The Kiss Thief(34)

“What are you doing?” My voice turned eerily calm and shocked at the same time.

His eyes were still on my phone. “Go ahead. Ask again. How dare I, right?”

I was too stunned to form words. The man was a savage in a suit. He taunted and aggravated me at every turn. My father was a stubborn jerk, but this guy…this guy was the devil who returned to my nightmares every night. He was hell wrapped in a heavenly rugged mask. He was fire. Gorgeous to the eye, lethal to the touch.

“Give me my phone right now.” I threw my open palm in his direction. He waved a dismissive hand my way, still reading my text messages. Angelo’s text messages.

“You can’t do that.” I launched at him, raising my arms to reach the phone. He raised his arm, grabbed me by the waist with his other hand, capturing both my wrists and plastering my hands to his lower stomach over his shirt.

“Move, and you’ll see what your anger does to me. A friendly hint: it thrills me and in more ways than you’d like to know.”

A part of me wanted to defy him so he would push my hands down. I’d never touched a man down there before, and the idea of it excited me. My life was already in shambles. My morals were the last things I’d clung to, and frankly, my fingers were tired from holding them.

I moved on principal, and he smirked, scrolling down my texts and tightening his hold on my wrists. He didn’t make good on his promise to put my hands on his manhood.

“Are you going to answer lover-boy?” he asked conversationally.

“None of your business.”

“You’re about to become my wife. Everything about you is my business. Especially boys with blue eyes and smiles I don’t trust.”

He dropped my hands, pocketed my phone, and cocked his head, scanning me through his scorn. I wanted to cry. After yesterday’s humiliation, not only did he not apologize, but he also taunted me twice today—both by throwing my application in the trash and by reading through my messages.

He confiscated my phone as though I was his daughter.

“My phone, Wolfe. Give it.” I took a step back. I wanted to hurt him so bad, it hurt to breathe. He stared me down, calm and quiet.

“Only if you delete Bandini from your contacts.”

“He’s a childhood friend.”

“Out of curiosity, do you fuck all your childhood friends?”

I flashed him a sugary smile, “Afraid I’ll run off and have sex with Angelo again?”

The tip of his tongue darted out to lick his lower lip sinisterly, “Me? No. But he should be. Unless, of course, he wants his dick cut off.”

“You sound like a mobster, not a future president.” I jutted my chin out.

“Both are positions of extreme power executed differently. You’d be surprised how many things they have in common.”

“Stop justifying your actions,” I said.

“Stop fighting your fate. You’re not doing your father any favors. Even he wants you to submit.”

“How do you know that?”

“One of his Magnificent Mile properties caught fire this morning. Fifty kilograms of cocaine straight from Europe—poof! Gone. He can’t contact the insurance until he cleans up the evidence, and by then, they’ll figure out he tampered with the scene. He just lost millions.”

“You did that,” I accused, narrowing my eyes at him. He shrugged.

“Drugs kill.”

“You did that so they’d tell me off,” I said.

He laughed. “Sweetheart, you’re a nuisance at best and entirely not worth the risk.”

Before I slapped him—or worse—I stormed outside, my anger following me like a shadow. I couldn’t leave the house since I didn’t have a car or anywhere to go, but I wanted to disappear. I ran out to the pavilion, where I broke down, falling to my knees and bawling my eyes out.

I couldn’t take it anymore. The combination of my father being a tyrant and Wolfe trying to ruin my family’s and my life was too much. I rested my head against the cool white wood of the bench, wailing softly as I felt the fight leaving my body.

A calming hand caressing my back. I was afraid to turn around even though I knew in my gut that Wolfe would never seek me out and try to make things better.

“Do you need your gloves?” It was Ms. Sterling, her voice soft like cotton. I shook my head between my arms.

“You know, he is just as confused and disoriented by your situation. Only difference is he’s had years of perfecting how to hide his emotions.”

I appreciated her trying to humanize my fiancé in my eyes, but it hardly worked.

“I had the pleasure of raising Wolfe. He was always a clever boy. He always wore his anger on his sleeve.” Her voice rang like bells as she drew lazy circles on my back, like my mom used to do when I was young. I kept quiet. I didn’t care that Wolfe had his own baggage. I’d done nothing to deserve his treatment.

“You need to weather the storm, my dear. I think you’ll find, after your adjustment period, that you two are so explosive together because you finally met your challenges in one another.” She sat on the bench above me, removing traces of my hair from my face. I looked up and blinked at her.

“I don’t think anything can scare Senator Keaton.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised. I think you give him a healthy dose of things to worry about. He did not expect you to be so…you.”