I still couldn’t move but I could talk and I was pissed way the hell off. Pissed enough to disregard Luke’s order.

“You aren’t very smart, are you?” I asked Jeremiah.

“Smart enough to get her money, her car, not that she could use it, and a whole shitload of gold from you.”

“But not smart enough not to get caught and not smart enough to know you just f**ked yourself by not keeping your mouth shut,” I returned.

“Cherry Pie, been dyin’ for a good eye full of you and you gotta know, it was worth it,” Jeremiah said, his eyes sliding the length of me and I added a long hot shower to my evening schedule.

“Ava, get out of here,” Luke’s voice had turned deadly.

“You keep digging deeper,” I ignored Luke and said to Jeremiah.

“They can’t do dick,” Jeremiah taunted.

It was my turn to smile. He was so wrong.

“You don’t know who you’re dealing with, do you?” I asked him.

“Ava –” Luke said.

“Yeah,” Jeremiah broke in, standing and everyone in the room tensed. “Supposedly shit hot PIs but not shit hot enough to know they got the wrong guy.”

“Yes, I will give you that,” I allowed. “They should’ve known no way I’d give a piece of my ‘cherry pie’ to a guy like you. It was lucky when you two were deciding who would screw me over that Noah got the long straw at least he was cute. You wouldn’t have got a first date.”

The smile fled from his face.

I went on. “Anyway, fortune favors the bold and if these boys are nothing else, they’re bold. They may have been looking for Noah but they found you which works just as well because Mrs. Conrad might have a few words to say to you.”

“I don’t give a shit what Aunt Jemima has to say,” Jeremiah snarled.

You would think I couldn’t move faster than three shit hot PIs, especially wearing four and a half inch spiked heels, but I could.

I was on Jeremiah in a flash, hands on his shoulders and, lucky for me, a slit in my skirt deep enough for my knee to connect pretty f**king hard with his gonads.

He dropped to his knees, hands to his crotch, a long groan escaping his mouth.

A steel-band-like arm wrapped around my waist and I was pulled back several feet, my body pressed tight against Luke’s.

I ignored Luke and his arm and hissed to Jeremiah, “Be nice.”

“Fuck you,” Jeremiah moaned and it didn’t sound all that convincing, probably since he had temporarily lost that particular ability.

I looked at Winnie. “Mrs. Conrad?” I called, sounding sweet as sugar. “Do you have anything to say?”

Winnie’s eyes were on Jeremiah but she answered me. “I think you covered it.”

There you go.

Time to move on.

I turned in Luke’s arm and lifted my eyes to his. “I’m guessing you’re not coming to dinner with the Moms.”

Luke just stared at me like I’d broken into a tap dance while singing “Mr. Bo Jangles”.

“All righty then,” I declared. “Don’t worry about getting blood on your clothes. I’m really good at stain removal.”

I leaned into him, hand at his chest, and gave him a quick lip touch. Then I pulled out of his arm but lifted my hand to wipe the lip gloss off his mouth with my thumb.

“Don’t be too late,” I whispered and I watched one side of his mouth go up in a half-grin.

Then all business, I turned to Mrs. Conrad and grabbed her wheel chair.

“Welp, better go. We don’t want to be around when Luke’s meting out gonzo retribution. It might get messy and this is a new dress. Do you want to go to dinner with my family and Luke’s Mom? My treat,” I asked conversationally as I wheeled Mrs. Conrad out of the room.

“That would be lovely. Would be a shame, we both got all dressed up but had nowhere to go,” Mrs. Conrad replied cool as could be, as if we were wheeling through a park, not exiting what amounted to a cell.

“We’re having steaks,” I told her. “You like steak?”

“Girl, I love steak. Who doesn’t like steak?”

“I like steak,” I agreed.

We passed a smiling Monty. We stopped outside the room and I turned to look in. Hector was already moving toward Jeremiah. Vance was watching me and he was wearing a very attractive shit-eating grin. My eyes slid to Luke, his were on me and my heart stuttered when I watched, fascinated, as he winked.

Then I shut the door.

* * * * *

“I’m Ava Barlow. I’m staying with Lucas Stark. Can I have my room key, please?” I asked the reception clerk at Hotel Monaco.

He tapped on his computer, something came up and he read it, smiled at me and gave me my key card telling me the room number. I took it with a return smile and headed to the elevators.

Dinner had been a blast. Marilyn and Sofia had opted out (still pouting). Olivia, Shirleen and Winnie had opted in and Sissy met us there with the Moms. We ate, moved the festivities to the Cruise Room meeting Indy and Jules. We drank martinis (of course Jules didn’t drink martinis seeing as she was preggers), enough to get loose, not enough to get drunk and Shirleen dropped me off at the hotel.

I exited the elevators, found the room and let myself in with the card.

The room was dimly lit with one lamp. Luke was in bed, on his back, hands behind his head, chest bare, covers to his waist, looking Zen.

“Hey,” I said, throwing my purse in a chair.

“Come here,” he replied softly and my knees got week.

I told my knees to behave and asked, “How’s Jeremiah?”

“Incarcerated,” he informed me. “Hank got an anonymous tip, sent a car out. Uniforms picked him up, took him to the hospital to stitch him up and now he’s behind bars. Winnie needs to go in tomorrow to press charges,” his voice dropped low and he continued. “Now, come here.”

I took in a deep breath, let it out and walked to the bed.

When I made it to the side, Luke’s hands came from behind his head, he did an ab curl, caught my waist and pulled me down on top of him.

When we had settled, his fingers sifted into the hair at the side of my head and slid back, taking the weight with it and holding it behind my head.

“I like your hair like this,” he murmured.

“Indy did it,” I shared.

His eyes came to mine. “We got plans tonight, you and me.”

“I already had dinner with the Moms.”

He gave me a half-grin. “I wasn’t talking about those plans.”