Page 177 of Modern Romance December 2025 1-4

I knew better than to say such things out loud in this house. And in the convent, where a great many men with questionable values sent the daughters they intended to use for their own purposes, we were allowed to speak only in designated areas, at designated times. Everything else was reserved for quiet contemplation and prayer.

Which was to say, we were only allowed to talk when we were supervised. Friendships were encouraged. Confidences—perish even the thought.

If I lived long enough to look back on this night from an analytical distance, it was entirely possible that I would be sad that I was a girl who found she could only communicate her intimate thoughts and feelings to a total stranger who, even worse, had come to do her harm.

But maybe there was a kind of liberation in the fact that all of that was unlikely.

It finally occurred to me that if people were going to hurt me anyway, I might as well speak my mind first.

Either way, I didn’t stop.

“Anyway,” I said quietly. “At least you’re honest.”

His gaze snapped back to mine, and held. “Always,” he said.“Per i miei peccati.”

I knew enough Italian to understand that. He was telling me he was honest to a fault. Somehow, I believed him.

“You’re here to kill me,” I said, quietly, and I wasn’t sure where the strength came from to say that, either. Directlytohim. I couldn’t escape the strange feeling that it had something to do with him. That he was emboldening me. “You’ll probably hurt me first. That’s how this goes, generally speaking.”

And then I was holding my breath again, as he held my gaze for a long moment—

Until, at last, he inclined his head. Just slightly.

“Okay, then.” And despite my bravado, I could hear the shudder in me. It was right there, in my voice. “Why do we have to go somewhere else?”

“A blood choke it is,” he replied.

His fingers moved to my neck again, and he leaned even closer, and for a moment I…did nothing.

My heart was going wild in my chest, but I really couldn’t tell if that was fear coming in late, or the fact that he was hooking his other arm around me, almost as if he intended to—

“Gag,” I said. Maybe loudly, upon consideration. “I want a gag.”

He was so close now. Everything was that evergreen scent, something else like warmth beneath it, and that slow, intense way he turned his head to look straight at me.

Now he was closer to me than any other man ever had been.

Jovi stroked that finger down the length of my neck. “As you wish.”

And there was another long, wild, impossible moment that seemed to stretch out across time—

But then he moved.

This time it was even more lyrical than when he stood still. And it was faster.

He reached behind me for my pillow. And as I found myself gasping for air, the feel of his hand at my throat and his arm over my shoulders seeming to drum in me like its own pulse—even though he’d let me go—he ripped off strips of fabric from the pillowcase. With his bare hands.

Then he was moving off the bed and pulling me with him so easily it made me feel something like silly.

To have imagined that I could have talked him into anything he didn’t already wish to do. To have thought for even a moment that I could have done anything about the situation I found myself in. Anything at all.

Out of my bed, I found myself standing before him in my short-sleeve pajama set, complete with little shorts, which felt a great deal like a tactical error.

Jovi’s dark gaze was cool, assessing. But his hands when they touched my skin were so hot it took my breath away.

He turned me around, easily. So very easily that it was as if I was as light and insubstantial as one of my down pillows, and something in me braced, assuming that he would rip me apart as easily.

But instead, I felt one big hand of his wrap around both of my wrists, and then he was tying them together into the small of my back. Snugly.