Oh I knew him all right. I also knew what he was asking.
I’d lived in Denver all my life. I had a long string of friends that covered a wide spectrum of the population. And I had two cops and a private investigator in the family. Not to mention, I’d been doing my thing, nosing around, and sometimes that took me into the underbelly of Denver.
I knew all about the Zanos.
Particularly the fact that Ren’s Uncle Vito was a crime boss. What he did, I steered clear of. You didn’t make an enemy of the Zanos and you didn’t get in their business, no matter how you might do that.
I also knew Ren worked for his uncle.
Word on the street, he was in charge of the legitimate side of the operation. The part that they used to hide the part that was far from clean.
But any part of that kind of thing still made you dirty.
Furthermore, it was known widely Vito was grooming Ren to take over the family business when he retired.
Which meant he’d be all kinds of dirty eventually.
At that moment, with not a small amount of bourbon and beer in me, his deep voice, his handsome face, his unbelievable body all close to me, I didn’t care.
It was also no secret in certain sets of Denver that my brother Lee played shit fast and loose and wasn’t above doing what he had to do to get the job done. And what he had to do also might not always be lawful.
I admired Lee. He was badass cool, didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of him and forged his own path.
So who was I to judge?
But the bottom line of it was, I was me and if I wanted something, I got it or took it, whatever the case may be. And, like Lee, I didn’t give a shit what anybody thought of it or how I went about getting it.
And right then, I wanted Ren Zano.
I’d always thought I was the white hat type of girl. I’d always gone for the good guy.
But maybe I didn’t mind that hat being a little dusty.
“I know you,” I confirmed.
“So, you know me. You got a problem with getting in a taxi with me, comin’ to my place, letting me take your clothes off and then letting me do a shitload of other things to that beautiful body?”
His eyes traveled down my front as he asked this.
As for me, I felt my nipples get hard as he asked this.
I also knew the answer to his question.
I had absolutely no problem with that.
So I said, “Actually, I would have a problem if you didn’t do any of that.”
His eyes came back to mine.
They were beautiful normally. Hot with open anticipation, they were amazing, and they did amazing things to me. As in, for the first time in my life, just looking at a guy, I might have had a mini-orgasm.
He took out his wallet. Then he threw a bunch of bills on the table, grabbed my hand and yanked me out of the booth.
Then he put me in a taxi.
He gave me my first orgasm on the stairs in his house and he didn’t take off all my clothes before he did it.
The next two were in his bed and we were both naked.
By the time the sex and booze wore us both down to the point of passing out, tangled together in his wine colored sheets, I knew I’d found it.
Something big, bold, bountiful and amazing.
Something that wasn’t about meatloaf and missionary sex.
Something that was about looking forward to a life that was going to be a bumpy ride filled with jerks and quick turns and unexpected stops and hair-raising plummets… and loving every minute of it.
So lying on those wine colored sheets, I smiled just as Ren, his body and heat curved into my back, his arm around me, shifted closer. His hand drifted up and curled around my breast and I felt his face burrow into the back of my hair.
I smiled bigger.
Then he murmured sleepily, “Ava.”
My mind blanked, my heart squeezed and my eyes blinked.
His hand dropped from my breast but his arm stayed around me, his body pressed into the back of mine.
I didn’t move.
