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 fuckuva 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.”

“Maybe your girls don’t share everything,” he suggested.

He clearly hadn’t been around to overhear the Rock Chicks gabbing.

I decided not to reply as that information might freak him.

“I’ll do my best to ignore it from here on out,” he offered.

“Appreciated,” I muttered.

He grinned, bent his head to brush his lips to mine then he let me go and ordered, “I’ll get the champagne, you get the food.”

Since this was an acceptable arrangement, I complied.

He got the champagne. I went to the table to light the candle I didn’t get to when he’d rushed me. Then I set out the food. Ren set out a champagne bucket filled with ice and the opened bottle. He handed me my glass as we both sat.

I stared at the champagne bucket.

“Babe,” he called and my eyes drifted to him.

“You have a champagne bucket,” I told him something he knew since it was him that filled it with ice and put it on the table.

His head tipped to the side. “Yeah.”

“I’m not sure what to do with that,” I shared.

“And I’m not sure why you’d have to do anything with it,” he returned.

“Um… I don’t think I know anyone with a champagne bucket, except my parents, and they got theirs for a wedding present thirty-nine years ago.”

“Which would stand to reason this is the bucket Ma and Pop got at their wedding thirty-eight years ago.”

“Oh,” I mumbled. I tipped my head to the side and proceeded cautiously, “Why do you have it?”

He took a sip of champagne, set his glass aside and picked up his fork. He did all this not looking at me, which was all kinds of strange with Ren. He was a straight talker and a big fan of eye contact.

And he did all of it while he answered, “Ma couldn’t let go of shit, but she had to get rid of it. She bided her time for years, keeping it for her kids, and when we left home, she divvied it out. I got a champagne bucket I never needed until now, and ‘cause she had to unload that shit, I didn’t argue. What I did do was keep it just in case she changed her mind and wanted it back.”

I remembered during Brother’s, beer and bourbon he said his mother couldn’t deal when his dad died and I was curious to know more. Most especially why Ren relayed this seemingly tame, though sad information without looking at me.

But I sensed now was not the time to dig into that.

So I just said, “Right.”

He dropped his fork on his plate, went back to his flute and held it up to me. “Toast, baby.”

Oh shit. A toast could mean anything and that anything could include more of my undoing.

In order to ascertain whether or not to prepare, I asked, “Are you going to say something that’s going to make me feel warm inside?”

His beautiful espresso eyes lit, his lips quirked, and he asked back, “I make you feel warm inside?”

Like he needed me to confirm that.

I gave him a look as answer.

He gave me a grin.

“Okay, how’s this?” he began, lifting his flute half an inch. “To my top ten. Eyes. Ass. Pussy. Hair. Tits. Lips. Neck. Legs. Backs of your knees. Ankles. In that order.”

My brows shot up because I was shocked.

“My ass is before my happy place?”

At that, his beautiful espresso eyes were actually dancing (no joke), his body was shaking and his words were rumbling with laughter when he asked, “Your happy place?”

“Dude, totally happy.”

He let fly and burst out laughing.

I watched, enjoyed the show, and when it waned, I lifted my glass and said, “To your top ten.”

We clinked. We drank. But before we set our glasses aside, Ren’s hand snaked out, hooked me behind the neck and pulled me to him for a hard, closed mouth kiss.

When he was done, he turned his attention to his food and I followed suit thinking I really liked his dining room table.

I’d had a bite when he demanded, “Right, let’s get the bad out of the way. Update.”

I forked into a piece of kung pao shrimp and gave him what I knew he wanted, which was what I’d gleaned from a variety of phone calls I took while shopping.

Though it wasn’t much.

“No hack. Brody was affronted it was even suggested that could happen. But it hasn’t. The author’s website is registered to a non-existent address somewhere in bumfuck Wyoming. The name it’s registered under is not the author’s name, but it’s also a person who doesn’t exist.”

“Dead ends,” Ren murmured, sounding displeased.

“Sorry, honey,” I murmured back. His eyes caught mine and he nodded. “They’re widening the net,” I assured him.