Rock Chick 01 (6 page)

As he was talking, he’d moved slightly
back.

He came in close again.

“Nope. No more waiting, no more games, no
more avoiding and no more other guys. You want this and I want this
and it’s going to happen.”

“I don’t want this,” I lied, self-protection
and all that. He was an arrogant jerk. He was scary as hell. He was
trying to force me to sleep with him and using my friend to do it.
He was bad news. I wanted no part in Lee Nightingale.

And that was that.

He laughed softly. “Bullshit.”

He thought I was funny.

I saw red.

“Of all the –”

He kissed me again and this time, Joe Perry
was a fleeting memory.

I gave into the kiss immediately.

What could I say? It was Lee.

It was getting good, his mouth was open and
so was mine, his tongue was in my mouth and then mine was in his.
My legs opened further and he got closer. His arms tightened and my
breasts flattened against his chest. My arms went around his neck
and I pressed against him.

Then his lips tore away from mine as his head
shot up and twisted around, his entire body tensed, coiled,
waiting.

Then Kitty Sue and Ally turned the corner
from the entryway into the kitchen.

Kitty Sue’s hand went to her throat, her eyes
widened and then, I swear, they filled with tears.

Ally started laughing.

I looked to the ceiling.

Shit.

Do I Need to Kiss You Again?

My reaction was immediate.

“I’m gonna kill you,” I told Ally.

She walked in and dropped an overnight bag on
the floor, chuckling.

She set me up. She knew Lee was coming home
last night. Crazy bitch.

“What’s going on here?” Kitty Sue asked
hopefully, rooted to the spot and staring at us, not with
disapproval at our carnal clinch, but with eyes filled with hopeful
bliss.

Lee got his eyes from Kitty Sue, and all the
kids got their long, lean body from her. Kitty Sue was always a
bundle of energy, the kind of Mom who held down a full-time job,
made dinner every night, had home-baked cookies in the cookie jar
and, every year, sewed all her kids’ Halloween costumes from
scratch.

Lee moved to the side then jumped up and sat
on the counter beside me.

I hastily closed my legs.

“Anyone want coffee?” Lee asked
courteously.

I jumped down and took a step forward, escape
on my mind. It was pretty clear to me that I’d slid through a tear
between the worlds and I had to find my way back to my home world
pretty damn quick.

Further, now that the Lee of this world was
no longer kissing me, I had to get away from him or I was going to
wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze.

Lee leaned forward, caught me by the
waistband of my jeans and hauled me back between his legs.

“What’s going on here?” Kitty Sue repeated,
her eyes taking in the cozy scene.

Far too cozy. Far too fast. Far too
weird.

Shit.

I opened my mouth to speak but Lee beat me to
it.

“Indy and I are together now.”

My entire body froze in disbelief, my mouth
still open.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” Kitty Sue
chanted.

“Righteous!” Ally exclaimed.

I twisted around and glared at Lee. “You said
one night of sex!”

Lee’s eyes held mine. “I didn’t say one
night. We’ve been waitin’ a long time, one night won’t do it.” Then
he paused and said, “But, if you want, we can try.”

My breasts swelled at the idea of trying to
fit years of sex into one night with Lee.

I ignored my breasts and paid attention to my
temper.

I figured it would be bad form to smack Lee
in front of his mother.

And definitely strangulation was out.

Kitty Sue was in her little slice of heaven,
so much so, she missed my “one night of sex” comment and Lee’s
response.

“I can’t wait to tell your father,” she told
me, “and
your
father,” she told Lee.

“I wouldn’t do that,” I said, beginning to
panic.

“Of course, we all shouldn’t get too excited.
This is happening fast, though not
that
fast,
if-you-know-what-I-mean,” Kitty Sue went on.

Fast? This wasn’t fast. This was warp
speed

Kitty Sue was staring dreamily ahead, not
focused on a thing and we’d all melted into the atmosphere. She was
picking wedding colors, she was deciding china patterns, she was
mentally knitting baby booties, she was planning her visit to my
mother’s grave to impart the blissful news.

Shit.

I twisted back to Lee.

“Asshole,” I mouthed.

He was unfazed at my word though he seemed
somewhat fascinated with watching my mouth form it.

“I brought you a change of clothes and some
of your stuff,” Ally said, reaching behind us and grabbing the
coffeepot. “Looks like I should have brought more.”

I moved my glare to her.

She was just as good at ignoring it as Lee,
better, she’d had more practice.

“I’ll take some of that. Indy already has a
cup,” Lee murmured.

“Not surprising,” Ally said, pouring coffee
into three mugs.

They were acting like it was business as
usual at Lee’s condo, just like it was any other day and I decided
I was most definitely in an alternate universe because this was all
just plain old nuts.

“Listen people!” I cried, trying to get
everyone’s attention. “This is not what it seems.”

Ally looked at me.

Kitty Sue’s happily dazed eyes focused on
me.

Lee’s hard thighs tightened on my sides and
his forearm wrapped around my chest and neck. His chin dipped to
the curve of my shoulder, his lips at my ear.

“Don’t spoil Mom’s moment,” he murmured
there.

“What is it, then?” Kitty Sue asked.

Lee’s fingers dug into my shoulder and I
could feel the muscles flexing in his forearm at my neck. I took
one look in Kitty Sue’s eyes.

Damn it all to hell.

“We’re taking it slow,” I said for lack of
anything else to say, like, the truth.

Wouldn’t sound so good to say,
Your son is
trying to extort sex from me. News at eleven.

Kitty Sue breathed a sigh of relief, sent us
a dazzling smile and put sugar in her coffee.

Ally wandered into the living room.

Lee brushed my hair aside with his chin and
softly kissed the spot where my shoulder met my neck.

I guessed that was his way of saying thank
you.

It was a good way.

“Hey, where’s Rosie?” Ally asked.

I froze.

So did Lee.

We’d completely forgotten about Rosie.

“Fuck,” Lee said, moved me forward and jumped
off the counter, prowling into the living room. I caught a good
look both of his muscled back and his ass in his jeans and went a
little weak in the knees.

“Liam Nightingale, that mouth!” Kitty Sue
admonished.

I followed Lee, but he was already moving out
of the living room and through the kitchen.

I looked at the quilt and pillow on the
couch.

No Rosie.

“Fuck!” Lee said from somewhere else in the
condo.

I ran to him.

The second bedroom door was closed, the
bathroom door was open, with the bathroom empty. I walked into
Lee’s room and he stalked out of his bathroom.

“That fucking twat,” Lee muttered.

“Mouth!” Super-power-Mom-eared Kitty Sue
called from the kitchen.

Lee could always swear really, really well.
He’d been doing it since I could remember.

Lee walked to the dresser and slid a drawer
open. He pulled on a navy, long-sleeved t-shirt that fit super-snug
to his chest and arms and grabbed a pair of socks. I watched as he
sat on the bed to pull on the socks and a pair of black motorcycle
boots with square toes and silver hoops at the sides.

Seriously kickass boots.

I shook my head to clear thoughts of Lee’s
boots and started to worry about Rosie and why he would leave, what
he was doing, where he was going and what was in that pot-addled
brain of his.

Then something occurred to me as Lee got off
the bed.

And for the first time that morning, I
smiled.

If I found Rosie first, and got the diamonds
back to their owner, then I wouldn’t owe Lee a thing.

Hee hee.

I was so happy with my thought, I had to
share it.

“I guess this puts a crimp in your sex
extortion plans.”

I’d timed my “nanny nanny foo foo” very
poorly. Lee was close enough to hook me around the back of the neck
with enough force to send me slamming into him. He gave my hair an
erotically rough yank, tilting my head back.

Then he kissed me.

It was a hard, deep and serious kiss with a
liberal dose of tongue.

My toes curled into the thick carpet.

When he lifted his head, he said, “I have
plans for you. Don’t leave this apartment.”

I nodded.

I had every intention of leaving his
apartment.

He watched me.

“Indy, you leave this apartment, I’ll come
lookin’ for you.”

“Jeez, we haven’t even slept together and
already you don’t trust me.”

“I’ve known you all your life not to mention
the fact that my idiot sister is in the next room and when you two
get together it’s like Laurel and Hardy do Denver.”

“It is not!”

“What about that time you bought scalped
tickets to a Garth Brooks concert from Carmine Alfonzo?”

Carmine Alfonzo, better known as Uncle
Carmine. We’d known him since we were seven, he used to ride the
squad car with Dad.

“He was in disguise!” I defended myself.

“He was wearing a baseball hat,” Lee
returned.

“Yes, but he’s a
Cubs
fan, he was
wearing a
Sox
hat. His head should have been on fire.”

The sides of Lee’s eyes crinkled in a grin
that didn’t involve his mouth but was nevertheless ultra-effective
and let go of my hair.

“We aren’t finished yet,” he told me.

“Yes we are,” I retorted.

Lee’s crinkles disappeared and his face got
serious.

“This is happening between you and me,” he
threatened.

I wasn’t entirely sure what “this” meant
since he announced to his mother and sister that we were
“together”. Considering what I
did
know was that a goodly
part of it involved us being naked, in his bed, participating in
activities which required my avid participation, I wasn’t going to
have any part of it.

“No, it isn’t,” I snapped back.

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“No, we won’t.”

His eyes narrowed. “Do I need to kiss you
again?”

I took a hasty step back and watched my toe
draw a pattern in the carpet.

“No,” I muttered.

“Christ, I need to get my head examined.”

My head snapped up.

“What does that mean?” I asked angrily.

“Nothin’. Be here when I get back.”

“Sure.”

Not on his life.

* * * * *

Ally Nightingale had yet to decide on a
career. Currently, she was on her one hundred and eleventh
bartending job. She already had a Bachelor’s degree (majored in
political science and squeaked by), was a certified radiology
technician (a tough gig but she saw it through and worked the MRI
machine at Swedish Medical Center for two months before quitting,
Malcolm’s head nearly exploded after that one) as well as a
certified nail technician.

Of all those things, Ally gave good nails but
she found sitting in a chair all day filing, polishing and forming
plastic glop into nail shapes was not compatible with her energetic
personality.

Luckily, bartending left most of her days
free and whenever she needed a bit of cash (which was often), she
worked part-time for me at Fortnum’s.

Before coming over with Kitty Sue, Ally had
gone to my house and chosen an Ally-outfit for me. If I was to
choose a search-for-Rosie outfit or a night-after-Liam outfit it
would have included Levi’s. But then most of my outfits included
Levi’s unless I had a backstage pass.

Ally had chosen a denim skirt that was mini
in the sense that it hit five inches above my knees (not mini in
the way Ally wore them, which was five centimeters below her ass),
my vintage Rolling Stones t-shirt (I wasn’t a Stones fan but the
shirt was way cool), a wide, red belt with a big silver buckle with
a delicate filigree-and-braided design and my red cowboy boots.

After Lee and Kitty Sue left, I filled Ally
in on the whole Rosie Debacle and my plan to find him. She (not
surprisingly) immediately volunteered her assistance and I (equally
not surprisingly) took her up on it.

I showered and dressed while Ally tried (and
failed) to call Duke.

Then we went to the bookstore to help Jane.
With Duke and Rosie out, Jane was alone at the store and was in a
tizzy because she was handling the espresso machine by herself and
thus, actually had to speak to people. Jane was not good at
speaking to people, she could shelve a mean book and was really
good at tidying, vacuuming, updating our computer book inventory
but customer relations was not her strong suit.

Ally and I worked alongside Jane until the
morning crush was over. The regulars weren’t happy that Rosie
wasn’t there but we’d all been working alongside Rosie enough to be
able to do a fair imitation. Still, it wasn’t the same.

Then Ally swung by Rosie’s house on the off
chance he was there. This was off-limits for me because Lee might
have found out Rosie’s address using one of his mysterious “ways”
and might be there and I didn’t want to bump into Lee just yet.
Especially not searching for Rosie or the diamonds, he didn’t know
my plan and I wasn’t about to let on.

And anyway, business on a weekday didn’t
really die down until after the lunch hour and I couldn’t leave
Jane on her own.