When I did, hesitantly and gently, he asked, “Did something like what happened to Sadie happen to you?”
Oh God.
He thought I’d been raped.
That was why he was worried.
I couldn’t let him think that so I replied softly, “No, Ren.”
“Back to Ren,” he whispered.
Oh shit.
He was trying to figure me out.
I couldn’t let that happen.
Okay, time to end this.
“I—” I started to do that, but that was as far as I got.
“Shut up and listen to me.”
I clamped my mouth shut, and I did this with a bit of surprise and not a bit of temper since he’d suddenly turned macho alpha on me.
Before I could start yelling, he started talking.
“I don’t know what’s up with you, but tonight, watching you at the gallery in a dress that succeeded in making me fight my dick getting hard faster than that other one, and your response to what went down with Sadie, I don’t give a f**k.”
He’d been watching me?
When?
And how did I miss that?
Ren kept talking.
“You take the backs of that crew of yours like your blood flows through their veins. Indy may be their foundation, Daisy and Shirleen the emotional support. But you’re the backbone.”
Jeez.
How did he know so much about the Rock Chicks?
And why did what he said make me feel even warmer inside?
And last, why the hell was he saying this shit at all?
He didn’t make me wait for an answer to the last.
“You don’t need to make amends to Sadie. You’re set on giving her a lifetime of sisterhood the like she’s never had before and never even dreamed of having. That’ll do it, so you can let that go.”
That was all nice, and true, and made me feel better, but unfortunately he wasn’t done.
“You’ve got your way, the way you are and the way you are with the ones you care about. And that tells me, a man gets in there, you give that to him, the children you give him, that man will be all kinds of lucky. And I’ve decided we’re gonna see if that man is me.”
Oh my God!
Was he crazy?