My Man Michael by Lori Foster

“How many times have you been kissed?”
    No, no, no. She did not want to discuss this. “I don’t know.”
    “Can’t keep count, huh?”
    His teasing did nothing to relax her, not with him still so close, smelling so hot, and feeling so powerful.
    “Okay, let’s come at this from another angle. How many men, other than me, have kissed you?”
    Her brain refused to function. Nothing clever, or even believably deceptive, came to mind. “A few.”
    “Do you remember names? Places? Or are they all so forgettable?”
    He mocked her, but in a nice way, probably meant to help her relax. “What does this matter to you? We have important matters to discuss, and—”
    “Real important, I know.” His mouth brushed her temple and it felt like the sweetest of kisses. “The thing is, Kayli love, I’m not sure you realize what all the issues are.”
    Kayli love ? She tried to turn to face him. He held her firm. “Meaning?”
    “My questions first, then maybe we’ll talk about it. So quit dodging it, Kayli. How many men have had their mouths on you?”
    The way he phrased things! She gave up. “Two.”
    For a heartbeat he said nothing. Then: “When?”
    Her sigh was loud enough to activate the fans in the room. It was fortunate, because a stirring of the air helped to cool her burning flesh. “When I was fifteen, one of my fellow students kissed me. I didn’t like it and I reported him.”
    Michael’s laugh sounded with humor and pleasure. “Did he get in trouble?”
    “He was reprimanded, yes. Not for kissing, so much, but for kissing a girl already declared for the service of her colony.”
    “Huh. So even at that young age, you knew you wanted to be a warrior?”
    From the time she could talk, she’d been told she was perfect for service to her colony—and imperfect for anything else, especially a union. “Yes.”
    He thought about that before asking, “And who else kissed you?”
    To get the interrogation over with, Kayli rushed through the rest of the telling. “When I was seventeen I started my training and a man my age tried to . . . discourage me.”
    “With a kiss?”
    “Yes.” And more. And truthfully, she had been discouraged. She’d been led to think about things she’d never before considered. Possibilities she’d thought forever out of reach.
    Then her mother discovered them and . . . heart aching, Kayli shook her head. “He moved away after I refused him. I haven’t seen him since.”
    “Did you care about him?”
    The words stuck in her throat. The truth hurt, but the reason for the truth hurt the most. “No.”
    She hadn’t loved him. But she had loved the idea of having a family of her own, a person dedicated to her, to their children.
    “He was a nice young man, and I hated seeing him disappointed.”
    Michael’s hand opened over her waist, stroking the tiniest bit, just enough to make her tingle, to make her every nerve ending spark with awareness of him. “When I kissed you, you didn’t like it.”
    Untrue—but should she tell him that? He already understood that much of her reaction was from inexperience. Leaving it at that would be best for all concerned.
    “I’m not used to . . . the way that you kissed me was . . . the dampness and heat and . . .” She swallowed down the rest of her stammers and just spoke her thoughts aloud. “Never before had I felt a man’s tongue.”
    Against her temple, she felt his smile. “The kisses you’d had were just pecks.”
    “Extended pecks, but yes, nothing more than that.” With Michael, it had been more. More emotion, more effect, more reaction, and more need . “You should not kiss me again.”
    “Right,” he said, and he made it sound like anything but an agreement. “At least not until we have a few things cleared up.” After a brief hug, he released her and walked back to the table. With one gulp, he finished off his juice. “What is this stuff? I like it.”
    Freed so abruptly from his touch and unnerving