Rock Chick Reawakening (Rock Chick 0.5)(13)

Not at all.

Definitely not with a man like him.

And taking it slow meant taking it slow. Friday was only two days away. That wasn’t slow!

“Yes,” he agreed.

“I…you…uh…”

I stopped talking.

“Friday,” he decreed.

“No,” I whispered.

He seemed to lean toward me.

At that perceived movement, I scrambled off the bench and took a big step back.

His hands came out of his pockets and he lifted them to his sides.

“Daisy, I won’t—”

“No,” I shook my head. “No more flowers. No lunch on Friday.”

“Please, I simply—”

“No.”

It came out strangled.

Then I turned and ran.

But I heard him order curtly, obviously not to me, “Make sure she gets home safely.”

And whoever it was did just that if the Mercedes trailing me in my Porsche was anything to go by.

Crap.

Damn.

Shit.

I stood at the window in my apartment staring down at the Mercedes that didn’t move from sitting at the curb in front of my building.

Crap.

Damn.

Shit.

Okay.

Whatever.

Shit happened. Then it stopped happening and you moved on.

Whatever this was with Marcus Sloan would stop happening too.

And I’d move on.

I turned away from my window.

And all I saw was daisies.





“I’m likin’ it but it needs some sparkle,” I told Chardonnay late Friday morning while sitting in the dancer’s dressing room at Smithie’s as she modeled her new stripper duds for me, doing it busting some moves.

It was pasties, a G-string, and platform stripper sandals.

She still needed sparkle.

“Daisy, where am I gonna put sparkle?” she asked, staring down at her mostly nude body.

“Glue gun the shit outta some and put it over your coochie, girl,” I advised. “Boys’ eyes go there, least that’s covered and they’re not lookin’ at your tits. Well, at least not all the time.”

“This bears contemplation,” Chardonnay murmured.

This bears contemplation.

This bitch slayed me.

Her name wasn’t Chardonnay. It was Penelope. She was pre-med, a senior, already accepted to medical school. She was also the shit because pretty much everyone knew she was stripping and she didn’t give a crap.

“By the time I’m practicing rheumatology,” she’d shared with me, “I’ll be getting paid a whack and it’ll be all mine. I’ll buy myself a BMW and a big house in Cherry Hills and I’ll do it right off the bat because I won’t have student loans. So they can think what they want. They can also kiss my ass.”

I, obviously, could not fault this way of thinking.

“Black on black, but also some silver,” I advised. “Subtle but packs a punch.”

“I’m not sure my powers with a glue gun are up to scratch,” she replied.

“Take it off. Rinse it out and give that bitch to me,” I told her. “I’m hell on wheels with a glue gun and I’ll set you up.”

She grinned at me as a knock came at the door.

I looked that way as Chardonnay called, “Just a minute.” Her next was, “Okay, decent.” And I turned to her and saw she’d thrown on a robe.

I also saw she was staring at the door with big eyes and lips parted.

I looked again to the door and then I had big eyes and parted lips.

Oh hell.

Marcus Sloan dipped his chin to Chardonnay and looked to me.

“Daisy, may I have a word?” he asked.

No, he could not.

“I’ll just—” Chardonnay started.

“You can stay here,” Marcus told her. “Daisy and I’ll go to Smithie’s office.”

No, we would not.

“I don’t think—” I began.

I got no more out because his eyes came to me.

He’d never looked at me without sunglasses on.

He had blue eyes.

They were gorgeous.

They were also more.

Those eyes had seen many things. Not a lot of them good. And quite a number of those not-good things were very bad.

I got that. Boy did I get that.

But there was even more.

Another person might find his eyes frightening, that seen it all and didn’t give a shit about any of it look that wasn’t cold and impersonal, just cynical and sly.

I did not find it frightening.

I found it captivating.

He took a step into the room but lifted his arm to the side to indicate the door and said in an invitation that wasn’t exactly that, it was more a command, “Daisy.”

There was something about the mix of his gentlemanly manner and his commanding tone (and, let’s face it, presence) that made me lift my ass off the chair I was sitting on and move his way.

He was not an obstacle to getting out the door so he didn’t move.

However, he did move after I cleared it because he followed me.

Then he put his hand light on the small of my back.

No pressure. Just a touch.