in it, Kiki was lost in another kind of attraction altogether. She felt as if she’d known Mich forever.
As scary as that was, she was a lot more terrified of telling him goodbye.
“We need to get a taxi to catch up to the group, if we don’t want to miss this afternoon’s tour,” Davin said, walking up to the café table.
Kiki’s stomach tightened with panic that made absolutely no sense.
Mich smiled at them all. “I am happy to continue in the role of tour guide, and I believe my car will be a more comfortable ride than a tour bus.”
“Only if one of us drives.” Joni crossed her arms, her expression set in stubborn lines.
She’d taken classes at Kiki’s dad’s school of caution.
No way would Mich agree. Kiki prepared to tell him goodbye, but he smiled, handing the keys to Joni as they followed him to a luxury vehicle parked nearby. “Have at it.”
Joni slipped into the driver’s seat, giving Davin a superior look. “Not all men are such Neanderthals that they think women are lesser drivers.”
Kiki wasn’t touching that old argument between them. She personally hated driving, especially back in New York, and was happy if anyone else wanted to play chauffeur.
Mich joined her in the backseat, taking her hand in his as soon as their seat belts were buckled. It felt as if her heart had stopped and then started double-time at that small touch.
He smiled at her, as if he knew exactly what the chaste physical connection was doing to her. Then he started caressing her hand with his thumb, the brushes back and forth never stopping.
She’d had no idea that holding hands could be so sexual.
Mich gave directions and a really fascinating tour commentary of the city and surrounding area over the next three hours with a stop for lunch outside the city.
“Come to dinner with me,” he said as they drew up outside the tour hotel.
It was crazy. Impulsive. But every instinct Kiki possessed told her that she could trust this man and that she would regret walking away right now. “Yes.”
Joni about had a coronary, but Kiki wasn’t giving in, and eventually her friends left her alone with Mich.
MICH PULLED AWAY from the hotel. “Would you like to freshen up at my apartment before we go to dinner?”
Not sure how much freshening up was going to happen, she nevertheless agreed. Mich suggested she send his address to Joni so her friend wouldn’t worry, which resulted in a scathing return text with severe admonishments to be careful.
A second text—telling Kiki to have fun and get her some of that—arrived as Mich parked in the underground garage for a newer building in a well-maintained area of Palermo.
Kiki burst out laughing.
Mich opened her door and offered his hand, in a move she associated with men like her father, not young professionals. “Do I want to know?”
“I don’t think so.”
He pulled her toward him, keeping her inside his personal space as he pushed the door shut behind her and armed the car’s alarm. “Oh...I get the feeling, maybe I do.” He smiled down at her, his dark eyes teasing.
Kiki ducked around him. “She told me to be careful and that I was an idiot.”
“That’s not what made you laugh,” he said once they were in the elevator.
Kiki shook her head. “Sorry. Not telling.”
He grabbed for her phone, and she pulled her arm back to keep it from him, laughing. “No. You are not reading my texts.”
One strong arm pulled her into his body, his other hand stretching for the phone. She gasped at the full-body contact. And that fast, humor was replaced by fierce sexual energy.
He bent toward her, his mouth coming perilously close to her own. “I did not bring you here for this.”
“Didn’t you?” she asked.
He shrugged, the European male answer to numerous communications. “Maybe I did, but I thought my intention was to take you to dinner.”
“Not very self-aware, are you?”
“So, you expected this?” he asked as he led her with one hand on the small of her back into a nice, but not overly large, apartment.
Curiously impersonal, the decor was what she might find in a high-end hotel.
She turned to face him, very aware of the fact that his hand remained against her, sliding to her waist as she moved instead of dropping away.
The man had no concept of personal space.
“Not when you asked me to dinner.” She’d been pretty sure, once they were alone in his apartment, that the chances of leaving it again quickly were slim, though.
“So, this is not the norm for you?” He seemed oddly satisfied by that thought.
She shook her head. “I don’t have sex with men I’ve just met.”
She’d hardly ever had sex at all. But she’d gone a little nuts with freedom her freshman year, when she was allowed to attend university without a 24/7 bodyguard presence for the first time in her life. So, she wasn’t a virgin.
He took her hat from unresisting fingers and tossed it onto an armchair. “Even on your last hurrah from university?”
“It wasn’t part of the plan, no.”
He examined her, as if trying to read the honesty of her statement.
She had nothing to hide, so she let him look his fill.
Mich’s gaze turned heated, scorching her with unmistakable sexual desire. “I am going to kiss you.”
“Are you?” she whispered.
“I do not think I can help myself.”
“Good,” she breathed against his lips before they connected with hers.
Kiki had been kissed before. Hello kisses. Goodbye kisses. Let’s-make-out kisses. Even I-want-to-have-sex kisses.
She’d never before been kissed like this. His mouth conquered hers with a confidence none of her fellow students had even come close to. Mich didn’t just know what he was doing, he knew why he was doing it and where he expected it to lead.
His lips told her exactly what was going to happen between them with devastating intensity, his tongue taking possession of her mouth as his body would hers.
She didn’t think he was that much older than her, but
