Page 64 of Break the Ice

“This coming from the woman who blew me in a public bathroom? How about your husband sending goons to beat the shit out of me in a nightclub? Today was the last straw?—”

“Nobody sent goons after you, you psycho!”

I leave Tiffany screeching much like I had a few weeks ago, the last time I’d come by. As I’m walking out, she’s collapsing to her knees at Morasca’s side. She’s yelling into her phone at the 911 operator.

My point has been made. If Morasca has any braincells left, he’ll finally stand the fuck down.

All that’s on my mind is my next destination. It came to me as I pounded Morasca’s head into the plaster that I was going to seek out Sugar. I was going to finish what I started earlier today and issue my first apology maybe ever.

Marisse usually arrives home to her high-rise apartment about a quarter before five. On most evenings, she slips into some tight-knit athletic gear and works out for the next thirty to forty-five minutes. Currently, she’s big on Pilates. Though sometimes on Fridays, she likes to do hip-hop calisthenics.

She doesn’t know I’ve picked up these things about her schedule. No one does.

Once I leave Morasca’s mansion, I drive miles in the opposite direction. My Corvette’s too custom-made and obvious to park anywhere near Marisse’s building. I ditch it a few blocks off and walk the rest of the way.

I’ve timed it perfectly and the Pilates class lets out in the ground floor gym as I pass through the lobby. Marisse wanders out clutching a rolled up Pilates mat and sucking on the straw of her stainless steel water bottle. She stutters to a stop the second she almost bumps into me and then realizes who I am.

“Rafe—”

“What a coincidence, Sugar. How about we head up to your place?”

A few of the residents passing by glance at us, but nobody utters a single syllable. They decide it’s normal that Wolves’ center Rafe Golding just blew through and hauled off one of their neighbors. Probably because people who live in buildings like these tend to have their own box of secrets stashed away in their million-dollar apartments.

Marisse attacks the moment we’re in the elevator and the doors close. She rushes at me and smacks me hard across the face. She’s about to go in for another when I look her straight in the eye and release a loud grunt of a laugh.

Then she’s backing away and peering at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“You’re not coming in,” she says, holding up a warning finger. “I don’t give a fuck what round you want to say we’re in—I’m not playing this time. You’re actually fucking crazy, did you know that, Alpha?”

“I’m crazy for coming to talk to you?”

“You must be on some drug nobody knows about. It’s the only explanation for this behavior.” She spins around to face the elevator doors as we reach our floor and the elevator dings. The instant it opens, she speeds out. I follow a few short steps behind. “I can’t believe you showed up to the lobby at six p.m. like this. Everyone in the vicinity saw you.”

“Is that a problem?”

“You’re dripping blood everywhere. Again!”

“You’re being awfully loud for someone who doesn’t want the neighbors to know.”

She whips back around to glare at me outside her apartment door. “I don’t know why you’ve followed me. You’re not coming in.”

I step toward her. “We can do this out in the hall or inside your place. A little fucking in public’s never bothered me.”

I’m bluffing, but she doesn’t need to know that—at my words, the anger dissolves from her gorgeous face. Brow-knitted, wide-eyed confusion replaces it along with the subtlest rosy shade suffusing her honey-colored complexion.

Fucking gorgeous alright.

The faint trace of blush is back.

I lean my arm up against the doorframe and trap her under me. She’s boxed in against her door, forced to tilt her head up at me and my dimpled grin.

Seconds go by and she seems lost on how to process what I’ve said.

“Your choice, Sugar,” I remind.

“This isn’t a round. I mean it.”

We step into her apartment shrouded in evening shadows and streaked by the dying light of the day. She tosses her keys into some glass bowl and sets her Pilates mat in the coat closet.