Rock Chick 08 Revolution (4 page)

But that wasn’t it. Not even close.

And I was beginning to want a
little bit of that for me. So when Carl got accepted into the FBI not too long
ago and went off to Virginia to train, he’d asked me to come.

I didn’t go. Instead, I let
him
go.

It sucked but he wasn’t
it
for me. I dug him, we had great
times.

But I wanted
it.

So listening to possibly
the
most handsome man I’d ever laid eyes
on pining about a woman, who might be my friend, but who already had her own
hot guy (she just hadn’t accepted that…yet), was not something I was up for.

But Ren didn’t do that.

As the beer and bourbon flowed, we
both got talkative.

I noticed a few things right off.

He was not a lightweight. He could
totally hold his liquor (like me). Which, you think it’s right or wrong, I
thought was hot. It was an indication he enjoyed life however he wanted, like
me.

This didn’t mean we weren’t feeling
easy, and getting to feel easier. But it wasn’t leading to loaded, which led to
sloppy, stupid and unattractive.

And once the event was put behind
us, he didn’t once bring up Ava or Luke.

He asked about me.

And he sounded interested.

And last, along with being hot, in
a hot guy way that was totally cool, he was funny.

So in the end, it was almost like a
date.

A good one.

Maybe even the best I’d ever had.

And it got better when we got to
know each other, got more comfortable, and the questions became more
meaningful. The banter became teasing. Then suggestive teasing. Then the
physical distance evaporated when Ren slid closer to me in the booth seat,
pinning me against the corner. Something I was wishing he’d do, and he did.

But it was more. In doing this,
focusing his attention solely on me, he made the bar melt away and made me feel
like I was the center of his universe.

I’d never felt that.

But I bet Indy, Jet, Roxie and
Jules had.

And none of it was about booze and
earlier emotional upheaval.

It was about connecting.

Ava and Luke and what happened that
night drifted away, and it was about Ren getting to know me and me returning
the favor.

And enjoying every
second
of it.

The end of it went like this:

“You have to give me a minute,” I
told him, “I’m having trouble fighting the urge to run shrieking from the bar.”

He grinned. I watched it and I
liked it.

“Babe, not a crime to be a Bears
fan.”

“Zano, totally a crime to be a
native Denverite and be a Bears fan,” I contradicted with the God’s honest
truth.

His arm was on the back of the
booth and suddenly his fingers glided through my hair, sliding it off my
shoulder, then moving away; a smooth there-and-gone-making-you-want-more move
that worked on me
huge.

“Lived in Chicago
a long time after my dad died,” he said after the smooth move, and at his
words, I focused through my buzz closer on him. “Mom couldn’t deal, moved us
back to her hometown to be closer to her sister and cousins. I was there from
three to thirteen. I was born here, Ally, but bred to be a Bears fan.”

Well, if there was a reason to dis
the Broncs, that was it.

But what he shared was deep. It
felt good he trusted that little bit to me and so it couldn’t be ignored.

“Sorry about your dad,” I said
softly.

Something I didn’t get moved through
his face before he said, “Long time ago.”

I found that an interesting
response.

“Indy lost her mom when she was
five. I was five when we lost her, too. Auntie Katie was around all the time,
so she was like a second mom to me.” I reached out a hand and curled it around
his thigh. “I know when people try to understand where you are, they can’t
understand because they’re not you. But even so, even though I don’t get you, I
still kinda do.”

It was then something moved into
his eyes, stayed there, and I got that. It was a mixture of sweet and heat that
I liked a whole lot.

His hand covered mine on his thigh
and he murmured, “Thanks, honey.”

“And, not to be flippant about the
death of a parent,” I started in order to move us to less deep, melancholy
waters. “But I will say it does provide you with an acceptable pass on being a
Bears fan in Broncos Country.”

That got me another grin.

Then his eyes locked to mine and he
asked, “Your brothers, your family, I’m thinkin’ you know me.”

Oh I knew him all right. I also
knew what he was asking.

I’d lived in Denver all my life. I
had a long string of friends that covered a wide spectrum of the population.
And I had two cops and a private investigator in the family. Not to mention,
I’d been doing my thing, nosing around, and sometimes that took me into the
underbelly of Denver.

I knew all about the Zanos.

Particularly the fact that Ren’s
Uncle Vito was a crime boss. What he did, I steered clear of. You didn’t make
an enemy of the Zanos and you didn’t get in their business, no matter how you
might do that.

I also knew Ren worked for his
uncle.

Word on the street, he was in
charge of the legitimate side of the operation. The part that they used to hide
the part that was far from clean.

But any part of that kind of thing
still made you dirty.

Furthermore, it was known widely
Vito was grooming Ren to take over the family business when he retired.

Which meant he’d be all kinds of
dirty eventually.

At that moment, with not a small
amount of bourbon and beer in me, his deep voice, his handsome face, his
unbelievable body all close to me, I didn’t care.

It was also no secret in certain
sets of Denver that my brother Lee played shit fast and loose and wasn’t above
doing what he had to do to get the job done. And what he had to do also might
not always be lawful.

I admired Lee. He was badass cool,
didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of him and forged his own path.

So who was I to judge?

But the bottom line of it was, I
was me and if I wanted something, I got it or took it, whatever the case may
be. And, like Lee, I didn’t give a shit what anybody thought of it or how I
went about getting it.

And right then, I wanted Ren Zano.

I’d always thought I was the white
hat type of girl. I’d always gone for the good guy.

But maybe I didn’t mind that hat
being a little dusty.

“I know you,” I confirmed.

“So, you know me. You got a problem
with getting in a taxi with me, comin’ to my place, letting me take your
clothes off and then letting me do a shitload of other things to that beautiful
body?”

His eyes traveled down my front as
he asked this.

As for me, I felt my nipples get
hard as he asked this.

I also knew the answer to his
question.

I had absolutely no problem with
that.

So I said, “Actually, I would have
a problem if you
didn’t
do any of that.”

His eyes came back to mine.

They were beautiful normally. Hot
with open anticipation, they were
amazing,
and they did amazing things to me. As in, for the first time in my life, just
looking at a guy, I might have had a mini-orgasm.

He took out his wallet. Then he
threw a bunch of bills on the table, grabbed my hand and yanked me out of the
booth.

Then he put me in a taxi.

He gave me my first orgasm on the
stairs in his house and he didn’t take off all my clothes before he did it.

The next two were in his bed and we
were both naked.

By the time the sex and booze wore
us both down to the point of passing out, tangled together in his wine colored
sheets, I knew I’d found it.

Something big, bold, bountiful and
amazing.

Something that wasn’t about meatloaf
and missionary sex.

Something that was about looking
forward to a life that was going to be a bumpy ride filled with jerks and quick
turns and unexpected stops and hair-raising plummets… and loving every minute
of it.

So lying on those wine colored
sheets, I smiled just as Ren, his body and heat curved into my back, his arm
around me, shifted closer. His hand drifted up and curled around my breast and
I felt his face burrow into the back of my hair.

I smiled bigger.

Then he murmured sleepily, “Ava.”

My mind blanked, my heart squeezed
and my eyes blinked.

His hand dropped from my breast but
his arm stayed around me, his body pressed into the back of mine.

I didn’t move.

Then I did.

Carefully, I slid from under his
arm and away from him. Silently, I got out of bed. Stealthily, I found my
clothes and put them on.

All but my shoes.

I wanted to make no noise on his
wood floors.

I looked at his sleeping beauty in
the bed, his olive skin sheathing his defined muscles exposed from the waist
up, his dark hair falling on his forehead, his handsome features relaxed to
almost boyish (but still hot) in sleep, and the cut on his lip put there by
Luke’s fist.

Taking all that was him in, I felt
something die in me.

As I mentioned, I was not girlie. I
was not prone to romance or fantasy.

I’d only given myself that this one
time.

No, Ren had given it to me.

In one night, he made me believe in
the modern-day fairytale I watched all my girls get, and he made me believe
life had that in store for me.

And he made me want it.

Ava.
The memory of his deep, drowsy murmur assaulted my brain.

Hearing that, he took it all away.

So I got the fuck out of there.

* * * * *

Fifteen
and a half hours later…

My eyes opened when I heard the
banging on the door.

I stared at the clock on my nightstand.

Jeez, it was after midnight.

Well, one couldn’t say this kind of
thing didn’t happen occasionally. I had a variety of feelers out on a variety
of things and information trickled in in a variety of ways.

However, none of it had ever
trickled in by banging on my door in the wee hours of the morning. Maybe in the
not so wee hours of the morning, but everyone knew not to disturb my neighbors.

I threw back the covers, opened my
nightstand, got my stun gun and flipped it on.

I stomped to the front door of my
apartment and aimed an eye to my peephole.

Then I whispered, “Fuck.”

Ren was standing out there, head
turned to the side looking absently down the hall.

By the time I got to the door the
banging had stopped, but as I kept looking out, wondering what to do, I saw him
turn his attention from the hall to my door. I noted he looked a might angry,
and I heard as I watched him start banging again.

It would appear he wasn’t going to
go away. And seeing as I kind of liked my apartment, but mostly liked that my
neighbors were all pretty cool—either old as the hills, thus went to bed early
and didn’t have the energy to get in my business (outside of finding it
diverting, should they bump into an informant in the hall), or young and hip
and digging the life of living in the awesome environs of Washington Park (much
like me)—I wanted to stay in that apartment. And some hot Italian dude banging
on my door might wake my neighbors and make them tetchy.

So I turned off the stun gun and
set it on table by my door. I threw back the chain, unlocked the locks and
pulled open the door.

“God, Zano, are you trying to wake
the dead?”

This was a pertinent question,
seeing as some folks in my apartment building had one foot in the grave.

I didn’t get the chance to share
that info with Ren. His eyes pinned me to the spot and I was right earlier. He
was angry.

“What the fuck?” he asked.

“What?” I asked back.

“What…” He took in a breath through
his nose. “The.” He went on and kept scowling at me. “
Fuck?
” he finished tersely.

I was confused, and I wasn’t a big
fan of being confused. Especially not late at night when a hot guy who had
fucked me but who was in love with a good friend of mine was banging on my door
and asking me bewildering, but clearly angry, questions

“What the fuck what?” I asked.

He kept scowling at me.

Then it became apparent he was done
simply scowling at me. I knew this when he put a hand in my belly, shoved me
back and followed me, walking right into my apartment.

He slammed the door.

I lost my mind.

“Zano,
hello?
” I snapped. “I didn’t invite you in. And something to know
about me, I’m not the kind of girl who gets off on some guy doing whatever the
hell he wants to do, especially around me, and especially
especially
when it happens to be something I don’t want him to do.”

“You invited me in, Ally,” he
replied. “Around the time you came when my mouth was between your legs on my
stairs. Then again when you came when my cock was driving into you in my bed.
Then again when you wrapped your mouth around my cock, also in my bed. And
a-fuckin’-gain when you found it while riding my cock, also in my bed. And
last, when you wrapped your sweet, hot, naked body around me and passed out
in my bed.
”

Okay, I’d had a variety of Rock
Chick chinwags where the girls let it all hang out about their guys and how
they communicated in Asshole, but I’d never experienced it personally. And Ren
had just demonstrated he was fluent in Asshole.

It must be said, I didn’t like it
much.

Therefore, I invited acidly,
“Rewind and try that again.”

He didn’t accept my invitation.

Instead, he turned. I saw him
locate the light switch and flinched when the overhead light came on.