Wind Therapy - A.J. Downey Page 0,33

and caught her right in the side of those lips. She knew, though. She’d been through it countless times before. When we were kids, for the most part, but still – that muscle memory never leaves.

She didn’t stiffen up; it was always worse when you stiffened up. Instead, she let the blow snap her head to the side away from me, the report sharp and echoing off the walls in the small space. The snap of my fingers against her soft flesh making them sting, but the red-raised welts coming up on her chin and cheek, the smear of that red lipstick against her creamy flesh told me this lesson – albeit reflexive and unintentional – was damn sure gonna stick for a while.

We stared at each other, both of our chests heaving, the words we each had prepared to volley at one another sitting like boulders in our chests, piling like rockfall in our throats in the stunned silence between us.

Neither of us launched. Instead, we fixed eyes on each other and stood stalk still for several heaving and uncomfortable breaths.

“No women, no children, huh?” she asked mildly, and reached for the office door, jerking it open.

Her words cut to the quick and she knew it, but my heart wasn’t sinking – it was already sunk. She looked back at me, pausing in the doorway but my words had all dried up and blown away.

I knew we would be alright, eventually, by the cruel little smirk she cast in my direction before walking out. Her heels clipping smartly up the hallway as she walked through the great room of the club, silence radiating – a palpable thing – as she passed. I stood outside my office and watched her go, her head held high, back straight, presence regal. She was a princess, after all. A mob princess of the highest order – one of the biggest crime family syndicates in the United States.

That family bled Merlot when you cut them. They were as Italian as you could get.

I shook my head at the shrouded and curious looks cast by the guys in my direction. All of them had the good sense not to fucking ask.

Fuck.

I finished putting myself together and just as I finished, the door to the chapel opened. Marisol was already flawlessly back in her clothes, her hair fixed, her belt back around her trim waist, the sparks still flying from her honeyed eyes which only deepened in their bronze hue with her rage.

“Get over here,” I barked coldly at her and she flinched and though her feet complied, carrying her closer, her upper body leaned back away from me indicating her fear.

She had nothing to fear from me. Ever. And so, the mystery behind her motivations for coming here, to agreeing to the terms of our arrangement, deepened.

I frowned. Not at her, but at the puzzle she presented. I grabbed her by the back of the neck, thumb and forefinger pinching to either side and massaging at the base of her skull as I marched her back into my office and shut the door behind us.

“Sit,” I demanded and she turned and only half complied, leaning her shapely ass against the edge of my desk, hands gripping it to either side of her fantastic hips until they were mottled in a white-knuckled grip.

It was the only sign of her outward discomfort. Her gaze remained locked and even with my own. I had to give her points for that.

“What?” she demanded. “You going to tell me I can’t react to some puta disrespecting me like that?”

I smirked and shook my head.

“In some ways. I’m telling you that in this life, you never take any disrespect, but if you’re disrespected – there are better ways of going about it than what you just did – more effective ways.”

She eyed me warily and didn’t say anything, so I took it as an invitation that she was listening and wanted to know more. Her thirst for more knowledge made me hard all over again.

Chapter Ten

Marisol…

“What’s on your mind, Zaychik?”

I startled slightly, cuddled tight against his side, head on his shoulder in the close and intimate dark of his bedroom. He traced fingers lightly through my hair, sweeping it behind my ear, trailing the tip of a finger lightly along my jaw as I looked up at him, his face indistinct in the dark.

I stared at him silently. The truth was something I didn’t want to share. I didn’t trust him;