a gentle
pull he tilted my head back again.

A light bulb clicked on.

A way out.

“You’re already involved. You made the calls
last night, you said you would.”

Lee verbally waved it away because his hand
was twisting in my hair.

“I know the principles, I can back out this
morning. Rosie will be on his own.”

This, I thought, was not a bad thing,
considering the expected payment.

“Okay then, Rosie will be fine, I’ll go with
him.”

“Rosie will do this alone, you’re not going
anywhere near these guys. You don’t exist to them and I’m gonna
keep it that way.”

“There’s a flaw in your plan, Lee, they saw
me last night.”

“Minor blip. During the call I told them you
were mine and that’s why I’m getting involved. They’ll keep a
distance.”

Holy shit! He was already telling other
people! And I hadn’t even agreed!

“I’m not yours!”

“You will be tonight.”

Holy shit, shit,
shit
.

What was happening here?

Was I in an alternate universe?

“You can’t do this! We can’t do this!”

“Why not?”

He was calm and blasé, one of his hands was
tangled in my hair and the other arm was wrapped around my back,
the hand resting at my waist like we did this every morning of our
lives.

Both my hands were pressed on the counter and
I was about ready to shoot through the ceiling.

Lee was not just a Bad Boy, a Badass or a
Badass Extraordinaire, he was a fucking crazy man.

I thought about it for a second, hard and
partially hysterically, and then came up with something. It wasn’t
original but it was something.

“You’re like my older brother.”

“Is that why you tried to stick your tongue
down my throat when you were fifteen?”

Yikes.

“And sixteen?”

Crap.

“And seventeen?”

“Okay, okay, I get it. Jeez.” I broke into
his trip down memory lane. “You said you thought of me like your
younger sister.”

“I lied.”

My eyes bugged out at this piece of news.

“
What?
”

“I was into some serious shit back then,
depending on the assignment, I didn’t know if I’d come home
breathing and in one piece. You were twenty years old and hung up
on me.”

Oh for fuck’s sake.

“I was
not
hung up on you.”

He grinned. “Yes you were.”

I was but I wasn’t going to admit it.

I narrowed my eyes and he kept talking.

“I didn’t need any entanglements. I didn’t
need anything on my mind but what I was doing. I didn’t need to
worry if I’d leave a girl at home brokenhearted because something
happened to me.”

I had to admit, that made sense and it was
kind of thoughtful.

I wasn’t going to acknowledge that to him
either.

“By the time I got out, you backed off. You
had a man then and I thought you were over me.”

He shrugged, nonchalant, like he didn’t care
and that kinda pissed me off.

No wait, that
really
pissed me
off.

“Then that guy was gone and you kept avoiding
me. Guys came, guys went. I figured you had no trouble approaching
me before, when you were ready, you’d come to me.”

I was no longer avoiding his eyes or him. I
was staring daggers at him.

What an arrogant jerk!

He calmly returned my gaze. “I’m a bit tired
of waiting and I’m
definitely
tired of your man parade.” His
voice was slightly edgy and a little scary. “Fortunately, you’ve
presented me with this golden opportunity.”

He could damn well wait until hell froze
over.

He wasn’t going to keep me at arm’s length
for ages and then just reel me in when he felt like it.

“Well, I’m not done avoiding you!” I
said.