This was not smart. He bit his bottom lip with his teeth and looked away from me. When his eyes came back to me, my body went still.
Oh dear, Good Ava muttered.
Holy SHIT! Bad Ava exploded.
One could say I knew Luke pretty well. I hadn’t been around him in a long time but I had watched him grow up (with avid interest). His Mom was friends with my Mom. He and I had shared some laughs and some intense moments. Still, you didn’t have to know Luke to know that grown up, tough guy, macho man Luke was barely controlling what appeared to be a very scary fury.
“Was it good?” he asked.
I blinked, not expecting that question not even understanding it. “What?” I asked back.
“When you touched yourself, was it good?”
My mouth dropped open and my lungs seized.
Ho-ly crap.
“How did you –?” I breathed.
“Cameras,” he told me and my body jerked. My eyes swung around the loft but Luke started speaking again and they went back to him. “You won’t see them. I had the place wired, surveillance put in so when I wasn’t here with you, the boys could watch out for you. When I’m not here, they’re monitoring the loft.”
Ho-ly crap.
“Did they see –?”
“Jack turned it off. He knew I’d break his neck if he watched you do that. He gave you some time. Apparently too much time. By the time he turned on the cameras, you were gone.”
I was certain I was going to die. I actually wanted to die. The very idea of the Nightingale Investigations men knowing what I’d done, it was mortifying.
“Where’d you go?” Luke asked, breaking me out of thoughts of how best to off myself.
“I spent some time with Sissy,” I told him immediately and that wasn’t a total lie.
“And Shirleen and Daisy?” Luke pressed.
I didn’t know how he knew this, but I thought it was safe to say, “Um… yes.”
“Spent some time being pursued by a dark blue SUV down Hampden Avenue? Your back bumper completely f**ked up. Losing him after nearly rolling onto I-25?”
Holy crap!
How did he know this shit? It was just bizarre.
I kept my mouth shut. I thought that was the sensible way to go.
“It was reported to the police, by about two dozen other drivers. In detail, with license plates and descriptions of the people in the vehicles.”
Crapity, crap, crap, crap.
“Luke –”
“Come here,” he said quietly and his voice was not affectionate, it was lethal.
“I don’t think I want to,” I told him.
“That may be the smartest decision you’ve made today,” he said back.
Okay. Hang on a second.