but their bodies collided, naked skin pressed to naked skin. He touched her everywhere, cupping her breasts, teasing her nipples until she was moaning into his kisses.
Refusing to be an inactive participant, she returned him kiss for kiss, caress for caress.
They were both panting, light sweat forming on their exposed flesh when he pushed her toward the bed. She let herself fall back, sprawling in calculated invitation.
He made a primal sound and then laughed. “You are something, Kiki.”
“Something good I hope.”
“Very good.” He took off her sandals before stepping back to finish undressing.
Fully nude, he joined her on the bed, the very impressive proof of his excitement rubbing along her hip as he settled beside her.
Curving his hand over her breast, he leaned down and whispered, “You’re still wearing your panties.”
“Are you going to do something about that?” she challenged.
He didn’t need a second invitation, sliding her last bit of clothing down her legs and off with a gaze so hot it sent lava flowing through her veins.
Things turned surreal then, their bodies moving together in familiar patterns that caused sensations wholly alien to Kiki. She’d never been so excited or needy. She wanted him inside her.
He wanted to taste her skin. Everywhere. When he reached her most intimate flesh, she couldn’t hold back a steady stream of gasps, cries and out-of-control moans.
He knew exactly how to build the pleasure, showing no hesitation in the level of intimacy he was willing to give her with his mouth. He pressed inside her with his tongue, teasing her with a bigger need than could be filled by that small appendage.
His fingers replaced his tongue as he moved his mouth up to her clitoris, hardening his tip and using it to stimulate the bundle of nerve endings.
She undulated against his mouth, feeling ecstasy spiral tighter and tighter inside her. He reached up with his free hand and pinched first her right nipple and then her left, then going back to her right and rolling that hard little bud between his thumb and forefinger, proving there was a direct line between her nipples and the aching depths between her legs.
Her climax crashed over her without warning, making her body bow, her womb clench and her inner walls contract.
He surged up over her, reaching for something, and then she realized it was a condom when she heard the foil packet tear. He took seconds to roll it down his engorged sex, and then he was pushing inside her, not letting her body settle back into normalcy from her orgasm.
Unbelievably, renewed pleasure rushed through her as he thrust inside 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