When I saw Luke’s eyes turn intense and felt his body go still, I rushed on. “Then Stella sang ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’. It’s a beautiful song. Ren put his arms around me and I didn’t even think.”

Luke’s mouth got tight which I took as a warning sign (finally, I was learning) so I continued. “Anyway, something weird was happening. It seemed like she was singing it to Mace. What with the song being so pretty and my mind on Mace and Stella –”

“Mace had a thing with Stella,” Luke told me.

My gossip antennae perked up. “Really?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“None of my business, none of yours either unless Mace or Stella want to share.”

One thing I knew for certain, Mace was never going to want to share. That meant Stella’s name was scratched on my list of people to call that day.

“Babe.”

My unfocused eyes re-focused on Luke and he hadn’t lost any of his intensity.

“Let’s get back to Zano.”

“I still feel you,” I blurted in an effort not to talk about Ren.

Luke just looked at me.

Crap.

In for a penny…

My thumb moved to trace his bottom lip and I watched it go, my eyes on his fantastic mouth and it hit me that I knew, intimately, how that mouth felt on practically every part of me. That knowledge made my stomach feel funny and my voice sound lower and kind of raspy when I spoke again.

“Between my legs,” I whispered, my gaze lifting from his mouth to his eyes. “I still feel you.”

His eyes turned to ink, right before he muttered, “Jesus.”

“I really love your mouth,” I told him. Do not ask me why, I was having a moment.

“Ava.” Now his voice sounded lower and kind of raspy.

I took a deep breath and pulled back a bit, dropping my hand from his face and purposefully breaking my moment before I said something ultra stupid.

“Just thought you’d want to know,” I said.

Luke didn’t feel like having the moment broken. He brought me back to him and gave me a quick but hard kiss.

“Beautiful,” he said when he was done, his eyes on mine and his intensity had changed to something that made me shiver in a good way. “You just demonstrated exactly why I would fight and bleed for you. Zano knows that’s what I’ve got and he wants it and I’m not gonna let him anywhere near it. I’m askin’ you to help me with that and I’m askin’ you to help Zano by not giving him mixed signals.”

Was I giving Ren mixed signals?

I was giving Ren mixed signals.

Shit!

“I’m such a dork,” I mumbled.

Luke shook his head. “You’re beautiful, you’re sweet and you’re funny. You’re also bein’ loyal to your friend and tryin’ to take care of her when she’s in a bad situation. You’re dealin’ with this at the same time you’re dealin’ with a lot of other shit, internally and externally.”

It must be said, I loved it that he understood. It made me feel all comfy, snugly warm but on the inside.

This I didn’t share.

His hand tightened on my neck and he brushed his mouth against mine again. “Let me deal with the external shit. You just focus on sorting out your head. Deal?”

I nodded.

He kissed my nose then his hand went away from my neck, his arms went around me again and he (thankfully) changed the subject.

“The bad guys know they gotta work out their issues with Vito. That’s why Zano’s called off Santo. You’re in the clear but I don’t trust it yet. I still want you callin’ into me regularly.”

I nodded again. I had enough dealing with the emotional trauma of Luke and the possibility of bearing him three sons. I didn’t need to get kidnapped again.

“What are your plans for today?” he asked.

“Sort out my Range Rover. Go see Sissy. Workout. Shop for groceries. Maybe Shirleen and I’ll go see Bobby. And I need to go to your place and get my stuff.”

“No.”

I looked down at him. “What?”

“Leave your stuff at my place, you can go there to unpack but leave it.”

“A lot of stuff I need is there.”

“You’re goin’ to the store. Double up.”

Shit.

Doubling up on necessities between my house and Luke’s. Okay, so maybe I needed five hundred and seventeen hours to cope with all this shit.

“Luke, maybe we have more talking to do,” I made a suggestion that I didn’t think was a suggestion, as such.

His arms became tight. He leaned in, kissed my neck and then got up, taking me with him. He turned, set me back in the seat and put a hand on the seat on either side of me so his face was close to mine.

“Life’s too short, I’m through talkin’. This is happening, we both know it, we both feel it and you even admitted it. Ava Babe, stop fighting it.”

I sighed, because in the heat of one of my many freak outs, I did admit it.

I was such a dork.

This meant I was with Luke Stark. I was Luke Stark’s girlfriend. Worse, I was Luke Stark’s woman. There was a nuance of difference between being a man’s girlfriend and a man’s woman, but that nuance was pretty f**king significant.

Fuckity, f**k, f**k, f**k.

This should have made me happy. In fact everything that morning should have made me doing-cartwheels-of-joy ecstatic.

Instead, what I felt was scared. Shit scared to the depths of my soul.

I sighed again and told him. “I need my computer.”

“I’ll get Matt or Jack to deal with it.”

“Luke.”

He leaned in and kissed me, hot and heavy, proving he was indeed through talking.

When done, he lifted up and lightly kissed my nose. “Call in,” he ordered softly.

Then he moved away as I watched, my stomach still melty, my heart in my throat.

I wanted to be excited. I wanted to think Good-Ava-twirling-in-the-mountains-like-Maria thoughts but all I could do was think about what it would feel like when he walked away for good.

When he was at the door, he stopped and turned back to me. “One more thing,” he told me.

Shit, I didn’t think I could handle one more thing.

“What?” I asked, deciding it was best to get it over with quickly.

“I’m gonna get serious shit about this hickey today, beautiful. You owe me.”

Crapity, crap, crap, crap.

He gave me his sexy half-grin and I knew he didn’t care, not even a little bit, about the shit he’d get or the hickey.