The Kiss Thief by L.J. Shen

“JUST TELL ME WHO IT was. An ex-girlfriend? A missing cousin? Who? Who!” I probed Ms. Sterling the next day between tending to my vegetable garden, chain-smoking, and looking through the trash for the broken picture—the one thing my future husband cared about, and I somehow managed to ruin.

I was met with stern, snippy answers. She explained, between huffs and phone calls, barking at the cleaning company once again, that if I wanted to learn more about Wolfe’s life, I needed to earn his trust.

“Earn his trust? I can’t even earn a smile from him.”

“Have you actually tried making him smile?” She squinted, checking my face for lies.

“Should I have? He practically kidnapped me.”

“He also saved you from your parents.”

“I didn’t want to be saved!”

“Two things people should be grateful for without asking—love and to be saved. You are offered both. Yet, my dear, you seem quite ungracious.”

Ms. Sterling, I deduced, was senile to the bone. She sounded so different from the woman who persuaded my future husband to show me mercy yesterday when I eavesdropped on them. I saw through her game. Trying to defrost us toward one another while always playing the devil’s advocate.

I thought she was wasting her time. On both ends.

Still, bickering with Ms. Sterling was the best part of my day. She showed more passion and involvement in my life than Wolfe and my father combined.

My fiancé and I were to arrive at my parents’ house at six o’clock for dinner. Our first dinner as an engaged couple. Ms. Sterling said that showing my folks I was happy and taken care of was of the essence. She aided me with the preparations, helping me slide into a yellow maxi summer chiffon dress and matching Jimmy Choo sandaled heels. When she fixed my hair in front of the mirror, it dawned on me that our light banter about the weather, my love for horses, and her love for romance books reminded me a lot of my connection with Clara. Something that felt a lot like hope started blooming in my chest. Having a friend would make living here so much more bearable. My new beau, of course, must’ve sensed my cautious optimism because he decided to crush and burn it by sending me a text message:

Will be late. Meet you there. No pulling tricks, Nem.

He couldn’t even show up on time to our first dinner with my parents. And, of course, he still thought I’d try to run away somehow.

Heat bubbled in my veins throughout the drive. The black Escalade pulled up to my parents’ curb, and Mama and Clara hurried outside, showering me with hugs and kisses as if I’d just returned from a warzone. My father was standing at the doorway in his sharp suit, frowning at my nearing figure as I laced my arms with the women of my former household as we walked in. I daren’t meet his eyes. When I took the four steps up to our entrance door, he merely moved aside to let me pass, not offering me a hug, a kiss, or even a pleasantry.

I looked the other way. Our shoulders brushed, and it felt like his sliced mine with its rigid, icy stance.

“You look beautiful, Vita Mia,” Mama breathed behind me, pulling at the hem of my dress.

“Freedom agrees with me,” I bit out bitterly, my back to Papa as I went to the dining room and poured myself a glass of wine before Wolfe arrived.

The next hour was spent making idle conversation with my mother while my father nursed a glass of brandy and stared me down from across the room. Clara came and went out of the salon, providing refreshments and zeppole to curb our hunger.

“Something smells.” I scrunched my nose.

“That would be your fiancé,” my father said, sitting back in his executive chair. My mother laughed off his words.

“We had a bit of an incident in the backyard. It’s fine now.”

Another hour vanished, washed away by a stream of words as my mother brought my father and me up to date with all the latest gossip regarding the desperate housewives of The Outfit. Who got married and who got divorced. Who was cheating and who was being cheated on. Angelo’s little brother wanted to propose to his girlfriend, but Mike Bandini, his father, thought it to be a problematic announcement, especially as Angelo didn’t have any prospects to marry anyone anytime soon. Thanks to me.

Mom bit her lower lip when she realized it sounded a lot like an accusation, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve. She did that a lot. I chucked it to her low self-esteem after years of being married to my father.

“Of course, Angelo will move on.” She swatted the air.

“Think before you speak, Sofia. It would serve you well,” he advised.

When the grandfather clock chimed for the second time that evening—announcing it was eight o’clock—we moved to the dining room and began to eat our starters. I did not make any excuses for Wolfe since all my text messages to him went unanswered. My heart was soggy with shame and drenched with disappointment at the humiliation of being stood up by the man who ripped me from my family.

The three of us ate with our heads bowed down. The clinking of the salt and pepper shakers and utensils unbearably loud against the silence in the room. My mind drifted back to the notes in the wooden box. I had decided that this was all a mistake. Senator Keaton couldn’t be the love of my life.

The hate of my life? Absolutely.

Anything more than that was a stretch.

When Clara served us the reheated entrees shortly before the doorbell rang, instead of feeling relieved, more dread poured into me, heavy like lead. The three of us put our forks down and exchanged glances. What now?

“Well, then! That’s a pleasant surprise.” Mama clapped her hands once.

“No more than cancer.” My father patted the sides of his mouth with a napkin.

Wolfe came in a short minute later in a tailored suit, black raven hair tousled to a fault, and a purposeful expression that flirted with menace.

“Senator Keaton,” Papa sneered, not looking up from his dish of homemade lasagna. “I see you finally decided to grace us with your presence.”

Wolfe dropped a casual kiss on the crown of my head, and I hated the way silken satin wrapped around my heart and squeezed it with delight. I despised him for being so late and careless and myself for foolishly melting just because of the way his lips felt on my hair. My father watched the scene from the corner of his eye, one side of his mouth upturned in amused satisfaction.

You’re miserable, Francesca, aren’t you?His eyes taunted.

Yes, Papa. Yes, I am. Good job.

“What took you so long?” I whisper-shouted, bumping Wolfe’s hard thigh with my own underneath the table as he took a seat.

“Business,” he clipped, flapping his napkin over his lap in a whip-sharp movement and taking a generous sip of his wine.

“So, not only do you work all day,” my father launched into the conversation in full swing, sitting back and knotting his fingers together on the table, “but you’re sending off my daughter to college now. Are you planning on providing us with grandchildren anytime this decade?” he inquired flatly, not giving a damn this way or the other. I saw through my father’s behavior and knew without a shadow of a doubt this was not only about my college education.

In the time that passed between my leaving the house and now, he’d had the chance to process everything.

Wolfe Keaton’s future children, no matter how much of the Rossi blood ran in their veins, would never inherit Papa’s business. Senator Keaton would not let it happen. And so, my marriage to Wolfe not only killed his dream of a perfect little daughter raising beautiful, well-behaved, ruthless children, but it also killed his legacy. My father was slowly beginning to disconnect from me emotionally to protect his own heart from hurting, yet he was breaking mine to pieces in the process.

My gaze darted to Wolfe, who glanced at his Cartier, visibly waiting for dinner to be over.

“Ask your daughter. She’s in charge of her school schedule. And herwomb.”

“Quite true, to my utter disappointment. Women need real men to tell them what they want. Left to their own devices, they are bound to make reckless mistakes.”

“Real men don’t shit bricks when their wives gain higher education and the basic power to survive without them, pardon my language.” Wolfe chewed a mouthful of lasagna, signaling me with his hand to pass him the pepper. He was in hostile territory, looking as cool as a cucumber.

“Alrighty, now,” Mama chortled, tapping my father’s hand from across the table. “Has anyone heard the latest gossip about the governor’s wife’s latest facelift? Word around town is she looks permanently surprised and not by his tax scandal.”

“What will you be studying, Francesca?” Papa turned his attention to me, cutting into Mama’s speech. “Surely, you don’t actually believe you can become a lawyer.”

I accidentally dropped my fork onto my lasagna. Small splashes of tomato flew on my yellow dress. I dabbed at the stains with a napkin, swallowing a pool of saliva that gathered in my mouth.

“You can’t even eat a damn meal without making a mess,” my father pointed out, stabbing his lasagna with unabashed violence.

“That’s because my father is belittling me in front of my fiancé and mother.” I squared my shoulders. “Not because I’m incapable.”

“You are of average IQ, Francesca. You can become a lawyer but probably not a good one. And you haven’t worked a day in your life. You would make a lazy intern and get fired. Wasting everyone’s time and resources, including your own. Not to mention, the opportunity you’d receive being Senator Keaton’s wife could go to someone who actually deserves the job. Nepotism is America’s number-one disease.”

“I thought that was organized crime,” Wolfe commented, taking another sip of his wine.

“And you.” My father looked at my future husband with an expression that would have stapled me to the wall had it been directed at me, yet my husband stayed aloof as ever. “I would strongly advise that you stop your antics. You got what you wanted. May I remind you that I came from nothing? I’m not going to sit around and watch you ruin all I have. I’m a very resourceful man.”

“Threat noted.” Wolfe chuckled.

“So I should just stay at home and pop out babies?” I pushed my plate away, fed up with the food, conversation, and company. My mother’s gaze ping-ponged among everyone, her eyes wide as saucers. It was all a big mess, and I was in the middle of it.

My father threw his napkin over his plate to signal to the servants that he was done. Two of them rushed over to clear his plate, nodding and nodding and nodding.

Scared.

“That’d be a good start. Although, with a husband like yours, God knows.”

“A husband you chose.” I speared something with my fork, imagining it was his heart.

“Before I knew he was going to make you go out and work like some kind of…”

“Twenty-first century woman?” I finished for him, my eyebrows jumping to my hairline. Wolfe chuckled into his wine glass next to me, his quaking shoulder brushing mine.

My father knocked down his drink, then followed it by topping his glass to the hilt. His nose grew redder and rounder, his cheeks pinking under the yellow hues of the chandelier light. My father always drank responsibly. He didn’t tonight.

“Your boarding school was an expensive, elaborate daycare for the rich and connected. Your doing well in Switzerland is no indication you can survive the real world.”

“That’s because you sheltered me from the real world.”

“No, that’s because you can’t handle the real world.” He grabbed his full glass of wine and tossed it across the room. The glass broke into tiny pieces as it hit the wall, the red wine spreading on the carpets and wallpaper like blood.

Wolfe stood, braced his hands over the table, and leaned forward, staring Papa in the eye. The world ceased to spin, and everyone in the room seemed to appear significantly smaller, holding their breath and staring at my fiancé. The air fluttered behind my lungs.

“This is the last time you raise your voice to my fiancée, not to mention throw things around like a poorly trained circus monkey. Nobody—and I do mean no person on this planet—talks to the future Mrs. Keaton like this. Any wrath she is to endure is mine. The only person she answers to is me. The only man to put her in her place—if and when needed—would. Be. Me. You will be respectful, agreeable, and polite to her. Tell me if I’m not understood, and I’ll make sure to make my point by destroying everything you care about.”

The air felt thick and heavy with the threat, and I was no longer sure where my loyalty lay. I hated both of them but had to root for one of them. It was my future on the line, after all.

“Mario!” My father called out his security. Was he throwing us out? I didn’t want to be there when it happened. Couldn’t face the humiliation of being thrown out of my own house. I stared at my father’s eyes. The same eyes that glittered with pride and respect not too long ago every time I entered the room as he ricocheted dreams of my marrying into a good, Italian Outfit family and filling this house with happy, privileged grandchildren.

They were empty.

I shot up from my seat, my legs padding across the carpets. I had no direction. Tears blurred my vision as my feet carried me to the drawing room on the first floor, on the other side of the house where the grand piano sat.

I wiped my face quickly, tucking myself behind the piano, gathering the tulle of my summer dress to make sure I wasn’t visible to anyone walking into the room. It was a childish thing to do, but I didn’t want to be found. I wrapped my hands around my legs and buried my face between my knees. My whole body trembled as I sobbed into my thighs.

Minutes passed before I felt someone else enter the room. It was pointless to look up. Whomever it was—they were an unwelcome company.

“Lift your head.”

God. My pulse jumped at his voice. Why him?

I remained motionless. His footsteps carried across the room, becoming louder as he made his way toward me. When I finally peeked from behind my knees, I found my fiancé crouching down in front of me with a grave look on his face.

He’d found me.

I didn’t know how, but he did.

Not my mother. Not my father. Not Clara. Him.

“What took you so long?” I lashed out at him, dragging the pads of my fingers across my cheeks. I felt childish seeking his alliance, but he was the only one who could. Mama and Clara meant well but lacked any sort of power over my father.

“Work.”

“Work could’ve waited until tomorrow.”

“It could have until your father got into the picture.” His jaw clenched. “I had a meeting at a bar called Murphy’s. I left my briefcase there. It disappeared from my side, then a mysterious fire started in the kitchen, spreading to the rest of the pub soon after. Take a wild guess what happened.”

I blinked at him. “The Italian and the Irish have had rivalry dated back to the early twenties in this town.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Your father had my briefcase stolen and burned. He wanted to destroy the evidence I have on him.”

“Did he succeed?”

“What kind of idiot keeps his most valuable possession in one place without any spare copies and walks around with it in broad daylight?”

The kind of people my father messes with.

“Are you going to tell him?” I sniffed.

“I’d rather keep him guessing. It’s thoroughly entertaining.”

“He’s not going to stop, then.”

“Good. Neither will I.”

I knew he spoke the truth. I also knew that it was more truth than I could ever squeeze out of my father.

The pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Papa orchestrated this evening to be a disaster. He wanted to destroy whatever Wolfe had on him, and the fact I was left waiting while Wolfe had to extinguish another potential PR disaster was a nice, fat bonus.

“I hate him.” I stared at the floor, the words exploding from my mouth bitterly. I meant it with every bone and ounce of blood in my body.

“I know.” Wolfe settled in front of me, crossing his long, muscular legs at the ankles. I glanced at the cut of his dress pants. No hint of socks. Tailor-made to his exact height and frame just like everything else about him. A man so calculated, I decided, was going to hit back harder once he decided to punish my father.

And my father wouldn’t stop until he dismantled him. One of them was going to kill the other, and I was the poor idiot stuck right in the middle of their war.

I closed my eyes, trying to muster the mental strength to walk out of this room and face my parents. Everything was such a mess.

I am an unwanted puppy, running from door to door in the pouring rain, looking for shelter.

Slowly, and despite my better judgment, I crawled into my future husband’s lap. I knew that by doing that, I was raising a white flag. Surrendering to him. Seeking his protection, both from my father and from my own internal turmoil. I flew directly into my cage, asking him to lock me inside. Because the beautiful lie was far more desirable than the awful truth. The cage was warm and safe. No harm could find me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my head in his steel chest and holding my breath to prevent the next sob.

He stiffened, his body rigid with our sudden proximity.

I thought about what Ms. Sterling said about killing him with kindness. Defeating him with love.

Break. Crack. Feel me. Accept me.

I felt his arms slowly enveloping my body as he acknowledged my surrender, opened the gates, and let my army skulk into his kingdom, wounded and famished. He lowered his head and cupped both my cheeks, tilting my head up. Our eyes locked. We were so close, I could see the unique, silvery shade of his irises. Pale and frightening like the planet Mercury, with icy, blue speckles inside the craters. I knew instantly that there was a chink in his indifferent mask, and that it was my job to worm my way through the crack and plant my seeds there. Grow them like my vegetable garden and hope like hell they could bloom.

He tipped his head forward, molding our mouths together, our lips meeting like they already knew each other. I realized—and not to my discomfort—that they did. It was a discreet, bolstering kiss. For long minutes, we explored each other with cautious strokes. The only audible noise was our lips and tongue, licking wounds more than skin-deep. When we disconnected, my heart twisted in my chest. I was afraid he was going to leave the room angrily like he did the last time we’d kissed. But he just brushed his thumb over my cheek and scanned my face with a dark frown.

“Have you had enough of your father for the week, Nem?”

I took a shuddering breath. “I think I’ve had my fill for the year.”

“Good. Because I’m beginning to think I haven’t had enough of my fiancée, and I’d like to rectify that.”

During the drive back home, Wolfe slid his fingers through mine, clasping my palm and pressing it down on his muscular thigh. I looked out the window, the small smile on my lips a telltale I chose to ignore. After we left my parents’ piano room, my mother apologized profusely for the disastrous dinner. My father was nowhere in sight; his driver pulled up to the curb while she was making excuses, and he probably went someplace where he could plot against my future husband. Not that said fiancé looked particularly bothered by the situation.

I hugged Mama and told her that I loved her. I meant it even though I recognized that my entire perception of her had changed. Growing up, I truly believed that my mother could protect me from anything. Even death. I did not think so anymore. In fact, a small, frightened part of me speculated that the day where I’d have to protect her was near. I vowed to never do this to my own child.

When I had a daughter, I would protect her from anyone, even from her father.

Even from our legacy.

Even from wooden boxes with decades of tradition.

Wolfe helped me into my casual wool jacket and pierced my mother with a look she didn’t deserve.

Now, in the vehicle, his hand covering mine, he dragged my palm deeper into his inner thigh, much too near to his groin. My own thighs clenched together, but I didn’t pull back. There was one thing I could neither deny, nor did I care to at this point: my future husband stirred a physical reaction in me.

With Angelo, I felt warm and fuzzy. Under a rich blanket of security. With Wolfe, I felt as if I was on fire. As though he could end me at any given moment, and all I could do was hope for his mercy. I felt safe, but not secure. Desired, but unwanted. Admired, but unloved.

When we got to the house, Ms. Sterling was sitting in the kitchen, reading a historical romance. I walked in to get a glass of water, with Wolfe following me. As soon as her eyes snapped up from the yellowed pages, she angled her reading glasses down the bridge of her nose and grinned.

“How was your evening?” She batted her lashes, feigning innocence. “Pleasant, I take it?”

The fact that we entered a room together for the first time since we’d known each other probably gave our truce away.

“Get out,” Wolfe ordered, no menace or manners in his voice. Ms. Sterling hopped out, giggling to herself, as I poured myself a glass of water, refusing to spare him a look. We’d come here because he wanted to spend more time with me. I had no doubt it was neither my wit nor conversation he was after. The finality of what was going to happen between us hit me somewhere between the heart and the womb, sending waves of passion and panic through my body.

“Care for some water?” My voice pitched high. My back was still to him.

Wolfe covered my body with his from behind, running his fingers from the side of my thigh to my midriff. He cupped my small breast, making me gasp in shock and unexplained pleasure. His warm lips were on my shoulder, and I felt him stiffening behind me, his erection pressing against my butt. My heart fluttered behind my ribcage like a butterfly. Oh, my God. He was firm and hot everywhere, and the sensation of being shielded by him made me feel both helpless and invincible.

I drank my water in measured gulps, biding my time, as his fingers pinched one of my nipples through my dress and bra. I groaned, my back arching involuntarily, and I had to put the glass down on the counter before it slipped between my fingers. He chuckled, his hand sliding down my leg again and snaking through the side slit of my dress. His fingertips brushed the hem of my cotton underwear and he grumbled into my ear, making my skin break into violent goose bumps. Instead of running for my life—something every bone in my body screamed at me to do—I found myself wanting to dissolve in his arms. I was the idiot who told him I wasn’t a virgin. Now I had to deal with the consequences of my stupid lie.

“Water?” I muttered again, horrified when I felt my panties sticking to my skin from the dampness. My body felt rebellious and adventurous under his fingertips, but my mind told me we were still rivals.

He thrust his penis between my butt cheeks through my dress, and I moaned, my hip bones slamming against the counter. The pain of the hit was laced with delight I couldn’t understand. Part of me wanted him to do it again.

“The only thing I’m in the mood for right now is my bride-to-be.”

“Huh.” I looked at the ceiling, racking my brain for something to say. Was he going to take me from behind like some kind of animal? Sex was a foreign land I had yet to set foot on. I had plenty of time to surf the internet and read all about my future husband. He was a womanizer and had more than his fair share of girlfriends and flings. They were always well-educated, leggy socialites with shiny hair and an envious family tree. They always hung on his arms in the tabloids, staring at his face as though it was a rare gift he’d offered just for them. But among the squeaky-clean items about him, I’d also found a lot of headlines that flirted with a scandal. Hotel rooms with a trash can full of used condoms, a restroom incident at a gala thrown by his political party, and he’d even been locked in a car with a European princess for two hours, much to her family and country’s disdain.

“We need to take this slow. I don’t know you yet.” My hand trembled its way to his shoulder, pushing him awkwardly with no real force in my touch. I was still with my back to him.

“Getting in bed together will help rectify that,” he pointed out. I wished I’d stopped to think before I taunted him about sleeping with Angelo. But the lie got bigger and more important the more time passed.

He spun me around so I faced him and shoved me flush against the counter. I was both amazed and disturbed by how easily he manhandled me.

“Slow,” I repeated, my voice quivering around the word.

“Slow,” he echoed, hoisting me up on the counter. He stepped between my legs as if he’d done it a thousand times before—and he had. Just not with me. My dress rode up, and if he looked down—which he did, of course, he did—he could see my matching yellow panties and the unmistakable stain of lust where the slit was. He cupped my behind in a punishing grip, slamming our groins together, and my breath hitched at the thing that met my damp panties.

My very damp panties.

I was soaked. Embarrassed to the bone. I hoped he wasn’t going to touch me down there because that would only prove to him how much I craved him.

My eyelids lowered, heavy under the weight of my desire for him. He put his lips on mine and kissed me long and hard, plunging into my mouth in a rhythm that made a ball of something warm and brilliant swell in my womb. He crushed his body against mine and rubbed his swollen cock against my center, and I dragged my fingers over his back like I’d seen women do in the movies, enjoying the power of touching him however I liked. It felt good, and I didn’t want to think about anything else. Like how we were a lie. Or how the lie felt better than the truth—the reality of my life. I pushed aside my feelings for my father, and my missing Angelo, and the worry for Mama.

It was just the two of us tucked in a bubble I knew was bound to burst.

Wolfe snaked one hand between us and rubbed my slit through the fabric of my panties. I was so wet, an apology for reacting this way to his body was dancing on the tip of my tongue. He continued kissing me, chuckling into my mouth every time I squirmed and moaned.

“You’re so responsive,” he muttered in what I thought could be actual awe between kisses that became dirtier, longer, and wetter, rubbing me faster down there. Was being responsive a good or a bad thing? As a good girl, that was another thing to worry about. I found myself opening my legs wider for him, inviting him to do more of this magic. Some girls touched themselves, but I preferred not to. Not that I thought it wasn’t okay, I just knew that I couldn’t risk losing my virginity accidentally. It was priceless. But he was my husband-to-be, and it seemed to please him.

And me.

I knew that the first time was supposed to hurt, but a part of me was happy it was going to be in the experienced arms of Wolfe. Everything tingled inside me, and I felt like I was about to burst. On the tip of something monumental. His mouth moved against mine more angrily, but I knew it wasn’t the same anger as the day he threw me out of his room.

“So wet,” he growled, pushing his thumb halfway into my opening through my panties. I arched my back and closed my eyes, my body bursting with a thousand different sensations. My fingers fluttered against his groin through his pants. Huge and hard and even warmer than the rest of him. A terrible thought crossed my mind. I wanted him in my mouth.

What was I thinking? Why would I want it there? This was definitely not something I was going to share with Clara or Mama. Not even Ms. Sterling.

Jesus, Francesca. The mouth. You pervert.

He grabbed me by the back of my thighs and wrapped my legs around his waist, kissing me as he made his way to the stairs, my arms still draped across his neck. I realized he was taking me to a bedroom—his or mine—and that I couldn’t go there. I had to tell him I was a virgin. That in my world, we had rules. And one of mine was no sex until marriage. But that was entirely too awkward in this particular situation. I needed to choose the time and the place to come clean.

“Put me down,” I slurred between drunken kisses.

“I don’t give oral on principle, but you’re wet enough to fit a fucking shovel in.”

What?Fright gripped my throat, tightening its claws on my neck from the inside. He was half-ready to maul me right there on the floor. We were already upstairs when I began to push him off me, untangling my legs from his waist. He let go of me immediately, watching as I stumbled out of his embrace, my back hitting the wall.

“Nemesis?” He frowned, tilting his chin down. He looked more confused than angry. For all his shortcomings, Wolfe had never forced me to do anything physical with him.

“I said I’m not ready!”

“You also said it as though I personally escorted you to Hell’s gates. What’s the matter?”

I was embarrassed by my behavior. Embarrassed by both my lie of being experienced and my virginity. Last but not least, I was ashamed of wanting it so badly. Was that all it took for me to forget Angelo? The hard length of Wolfe against my softness?

“Are you a virgin?” His mouth nearly blossomed into a smile. So rare was laughter on my fiancé’s face, I was beginning to think he was incapable of true joy.

“Of course, I’m not a virgin.” I slapped my thigh, turning away toward my room. He grabbed my arm and pulled me back to his embrace. I melted against his body like butter on a fry pan. “I just need a little time. You’re still more experienced than I am.”

“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.”