I’d timed it so all would be ready, but the food would not be cold and I hoped he could wrap things up at work and get home in time to fit in with my plan.

It was a bummer that I didn’t have a fabulous dress and heels he hadn’t already seen to change into. But after leaving the Rock Chick Powwow, I only had enough time to deal with my plans for dinner and not enough time to do some shopping.

The good news was, I’d taxed Roxie, Tod and Stevie with the mission to kit me out with clothes and other items any girl needed to exist and they were all over it. So I suspected I’d have way more than two pairs of jeans tomorrow.

The bad news was, although my insurance company was on top of working through the process of getting me a check, when I’d called my landlord, he’d communicated to me he was not a big fan of keeping me as a tenant.

He communicated this by saying, “Ally, darlin’, you pay your rent on time. You got a lot of visitors, but you’re quiet.” (This, by the by, was only partially true, and indicated to me that none of my neighbors had complained when I played my rock ‘n’ roll.) “And once that stuff hit the papers about your friends, gotta admit, I was expecting this to happen. But, gotta say, I wasn’t expecting it to be this bad.”

I couldn’t argue that. There had been a lot of kidnappings and stun gun usage was not unheard of, but only Stella and me shared our pads getting blown sky high.

“For the safety of my other tenants, maybe we can make arrangements for you to be let out of your lease,” he went on. “Full security deposit back and you don’t have to pay this month’s rent, seeing as there’s no apartment to rent.”

I translated this to mean: It would be a good idea that you let me let you out of your lease so I don’t have to be an ass**le and evict you.

It must be said, I didn’t like it when ass**les were ass**les normally (who did?). Forcing someone who was trying not to be one into one was not my gig. So I agreed to vacate the premises. Figuratively, of course, since currently there were no premises to vacate and I had no possessions actually to vacate.

But this sucked. I couldn’t say I was emotionally attached to my apartment, but I didn’t need to be looking for one at this juncture. I had tons of other shit to do.

I also couldn’t argue with his reasoning. If the unknown jerkoff from New Mexico was a little more gung ho, something already bad could have gone way worse, and I didn’t need that on my conscience or to force the issue and put it on someone else’s.

So maybe I’d look for a house to rent. One with land. Like ten acres. On ten acres, Tex could set a shitload of booby traps.

Therefore I was planning a nice dinner with Ren that was more than just Chinese takeout because I needed a nice dinner with Ren, seeing as I’d been fired and made homeless on the same day. I figured from our phone call earlier he needed a nice dinner too. I also wanted to break the seal on his dining room table doing something special.

But it was mostly that I wanted to do something special. We hadn’t had our first official date and he clearly wasn’t in the mood for that tonight, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t celebrate.

And I’d nearly screwed us up and I needed to make it up to him.

He was sweet. He needed to know in not giving up on me that he’d get that back.

And it wouldn’t hurt that, if I buttered him up with my sweetness, he might take the news I was going to officially become a private investigator without losing his Italian American hotheaded mind (too much).

I heard someone at the front door and quickly snatched up the lighter on the table so I could light the candles. I pointed the flame to the wick and looked to the left.

Ren was walking in, eyes on me, shrugging off his suit jacket.

Mm.

Yum.

I flicked off the lighter and straightened when it dawned on me Ren wasn’t walking in, eyes on me, shrugging off his jacket.

He was prowling in, eyes on me, shrugging off his jacket.

Jacket off, he tossed it to a chair he passed without taking his eyes off me and kept prowling.

I dropped the lighter, turned to him, and since his gait was not slowing in the slightest, I started backing up.

“Zano, what the—?”

I kept backing. He kept coming, and I stopped talking when I tripped on the rug that was under his dining room table.

He shot forward and caught me around the waist before my stumble became a fall, but didn’t quit moving until my back slammed into the wall and Ren slammed into me.

He drove his fingers into my hair, fisted them and tilted my head one way while his arm tightened around my waist, his head slanted and his mouth landed hard on mine.

Then he kissed me, wet, deep, long and rough.

My inner thighs quivered, my happy place rejoiced and both my hands lifted so I could sift my fingers in his hair and hold him to me.

It took some time but he finally (alas) tore his mouth from mine and I stared, breathless, into his heated eyes.

“What was that for?” I asked in a quiet voice, mostly because there was no way in hell I had it in me to speak louder seeing as I could barely breathe.

“That was because I like, a f**kuva lot, all the reasons you love me. But more, I like that you laid it out, no hesitation, all real, and didn’t make me work for it.”

I made a mental note to do that again, and often, as my insides warmed in a way that had nothing to do with the heat created by his kiss.

“Just to keep that goodness coming, right now, would you like me to give you my top ten of your anatomy?” I offered.

He smiled, but he did it while pressing his body into mine (and, incidentally, that meant nearly all of his top tens were pressed tight to me, including my number one). And since my back was to the wall, that meant I felt him deep.

I liked the feel.

Then again, I always had.

“We’ll wait on doin’ that when we’re naked,” he replied.

“Sounds like a plan,” I muttered.

His smile got bigger and my happy place got happier. He tipped his head, touched his lips to my jaw and pulled us from the wall, turning.

He got to facing the table and stopped dead.

“Christ,” he whispered.

Apparently, he’d been all fired up to show me his appreciation about what I’d said earlier and hadn’t noticed my preparations for the evening.

“Baby, what—?” he started, dipping his chin to look down at me.

I interrupted him to ask, “Was last night the only night I get to show you special?”

He said not one word. He just stared at me, his arm around my waist, his body unmoving.