Assassin Bride of the Mafia Heir novel · Chapter 3 of 9
Chapter 3: The Morning After
Celia wakes in James's apartment, tries to leave, and is pulled into a charged negotiation over coffee where a kiss she starts as a test turns into something that redefines their dynamic and ends with her agreeing to one more day.
The coffee smell woke her before the light did.
It came through the doorway in a warm curl, black and sharp, and under it she caught the clean edge of soap and the faint electrical hum of an old refrigerator.
Her hand was already at her throat.
She felt the sore spot before she knew what she was reaching for, a small tender bloom just below her jaw, and she pressed two fingers into it until the ache sharpened and she remembered his mouth there.
Stupid, she thought.
Stupid and reckless and exactly the kind of mistake that got people like her killed.
She sat up and the sheet fell away, and she was still dressed, shirt rucked up under her arms, jeans unbuttoned but still on.
So he had stopped.
She did not know which was worse, that he had stopped or that she could not remember telling him to.
Her boots were by the door where she had kicked them off.
Her knife was still in its sheath at the small of her back.
He had not searched her.
That was either trust or stupidity, and she did not know which one made her angrier.
She buttoned her jeans with fingers that were steadier than she felt and walked toward the kitchen.
He was at the counter with his back to her, barefoot, wearing a thin white t-shirt and gray sweatpants, his hair still dark and damp at the neck.
He turned before she spoke, and the morning light caught the hollow of his throat and the black lines of the small tattoo behind his ear, and he looked like a man who had slept well and woken up pleased with himself.
She hated him a little for that.
'There's coffee,' he said. 'Black, the way you like it.'
'You don't know how I like it.'
'You drink it black,' he said, and he slid a mug across the counter toward her. 'I've been paying attention.'
The gesture was so casual, so domestic, that her back teeth came together hard.
She did not move to take the mug.
'Last night was a mistake,' she said.
'Was it?'
'Yes.'
He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms, and the movement pulled the shirt tight across his chest, and she made herself look at his face instead.
'Then why did you tell me not to stop?'
The question landed soft and precise, and she felt heat climb up the back of her neck.
Because for one second I forgot what you are, she thought. Because I wanted you so badly I stopped being the thing they made me.
'Because I was tired,' she said. 'And you're good with your hands. That's all it was.'
His mouth curved, just slightly, and there was something in his eyes she could not read, something patient and knowing and almost sad.
'You're a terrible liar,' he said.
'I'm an excellent liar,' she said. 'You're just arrogant enough to think you can see through me.'
'Can't I?'
She didn't answer.
He pushed off the counter and crossed the kitchen toward her, and she did not step back.
He stopped close enough that she could smell the soap on his skin and the coffee on his breath, and his chest rose and fell in a slow, even rhythm that she felt against her own ribs.
'One day,' he said quietly.
She looked up.
'What?'
'Stay one more day,' he said. 'Not for the contract. Not for the job. Just one day, with me, and then you can walk out that door and I won't stop you.'
She laughed, short and sharp, and the sound was uglier than she meant it to be.
'You think this is a negotiation?'
'I think you're standing in my kitchen at seven in the morning with your hair down and my marks on your neck,' he said, and his voice was still soft, still polite, but there was steel under it now. 'And I think you don't want to leave any more than I want you to.'
Her hand flew back to her throat, and she felt the bruise there, the shape of his mouth pressed into her skin.
Bastard, she thought.
'That's not an answer,' she said.
'It's the only answer I have,' he said. 'One day, Celia. That's all I'm asking.'
She looked at him, at the careful stillness of his body and the way he watched her, like he was memorizing the shape of her standing in his kitchen.
'I've waited longer than you know,' he said, and his voice dropped, and for a second the words did not sound like a negotiation at all.
'You've waited one night,' she said. 'Don't act like you've been patient.'
Something flickered across his face, there and gone, and he did not correct her.
He did not say that one night was nothing, that he had been waiting for seven years, that he had watched her from across ballrooms and rooftops and hospital parking lots and never once let her see his face.
He just stood there with the truth behind his teeth and let her believe he was only talking about the night before.
She looked at the coffee mug, still steaming on the counter, and she thought about the safe house with the single bookshelf and the cat she refused to name, and how empty it would feel when she walked back into it.
She thought about the three men hunting them both.
She thought about the way his hand had felt on her ribs, and the sound he had made when she arched into him.
Then she moved.
She crossed the kitchen in two steps and put both hands flat on his chest and pushed.
He let her.
His back hit the counter hard, and the mugs rattled, and his hands came up to her hips, not to stop her, just to hold, and she felt the heat of his fingers through the denim.
She kissed him.
It started as a test, her mouth on his, hard and demanding, her teeth catching his lower lip, and she meant it to be a warning, a line drawn in the space between them.
Then his hands slid up her back and pulled her in, and his mouth opened under hers, and the warning burned away into something else, something that made her push up onto her toes and fist her hands in the front of his shirt.
He made a sound low in his chest, and she felt it through her palms, and she kissed him harder, like she could win this, like she could take what she wanted and walk away unchanged.
She could not.
His hands moved to her face, cupping her jaw, and he kissed her back with a patience that undid her, slow and thorough, like he had all the time in the world, like he had been waiting for exactly this and was not surprised it had come.
She pulled back first, breathing hard, her forehead against his, her fingers still twisted in his shirt.
'One day,' she said, and her voice came out rough. 'That's all.'
His eyes were dark and bright, and his thumbs traced the line of her jaw, and he looked at her like she had just handed him something he had stopped hoping for.
'One day,' he repeated.
She stepped back, and his hands fell away from her face, but one of them caught her wrist, his thumb pressing against the serpent tattoo that coiled there.
He lifted her wrist to his mouth and pressed his lips to the ink, soft and open, and she felt the wet heat of him against the tattoo, and her fingers curled into a fist against his chest.
'Drink your coffee,' he said against her skin. 'It's getting cold.'
She turned toward the door, and he let go of her wrist, but his hand stayed on her waist, and he did not move from the threshold, and she did not move from it either.
She reached for the mug without looking, and her fingers closed around the warm ceramic, and she felt the heat of it in her palm, grounding her.
Neither of them moved.
The city woke up outside the windows, and the coffee cooled in her hand, and she stood at the door with his hand still on her waist and her body still angled toward the exit.
The day stretched out in front of her, wide and dangerous, and she did not step through.
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