“Why are you all of a sudden the focus of some seriously scary shit?”

“How should I know?”

“Maybe because it’s happening to you?”

“Well, I don’t know!” I yelled. “I don’t even want to know!”

He glared at me. I glared back.

We were locked in another Luke vs. Ava Glare of the Century Contest when my phone rang. I was kind of glad it did because I was about to back down from the glare and this gave me an excuse.

To save face, I made a “huh” sound and grabbed my phone from the desk, flipped it open and put it to my ear. “Yo.”

“Ava?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Ren.”

Oh f**k.

My eyes snapped to Luke. “Hey,” I said.

“Hey, Uncle Vito told me about Dom. You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You okay after Uncle Vito sent his goons after you?”

I blinked in surprise at his question and turned away from Luke. “What?”

“Santo and Lucky are idiots. They were supposed to be cool, tell you it was Vito who wanted to see you. Not scare you half to death and send you running through traffic on Broadway.”

Wow. That was news.

“Sorry about that,” he went on like he apologized for mistaken kidnappings every day.

I moved away slowly and went to the window at the side of the loft. All the while, I was very conscious of Luke watching me. “Um, that’s okay.”

Did I just tell Ren it was okay that his uncle had me kidnapped? Maybe I was nuts.

“Listen, Ava, don’t worry about Dom. I’ll take care of him,” he assured me.

Oh no.

My eyes went back to Luke. He was still leaning on the counter, still watching me and now his eyes were narrowed.

I looked away again. “I think someone’s already working on that,” I told him.

“I know, you got Stark doing it. Tell him to back off. We want to take care of this in the family.”

Oh shit.

No way was I going to tell Luke that Ren Zano was going to take care of Dom for me and he could back off. No way in hell.

I would never have expected my life could get more complicated but there it was.

“Ren,” I said softly and stupidly for the minute I uttered his name, the air in the room changed and not in a good way. It took all my efforts to keep my eyes looking out the window and ignore the scary air.

“I’ll take you out to dinner tomorrow night, apologize properly for all this shit.”

“I’m busy,” I said immediately.

“Tuesday.”

I felt Luke get close rather than seeing him do it. I felt this because the not good air in the room started pressing on me.

“Erm…” I said, too focused on the scary air to come up with another excuse to avoid a date with Ren.

“I’ll take you to Carmine’s on Penn. You love it there.”

I did love it there and I thought it was kind of sweet that Ren remembered. We’d all gone out, Sissy and Dom, Noah and me and Ren and one of his women; I forgot her name (Ren had a lot of women). We’d had a good time and the food was orgasmic.

“Seven o’clock. I’ll pick you up at your place. See you then.”

Before I could say a word, he disconnected.

Okay, there were a lot of not good things happening in my life at the moment but this was seriously not good.

I flipped my phone closed and turned.

I was right, Luke got close. Real close.

And I was also right about the not good air.

If Luke had been barely controlling fury before, he was visibly losing his battle with controlling rage now.

Eek.

Chapter Twelve

Pins and Needles

Luke’s hand came up to rest on my neck, his thumb under my jaw.

“Why is Ren Zano phoning you?” he asked softly.

I needed to make a split-second decision and I made it. I wasn’t going to live in fear of tough guy, macho man Luke Stark. He was nuts and he was a badass but he wasn’t going to hurt me. Sure, most of the way he behaved, and nearly all of the brutally honest shit that came out of his mouth, was shocking but he would never hurt me. Maybe he would cuff me to the bed again or do some other macho man shit but I could handle that.

I was in control of my mind and my body (okay, the last one wasn’t really true but I did have a pretty magnificent orgasm not too long ago so I should be topped up).

I wasn’t his woman. It was time to stop acting like I was.

“He says you should back off from Dom, he’ll take care of it,” I told him, instantly going back on my pledge never to tell him that, ever.

Luke’s fingers tensed at my neck. “That it?”

I took hold of my liberated woman and shared further. “He’s taking me out to dinner on Tuesday to apologize for everything.”

I felt Luke’s body go still as he stared at me. “You’re tellin’ me you made a date with Zano while you were standin’ in my living room?”

I was not going to think “Eek!”

“It isn’t a date. I don’t date. I’ve sworn off men. This is an apology dinner.”

Luke stared at me, one beat then two. Then surprisingly he dropped his hand from my neck and walked away. I watched as he lifted his hands to his shoulder blades, pulled off his tee and dropped it to the floor (incidentally this annoyed me, considering I’d spent ten minutes that afternoon gathering his clothes and throwing them in the laundry hamper in the utility area that was tucked behind the bathroom). Then he sat on the bed and yanked off his boots. Then he stood and started to unbuckle his pants.

Oh crap.

I turned and sat back down at the desk, ignoring what his actions might mean to me. I heard drawers opening and closing then rustling. When I heard the elevator doors slide open, I twisted in my chair and saw Luke walk into the elevator, wearing running clothes (all black, except his shoes). The elevator doors closed and he was gone.

Weird.

Way weird.

I took a deep breath, got back to work and tried not to wonder about Luke (and failed).

About an hour later he came back. I watched from my chair as he walked directly to the bathroom without a word to me. I heard the shower running while I closed down my files and shut down the computer. I decided to move away from Sailor Jerry because I needed to be drunk for whatever was going to happen next like I needed a hole in the head. I found a box of Sandra Whoever-She-Was’s peppermint tea and was boiling the kettle when Luke came out of the shower, wearing nothing but a silvery-gray towel around his hips.