Macho Alpha Maneuver!
How had I not seen it coming?
“Zano!” I shouted, shoving at his shoulders
The shoving at the shoulders and shouting gig didn’t work in the slightest (then again, it never did).
But this time, it was because Ren was focused.
Like, really focused.
“You’re in love with me?” he asked.
“Well, I was,” I snapped.
“So you were in love with me and then you spent a year sleeping practically every night at my side, every morning eating breakfast with me, even though you thought I had feelings for another woman, and you’re not in love with me anymore,” Ren replied immediately.
That sounded absurd.
Still, I was realizing that maybe I’d landed myself in hot water and perhaps silence was the key to the hungry Italian hothead that was lying on top of me not making a meal of me.
Ren didn’t need me to participate in this discussion and give him more fodder to chew me up and spit me out.
I’d already given him plenty.
I would know this when his eyes narrowed and he noted, “A year I’ve been busting my ass to get in there and the whole fucking time I wasn’t just in there, I was in there.”
I kept my mouth shut and just gave him big eyes. Indy cuted her way out of things. She was good at it. It even sometimes worked on Lee.
I’d never tried it but I figured now was as good a time as any.
He took in my big eyes and didn’t find them cute.
I knew this when he declared, “Christ, you’re a pain in my ass.”
He stopped talking.
I didn’t fill the void.
He didn’t either.
Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and asked, “Can I go find Darius now?”
“No you fuckin’ can’t go find Darius now,” he answered and I shut my mouth again. “Jesus, Ally, you just told me you’re in love with me.”
“Uh… I think I said was.”
“So you’re not in love with me?”
I didn’t answer that.
“Ally,” he growled.
God!
I knew one thing, he never let anything go so I had no hope in hell of him letting this go.
And since I was letting it all hang out it was time to go for the gusto.
But carefully.
“I didn’t say that,” I whispered.
Instantly upon my words, his eyes got heated. It was his angry heat warring with a totally different kind of his heat and he verbalized these conflicting emotions by sharing, “I don’t know whether to fuck you or turn you over my knee.”
I decided not to give him my input because the first option I was always up for and the second one might make me lose my mind and we didn’t need any more emotion making things crazy.
Instead, I decided to change the subject and I did this by asking cautiously, “Um… what’s happening here?”
“Um… you’re officially ending this game we been playing by tellin’ me you love me?” he asked back sarcastically.
I had already pretty much done that but I didn’t point that out at that juncture because I decided at his words and tone that I felt we needed more emotion making things crazy.
And I was going to bring it.
“Seriously?” I snapped.
“Jesus, why can’t you just say it?” he returned.
“Maybe because you’re essentially ordering me to,” I fired back then kept going in order to advise, “Don’t think you can watch the Rock Chicks and think you’re getting the same thing with me. This macho bossy shit does not fly with me.”
“Clue in, Ally,” he immediately volleyed, “Watchin’ the Rock Chicks, I know exactly what does and does not fly with you, and just like every one of those men when their women serves up attitude, I don’t give a shit. And, just sayin’, that attitude, just like with them, is why I’m with you.”
“What?” I bit out.
“Babe, every one of those guys had pussy lined up at the door. Bitches were gagging for it. They’d do anything to get their hooks into those men and those men knew it. They didn’t want a woman who’d do anything. They wanted a woman who knew her own mind and wouldn’t do anything. Not a single one of your posse lets their man walk all over them. And not a single one lets them get away with shit. At least not without dishin’ up a fair amount of attitude before they let them get away with it which is the definition of not letting them get away with it.”
This, I had to admit, was true. At the very least, if one of the Hot Bunch got bossy, they’d get an eye roll, but usually they bought a whole lot more. Those boys might get their way but that didn’t mean they didn’t have to work for it.
I just never looked at it that way.
Ren wasn’t done.
“With your crew, you get what you see, not some twisted version who’s tyin’ herself into knots to give you what they think you wanna see. And even if every one of you and your crew are totally fuckin’ whacked in your own unique ways, it’s just you and all you. Not some bullshit fantasy that will go up in smoke the minute you get your hooks in me.”
There was a lot there, and all of it made total, if surprising, sense.
But I got stuck on one thing.
And being me, I called him on it.
“I’m not whacked!” I stated (loudly).
“Ally, you been fuckin’ me for a goddamned year, in love with me since the night we met, and pushing me away that whole time. That’s whacked.”
“There were circumstances that led to all that, Zano.”
“And you took your sweet time sharing those with me, and I’ll add, did it in a goddamn motel hours away from home, after rescuing some random damsel in distress who got fucking buried alive that you met on your fuckin’ computer, for God’s sake, and you did it during a fuckin’ drama. Baby, that, all of that, is whacked.”
“Faye’s not random. She’s my friend!” I shouted.
“You met her in person last night!” he shouted back.
“So?” I asked, still shouting.
“Jesus, are we honestly fighting about the fact you’re in love with me?” he asked.
“Words you’ll never hear if you keep up this bossy in your face bullshit, Zano,” I returned (again, loudly).
He scowled at me.
Then he rolled off, shifting to his back in the bed. He lifted his hands to his face and rubbed, muttering under them, “Fuck me.”
I rolled to my side, got up on an elbow and requested to know, “If I try to leave and go find Darius, are you going to pin me to the bed again?”
He removed his hands from his face and locked eyes with me. “Fuck yes.”
“God!” I exclaimed, falling to my back on the bed with a plop.
Within an instant, Ren was looming over me.
His hand came to my jaw and his face dipped close.
I glared.
“I’m in love with you, Ally.”
I stopped glaring and my heart flipped.
“What?” I whispered.
He didn’t repeat himself.
He said something a lot longer and almost (but not quite) as good.
“I knew it could happen when you were cool when I told you about my dad and you wrapped your hand around my thigh. I definitely knew it could happen when you went wild for me on my stairs. Shit went down and it took a while but I knew it did happen when you cried in my arms after Sadie had her thing. Anyone who would feel that badly about being mean and care so deeply about another human being’s fucked up life I knew was the woman for me. You gave me a run for my money, and once I stopped finding it a pain in my ass and started enjoying it, I did nothing but. I enjoyed every fuckin’ second, Ally. And every fuckin’ second I’ve never doubted how I was feeling. And just to be clear, how I was feeling, every day through this game we’ve been playing, was that I was falling deeper in love with you.”