And it got better when Ren’s breathing eased and he gently pulled my head back by my hair. I felt his lips at my throat right before I felt his tongue touch there. Then I felt him guide my pendant into his mouth with his tongue and the chain tightened around my neck as he sucked it deeper.

His mouth was working my pendant, but it felt like it was working every part of me. My thighs tightened on his hips, my arms around his shoulders. In fact, everything tightened everywhere (and I mean everything) and I mentally went back on what I said the day before.

Yes, people and memories meant everything and things meant nothing.

Except that pendant.

That pendant meant the world.

He released it, kissed my chest and tipped his head back as he moved mine forward to catch my eyes.

“Want breakfast?” he asked and I grinned.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Then kiss me and get off me, baby.”

In bed, Ren still inside me, it was these occasions and only these occasions I always did what I was told.

So I did what I was told.

But the first part of his order, I gave it my all.

* * *

I was sitting on Ren’s kitchen counter, Ren leaning against the one kitty corner to me.

I’d swallowed the last ketchup covered tater tot and put my plate in the sink. I was sipping at my coffee when Ren pushed away from his place, dumped his plate in the sink and moved in front of me.

He took my cup from my hand and set it aside. Hands at my knees, he spread them. He moved in and wrapped one arm around my waist, curving his fingers under me to cup one hand to my ass, and hauled me a couple inches forward on the counter so my happy place slammed into his happy place and stayed nestled there perfectly.

He’d never done that before. Breakfast time was when I reestablished the boundaries I blew apart when we fucked each other’s brains out and Ren had always given that to me. He didn’t hide that he found it amusing. But he still gave it to me.

This was tons better.

I curled my arms around him.

Totally better.

“You work tonight?” he asked.

I nodded. I’d called off the night Faye had her thing so I could take care of Faye’s thing. Last night was my night off. Tonight, alas, I was back at it.

“Date night, your next night off,” Ren declared.

Oh yeah.

I nodded. I also smiled. I did it small on the outside, huge on the inside.

“Tonight, you wanna eat before you go or when you get home?” he asked.

God, God, my man was sweet.

“Before,” I answered.

“Lasagna or chicken parmesan?”

Seriously? He had to ask?

I mean, his lasagna was the bomb, but he made his chicken parmesan from scratch and the first time I had it—and every time since—I’d had a culinary orgasm emanating from my mouth. And this orgasm was loud. Ren couldn’t have missed it. He didn’t miss anything.

“What do you think?” I asked back.

“Chicken,” he muttered, his lips quirking. They stopped quirking, he held my eyes and his voice was gentle and sweet when he queried, “She call?”

I pressed my lips together. Then I shook my head.

I’d checked my phone and Indy hadn’t called during our mind-blowing, soul-enriching, together together sex-a-thon last night.

This worried me.

So I did something about it while Ren was downstairs making breakfast and I was upstairs freaking that my best friend was mad at me.

“I called her,” I shared. “Left a message for her to meet me this morning and chat.”

“Right, honey,” he replied. He gave me a squeeze and dipped in for a brush on the lips before he went on, “Don’t worry about it. She’ll hear you out. It’s sweet you care, but she does too, so you two will get past it.” I got another brush of the lips before he muttered, “Now, I gotta get to work.”

He moved to let me go, but I tightened my thighs on his hips and my arms around him and regained his focus.

“We got busy last night and conversation was limited,” I noted. “I didn’t get the chance to ask you about your conversation with Lee.”

“Rather have more time than we got right now to explain that to you,” he said, and I didn’t get a good feeling about that.

“Zano—” I started, but stopped when one of his hands came up and curled around my neck.

“You’re lettin’ me in and you already know you’re in, Ally. But I’ll let you in more when I have time to explain. But just to say now, Lee and I are cool, or as cool as we can be. However, he was not a big fan of you heading off to the mountains and gettin’ involved in that shit, and he was even less of a fan of your apartment exploding. You know what kind of man he is. You know how he feels about you. And if you don’t know, you can guess he wants the kind of man he is, which includes the ways he looks after his woman, for you. This means he feels all that shit is my responsibility. So we had words.”

This was understandable. Lee was wrong about it being Ren’s responsibility, but I knew my brothers, both of them, so regardless, Ren was right in what he said. So it was understandable.

Ren went on, “And there’s shit going down at work between Vito, Dom and me. Lee’s in the know about it, and since he was pissed about other shit, he took that opportunity to get in my face about that. That’s done between your brother and me too.”

This was not understandable, seeing as I had no idea what he was talking about.

Therefore I asked, “What?”

“That’s the part I need time to explain,” Ren replied. “And I don’t have that time now, but I’ll explain it, honey. It’s not bad. But it is somethin’ you gotta know.”

Oh shit.

I was not good at waiting for information. Especially if it was juicy. Especially if it had something to do with someone I cared about. And this sounded juicy and it definitely had something to do with someone I cared about.

“Uh… Zano,” I started. “Something to know about me—”

I stopped speaking because he smiled and that took all my attention.

Then he pulled me deep into his body and dipped his face close to mine.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” he noted, still smiling.

“Cats have nine lives,” I replied and his smile instantly died.

“How many of those you gone through?”

Uh-oh.

We were hitting a conversational danger zone. This was because, counting nearly being blown up the day before, I suspected I was close to the end of my quota. I also suspected Ren knew that and didn’t like it all that much.

In an effort to prevent this talk from becoming a Talk, I stated, “I’ll wait until we have time for you to explain.”

“Good choice,” he returned.

“Now kiss me and go to work so I can go meet Indy,” I ordered and got the smile back.

Then I got his mouth back, another squeeze and a sweet, soft, “Later, baby,” before he let me go.

I watched him walk away.

And when he disappeared, I gave myself a moment to kick my own ass (mentally) for not initiating this together togetherness ages ago.

Then I got over it because it happened, I fucked up, it was over and there was nothing I could do about it. Except live in the now and make that now the best it could be, for me and for Ren.

I jumped off the counter, did the breakfast dishes and headed out to make amends with my friend.

Hopefully.

* * *

I was sitting outside a Starbuck’s in Cherry Creek North.

In other words, I was taking my life in my hands.

No joke.

This was not because there might be snipers (don’t think I’m kidding—I was a Rock Chick; anything goes when you’re a Rock Chick, the scarier, the more possible).

This was because, if Tex knew I was at a Starbuck’s, he’d lose his mind.

Tex felt, and shared this philosophy liberally, that the coffee counter at Fortnum’s was like your momma’s dining room table at Thanksgiving. That was to say, on Thanksgiving, your ass was at that table. You didn’t tell your mother you were going to a Chinese restaurant with your friends or suggest you have Thanksgiving catered at your house or explain you were taking that longed for, once in a lifetime vacation to a five star resort in Antigua.

You sat your ass at your momma’s table.

And you got your coffee from Tex. Even if you had to go out of your way, you went to Fortnum’s and Tex handed you your cup.

No excuses were accepted.

If you didn’t do this, things could get ugly.

So although I had a lot on my mind, I was also scanning the area just in case Tex’s radar pinged and sent him on a mission to ream my ass, throw away my latte and drag me to Fortnum’s to make me a coffee.

I knew this sounded weird. It was also true.

But outside of being unfaithful to Tex’s coffees and the possible consequences of that, what was on my mind wasn’t that I’d been waiting over an hour for Indy to show. It also wasn’t that none of the Hot Bunch were taking my calls so I could ask what was happening with Rosie. It further wasn’t the fact that this informational lockout pissed me off, considering I might not be a member of their team, but it was my apartment that had blown sky high because Rosie dropped my name, so I had the right to know.

What was on my mind was that my boss had called and told me not to go into work that night.

This was because I was fired.

He was nice about it, and truth be told, I was expecting it. He’d put up with me a lot longer than I would have put up with me, that was certain.