Rock Chick 08 Revolution

Rock Chick
Revolution

Kristen
Ashley

Published by Kristen
Ashley

Discover other titles
by Kristen Ashley:

Rock Chick Series:

Rock Chick

Rock Chick Rescue

Rock Chick Redemption

Rock Chick Renegade

Rock Chick Revenge

Rock Chick Reckoning

Rock Chick Regret

The ‘Burg Series:

For You

At Peace

Golden Trail

Games of the Heart

The Chaos Series:

Own the Wind

Fire Inside

The Colorado Mountain Series:

The Gamble

Sweet Dreams

Lady Luck

Breathe

Dream Man Series:

Mystery Man

Wild Man

Law Man

Motorcycle Man

The Fantasyland Series:

Wildest Dreams

The Golden Dynasty

Fantastical

The Three Series:

Until the Sun Falls from the Sky

With Everything I Am

The Unfinished Hero Series:

Knight

Creed

Raid

Other Titles by Kristen Ashley:

Fairytale Come Alive

Heaven and Hell

Lacybourne Manor

Lucky Stars

Mathilda, SuperWitch

Penmort Castle

Play It Safe

Sommersgate House

Three Wishes

www.kristenashley.net

Kindle Edition, License Notes

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S.
Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any
part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy
and theft of the author’s intellectual property. Thank you for your support of
the author’s rights.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead,
is coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Kristen Ashley

First ebook edition: August 2013

First print edition: August 2013

*****

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Kerrie Gisborne, a reader who
turned into a friend. My first fan outside my posse—I’m pleased as punch she’s
now a member of that crew. And lucky for me, I’m a member of hers too. Miss
you, Kerrie.

Acknowledgements & Author’s Note

First, credit has to be given to
Ebony Evans for the title of this book,
Rock
Chick Revolution.
Ebony contacted me eons ago with the title suggestion and
I loved it the minute I read it. I had other thoughts and other suggestions,
but Ebony’s suggestion wouldn’t let me go. So thank you, darlin’, for a
great
title that fits this book
perfectly.

Second, I want to thank my best bud
Kelly Brown who was the inspiration for Ally. Fearless. Intelligent. Funny.
Loyal. Strong. Kelita, when we were in that cave in Venezuela and you rushed
ahead to spot that old lady in her clickity-clack heels (in a cave!), leaving
me behind to watch where every foot fell (and fear the bats hanging from the
ceiling), I was in awe. I hope you feel Ally does you justice because I think
you kick ass and I know you can do
anything
(mostly because you’ve already done it)
.

And last, I have to share with my
readers that this book was the most difficult book I’ve ever written. This is
the first series where I let my Rock Chick Flag fly and decided to write what I
wanted, to hell with “the rules.” I started this series because I was living in
England and very homesick for Denver, pouring out these words as a love letter
to that city, my country, and the people I left in them. I shared with my
readers many characters who are loosely (and not-so-loosely) based on people I
love, including Tex, Tod, Stevie, Ally, Annette, Nick, Reba, and Herb and
Trish.

I also shared many good times (and
bad) from my own life. For instance, Jet’s response to seeing her mother after
her stroke was my response to seeing my Momma after hers. And Indy and Roxie’s
dash through the Haunted House was near-on exact to a hilarious event that
happened to my friend Cat and I.

So, in a way, these books
are
me, or many important parts of my
life, both living and breathing and treasured memories.

Knowing in starting this book that
I would be saying good-bye to the gang at Fortnum’s was bittersweet. Maybe this
is why I cried so hard in many scenes that my tears projected onto my glasses.
Or laughed so hard I choked. Or got up after writing a scene and danced around
my office (no joke, and I’ve never done that before).

So I guess I loved writing this
book, too.

And I truly hope you experience the
same tears, laughter and jubilation.

But all good things must come to an
end. And they must so we can open ourselves to other good things. However, my
greatest fear with these novels was that this cast of characters would grow
stale and tired. Seeing as I love them as if they were real, and these zany,
wonderful, loving characters shouldn’t feel stale and tired, I never,
ever
wanted that to happen.

So with this book—and a warning,
this book is a true
revolution
—I bid
farewell.

Of a sort.

Because with this book, I’m opening
myself to other good things.

And seeing as this gang is worth my
time, we haven’t seen the end to them yet.

Just the start of new beginnings.

A massive thank you to my readers
for loving these books as much as I do. For giving your hearts to my
characters. For spending your time with me. And for championing a Rock Chick
who breaks the rules.

And Chas, Rikki and now Gary, thank
you for taking the ride with me.

Now, as ever and always, my Rock
Chicks and Rock Gurus, strap in, put your hands straight up in the air, get
ready for one helluva ride and never forget to
Rock On!

* * * * *

Prologue

No More Anything

I woke up naked, in a motel, with a
man behind me.

We were spooning.

Ren always spooned me.

No, that wasn’t right. He didn’t
always spoon me. Sometimes he tucked me into his side when he was on his back. Sometimes
he tucked me to his front when he was on his side and I was on my back.
Sometimes I spooned him. But when I did, he held my hand to his chest, even in
his sleep, so I couldn’t escape.

He was a maximum contact sleeper.

I loved that.

Secretly.

The problem was, as far as I was
concerned, he was just a fuck buddy.

Lorenzo “Ren” Zano didn’t feel the
same way.

We’d been dancing this dance for
over a year now. Ren trying to convince me we had something. Me disagreeing.

Nope. Again that wasn’t right. Ren
wasn’t trying to convince me we had something. He was simply convinced, and for
the last eight months had been acting like he was my boyfriend. If boyfriends
were bossy, annoying and in your face all the time, telling you what you could
and couldn’t do (in my case, it was mostly what I
couldn’t
).

The months before that, Ren had
been trying to convince me we should explore what we had.

I guessed he just gave up trying to
convince me and decided to be my boyfriend even if I didn’t agree.

The problem with me not agreeing
was I tended to do a few things when Ren was around. One was argue with him
like he was my boyfriend. Another was to have the occasional meal (or maybe not
so occasional) with him and shoot the breeze, like he was my boyfriend. Another
was sleep with him, and spend the night, like he was my boyfriend.

“I know you’re awake.”

I rolled my newly awakened eyes.

Ren always woke up before me in the
mornings and always sensed when I was awake.

Except once.

Our first time together.

But what happened after I woke up
that time nearly killed me, so I didn’t think about that.

Always when he sensed I was awake,
he commenced with The Talk (necessitating capital letters because Ren
considered these Talks gravely serious and took them that way; again, I disagreed).

Usually these Talks centered around
what we argued about before I jumped him. Or before he jumped me and we went on
to have hours of mind-boggling, soul-enriching, life-changing sex, then passed
out and Ren instigated Maximum Contact Sleep.

Today, I could tell by his tone,
was not going to be different.

“I need coffee,” I told him.

“I’ll get you coffee after we
talk.”

See?

There it was.

The Talk.

And bossy.

I sighed and stated, “Zano, I don’t
wanna talk.”

He put a hand in my belly, slid
away and pressed me to my back so he could loom over me. Then he proceeded to
press deep into me with most of his body, but some of it up on an elbow on the
bed, and loom over me.

Exhibit A. Ren assumed dominant
positions regularly and often in order to best be bossy, annoying and in my
face; like, say, pressing me to my back in a bed and looming over me after I
said I didn’t want to talk.

I caught his eyes.

God, he had gorgeous eyes.

To block out those eyes, I closed
mine.

Still, I saw him,
all
of him, in my mind’s eye.

His eyes, his face, his hair and
other parts of his anatomy (that would be all of it) usually were my undoing,
and thus I would end up jumping him even in the midst of a fight. Or,
alternately, I wouldn’t struggle too much if he jumped me.

He was Italian, straight up, no
other blood in him. He might be American—fourth generation American to be
precise—but other than not speaking a different language, I was pretty certain
his entire family thought they still lived in Sicily, even though most of them
lived in Englewood, Colorado. With the exception of Ren and his cousin Dominic
Vincetti. They both lived fifteen minutes to the north in Denver.

Ren was tall, very tall. Taller
than me, and I was tall for a woman.

And he had a fabulous body. Lean hips
that he knew how to use (big time). Broad shoulders, the power of which he also
put to good use (in a variety of delicious ways). Sleek, defined muscles all
over that I knew he put a lot of work into in a way he got off on (and I did
too, but for a different reason).

But his way wasn’t so he would look
exceptionally hot (which he did). It was having time to be in his head and shut
everything else out, be centered, get focused, be healthy. It was, like a lot
of things about Ren,
righteous.

And last, he had unbelievable abs
and hip muscles, which I thought should be photographed and put in a museum.
They were so perfect everybody should get the chance to see.

He also had thick dark hair that
felt good just normally, but it felt
awesome
when your fingers were buried in it when his tongue was buried in your mouth
(or elsewhere on your body).

All that was fabulous, but there
were three things that
really
did it
for me with Ren.

His eyes were this beautiful
espresso color, so rich and deep, if you weren’t careful, you could lose
yourself in them in a way you never wanted to be found.

And he was confident. Not arrogant.
It wasn’t about swagger.
Confident.
He just knew what his body and mind could do, he knew what he liked, what he
wanted and he was comfortable with all that. It oozed off him in the way cool
oozed off people who were cool. And Ren was just that:
cool
. He was like a rock star without the guitar and in a suit. It
was phenomenal.

And last, he dressed really well.
For work, fabulous suits that were tailored for him. Outside of work, he could
do jeans and even tees, and he wore them well, but usually he put on a shirt or
a sweater (if it was cold) with his jeans and he wore those
way
better.

But with Ren it wasn’t about the
clothes. It was about the man.

And Ren Zano was all man.

Unfortunately, I liked men who were
all man.

I also had a weakness for men in
suits.

I just didn’t like bossy, annoying
and in my face.

And, of course, someone who would
eventually break my heart, even though I figured he genuinely didn’t know he
was going to eventually do it.

But I knew he would.

His voice came at me, smooth and
deep, but also soft and sweet.

“Ally, baby, last night proved we
have to have this out, once and for all,”

Shit.

He was using his sweet voice. That
always did a number on me. I knew this because, when he switched to it during a
fight, this would be around the time I’d jump him.

I opened my eyes. “There’s nothing
to have out.”

His eyebrows shot up (he had great
eyebrows too, by the way).

“Have you lost your mind?”

Ren asked this a lot.

“No,” I replied.

And this was always my answer.

His hand, still in my belly,
pressed lightly as his face dipped closer. “Babe, straight up, last night you
fucked up. You’ve fucked up before, but last night, you
totally
fucked up. It’ll take me, Uncle Vito, your brothers,
both
of them, Marcus and pretty much
every-fuckin’-body to cover your ass for the shit you pulled last night.”