Then I did.
Carefully, I slid from under his arm and away from him. Silently, I got out of bed. Stealthily, I found my clothes and put them on.
All but my shoes.
I wanted to make no noise on his wood floors.
I looked at his sleeping beauty in the bed, his olive skin sheathing his defined muscles exposed from the waist up, his dark hair falling on his forehead, his handsome features relaxed to almost boyish (but still hot) in sleep, and the cut on his lip put there by Luke’s fist.
Taking all that was him in, I felt something die in me.
As I mentioned, I was not girlie. I was not prone to romance or fantasy.
I’d only given myself that this one time.
No, Ren had given it to me.
In one night, he made me believe in the modern-day fairytale I watched all my girls get, and he made me believe life had that in store for me.
And he made me want it.
Ava. The memory of his deep, drowsy murmur assaulted my brain.
Hearing that, he took it all away.
So I got the fuck out of there.
* * * * *
Fifteen and a half hours later…
My eyes opened when I heard the banging on the door.
I stared at the clock on my nightstand.
Jeez, it was after midnight.
Well, one couldn’t say this kind of thing didn’t happen occasionally. I had a variety of feelers out on a variety of things and information trickled in in a variety of ways.
However, none of it had ever trickled in by banging on my door in the wee hours of the morning. Maybe in the not so wee hours of the morning, but everyone knew not to disturb my neighbors.
I threw back the covers, opened my nightstand, got my stun gun and flipped it on.
I stomped to the front door of my apartment and aimed an eye to my peephole.
Then I whispered, “Fuck.”
Ren was standing out there, head turned to the side looking absently down the hall.
By the time I got to the door the banging had stopped, but as I kept looking out, wondering what to do, I saw him turn his attention from the hall to my door. I noted he looked a might angry, and I heard as I watched him start banging again.
It would appear he wasn’t going to go away. And seeing as I kind of liked my apartment, but mostly liked that my neighbors were all pretty cool—either old as the hills, thus went to bed early and didn’t have the energy to get in my business (outside of finding it diverting, should they bump into an informant in the hall), or young and hip and digging the life of living in the awesome environs of Washington Park (much like me)—I wanted to stay in that apartment. And some hot Italian dude banging on my door might wake my neighbors and make them tetchy.
So I turned off the stun gun and set it on table by my door. I threw back the chain, unlocked the locks and pulled open the door.
“God, Zano, are you trying to wake the dead?”
This was a pertinent question, seeing as some folks in my apartment building had one foot in the grave.
I didn’t get the chance to share that info with Ren. His eyes pinned me to the spot and I was right earlier. He was angry.
“What the fuck?” he asked.
“What?” I asked back.
“What…” He took in a breath through his nose. “The.” He went on and kept scowling at me. “Fuck?” he finished tersely.
I was confused, and I wasn’t a big fan of being confused. Especially not late at night when a hot guy who had fucked me but who was in love with a good friend of mine was banging on my door and asking me bewildering, but clearly angry, questions
“What the fuck what?” I asked.
He kept scowling at me.
Then it became apparent he was done simply scowling at me. I knew this when he put a hand in my belly, shoved me back and followed me, walking right into my apartment.
He slammed the door.
I lost my mind.
