Rock Chick Revolution (Rock Chick #8)(62)

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 f**kuva 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.”