Page 46 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8

He watched her, trying to hold firm against the battering ram of need and her. She breathed, the hot air against him like a torment. He curled his hand in her hair and urged her forward. She didn’t resist. She didn’t hesitate. She took him into her mouth in one perfect slow slide.

Her mouth was a new heaven, especially when she looked up at him, took him deep. Everything else ceased to exist except the velvet friction of her tongue, and the roiling need that coiled inside his muscles.

He considered letting this be all. A show of full control. But he wanted more than that. Wanted her writhing and begging. He wanted to feel the impossible, perfect fit of her beneath him.

He drew her head back, smiled when she made a noise of distress. “Get on the bed.”

She blinked once, but she otherwise didn’t hesitate to follow the order. She got on his bed, and he set himself to unwrapping her from the unnecessary exercise clothes. Once he had her naked, he took a moment just to look at her sprawled out on his dark sheets. A pale perfect goddess.

Her breath rushed in and out. “Aren’t you going to do something?” she demanded, wriggling there on the bed. Needy and wanton. Every lurid dream brought to life.

He intended to enjoy it.

“Be quiet and lay still, omorfiá mou .” He trailed his palm down the center of her chest, the mound of her stomach. He spread her legs apart, bared her to him, all while being quiet and still.

The thrill of her acquiescence warred through him.

The scent of her arousal beat through him.

So he settled himself between her legs and feasted on her with his mouth, his tongue, his teeth, spurred on by the way she writhed against him, the whimpers and moans.

When she came apart, she sobbed out his name.

Satisfaction roared through him. Want so sharp it had turned to pain throbbed in his muscles. But he pulled away from her, surveyed her. The auburn hair had fallen out of its band and now looked like a sex-tousled halo around her face. Her skin was flushed all over.

She tried to reach out for him, but he held himself just out of her reach. Something dark and dangerous had wound around him. Some piece of his control when it came to her had snapped completely.

When she’d gotten to her knees and taken his orders. He wanted more of that. He wanted all of her give.

So he looked down at her, spread out on his bed, still so clearly wanting more. Wanting all.

“Beg me.”

The words hit the center of her like a lightning strike. Ground zero. She was half-afraid he’d sent her over the edge with that simple order alone.

He’d talked about begging their first night, but that had been before. When it had been a temporary dance with fun and pleasure. Not now when responsibility existed right there snuggled into her body.

“Theo.” She wanted to refuse. Needed to. But her mind was having trouble holding on to that thought as her body pulsed with too many needs to handle.

“Beg,” he repeated, his voice hard and unrelenting.

And she wanted to. She really did. She didn’t know what it said about her, didn’t have the brain power to determine any whys . Didn’t have any brainpower to remind herself she had come in here to prove a point, and he’d turned it around on her instead.

And in the moment, she didn’t care. Not at all. The only thing she cared about was finding the delicious thrill of Theo inside her.

“Please. Please, Theo.”

“Please what?”

“I… I…” She didn’t have the words for what she was begging for. Him. Pleasure. Release. Him. Him. Him. “Please. I want you inside me.”

“Hmm.” He still stared at her, his dark gaze a sharp, fierce thing. Still he didn’t touch her, didn’t move over her. But he kept looking. “And what do I want?” he asked.

But it was a demand, in its way. And she knew the answer to this question. “This. Me.” Because this wasn’t one-sided. Maybe she wished she had more control, more restraint, but they were in this together. She fixed him with the fiercest stare she could muster. “You want me. So take me.”

“That sounds more order than begging, Becca.”

Becca. Yes, she wanted to be that woman again. Carefree and in tune with a body that could find immeasurable pleasure. So she set about begging in earnest, until his hands were on her, until he’d arranged her on top of him, and slid home in an easy moment that felt like finally .

Impossibly big. Impossibly demanding. Every stretch felt like a tug on wires inside her she had never known were there before she’d met him. A higher and higher climb to something disastrous, and yet…a pleasure so big and bright in the moment she could not care about the consequences.

She shuddered around him. The crescendo of pleasure a deafening, bone-melting high.

He didn’t stop. He drove her higher. Her flung her off countless cliffs until she was simply a mass of shuddering, boneless limbs. Only then did his grip tighten, his pace quicken into desperation. Only then did he growl his release deep into her.

She collapsed on top of him, both of them winded and indeed having gotten a cardiovascular workout. She didn’t know how long she lay there, happily sated on top of him. His hand on her back like some kind of sign of possession.

It should have bothered her. It didn’t. Had she ever been possessed? Had she ever felt this wild, irrational power? And still, she hadn’t come to his room first thing to do this .

“This solved nothing,” she muttered against his chest.

“That is wholly untrue. I feel quite solved .”

She sighed irritably, but it wasn’t only irritation. She just couldn’t help feeling some amusement, particularly when he sounded so smug and relaxed. When she could still hear his heart hammering against his chest.

And then she felt something else, lying here on top of him, his arms around her. Something warm. Something soft.

Something that felt…dangerous.

She moved off him, trying to catch the breath she’d lost in a different way than physical exertion. For a moment, she lay next to him, staring at the ceiling, trying to understand the unsteady beating of her heart.

Trying to understand how she’d burst in here certain she’d prove her point and had ended up naked and unsure of her point.

Rebecca could admit she was pouting. It was frustrating and lowering to admit that he had the upper hand. That he could turn around her perfectly reasonable attempts to get him to see his high-handed ways weren’t going to fly.

Maybe you like being told what to do.

She blew out a breath. So she liked being bossed around in a sexual way. That didn’t mean he had a right to cancel her appointments and make new ones. It didn’t mean he had a right to demand she stay here if she didn’t want to.

Her body throbbed in pleasant, drugging after-shocks as if to argue. Especially considering she didn’t want to drag on the tight exercise gear she’d had on. She wanted to exist in robes and never leave her bed now.

But it wasn’t her bed, it was his.

“I will call to have breakfast brought up, if you’re thinking you can stomach it.”

She should go pack her damn bags. He was a weakness. What he brought out in her was a weakness. But in the moment, soft and warm and sated, she wanted to delve into a weakness.

For once, just once , she didn’t want to have to work so hard. So… What did it matter? She’d always had to work hard, be strong and keep a stiff upper lip. And what had it gotten her? Not much.

Why not be waited on? Why not enjoy amazing sex? Why not let someone else make some of the decisions? Why not stay and see if there was some way…some way to make this easier. Not just on her, but for their child, too.

So, she held his gaze. And if that made her weak, so damn be it. “Yes, I’d like that.”