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.
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