Million Dollar Christmas Proposal

“Is that when you turned the day-to-day operations for the bank over to a team of senior level managers?”

He was no longer surprised by the depth of her research. “Sì. I still guide financial policies and major investments for the bank, but I’m able to keep my involvement down to a once-a-week conference call and the occasional meeting.”

“That’s kind of incredible.”

“It was necessary in order to do what I really wanted.”

“Start Tomasi Enterprises?”

“Yes.”

The bank provided for his family, keeping them in the lifestyle they were so certain they deserved. But Enzu had wanted more. He’d wanted something that was his alone. So, he’d taken a loan out against his stock in the bank and started Tomasi Enterprises.

“And now you are applying the same brilliant brain that made you a thirty-five-year-old billionaire to finding a loving and attentive mom for Franca and Angilu?”

“That is the hope.”

“I think maybe I want you to kiss me again, Vincenzo Tomasi.”

“My business acumen turns you on?” She wouldn’t be the first woman that had happened to.

His power was more an aphrodisiac than his money for many women.

“Your commitment to putting the same energy into making the children’s life a good one that you do your business melts my heart.”

“I’m not looking for your heart. You need to understand that.”

Audrey didn’t look surprised, or particularly worried. “You may just get it anyway.”

He shook his head, but bit back the compulsion to argue. She’d offered a kiss and no one could accuse Enzu Tomasi of failing to take advantage of a good thing.

“I think it might be easier if you slid this way.”

She unbuckled her seat belt and moved to the center seat, redoing the seat belt before turning to face him, innocent desire darkening her beautiful brown eyes. “Well?”

He was smiling when his lips met hers.

CHAPTER SIX

IT TOOK NO time at all for Audrey to simply melt under the caress of Vincenzo’s lips.

His expert lovemaking made her own lack of experience a moot point. And it was lovemaking. Regardless of what she’d intended when she asked him for this, it was no simple kiss.

His mouth conquered hers, drawing forth a response that came from the very core of her. Not just her body, though she yearned for a physical intimacy she’d never known, but to the place inside where she’d always believed her soul resided.

How could she feel so hot, so needy and so profoundly moved at the same time?

It had never been like this with Thad. They’d been in love, or so she’d believed, but nothing they had done together had blown her away like Vincenzo’s kiss.

His hands cradled her head, his lips molded to hers, his tongue only barely brushed the place where they met, and yet her entire body thrummed with a buzz of indescribable pleasure.

The kiss in his office had been amazing, like waking up after years of going through life asleep to her own sensuality. But this? It was beyond that. It was colors coming back into her world she hadn’t even realized had faded away.

It was drenching sensation. His high-end cologne smelled familiar, but it was changed by his own scent enough she could not name the brand. The texture of his lips reminded her that mouths were made for more than talking.

A tantalizing sensation she could not get enough of—the slick glide of his tongue against the seam of her lips, releasing the hint of Vincenzo’s unique flavor—taunted her to open her mouth and get more.

And she had thought it could not get better than their last kiss, that maybe she’d even built that kiss up in her memory.

This kiss, so much more powerful than the first, decimated any thoughts in that direction.

Perhaps pleasure built on itself? She didn’t remember that happening with Thad, but then it had been six years, and she’d done her best to forget the past so she could live in the present.

Audrey moved restlessly, straining against her seat belt, needing to be closer.

Vincenzo seemed to understand, sliding his arm out from under the shoulder harness to lean over her. His big, warm body pressed hers back into the luxury car’s seat.

Her nipples peaked, drawing impossibly tight and pressing against the silky fabric of her bra with pleasure so acute it was almost painful.

Vincenzo’s hand slipped down Audrey’s body and under the hem of her sweater to caress her stomach. Long masculine fingers spread possessively, causing every centimeter of skin he touched to grow scorchingly hot from each spark that lit her nerve endings.

Her own hands went to his broad shoulders and then slid down and around his back, reveling in the feel of the well-honed muscles bunching under her touch.

She moaned, long and low—no hope of keeping the unmistakably sexual sound inside. A small voice of reason tried to tell Audrey she should be embarrassed by that. She wasn’t promiscuous, that voice insisted.

A much stronger voice, the one he’d woken with that first kiss in her office, insisted this felt much too good to be worried about sounding like a woman who couldn’t wait for that test-drive Vincenzo had demanded.

His hand drifted up her stomach, over her ribs, stopping only when his thumb rested in the shallow valley between her breasts and his forefinger barely pressed the underside of one curve. That hand just stayed there, tempting, taunting with what it might do next.

Her own fingers clutched the fine fabric of his dress shirt, fisting it in a way that was bound to leave wrinkles.

With a deep groan that rolled through her like a touch, Vincenzo pulled his lips from Audrey.

He tipped his head back, though his upper torso remained pressed against hers, that tormenting hand still resting intimately against her skin. “We have to stop.”

She shook her head. No. She did not want to stop. “More kissing.” More touching.

The sound that came out of him was deeply pained, his gaze flaring with blue fire…the hottest part of the flame.

Unable to stop herself even if she’d wanted to, and she so did not, Audrey strained forward. She could barely reach to match her mouth to his again. Their lips barely touched.

And that was way more arousing than she’d ever thought such barely there intimacy could be.

His head dipped toward hers, and her entire body sighed with relief at the contact.

Only the kiss did not deepen. He did not move his lips against hers. He was warring with himself; the conflict was so intense she could feel it.

As the seconds dragged on the tension emanating from him grew until he was like a perfect sculpture in marble, his breathing the only movement Audrey could discern.

Then, so slowly she felt the withdrawal of his lips in increments, Vincenzo pulled his head back again. “No, biddùzza. We cannot continue.”

“Why?” How could he want to put the brakes on such amazing pleasure? Unless he was used to that depth of feeling—or, worse…it hadn’t been as good for him. “Did I do it wrong?”

His laugh was harsh, his square Sicilian jaw rigid. “If you had done it any more right, I would have embarrassed myself.”

“Why would you be embarrassed?” That didn’t make any sense.

His sardonic expression said she should know exactly what he meant. When she gave no indication that she’d gotten it, because…well…she hadn’t, his gaze flicked down their bodies.

Hers followed and even she couldn’t miss the impressive bulge that had to be pressing painfully against his zipper.

Only then did the implication of his words sink in. “Oh.”

“Sì—oh.”

“But—”

“Your first time will not be in the back of a car with only the illusion of privacy.”

“My first time? You thought…you want…?”

“Sì, I want, biddùzza. Very much.”

“Biddùzza?”

“Sicilian.”

>

“For?” she prompted.

“There is no precise translation.”

“Really?” She wasn’t buying it. She’d look it up on the net if he didn’t tell her.

He huffed out a breath that could have been irritated or amused. “It means beautiful, but is a more intimate endearment than bèdda.”

“Not so hard to translate after all.”

He shrugged, giving off an uncomfortable vibe she didn’t associate with such a self-possessed man.

What was it about explaining it to her bothered him? Italian men used bella all the time. It didn’t mean anything. She was sure it was the same for Sicilian men with bèdda. Only he hadn’t called her bèdda, had he? He’d used a more personal endearment.

She blinked up at him, her mind working. “Do you call other women biddùzza?”

“No.” Firm. Sure. Even a little scandalized at the idea.

So it was special for her. And unintentional. Which meant the American-born Sicilian tycoon was not as in control as he appeared.

Warmth suffused her being, delight increasing the sexual need thrumming through her. She let her body shift down so his fingers shifted up, covering the underside of her breast. Her nipple ached with the need to be touched as well, but she just stopped herself from slouching into the seat so that could happen.

Vincenzo’s breaths were suddenly coming in more rapid gusts between them. “Stop, Audrey.”

“I’m not doing anything.” Very much. “You’re the one with your hand… Well, you know.”

He couldn’t expect her to ignore that, or the way his big, toned body pressed into hers.

Vincenzo flashed a shark-like grin that was anything but comforting.