CHAPTER TWO

      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.