The Kiss Thief by L.J. Shen

A WEEK TICKED BY AND Wolfe and I eased back into our usual nighttime routine.

There was plenty of kissing, touching galore, licking and moaning and taunting each other with our mouths and fingers alone. But every time he went there—really there—I recoiled and asked him to leave the room. He always did. The pain I endured my first time left me scarred and scared. Not just physically, either. The way he hadn’t believed served as a reminder that we didn’t share much more than physical attraction. There was no trust. No love.

We were going to have sex, and probably soon—but only on my terms. Only when I felt comfortable.

Life crawled on. The days were busy and cluttered with things to do and places to go, yet nothing of significance happened.

My husband was growing frustrated with my refusal to sleep with him. Ms. Sterling was growing frustrated with how we shared lust but nothing else, and my father had stopped talking to me altogether, though my mother continued to call me every day.

Seven days after the wedding, I walked out of college, heading for Smithy’s waiting car. When I reached the black Cadillac, I found Smithy leaning against the passenger door with his cheap suit and black Ray-Bans. He rolled a lollipop in his mouth from side to side, offering me a nod.

“Your turn to drive.”

“Huh?”

“Big man’s order. He said it’s cool since there are no highways on the way home.”

I’d only had two lessons with Wolfe since he’d promised to teach me—my husband didn’t have much time outside of his work life—but I knew I could do it. Wolfe said I was a natural, and he wasn’t loose in the compliments department. Besides, Smithy was right—the way back to the house was urban and busy. It was perfect for practice.

“All right.” I bit down a giddy smile. Smithy threw the keys in the air, and I caught them. He pushed off the car and signaled to the coffee shop on the other side of the street.

“Nature’s calling.”

“Feel free to pick up.”

He came back after five minutes, all smiles.

“If your husband ever asks, please don’t tell him I even mentioned that I’m capable of peeing. He just might cut off my dick for reminding you that it is there.” He surprised me with the banter, and I shook my head, smiling.

“Wolfe’s not like that.”

“You’re kidding, right? Wolfe cares about everything you do or are exposed to, including annoying radio commercials and that street you hate because there’s a stray cat living there.”

“We need to find it a home,” I pointed out, sliding into the driver’s seat and dragging it forward to adjust it to my small frame. I fixed the mirrors, then sighed and turned on the keyless ignition. The vehicle purred to life. I wrapped my fingers around the wheel just as Smithy slid into the seat next to me.

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

He gestured with his freckled hand toward the horizon. He had a mane of red-orange hair and matching eyelashes.

“Take us home, Frankie.”

It was the first time he’d called me Frankie, and for some reason, it made my heart flutter. My mother called me Vita Mia, my father hadn’t called me anything at all recently, and Wolfe referred to me as Nemesis or Francesca. Angelo referred to me as goddess, and I missed it. I missed him.

I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in a lifetime. I contemplated texting him to check if he was fine, but I didn’t want to enrage my husband. Instead, I asked Mama if he was doing okay during our daily chats. She said that Angelo’s father, Mike, was livid and complaining to Papa about my husband’s unfair behavior toward his son, which only put more strain on their already problematic relationship since my sudden marriage. Things didn’t look too good for the men of The Outfit these days.

I slid out of the parking space and started for Wolfe’s mansion. Our mansion, I guessed. I rounded the corner, my heart slowing down from the sudden rush of adrenaline of sitting behind the wheel, when Smithy groaned.

“That Volvo behind us is tailgating the fuck out of our ass.” His Irish accent came out when he was upset. It unsettled me to be in a car with an Irishman from Chicago even though I knew Smithy had no affiliation with the underworld and had probably been thoroughly checked before he accepted the job as Senator Keaton’s driver.

I glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed two people I immediately recognized. Two Made Men who worked for the Bandini family. Meaty, six-foot-five type of beasts who were usually sent to handle business that required less conversation and more muscle. The one behind the wheel flashed me a rancid, rotten-toothed smirk.

Shoot.

“Speed up,” Smithy ordered.

“The street is crowded. We could get someone killed.” My eyes danced frantically, and I gripped the wheel tighter. Smithy shifted in his seat, glancing backward, no doubt regretting the moment he’d offered to let me drive.

“They’re about to bump into us. No, cancel that—crash into us. Hard.”

“What do I do?”

“Take a left. Now.”

“What?”

“Now, Francesca.”

Without thinking, I took a sharp left, heading out of the busy neighborhood we’d been driving in and galloping west. The road was clearer, and I could gain more speed, though I was still scared to push the gas pedal all the way down. I understood what Smithy tried to do. He was hoping to lose them. But he didn’t know these men chased people for a living.

“Get on the highway,” he shouted.

“Smithy!” I yelped at the same time he took his phone out of his pocket and wiped his forehead.

“Focus, Francesca.”

“Okay. Okay.”

I took another sharp turn, rolling onto the highway and checking my rearview mirror every few seconds to see if I was creating a gap between the two vehicles. My heart was bursting with fear. My entire body pricked with goosebumps. What were they doing? Why were they after me? But the reason was crystal clear to me. I’d shamed their family by getting engaged to Wolfe when I was supposed to get married to Angelo. On top of this, my husband just put Angelo in jail for a night or two over his affiliation with The Outfit (and with Mike Bandini’s accounting firm, which, I assumed, was now under investigation by the IRS).

The sound of metal scratching metal deafened my ears, and the Cadillac lurched forward as they hit us from behind. Heat rose from the doors, and the scent of burnt rubber leaked into my nostrils.

“Foot on the accelerator, sweetheart. Put some distance between us,” Smithy screamed, spit flying out of his mouth as he scrolled through his phone with shaky fingers.

“I’m trying.” I gripped the wheel harder, hyperventilating. My chest rattled, and my hands shook so bad I felt the car zigzagging between the lanes. The road was relatively clear, but cars were honking and sliding to the shoulder of the road as I tried to lose Bandini’s soldiers.

“What is it?” Wolfe’s voice boomed inside the car. Smithy connected him to the Bluetooth. I let out a sharp exhale. It was good to hear his voice. Even though he wasn’t there, I immediately felt a bit more in control.

“We’re being chased,” Smithy said.

“By who?”

My relief was immediately replaced with dread. Maybe he would be happy to get rid of me. He’d achieve the same level of revenge over my father without having to endure my presence.

“I don’t know,” Smithy said.

“Bandini’s soldiers,” I shouted over the car’s noise.

There was a pause as Wolfe digested the information.

“Angelo’s father?” he asked.

Another crashing sound exploded in the air, and our vehicle flew three feet forward as they smashed into us again. My head hit the steering wheel. I let out a breathless groan.

“Francesca, where are you?” Wolfe’s voice grew tighter. I looked around, trying to find signs.

“I-190,” Smithy said, snatching my schoolbag from under his feet and looking for my phone. “I’m going to call the police.”

“Don’t call the police,” Wolfe shot out.

“What?” Smithy and I yelled in unison. Bandini’s guys were getting close to us again. The Cadillac coughed and made a terrible sound. The bumper was scratching over the road, dragging over the concrete. It reminded me of the noise vehicles on the videogame Grand Theft Auto made before they burst into flames. Angelo and his brothers used to play that game all the time during our summers in Italy.

Angelo always won.

“I’m coming for you. Take the Lawrence Avenue exit.” I heard Wolfe picking up his keys. I didn’t remember ever seeing him drive. Ever. Either he was driven, or he sat next to me as I drove around the neighborhood.

“I’m not a good driver.” I tried to keep my emotions under control, reminding him that he shouldn’t be as sure as he was of my abilities to get us out of this in one piece. My eyes looked for the exit he was talking about, my eyeballs running maniacally in their sockets.

“You’re an excellent fucking driver,” Wolfe said, and I heard him zipping through traffic, breaking approximately two thousand laws based on the honking and yelling in the background. “Besides, if something happens to you, I will blow up the entire Outfit and put every Made Men in Chicago behind bars the rest of their lives, and they know it.”

“I think it’s because I married you,” I muttered, blinking away the tears so I could spot Lawrence Avenue better. Smithy shook his head in my periphery. It wasn’t the time or the place to discuss this.

“It’s not your fault,” Wolfe said. “I threw his son in jail for the night, and his firm is under IRS investigation. He wants to get back at me through you.”

“Is it working?” My voice shook. I heard the engine of Wolfe’s Jaguar straining against the speed. He didn’t answer me. Another bump to our car. I held back a sob.

“They’re running us off the road,” Smithy yelled, slapping the dashboard. “Can I draw a weapon?”

“Don’t you dare,” Wolfe barked. “If a hair on Francesca’s head accidentally moves…”

Just as he said that, the loudest crash of all rang in my ears at the same time that the air bag shot out, knocking our heads backward against the headrest. White powder floated in the air like confetti. The Cadillac screeched and rolled to the side of the road, and I felt something hissing underneath us. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t open my mouth. I couldn’t even groan. My nose felt like it’d been pushed to the back of my head. I wondered if I broke it. I pondered if now, that my face was all jacked, my husband would finally lose interest in me.

That was the last thought I had before I passed out.

“Francesca? Nem? Talk to me,” Wolfe demanded in the background. A dark screen spilled over my eyes as my eyelids gave in. I wanted to answer him but couldn’t. I heard him slap his wheel. “Damn it all to fucking hell. I’m on my way.”

I dragged my eyes to Smithy with whatever energy I had left. His head began to bob as the airbag shrank back, and he groaned in pain.

“She’s fine,” Smithy croaked. “Bleeding from her mouth and nose. Her eye doesn’t look too good, either.”

“Fuck!” Wolfe yelled.

Smithy unbuckled himself and reached across, unbuckling me, too.

“Should I…?” Smithy started at the same time Wolfe barked, “Yes. Draw your weapon. And if they get close to her, by God, kill the bastards before I do. Because I would be much less humane.”

I passed out after that. It felt like a thick blanket of nightmares covered me, suffocating and scorching hot. I was there but not really. I didn’t know how much time had passed. The first thing I remembered were the blue and red police lights shimmering behind my closed eyelids, and Smithy explaining to the police officers that we didn’t see them, and that they took off without getting out of their vehicle. Their license plate was missing, of course, but they were probably just punk kids who wanted to vandalize an expensive new car. Then I felt Wolfe’s arms wrapping around me and carrying me, bridal-style, to an ambulance. He tucked me in a gurney and barked when someone else tried to touch me.

“Sir,” a male paramedic snapped, “we need to put a brace on her neck and strap her to a backboard to stabilize her in case of spinal injuries.”

“Fine. Be gentle,” he snapped. When I opened my eyes, I noticed that Wolfe wasn’t alone. A chubby man in a fancy suit with a black mane stood next to him.

A paramedic shined a penlight into my eyes, patting my body and looking for any visible injuries. My forehead was bruised, and my entire face felt swollen and sore.

“If she lands in the ER, we’ll need to issue a statement,” the guy next to Wolfe was texting on his phone, still staring at it. “It’s going to look bad.”

“I don’t care what it looks like,” my husband retorted.

“When an airbag goes off, you have to go to the hospital. If you don’t, you have to sign an Against Medical Advice form. I would strongly suggest we just take her and get her checked.” I heard a soft female paramedic’s voice and blinked my eyes open. She was an attractive woman in her late twenties, and I wondered, briefly, if my Lothario husband was going to put his schmuck in her, too. Suddenly, I despised her, to a point I wanted to tell her I was feeling fine, just as long as she left us alone.

“Darling?” Wolfe probed, his fingers skimming my face gently. Too gently for me to even believe they were actually his. “We’re going to take you to the hospital.”

“No hospital,” I groaned into the palm of his hand. “Just…home. Please.”

“Francesca…”

“It’s fine. The airbags went off but didn’t touch us,” Smithy interfered.

“She’s going to the hospital,” Wolfe argued.

“Sir…” the man beside Wolfe tried to argue.

I wondered if he was like that because there were people around us. Because he ought to be nice and gentle to me in public. The thought scared me to death because something deep inside me wanted to cling to this new side of my husband and never let him go.

“Please. I just want my bed.” My voice broke midsentence as I tried hard not to cry. I had a split lip I was pretty sure was going to reopen if I did. The gorgeous paramedic tapped his shoulder, and I almost mustered the strength to bite her head off, but then he shook out of her touch casually.

“It’s just shallow bruises,” I croaked.

“Get a private doctor to my place in an hour,” Wolfe snapped his fingers in the suited man’s direction, then turned back to me.

“Home,” I told him.

“Yes. Home.” Wolfe brushed hair from my face.

“Thank God,” the suit next to him muttered under his breath, already making the call.

“Shut up, Zion.”

“Yes, sir.”

I woke up in my bed some hours later after a doctor’s visit that stretched for almost two hours. Wolfe was sitting on the couch in front of my bed, working on his laptop. The minute I cracked an eye open, he placed the laptop on the couch, stood up, and made his way to me. I curled under my sheets, too sore to be touched, but he just sat next to me and kept his hands in his lap.

“How is Smithy?” I asked. He blinked at me as though the question itself was ridiculous. Was I speaking in English? Pretty sure I was. Then a smile hung on his beautiful face, like the moon, and I knew—with a good portion of melancholy—that I was in love with this cruel beast of a husband. That for another one of those glowing, genuine smiles, I would butt horns with my father, slay dragons, and hand him my pride on a silver platter. It was depressing to admit, even to myself, that I was under his thumb.

“That’s the first thing you ask after being chased off the roads by mobsters? How the help is doing?” He brushed his thumb across my cheek.

“He is not the help. He is a driver and our friend.”

“Oh, Nemesis.” He shook his head, his smile widening as he pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead. The gesture was so touching I was on the verge of bursting into a sob. Without asking if I’d like water, he brought the glass on my nightstand to my cracked lips, helping me take a few sips.

“Sterling is worried like crazy. She went to the diner down the road and got you enough waffles to build a Hansel and Gretel candy house.”

“I’m not hungry.” I shifted in bed. Somehow, everything hurt even more after a few hours. It wasn’t actually bruises, but the impact of the adrenaline on my body as it wore off.

“Shocking.” My husband rolled his eyes. Senator Wolfe Keaton rolling his eyes exasperatedly was a sight I never thought I’d see.

“But I would love a cigarette.” I licked my lips, tasting the salty flavor of my dry blood. He walked over to my desk and took out a thin Vogue cigarette from its pack, sitting by my side and sliding it between my lips. He lit it for me with my Zippo, like in an old black-and-white film. I smiled around my cigarette.

“Are you going to make it a habit?” he asked.

“Make what a habit?”

“Scaring me to death.”

“Depends on how much you piss me off. You forgot to tell me you almost got assassinated. By my father, no less.”

“He sent a shit aim,” he responded, some of the metal returning to his voice. “He was only half serious about killing me. I do, after all, hold his daughter hostage.”

To that, I said nothing.

He got up from my bed, his lithe body no longer tensed. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

He was going to leave, I realized. My eyes glanced at my wristwatch. It was three in the morning. He needed to be up early for his flight to Springfield. But I couldn’t bear the idea of him leaving me today after he showed me affection. I didn’t want to lose it. Didn’t want us to go back to what we were a few hours ago, before my life was on the line. Two strangers who enjoyed dry-humping each other and shared a dinner table every once in a while.

I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he wanted to go back to the previous state. And that if he left—we would.

“No,” I croaked when he was at the door. He turned around slowly, scanning me. It was all in his expression. The dread of knowing what I was about to ask. To him, I was an asset. Now that he knew that I was okay, he could go about his day. Or rather, night.

“I don’t want to stay alone tonight. Could you…only for tonight?” I blinked, hating the desperation in my voice. He peeked at the door again, almost longingly.

“I have an early morning.”

“My captor has given me quite the comfy bed,” I patted it, blushing under my bruises. He shifted from foot to foot.

“I need to let Sterling know that you’re okay.”

“Of course.” I tried to make my voice sound chirp, blinking back the tears. “Yes. She’s probably super worried. Forget what I said. Besides, I’m tired. I think I’ll fall asleep before you close the door.”

He nodded, leaving the door ajar.

I was too tired to mourn my unfulfilled request. I fell asleep a minute after he left my room with the half-smoked cigarette swimming inside my water glass, a habit that made Wolfe cuss under his breath as he collected the glasses after me.

When I woke up the next day, the clock hit seven. I tried to stir myself awake, but felt massive weight pressing against my body. God. How badly was I hurt? I could barely move an inch. When I tried to wiggle my right arm, reaching to the alarm clock to slam the button and stop its chirp, I realized that it wasn’t soreness that stopped me from moving.

My husband was sleeping behind me, his stomach pressed against my back. Still in his suit, his breaths were deep and silent. I could feel his penis digging into my butt through our clothes. He had morning wood. I felt myself blushing, biting down a smile.

He returned to my room. He spent the night in my bed. I asked for something—something he had told me explicitly would never happen—and he gave it to me.

I put my hand over his arm, which circled my midriff, his nose and mouth pushed alongside my shoulder blade. I prayed for one thing that morning—that this wasn’t a sweet lie, but a forbidden truth.

Lies, I couldn’t deal with.

But finding a truth and digging that vein until it gushed out? I was up for that challenge.