Rock Chick 08 Revolution (25 page)

He was such a liar.

But what he said said it all.

And it meant everything.

He started falling when I did.

I closed my eyes.

I opened them when I felt the backs
of his fingers sweep my jaw.

“It doesn’t take much with you,
does it?” I asked, trying to be funny.

I didn’t get a smile.

I got heated eyes and
the look.

“Yes it does. It takes a fuckuva
lot.”

That said it all, too.

Jeez. He needed to stop.

Before I could tell him to do that,
he did it.

And he did it by saying, “And most
of that fuckuva lot has to do with the fact that you’re a woman who placed
cowgirl at two and doggie at four.”

I got over being a big,
starry-eyed, head-over-heels-in-love-with-a-hot-guy
girl,
started laughing and asked through it, “So you approve of my
rankings?”

He turned his attention back to his
plate, saying, “Cowgirl one. Doggie two. Missionary three. Lotus four, but you’re
close enough.”

I kept laughing and through it
watched Ren grinning before he took a sip of his champagne.

I quit laughing, grabbed my own
champagne and was taking a sip when Ren’s voice—not sweet, instead all kinds of
sexy, the kinds that got my full attention when he declared, “Three, one, two.”

I looked at him. “Come again?”

“Tonight,” he replied. “Three, one,
two. Maybe during one we’ll also do a four, but I’m finishing you off on your
knees.”

My happy place spasmed, my breasts
swelled and my mouth got dry.

“That is, after you go down on me,”
he finished as he reached for the champagne bottle.

That was when I started salivating.

A knock came at the door.

I stopped salivating and was
thankful I hadn’t begun panting as I looked to the door.

Ren threw his napkin down and
pushed back his chair, muttering, “Fuck.”

“Are you expecting someone?” I
asked as he walked away.

“Are you in my house?” he asked
back.

“Yes,” I pointed out the obvious.

At the door, hand on handle, he
turned to me and answered, “Yes.”

What did that mean? I’d never had
visitors at his house.

Then again, I frequently got
visitors at my apartment. Ren knew that because he’d been there a lot when I
got them. So clearly he expected this to go on and I made a mental note to do
something about that since it sounded like he didn’t like it much.

And it must be said, when it
interrupted dinner and discussion on the later positions in which Ren would be
giving me the business, I didn’t like it much either.

He looked through the double row of
three square windows set high in his door. I heard his sigh all the way across
the house (his sigh was that big) and he opened it.

I couldn’t see anything since Ren
was standing in the door and hadn’t fully opened it, but I did hear a deep,
somewhat familiar voice I couldn’t place ask, “Is Ally Nightingale here?”

When I heard Ren’s answer of, “You
wanna explain why you want that information?” I pushed back my chair and threw
down my own napkin.

“We need to have a chat,” the
familiar voice answered.

I walked that way as Ren replied,
“And you’re lookin’ for her here, how? How is it that you’re
here
lookin’ for her?”

The voice had turned guarded,
probably with caution and maybe a little irritation, when it returned, “Man,
she’s yours and her apartment is a black hole. Where else would I look for
her?”

I made it to Ren’s back and put a
hand there, but it was clear the voice’s answer was acceptable because he was
moving back to open the door.

I then saw how I knew the voice.

Jacob Decker. And Jacob Decker was
Chace Keaton’s friend. And Chace Keaton was my girl Faye’s hot guy badass.

I’d met him briefly during the
brouhaha up in the mountains. And when I saw that mountain of muscle, thick
dark hair and intelligent hazel eyes, I lamented there were no Rock Chicks left
I could toss in his path. He looked like a man who could handle a Rock Chick.
Even a man who needed one. The more fucked up her life, the better. And if
there had been one left, it would be me causing mayhem in order for him to get
one.

“Deck, hey,” I greeted as I stepped
back with Ren and Jacob Decker stepped in.

His eyes went to the table,
flowers, food and candlelight, then they skimmed through Ren and me.

“Interrupting. Apologies,” he
murmured.

Ren slid an arm along my shoulders,
moved us into the house and out of the entryway, and Deck followed.

What he didn’t do was accept Deck’s
apology, though his moving us all in probably didn’t need words. I suspected
Jacob Decker spoke macho alpha so he likely wasn’t offended.

“This won’t take long,” Deck
assured as we settled in the living room and his eyes settled on me. “I’m
cleanup in Carnal,” he announced.

I didn’t get it.

“Sorry?” I asked.

“The situation in Carnal. I’m
batting cleanup,” Deck said the same thing with more words.

Therefore, I still didn’t get it.

“Uh… those dudes buried Faye to
force Chace to get the dirt other dudes were holding on them. My crew got that
dirt. We turned it over. They have it. No cleanup necessary.”

“You did do that. You also turned
over enough to the cops they took down two of those guys,” Deck replied.

I did do that. Or Brody, Darius and
I did that.

I shrugged.

“Them’s the breaks,” I stated
blithely. “Anyway, added deterrent to the others not to fuck up. It should all
be good.”

Ren got closer and his arm got
tighter when Deck’s face went way scary.

“You don’t understand me,” he said
on a growl. “Nothing is good. My boy’s woman got buried alive. I’m
cleanup
in that situation in
Carnal.
”

I finally got it.

Those dudes were not going to get
away with burying Faye alive.

I was down with that. Those
shitheads deserved whatever this mountain of man had in store.

And anyway, that meant I could tick
one thing off my watch list.

I didn’t speak macho alpha,
therefore could not communicate telepathically, via chin lifts or through
actions to other macho alphas, so I felt it prudent to agree verbally. I did
this by mumbling, “Okeydokey.”

“You got anything that will help me
do that in a timely manner,” he stated, “It’d be appreciated you turn that over
to me.”

“What we have, you’ll have by
tomorrow,” I told him, adding a call to Brody on my to-do list for the next
day.

He nodded, reached in his back
pocket, pulled out a wallet and then a card that he handed to me.

“Email,” he said.

It was my turn to nod as I shoved
his card in my back pocket.

Deck looked at Ren. “No blowback.”

Why he told this to Ren, I did not
know, but I suspected it was because I had a vagina.

I decided not to throw a hissy fit
and I did this for two reasons. One, a hissy fit took time and I wanted to finish
dinner, drink more champagne, eat my chocolate candle then do three, one, two
(and maybe four) with Ren. Two, Jacob Decker could break me in half and he
seemed to be fired up to accomplish his mission, so I didn’t feel it was wise
to waste his time which might make him testy.

“Grateful,” Ren murmured.

I fought an eye roll.

“I’ll leave you to dinner,” Deck
said.

He nodded to me, gave a macho
badass chin jerk to Ren then disappeared through the door.

Ren let me go to walk to it and
turn the locks.

He claimed me again and guided us
back to the table.

Once there, after refreshing our
champagne, he shared, “Jacob Decker. Qualifies for Mensa. Occupation, hazy.
Reputation, not a guy you fuck with.”

I stared at Ren. “You checked him
out?”

“I checked out everyone close to
Faye Goodknight and Chace Keaton.”

I kept staring at Ren. “When did
you have a chance to do this?”

“When I texted Dom to get his ass
on it about five minutes after Keaton shook my hand and said, ‘Nice to meet
you, I’m Chace Keaton,’ which was about two seconds before I laid into you.”

I continued staring at Ren. “Okay,
why’d
you do this?”

“Because you got your ass on radar
for that guy and his woman, and since your ass is
my
ass, I protect that ass, both proactively and retrospectively. I
do that by gathering any and all information on anyone who might be involved,
even unintentionally, in threatening that ass.” He looked back to his plate,
muttering, “Though I prefer proactively or not having to do it at all.”

I didn’t know what to do with this.
It wasn’t a surprise, really. It also wasn’t an invasion, exactly.

Before I could make a decision
about what to do with it, Ren swallowed a bite and kept talking.

“One good thing, you with me, all
that shit is over.”

Uh-oh.

He reached for his glass, but
before he took a sip, he looked at me and stated, “And Decker’s visit means
that shit’ll be shut down. His occupation may be hazy, but his reputation also
says he gets a job done.” He took a sip, put his glass back and finished,
“Finally something good happened today. A line drawn under that mess. And if
you got any other shit goin’ on, you work with Tucker and Dunne to finish it,
then you’re free to find a real job and settle in with me.”

Oh man.

He picked up his fork.

“Uh… Zano,” I called.

“Yeah, honey?” he answered his
chicken.

Shit.

I stared at his profile, his square
jaw, the line of his full lips, the spikes of his thick eyelashes. Then my eyes
slid through the food, the champagne bucket, the flowers, the candles.

I took this all in, but my head was
filled with promises of three, one, two (with the possible inclusion of four)
and the way it felt when he drew my pendant in his mouth that morning.

Then I decided we’d both had enough
for the day and tomorrow would be a better time to explain to Ren about the
“real job” I was finding.

So, I scooped up some peanuts and
mumbled, “Nothing.”

Crap!

Chapter Fourteen

Hit Play

Darius stared at me.

“Well?” I prompted.

We were sitting in his truck outside
Fortnum’s the morning after Chinese with Ren (and, by the way, after chocolate
candles, we did four along with one, as well as three and two; it was
righteous
).

I’d just told Darius my future
career path.

“You got instincts I haven’t seen
except in men trained and experienced or earned on the streets,” Darius stated.

Well that was good.

“I still don’t like it,” he
finished.

Hmm.

“It would mean a lot if I had your
support,” I said quietly.

He shook his head but said, “You
have my support, Ally. I know you enough to know no one’s gonna be able to talk
you out of it, but that isn’t it. Seen it time and again, takin’ your back, you
got your shit tight. But your girls are nuts. The reason I don’t like it is
because those women don’t have their shit tight.”

“They won’t have anything to do
with this,” I assured him.

“How you gonna manage that
miracle?” he asked.

“I explained it to Indy, she gets
me. They will too.”

He shook his head again and looked
forward. He also looked reflective. And lastly, he didn’t say anything.

“Darius,” I called, and his head
again turned to me.

“You need to get licensed, and for
that you need bona fide investigative hours. And the way to get them is workin’
with Lee,” he announced.

I blinked at him, something funny,
but by no means bad, moving through me.

Before I could pinpoint what that
feeling was, he kept talking.

“And no way your brother is gonna
take you under his wing. He’s been on my ass now for months to find a way to
shut you down. He doesn’t give a shit you close cases, you’re trained, you
shoot, you run, and you take this shit seriously. He knows the dangers and he
wants you nowhere near that. Your dad and Hank agree.”

“Maybe I can convince them,” I
suggested, but when Darius’s expression turned from pensive to dubious, I tried
something else. “Maybe I can work my next case with one of the Hot Bunch and
whoever that is can vouch for me.”

“You’re workin’ your cases with
Brody and me and that hasn’t worked. Brody thinks you’re the shit, Ally. And
he’s shared that with Lee. Repeatedly. Lee isn’t swayed.”

Okay, as annoying as Brody could
be, at Darius’s words, I remembered why I loved him.

“Then I’ll work with another
investigator,” I proposed.

“Sylvie Bissenette,” Darius said
immediately.

I knew of Sylvie. I’d never met her,
but she was a private investigator in town who had a reputation, a good one.

And this idea was a good one, too.
Badass bitches take on Denver.

I liked it.

“She had a partner,” Darius went
on. “He re-enlisted, died overseas. That means she’s used to workin’ with
somebody. But Lee also contracts with her occasionally, so she might not be big
on takin’ you on if that makes things shaky with Lee.”

God.

Lee.

Every time I turned around it came
back to Lee standing right in my way. And he was my brother. I loved him,
respected him,
admired
him. I needed to finesse that,
not try to find my way to blow through it.

“That said,” Darius carried on,
“she’s a chick in the business and knows it isn’t easy breaking through. She
might be down with workin’ with you because of that.”

A ray of light.

“Uh, dude,” I started, “there
is
another way.”

“That would be?” he asked.