her. He filled her completely, joining their bodies in an age-old rhythm that felt entirely new to her.
She’d never known anything so incredible, never felt so completely connected to another human being.
“Mich!” She couldn’t hold his name inside. “Please, don’t stop...”
“Not stopping,” he growled. “We were made for this, Kiki.”
“Yes.” She believed he meant it, knew she did.
This was too special for just sex, too intense to be taken for granted. This was not a last hurrah; it was a glimmer of what she’d always craved.
A window into what her parents had, full of profound potential and possibilities.
He came first, but pulled her over with him, with his thumb pressed against her swollen pleasure center.
They made love until the sunlight turned to shadows, and then he took her into the shower and made love to her again, even as he washed her body of their combined sweat.
They ate a late dinner of takeout and then went back to bed to make love again. They touched and slept and touched some more, pushing their bodies to exhaustion, but unable to hold back from the pleasure that exploded between them with the slightest caress.
THE FIRST TEXT came an hour after she had returned to her tour group and was followed by a steady stream over the following days.
They spoke at least once a day on the phone, and sent hundreds of texts back and forth in the days before she would be returning to New York.
Kiki’s roaming charges on her mobile were going to be insane, but she didn’t care. Even less so when he met her ferry from Sicily in Civitavecchia and gave her a ride back to Rome in his private car. They spent the night together at her airport hotel, and he promised to come visit her in the States.
Her friends told her not to expect the holiday romance to make it home with her. Everyone but Joni, who told Kiki that—if it was meant to be—it was going to happen. That’s how love worked.
Kiki hadn’t used the L word yet. Neither had Mich, but she thought it was coming. She hadn’t told him her dad was a billionaire, but they’d talked about what really mattered. She knew how he felt growing up the eldest of triplets; she had shared with him how hard it had been to be an only child to parents who had desperately wanted more. How much she adored her small extended family.
He had revealed that his own family wasn’t nearly so small but were just as close. She had gotten the sense that there was more going on there than he’d told her about, but not the important stuff. She knew he really liked his parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents and even his cousins.
She also knew he considered his current job freeing, despite the fact it required a lot of travel and rarely limited itself to office hours. She had understood that only too well, having felt more freedom at university than ever before in her life.
They had talked about the fact that they didn’t think either his or her parents meant to put such pressures on them, but life didn’t always allow for personal autonomy and choices. She didn’t know what his story was exactly but had assumed it was something like her own.
Though Mich seemed to find his role a lot more desirable than the one Kiki’s dad wanted for her. She only knew that he understood she wished she could do something different with her degree in psychology than follow it up with an MBA so she could work with her dad.
It was clear that they both loved their parents, and the people relying on their families, too much to try to run from the destinies ordained for them.
No matter what the future held, she missed Mich like crazy and didn’t even care if that made any sense, considering they’d spent less than a full forty-eight hours together.
* * *
Micheli walked up to the sorority house and texted Kiki. Where R U?
Studying in my room. Miss you.
He grinned. Come outside.
What? R U HERE???!!!
Laughing at her exuberant text-speak, he answered. Come outside and find out.
Seconds later the front door of Alpha Chi Omega burst open, and Kiki was there, wearing a pair of sleep pants and a tank top with tiny straps; she looked more beautiful than any woman he’d seen in the six weeks since Rome.
“Mich!” She launched herself at him.
He caught her with a laugh that broke the tight bands that had been constricting his chest for the last month and a half.
Pulling her in close, his gaze fixed on the lips that had haunted his dreams. “Invece. It is so good to hold you again.”
“Yes.”
Then they were kissing. He knew it was a risk, just as his time with her in Rome had been. If pictures of them together hit the tabloids, his family would be furious; but in this moment, as much as Mich was aware of his duty and the repercussions of discovery, he could not have let Kiki go if a whole horde of reporters showed up.
She was necessary in a way no woman had ever been.
“How long are you here for?” she demanded after the first fervid kisses.
“I have business in New York for the next week.”
“A whole week?” she asked, her eyes glistening with emotion that wrapped itself around his heart.
“Sì, invece. A full week.” She just melted against him, hugging him so tight he knew she felt the same.
“I love you, too,”
“What?” He had not told her he loved her.
Though he did.
“I know what invece means. I looked up Sicilian endearments on the Net. Invece means beloved. That means you love me.”
“Sì. T’amu.”
She sighed, contentment pouring off of her. “We’re going to make this work.”
“Somehow.”
She nodded against his chest. “But right now, we’re just going to enjoy each other, right?”
“Right.” She did not graduate for another month.
That was time enough to start looking at solutions, for him to tell her about the part of him that was Principe Vittoro, for them to meet each other’s families. It might be selfish, but he was not yet ready to share Kiki with his family, was not entirely sure they would meet her with open arms.
He was heir to the throne. An unspoken expectation existed that he would marry from within their extensive circle, preferably a woman of Sicilian or Italian heritage. A woman from his own country of Isole dei Re would be even better but not expected.
An
