“Then we’ll sleep here. And, if you want, we’ll f**k here too.”

“Luke!” I yanked my body backward, found nothing but the very solid couch hampering any retreat and realized too late I was in a very dangerous position.

“Ava, this is what’s gonna happen,” Luke said in a firm voice.

Uh-oh.

I can’t WAIT to see what he says next, Bad Ava was nearly drooling.

Mm, Good Ava mumbled dreamily.

“You’re gonna get your lotion and I’m gonna work out the stress in your back. Then together, were gonna work out the tension of the last couple of days. Tomorrow, or however long it takes, I’m gonna deal with Vincetti and Dexter. You want a shot at Dexter when I find him, your call. We’ll have him in a safe place where you can say, or do, whatever you want to him and I’ll be there if you need me when you do it. After that, you and I are gonna ride this out, see where it takes us. If you’re even close to the promise you gave me this morning or what you showed on the dance floor tonight, that’s gonna take awhile. We’ll see how it goes. Got that?”

He had it all figured out and apparently he didn’t think I had a choice.

Fuck that.

I didn’t even try to count to ten I just pushed against him. “No, I do not have that. You can’t just pick up Noah and…” I stopped and glared at him. “What are you going to do when you pick up Noah?”

“I’m gonna tell him who I am and what I am to you and then I’m gonna beat the shit out of him.”

I quit pushing and stared. I would have said it was impossible for him to shock me further but there it was.

“You can’t do that,” I whispered.

“I can.”

“You can’t.”

“Ava, this isn’t up for discussion.”

“I don’t even want you to do that.”

“It isn’t for you to say. He took somethin’ that was mine, I’m gettin’ it back.”

Oh… my… God.

“You’re nuts!” I cried. “I’m not yours. I haven’t even seen you in five years.”

“You’ve been mine since you were eight.”

That cut right to the bone.

Crapity, crap, crap, crap.

To hide it, I shoved hard. He rocked back an inch and then moved forward and his arms got so tight, they crushed me to him.

“I’m not yours. I’m not anyone’s ever again!” I shouted in his face, getting pissed instead of scared because pissed was a whole lot better place to be. “And I’m not paying the second part of your deal. No way. No f**king way.”

“All right, then you pay by telling me why you didn’t pick up my calls or see me after my father’s funeral. That was before all the shit went down with those f**kin’ guys takin’ you away, piece by piece. I wanna hear why you stood by my father’s grave and made me a promise and days later you reneged.”

My mouth snapped shut and my body went statue still.

Okay, then there was really, really, really no way I was going to tell him that. I was never going to tell him it embarrassed me that he held me when I was Fatty, Fatty Four-Eyes. No way I was going to tell him that I lost weight, dyed my hair and got contacts because I’d been in love with him since I was eight (he wasn’t wrong about me being his but I wasn’t going to tell him that) and I wanted him to notice me.

No way in hell.

In fact, there was so no way in hell that I made a split-second, dangerous decision that would protect that knowledge forever.

“I’ll get the lotion,” I told him.

He stared at me a beat then pressed his lips together and tilted his chin up looking for patience then his eyes came back to me.

“Jesus, you’re a pain in the ass,” he said.

“Are we doing this or what?” I asked, sounding bitchy which was a relief considering I felt hysterical but I didn’t want Luke to know that.

His arms went loose, I pushed up, scrambled over him, got to my feet and I shot to the bathroom like a rocket.

Chapter Ten

Mrs. Stark

It was the dead of night when Luke moved me, arms around me, up and over him to his other side. He hooked my leg over his hip and I snuggled in.

“You’re nuts,” I mumbled into his throat.

Then I went back to sleep.

* * * * *

I woke up alone in Luke’s bed.

I stared at the pillowcase, quiet, still, listening and at the same time assessing my situation. I heard the shower. I took a deep breath, rolled on my stomach, pulled Luke’s pillow into my belly and held it tight.

Last night, I’d dodged the bullet. As I lay in Luke’s bed thinking back, I decided this was because I was on an adrenalin crash after Dom’s kidnapping, because I was drunk, but most especially because Luke gave really great rubdowns.

I got the lotion, gave it to Luke, took off my glasses and lay down on my belly, all bitch attitude like a rubdown from Luke was akin to torture in an iron maiden. Just to be difficult, I kept on my tee and my panties (which, thank God, were mocha-colored satin hipsters with a load of beige lace and not ratty old ones that sagged at the ass). Luke pushed up the tee, up, up until I was forced to do a back arch and he whipped it over my head. He warmed the lotion in his hands and went to work on me.

I wanted to stay tense, just to be contrary, but I couldn’t. His hands were strong and you could tell he had done this before (another thought I clung to, telling myself it proved he was a womanizing rat-bastard). He went right to the kinks and worked them out. This was not a sensual massage to get me turned on. He genuinely was trying to relieve my stress.

When I wasn’t freaked out that I was lying, in my undies, in Lucas Stark’s bed (which was, at the beginning, my prevailing thought), I found this show of kindness disturbing but in a good way. I was trying very hard to hold on to thoughts of him being an ultra pushy, unbelievably blunt, tough guy, macho man and Sandra Whoever-She-Was crying into her M&Ms. But it was hard when underneath everything Luke did it seemed like he truly was a nice guy trying to protect me and keep me safe (but in an ultra pushy, unbelievably blunt, tough guy, macho man way).

Then again I thought that about Rick when he promised not to cheat on me, and Noah when he worked so hard to win me before screwing me over. And mostly my Dad when I thought it was him and me against the Barlow Super Bitches and he left me.

Slowly, as Luke worked at my back, all these thoughts sifted out of my head and I fell asleep.

That was it.