“Come again?”
He pushed deeper into me and growled, in a statement this time, “You kissed Smithie.”
Was he suggesting I’d made out with Smithie?
And thus, was he high?
“I… no, I…” I trailed off.
Pull it together Ally!
“You kissed him on the cheek,” Ren gritted out.
Oh.
I did do that.
“Well, uh, yes. I did that,” I confirmed.
“You don’t kiss people’s cheeks,” he stated.
This was true.
But why had he come all the way there and broken the most important breakup law there was in order to tell me this?
“Zano—”
He pressed so close, I stopped speaking. I also lost my ability to breathe when his hand cupped me under my jaw and gently pushed my head back as his face came so close he was all I could see.
Once he had me in position, he bit out, “Ren.”
I blinked, and in that instant, I pulled myself together.
Therefore, I put a hand to his abs, firm and communicative, and snapped, “What the f**k is going on?”
“You wanna be a PI, there’s office space across the hall from me. Dom enquired about it. The way shit is with this economy, it’s been vacant for six months, no one even sniffing. They’re desperate to make something on it, so they offered a large discount for the first year. It’s not big; reception, big office, small office, small kitchenette and decent-sized conference room. I signed the lease, bought your first year.”
My mouth would have dropped open if his hand wasn’t at my jaw.
So instead I just felt my eyes get wide and stared.
He kept talking.
“I wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it because I want you however you come to me. But I’ll say it now, it’s important I bring up my family in my faith and it’s important my future wife is a part of that. You offered me that possibility without me even asking.”
At that, I would have swallowed if his hand wasn’t at my jaw.
So instead I just kept staring.
He got even closer so it was only his eyes that I could see, and his voice dropped near to a whisper.
“You know what I do. You come from who you come from, and I know your meeting with your family last night was about that. And you wanted to give me the opportunity to be a part of that meeting, also givin’ me the shot to start without delay in showin’ your people what you mean to me. I do not know how you feel about what I do because you just let me do it. My guess, I forced that issue, I’d learn you didn’t like it much. You still just let me do it. You could have thrown that shit in my face last night, but you didn’t utter a single f**kin’ word. Which shows me that it’s so embedded in what you give me that it wasn’t even a consideration to draw that blade. Which tells me you take me as I come.”
It was then, I was breathing heavily.
But Ren wasn’t done
“And I didn’t return that favor.”