“A piece of her,” I whispered, do not ask me why but I did (I knew why, The Voice).
“Who’s got the other pieces?”
I shook my head against his hands. I didn’t think the minuscule amount of information I shared on Noah boded well for Noah’s future. Luke, I was realizing, was not the kind of guy who f**ked around. I couldn’t imagine that Noah was still in town but I knew Rick and Dave were and I didn’t want Luke hunting them down and doing whatever. They were jerks but they were also history.
“Please, get off me,” I said softly.
“Ava, I spent years doin’ some crazy shit and gettin’ paid well for it. Well enough that by the time I came back to Denver for my father’s funeral I could retire.”
Ho-ly shit.
He’d been twenty-eight! What kind of “crazy shit” paid you enough to retire at twenty-eight?
I sucked in breath and stared.
“To keep from gettin’ bored, because I like it, because I’m good at it and because Lee pays me a shitload of money to do it, I work. I could walk away from it tomorrow and live a good life, even takin’ care of someone along the way.”
Whoa.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
I was digging deeper than ever to bury that.
“I’d never f**k you over, steal your money. No f**kin’ way.”
And even deeper to bury that.
“Please, Luke, get off me.”
To my surprise he did, sliding off to my side. I immediately turned my back to him and scooted away several inches. He wanted to sleep with me fine, we’d sleep. Then tomorrow, I was moving to Wyoming.
Luke had other ideas.
His arm slid under me, hooked at my waist and hauled me back into his body. The second I made contact, his body pressed into mine and his other arm went around me.
“I want her back,” he said into my hair and his words made me shiver. I had to close my eyes tight to stop my tears and my thoughts.
He went on. “I’ve decided I like the bitchy Ava, the way you throw your attitude around is sexy as hell, but I still want the old Ava back.”
“She’s gone,” I whispered again, do not ask me why.
His arms tightened and his mouth came to my ear.
“She’s right here.”
* * * * *
You would have thought I’d never get to sleep after that but somehow I did.
Deeper in the night, when it was still dark, my body moved again not of its own volition.
Sometime during the night we’d come face-to-face. Arms around me, he rolled me over his body and to his other side. Again he hooked my leg over his hip.
“Why do you do that?” I whispered sleepily as I wrapped my arm around his waist, slid the fingers of my other hand into the hair at his chest and pressed in close to his warm, hard body.
He might have answered but I didn’t hear him because I was already back to sleep.
* * * * *