Page 209 of Modern Romance December 2025 1-4

I ran as fast and as hard as I could, but he was on me.

He was on me and then we were on the ground, cushioned in a bit of meadow and surrounded on all sides by the wild overgrowth.

Out of sight of that ruined old house and all those ghosts who knew him, too.

Jovi twisted at the last moment so I landed on top of him, his arms were around me, and I was digging my fingers into his skin as our mouths clashed together. It was all anguish and longing, fire and need.

I could feel his hands skimming down my back and then he was grabbing my ass and moving me against him, making sure I could feel the gloriously hard ridge of his cock between my legs.

I remembered the taste of him. I remembered the way he’d gripped my head, held me fast, and plunged deep.

I shuddered at that memory alone, and he muttered something. Then he was busy pulling off the T-shirt I wore so he could haul me up higher against his chest, forcing me onto my hands and knees so he could lavish attention on my breasts.

My hair hung down around us, smelling like a stranger’s, and all I could do was make a strange, keening sound I would have told you I wasn’t capable of making. It was too raw. Too real.

I could feel myself tightening and gleaming bright. Everything he did to me seemed compounded everywhere else, but before I could crawl my way back down the length of him, he turned me over so that he was on top and it was my turn to move his shirt impatiently out of my way, tearing it over his head and tossing it aside.

Then it was something like awkward, and rushed, as we each clawed at our own trousers, kicking them off and getting them out of our way without losing contact with each other for even a moment.

It was important. It was necessary. It was everything.

And my hands were not the only ones shaking.

He moved over me and, once again, it felt holy. Like we were literally on sacred ground, and I knew, deep down, that there would be no coming back from this.

That the moment I’d seen him, it had always been leading here. That there was no way back.

My old life was as over as if I’d burned it to the ground.

And if I was honest, given gasoline and a match, I might have considered it.

When we were both naked, Jovi settled himself between my thighs. I could feel him against me, the exquisite pressure of his lower body flush against mine, and that gorgeous cock even harder and bigger than I remembered.

He reached between us and I could feel his blunt, hard fingers playing with the softest part of me. He wrapped his hand around his own length, and guided the thick head to my entrance, then he looked at me as he propped himself up on one elbow, his face so fierce it made my heart flip inside my chest. It made a new heat dance all over me.

“Mine,” he said, this man of vows.

And I knew this was one of them.

“Yours,” I agreed.

And we gazed at each other, consecrating ourselves in this flesh, this earth, this marvel that had found us at the least likely moment.

“I want it to hurt,” I told him, ferociously. Almost furiously. “At first. I think it should. I want it to matter.”

I felt the shudder that went through him. “You, Ruxandra Emilia Ardelean, are the dream I never had, come true. How is it possible that you could be like this? So perfect it’s as if I made you myself.”

“Because I’m yours.” And then I smiled at him. “Silly.”

His eyes gleamed. That would have been enough. But he wasn’t done. As I watched, the most dangerous man in the world, naked and on top of me, laughed.

I saw his teeth again. I saw his head tip back. He laughed as if it hurt him a little bit, but he kept going.

And when he looked down at me again, I felt the shock of recognition down into my bones. He might think that I had been made for him. But I knew better.Hewas made forme. The key to open all the locks that held me in my whole life. The one weapon forged strong enough to save me, when I had long ago given up on saving myself. When I had accepted that fate would have its way with me, and the best that I could do was wait until it turned its uncompromising eye on someone else.

Jovi was the only man alive who could have taken me out of there. The only one who would dare, and better yet, could make certain he did it right.

I’d been waiting for him my entire life.