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Not like ‘oops I bumped into someone’ hard, like ‘I want to knock this person on their ass’ hard. It jarred me into stumbling back a little, my jaw clacking from the unexpected force and sending my teeth clamping painfully around my inner lip.
“Fuck!” I hissed, my hand flying up to my face on reflex, but I didn’t have time to shoot him a glare. “Watch where you’re walking, asshat!”
If the guy had anything to say in response, I didn’t hear it, because he was already pushing past me. I prodded at my lip with my tongue. I didn’t think it was bleeding, but it definitely stung.
Why the hell was some muscle man going around half-tackling people on the sidewalk?
I realized some of my coffee—now cold—had splashed onto my sleeve and cursed. Arisa was a stickler for clean clothing and I was already going to get an earful from her for being late and then showing up looking like a half-drowned rat. Fuck! This day couldn’t get any worse.
Chapter Five
SALVATORE
I’d seen the girl coming.
Of course I had; my situational awareness was second to none, even in a milling crowd, and the sidewalk nowhere near busy enough for me to miss her.
She was a tiny, birdlike little thing, and very clearly not in a good place.
It wasn’t just the ferocious scowl that clued me in, or the adorably murderous aura circling around her, but everything from her disheveled appearance to the way she hunched over her phone.
She was paying absolutely no attention. I raised an eyebrow.
There was plenty of space for her to go around and I wasn’t going to move.
She was weaving around the few other people on the sidewalk so I hadn’t thought she’d actually run into me.
I wasn’t a small man. Even people with no idea who I was tended to naturally part in front of me when I walked; I only got overlooked when I wanted to be.
And yet, she hit me at full speed. She was so stupid it was amusing.
Of course, no scrawny redhead was going to move me, so I just tensed my core and refused to sway with the negligible force she exuded.
Well, negligible for me—she clearly didn’t think so, given the immediate grunt that left her lips. I smirked.
Before I could open my mouth to taunt her, though, or else threaten her, she did the second thing nobody ever did.
She cursed at me.
Now granted, people cursed my name all the time, usually in their final moments on this earth.
But cursingatme? Running smack into me inconsiderately and then demanding thatIwatch my step?
She didn’t even look up as she passed me.
I should have dragged her back by the arm, jerking her shoulder half out of her socket and daring her to say it again.
I should have gotten in her face to tell her that if she had any idea who I was, then she would be on her knees begging forgiveness. But the thought didn’t even occur to me.
I wasn’t angry—I wasenthralled.
I could not put my finger on why.
She was beautiful, yes, or at least she would have been if she’d taken more than two seconds to roll out of bed that morning, but I knew—and had bedded—some of the most sought-after models of New York.
It wasn’t necessarily her attitude either. I had no energy for brats, I wanted my women sweet and docile.
It must have been something about her complete naivety, as if she had no idea that she lived in one of the largest mafia cities in the United States, and the sense of safety that falsely gave her.
