There you go.

Time for a different tack.

“Okay then you want to know how I felt when you first said you were going to go after him?”

Luke just looked at me.

“I felt happy,” I shared. “My stomach got melty. I was glad someone wanted to take care of me.”

Silence.

I persevered even though doing so scared the shit out of me. We were in vulnerable territory here, way vulnerable.

“Last night, you were preparing to go gonzo. You didn’t because I needed you. Last night you also said you can’t say no to me. If I pushed it, that I didn’t want you to go after him, really pushed it, would you have?”

More silence.

Shit.

It was going to have to be all or nothing.

I put my hands to his neck and moved so I was facing him.

Do it, say it, the time is right, Good Ava urged.

Don’t! The time will NEVER be right! Bad Ava yelled.

For once I listened to Good Ava, took a breath and bared it all.

Quietly, I said, “Yesterday, when I was in my freak out about Jules, Daisy said to me that I was trying to find ways to protect my heart but I was doing it wrong. She told me the best way to protect my heart was to trust it to someone who will protect it for me.”

More silence but his body went completely still.

“That’s you. It’s always been you,” I whispered, my heart racing, I was scared as hell but I forged ahead. “Please don’t take responsibility for Noah being an ass**le. I couldn’t bear it if you did that.”

I’d barely stopped talking when, without a word, Luke got up, taking me with him. He carried me to the bed and put me in it, coming down on top of me.

“You belong to me,” he stated, his voice soft, his tone firm, his hands starting to roam.

I was pretty f**king happy he seemed to be delighted (in a Luke way, of course) with the news that I’d trusted him with my heart.

Still I wasn’t ready to go there just yet.

“Take it back that you feel responsible,” I said instead.

“Tell me you belong to me,” he demanded.

“Take it back first,” I countered.

The roaming hands were getting serious so mine started to roam too just because I didn’t want to be left out.

He kissed me gently then against my mouth he said, “I’ll wait. You can say it when I’m inside you.”

“Seriously, you can be so annoying,” I told him.

“Babe,” he said as he smiled against my mouth.

For your information a lot later, when he was deep inside me, I gave him what he wanted.

I mean, this was Luke. I was his woman.

And I did belong to him.

For as long as I could remember.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Gonzo

Luke and I walked into the Nightingale Investigations offices and everyone was in the reception area waiting for us.

When I said everyone, I mean everyone.

Lee and Indy, Jet and Eddie, Hank and Roxie, Vance and Jules, Sissy, Ally, Daisy with a tall, dark-haired, handsome man I did not know standing at her side, Shirleen, May, Tod and Stevie, Mace, Matt, Hector, Darius, Tex, Duke, and some big black dude I’d never seen before in my life.

“Holy shit,” I whispered.

Luke’s mouth got tight.

Everyone stared at me and I knew why. I didn’t look good. I got a good look at myself in the hotel mirror that morning, my lip was torn and my eye was bruised and blackened (and that didn’t count what they couldn’t see and that was the headache to end all headaches). Not to mention, these people talked, no way to keep a secret in this group, news spread like wildfire.

Shirleen was the first to break out of the Group Stare. She walked up to me and pulled me into tight hug.

“Child,” she said low, a tremor running through her voice, a tremor that communicated itself to my body.

“I’m fine,” I told her, putting my arms around her and giving her a reassuring squeeze.

She just held on tight.

After a few beats she leaned back and looked at my face close up. As I watched, sweet, soft, gentle Shirleen morphed into hard, angry, pissed-off Shirleen.

“No one messes with my girl,” she said quietly, eyes still scanning my face. She stepped back, let me go and looked towards the male contingent of our audience. Then she repeated, “No one messes with my girl.” This time she said it louder, angrier, it sounded like an order and the tension in the room, already high, climbed higher. Nobody seemed prepared to do a thing about it, in fact they all seemed to be feeding off it.

Not good.

Before I could intervene, Shirleen looked at Darius. “You got me, son?” she asked.

“I got you, Aunt Shirleen,” Darius said and my surprised gaze swung between Shirleen and Darius. I didn’t know they were related.

Then Shirleen, not quite done, looked at Lee. “Do you got me?” she repeated.

“Shirleen, it’ll be taken care of,” Lee replied calmly but his voice held a lethal edge.

“It better be,” she said, her voice low again this time with scary meaning. “It better f**kin’ be.”

Eek!

Time to move on.

I looked at Indy, hoping to change the subject. “Who’s taking care of Fortnum’s?”

“Fortnum’s is closed for a staff meeting,” Duke answered my question in his gravelly voice, his tone doing nothing to dissipate the scary atmosphere and therefore he foiled my attempt to change the subject.

“But, you can’t –” I started.

“We can, we have, we’re not f**kin’ goin’ back until this shit is sorted,” Tex threw down.

I felt weird. Moved but scared and kept my eyes on Indy. “You can’t do that,” I said.

Indy just shook her head. “Jane, one of my staff, Kitty Sue, who’s Lee’s Mom and Jet’s Mom, Nancy, are at the store explaining things to the customers. They’ll open in the afternoon when the crowds are smaller and they can handle them. Until then, well, Ava, you know that no one messes with a Rock Chick, not ever, but especially not –”

“Indy,” Lee said low, interrupting her. I could tell she had been working herself up to rant mode. At Lee’s voice, she pulled in her bottom lip, bit it and kept quiet but I knew it cost her.

“I’m fine,” I said again, not just to Indy but to the entire assemblage.

Everyone just kept staring.

Yikes.

“What I want to know,” Shirleen started when no one seemed to be prepared to move, “is why you all standin’ around like you don’t got shit to do? You got shit to do. Serious shit. It’s time to f**kin’ get crackin’.”