He scowled at her, and Annika laughed.

She laughed and she kept right on laughing. The lights were too bright, and she was too pretty, and his body pulsed as if he’d been some kind of monk—possibly for years—and then he was moving.

Without thought, when he never acted without thinking it through.

Never—but then he was reaching down and wrapping his hands around the tops of her arms.

And then he thought a lot about the way she stopped laughing, her green eyes going wide, and that sensual mouth of hers dropping open. Especially when she made the sweetest little sound.

Ranieri lifted her up, letting the throw fall aside and the book she’d been reading crash to the floor.

He hauled her up and then, as if he’d been longing to do nothing else for the whole of his existence, Ranieri—who had never been carried away by passion in his life—slammed his mouth to Annika’s at last.

And drank her in, deep.