Page 30 of Modern Romance December 2025 1-4

She drew back to cup his cheeks and gaze into his eyes. ‘I know it can’t go anywhere. I know I’m all wrong for you even without my reputation. But I also know you’re the best man I’ve ever met and that for the first time in my life…’ She smiled and pressed a kiss to his mouth. ‘When you kiss me, I feel it all the way to my toes. Just being here with you like this…’ She kissed him again. ‘It makes my veins fizz.Youmake my veins fizz. All these feelings… I want to explore them, but only with you because it can only be you. I know you’ll take care of me. You can’t hurt me more than I’ve already been hurt or more than I’ve been hurting myself. I don’t want to hurt any more, Draco. I want to feel. I want to feelyou.Just you.’

A pulse was throbbing in Draco’s head. An hour ago, he’d have taken what Athena was offering without a second thought but her virginity put a whole different complexion on things. In truth, he was still reeling from the shock of it, and now there was a weight of responsibility sitting on his chest that if he went along with this and didn’t get it right, he could hurt her, in more ways than one.

She was putting her trust in him but she had no idea what she was asking of him. Did she not understand how damned sexy she was? She felt his kisses to her toes? Her kisses connected directly to his loins. It was all well and good talking in hypotheticals but right now they had their clothes on. Finding the restraint needed to make love to her without hurting her…

He didn’t know if he possessed it.

He would have to find it because he couldn’t walk away. Not now.

Drawing in a long breath, he combed his fingers through her hair. Eyes red and puffy from crying and exhaustion, she’d never looked more vulnerable or adorable.

He kissed the tip of her nose. ‘Let me draw you a bath. You’ll feel better for it.’

She smiled that soft smile he knew was only for him.

The bath in the pretty guest bathroom was a deep oval cocoon that looked out over the vast grounds. Athena, her hair piled on top of her head to keep it dry, lay back in its steamy warmth, closed her eyes and expelled the longest breath of her life.

There was a strange lightness in her heart. There had been something cathartic in bawling her eyes out the way she’d done with Draco, and now it felt as if she’d exorcised something demonic that had always lived inside her.

Maybe the people who said it was bad to bottle up your emotions were onto something.

She yawned widely. The heat of the bath was soaking through to her bones while the long, long day was now accelerating to catch up with her. She’d had no more than two hours’ sleep in thirty hours and suddenly it felt like the easiest thing in the world would be to let the heaviness pressing on her brain win and take her off into slumber. And probable drowning.

Yawning again, she forced herself upright and gave her face and body a cursory clean before forcing her legs upright and climbing out of the bath. After wrapping herself in a lovely warm, large fluffy towel, she used the last of her energy to brush her teeth.

The room was empty. Draco had gone off to shower in his own room. After only the slightest of hesitations, she dropped the towel on the floor and climbed into the bed naked to wait for him.

Draco knew the moment he stepped back into the room that Athena had fallen asleep. Curled on her side, she’d burrowed into the thick duvet, only the top of her face and hair visible.

He padded silently to the other side of the bed, removed his robe, slid beneath the duvet and turned out the light.

His heart so full he could feel it in his throat, he lay unmoving for a full three minutes before moving closer to draw her into his arms.

It was only when she curled into him with a deep sigh that he realised she was naked.

Pressing his mouth into her hair, he drew a ragged breath and closed his eyes.

CHAPTER TEN

ATHENA WOKE TOthe heavenly sensation of being cocooned in Draco’s arms. For the longest time she stayed exactly where she was, savouring the feel of her face nuzzled in his naked chest and their limbs being entwined.

Sighing, she stretched a leg and pressed a gentle kiss to the warm skin beneath her mouth. The fine hair covering his chest tickled her nose.

The arm hooked around her waist tightened. Her heart thumped, and her eyes fluttered open. Dusky early morning light cast his bronze chest in a sepia hue.

The thumping of her heart increased as she felt movement against her abdomen. For a long moment she forgot how to breathe, suddenly attuned to his heart beating strongly beneath her ear and the weight of his growing arousal pressing low in her belly. Draco was as naked as she was…

Suddenly needing air, she lifted her face from its snug confines…and found herself locked in Draco’s piercing stare.

His strong throat moved but he didn’t speak. Neither of them spoke. Athena couldn’t. Her throat was too full of her swollen, pumping heart. Without any thought, she extended her neck and brought her face to his. His eyes closed and then opened, jaw tightening, breaths deepening.

Breathing him in, she crept her hand from the warmth of his back and slid it up his chest, so lost in the piercing blue she could only dimly marvel at the smoothness of his skin and how similar and yet so very different the texture was to hers. Higher her hand slid, over broad shoulders powerful even in stillness, cupping the base of his neck and pressing her palm where a pulse was violently beating. Feeling as if she’d fallen into a dream, she closed her eyes and stretched her neck the last fraction needed to bring their mouths together.

Their kiss was featherlight, a barely-there whisper. The hand splayed on her back, so big it covered almost the whole width, drew upward, fingers making an unhurried trail up her spine that sent a trail of electricity zinging through her veins.

Fingers now splaying in her hair, his lips, so firm and so in control, moved in an undemanding invitation for her to move with them. She met his invitation by sliding her fingers into his hair and tentatively sliding her tongue between his lips.

She felt rather than heard his distant groan before he deepened the fusion of their mouths and his tongue met hers in an unhurried erotic dance she felt like fire in every atom of her body.