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.

“I’m not whacked!” I stated (loudly).

“Ally, you been fuckin’ me for a goddamned year, in love with me since the night we met, and pushing me away that whole time. That’s whacked.”

“There were circumstances that led to all that, Zano.”

“And you took your sweet time sharing those with me, and I’ll add, did it in a goddamn motel hours away from home, after rescuing some random damsel in distress who got fucking buried alive that you met on your fuckin’ computer, for God’s sake, and you did it during a fuckin’ drama. Baby, that, all of that, is whacked.”

“Faye’s not random. She’s my friend!” I shouted.

“You met her in person last night!” he shouted back.

“So?” I asked, still shouting.

“Jesus, are we honestly fighting about the fact you’re in love with me?” he asked.

“Words you’ll never hear if you keep up this bossy in your face bullshit, Zano,” I returned (again, loudly).

He scowled at me.

Then he rolled off, shifting to his back in the bed. He lifted his hands to his face and rubbed, muttering under them, “Fuck me.”

I rolled to my side, got up on an elbow and requested to know, “If I try to leave and go find Darius, are you going to pin me to the bed again?”

He removed his hands from his face and locked eyes with me. “Fuck yes.”

“God!” I exclaimed, falling to my back on the bed with a plop.

Within an instant, Ren was looming over me.

His hand came to my jaw and his face dipped close.

I glared.

“I’m in love with you, Ally.”

I stopped glaring and my heart flipped.

“What?” I whispered.

He didn’t repeat himself.

He said something a lot longer and almost (but not quite) as good.

“I knew it could happen when you were cool when I told you about my dad and you wrapped your hand around my thigh. I definitely knew it could happen when you went wild for me on my stairs. Shit went down and it took a while but I knew it did happen when you cried in my arms after Sadie had her thing. Anyone who would feel that badly about being mean and care so deeply about another human being’s fucked up life I knew was the woman for me. You gave me a run for my money, and once I stopped finding it a pain in my ass and started enjoying it, I did nothing but. I enjoyed every fuckin’ second, Ally. And every fuckin’ second I’ve never doubted how I was feeling. And just to be clear, how I was feeling, every day through this game we’ve been playing, was that I was falling deeper in love with you.”

Holy crap.

“Seriously?” I breathed.

“Seriously,” he declared firmly.

I stared up at him, my heart beating hard, my stomach melting, my hands itching to touch him, words getting clogged in my throat.

With effort, I was able to let some out and the ones that came were, “I’ll go to Ava and Luke’s wedding with you.”

When I was done speaking, I watched him close his eyes then watched as he dropped his head so his forehead was against mine.

Whoa.

Wow.

God.

Ren Zano loved me.

I got choked up again and put a hand to his chest, sliding it up to curl around the side of his neck. At the same time I lifted my other hand and wrapped it around his wrist at my jaw.

He lifted his head an inch and opened his beautiful eyes.

And there it was in all its glory.

God.

He loved me.

I so totally didn’t see that coming.

But I was over the freaking moon that it did.

“Maybe I’m a little whacked,” I whispered.

He said nothing which meant he agreed, just maybe not about the “a little” part.

Suddenly, for the first time in a very long time, I was uncertain.

But I’d very nearly fucked this up by being emotional and maybe a bit stupid (okay, maybe not “maybe” about that last part).

I had to stop doing that.

Therefore, I asked quietly, “Don’t you think it’s a little weird, a woman saying she fell in love with a man the first night they met?”

“No,” he answered immediately as his eyes got warmer and more beautiful.

My nose started tingling.

I swallowed.

“Do you love me, Ally?” he asked in his sweet voice.

I stared into his eyes. I drew in a breath.

Then I answered, “Yes, Ren. I love you.”

I didn’t get to stare into his eyes as they responded to that.

Because his mouth and body were responding to it.

That was to say, I was in his arms and he was kissing me.

Hard.

My mouth and body, specifically my heart and my happy place, responded to his kiss (and the fucking righteous fact that he loved me) and I rolled him to his back with me on top. I shoved my hands under his shirt and yanked up.

He lifted up to sitting, forcing me to straddle him, and ended the kiss only to finish what I started, tug off his shirt and toss it aside.

Then he tugged off my tee and tossed it aside.

His arms closed around me, his mouth took mine again, and he fell back, taking me with him and twisting so I was on my back, Ren on me.

His hands moved on me and I liked it.

My hands moved on him and it was debatable but I might have liked that more.

His mouth took, mine gave.

This was our way. One place I absolutely didn’t mind Ren being bossy and domineering was in bed. And he was both, he’d never been anything but both, and I got off on it.

Finally, his fingers curled into the cup of my bra and pulled it down. I bit my lip in anticipation for the delights awaiting me and he didn’t delay. He moved his mouth there, sucked hard, getting what he was going for immediately; my moan that corresponded to the heat surging through me at the same time me driving my hands in his hair.

He swirled his tongue around my nipple then blew against it.

Oh God. I loved it when he did that.

I felt it pucker further and harden harder and whimpered as that shot straight to my happy place.

“Kick off your boots, baby,” he murmured as his arm that was around me shifted up, his fingers honing in on my bra clasp.

With a flick, it was undone.

With a tug it was gone.

“Hurry, honey,” Ren ordered softly then he went after my other nipple.

It was difficult, I wanted to concentrate on what he was doing, but I managed to toe at my boots until they were gone.

Ren heard the second one hit the floor. I heard my zip go down and suddenly my jeans, panties and socks were gone.

Lying down my side but up on an elbow, his hungry, heated eyes came to mine and my happy place convulsed.

“Spread for me,” he whispered.

I held his eyes and did as asked. He held my eyes and slid his fingers through the wetness between my legs.

My hips jerked.

A growl tore from his throat.

Hearing it, my hips jerked again.

Ren delayed no further, slid down my body, rolled into me and his mouth was there.

I wrapped my legs over his shoulders and dug my heels in his back, my fingers in his hair, arching and moaning as my happy place spasmed.

“Ren,” I breathed.

God, I loved this.

No, that wasn’t right. I liked this before. But I loved the way Ren did it. Like he couldn’t get enough of me. Like he’d waited lifetimes for a taste of me and now that he had me, he never wanted to stop.

It was amazing.

He kept going until my happy place was nearly as happy as it could be.

Then he was up and covering me, his eyes catching mine right before he slid inside.

As he filled me, my lips parted, my eyelids lowered and I wrapped all my limbs around him.

There it was. Everything I needed.

Holding my gaze, he started moving.

“Ren?” I called on a whisper.

“Yeah, baby,” he answered, gliding, not thrusting.

He was making love to me.

He loved me and he was making love to me.

Thank God I didn’t fuck this up.

I tightened my arms and legs, lifted my head, touched my mouth to his and dropped it back to the bed as my declaration of gratitude for what he was giving me.

Then I requested, “Can I change my answer?”

“What answer, honey?” he asked, still gliding, going faster, not harder, but touching me deep.

I arched into him, sliding a hand up his back and into his hair.

“To that question you asked last summer,” I answered, my words hitching because he was again going faster, this time harder, and it was doing a number on me.

But I needed to get this out or I’d lose focus and not say it.

And I really needed to say it.

Again, that wasn’t right.

I really needed Ren to hear it.

“Ally, baby, what are you talking about?”

“This,” I said.

“What?” he asked.

I held him tight at the same time I lifted my head and put my mouth to his. No brush this time, just being close, all this while holding his eyes.

He sensed what I needed and—God, Ren, so awesome, always so freaking awesome—he stopped on an inward glide, filling me thus giving me what I needed.

All I needed.

“I’m amending my answer,” I whispered. “This.”

I gave him another squeeze, this time with everything I had, including my happy place, and I felt it as he bit his lower lip, showing he liked what I did to him, nipping my lip in the process, something so hot it made me shudder underneath him.

“This, baby,” I kept whispering, “does not feel casual.”

His eyes burned into mine.

I moved a hand to his jaw and finished, “And it never did.”

I just got out the last word before Ren slanted his head and took my mouth, hot, hard and wet.