Fall (Romanian Mob Chronicles Book 2) - Kaye Blue
One
Esther
“Dick,” I whispered under my breath, but still loud enough for Sorin to hear me. I was standing right next to him after all.
“Bitch,” he replied, not bothering with the whisper.
“Smile!” Fawn said, the bubbly excitement in her voice more suited for a party than the battle that was about to break out in front of her.
I shook my head. Smile? Here I was standing in Vasile Petran’s foyer like he wasn’t a secretive, dangerous Romanian mobster and Fawn wanted me to smile?
Of course, Vasile wouldn’t harm me, and in fact went out of his way to humor me since I was his woman’s best friend and his daughter’s godmother. So as crazy as it was, Vasile wasn’t the problem.
His brother Sorin on the other hand…
I felt my face squelching into a scowl at the very thought of my newest and most despised nemesis.
A squirming baby Maria brought me back to the present, and I looked up at my best friend, smile plastered on her face and her eyes screaming at me to smile with her or else. But I ignored Fawn’s demand, ignored the silent admonishment to behave. Ignored everything except him.
Well, him and the near-dizzying rage that pounded at the base of my skull.
How could something so simple—a picture with a baby for God’s sake!—end up with me in a homicidal rage and him looking as if he felt much the same way? I shouldn’t have been surprised, though. Sorin Petran had a way of making me want to murder someone, and today was no exception.
“I said smile. And no more name-calling. Either of you,” Fawn repeated, this time dropping her overly bright voice into one of threatening.
I turned my gaze to Sorin, waited for him to react.
And waited more, but he kept those laser-blue eyes on me, normally fullish lips—not that I’d noticed—set in a grim line, chiseled face stark with his flat expression. His body was at ease, the huge, loping muscles seemingly relaxed, but I wasn’t fooled. His right hand was clenched tight, and if he clamped his jaws together any harder, he’d break a tooth.
Bastard.
He had no right to be pissed. He was the one who treated me like a nuisance, an outsider, like I didn’t belong in Fawn’s life or Maria’s, while I went out of my way to keep the peace. Or rather, didn’t go out of my way to not keep the peace, something I easily could have done. And my thanks for it was being ignored at best, or facing his completely unrestrained scorn at worse.
My gaze caught on the flex of his jaw as he gnashed his teeth, which only emphasized his strong jaw, the rough-looking stubble that covered his cheek, the kind that would add just the right amount of friction as he—
I dropped my gaze quickly, trying to redirect the train of my thoughts, but instead landed on the strong column of his neck. Looking at the wide breadth of his shoulders didn’t help either, and by the time I’d settled on the middle of his chest, my pulse was pounding, and not with the anger that still roiled inside me.
Double bastard.
It was so fucking unfair. My nemesis, the only storm cloud in my and Fawn’s newly rekindled friendship, and he had to be the hottest, sexiest, most delectable man I’d seen in ages, hot enough to make me question my vow to only chase nice, decent guys.
Like I said, it was so unfair. Something that was reinforced when I finally looked at his face again, saw those shocking blue eyes, the angry little flair of his nostril. After the fresh stab of anger, a thought struck. If he was going to be pissed, I might as well give him a reason.
Quick as lightning, I closed the space between us and pressed my lips against his, my eyes open as I watched his anger shift to shock and then back to anger before making its way back to shock.
“Fawn said smile, Sorin,” I said in a candy-sweet voice as I stepped back, my own smile lifting into overdrive when he narrowed those lethal eyes at me.
Then I turned to Fawn, shifting Maria so she was between Sorin and me, knowing I had a goofy expression tacked on my face and not caring one bit.
I would have had to look away eventually, would have had to show that his intensity could get to me, but this, this was perfect. However temporarily, I had gotten the upper hand and managed to wipe that smug smirk off his face for the first time.
“I guess this will do,” Fawn said as she snapped the picture and then looked down at the camera. “Now give me my baby.”
Without a word, Sorin lifted Maria from my grasp into his huge hands and arms, the tattoos that covered both making quite a contrast when he held the small bundle wrapped in pretty pink against his chest. He whispered something to her that I didn’t understand and then hummed quietly, voice soothing, safe, so not like the Sorin he showed me.