Rock Chick Revenge (Rock Chick #5)(81)

No, I actually didn’t want to tell him.

“Um…”

“Ava,” he said low.

What the hell. “Well, I told Ren what was happening and he kind of arranged for Sissy and me to have bodyguards.”

He stared at me a beat then his head dropped and he might have been staring at his feet or he might have closed his eyes. I couldn’t see which one and it didn’t matter really. He was in another masculine position of reflection, this time likely wondering what in the hell he’d gotten himself into when he got mixed up with me.

I thought it best to carry on with breakfast. The toast in the toaster had long since come up and wouldn’t be hot anymore so the butter wouldn’t melt. I hated non-melted butter on toast. I decided to let Luke have the non-melted butter ones, exchanged toast for bread and pressed down the lever.

“Ava,” Luke said from behind me.

I turned. He was now sitting on the counter, eyes on me.

“Come here,” he said softly.

Don’t ask me why, but for some reason, I went. He opened his legs and I walked between them. He closed his thighs against my sides, wrapped a hand around the back of my neck as I tilted my head back to look at him and his face came close.

“You’re lucky,” he told me.

“I am?” I asked.

“Yeah. You’re lucky I’ve f**ked you. You’re lucky it was mind-blowing. You’re lucky I think it’s f**kin’ sweet-as-hell that you would nestle into me and fall asleep with me inside you. You’re lucky I like you movin’ around my kitchen wearin’ my sweatshirt. You didn’t have all that, babe, I gotta tell you I would likely be pretty f**kin’ pissed Zano assigned one of his thugs to be your bodyguard.”

“Well, I didn’t –” I started to say in my own defense (really, I didn’t, it wasn’t my idea for Ren to give me a bodyguard) but Luke’s lips touched mine and I stopped talking.

“Don’t try your luck,” he warned.

I thought about trying my luck. I did this while looking in Luke’s eyes. I decided not to try my luck.

“You want toast or what?” I asked kind of bitchy.

He did a half-grin, his hand slid in my hair and he gave me the kiss he meant to give me five minutes before.

In the end, my toast had non-melted butter too.

* * * * *

Luke and I went to the hospital to see Bobby.

Santo Mancini followed us in a black Volvo. Glancing out the back window of the Porsche, I noticed he was one of my kidnappers, the driver. Well, at least it wasn’t the other guy. I didn’t think the other guy liked me.

My phone rang on the way to the hospital. It said “Sissy calling.”

I flipped it open and put it to my ear. “Yo,” I said.

“Some big, beefy guy is here,” Sissy informed me, sounding kind of breathless. “Says his name is Lucky and he’s my bodyguard. He doesn’t look like one of the hot guys. I just screamed in his face and closed the door. He’s outside, standing by his car. What do I do?”

Damn, damn, damn.

“Ren set it up,” I told her. “He’s not one of the Hot Bunch. He’s one of Ren’s um… people.”

“Oh. So he’s okay?” Sissy sounded less panicked.

That was a question I couldn’t answer. “I think so,” I said.

“Did they find the Hot Bunch guy that was missing?” she asked.

I bit my lip and watched Luke drive for a few beats.

“Ava?” Sissy called in my ear.

“Luke and I are going to visit him at the hospital now.”

Silence then quietly she said, “Shit.”

She could say that again.

“Dom’s a dickhead,” she whispered. “He started all this and now someone is in the hospital. Someone we don’t even know.”

“Did Dom call you?” I asked, remembering my conversation with Dom last night.

“Yes, like, five times,” she said, now sounding pissy. “I didn’t answer.”

Shoo. At least that crisis was averted.

“Well, don’t answer if he calls again. We have to talk. I’ll call you after we get done at the hospital.”

“I want to know everything. What a date with Ren is like. How Luke was when you got home. Everything. I’ll meet you at Fortnum’s,” she said.

There was something about Sissy calling Luke’s loft “home’ that freaked me out. I didn’t feel like freaking out in Luke’s Porsche with Luke in it (again or ever really). I needed to freak out privately with lots of bags of cookies available.

“Sounds good,” I said instead.

I was about to say good-bye when I heard her say, “Ava?”

“What?”

“Did Luke give you the business?” she asked.

I looked at Luke again. He was driving, calm, casual, practiced, eyes on the road, seemingly oblivious to our conversation.

I looked away. “Yeah,” I answered quietly.

She screamed so loud I had to pull the phone away from my ear. I glanced at Luke when I heard him chuckle.

Fuckity, f**k, f**k, f**k.

* * * * *

I stood outside Bobby’s hospital room facing the wall, forehead resting against it.

Just a minute before, I saw that Bobby was a big guy and looked like a younger Tex, except less crazy (though how would I know if Bobby actually was less crazy, considering he was lying in a hospital bed in a coma). I couldn’t help but feel the blame that Big Bobby was lying in a hospital bed. Still, I vowed sextuple revenge against Dominic Dickhead.