Rock Chick Bonus Tracks

Track 5

Rock Chick Revenge

Hanky-Panky

* * *

Luke

* * *

Luke wasn’t sure how he made it to the offices considering he was so furious he couldn’t see straight.

This was why, the minute he hit reception at Nightingale Investigations, Mace came out of the door that led to the back offices.

The men of NI weren’t a team.

They were brothers.

So they knew.

“Check it,”

Mace said low after taking one look at Luke and planting himself between Luke and the door.

Luke halted and locked eyes with Mace.

The man was right. He needed to check it.

No.

What he needed to do was go out and run—hard—to burn off the emotion. He’d learned that dealing with his dad while growing up. There was only so much shouting you could do. Only so much shit you could eat. When you hit your limit, you had two choices, and both were physical, but only one would allow you to sleep at night.

He didn’t need to come face-to-face with the man Lee had told him was in the office and go the wrong way of physical.

He needed to check it.

He took in breath through his nose.

Mace watched him and didn’t move a muscle.

He took another breath. When he let it out, Mace relaxed.

The door behind Luke opened. He twisted and watched Vance walk in.

Luke knew Lee was there as well as Mace and Monty. If they needed to lock him down, they’d have a time of it, but those men could do it.

So Vance didn’t show for that.

Vance showed because he knew who was in Lee’s office.

And as he’d noted, these men were his brothers.

Luke dipped his chin to Vance then turned back to Mace.

Mace opened the door for him.

Luke felt Mace and Vance at his back as he walked into Lee’s office, but they didn’t go in.

He knew they’d stay close, though.

When Luke entered, Lee stood from sitting behind his desk, his eyes on Luke keen, alert.

Luke spared him a glance to let him know he had it under control.

Then he turned his attention to the man sitting in a chair in front of Lee’s desk.

And that control slipped.

He looked good. Tan. Healthy. Happy.

So much so, he appeared five, ten years younger than he really was.

A total turnaround from the man Luke knew fourteen years ago.

Looked like life was good for Adrian Barlow after he walked out on his family.

He watched Adrian slowly take his feet, his eyes widening as they moved up Luke from boots to face, then a broad smile spread on his face.

“Whoa. I mean, I knew you’d grow up to be something, but wow, son, just…wow,”

Adrian said, still smiling. “You’re not something. You’re something else.”

It was clearly positive what that “something else”

meant, but Luke had zero fucks to give a compliment from the man who’d left Ava a helpless kitten to fend for herself in a feral cat’s den.

“You wanna tell me why you’re here, Adrian?” he asked.

The man’s smile faltered, his gaze shot to Lee, back to Luke, and he explained, “I saw a picture of you in the paper. Or, at least, a man who I thought was you. It was grainy and you were in the background. So I came to check it out, and I was right. The caption didn’t have your name, but it said you were a member of the Nightingale Investigations team.”

He put his hands out to his sides. “So here I am.”

Luke knew that picture. It had been printed after Ava was in a car that collided with a police barricade, and they got her out before the vehicle exploded.

The paper didn’t print the part about Ava, so Adrian didn’t know that bit.

“That explains why you thought I was here,”

he noted. “Not why you are here.”

Ava’s father’s face lost a little color, and he opened his mouth, but Luke spoke again before he could say anything.

“Where you been Adrian?”

He asked, but he knew.

Ava said she didn’t want him looking for her dad, but after surviving five Rock Chicks, and especially what his woman went through, Luke wasn’t leaving anything to chance. Ava had taken enough knocks from her family, she wasn’t going to take any more. And if she had to, he was going to do what he could to soften the blow.

So he knew exactly where Adrian had been for fourteen years, and that was a part—a small part but an important part—of why Luke was so…goddamned…pissed.

“Luke—”

Adrian began.

“Nice tan. Livin’ it up while your wife tried to figure out how to finish raisin’ three girls after you left?”

Luke pushed.

Color started to replace the pale, and Luke wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment or anger.

He had zero fucks to give to that too.

The words sounded tight when the man spoke, “You were always close to Ava.”

“Yeah,”

Luke confirmed. “I was always close to Ava.”

“So I thought maybe…you still were.”

Luke didn’t reply to that, but he didn’t like where this was going.

He could guess this was where it was going, but he wouldn’t let his mind go there because he was hanging by a thread already. He didn’t need to make it snap.

Adrian took in a visible deep breath and let it out saying, “Listen, you haven’t made what you feel about the decision I made all those years ago a secret?—”

Luke cut in, “Nope, I made that pretty plain a few seconds ago. But I got more words on that if you want ’em.”

Adrian’s expression now turned hard. “No. I wanted to know if you might help me find my daughter. Ava.”

Yup.

That was what he wouldn’t let himself guess.

Luke felt Lee shift.

He knew why. The energy in the room changed, not in a good way, and it was all coming from Luke.

“I think I already have your answer,”

Adrian muttered. “So I’ll be going. I can find her myself.”

“You aren’t fuckin’ findin’ her, Adrian,”

Luke said between his teeth, the words an unmistakable threat, and Adrian didn’t miss it. Luke knew that when Adrian went completely still and stared at him. “Not interested in Marilyn and Sofia?” he asked.

“I thought I’d start with Ava.”

“Strange choice, seein’ as she was the one you fucked over the most.”

Adrian flinched.

Oh yeah.

He knew it.

“Yeah,”

Luke said low.

Another threat.

So much of one, Lee murmured, “Luke.”

“I got it,”

Luke replied to Lee without taking his eyes off Adrian.

“You don’t understand what it was like in that house,”

Adrian shared tersely.

He understood. He understood it even before he saw Adrian for the first time in a decade and a half, looking younger than his years, fit and untroubled. Being in that house with Christine, Marilyn and Sofia had taken a physical toll on him as well as a mental one. That had been obvious. Leaving them changed his life for the better. That was obvious too.

And Luke knew all of it, the man’s whole story, so he knew Adrian left the bad and found himself a whole load of good.

Still.

“I don’t give a fuck what it was like.”

“Luke—”

“Adrian,”

he leaned toward the man, “she needed you.”

He got a lock on it and leaned back. “Not just like every girl needs her father. Ava…needed…you. They shredded her after you left. Tore her to pieces.”

Another flinch.

Fuck this guy.

“Is she okay?”

Adrian asked after he recovered.

“She’s off limits to you, that’s what she is.”

It took some effort, but the man straightened his shoulders and declared, “She’s my daughter.”

“Yeah, but she’s my woman.”

The man’s mouth dropped open.

Then, like he couldn’t stop it, a smile bloomed on his face and a light lit in his eyes before he mumbled to himself, “I knew it. I knew you two would get together. She just had to get a little older. She loved you like crazy, and you felt the same. But big brother love turns, I see, when the flower fully blooms.”

“I’m not reminiscing with you, Adrian. I’m tellin’ you to go back where you came from and leave this alone.”

The hard came back to his face. “That’s not your decision to make.”

“No. It isn’t. But a coupla months ago, when I asked her if she wanted me to find you for her, she said no. So there you go.”

The man blanched and some of his vim and vigor leaked out. “She said no?”

“She said no,”

Luke confirmed.

“Maybe, if she knows—”

Adrian tried.

Luke cut him off. “Maybe if she knows you were here, talkin’ to me, she’d change her mind. Maybe if she knows, after half of her lifetime you finally came lookin’ for her, she might have it in her heart to hear what you have to say. And I’ll tell her that, Adrian. She deserves to know. And when I tell her, I’ll also tell her you’ve been in Castle Rock the last fourteen years. Thirty fuckin’ miles away and nothing. Not a dollar to help her pay for college. Not a birthday card so she knows she’s on your mind. Not…dick. And you were thirty…miles…away.”

His shit was degenerating, he knew it, Lee knew it, and that was why Lee said, “Luke, brother, maybe you need to take a walk.”

Luke gave his head one curt shake. “Not until he promises he’ll crawl back to his rock and wait. Wait until I talk with Ava. Wait until she makes her decision.”

He said this to Lee, but again his eyes didn’t leave Adrian. He said his next to Adrian. “You don’t hear from her, you know she’s excised you and that’s it. You don’t try to find her. You don’t try to talk to her. You also don’t go after Marilyn or Sofia. Ava calls this shot for all three. She deserves that privilege after you left her to them, and they’ve done dick to earn it back since you’ve been gone. But I suspect this isn’t about Marilyn and Sofia. I suspect this is all about Ava.”

The guilt on his face that showed clear he still didn’t want anything to do with his two oldest, unless they eventually came with the package of Ava, answered that question.

That was one area where Luke didn’t blame him. But he didn’t share that.

He kept laying it out.

“You do hear from her, listen to me now. When she sees you, I’ll be there. You dick her over again, I’ll be there. But my boys who are here to make sure I got it in check will not.”

“Are you threatening me?”

Adrian asked.

“I’m tellin’ you, you broke her heart. That’s in my safekeeping now. It was then, but I fell down on the job when you left. I’m not gonna fall down again, Adrian. That is what I’m tellin’ you.”

They stared at each other.

Something bleak entered Adrian’s eyes, which Luke also had zero fucks to give, and then the man said, “Fair enough.”

Luke moved out of the way of the door, a nonverbal cue for Adrian to get the hell out.

Adrian took it, but he also took his life in his hands when he stopped after he came abreast of Luke.

There, he said, “You’re everything he feared you’d be. So much more than he was, it ate at him. In competition to see who had the biggest balls with his own son. Everyone knew the answer to that before you even grew chest hair. Why he couldn’t glory in playing a part in creating that rather than railing at it, I’ll never know. I also don’t know what my girl is going to decide. I deserve whatever it is. I’d like a chance to explain, but you’re right. That’s up to her. But I’m not leaving here without you knowing, I’m thrilled you two are together. Fate shone on you when you moved across the street from us. Not because Ava needed you. Because you needed Ava.”

“Thanks for tellin’ me something I already know,”

Luke bit out.

“And thanks for confirming you knew it,”

Adrian shot back.

With that, he left.

Lee gave it a beat then asked, “Want me to find something for you to throw?”

Luke angled his head from side to side, feeling the crack on the left, his shit was so tense.

Then he looked to Lee and said, “I’m good.”

“You really gonna tell Ava he was here?”

“I really am. She deserves to know.”

“She gonna take him back?”

“That I don’t know. All I know is, I’m gonna take her back, whatever she decides.”

Lee nodded.

Luke didn’t.

It was quitting time.

He was headed home.

On the ride up the elevator to his loft, Luke braced.

Not because of what he had to talk to Ava about.

He always braced.

This was because he could walk into his loft, and she’d be sitting with Shirleen, watching movies that prominently featured half-naked men. She could be getting her hair done by Daisy, a do that would end up being terrifying (but he’d still fuck her with it, he knew this because it had happened). She could be half-plastered and gabbing with Sissy on the way to getting totally smashed, so he’d either have to drive Sissy home or call Dom to come and get her. She could be dabbing camo paint on her face because of some shit the Rock Chicks got themselves involved in.

It could be anything.

So bracing before was the way to go.

The doors opened up, he heard Tom Petty singing “Free Fallin’,”

and then his heart opened up.

Because his woman was in the kitchen, her eyes came right to him the instant he appeared, and her face split into a happy smile.

Shit, she was a knockout. So fucking gorgeous, he was constantly fighting a hard-on when he was around her.

She was also hilarious and crazy and didn’t take his shit.

And Adrian wasn’t wrong. Luke wouldn’t be the man he became if she hadn’t been across the street, looking out for him on the not-rare occasion his father got up in his face.

For starters, she taught him how to walk away rather than doing something he’d regret, something that would form him into a different man. She didn’t know she did it, but she did.

She also taught him, if you give it just a little time, something good will slide in after the bad. Back then, it was her following him, coaxing him out of his shit mood and making him laugh.

Today, it was coming home to her.

“I’m cooking,”

she announced.

“I can smell,” he said.

“No healthy living mojo tonight, honey. I scored a new client today. We’re celebrating,”

she shared as he made his way to her.

“Fantastic,”

he muttered, getting smack in her space, sliding a hand from her hip to the small of her back and jerking her into his body.

When she collided, her tawny eyes fired in a way that also made him fight a hard-on, and she put her hands to his pecs.

“I should get you a club so you can drag it around and everyone will be warned of your neanderthal tendencies,”

she remarked.

He smiled at her.

She watched his lips do it, and she knew the score when she did that shit.

So he bent his head and took her mouth.

She was ass to the counter, he was between her legs, and her eyes were foggy just the way he liked them when he finally ended their make-out session.

“Congrats on the new client,” he said.

“Thanks,”

she breathed.

He smiled at her again, kissed her throat then pulled her off the counter.

“What’s for dinner?”

“Baked potatoes. I’m trying this new way of doing them. It’s supposed to create the perfect potato. Also filet mignon. And sauteed mushrooms and haricots verts. Oh! And rolls. To finish, I grabbed some napoleons from Pasquinis for dessert.”

“Jesus, with all that in my gut, I’m not gonna be able to fuck you tonight.”

She shot him a look. “I’ve got practice with over imbibing. I’ll take top.”

Her saying that meant she absolutely would not. He’d find a way to rally.

She pulled out a cast-iron grill pan and put it on the stove. “Will you grill the steaks? We’re almost good to go.”

“You got it, baby,”

he murmured, turning to the steaks that were already on the counter, room temperature, salted and doused in Worcestershire sauce.

They both lived full lives, work and social.

But they had a lot of times like these.

Cooking together. Doing the dishes together. Walking down the street to Wynkoop’s, hanging and sharing a couple of beers together.

They fought. This was him and Ava. Their spark never blinked out and it manifested itself in a variety of ways.

But he loved fighting with her, and not just because he loved how they made up.

There was history. There was passion. There was fire. Even in the quiet times like now, it simmered below the surface, ready to blaze however that came about between them.

He loved it. Got off on it. Fed from it.

It was going to be a good life with her. No other woman existed who could give him that. What he needed to keep his shit in line. What he needed to be the man he wanted to be. What he needed to be the man he had to be for her.

But he waited until after she loaded him down with a gut busting amount of delicious food (and whatever recipe she found did not lie, those baked potatoes were the best he’d had). After they sorted out the kitchen. But it was before she unearthed the napoleons when he guided her to the couch, sat in it, and then pulled her to straddle his lap.

“Oh boy. Looking at your face, I’m not thinking this is a lead in to hanky-panky,”

she noted.

His brows went up.

Christ, his woman.

“Hanky-panky?”

“Sex,”

she explained something he already knew.

“I know, babe. But I fuck. We fuck. We do not engage in hanky-panky.”

“My word choice wasn’t a hit to your manhood, Luke.”

“You referring to it as hanky-panky, I may never get it up again,” he joked.

She made a face and replied, “Oh my God. You’d turn into Lukezilla and take out half of Denver if you went even a day without getting the business.”

“Correct,”

he confirmed, then advised. “Don’t forget that.”

She rolled her eyes, but her lips were tipped up.

“Babe.”

She stopped rolling her eyes, and he knew she’d read his change in tone when they landed on him.

So her hands landed on him too, at both sides of his neck. “Oh God, Luke. What’s the matter?”

Total concern. It was in her face, the line of her body, the feel of her gaze, everything about her.

He gripped her hips harder where he had hold on her. Then he took one hand and slid it along the side of her neck to curl it around the back.

“I got somethin’ to share.”

“Okay,”

she whispered. “Are you okay?”

“I will be, once I tell you and I know you’re okay.”

Her head tipped to the side.

“Your dad showed at the offices today.”

Her head righted with a snap. “What?”

“Babe—”

“He just…showed up?”

“Ava babe?—”

“At your office?”

He pulled her face closer to his. “Listen to me, beautiful. Please?”

He could feel the soft pants of her breath, how her not getting enough air was making her body work, and he wished he hadn’t let Mace cool him down before he confronted her father.

But now it was about his Ava.

“Breathe, baby,”

he coaxed.

She pulled in a shaky breath.

He waited for her to take the second one before he spoke again.

“He wants to see you.”

“He wants to see me,”

she parroted.

“I got more you should know before you make your decision.”

“Oh hell,”

she whispered.

“I know you told me not to look for him, but first, I didn’t know if that would hold. And if you wanted it, I wanted to be in a place to give it to you. And second, I wanted to be prepared if what happened today actually happened. So I found him.”

“You found him,”

she again parroted.

“Yeah.”

“Where was he?”

He gripped her tighter and said, “Castle Rock.”

It took a second, but what he expected to happen did.

She exploded off his lap.

Luke followed her up and caught her before she went ass over head over the coffee table. But once he righted her, she tore out of his hold and, skirting the coffee table, took two steps away.

He followed her.

She lifted a hand his way, stopped, and so did he.

“No, I’m okay. It’s okay,”

she lied, and then she proved it a lie by shouting, “Castle Rock!”

“I’m sorry, baby,”

he said gently. “He’s been there the whole time. Fourteen years. He’s been living with a woman the last twelve.”

He paused, then gave it all to her. “She has two daughters. They were ten and thirteen when they met. He helped raise them.”

“Oh my God,”

she mouthed.

And then she lost it.

He caught her before she went down and got her in bed, stretching out with her and holding her close.

She had a lot to get out, and he was glad as fuck she did it, sobbing and bucking and hiccupping in his arms. It took a long time, but eventually she wound down, sniffling, rubbing her face on his tee and burrowing into his body.

He tangled his fingers in her hair, bent his head and asked into the top of hers, “Okay?”

She nodded, but said, “I mean, not okay okay. Like, you know, my dad was essentially one town over, raising some other woman’s kids, while we all suffered through. But I’m not going to cry or shout any more tonight.”

She tipped her head back to look at him and added, “Though, I reserve the right to do so at a later date. Mostly the shouting part.”

He smiled at her.

She watched then shoved her face in his throat.

“What a jackass,”

she mumbled there.

He had a different term for it, but he didn’t share.

“Hate this, baby,”

he said quietly. “But I’m kinda not done.”

She tipped her head back again. “Do I need to fortify before this next by eating the napoleons? Special note, I referred to them in plural so I mean both of them, Luke. I’ll buy you a make-up one tomorrow.”

He laughed softly, fell to his back and pulled her up on his chest.

“No. You’re not eatin’ my napoleon. But I gotta remind you that he came lookin’ for me so he could find you.”

“Yeah. Unless he had some investigative work he needed done to take care of his other family, the one he stuck around to raise, and someone said my name, so with the one of you plus the one of me making two, he got curious.”

“It wasn’t that,”

Luke murmured, watching her closely.

She noticed and asked, “What?”

Luke pointed out the obvious. “He’d like to see you.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I told him I’d tell you what he wanted, and if he didn’t hear from you, he needed to take that as your answer and stay out of your life. I also told him, if you went the other way, you wouldn’t be seeing him without me there.”

She narrowed her eyes on him. “Did you threaten him?”

She knew him down to his soul.

Therefore, he didn’t hesitate to reply, “Abso-fucking-lutely.”

“I kinda wish I saw that,”

she muttered.

He gave her a shake. “Babe.”

She refocused on him and saw on his face he wanted an answer. “Do I need to decide now?”

“You can decide twenty years from now. I just wanna know you’re all right.”

“I’m fine, Luke.”

“My tee says different. It’s soaked, and I’m guessin’ half that is snot.”

“Ugh,”

she grunted.

He smiled at her.

Then he ran his fingers through the soft mass of thick hair on the side of her head and again cupped the back of her neck.

“I’m with you whatever you decide,”

he told her.

“What would you do?”

she asked.

He shook his head on the pillow. “I know what I’d do. But I’m not you and this has to be all you.”

“You wouldn’t see him,”

she correctly guessed.

“I wouldn’t waste another fuckin’ second on the guy. But again, I’m not you.”

Something occurred to her. It lit in her gorgeous eyes before it came out her pretty mouth, “How, exactly, did this conversation between you and Dad go? You know, aside from the threat?”

There was more than a hint of suspicion in that.

So yeah.

Down to his soul.

“We’ll just say we didn’t hug.”

She tensed. “Oh my God, you gave him shit.”

Maybe she was crazier than he thought.

“Fuck yeah, baby. He left you. He hurt you. So I didn’t shake his hand and clap him on the shoulder and congratulate him on his healthy tan. I gave him shit.”

Curiosity sparked. “Did he have a tan?”

“Ava babe,”

he began carefully. “He looked healthy. Happy. He was far from thrilled that I stood in the way of him getting to you. He was even less thrilled when I told him I’d offered to find him for you, and you declined.”

Her eyes widened. “You told him that?”

“Yeah. I did,”

Luke affirmed. “He was happy we were together. He said he wants a chance to explain. He makes good money, lives in a nice home in an upper middleclass neighborhood with a pretty woman who loves him so much, she doesn’t ask questions about why he won’t marry her, seein’ as he fell off her grid. Not the grid, but your mom’s grid, so she couldn’t find him, and he’s still married to her. He has not suffered. He went on to better things. And regardless of what those two fuckin’ sisters of yours are like, how much nagging he had to endure from your mom, he made a family and thought he had the right to just bow out. You’re unhappy, you walk away. You set up a new life. You find ways to establish boundaries with your ex-partner so she won’t fuck with your head. But you don’t leave your children behind. Ever.”

“I think I’ve decided,”

she announced.

Luke took his hand from her neck so he could wrap both arms around her tight.

“What’d you decide?” he asked.

“I’ve decided I’m not going to decide right now. I think it might take twenty years. Or it might take two. Or it might take until after we eat our napoleons. However long it takes, that’s how long it’s going to take. I’m not going to stress. I’ll know when I know. Then he’ll know when I know if I decide to see him. But now, I’m just going to…carry on.”

Luke grinned. “That’s my girl.”

“You want your napoleon?”

Yup.

That was his girl.

Drama…and onward.

He flipped her to her back. “Gotta work for it.”

Her gaze heated and her words were breathy when she declared, “I get top.”

“You’re gonna get somethin’, but it isn’t top.”

“I thought men liked women riding them.”

“I want you in the saddle, baby, I’ll put you there. I’m in the saddle tonight.”

She gave a side eye to nothing, muttering, “Whatever.”

“Babe?”

She looked to him.

“Kiss me.”

Hungry joined the heat in her gaze.

And then she kissed him.

Luke woke when the nagging pain he felt in his gut meant it was time to turn, and Ava didn’t turn them.

Which meant he woke to an empty bed.

He didn’t have to search for her. He knew where she was.

So he threw back the covers, padded through the loft and went to her.

He settled on the floor behind her and surrounded her with his bent legs, pulling her—curled thighs to tits, his tee stretched over her knees—into his chest.

“I should have landed a fist in his face,”

he growled into her ear.

She turned her head to face him. “Why?”

“You can’t sleep.”

“I can’t sleep because I’m happy.”

Luke’s head jerked.

Ava kept talking.

“You were the first boy I loved. You’re the only man I’ve loved. I have no idea what Dad showing would have done to me a couple of months ago, when you weren’t in my life. And okay, I didn’t handle it with smooth decorum when you told me. But…whatever. In the end, I know the blow was softer because you delivered it, and you were there to hold me while I dealt. I also know you’ll support whatever I decide whenever I make the decision.”

She twisted in his arms and used her hands to cup his jaw. “I’m not sleeping, Luke, because I kinda don’t care about Dad coming back. I’ve got everything I need because I’ve got you. And after feeling his abandonment for half my life like a hole that’s never filled, and now it’s just gone, that’s a lot for a girl to deal with, and it isn’t conducive to sleep.”

Luke was dealing with a lot too.

And he had one particular way he worked that kind of feeling out when it was about Ava.

So she was on her back and he was on top of her in half a second.

“I want you to fuck me, honey, but I’m not sure about doing the business on hardwood,”

she whispered.

So he was up, she was tossed over his shoulder, and he stalked to the bed.

He threw her down on it, caught her ankles, flipped her to her belly, then jacked her toward him and up to her knees at the edge of the bed.

“Luke,”

she breathed.

He yanked her panties to her thighs.

“Luke!”

He slid his fingers through her wet.

Soaked. Always. For him.

He shoved his shorts over his ass and drilled in.

Her head flew back.

“Yes,”

she whispered.

Oh yes.

He fucked her in a way she’d never call it hanky-panky again.

And after, once he’d cleaned her up, repositioned her panties, and had her held close to him under the covers in their bed, was when he spoke.

“You were the first girl I loved and the only woman I’ve ever loved, Ava. Know it. And don’t forget it.”

“I won’t, baby. I think you just drilled that in so deep, me forgetting that would be impossible.”

“Good,”

he grunted. “Go to sleep.”

“So bossy.”

“As if you don’t like it,”

he muttered.

She pushed closer. “Oh, I like it. All of it.”

Fuck.

His woman.

His Ava.

He held her tight, and finally she shut up and fell asleep.

Which meant so did he.