Take Me

Isn’t that the perfect word to describe this restaurant?”

Travis raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Obviously, Lily didn’t know that many people thought that the word “dildo” derived its origin from the Italian word. He decided to keep the knowledge to himself. For the time being.

He did have to admit, however, that the interior of the restaurant was a cut above. The walls were stucco, tinted with a golden yellow, the floor tiles looked perfectly ancient, seemingly worn with the soles of millions of Italian feet.

She glided inside and the maître d’ immediately approached her, kissing her hand and touching her far too much for Travis’s liking. None too gently, he shoved the man aside, taking his place at Lily’s side. She was just opening her mouth to say something, but Travis was sure that whatever she said would be misconstrued by this lusty Italian as, “Please come back to my hotel room.”

“We would like a table for two,” he said, placing a possessive hand around Lily’s shoulders. She shot him an irritated glance and tried to shrug his arm off, so Travis held her tighter.

I’m only doing this to protect her from depraved foreigners, he told himself. Not that he minded the feel of her br**sts pressing up against his chest, however.

The maître d’ eyed Travis with laughter in his eyes, and for what seemed like the hundredth time since landing in Italy, Travis had to restrain from decking a guy. What he wouldn’t give to be back in the United States, where no one looked twice at Lily.

Or did they?

Lily’s round warmth was pressing into him, and it felt good. Really good. She was shapely, without being too round. Voluptuous, but not surgically enhanced, like so many of the women he had bedded. And he knew for a fact that the curves of her body fit his better than anyone else’s ever had. No, he thought with some dismay, it wasn’t impossible that men back home would find Lily attractive. After all, he had impossibly high standards, and he couldn’t keep his hands off her.

Confused by his wayward thoughts, Travis let Lily escape his grasp as they were led to a small round table in the center of the room, where the scene was obviously set for romance. He had been hoping for a private table in the corner. Instead, they were center stage.

But instead of being embarrassed by being seen with Lily, Travis was jealous of every man in the room who dared ogle her. Something they all were currently doing.

“This table is perfect,” she said, and in her glee she bestowed a kiss on the maître d’s cheek.

Didn’t she see how the man was leering down the front of her dress? Didn’t she have any sense of personal boundaries?

Travis was furious at Lily for being so free with her sexuality, for kissing another man while she was out with him. Travis vowed that from this point forward, he was going to be so charming that she wasn’t going to look at anyone else.

He pulled out her chair and roughly shoved her into it, ignoring her cry of, “Hey!”

So much for charming, he thought with a grimace. He’d obviously have to try a little harder.

“You wanted to eat, so let’s eat,” he said, picking up a menu and opening it with a thwap on the table.

His incredibly unwitty banter wasn’t going to win him any points either.

Lily glared at Travis across the table, her bountiful br**sts heaving with anger. “I won’t let you do it,” she said, her words stiff and cold as she shoved back the chair to stand up.

The maître d’ hurried over to help her up, but Travis shot him a look that said, “I’ll cut your balls off if you come over here again,” and the man stopped dead halfway across the room.

Travis slammed the menu shut. “You won’t let me do what?” he asked, his voice as sharp-edged as hers, even as he cursed himself for losing grip of every smooth move he had in his arsenal.

“I won’t let you ruin Tuscany,” she replied, dripping ice with every word.

He opened his mouth to protest, but he knew he was going to make the situation even worse if he said another word, so he shut it.

“I don’t know what you have against me, Travis,” she said, standing across from him, her hands pressed hard into the table, her br**sts swaying provocatively toward him. He forced himself to concentrate on her face and not her incredible ni**les as she said, “I don’t know what you’ve always had against me, why you feel you have to treat me like I’m beneath you.”

Her accusation snapped his mind back to attention, mostly because the validity of what she was saying made him feel like the smelliest piece of garbage in the gutter. The room spun, as she said, “I wasn’t kidding when I told you I was through with your attitude. I may have agreed to share a room with you for the next five days, but I absolutely refuse to let you stomp all over the most glorious—” I in sorry.

The words were out of his mouth before he knew they were coming. Lily’s mouth opened and closed several times, but at least she stopped saying all of those things that were wrenching at his gut. It was easier to apologize to her than to deal with her accusations.

I’ve always treated her like she’s beneath me?

“I’m sorry, Lily,” he said again, fumbling over himself to get her to sit back down. “I promise I’ll stop being such a jerk. It’s just…” He gestured around the room. “It’s just that all of these men are staring at you in that dress, and I can’t stand it because I know that they want to—”

“They are?”

Lily looked around the room in surprise, her anger replaced with surprise.

Travis breathed a sigh of relief that he had turned her attention away from what a raging jerk he was. He said, “Every single one of them, Lily,” and she sat back down while biting her lip in a show of disbelief.

“Like who? Show me who.”

Thank God she’s not leaving, he thought, as the fist unclenched in his gut. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the maître d’, then the waiter beside him, then gave up, and said, “The whole lot of ‘em, Lily.

Every last man in here wants to strip you out of that dress. The minute you walked in the door they started wondering what your br**sts would feel like in their palms, how it would feel to have your legs wrapped around them while they—”

“Okay, Travis,” she interrupted, her face pink, her eyes bright. “I get it. You don’t have to say anything more. Let’s try to have a nice dinner, then get some sleep so that we can get some work done tomorrow.”