The Kiss Thief

I even liked that he didn’t want me to be his baby machine. Liked that he was agreeable whenever I decided to play nice with him. That the version of Wolfe I was going to get—the jerk or the sharp-tongued admirer—solely depended on my behavior toward him. I liked how his body enveloped mine like a shield, how his lips scorched my skin, how his tongue swirled over my needy flesh.

“Yet,” he corrected, his jaw as hard as granite. “You’re not scared of me yet.”

“You want me to be scared of you?”

“I want you to behave for once in your miserable, bratty life.”

“I did not sleep with Angelo Bandini,” I said for the first time that evening, and—I promised myself—also for the last time.

“Shut up, Francesca.”

My heart coiled in the corner of my chest, and I swallowed the bitterness bleeding in my mouth.

When we arrived at the house, he rounded the car and opened the door for me. I stepped out and ignored him, pushing the front door open. I was so mad I wanted to scream until my vocal cords tore. He had such little faith when it came to me. Who had made him so hardened and skeptical?

Probably my father. There was no other way to explain the bad blood between them.

Behind me, I heard Wolfe instruct his bodyguards to stay out of the house, which was against protocol. He never went against protocol.

I rushed to my room, desperate to gather my thoughts and think of a way to tackle this. I didn’t stop to think that running away from confrontation may look to him like an admittance. My only sin was sitting somewhere public with Angelo and telling him that he needed to stop texting me. That I wanted to give my future husband a fair chance.

“You can forget about college.” Wolfe slammed his phone and wallet against the marble mantel behind me. “The deal is off.”

I turned around sharply, my eyes flaring in disbelief.

“I didn’t sleep with Angelo!” I railed for the second time. God, he frustrated me to no end. He never once asked me for an explanation or voiced his concern. He just assumed.

Wolfe stared at me, placid. I ran toward him, pushing his chest. This time, unlike the first and second time I pushed him, he moved backward, just an inch. There was heat in my touch. I wanted to hurt him, I realized, more than he had hurt me.

Quantities.

“Are you sure you’re a lawyer? Because you sure suck at collecting evidence. I did not sleep with Angelo.” Third time.

“I saw you in the garden together.”

“So what?” I was so upset I couldn’t even explain myself properly. I clung to his dress shirt, tugging down and twining my arms around his neck to pull his head down. I pressed my lips to his, desperate to show him that what we had was real, at least for me, and that in my kiss, there was something unique—a potion—I could never give anyone else.

He didn’t move or reciprocate. For the first time since I’d met him, he did not demolish whatever stood between us the second I gave him permission to touch me. Normally, whenever I moved an inch toward him, he crossed an ocean, drowning me with kisses and caresses. He devoured me if I let him. This time, his body felt rigid and cold under my fingertips.

I took a step back, the dull pain in my chest spreading all over my body.

“I like you, Wolfe. I don’t know why, but I do, okay? You make my body feel different. It’s confusing, but it’s true.”

And boy, was it ever. The truest thing I’d ever said. My blush was back in full force, ready to obliterate my face.

“That’s very kind of you.” He smiled at me sardonically, standing taller and bigger and more frightening than I’d ever seen him before. “Tell me, Nemesis, do you think allowing me to fuck him out of you would help your chances at attending Northwestern?”

“Wh…what?” I pulled back, blinking. He still didn’t believe me. There was nothing I could do or say to change his mind.

He lifted his hand, stroking my cheek. Usually, I basked in his attention as though it were a glorious sunray on a December day. Tonight, his touch made me shiver and not with excitement. I was still wet because he was there, because he was present, and because his eyes were on me. But it felt all wrong. My desire for him felt dirty and desperate. Doomed, somehow.

“I’m not lying to you,” I said, biting my lower lip to keep it from trembling. “Why do you always think the worst of me?”

He lowered his lips to mine, and whispered, “Because you’re a Rossi.”

I closed my eyes, inhaling venom, exhaling hope. I felt like I was drowning even though I was standing in the middle of the foyer in the arms of the man I was going to marry. I knew what I had to do just then to save him from hating me. I just wasn’t sure if, by the end of it, I would still be able not to loathe him.