He moved one of his hands down to the side of my neck so he could stroke my throat with his thumb. This was another something new. Then again, I didn’t give him many opportunities to show affection like that and I was thinking that was a good thing seeing as it felt incredibly nice.

“There’s gonna be a path you cross,” he said gently. “A path that no matter what firepower you got taking your back, they’re gonna try to take you down. I do not want you to get to that place, baby.”

Unusually, I used a calm voice rather than an irate one when I explained, “I’m not exactly being stupid. I’ve got Brody and Darius. I’m careful.”

That was only mostly true.

I slid my hand up his chest, exploring this unchartered territory of intimacy and sharing, and wrapped it around the side of his neck, putting pressure on. He gave me what I wanted and his face drew even closer.

“I like doing this, Ren. I like it. I’ve tried a lot of things in my life. I’ve got a bachelor’s degree. I’m a certified radiology tech. I’ve done nails. And I’m thirty-two years old. Now I work part-time in a bookstore/coffee shop and full-time slinging drinks. I don’t like doing any of that as much as I like what you don’t like me doing. That’s why I keep doing it, even though I know a lot of people, not just you, don’t like me doing it. Because I like it. It feels right. It feels like I finally found what I wanna be. It’s like I finally found me.”

He studied me and for once said not a word.

Again unusually, I kept talking rationally.

“I know you’re worried about those guys I got involved with last night. So are Darius and Brody. So am I. But I took a calculated risk to save my friend. I’ll watch my back and I have good guys watching it, too. So I’ll be all right.”

He kept studying me, but I had nothing else to say.

Finally, he spoke.

“You know, just sayin’, you said this shit to me like you just said it to me rather than yellin’ at my ass until the only option I have to stop you from yellin’ is to tap your ass, it might have penetrated about ten months ago.”

Something about that made me laugh. Maybe because it was funny.

And there was something about this that I liked. And there was no maybe about the fact that it not only seemed he listened to me, but he heard me and he got me.

And I liked that.

When I quit laughing, Ren was smiling down at me.

My heart skipped a beat.

I didn’t get many of those, seeing as we fought all the time and when we weren’t his mouth was engaged with doing other things.

But just like now, when I did get a smile from Ren Zano, it hit straight to the heart of me.

His smile downgraded to a grin and his eyes moved over my face, something happening in them I didn’t quite get. But whatever it was seemed to mean something. It looked like he was about to say something, but he thought better of it and kept quiet.

I didn’t.

“I dig the mountains, but me and the boys shot up here without provisions and I’ve got shit to do at home, so it might be time to get a move on.”

“Right,” he replied. “There’s a drugstore across the street. I’ll go over, get toothbrushes and shit. There’s also a coffee shop down the street. You wanna make coffee in that little pot on the dresser or you want me to pick you up a real coffee?”

I stared up at him.

We’d never done anything like this, acting semi-normal and not always crazy.

I was a little stunned he could be thoughtful.

No. That wasn’t true. I knew he was the kind of guy who could to be that way. He often demonstrated thoughtful tendencies. Like when I’d show at his house in the wee hours after a bartending shift, he’d ask me if I’d eaten and I’d find he’d made a batch of spaghetti sauce or some cannelloni and he’d heat it up to feed me. And I knew he probably didn’t make that just for himself, but also preparing to feed me later.

Shit like that.

But everybody had to eat, so going out of his way to be thoughtful? I’d never seen that. Mostly because I’d never given him the chance.

Except last Christmas, when he’d been really thoughtful.

So maybe I wasn’t staring up at him stunned because he was being thoughtful.

Maybe I was doing it because this demonstration of further thoughtfulness moved me.

Shit.

“I, uh…” I started and stopped since it took me a bit to shake it off, how nice it felt to be this way with Ren. But I managed it and kept going. “We’ll start with coffee here and get a real one for the trip home. But a toothbrush wouldn’t go amiss.”

“Gotcha,” he muttered, dipping close to touch his lips to mine, and he did this for no reason. Something else he’d never done. Then he pulled away, rolled off me and exited the bed. He yanked the covers over me after he did (again, thoughtful) and proceeded dressing.

It was then I lost the ability to think about anything as I watched Ren move, going from naked to dressed, so I laid there and let myself enjoy the fullness of that (as well as the heat it caused in me). The show was so good, I was rerunning certain parts of it in my head when it was over and this made me an unmoving target when Ren came back to the bed. He hooked a hand around the back of my neck, pulled me up and again touched his mouth to mine.

“Back in a few,” he murmured. He gave me a small grin that warmed his eyes in a way that ratcheted up that heat in me, then he walked to and through the door.

I stared at the door for a good long while.

Then the name he’d murmured in the back of my hair over a year before… a name he murmured while we were in bed, naked, he was holding me and he was asleep… a name that wasn’t mine… came back to me.

And it reminded me this wasn’t real.

I truly believed Ren wanted it to be.

But I knew it was never going to be, not in the way I needed it to be.

So I shoved thoughts of his warmth and thoughtfulness aside, jumped from the bed and started coffee.

I was in the shower when he returned and I knew he returned when he joined me in the shower.

Me wet and soapy, Ren wet and naked meant things happened, and those things included me getting an against-the-tiles-in-the-bathroom-of-a-moderately-priced-motel-in-a-small-Colorado-mountain-town orgasm.

Like every orgasm Ren gave me (yes, I said “every”, and that is no lie), it was freaking righteous.

I was in my bra and undies, Ren in his boxers. We were both at the small sink brushing our teeth while I braced myself against liking another heretofore unknown intimacy when Ren gave me the ammunition to forever put the “us” he wanted us to be to rest.

He did this by spitting out foam, rinsing and catching my eyes in the mirror after he wiped his mouth with a towel.

Then he said, “Got Ava and Stark’s wedding invitation. I know you’re in the wedding party but I’m gonna take you.”

I still had my brush in my mouth, but my eyes locked to his as my insides froze stone-cold.

I forced myself out of the freeze, pulled the brush out of my mouth and asked through foam, “Are you shitting me?”

His brows shot together and he answered, “No.”

I leaned forward, spit but did not rinse. I spoke again after I swiped the back of my hand across my mouth and my words came out biting.

“Tell me you’re shitting me,” I demanded.

He rocked back and crossed his arms on his chest, murmuring in a way I knew he was annoyed and didn’t expect an answer, “Jesus, what’s up your ass now?”

He was.

He was totally fucking shitting me.

And that burned through me. Not with anger.

With pain.

So much of it, my voice was actually weak—fuck me, weak—when I answered, “What’s up my ass, Ren, is that you just asked me to go with you to the wedding of the woman you’re in love with. That,” my voice—goddamn it!—broke on that word, but I kept going, “is what’s up my ass.”

I registered the shock on his face. It would be hard to miss seeing as it suffused every feature and shot from his eyes.

“What the fuck?” he whispered.

“So no,” I whispered back, the pain still affecting my voice, making it come out shaky. But I couldn’t stop it. I also didn’t have it in me to try. “I will not go to Ava and Luke’s wedding with you. And also,” I swallowed, “this shit, you and me, after you’d ask me something like that, is done. Over. No more fuck buddies. No more anything.”

And on that, I didn’t stomp out of the bathroom.

I ran.

Chapter One

You’re a Nightingale

Rock Chick Rewind

Thirteen months earlier…

I woke up in Ren Zano’s four poster bed, with its wine colored sheets, that was in the bedroom of his awesome house in Cheesman Park, knowing I’d done it.

I wasn’t certain it was going to happen to me. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was beginning to think it wouldn’t.

That happened to some women. They went their whole lives and didn’t find the one.

The man who, just looking at him, made your blood warm.

The man who, when he smiled at you, made your heart skip a beat.

The man who was so attuned to your body, he could use his hands, his mouth, his words, his everything, and make it sing.

Even the first time.

Or, I should say, in Ren’s and my case, the first three times.

And the man who was interesting, charming, maybe a wee bit edgy and mysterious (but that wee bit was way hot and something I liked a whole lot) and made no bones about the fact he was into you—into you in the sense that he wanted to get in you—and that way would last awhile.

That while maybe being forever.

Okay, so last night in the parking lot of Herman’s Hideaway, Ren had fought with Luke, one of the Hot Bunch (in other words, one of my brother’s guys) over my friend Ava.

But then Luke accidently elbowed Ava in the head. They took off in his Porsche and I’d stayed in the parking lot giving Ren what for for being a macho asshole and fighting in a freaking parking lot (I mean, really?). Then I’d noticed he was still pissed. He appeared to give more than a passing shit about Ava (and there was reason for this; she was in the middle of a shitstorm, not unusual with the Rock Chicks) so I decided to get a few drinks in him.

When I offered this suggestion, he stopped being pissed for a second, looked me up and down, and agreed.

This led us to going to My Brother’s Bar where I worked as a bartender. We got a back corner booth and commenced in tying one on.

At first, I avoided the subject of the Luke/Ava/Ren triangle because he seemed to be getting his shit together and I didn’t want it to slide back. Especially if he intended to get shitfaced. I didn’t want to watch another hot guy go gonzo, even verbally, and especially drunkenly, over another one of the Rock Chicks.

That wasn’t my idea of a fun night.

I’d had that when Indy got pursued by Lee.

And when Lee’s best friend Eddie went after my friend Jet.

And when Hank decided, for him, it was Roxie.

And also when another one of Lee’s boys, Vance, locked his sights on a woman we eventually recruited into the Rock Chicks, Jules.

And last, I was currently swimming through the crazy waters of Luke staking his claim with another one of my friends, Ava.

I couldn’t say all this wasn’t exciting—sometimes way exciting, sometimes hilarious, sometimes not a small amount of insane—but the end was always good. The guy got his girl, the girl got her guy, and everyone was happy.

As happy as I was for my friends—and make no mistake, I was happy, and the rides to get to the end of their kickass, modern-day fairytales were all sorts of sick, delicious fun—I was thinking it wasn’t going to happen for me.

But until recently, I’d been going out for a while with Carl, who was a good guy. He was into me, the sex was great, the banter almost better, but something about him just didn’t do it for me.

It didn’t make me look the way Indy looked at Lee, Jet at Eddie, Roxie at Hank (I think you get me).

Like he was it. Like the search was over. Like I’d made the epic journey and found treasure beyond my wildest imaginings.

I didn’t usually think shit like that.

I was a Rock Chick. I had a lot of friends. I had a lot of good times. The concept of “anything goes” was pretty literal for me. I didn’t have issues speaking my mind. And I didn’t have issues creating a drama if the situation deserved it. I also didn’t give a shit if someone disagreed with the situation deserving it.