Rock Chick 08 Revolution (12 page)

Ren kept talking.

“You take the backs of that crew
of yours like your blood flows through their veins. Indy may be their
foundation, Daisy and Shirleen the emotional support. But you’re the backbone.”

Jeez.

How did he know so much about the
Rock Chicks?

And why did what he said make me
feel even
warmer
inside?

And last, why the hell was he
saying this shit at all?

He didn’t make me wait for an
answer to the last.

“You don’t need to make amends to
Sadie. You’re set on giving her a lifetime of sisterhood the like she’s never
had before and never even dreamed of having. That’ll do it, so you can let that
go.”

That was all nice, and true, and
made me feel better, but unfortunately he wasn’t done.

“You’ve got your way, the way you
are and the way you are with the ones you care about. And that tells me, a man
gets in there, you give that to him, the children you give him, that man will
be all kinds of lucky. And I’ve decided we’re gonna see if that man is me.”

Oh my God!

Was he crazy?

He’d just been gazing softly at
Ava (well, not “just”, but not three months ago either!) and now he was saying
this shit to me.

“Zano, we’re done,” I reminded
him.

“You can be done, but I’m not. So
we’re gonna explore this and see where it leads until we both make a decision
we agree on about where it’s heading.”

Oh crap.

Now he was giving me the macho
alpha bossy shit.

“Zano, I—”

“Shut it.”

My back snapped straight. “Don’t
you tell me to shut it, Ren Zano.”

I watched his shadowy head shake
before he stated, “Baby, you’re gorgeous. The way you wear a dress is goddamned
foreplay. The way you give me everything and nothing, making you a challenge
only a real man would accept, is all kinds of hot. The way you give as good as
you get in bed, totally unselfish at the same time phenomenally greedy…
fuck,
” he growled, and I felt that growl
straight in my happy place. “You’re the best I’ve ever had, Ally. Bar none. And
the way you love, stubborn, tough, unshakable, is unbelievably fuckin’
beautiful. And still you’re a serious pain in my ass. But I found, not havin’
you, I got off on the pain. I missed it. So I’m takin’ it back and we’ll see
how it goes.”

“I know how it’ll go,” I
returned. “Nowhere. We’re done, Zano.”

“Tell me you haven’t missed what
we had,” he demanded.

I clamped my mouth shut, because
even for self-preservation’s sake, I couldn’t utter that colossal of a lie and
I was totally down with lying if the situation warranted it (or when it didn’t
and I just needed to save my own hide).

He knew it, damn it all to hell,
and I knew he did when he whispered, “Come here, Ally.”

I put my hands on my hips and stated,
“If you want to rewind and start up again, I’ll consider it. But, pointing out,
we’re rewinding, not rewriting. We’re fuck buddies, Zano. We enjoy each other.
You go your way. I go mine.”

“We were never fuck buddies,
Ally.”

I wished.

I also rolled my eyes.

“Now come here,” he went on.

I rolled my eyes back to hm.

“Tell me, exactly, why it is
I
have to walk the three feet that
separates us?” I asked.

He was on me in a flash, which
meant I was in his arms, plastered to his body. He had one hand in my hair
cupping the back of my head, holding it steady for whatever he wanted to do to
me.

Great.

That was on me. I’d challenged
the alpha and there I was.

I knew better.

One could say I was seriously off
my game tonight.

God!

And he felt good. So freaking good.
Hard with his heat burning into me.

He was also in a suit.

I was screwed.

“Do you agree to fuck buddies?” I
pressed, even as my hands lifted to his biceps and felt the rich material of
his suit jacket.

Nice.

“Absolutely not,” he replied,
right before he dropped his head and I felt his lips on my neck.

Very
nice.

“Zano, we should get this
straight before we start this up again,” I told him, even as my hands slid up
his arms to his shoulders then around his neck.

His lips slid to my lips and he invited,
“You make your plays, Ally. I’ll make mine. And we’ll see where this is gonna
lead.”

Unfortunately, that sounded all
kinds of fun.

And dangerous.

Both things I liked.

Too much.

Crap.

“I know where it’s gonna lead,” I
retorted.

Suddenly I felt my stomach drop,
my lungs evacuate all oxygen and my heart skip a beat.

This was because I also felt his
lips smile against mine right before he said, with great authority, “So do I.”

My inner thighs quivered and my
happy place got really happy.

Then Ren quit messing around and
kissed me.

After that, he
really
quit messing around and did a lot
of other things to me.

And I was right.

It was all kinds of fun.

It was also dangerous.

And I loved every fucking second.

Chapter Six

Fuck Buddies Give Christmas Presents?

Rock Chick Rewind

Christmas
Eve …

Ren’s voice came in my ear me.
“Jesus, you’re shitfaced at your brother’s wedding.”

I turned my eyes to see him close.
So close, as I turned, he had to pull slightly away.

But he pulled away only slightly.

We were at Roxie and Hank’s
wedding. Do
not
ask me why Roxie
invited Ren to her wedding. Though, truth be told, even though it seemed to go
against all the laws of the universe (or at least
my
universe, save, of course, being fuck buddies with Ren), somehow
along the way the Rock Chick tribe had gotten tight with all the Zanos. But I
didn’t think they were
that
tight.

All I knew was that Tod said any
wedding needed all the hot guys it could get because love was in the air during
a wedding and the girl who caught the bouquet needed something to dream about.
And Ren was undeniably a hot guy you could dream about.

By the way, when Roxie tossed her
bouquet, I was doing tequila shooters at the bar.

Therefore I was feeling very happy
and this didn’t only have to do with the tequila shooters. It had to do with
the fact that my big brother and my good friend were all kinds of happy.

What I was not was shitfaced.

And I decided to inform Ren of this
fact.

“I’m far from shitfaced, Zano.”

“You’re hammered,” he returned

Hammered was not shitfaced. I was a
bartender and lived the life of a rock star, I would know. I had studied the
levels of insobriety both practically and observationally. Hammered was three steps
down from shitfaced. There was smashed, blotto, and wasted to get through. I
had at least six tequila shooters to go before I got even close to shitfaced.

I did not take the time to educate
Ren about this.

Instead, I decided to get annoyed
(as was my wont around Ren) and narrowed my eyes at him.

As was his wont, that was to say
totally oblivious to my dangerous eye narrowing, he stated, “We have to talk.”

We “had to talk” a lot. Ren’s Talks
were becoming part of our everyday repertoire. Though it should be noted that
talking with Ren and
talking
with Ren
were two different things.

We talked when we ate together at
his place, or takeout at mine, before we fucked each other’s brains out. We
also talked while I ate the breakfasts Ren cooked for me (his place) or he ate
the toast I toasted for him (my place) before we both tackled our days.

We
talked
when Ren got whiff of some case I was on and didn’t like it.
These Talks occurred after a fight about the same thing which led to
no-holds-barred sex, sleeping tangled up in each other and after we woke up and
were in bed.

But I could tell by the tone of his
voice this was not a talk but a
Talk.

I knew from details received from
the Rock Chicks that they, too, had Talks with their badasses. Jet called them
Eddie Chats. Roxie called the ones she had with Hank Conversations.

These talks always centered around
the respective badass wanting his Rock Chick to bend to his will in some way.
And they were usually successful in getting what they wanted though it wasn’t always
the talking that got them what they wanted. They tended to shift tactics and
the way they did got them what they wanted. It also gave the Rock Chick what
she wanted so although she bitched, she didn’t quibble.

Ren’s Talks were different. He
shifted tactics during the preceding fight to end it by initiating mind-blowing
sex and could shift tactics during the Talk but only when the Talk degenerated
into a Fight. And although Ren’s Talks happened frequently, they always
happened at the same time in the same place and he never got what he wanted.

Partly because I was stubborn.

Okay, that was mostly why.

I was lucky Ren’s Talks were
different. Jet’s Chats and Roxie’s Conversations could happen any time,
willy-nilly, so they could be unprepared.

I always knew when it was coming.

So this suggested Talk was outside
the norm and at my brother’s wedding. Therefore, in my opinion, I considered it
a highly inappropriate sneak attack.

“We’re not talking now,” I denied.

He, as usual, ignored me.

“You’ve been hanging with Kevin
James.”

This was true. I had.

Kevin “The Kevster” James was a
pothead. He was hilarious. He was clueless. His favorite movie was
The Big Lebowski
which said it all about
him and all that said was good. And he was a friend.

However, lately I had not been
hanging with The Kevster as a friend, sitting around with bowls of munchies
while The Kevster smoked a doobie and we watched Jeff Bridges floating over Los
Angeles.

We were hanging with a purpose.

“The Kevster’s a friend,” I shared
with Ren.

At my words, Ren’s brows shot
together and he asked, “
The Kevster?
”

“His preferred handle,” I
explained.

Ren looked to the ceiling. I
figured he did this because Ren might be a member of a crime family but he
reeked class. He likely had no friends with “handles.” Or that smoked doobies.
And I didn’t ask because I was scared of the answer, but there was a high
probability Ren would not like
The Big
Lebowski
and that might mean I’d have to question his taste. Since he very
much liked the taste of me, I didn’t want to do that.

“We’ve been friends ages,” I went
on and Ren looked back to me, now with brows raised.

“So he’s not helping you find the
grow house that friend of your other friend’s sister thinks her son has set up
in Littleton?”

Jeez, how did he find out all this
crap?

I decided I didn’t want to know and
I also decided not to answer.

He got closer and reminded me,
“Ally, we had a deal. You do this shit for people, you stay away from the drug
trade.”

We did have that deal, kind of. The
“kind of” part was that during a Talk, I’d agreed to that, but I was also lying
when I agreed.

“Pot isn’t drugs,” I pointed out.
“It’s flora. It’s natural. And it’s now legal.”

“This grow house you’re lookin’ for
isn’t legal,” he shot back.

This was true.

I again didn’t reply.

He got even closer and ordered,
“Baby, drop this case.”

Uh-oh.

He was getting bossy.

I wasn’t a big fan of bossy.

“Zano, I made a deal,” I returned.
“I’m not dropping this case. Especially since we’re close to ending it.”

“Drop it,” he semi-repeated.

“I’m not dropping it,” I snapped.

“This kid you’re lookin’ for, he
just sat down with some serious players to supply their demand. Takes him out
of having to deal with dealing. He just gets to grow and rake in the cash. This
is an escalation for him that at his age with his inexperience is all kinds of
dangerous. You do not wanna get involved in that shit.”

That was not good news.

But as Darius told me (more than
once), that was also not my problem

“You’re right. I don’t,” I agreed
(to that part). “But getting involved in that is not part of the deal I made.
He’s nineteen years old and his mother wants to know if he’s growing weed. I
find out, get the proof, hand it over to her, she does with it what she will
and I’m out.”

“And you think, she blows the
whistle on her kid to teach him a lesson, his deal goes south, those players
aren’t gonna look your way for being the instrument of that loss of income?”

“Shit happens in crime, Zano, and
if they’re experienced players, they know to roll with the punches.”

His face set and his jaw got hard.
“I’m sure they do. It’s just that I’d rather it wasn’t
you
who took those punches.”

I lost more of my patience.

“I’ll be fine,” I said for the ten
gazillionth time.

“Yeah, because your brothers and
their boys have labeled you untouchable. But there’s gonna be a time where you
piss someone off who won’t give a shit what firepower you have at your back.”

This, I knew, was true. Darius told
me.

It didn’t piss me off that Lee and
the Hot Bunch made it clear on the streets I had their protection. This was
mostly because they were staying distant and not getting in my business. It was
also because it was sweet.

But I wasn’t stupid and this
constant refrain from Ren was inference I was.

“Tell me, Zano, if Lee was nosing
into this for a client, would you think it was reckless for him to do so?”