I got turned and only a step in before an arm hooked around my belly. I was pulled back, pressed forward and ended facing where I usually sat on the counter eating the breakfast Ren cooked me.

Arm still around my belly, his other thumb hooked into my running capris and yanked down.

Holy crap.

My inner thighs quivered.

“Ren,” I breathed.

“Hands to the counter. Spread your legs. Tip for me.”

Oh God.

Hot.

I did as I was told. Ren’s arm at my belly slid down and his fingers curled in as his other hand slid up my chest to wrap around my jaw.

His fingers hit the spot. My head flew back and hit his shoulder.

His hand at my jaw kept it there as he buried his face in my neck.

His fingers between my legs coaxed orgasm one out of me (nice).

While I was still experiencing that, his hand at my jaw moved to between my shoulders as I heard his zipper. He pressed in, I bent, my ass moving back and up, and he slammed inside me, hard, fast, rough, doing this until orgasm two rocked through me (very nice).

He barely finished driving into me through his orgasm before he pulled out and crouched low, dragging my workout capris the rest of the way down my legs in a way that I could not misinterpret.

I did as he wanted and stepped out of them.

Ren turned me and, hands at my waist, he lifted me and planted my bare ass on his counter, moving in so my legs were forced to part, his arms closed around me and we were tucked close.

“Just sayin’,” he started when he caught my eyes, and my happy place did a happy spasm at the heat still in his eyes, “you need a fuckuva lot more of these outfits.”

Told you I totally rocked my running duds.

“Copy that,” I whispered, scratching that on my already very full agenda for the day.

His eyes moved over my face and hair. “Your hair looks cute in that band, honey.”

Yep. Going to Lucy for more running gear was going to happen post-new office inspection and pre-meet with Darius and Brody to see what they had on the situation with Smithie.

Maybe I could get Darius and Brody to meet me at Lucy. It was an outside chance that Darius was such a badass, his skin might catch fire if he entered a woman’s clothing store without a woman he was fucking in attendance, but he loved me. Maybe he loved me enough to take that risk and help me multi-task.

We’d see.

It was then I noticed Ren’s hot eyes had gotten hotter just before his mouth moved to mine. “Been waitin’ a year to have that ass bared and sittin’ on my counter.”

Yowza!

A different kind of melty.

“Now I gotta go to work. Kiss me, Ally,” he finished.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, leaned in and kissed him.

Ren kissed me back, deep and wet. He broke the kiss, moved away and gave me a hot sexy grin as he let me go, but slid one finger over my bare hip, in and along at the inside juncture of hip and thigh then down my inner thigh.

Another happy place spasm.

I grinned at him.

He leaned in for a touch on the lips, turned and walked away.

I watched.

Still grinning.

* * *

As I walked down the hall toward Ren’s office, I did it smiling.

This was because I’d never been to his office and if the inside of the building was anything to go by, his space, as well as my space, was going to be the bomb.

Holding a carrier with two of Tex’s coffees in one hand and a bag of LaMar’s in the other, I turned left at the tall, wood door with the burnished silver plaque at the side that said Zano Holdings Ltd. and juggled the bag as I pushed the fancy handle down.

I was curious to see where Ren spent his days. But as I walked in, I didn’t look around his office.

I looked at the woman behind his reception desk.

Dawn was sitting there.

Dawn.

Dawn, Lee’s ex-receptionist.

Dawn, who I hated because she hated me (and everybody, except Lee and his boys; until they were picked off by the Rock Chicks that was).

Dawn, who got fired because she got caught on in-house surveillance badmouthing Jules while she was in the hospital after she got shot. Lee lost his mind, Luke lost his mind, and they dropped what they were doing in order not to delay in returning to the office and terminating her.

Dawn, who, until that moment, I was certain had crawled into the dark, damp, inhospitable holes beautiful but exceedingly bitchy women retreated to when they got their asses whupped (even figuratively).

Dawn, who was not hiding away in an inhospitable hole but instead sitting in Ren’s offices, glaring at me.

“What the hell?” I whispered.

“I heard you had a thing with Ren,” she snapped, totally still bitchy.

“What the hell?” I repeated, louder this time.

“I prayed it wasn’t true, but apparently God doesn’t listen to me,” she went on.

“What the hell!” I shouted.

“The only thing I can say is, I still have hope for Dom because everyone knows he has a wandering eye,” she kept at it.

“What the hell?” I screeched.

“Ally, Jesus, what’s the matter?” Ren asked, exiting a hall to my side.

For once, his powerful frame in trousers and a dress shirt did nothing for me.

“Dawn works for you,” I snapped, and it came out an accusation, as it should.

He didn’t glance at Dawn as he headed to me, but his face said a lot and all of what it said made me feel better.

Slightly.

In other words, he didn’t like her.

He got close to me, took the carrier of coffee then took my hand and spared Dawn a glance to order, “Hold my calls.”

“Of course, Ren,” she said, sweet as sugar on an eyes-hooded smile that said—right in front of me—she’d hold anything he asked.

Bitch.

Ren led me down the hall and into an office, which I again did not take in, mostly because I was fuming. He then led me to a big desk. He put down the coffee, grabbed the donut bag from my hand, tossed it with the coffee then pulled me loosely into his arms.

When he had me there, he said quietly, “Dom hired her.”

That explained a lot.

“Before he reunited with Sissy,” Ren went on.

Well, that was a relief.

Ren kept talking.

“I’ll admit, her attitude often leaves a lot to be desired. Lucky and Santo hate her. And she does not hide she’s attracted to Dom or me.”

Great. Just great.

Ren wasn’t done, unfortunately.

“She has also given us no reason to discipline or terminate her. I know she worked for Lee. but I saw her resume and personally checked her references. Although Lee said he had issues with her which led to her termination, he didn’t share those with me but did share they had nothing to do with her performance. Her other references were stellar. The other applicants didn’t come close. We were in a jam and needed somebody. So I agreed to take her on.”

His arm tightened and he dipped his face close.

“I see you aren’t fond of her, though I had no idea until now you weren’t, but she’s very good at her job, honey.”

“She’s a bitch,” I declared.

“That may be so—”

“No, Ren. She’s a bitch,” I cut him off to say. “The reason Lee terminated her was because she was on the phone in his office with one of her friends, who’s also likely a bitch, and she was talking trash about Jules when Jules was in the hospital.”

His jaw got hard.

I kept at it.

“Lee was not down with that so he got shot of her ass. And, heads up, you might wanna check your phone logs because they have cameras everywhere at Nightingale Investigations, and she was caught catting with her friends repeatedly.”

“Noted,” Ren murmured.

“And last, remember when I told you I wouldn’t hesitate to get into a bitch smackdown with a sister who was a bitch?” I asked.

He bit his lip and I knew it was to stop both from quirking, but I ignored that and he stopped biting his lip to answer, “Yes.”

“Well, just saying, she even looks at me funny, in your reception area you’re gonna have a knockdown, drag out, hair pulling, nails scratching bitch smackdown catfight that might be so extreme, it’ll make the papers.”

“That’s noted, too,” Ren replied immediately, but now his lips were actually quirking.

“I’m not being funny,” I informed him. “She already gave me a nasty look and nasty words and told me since you were taken, her only hope was Dom, who everyone knew had a wandering eye.”

All amusement fled his face and his eyes narrowed.

Finally.

“She said that?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” I answered.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“You got that right,” I told him.

“What nasty words did she give you?” he asked, and I felt his vibe beginning to weigh down the air, but I didn’t care. If that meant Dawn would be out of his office, life and my life—forever—I’d bear the beast.

“She said she heard I had a thing with you and she prayed it wasn’t true, but God doesn’t listen to her.”

His jaw got hard again, this time the muscle jumping there. He looked toward the wall that separated his office from reception, murmuring, “I’ll check the phone logs.”

“You might want to check company email, too,” I advised.

He looked back at me and nodded.

“Now that I’ve had a run-in with Dawn, I need coffee and donuts about seventeen thousand times more than I normally need coffee and donuts,” I shared.

The mood in the room shifted. His lips quirked again then he moved in to brush them to mine and let me go.

Ren saw to the coffees while I disbursed the donuts and after I’d snarfed down half of my Bavarian cream, he asked, “When’s your meeting with your brothers tonight?”

“Five thirty,” I answered through cream and dough.

He grinned as he watched me speak.

I took a swig of coffee and another bite.

Then he stated, “I’ll make a reservation for eight. Will that give you enough time to do that and get ready?”

Something hit me and I panicked.

He noticed it immediately. Then again, I’d stopped snarfing down my donut and froze, staring at him.

“Ally?” he called.

“Uh…” I mumbled.

Shit!

“What?” he asked.

“Well, um…” I started but trailed off.

His brows knit. “Is something the matter?” he asked.

Fuck. I had to tell him.

Whatever. We were living together. He’d find out eventually.

“It’s Monday,” I declared.

“Yeah,” he prompted.

“Monday night is Castle night,” I told him, and his head jerked.

“It’s what night?”

“Castle night.”

“What the fuck is that?” he asked.

“It’s a TV show,” I answered, and he blinked. I hurried on. “If we do a late dinner, we might not be home in time to watch it.”

He stared at me.

“Though, we can DVR it before we go, which would work,” I allowed grudgingly. “But I usually try to watch it as it airs.”

He kept staring at me.

Then he queried slowly, “We’ve had our first date delayed for over a year—so long we’re actually living together and committed to each other before we actually have it— and you want to delay another night for a TV show?”

“It’s Castle,” I explained simply, because no way was I going to explain why I really didn’t want to miss it.

“Is it that good?” he asked.

It was. But mostly it had Nathan Fillion. That was, it had tall, funny, talented, good-looking (did I mention funny? And tall?) Nathan Fillion.

My celebrity crush.

Do you feel me? No way I was going to share that.

I just said, “Yes.”

“Can you wait to watch it until tomorrow?” he asked.

I might be working a pole tomorrow.

I totally didn’t share that.

“Sure,” I said and took another bite of donut.

Ren studied me.

I swallowed, washed donut back with coffee and threw him a smile to throw him off track.

This failed.

“Are there any other TV shows you feel this way about?”

“Um…” I started, because there were.

Luckily most of them were cancelled, but unfortunately my collection of series DVDs had been incinerated in an apartment bomb.

I decided to answer, “The most important one is Castle.”