Rock Chick 08 Revolution (41 page)

I moved in after Roxie moved out and hugged Lee.

“Pleased for you, bro,” I said in his ear.

“Not as pleased as me,” he said in mine, his arms going tight.

That was not in doubt.

I pulled back and grinned at him.

He let me go with one arm so he could lift a hand and touch my cheek.

Then he said, “When he or she gets here, do me a favor. Don’t try to
convert them to Scientology.”

I burst out laughing, and when I was done, my brother was still holding
me close and smiling down at me.

I heard Amalea murmur, “An unexpected honor, but one nonetheless, to be
here to hear this joyous news,” thus proving she was total class.

But I was listening with half an ear because I was fully feeling the
vibe, looking at my brother’s smile and experiencing it again, almost exactly
twenty-four hours after I’d just felt it.

That feeling you get only a handful of times in your life, if you’re
lucky.

That feeling that I was lucky to get often.

That feeling of sheer beauty.

* * * * *

I was curled up in Ren’s armchair in his non-TV seating area
downstairs.

It was the dead of night and I’d twisted the chair so I could look out
the window at a sleepy street disturbed only by the occasional car.

I couldn’t sleep, and not for the reasons people normally couldn’t
sleep.

No, mine were different.

“Jesus, Ally.”

I turned my head to see Ren’s bare chest, pajama-bottomed legs (and the
rest of him) through the shadows walking down the stairs.

“Woke up, you gone, not in the bathroom, you worried me,” he kept
talking as he moved across the room toward me.

“I’m cool. Just couldn’t sleep,” I told him.

He stopped by the chair and looked down at me.

A nanosecond after his eyes hit me, he crouched in front of me and
reached out a hand to wrap his fingers around my ankle.

 
“Is everything okay, baby?” he
asked in his sweet voice.

He’d read me.

“Yes, Ren,” I said quietly, then explained just how okay it was. “Jet
is having Eddie’s baby. Ava and Luke are on their honeymoon. Stella’s recorded
an album that’s coming out soon. Tex is marrying Nancy. My man has accepted me
as I am and I’m looking at office space tomorrow to start the job that I was meant
to be doing. Your mom and sisters like me. My dad likes you. And my best
friend, who I made a blood pact with when we were kids that she was going to
marry my brother, we’d be real sisters and she’d name her daughter after me, is
carrying my brother’s baby.” I shook my head. “So maybe it’s no. Everything’s
not okay.” I leaned into him. “It’s
very
okay.”

“And that makes you not able to sleep?” he asked.

“I don’t know how to feel this happy,” I answered, and his fingers
around my ankle tightened.

Then he let me go, got to his feet, but did it bending over to pluck me
out of the chair. He turned, sat in it and arranged me in his lap.

“Ren, it’s okay. I’ll be—”

His arms around me gave me a deep squeeze and his voice was thick when
he said, “I want you this happy for the rest of your life.”

Oh God.

Again with the melty!

I lifted a hand to his jaw, but tucked my forehead into the side of his
neck.

“You willin’ to work on that with me, Ally?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” I answered.

“Good, baby,” he whispered.

He held me close.

I slid my hand from his jaw to press it against his heart and lay in
his arms, feeling it beat.

After some time, Ren spoke.

“My girl, she feels deep.”

He was not wrong.

I said nothing.

He gathered me closer. “So fuckin’ deep.”

I pressed my forehead into his neck.

We again lapsed into contented silence.

It was me who broke it the second time.

“I wondered what it would be like, when the Rock Chicks and Hot Bunch
settled in and the drama stopped.”

“And what’s it like?” he asked.

“Sheer beauty,” I answered.

His arms got tighter again and his lips growled, “Mouth, Ally.”

I pulled my forehead out of his neck and tipped my head back.

Ren took my mouth.

Then he took me on his living room rug.

After, he carried me up to his bed, leaving my nightie, panties and his
pajama bottoms on the living room floor.

When we got there, neither of us had trouble falling asleep.

And we slept tangled up.

Maximum contact.

Sheer beauty.

Chapter Twenty-One

The Majestic

The next morning, breathing heavily as I jogged up Ren’s front steps
after my run, I shoved my key in his lock and pushed open the door.

I used my wristband to wipe away the sweat from my brow as I huffed to
the kitchen. Once there, I went direct to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of
water.

Closing the fridge and turning, I caught Ren sauntering in wearing a
suit.

Excellent timing.

He saw me and stopped dead.

“Hey, babe,” I semi-panted.

His eyes slid down and up my sweaty body in my awesome Lucy running
threads that the gang did a great job picking for me, and I knew they did a
great job because I watched his eyes get hot.

I twisted off the cap of the bottle of water and grinned at him.

He came unstuck and moved to me. I thought goodness would commence, but
he reached beyond me to open the fridge.

I stepped to the side, leaned against the counter and belted back some
agua.

“How was the run?” he asked before he took a slug of orange juice, and
I noted that Amalea was a good mom who raised a good son who cooked, did the dishes
and was thoughtful, but she hadn’t taught him not to drink out of the bottle.

Whatever.

“Run was great,” I answered (lying; it was good, but that didn’t mean
it was fun—what was great was that it was over).

He put the orange juice back and focused his attention on me.

“You comin’ to the office after your shower?” he asked.

I nodded.

We’d made plans before I went out to run that I’d come in that morning
and look at the space he rented me.

“Good,” he muttered, moving to the coffee.

“We didn’t have breakfast so I’ll bring Danish.” I changed my mind.
“No, LaMar’s.”

“Whatever you want,” he said, turning toward me.

I moved into him, leaned up and kissed his jaw before I moved away,
saying, “I’m just gonna shower and then—”

I got turned and only a step in before an arm hooked around my belly. I
was pulled back, pressed forward and ended facing where I usually sat on the
counter eating the breakfast Ren cooked me.

Arm still around my belly, his other thumb hooked into my running
capris and yanked down.

Holy crap.

My inner thighs quivered.

“
Ren,
” I breathed.

“Hands to the counter. Spread your legs. Tip for me.”

Oh
God.

Hot.

I did as I was told. Ren’s arm at my belly slid down and his fingers
curled in as his other hand slid up my chest to wrap around my jaw.

His fingers hit the spot. My head flew back and hit his shoulder.

His hand at my jaw kept it there as he buried his face in my neck.

His fingers between my legs coaxed orgasm one out of me (
nice
).

While I was still experiencing that, his hand at my jaw moved to
between my shoulders as I heard his zipper. He pressed in, I bent, my ass
moving back and up, and he slammed inside me, hard, fast, rough, doing this
until orgasm two rocked through me (
very
nice
).

He barely finished driving into me through his orgasm before he pulled
out and crouched low, dragging my workout capris the rest of the way down my
legs in a way that I could not misinterpret.

I did as he wanted and stepped out of them.

Ren turned me and, hands at my waist, he lifted me and planted my bare
ass on his counter, moving in so my legs were forced to part, his arms closed
around me and we were tucked close.

“Just sayin’,” he started when he caught my eyes, and my happy place
did a happy spasm at the heat still in his eyes, “you need a fuckuva lot more
of these outfits.”

Told you I totally rocked my running duds.

“Copy that,” I whispered, scratching that on my already very full
agenda for the day.

His eyes moved over my face and hair. “Your hair looks cute in that
band, honey.”

Yep. Going to Lucy for more running gear was going to happen post-new
office inspection and pre-meet with Darius and Brody to see what they had on
the situation with Smithie.

Maybe I could get Darius and Brody to meet me at Lucy. It was an
outside chance that Darius was such a badass, his skin might catch fire if he
entered a woman’s clothing store without a woman he was fucking in attendance,
but he loved me. Maybe he loved me enough to take that risk and help me
multi-task.

We’d see.

It was then I noticed Ren’s hot eyes had gotten hotter just before his
mouth moved to mine. “Been waitin’ a year to have that ass bared and sittin’ on
my counter.”

Yowza!

A different kind of melty.

“Now I gotta go to work. Kiss me, Ally,” he finished.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, leaned in and kissed him.

Ren kissed me back, deep and wet. He broke the kiss, moved away and
gave me a hot sexy grin as he let me go, but slid one finger over my bare hip,
in and along at the inside juncture of hip and thigh then down my inner thigh.

Another happy place spasm.

I grinned at him.

He leaned in for a touch on the lips, turned and walked away.

I watched.

Still grinning.

* * * * *

As I walked down the hall toward Ren’s office, I did it smiling.

This was because I’d never been to his office and if the inside of the
building was anything to go by, his space, as well as my space, was going to be
the bomb.

Holding a carrier with two of Tex’s
coffees in one hand and a bag of LaMar’s in the other, I turned left at the
tall, wood door with the burnished silver plaque at the side that said
Zano Holdings Ltd.
and juggled the bag
as I pushed the fancy handle down.

I was curious to see where Ren spent his days. But as I walked in, I
didn’t look around his office.

I looked at the woman behind his reception desk.

Dawn was sitting there.

Dawn.

Dawn, Lee’s ex-receptionist.

Dawn, who I hated because she hated me (and everybody, except Lee and
his boys; until they were picked off by the Rock Chicks that was).

Dawn, who got fired because she got caught on in-house surveillance
badmouthing Jules while she was in the hospital after she got shot. Lee lost
his mind, Luke lost his mind, and they dropped what they were doing in order
not to delay in returning to the office and terminating her.

Dawn, who, until that moment, I was certain had crawled into the dark,
damp, inhospitable holes beautiful but exceedingly bitchy women retreated to
when they got their asses whupped (even figuratively).

Dawn, who was not hiding away in an inhospitable hole but instead
sitting in Ren’s offices, glaring at me.

“What the hell?” I whispered.

“I heard you had a thing with Ren,” she snapped, totally still bitchy.

“What the hell?” I repeated, louder this time.

“I prayed it wasn’t true, but apparently God doesn’t listen to me,” she
went on.

“What the hell!” I shouted.

“The only thing I can say is, I still have hope for Dom because
everyone knows he has a wandering eye,” she kept at it.

“
What the hell?
” I screeched.

“Ally, Jesus, what’s the matter?” Ren asked, exiting a hall to my side.

For once, his powerful frame in trousers and a dress shirt did nothing
for me.

“Dawn works for you,” I snapped, and it came out an accusation, as it
should.

He didn’t glance at Dawn as he headed to me, but his face said a lot
and all of what it said made me feel better.

Slightly.