The Kiss Thief

“It’s not a competition.”

“I’ve seen the papers.” I narrowed my eyes accusingly. “You’re a Casanova.”

“Casanova.” His chest danced against mine as he rumbled with a chuckle at my choice of words. “Shall I escort you to the nearest portal to take you back to the sixteenth century?” He faked a theatrical English accent.

I knew I sounded like a prude. Worse—I knew I was raised to be one, and shaking off the chains of my dated scruples would be difficult. But I wasn’t nineteen. Not really. I had the manners of a fifty-year-old and the life experience of a goddamn toddler.

“Forget it.”

He sucked his teeth in, smirking. “Fine. No fucking. We can fool around. Senior-year style. A blast from the past.”

That sounded equally as dangerous as going all the way. The mere idea of being with him in the same room with the door closed felt scandalous, somehow.

“In your room?”

He hitched one shoulder up. “Your call. One of us will have to leave after it’s over. I don’t share a bed with women.”

“And men?” I slid back into my element, glad we were back in friendly territory.

“Watch your mouth, Miss Rossi, unless you want to find it wrapped around my something long and hard that’d make your jaw snap.”

I knew he was kidding this time, and even had to cover a grin, ducking my head down.

“Is sleeping alone a principle, too?”

“Yes.”

So he did not share a bed with his partners, did not perform oral sex, and was not interested in forming a relationship with a woman. I didn’t know much about the world of dating, but I was pretty certain my future husband wasn’t a great catch.

“I feel like there’s a Francesca question coming my way.” He scanned me, and I realized I’d been munching on my lower lip contemplatively.

“Why do you not give oral?” I asked, pinking again. It didn’t help that we were having the conversation in the middle of the foyer where Ms. Sterling could hear us through the thin door of her room.

Wolfe, of course, seemed anything but embarrassed, placing his shoulder on the wall and watching me through lazy eyes.

“I actually quite enjoy the taste of pussy. It’s the bowing down part I have severe dislike to.”

“You think it’s degrading?”

“I will never kneel for anyone. Don’t take it personally.”

“Surely, there are plenty of positions that would not require that of you.”

What was I saying?

He smirked. “In all of them, the person giving the pleasure looks like the peasant.”

“And how come you never share a bed with anyone?”

“People leave. Getting used to them is pointless.”

“A husband and a wife are not supposed to leave each other.”

“Yet you would be more than willing to turn your back on this, would you not, my dear fiancée?”

I said nothing. He pushed off the wall and took a step toward me, tilting my chin up with his thumb. Wolfe was wrong. Or at least, not completely right. I was no longer hell-bent on running away from him. Not since I realized my parents weren’t going to fight for me. Angelo said we’d be together this lifetime, but I hadn’t heard from him since. With every day that passed, breathing without feeling as if a knife had been shoved into my lungs became easier.

But I didn’t confess that to Wolfe. I didn’t utter aloud what my body spoke to him in my parents’ piano room.

I stepped out of his embrace, telling him everything there was to say.

I’m not ready yet.

“Good night, Villain.” I ambled to my bedroom.

The jagged edge of his voice ran like fingers over my back behind me, but he relented. Accepted my reluctance to be with him like that.

“Sleep tight, Nemesis.”

I WATCHED FROM THE BACK of my Cadillac as the private investigator I’d hired slammed his car door shut and walked over to knock on the Rossi’s door. Francesca’s mother answered, and he handed her the brown manila file and turned around without a word, just as I had instructed him to.

Arthur Rossi tried to destroy the evidence against him.

I was going to destroy him.

I’d filled Chicago’s streets with more cops and moles. For the past three decades, he’d been ruling those streets with an iron fist. And now, in only a short few weeks, I’d managed to eliminate a lot of his power.

The investigator I’d hired reported back that Arthur had been drinking more, sleeping less, and raised his hand to two of his most trustworthy soldiers. For the first time in three decades, he was spotted leaving his own strip clubs, smelling not only like cigars and alcohol but also other women’s pussies. Two of the women, out-of-towners, were stupid enough to allow the investigator to take pictures of them with Arthur.

I’d created more of a mess for him, and it seemed as though his Keaton problem wasn’t going to go away.