Chapter One
You’re a Nightingale
Rock Chick Rewind
Thirteen months earlier…
I woke up in Ren Zano’s four poster bed, with its wine colored sheets, that was in the bedroom of his awesome house in Cheesman Park, knowing I’d done it.
I wasn’t certain it was going to happen to me. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was beginning to think it wouldn’t.
That happened to some women. They went their whole lives and didn’t find the one.
The man who, just looking at him, made your blood warm.
The man who, when he smiled at you, made your heart skip a beat.
The man who was so attuned to your body, he could use his hands, his mouth, his words, his everything, and make it sing.
Even the first time.
Or, I should say, in Ren’s and my case, the first three times.
And the man who was interesting, charming, maybe a wee bit edgy and mysterious (but that wee bit was way hot and something I liked a whole lot) and made no bones about the fact he was into you—into you in the sense that he wanted to get in you—and that way would last awhile.
That while maybe being forever.
Okay, so last night in the parking lot of Herman’s Hideaway, Ren had fought with Luke, one of the Hot Bunch (in other words, one of my brother’s guys) over my friend Ava.
But then Luke accidently elbowed Ava in the head. They took off in his Porsche and I’d stayed in the parking lot giving Ren what for for being a macho a*shole and fighting in a freaking parking lot (I mean, really?). Then I’d noticed he was still pissed. He appeared to give more than a passing shit about Ava (and there was reason for this; she was in the middle of a shitstorm, not unusual with the Rock Chicks) so I decided to get a few drinks in him.
When I offered this suggestion, he stopped being pissed for a second, looked me up and down, and agreed.
This led us to going to My Brother’s Bar where I worked as a bartender. We got a back corner booth and commenced in tying one on.
At first, I avoided the subject of the Luke/Ava/Ren triangle because he seemed to be getting his shit together and I didn’t want it to slide back. Especially if he intended to get shitfaced. I didn’t want to watch another hot guy go gonzo, even verbally, and especially drunkenly, over another one of the Rock Chicks.
That wasn’t my idea of a fun night.
I’d had that when Indy got pursued by Lee.
And when Lee’s best friend Eddie went after my friend Jet.
And when Hank decided, for him, it was Roxie.
And also when another one of Lee’s boys, Vance, locked his sights on a woman we eventually recruited into the Rock Chicks, Jules.
And last, I was currently swimming through the crazy waters of Luke staking his claim with another one of my friends, Ava.
I couldn’t say all this wasn’t exciting—sometimes way exciting, sometimes hilarious, sometimes not a small amount of insane—but the end was always good. The guy got his girl, the girl got her guy, and everyone was happy.
As happy as I was for my friends—and make no mistake, I was happy, and the rides to get to the end of their kickass, modern-day fairytales were all sorts of sick, delicious fun—I was thinking it wasn’t going to happen for me.
But until recently, I’d been going out for a while with Carl, who was a good guy. He was into me, the sex was great, the banter almost better, but something about him just didn’t do it for me.
It didn’t make me look the way Indy looked at Lee, Jet at Eddie, Roxie at Hank (I think you get me).
Like he was it. Like the search was over. Like I’d made the epic journey and found treasure beyond my wildest imaginings.
I didn’t usually think shit like that.
I was a Rock Chick. I had a lot of friends. I had a lot of good times. The concept of “anything goes” was pretty literal for me. I didn’t have issues speaking my mind. And I didn’t have issues creating a drama if the situation deserved it. I also didn’t give a shit if someone disagreed with the situation deserving it.
I was… me.
I wasn’t girlie.
I wasn’t romantic.
I didn’t have fantasies (except those that came while wielding a vibrator).
Let’s just say the knight in shining armor concept did nothing for me.
I also didn’t want the picket fence, the two-point-five kids, the meatloaf in the oven and the snuggle during Letterman that would lead to missionary sex that lasted ten minutes and then dreamless sleep.
But that wasn’t what my Rock Chicks were getting.
They were getting something else. Something big, bold, bountiful and amazing.
For one, I knew all about their sex lives, and missionary was on the menu but it was far from the only choice.
But that wasn’t it. Not even close.
And I was beginning to want a little bit of that for me. So when Carl got accepted into the FBI not too long ago and went off to Virginia to train, he’d asked me to come.
I didn’t go. Instead, I let him go.
It sucked but he wasn’t it for me. I dug him, we had great times.
But I wanted it.
So listening to possibly the most handsome man I’d ever laid eyes on pining about a woman, who might be my friend, but who already had her own hot guy (she just hadn’t accepted that…yet), was not something I was up for.
But Ren didn’t do that.
As the beer and bourbon flowed, we both got talkative.
I noticed a few things right off.
He was not a lightweight. He could totally hold his liquor (like me). Which, you think it’s right or wrong, I thought was hot. It was an indication he enjoyed life however he wanted, like me.
This didn’t mean we weren’t feeling easy, and getting to feel easier. But it wasn’t leading to loaded, which led to sloppy, stupid and unattractive.
And once the event was put behind us, he didn’t once bring up Ava or Luke.
He asked about me.
And he sounded interested.
And last, along with being hot, in a hot guy way that was totally cool, he was funny.
So in the end, it was almost like a date.
A good one.
Maybe even the best I’d ever had.
And it got better when we got to know each other, got more comfortable, and the questions became more meaningful. The banter became teasing. Then suggestive teasing. Then the physical distance evaporated when Ren slid closer to me in the booth seat, pinning me against the corner. Something I was wishing he’d do, and he did.
But it was more. In doing this, focusing his attention solely on me, he made the bar melt away and made me feel like I was the center of his universe.
I’d never felt that.
But I bet Indy, Jet, Roxie and Jules had.
And none of it was about booze and earlier emotional upheaval.
It was about connecting.
Ava and Luke and what happened that night drifted away, and it was about Ren getting to know me and me returning the favor.
And enjoying every second of it.
The end of it went like this:
“You have to give me a minute,” I told him, “I’m having trouble fighting the urge to run shrieking from the bar.”
He grinned. I watched it and I liked it.
“Babe, not a crime to be a Bears fan.”
“Zano, totally a crime to be a native Denverite and be a Bears fan,” I contradicted with the God’s honest truth.
His arm was on the back of the booth and suddenly his fingers glided through my hair, sliding it off my shoulder, then moving away; a smooth there-and-gone-making-you-want-more move that worked on me huge.
“Lived in Chicago a long time after my dad died,” he said after the smooth move, and at his words, I focused through my buzz closer on him. “Mom couldn’t deal, moved us back to her hometown to be closer to her sister and cousins. I was there from three to thirteen. I was born here, Ally, but bred to be a Bears fan.”
Well, if there was a reason to dis the Broncs, that was it.
But what he shared was deep. It felt good he trusted that little bit to me and so it couldn’t be ignored.
“Sorry about your dad,” I said softly.
Something I didn’t get moved through his face before he said, “Long time ago.”
I found that an interesting response.
“Indy lost her mom when she was five. I was five when we lost her, too. Auntie Katie was around all the time, so she was like a second mom to me.” I reached out a hand and curled it around his thigh. “I know when people try to understand where you are, they can’t understand because they’re not you. But even so, even though I don’t get you, I still kinda do.”
It was then something moved into his eyes, stayed there, and I got that. It was a mixture of sweet and heat that I liked a whole lot.
His hand covered mine on his thigh and he murmured, “Thanks, honey.”
“And, not to be flippant about the death of a parent,” I started in order to move us to less deep, melancholy waters. “But I will say it does provide you with an acceptable pass on being a Bears fan in Broncos Country.”
That got me another grin.
Then his eyes locked to mine and he asked, “Your brothers, your family, I’m thinkin’ you know me.”
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.
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 f*ck 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, “F*ck.”
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 f*ck?” he asked.
“What?” I asked back.
“What…” He took in a breath through his nose. “The.” He went on and kept scowling at me. “F*ck?” 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 f*cked 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 f*ck 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.
“Zano, hello?” I snapped. “I didn’t invite you in. And something to know about me, I’m not the kind of girl who gets off on some guy doing whatever the hell he wants to do, especially around me, and especially especially when it happens to be something I don’t want him to do.”
“You invited me in, Ally,” he replied. “Around the time you came when my mouth was between your legs on my stairs. Then again when you came when my cock was driving into you in my bed. Then again when you wrapped your mouth around my cock, also in my bed. And a-f*ckin’-gain when you found it while riding my cock, also in my bed. And last, when you wrapped your sweet, hot, naked body around me and passed out in my bed.”
Okay, I’d had a variety of Rock Chick chinwags where the girls let it all hang out about their guys and how they communicated in A*shole, but I’d never experienced it personally. And Ren had just demonstrated he was fluent in A*shole.
It must be said, I didn’t like it much.
Therefore, I invited acidly, “Rewind and try that again.”
He didn’t accept my invitation.
Instead, he turned. I saw him locate the light switch and flinched when the overhead light came on.
When I quit flinching, I noted his angry attention was back to me and he asked, “Were you drunker than I thought last night?”
“No,” I answered.
“So you remember what went down last night.”
“Yes,” I snapped, then tried to get him onto a subject I wanted to talk about, namely him leaving, but I didn’t get the chance.
He kept talking.
“All that went down last night?”
“Yes!”
My voice was rising because I did remember all that went down last night. And how I felt when I woke up that morning. But mostly I remembered the name he called me when I was lying there, thinking he was my one, and he was lying there holding on to a substitute body that, since he had no shot with the real one, was just going to have to do.
“So tell me, honey, if you weren’t hammered and you remember all that went down last night, why did I wake up to an empty bed this morning?” he asked.
“I had shit to do,” I answered, and it wasn’t totally a lie. I always had shit to do. I was a busy girl.
“You had shit to do,” he said low, and his eyes were a tad bit scary.
But I didn’t scare easily.
“Yep,” I replied.
“And it was so pressing you couldn’t wake me and tell me you had to go?”
“Yep, it was that pressing.” Now, that was totally a lie.
“And it was so pressing you couldn’t find a minute to jot down a note?”
Okay, suffice it to say, I was done with this bullshit. If he needed someone to give it to him regular while he waited for Ava, and to continue to give it to him regular when he realized that he’d never get Ava, he’d have to find someone else.
In order to communicate that to him, I stated, “Dude, we hooked up. That’s it. Or that’s all I remember. But maybe I was drunker than I thought. Did I miss the part where you slid a ring on my finger?”
This was the wrong thing to say, and I knew it when the room filled with something so oppressive, it was stifling. No joke. I literally couldn’t breathe.
As I mentioned, I didn’t scare easily.
But the truth of it was, I didn’t get scared. There wasn’t a situation that I remember ever being in where I didn’t feel in control or think I could find a way to regain control. I also had the gene passed down through my family where I could sense when things were going bad in a way that I would lose control and not get it back, and I was smart enough to get the f*ck out of Dodge when I found myself in those kinds of situations.
But right then, feeling suffocated by the sheer force of Lorenzo Zano’s anger, I felt a hint of genuine fear.
Then his anger dissipated.
Vanished.
It did this instantly when he said, “I get it. You’re a Nightingale.”
My back snapped straight at his tone, which said it all about his implication. I just didn’t know for certain what he was implying, just that it was no good.
So I asked, “What does that mean?”
“That means both your brothers laid waste to most of the talented p-ssy in Denver. Took what they wanted, walked away and never looked back. Not surprising, you a Nightingale, that’s your thing. Except you collect cock.”
And on that very effective parting shot, he turned, jerked open the door and slammed it behind him.
Standing in my apartment in the dead of night staring at the door, I didn’t feel my heart squeeze.
I felt it shrivel up and die.
* * * * *
Not surprisingly, in the coming days as Ava’s drama (that partly had to do with her courtship with Luke, but mostly had to do with the fact that the Rock Chicks were magnets for trouble) played out, I saw Ren again.
Both times he was up in Ava’s business, giving her soft looks and taking her back.
However, he did look at me. Once. When Ava’s drama reached its grand finale.
But the look he gave me was far from soft.
Unsurprisingly.
I acted like I didn’t give a shit.
Deep down, though, I knew it didn’t make any sense.
I also knew it killed.