Page 31 of Modern Romance December 2025 1-4

With a tenderness that broke her thumping heart, he rolled her onto her back so their legs were still entwined…the rough hairs on his bristled deliciously against the smoothness of hers…and his chest covered hers, crushing her aching breasts, and lifted his face to gaze into her eyes. ‘Any time you want me to stop, you must promise to tell me,’ he said huskily.

Dragging her fingers through his hair, she gave a shaky smile and whispered, ‘I promise.’ But she wouldn’t. Sick excitement was growing, her heart racing so hard and fast it had blurred to a distant roar, but beneath the nervous fear of the unknown lay a deep certainty that if she were to walk away she would regret it for the rest of her life. ‘I want this,’ she said hoarsely. ‘I wantyou, Draco. All of you.’

His throat moved, hooded eyes closing before fixing back onto hers. ‘I have protection in my robe, but…’ He breathed deeply. ‘Are you protected?’

‘I’m on the pill.’ Her stepmother, assuming she was sexually active, had put her on it when she was sixteen. She’d stayed on it only because she liked the way it regulated her periods.

He pressed his nose to hers without breaking the lock of their stares. ‘You must never trust any man who says this but I have never had unprotected sex before.’

She smiled, both at his seriousness and his contradiction. ‘I trust you, Draco. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.’

He matched the smile, his whole gorgeous, rugged face lighting with it. ‘And I must trust you, too, to even suggest this.’

If she’d thought her heart was swollen before…

And then the smile faded. ‘I’m afraid of hurting you.’

‘You won’t.’ She pressed her mouth to his and gently coaxed his lips apart before breathing into him, ‘Make love to me, Draco.’

His next kiss was tender and lingering. Closing her eyes, she sank into it…sank into him. Sank into her trust of him.

She tasted divine, Draco thought dimly as he slid his mouth down the arch of her graceful neck. A taste and scent made entirely for him. So soft, too, her skin like butter, and his fingers glided down her sides with the sensation that she was the first woman they’d ever touched, and in his head the dawning, almost overwhelming comprehension that her virginity wasn’t just an abstract entity but something very real, that this was her first time, that his were the first fingers to glide down her buttery skin. When he took one of her breasts, so much fuller than he’d imagined, into his mouth, the knowledge he was the first man to have done this to her, the first man to hear her soft moan of pleasure…

The sound of that moan didn’t just dive into his loins but into his chest.

He lifted his head to look at her…he could look at her for ever. ‘You’re perfect, Athena. Never let anyone tell you differently.’ And then he took her other breast in his mouth, encircling her nipple with long strokes of his tongue, bringing it to a peak, slowly laving and sucking and licking, alert to all her responses, her moans, the hitches of her breath, the elongation of her neck.

As if time were an infinite resource, he gently explored the rest of her exquisiteness, making love to her with his hands and his mouth, all the way down to her pretty toes.

Foreplay had always been an enjoyable transaction, but ultimately just a transaction, the payment of the starter for the enjoyment of the main course. Nothing felt transactional about this.

Transcendent…

The word floated into his mind as he tenderly kissed his way up her succulent inner thighs before gently parting them. For the first time, he sensed a tension in her and looked up.

She met his stare. Her beautiful face was flushed, her jaw tight.

‘Do you want me to stop?’

She expelled a ragged breath and shook her head.

He gazed at her a beat longer before softly smiling. ‘Close your eyes, my sweet, and just feel.’

Swallowing, she rested her head back on the pillow and reached a hand for him. Threading his fingers through hers, he breathed in the musky scent of her desire before putting his mouth to the most intimate part of her.

If Draco hadn’t been holding her hand Athena thought she might have bolted out of pure fear at the intimacy of what he was doing to her. But hewasholding her hand, and having his fingers laced through hers grounded her, reminded her it was Draco doing all these wonderful things to her, and so she closed her eyes and let him carry her away to a brand-new realm.

He opened her like a flower in bloom, touching and kissing her in a place she’d never even touched herself, fear wrapping her desire so tightly that until Draco had come into her life she’d thought it missing, had beengladof it.

But it had been in her all along, waiting for Draco to unwrap it, and now heat was pulsing deep in her pelvis, the strokes of his tongue building sensation upon sensation, pulling her towards a shimmering precipice that…

Sensing she was on the brink of orgasm, Draco pulled away, denying them both the rapture of her climaxing in his mouth.Next time, he silently promised her as he kissed his way back up her belly and between her breasts and grazed his mouth up her neck. For this, her first time, he needed her to be as ready for him as she could be.

He positioned himself between her legs and kissed her gently.

Her eyes were a darker, deeper shade of green than he’d ever seen before, almost liquid in her desire, her breathing ragged.

‘You are so beautiful,’ he murmured as he gently parted her thighs. ‘Raise your bottom for me.’