“You’re nuts! You’re crazy! You’re following me. You handcuffed me. We just got shot at. I can’t believe this shit. Take me to my goddamned car!”

He pulled over, the Porsche moved sleekly under his command but this was still sudden enough for me to snap my mouth shut. When he had the car idling, he turned to me, his left hand shot out, wrapping around my neck and pulling me toward him.

Our faces an inch apart, he said, “Quiet, Ava.”

“I will not be quiet,” I screamed in his face. “I’m freaked right the hell out. We were just shot at! I think we just ran away from a crime scene. And, I repeat, you just handcuffed me to you!”

“You got the choice to be quiet or I’ll shut you up.”

“Yeah? How are you gonna do that? Gag me?” I yelled.

“I had somethin’ else in mind.”

“Fuck quiet!” I shouted, ignoring his words, totally in Freak Out La-la Land. “I need tequila. I need my car. I need to call Sissy,” I was rambling and I knew it but I had been in a room that exploded.

“Quiet,” he repeated, his voice holding a low warning.

I also ignored the warning. “Seriously, take me to my goddamned car.”

“Why am I always repeating myself with you?” he asked, sounding slightly impatient.

“Maybe because I don’t snap to when you tell me to do something like all the other women in your life likely do,” I retorted, sounding bitchy as all hell.

It was at that, he jerked me forward with his hand at my neck, his head slanted and I kid you not, he kissed me.

For your information, those lips were hard when they kissed you.

Ho-ly crap!

I was stunned still as his mouth moved over mine. Then he let me go as quickly as he kissed me, turned back to the wheel and we moved into traffic.

I decided my best course of action at that moment was to stay silent. It was a good thing to do. It gave me the time to bury Luke’s hard, angry kiss right down deep next to him shielding me from gunfire with his body and us getting shot at.

I’d wanted Luke to kiss me like, for ages but not like that. I didn’t even know you could kiss someone like that.

My silence and our drive also gave me time mentally to rehearse my conversation with Sissy about this incident: Um, Sissy, you know that pottery collection, “Day of the Dead” by Stephen Kilborn, you’ve been painstakingly collecting for years…?

We were in lower downtown when Luke’s right hand moved, taking my left one with it, pulling me out of my unhappy thoughts, to flip down his sun visor. The car slowed and he hit a button affixed to his visor then he flipped it back up, his (and my) hand moving to the stick as he downshifted.

“Where are we going?” I broke the silence.

He turned into an underground parking area and headed to an open spot of which, I noted, there were many.

“You’re staying at my place while I find out what the f**k is goin’ on.”

He parked, pulled up the brake and turned off the car while I processed this information, coming to the conclusion I did not want to be at Luke’s place while he found out what was going on. I didn’t want to be at Luke’s place at all.

Before I could protest (not that it would matter), he got out his side, which meant considering I was attached to him I had to scramble over the seat and follow him.

“Luke, I need to get my car, my purse is in my car,” I said while he closed the door behind me and bleeped the locks. I used a calmer, more rational voice, hoping to impress him with my cool attitude and get him to do what I wanted.

“One of the boys will bring it here,” he said, hitting the button to an elevator.

“What boys?”

“Lee’s boys.”

Oh. Well then. That was my car taken care of.

I carried on to the next important subject. “I should go home. I’m supposed to call Sissy.”

He turned to me, eyes assessing. “You know where Sissy is?” he asked.

Oops. I’d just outed myself on the “just visiting Sissy at her house” lie.

Argh!

“Um… ” I muttered, wondering how to backtrack on what I had given away.

“Jesus Christ. You two are in on this together,” he said, yanking me into the elevator and pressing a button. We were still cuffed together but he was holding my hand.

“There’s nothing to be in on together.” Oh man, there it was, lying again. I was going straight to hell.

“You two were always in on something together,” Luke said.

“We were not,” I lied (again!).

Luke looked at me and I found it hard to return his angry stare.

“What about the time you two lit off bottle rockets in the middle of the night in Old Man Humphries backyard? He nearly had a stroke.”

I made a sound like “humph”. “He deserved it. He shot Sissy’s dog… for trespassing! How can a dog trespass?”

He didn’t answer me. He went on. “And the time you sold a bag of oregano to Mitch and Josh Burk, telling them it was pot?”

“We needed money, there was a Kiss tribute show coming up. They never figured it out, said it was the best weed they’d ever had.”

“And the time you filled Megan Carmichael’s car with popcorn?”

“She was a bitch. She stole Sissy’s boyfriend.”

He shook his head as if I was the crazy person in this scenario, not him; Mr. Handcuff Man. The doors opened and we walked into a semi-dark space. It wasn’t that dark since the lights of LoDo were shining in from quite a number of huge floor to almost-ceiling arched windows.

I knew it was a loft, a kickass loft, but this was confirmed when Luke flipped a switch, soft lamps lit the space and he dragged me into it.

I didn’t fight. I stared.

His loft was super-fly.

One huge room with four huge windows down one side, two windows down both the narrow sides. All the walls were exposed brick, the ceiling had duct work, painted black, and the floor was shining wood planks cut only with rugs under the bed and living room areas. Smack center, between the four windows opposite the elevator, there was a kitchen area with a counter against the wall, a semi-circular bar facing the room, stools around the bar with stainless-steel bases and black leather seats. There were shiny, black appliances including an enormous fridge. To the side, stationed between the two windows, there was a black couch, a huge black recliner to one side, a black-lacquered coffee table and a gigantic flat screen TV was fixed to the wall. Well across from the kitchen was a big bed with a black, slatted head and footboard, but deep-gray sheets and comforter. The other side of the room had a set of weights, a weight bench, a fancy weight machine and an elliptical machine. In the corner next to the weights, there was a small room made of glass block that I assumed was the bathroom.