“I find your way of worrying particularly endearing,” he said softly, “but completely unnecessary.”
“Why?” I asked. “Because you’re rich?”
“Among other things.”
“Pietro—”
He kissed me again before I could finish. Deeper. Hungrier. Like he had held himself back once tonight and decided he was done exercising restraint where I was concerned.
The first slow brush of his tongue against my bottom lip made my breath catch. It was tentative for only a second, just enough to give me the choice, and when I opened for him the sound he made was so low I felt it more than heard it.
God.
His hand slid from my cheek into my hair, fingers spreading at the back of my head as he tilted my face more fully toward his. The had a devastating sort of patience, unhurried and thorough, like he meant to learn the shape of my mouth properly. The taste of him—wine, warmth, something darker underneath—went straight to my head.
I should have been thinking about what he’d said. About how impossible this all was. About police chiefs and home and old fear and every reason I had to keep some careful distance between us.
Instead, all I could think about was the way his mouth moved over mine with that controlled, devastating confidence, and how quickly my body betrayed me.
A needy sound escaped me before I could stop it.
Pietro answered it instantly, drawing me closer until I was half in his lap without either of us seeming to notice exactly when it happened. One of his hands settled at my waist, firm enough to make heat coil low in my stomach, while the other stayed buried in my hair, holding me like something precious and something he was very close to losing control over.
The contrast of it undid me.
Every movement of my mouth against his, every breath, every tiny sound seemed to go straight through him. I could feel it in the tension of his hand, in the rougher edge that slipped into the kiss when I touched his jaw and he exhaled hard against my lips like I’d done something to him.
Maybe I had.
His tongue slid against mine again, slower, and the kiss turned molten. It stole the strength from my limbs. My fingers curled into his shirt without thought, and the solid heat of him beneath my hands made something deep and aching open inside me. I could have stayed there forever, kissing him in the dimquiet of my apartment while the rest of the world fell away piece by piece.
When he finally broke the kiss, it was only to drag his mouth along the corner of mine, then my cheek, then the line of my jaw, like he was trying to decide how far to let himself go.
I tipped my head back before I could think better of it.
He stilled for half a heartbeat, then pressed one open-mouthed kiss just beneath my ear.
The shiver that went through me was instant and impossible to hide.
His hand at my waist flexed.
“Emily,” he growled, my name low and rough against my skin, like it already belonged in his mouth.
I had never heard anything sound so much like temptation.
When he finally lifted his head, I was breathing hard enough to be embarrassed by it.
So was he.
He just looked at me, one hand still at my waist, the other buried in my hair, his eyes darker than I had ever seen them and far too intent for my own peace of mind.
Then, as if kissing me senseless in my apartment and offering to take on the son of a police chief hadn’t been enough for one afternoon, he said, very quietly, “Come to dinner with me.”
I blinked at him.
“What?”
His thumb moved once against my waist, slow and absent. “Dinner. Tonight.”