“Bullet to the gut,” he shared without hesitation.
I closed my eyes tight, visions of Luke with a gaping, bloody wound at his belly danced unhappily through my head. I didn’t like the visions, they scared the shit right out of me so I opened my eyes again.
“When?” I asked.
“Last summer.”
“How?”
“Babe,” he said softly and with a hint of regret. “I can’t tell you that. The cases we work are confidential.”
“Right,” I said.
“I’m good at what I do.”
“I’m sure you are.”
His hands drifted up my back, pulling me closer. “You’re hangin’ on to this to hold me back. You’re a lot stronger than you’re sayin’ and you know it,” he told me.
“How did Vance feel when he was trying to staunch the blood pouring out of Jules?” Luke’s body went still at my soft words and I knew it was wrong to use this against him but I kept at it. “I get the impression from both you and Jules that you two are close. You were there. How did you feel seeing her lying there bleeding?”
His face changed, to my shock he let me see the pain slice through it and it hurt like hell to watch.
Then he said, “Quiet, Ava.”
“You want me to go through that?”
One of his hands slid up my neck into my hair, twisting it gently in his fist. “You wanna know what I want?” he asked.
Um. No. I definitely didn’t want to know what he wanted.
Before I could get a word in, he told me. “I want the old you to come back and make me laugh. I want the new you to toss your attitude around and make me hard. I liked comin’ home tonight to you, even knowin’ you were pissed at me. I liked leavin’ last night for work, knowin’ you were in my bed. I might like it for a week or I might like it for a lot longer. I can’t make any promises. All I know is, I want you now and you want me even though you won’t admit it. And I’m gonna do whatever it takes to give us what we want for as long as it lasts until however it ends.”
“You never listen to me,” I told him, beginning to get angry because I was right, if his latest speech was anything to go by he didn’t.
“I listen to you,” he said.
“Then you don’t hear me.”
“Ava, I hear you,” he was beginning to sound impatient.
I stared at him. He stared at me. This went on for a while.
He sighed and touched his lips to mine then said, “I’ll take you to dinner.”
“I don’t want dinner,” I shot back.
His eyes started to melt. “All right. I’m hungry but I’m happy to eat somethin’ else.”
Ee-yikes!
“I’ve just realized, I’m hungry. Let’s go to dinner.”
He gave me a half-grin.
We went to dinner.
Chapter Thirteen