Page 179 of Modern Romance December 2025 1-4

This was the kind of mantra that had gotten me through my childhood. If I chose to talk back to my father—which could be anything from saying hello at the wrong time, or beingtoo much, whatever that meant—if I chose the beating, it hurt less.

If I chose the things this man planned to do to me, then they were mine, too.

Or maybe I thought he might be as well.

So I nodded as if he was asking for my permission. I followed that up by jerking my head toward my bedside table where a very small nail kit lay open with a sharp pair of scissors readily at hand.

He followed my gaze, then looked back at me. “What a bossy thing you are, assuming a man like me does not come prepared. But this is even better.”

And then he reached over and picked up the scissors.My choice, I told myself.

Then he turned back to me and hauled me up with one arm, tossing me face down onto the bed in a single, easy movement.

Everything inside me went still, then seemed to catapult off into the ether as he climbed onto the bed after me.

Then his hands were on me.

And before I could process that, I hissed at the sting of the pinprick I felt in one finger, grateful that he hadn’t given me any warning—

Then less grateful as I felt that same prick in another finger and another. In all of them, one after the next, with relentless precision. I buried my face in the bed. I gave myself over to the inevitability. Then his hands were on my hands, pressing them in a way that didn’t make sense until I thought about the fact that he wanted blood.

The stinging faded, and when it did, I could pay more attention to the position that I was in, on my bed with my ass in the air and my hands behind my back and him—

But he flipped me over, and looking at him was…worse.

And much, much better than any little bit of stinging.

Jovi’s gaze was bright. Hot, I was sure of it.

But his voice was like ice when he said, “Roll.”

I forgot I couldn’t speak, but the noise I made must have indicated confusion.

“Roll around,” he told me, the words a soft but implacable order. “Make a mess.”

So that was what I did.

And it should have been sickening. It should have been creepy and strange, but that wasn’t what it felt as I writhed about on the bed, spurred on by his merciless gaze. As I got too warm and my pajama top rode up and I could feel his gaze on the swath of my belly it showed him.

That wasn’t what I felt as I flung myself this way and that, rolling and shaking myself over my sheets and the covers, and anything else I could touch my hands. I made myselfhot. I made myself feel disheveled.

Inside and out.

And I could feel all of it throbbing between my legs, like he was branding me without even laying a finger upon me. With nothing more than that intent, hot gaze.

The first person in my entire life who had ever really seen me. All of me.

That notion made me shudder so hard it was like a terrible wave, a cramp and a rush andalmost—

“Enough,” he said, and I stopped, and didn’t know why I felt a sort of sob roll through my chest, like loss. I swallowed it down.

I didn’t know how long I’d been rolling around like that. A few moments? An hour? A whole lifetime? I couldn’t tell.

Jovi moved toward me then and looked at me, almost curiously, as he pushed my hair back out of my face. I felt a moment of wonder and terrible shame that he could feel the damp heat of my skin.

That mouth of his curved again. Then he hauled me to the edge of the bed and bent me over it, so I was face down once more.

That wasn’t better, either.