I closed my eyes again and clenched my teeth.

“Are you gonna stick with me and hear me out?” he asked.

I opened my eyes and snapped, “Just get it done, Zano.”

“All right, honey.”

God.

Sweet.

Someone kill me.

“I was into her,” he admitted quietly and my throat closed. “But that night, beer, bourbon and me tellin’ you I like the Bears was not about her. It was about you and me. Then you snuck away and I get that, Ally,” he said the last swiftly, his arms going tighter as he felt my body go solid. “I get why you’d do that. But I didn’t get it then. I thought it was something else, honey, and you know what I thought it was.”

“Yeah, you came over to my place in the middle of the night and made that perfectly clear,” I reminded him.

“I also apologized,” he reminded me.

Crap.

He did.

I shut my mouth.

“So yeah,” he continued gently as well as cautiously. “I had feelings for Ava and I had to work through those. But, Ally,” his arms gave me another squeeze, “she was with another guy. Deep in it with him. I had no shot. I knew that. We’d never been out on a date. I hadn’t even kissed her. I was definitely never in love with her.”

“You took her to Carmine’s,” I reminded him.

“That wasn’t a date, honey,” he told me. “And you know it. I took her to dinner and took her home to Stark. A man taking a woman to dinner and dropping her off with another man is not a date.”

Okay, I had to give him that.

“I thought we’d connected,” I found myself whispering then I found I couldn’t stop doing it. “We were naked. You were holding me. And you were thinking about her.”

“She had a lot of shit happening around her, and I was involved. So it’s not surprising that shit was swirling in the back of my head. But I wasn’t thinking about her. I wasn’t in control of my thoughts. I was unconscious.”

“You just said you were into her,” I reminded him.

“And I found another woman I was into, we had a great night, the fuckin’ best, and she blew me off. A man did that to you, you had no idea why, how would you react? What would you think?”

Oh crap.

That made sense.

And he thought that night was the best?

“Can we stop talking pressed to the goddamned door and move to the bed?” he asked.

“Let me go,” I demanded softly.

“Ally—”

“Please let me go, Ren.”

His arms got tight before they went loose and I stepped away.

I turned and saw him standing there, eyes on me, but they weren’t pissed. Not even close.

They were warm and concerned.

I closed my eyes against that beauty and dropped my head.

I had one way to explain this and make him let me go. Only one.

Was I going to use it?

I opened my eyes and lifted my head.

I was going to use it.

“For Lee, it was Indy.”

He did a slow blink before he asked, “Baby… what?”

“For Lee, it was Indy. Only Indy. It had always been Indy.”

Understanding moved through his features and he made to come at me but I lifted my hand to him and he stopped.

I dropped my hand. “Eddie screwed everything that moved, but I swear, the minute he got a load of Jet, he was gone.”

“Ally, let me—”

I cut him off. “I think you know I could go on.”

“I know,” he said quietly.

“I want that for me,” I shared.

“Honey,” he started carefully, “you weren’t my first.”

“I wasn’t your first several things,” I replied.

“I wasn’t in love with her, Ally. Baby, I hadn’t even kissed her,” he told me.

“Yeah, Ren. But that doesn’t mean anything. I know because I fell for you before you kissed me. It was just that I knew I’d done it the morning after.”

His head jerked, his brows shot up, but his eyes stayed locked on me.

Then something moved over his face I didn’t quite get, but it was more than a little alarming, and he growled, “Come here.”

I had to get this done and get the hell out of there, so I shook my head. “No, I—”

“Ally. Get. Your ass. Over here,” he ground out and I blinked.

Then my spine straightened again.

“Zano, don’t you—”

“Fuck it,” he bit off then he was on me and half a second later he was on me as in, I was on my back in the bed and his body was covering mine.

Macho Alpha Maneuver!

How had I not seen it coming?

“Zano!” I shouted, shoving at his shoulders

The shoving at the shoulders and shouting gig didn’t work in the slightest (then again, it never did).

But this time, it was because Ren was focused.

Like, really focused.

“You’re in love with me?” he asked.

“Well, I was,” I snapped.

“So you were in love with me and then you spent a year sleeping practically every night at my side, every morning eating breakfast with me, even though you thought I had feelings for another woman, and you’re not in love with me anymore,” Ren replied immediately.

That sounded absurd.

Still, I was realizing that maybe I’d landed myself in hot water and perhaps silence was the key to the hungry Italian hothead that was lying on top of me not making a meal of me.

Ren didn’t need me to participate in this discussion and give him more fodder to chew me up and spit me out.

I’d already given him plenty.

I would know this when his eyes narrowed and he noted, “A year I’ve been busting my ass to get in there and the whole fucking time I wasn’t just in there, I was in there.”

I kept my mouth shut and just gave him big eyes. Indy cuted her way out of things. She was good at it. It even sometimes worked on Lee.

I’d never tried it but I figured now was as good a time as any.

He took in my big eyes and didn’t find them cute.

I knew this when he declared, “Christ, you’re a pain in my ass.”

He stopped talking.

I didn’t fill the void.

He didn’t either.

Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and asked, “Can I go find Darius now?”

“No you fuckin’ can’t go find Darius now,” he answered and I shut my mouth again. “Jesus, Ally, you just told me you’re in love with me.”

“Uh… I think I said was.”

“So you’re not in love with me?”

I didn’t answer that.

“Ally,” he growled.

God!

I knew one thing, he never let anything go so I had no hope in hell of him letting this go.

And since I was letting it all hang out it was time to go for the gusto.

But carefully.

“I didn’t say that,” I whispered.

Instantly upon my words, his eyes got heated. It was his angry heat warring with a totally different kind of his heat and he verbalized these conflicting emotions by sharing, “I don’t know whether to fuck you or turn you over my knee.”

I decided not to give him my input because the first option I was always up for and the second one might make me lose my mind and we didn’t need any more emotion making things crazy.

Instead, I decided to change the subject and I did this by asking cautiously, “Um… what’s happening here?”

“Um… you’re officially ending this game we been playing by tellin’ me you love me?” he asked back sarcastically.

I had already pretty much done that but I didn’t point that out at that juncture because I decided at his words and tone that I felt we needed more emotion making things crazy.

And I was going to bring it.

“Seriously?” I snapped.

“Jesus, why can’t you just say it?” he returned.

“Maybe because you’re essentially ordering me to,” I fired back then kept going in order to advise, “Don’t think you can watch the Rock Chicks and think you’re getting the same thing with me. This macho bossy shit does not fly with me.”

“Clue in, Ally,” he immediately volleyed, “Watchin’ the Rock Chicks, I know exactly what does and does not fly with you, and just like every one of those men when their women serves up attitude, I don’t give a shit. And, just sayin’, that attitude, just like with them, is why I’m with you.”

“What?” I bit out.

“Babe, every one of those guys had pussy lined up at the door. Bitches were gagging for it. They’d do anything to get their hooks into those men and those men knew it. They didn’t want a woman who’d do anything. They wanted a woman who knew her own mind and wouldn’t do anything. Not a single one of your posse lets their man walk all over them. And not a single one lets them get away with shit. At least not without dishin’ up a fair amount of attitude before they let them get away with it which is the definition of not letting them get away with it.”

This, I had to admit, was true. At the very least, if one of the Hot Bunch got bossy, they’d get an eye roll, but usually they bought a whole lot more. Those boys might get their way but that didn’t mean they didn’t have to work for it.

I just never looked at it that way.

Ren wasn’t done.

“With your crew, you get what you see, not some twisted version who’s tyin’ herself into knots to give you what they think you wanna see. And even if every one of you and your crew are totally fuckin’ whacked in your own unique ways, it’s just you and all you. Not some bullshit fantasy that will go up in smoke the minute you get your hooks in me.”

There was a lot there, and all of it made total, if surprising, sense.

But I got stuck on one thing.

And being me, I called him on it.