She turned in her seat to face him and moved their connected hands to her lap. The skirt of her dress slid up her thighs, and he took advantage at once, sliding the soft pad of his fingers along the inside of her knee. Deja shivered as goosebumps erupted on her skin.

At a red light, Alejandro turned to her. The headlights from an oncoming car illuminated a silver streak just at his temples and the beautiful angles of his face briefly.

“We’re going to your place, right?” Deja suddenly blurted out. When she processed what she’d said, her eyes widened, and she licked her lips nervously.

Alejandro’s hand covered her right knee as he barked out a laugh that Deja felt in the pit of her stomach. “I was trying to figure out how to invite you over,” he chuckled. “So yes, Deja, we’re definitely going to my place. Or we can go to your place if that’d make you feel more comfortable.”

As he spoke, his hand flexed and gripped her leg. His thumb went back to caressing her skin, his touch calming and exciting at the same time. A moan escaped her lips before she could stop it.

He smiled innocently at her.

“Definitely not my place,” she said in a strained voice. “My neighbors are all old and very nosy. As is, they’ll be asking me about the ‘nice young man’ who picked me up.” Her voice was light, but she actually hated how uncomfortably on display she sometimes felt living so close to campus. But when it came time to look for another place to stay, she struggled to find a place she liked and could afford, and that wouldn’t add at least an hour of commute time to her day. Her apartment was just one more thing she hated about her life and felt unable to change.

But she didn’t want to burden Alejandro with those feelings, especially not on their first date, so she buried them and smiled wider at him.

“Okay, my place it is,” he said, pulling her from her sad thoughts with an easy shrug. “My neighbors are always high. They’ll forget you were there almost immediately.”

She laughed and relaxed into her seat with a soft smile on her face. As Alejandro’s car accelerated, Deja watched his profile with slightly drooping eyelids as her hands moved over his forearm, and his hands caressed her legs.

She shivered under his touch. “I like that. I like you.”

The car slowed. Alejandro’s face reflected the glare of the bright red light at the intersection. As soon as the car stopped, he turned toward her. His smile was gone, but the look on his face was even better; sexy, seductive, promising. He leaned over the console toward her.