I felt panic seize my chest. “I’m not moving in with you.”
“You’re movin’ in with me.”
“I’m not.”
He reached behind his back then his arm came forward and I saw the cuffs.
Oh no.
I started to take off but didn’t even get by him. He whirled me back around, hand wrapped around my upper arm. I yanked at my arm but he grabbed my wrist and slapped the bracelet on me and then he slapped the other bracelet on him.
“I can’t believe you cuffed me to you again!” I shouted.
“Now, we’re packing.”
“I’m not moving in with you,” I pulled back, putting all my weight into it as he started walking. He dragged me, and all my weight, into the bedroom.
“This is too much,” I snapped as he went to the closet and threw open the door.
He turned to me. “Pack.”
“I have my office here. I have my yoga mat here. I can’t move out,” I babbled.
He jerked on our cuffed hands and I flew forward, slamming into him.
His arms went around me (thus taking one of my arms and twisting it behind my back) and he held on tight, his face dipping to mine.
“Since I seem to have to repeat myself every time I need to get something through to you, I’ll keep doin’ it.” His eyes were shining dangerously and it was clear his patience was at an end.
Eek.
“First, I’m not gonna f**k around with this shit. You’ve been kidnapped twice in two days and shot at. As of now, that shit is over. My building is secure, your house is not. You’re movin’ in, end of discussion. Second, I want you in my bed. I want you to look at me the way you looked at me after our first kiss but I want you to do it when my c**k is buried inside you. Third, you owe me and you’re gonna pay. The first one is happening now. The last two are gonna happen tonight. Do you understand me?”
I understood him. I so understood him.
I stared at him, my chest seemed to have expanded and my eyes seemed frozen in a wide-open position. Unable to speak after what he’d just said, I nodded.
“Good,” he clipped. “Now, pack.”
At that juncture, I thought it prudent to pack.
So I packed.
* * * * *
I was drunk.
I knew it wasn’t smart but I didn’t care. I’d been kidnapped (twice), wrestled with my best friend’s husband in a parking garage and moved in with Luke. I needed to get drunk.
Screw the consequences.
* * * * *
At my house I packed. Luke uncuffed me so I could do it.
This was after, still attached to him, I threw a few things in a bag and muttered, “Done.”
He looked at the bag and back at me and demanded, “More.”
I sighed, he uncuffed me and I packed more.
We toted my two suitcases (and my yoga mat) out to his Porsche. The Bad Boy Bunch was still hanging around outside likely for moral support. They all looked at Luke with understanding and at me with impatience. All except Tex who was grinning at me like the crazy guy I was thinking he was.
For some reason, even though I didn’t know him (at all), he put his big hand on the top of my head and said, “Been a long time since we had some excitement, darlin’.”
Luke glared at him, obviously not sharing in Tex’s excitement. Tex chuckled as he took his hand from my head.
While I thanked Mr. Kumar for saving me from dastardly Dom, Luke talked to Matt who peeled off and went back into my house.
“What’s he doing?” I asked as Luke led me to the Porsche.
“Your computer,” Luke said.
Shit.
He had it all covered. I was so screwed.
We went to his place, dumped my stuff, I unpacked my toiletries in the bathroom, changed out of my torn blouse and cleaned up.
Then he took me to Lincoln’s Road House, a no-frills biker bar that was located on a slip road off I-25. They had great food, great atmosphere and, usually, great music. It was Saturday night and a band was playing when we got there. Luke glared a couple of guys who were hanging out but not eating away from a table. He planted my ass on a stool and got menus.
I could tell he was still pissed. I could also tell he was still controlling it.
He got me a Fat Tire beer and I was reading the menu (Luke was not, he likely knew it by heart) when Jules and Vance joined us.
I could have done a cartwheel of joy. Saved from Luke’s bad attitude by my ex-vigilante current-social worker new friend and her bounty hunter boyfriend.
We all ordered food and we ate.
I was trying very hard not to think about what Luke said in my bedroom. I was scared to death about that night. No, I was scared to death about everything, everything about Luke and everything about my life. I couldn’t deal, not openly, so I buried it and as I buried each and every word he said and all that had happened the last two days, I got more and more stressed out.
Therefore, when Hank and Roxie joined us and Daisy and Shirleen hit our party and then Tex ambled in, I decided, f**k it.
Time to party.
So I got drunk.
* * * * *
“How’s it goin’, Sugar?” Daisy asked me, blue eyes soft with concern, when all the girls were shoulder-to-shoulder in the tiny bathroom, breaking the seal and reapplying lipstick.
I knew she was likely asking if I was okay about Kidnapping Part Two but I ignored that and got to the important stuff.
“I moved in with Luke this afternoon,” I told her and she sucked in breath, her eyes slid to Shirleen and they both smiled at each other.
I was in my Good Drunk Zone, feeling fine, feeling loose, feeling talkative (which was, along with losing my inhibitions, another bad habit I had when I was tipsy).
“This is not good. You would not believe what he said to me,” I announced.
Roxie and Jules got close and, even though I barely knew any of them, I told them about the latest incident and I did so in great detail. There was more sucking in of breath then more smiles.
“Shit. I thought some of the stuff that Vance said to you was Sexy Hot Boy Hot but Luke’s got him beat by a mile,” Daisy told Jules.
“I’d pay a man to talk to me that way,” Shirleen put in.
“He’s a jerk,” I said happily, sounding as if this was a good thing and applying shiny lip-gloss to my lips in the mirror. “I hate him.” Again, this was said with drunken good cheer and all the girls looked at each other, lips tipped up at the ends. “I’m moving to Wyoming the first chance I get. I’m moving in with Sissy’s mother even if Sissy isn’t there anymore. Mrs. Whitchurch likes me and she owns a shotgun on account of the bears that are always going through her trash.”