Rock Chick Revolution

Chapter Thirteen Lotus, Cowgirl, Scissor and Doggie

I put the plates on the dining room table and adjusted the cutlery.

I’d called Ren ten minutes earlier and lied to him that I was heading home with food. This was a lie since I called when I was already at his place.

It’s important to point out it was a little white lie. One I forgave myself for because I needed time to do all I needed to do (not that I didn’t forgive myself for all of them). And all I needed to do was get the champagne and the chocolate candles I bought from Pasquini’s in the fridge, set the table and arrange the bouquet of flowers and candles there and wash the champagne flutes I also bought.

I’d timed it so all would be ready, but the food would not be cold and I hoped he could wrap things up at work and get home in time to fit in with my plan.

It was a bummer that I didn’t have a fabulous dress and heels he hadn’t already seen to change into. But after leaving the Rock Chick Powwow, I only had enough time to deal with my plans for dinner and not enough time to do some shopping.

The good news was, I’d taxed Roxie, Tod and Stevie with the mission to kit me out with clothes and other items any girl needed to exist and they were all over it. So I suspected I’d have way more than two pairs of jeans tomorrow.

The bad news was, although my insurance company was on top of working through the process of getting me a check, when I’d called my landlord, he’d communicated to me he was not a big fan of keeping me as a tenant.

He communicated this by saying, “Ally, darlin’, you pay your rent on time. You got a lot of visitors, but you’re quiet.” (This, by the by, was only partially true, and indicated to me that none of my neighbors had complained when I played my rock ‘n’ roll.) “And once that stuff hit the papers about your friends, gotta admit, I was expecting this to happen. But, gotta say, I wasn’t expecting it to be this bad.”

I couldn’t argue that. There had been a lot of kidnappings and stun gun usage was not unheard of, but only Stella and me shared our pads getting blown sky high.

“For the safety of my other tenants, maybe we can make arrangements for you to be let out of your lease,” he went on. “Full security deposit back and you don’t have to pay this month’s rent, seeing as there’s no apartment to rent.”

I translated this to mean: It would be a good idea that you let me let you out of your lease so I don’t have to be an asshole and evict you.

It must be said, I didn’t like it when assholes were assholes normally (who did?). Forcing someone who was trying not to be one into one was not my gig. So I agreed to vacate the premises. Figuratively, of course, since currently there were no premises to vacate and I had no possessions actually to vacate.

But this sucked. I couldn’t say I was emotionally attached to my apartment, but I didn’t need to be looking for one at this juncture. I had tons of other shit to do.

I also couldn’t argue with his reasoning. If the unknown jerkoff from New Mexico was a little more gung ho, something already bad could have gone way worse, and I didn’t need that on my conscience or to force the issue and put it on someone else’s.

So maybe I’d look for a house to rent. One with land. Like ten acres. On ten acres, Tex could set a shitload of booby traps.

Therefore I was planning a nice dinner with Ren that was more than just Chinese takeout because I needed a nice dinner with Ren, seeing as I’d been fired and made homeless on the same day. I figured from our phone call earlier he needed a nice dinner too. I also wanted to break the seal on his dining room table doing something special.

But it was mostly that I wanted to do something special. We hadn’t had our first official date and he clearly wasn’t in the mood for that tonight, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t celebrate.

And I’d nearly screwed us up and I needed to make it up to him.

He was sweet. He needed to know in not giving up on me that he’d get that back.

And it wouldn’t hurt that, if I buttered him up with my sweetness, he might take the news I was going to officially become a private investigator without losing his Italian American hotheaded mind (too much).

I heard someone at the front door and quickly snatched up the lighter on the table so I could light the candles. I pointed the flame to the wick and looked to the left.

Ren was walking in, eyes on me, shrugging off his suit jacket.

Mm.

Yum.

I flicked off the lighter and straightened when it dawned on me Ren wasn’t walking in, eyes on me, shrugging off his jacket.

He was prowling in, eyes on me, shrugging off his jacket.

Jacket off, he tossed it to a chair he passed without taking his eyes off me and kept prowling.

I dropped the lighter, turned to him, and since his gait was not slowing in the slightest, I started backing up.

“Zano, what the—?”

I kept backing. He kept coming, and I stopped talking when I tripped on the rug that was under his dining room table.

He shot forward and caught me around the waist before my stumble became a fall, but didn’t quit moving until my back slammed into the wall and Ren slammed into me.

He drove his fingers into my hair, fisted them and tilted my head one way while his arm tightened around my waist, his head slanted and his mouth landed hard on mine.

Then he kissed me, wet, deep, long and rough.

My inner thighs quivered, my happy place rejoiced and both my hands lifted so I could sift my fingers in his hair and hold him to me.

It took some time but he finally (alas) tore his mouth from mine and I stared, breathless, into his heated eyes.

“What was that for?” I asked in a quiet voice, mostly because there was no way in hell I had it in me to speak louder seeing as I could barely breathe.

“That was because I like, a fuckuva lot, all the reasons you love me. But more, I like that you laid it out, no hesitation, all real, and didn’t make me work for it.”

I made a mental note to do that again, and often, as my insides warmed in a way that had nothing to do with the heat created by his kiss.

“Just to keep that goodness coming, right now, would you like me to give you my top ten of your anatomy?” I offered.

He smiled, but he did it while pressing his body into mine (and, incidentally, that meant nearly all of his top tens were pressed tight to me, including my number one). And since my back was to the wall, that meant I felt him deep.

I liked the feel.

Then again, I always had.

“We’ll wait on doin’ that when we’re naked,” he replied.

“Sounds like a plan,” I muttered.

His smile got bigger and my happy place got happier. He tipped his head, touched his lips to my jaw and pulled us from the wall, turning.

He got to facing the table and stopped dead.

“Christ,” he whispered.

Apparently, he’d been all fired up to show me his appreciation about what I’d said earlier and hadn’t noticed my preparations for the evening.

“Baby, what—?” he started, dipping his chin to look down at me.

I interrupted him to ask, “Was last night the only night I get to show you special?”

He said not one word. He just stared at me, his arm around my waist, his body unmoving.

“Zano?” I called.

“I love this. This is beautiful,” he said in his sweet voice. “And hear me, honey, I get what you’re doing, but I need you to know that you have nothing to make up for. You gave me you and that’s all the special I need.”

God!

Seriously?

This guy was unreal.

I loved it at the same time it was undoing me. The thing was, I didn’t mind the idea of coming undone and that freaked me.

To communicate this to Ren, I curled into him and shoved my face in his chest.

His hand came up and curled around the back of my neck.

More sweet.

I couldn’t hack it.

“I need to pick a fight,” I told his shirt.

His body jolted slightly and his voice held a vein of humor when he asked, “What?”

I dropped my head back to look at him.

“I’m Ally. I’m not the romance and candlelight and flowers and champagne and sweetness and soft words that mean everything kind of girl. We need to pick a fight. This is freaking me out. And anyway, you’re an alpha badass hothead. You’re not supposed to notice flowers and candlelight. And no alpha badass hothead has the capacity to say the right thing at the right time and do it repeatedly. I know. I’ve been witnessing them in action for a while now. Counting Dad and Indy’s dad, Tom, it’s safe to say I’ve had a lifelong study.”

“Maybe your girls don’t share everything,” he suggested.

He clearly hadn’t been around to overhear the Rock Chicks gabbing.

I decided not to reply as that information might freak him.

“I’ll do my best to ignore it from here on out,” he offered.

“Appreciated,” I muttered.

He grinned, bent his head to brush his lips to mine then he let me go and ordered, “I’ll get the champagne, you get the food.”

Since this was an acceptable arrangement, I complied.

He got the champagne. I went to the table to light the candle I didn’t get to when he’d rushed me. Then I set out the food. Ren set out a champagne bucket filled with ice and the opened bottle. He handed me my glass as we both sat.

I stared at the champagne bucket.

“Babe,” he called and my eyes drifted to him.

“You have a champagne bucket,” I told him something he knew since it was him that filled it with ice and put it on the table.

His head tipped to the side. “Yeah.”

“I’m not sure what to do with that,” I shared.

“And I’m not sure why you’d have to do anything with it,” he returned.

“Um… I don’t think I know anyone with a champagne bucket, except my parents, and they got theirs for a wedding present thirty-nine years ago.”

“Which would stand to reason this is the bucket Ma and Pop got at their wedding thirty-eight years ago.”

“Oh,” I mumbled. I tipped my head to the side and proceeded cautiously, “Why do you have it?”

He took a sip of champagne, set his glass aside and picked up his fork. He did all this not looking at me, which was all kinds of strange with Ren. He was a straight talker and a big fan of eye contact.

And he did all of it while he answered, “Ma couldn’t let go of shit, but she had to get rid of it. She bided her time for years, keeping it for her kids, and when we left home, she divvied it out. I got a champagne bucket I never needed until now, and ‘cause she had to unload that shit, I didn’t argue. What I did do was keep it just in case she changed her mind and wanted it back.”

I remembered during Brother’s, beer and bourbon he said his mother couldn’t deal when his dad died and I was curious to know more. Most especially why Ren relayed this seemingly tame, though sad information without looking at me.

But I sensed now was not the time to dig into that.

So I just said, “Right.”

He dropped his fork on his plate, went back to his flute and held it up to me. “Toast, baby.”

Oh shit. A toast could mean anything and that anything could include more of my undoing.

In order to ascertain whether or not to prepare, I asked, “Are you going to say something that’s going to make me feel warm inside?”

His beautiful espresso eyes lit, his lips quirked, and he asked back, “I make you feel warm inside?”

Like he needed me to confirm that.

I gave him a look as answer.

He gave me a grin.

“Okay, how’s this?” he began, lifting his flute half an inch. “To my top ten. Eyes. Ass. Pussy. Hair. Tits. Lips. Neck. Legs. Backs of your knees. Ankles. In that order.”

My brows shot up because I was shocked.

“My ass is before my happy place?”

At that, his beautiful espresso eyes were actually dancing (no joke), his body was shaking and his words were rumbling with laughter when he asked, “Your happy place?”

“Dude, totally happy.”

He let fly and burst out laughing.

I watched, enjoyed the show, and when it waned, I lifted my glass and said, “To your top ten.”

We clinked. We drank. But before we set our glasses aside, Ren’s hand snaked out, hooked me behind the neck and pulled me to him for a hard, closed mouth kiss.

When he was done, he turned his attention to his food and I followed suit thinking I really liked his dining room table.

I’d had a bite when he demanded, “Right, let’s get the bad out of the way. Update.”

I forked into a piece of kung pao shrimp and gave him what I knew he wanted, which was what I’d gleaned from a variety of phone calls I took while shopping.

Though it wasn’t much.

“No hack. Brody was affronted it was even suggested that could happen. But it hasn’t. The author’s website is registered to a non-existent address somewhere in bumfuck Wyoming. The name it’s registered under is not the author’s name, but it’s also a person who doesn’t exist.”

“Dead ends,” Ren murmured, sounding displeased.

“Sorry, honey,” I murmured back. His eyes caught mine and he nodded. “They’re widening the net,” I assured him.

He nodded again while turning his attention back to his plate.

I took a bite, swallowed and kept to our current theme of getting the bad out of the way by saying, “I got some more bad news today.”

His eyes came to me and, seriously, no joke, I could do nothing for a year but stare into those eyes and I’d be totally cool.

Maybe two years.

Or three.

“What?” he asked when I said nothing.

I stopped focusing on his eyes and focused on him.

“Called my landlord to check in. He’s letting me out of my lease, which is his nice way of saying he’s evicting me.”

The easy we’d fallen into being together together disintegrated when his anger hit the room with a heavy weight, and I felt my back straighten.

“Say that again,” he ordered.

“It’s okay, Ren. If you’re okay with me hanging here awhile, I’ll find a new place.”

“No, Ally, it isn’t fuckin’ okay. Everything you own is ash in an explosion that was not your responsibility. It had nothing to do with you and everything to do with a pot-addled moron in New Mexico you haven’t seen in two years. So it’s not okay that you pay further for that guy bein’ a moron. You’ve tolerated too many knocks in too short a period of time. Your landlord isn’t going to land another one.”

He reached to his champagne, threw some back and finished his alpha badass statement while placing the glass on the table.

“I’ll have a word with him. You’re good to stay here until they repair the damage.”

“Ren, I’m down with being let out of the lease.”

He again turned his gaze to me. “I’m not down with it. I’ll have a word.”

“But—”

“Ally, no.”

I waited for him to say more. But it seemed he figured, Ally, no, was the end of it, and I knew this because he resumed eating.

I took in a deep breath. Then I ate more shrimp. Then I took a sip of champagne. After that, I took another deep breath.

Nope.

None of that worked. I didn’t feel calm. I felt like mouthing off, being a smartass and making a massive point.

However, that was not an option open to me during a special dinner with my hot guy.

So I turned my eyes to Ren and did everything I could to break our pattern of fighting instead of conversing.

That was to say, I struggled to sound calm when I said, “It’s both cool and hot, this gig of you wanting to protect me and stick up for me. But I just want to make it clear right now, honey, that you don’t get to make and carry through decisions about my life without discussing them with me. And just to be crystal clear, discussing is a courtesy I extend to you. My life is my life, and in the end, I make the decisions.”

His head had turned to me while I was talking and I was feeling pleased with myself for dropping the “honey” in my statement, thinking that softened it nicely.

“Your life is not your life,” he replied, and I expected a lot of things, particularly him saying something in Asshole or him dismissing me.

That I didn’t expect. I also didn’t understand it.

“I don’t follow,” I told him.

He shook his head and stated, “I’ve changed my mind. I won’t talk to your landlord.”

That was better.

Surprising. Surprisingly easy. But better.

Maybe he wanted to break the pattern of shouting at each other too.

“Thanks, honey,” I said softly.

“Because you’re movin’ in with me.”

I blinked.

“What?”

He put his fork down and turned fully to me and I didn’t suspect this boded good things.

I would be proved right.

“Ally, your life is not your life. We love each other, and in case you missed it, that means we’ve committed to each other. So your life and how you lead it affects me. So yeah, we discuss things. But you don’t make decisions we disagree on about shit that affects me—in other words, your life. You also need to have a mind to my need to protect you. I know this is not news that I have this need. You picked me, you signed on for that. But all that’s moot. We already decided you’re gonna stay awhile. Yesterday, you lost everything. Today, you found out you can’t go back. Backed in a corner by circumstances, thinking on it, shit often happens for a reason and even bad shit leads to good things. And this particular good thing is that there’s absolutely no reason not to make the arrangement we already agreed on permanent.”

“Zano, making that permanent is a big leap from what we had to roomies.”

“Baby,” his voice (and expression, I’ll add—double whammy) turned sweet, “there is never a time we’re gonna be just roomies.”

My eyes narrowed, not because I didn’t like what he said (a lot).

They narrowed because I was getting a sneaking suspicion he turned on the sweet in order to get his way. I’d missed it for months because usually by the time he turned on the sweet, we were shouting at each other.

Things were now coming clear.

I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my, “Maybe I think there are absolutely some reasons not to make the arrangement we agreed on permanent.”

It should be noted, although I said it, I couldn’t think of a single reason not to make it permanent.

If pressed though, I’d make something up.

He leaned into me. “Tell me, since Sadie’s thing, when you’re not working or gallivanting, when have you been at your apartment and I haven’t been there with you?”

Uh-oh.

He was making sense.

And I wasn’t fond of the word “gallivanting.”

Sure, one could say I gallivanted. My net was not wide, but I got around.

Still.

“And tell me,” he continued, “when have you had downtime at all when you were not in your apartment, with me, or you weren’t here…” He paused to drive his point home. Then he drove it home. “With me.”

More sense.

Gack!

“Babe, we already live together, and we’ve been doin’ it for eight months. It’s just that our clothes were in different closets,” he finished.

Jeez, we were so totally not fuck buddies. No wonder Ren found that amusing.

This thought and his words meant I kept glaring at him, mostly because he was right and that sucked.

But as I did this, something stole through me.

And what that was was the fact that Lee essentially moved Indy in with him the day her thing started. They never separated after that.

And now they were married.

Jet had succeeded in keeping a hint of distance between her and Eddie for about a week. Then he moved her in and she never left.

And now they were married and she was pregnant.

Much the same thing happened with Roxie, Jules, Ava, Stella and Sadie.

And when I said “much the same thing” I meant near on exactly.

Holy crap.

I wasn’t a Rock Chick.

I was a Rock Chick!

That meant…

That meant…

That meant Ren and I were getting married!

Holy crap!

I fought hyperventilating and did it by sucking back champagne.

This was a stupid move because, once done, I started choking.

“Ally? Baby?” Ren called, and I saw him move and then he was leaned into me, hand rubbing my back. “You okay?”

I sucked in oxygen, twisted my neck to look at him, and declared, “We’re getting married.”

His chin jerked back and his brows shot up. “Now?”

“Not now!” I cried, falling back in my chair. He straightened to standing, but I tipped my head back so I could keep my eyes glued to him. “During her thing, Indy and Lee moved in together. The same with Jet and Eddie. Roxie and Hank. Jules and Vance. You get my drift. Now all of them are married. Ava and Luke are getting hitched on the weekend. And three weeks ago, Sadie strolled into a Girls Night Out with a diamond on her finger.” I stretched my torso up to him and announced, “Ren, we’re screwed.”

At that, his brows knit.

“You don’t want to get married?”

“No,” I answered, and completely ignored his expression shutting down in order to continue to have my nervous breakdown. “For the next five years I want to engage in copious amounts of hanky-panky until my biological clock starts ticking so loud I can’t ignore it anymore. Then I want to engage in copious amounts of hanky-panky in order to get pregnant. Prior to part two, I want to get married.”

He sat down but didn’t take his eyes from me as he stated, “This doesn’t sound like a bad plan.”

“It’s not. It’s a righteous plan.”

“Then why are you freaked?” he asked.

“Because no way am I falling into the pattern of meatloaf, Letterman and missionary, and with practice, that’s a possibility.”

His head jerked before he asked, “Ally, what?”

“I like meatloaf but it’s boring,” I explained. “I like chicken parmesan way better. Letterman rocks but I’d prefer to do other things when he’s on. And missionary is my fifth most favorite position behind lotus, cowgirl, scissor and doggie.”

It was Ren’s turn to blink.

Then he again burst out laughing.

When he was done laughing, but he was still chuckling, he calmly picked up his fork and speared some sesame chicken before he said to his plate, “So you’re movin’ in.”

Shit.

“Yeah,” I answered, spearing another shrimp.

“Baby?” he called, and I looked at him.

Oh God.

The look on his face was a new look. It corresponded with the tone of his voice earlier that day. And it was so beautiful, my heart skipped a beat and I lost the ability to think.

And speak (mostly).

“We’re never gonna have meatloaf, Letterman and missionary,” he said softly.

“’Kay,” I replied breathily.

“And if you can pare down that five year fuck-a-thon to two or three, I’d appreciate it,” he went on.

“’Kay,” I repeated.

“Though, during that two year fuck-a-thon, you may have one, then two of my rings on your finger.”

Oh shit.

Even me, Ally, Rock Chick, that didn’t make me warm inside.

It made me melty.

“’Kay,” I breathed, and his eyes warmed.

“Just to give you something to look forward to, we’ll stop the fuck-a-thon when we have to, but we’ll resume soon’s we can after you give me healthy babies.”

Oh God.

I felt my eyes get hot.

Ren and I were getting married.

Not now.

But eventually.

Oh.

God.

“You really love me,” I whispered.

“Do not ever doubt it,” he whispered back.

“How did that happen?” I kept whispering.

“You accepted my devotion to the Bears only dishin’ out minimal shit.”

He was such a liar.

But what he said said it all.

And it meant everything.

He started falling when I did.

I closed my eyes.

I opened them when I felt the backs of his fingers sweep my jaw.

“It doesn’t take much with you, does it?” I asked, trying to be funny.

I didn’t get a smile.

I got heated eyes and the look.

“Yes it does. It takes a fuckuva lot.”

That said it all, too.

Jeez. He needed to stop.

Before I could tell him to do that, he did it.

And he did it by saying, “And most of that fuckuva lot has to do with the fact that you’re a woman who placed cowgirl at two and doggie at four.”

I got over being a big, starry-eyed, head-over-heels-in-love-with-a-hot-guy girl, started laughing and asked through it, “So you approve of my rankings?”

He turned his attention back to his plate, saying, “Cowgirl one. Doggie two. Missionary three. Lotus four, but you’re close enough.”

I kept laughing and through it watched Ren grinning before he took a sip of his champagne.

I quit laughing, grabbed my own champagne and was taking a sip when Ren’s voice—not sweet, instead all kinds of sexy, the kinds that got my full attention when he declared, “Three, one, two.”

I looked at him. “Come again?”

“Tonight,” he replied. “Three, one, two. Maybe during one we’ll also do a four, but I’m finishing you off on your knees.”

My happy place spasmed, my breasts swelled and my mouth got dry.

“That is, after you go down on me,” he finished as he reached for the champagne bottle.

That was when I started salivating.

A knock came at the door.

I stopped salivating and was thankful I hadn’t begun panting as I looked to the door.

Ren threw his napkin down and pushed back his chair, muttering, “Fuck.”

“Are you expecting someone?” I asked as he walked away.

“Are you in my house?” he asked back.

“Yes,” I pointed out the obvious.

At the door, hand on handle, he turned to me and answered, “Yes.”

What did that mean? I’d never had visitors at his house.

Then again, I frequently got visitors at my apartment. Ren knew that because he’d been there a lot when I got them. So clearly he expected this to go on and I made a mental note to do something about that since it sounded like he didn’t like it much.

And it must be said, when it interrupted dinner and discussion on the later positions in which Ren would be giving me the business, I didn’t like it much either.

He looked through the double row of three square windows set high in his door. I heard his sigh all the way across the house (his sigh was that big) and he opened it.

I couldn’t see anything since Ren was standing in the door and hadn’t fully opened it, but I did hear a deep, somewhat familiar voice I couldn’t place ask, “Is Ally Nightingale here?”

When I heard Ren’s answer of, “You wanna explain why you want that information?” I pushed back my chair and threw down my own napkin.

“We need to have a chat,” the familiar voice answered.

I walked that way as Ren replied, “And you’re lookin’ for her here, how? How is it that you’re here lookin’ for her?”

The voice had turned guarded, probably with caution and maybe a little irritation, when it returned, “Man, she’s yours and her apartment is a black hole. Where else would I look for her?”

I made it to Ren’s back and put a hand there, but it was clear the voice’s answer was acceptable because he was moving back to open the door.

I then saw how I knew the voice.

Jacob Decker. And Jacob Decker was Chace Keaton’s friend. And Chace Keaton was my girl Faye’s hot guy badass.

I’d met him briefly during the brouhaha up in the mountains. And when I saw that mountain of muscle, thick dark hair and intelligent hazel eyes, I lamented there were no Rock Chicks left I could toss in his path. He looked like a man who could handle a Rock Chick. Even a man who needed one. The more fucked up her life, the better. And if there had been one left, it would be me causing mayhem in order for him to get one.

“Deck, hey,” I greeted as I stepped back with Ren and Jacob Decker stepped in.

His eyes went to the table, flowers, food and candlelight, then they skimmed through Ren and me.

“Interrupting. Apologies,” he murmured.

Ren slid an arm along my shoulders, moved us into the house and out of the entryway, and Deck followed.

What he didn’t do was accept Deck’s apology, though his moving us all in probably didn’t need words. I suspected Jacob Decker spoke macho alpha so he likely wasn’t offended.

“This won’t take long,” Deck assured as we settled in the living room and his eyes settled on me. “I’m cleanup in Carnal,” he announced.

I didn’t get it.

“Sorry?” I asked.

“The situation in Carnal. I’m batting cleanup,” Deck said the same thing with more words.

Therefore, I still didn’t get it.

“Uh… those dudes buried Faye to force Chace to get the dirt other dudes were holding on them. My crew got that dirt. We turned it over. They have it. No cleanup necessary.”

“You did do that. You also turned over enough to the cops they took down two of those guys,” Deck replied.

I did do that. Or Brody, Darius and I did that.

I shrugged.

“Them’s the breaks,” I stated blithely. “Anyway, added deterrent to the others not to fuck up. It should all be good.”

Ren got closer and his arm got tighter when Deck’s face went way scary.

“You don’t understand me,” he said on a growl. “Nothing is good. My boy’s woman got buried alive. I’m cleanup in that situation in Carnal.”

I finally got it.

Those dudes were not going to get away with burying Faye alive.

I was down with that. Those shitheads deserved whatever this mountain of man had in store.

And anyway, that meant I could tick one thing off my watch list.

I didn’t speak macho alpha, therefore could not communicate telepathically, via chin lifts or through actions to other macho alphas, so I felt it prudent to agree verbally. I did this by mumbling, “Okeydokey.”

“You got anything that will help me do that in a timely manner,” he stated, “It’d be appreciated you turn that over to me.”

“What we have, you’ll have by tomorrow,” I told him, adding a call to Brody on my to-do list for the next day.

He nodded, reached in his back pocket, pulled out a wallet and then a card that he handed to me.

“Email,” he said.

It was my turn to nod as I shoved his card in my back pocket.

Deck looked at Ren. “No blowback.”

Why he told this to Ren, I did not know, but I suspected it was because I had a vagina.

I decided not to throw a hissy fit and I did this for two reasons. One, a hissy fit took time and I wanted to finish dinner, drink more champagne, eat my chocolate candle then do three, one, two (and maybe four) with Ren. Two, Jacob Decker could break me in half and he seemed to be fired up to accomplish his mission, so I didn’t feel it was wise to waste his time which might make him testy.

“Grateful,” Ren murmured.

I fought an eye roll.

“I’ll leave you to dinner,” Deck said.

He nodded to me, gave a macho badass chin jerk to Ren then disappeared through the door.

Ren let me go to walk to it and turn the locks.

He claimed me again and guided us back to the table.

Once there, after refreshing our champagne, he shared, “Jacob Decker. Qualifies for Mensa. Occupation, hazy. Reputation, not a guy you fuck with.”

I stared at Ren. “You checked him out?”

“I checked out everyone close to Faye Goodknight and Chace Keaton.”

I kept staring at Ren. “When did you have a chance to do this?”

“When I texted Dom to get his ass on it about five minutes after Keaton shook my hand and said, ‘Nice to meet you, I’m Chace Keaton,’ which was about two seconds before I laid into you.”

I continued staring at Ren. “Okay, why’d you do this?”

“Because you got your ass on radar for that guy and his woman, and since your ass is my ass, I protect that ass, both proactively and retrospectively. I do that by gathering any and all information on anyone who might be involved, even unintentionally, in threatening that ass.” He looked back to his plate, muttering, “Though I prefer proactively or not having to do it at all.”

I didn’t know what to do with this. It wasn’t a surprise, really. It also wasn’t an invasion, exactly.

Before I could make a decision about what to do with it, Ren swallowed a bite and kept talking.

“One good thing, you with me, all that shit is over.”

Uh-oh.

He reached for his glass, but before he took a sip, he looked at me and stated, “And Decker’s visit means that shit’ll be shut down. His occupation may be hazy, but his reputation also says he gets a job done.” He took a sip, put his glass back and finished, “Finally something good happened today. A line drawn under that mess. And if you got any other shit goin’ on, you work with Tucker and Dunne to finish it, then you’re free to find a real job and settle in with me.”

Oh man.

He picked up his fork.

“Uh… Zano,” I called.

“Yeah, honey?” he answered his chicken.

Shit.

I stared at his profile, his square jaw, the line of his full lips, the spikes of his thick eyelashes. Then my eyes slid through the food, the champagne bucket, the flowers, the candles.

I took this all in, but my head was filled with promises of three, one, two (with the possible inclusion of four) and the way it felt when he drew my pendant in his mouth that morning.

Then I decided we’d both had enough for the day and tomorrow would be a better time to explain to Ren about the “real job” I was finding.

So, I scooped up some peanuts and mumbled, “Nothing.”

Crap!