Page 164 of Modern Romance October 2025 5-8

‘Let me give this to you?’ he asked, pulling her into his arms, his dark gaze searching hers for permission, for agreement...for surrender.

‘Because Ireallywant to give this to you,’ he said, as if it were the truth, as if he wanted nothing more in that moment. His gaze hid nothing, and she saw it all. Hurt, frustration, desire, confusions, want, and something she couldn’t name.

‘Say yes,’ he begged, his whisper puffs of air against her lips. ‘Just say—’

‘Yes.’

The word was barely from her lips, when Enzo lowered his mouth to claim hers. The storm of desire he’d been holding back, released like a tsunami, a single wave overwhelming them both, leaving only the ability to cling together and hope to survive.

He walked her backwards until her thighs hit the table, lifting her in his arms, and placing her on top of it, inserting himself between her thighs, all without breaking the kiss. Her hands shaped his chest and clutched at his hips, sinking into the material of his shirt and holding her to him.

They had gone up in flames. It had taken so little. With just one word he was hers and she didn’t even know it.

He bunched the voluminous skirts of her dress in his fists, as he drew it up from her ankles to her thighs, feeling the smooth supple skin against his knuckles. Her fingers sank into his hair, her nails scraping lightly over his scalp, sending a shiver down his back to grip his gut.

Frantic. He was frantic for her. And unwilling to wait any longer, he drew back from the lure of her mouth and dropped to his knees. She looked down at him, the flush of need slashed across her cheekbones.

‘Cara?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded, quickly, her lip pinned by her teeth.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

That word again. He wanted to hear it, over and over and over again.

Pinning the skirts of her dress with one hand, he drew her underwear from her body with the other, slipping them into his pocket, before placing open-mouthed kisses on the inside of her thighs.

‘Lean back,amore mio,’ he commanded, his hand reaching up to gently press her back against the table, wanting her completely relaxed and focused on her own pleasure, on the sensations he was going to give her. It opened her to him and he could hold back no longer, as his tongue dipped into the cross-hatch of curls at the juncture of her thighs and found more than he could ever have imagined wanting.

The hot wet heat of her was a drug and he lapped at her, long, slow and wicked. He teased the small bundle of nerves with the tip of his tongue and tortured her with powerful, deep thrusts of his entire tongue at her entrance. Her pleasure cascaded against his mouth and ears as she was thrust quickly to the brink of orgasm and he held her there for as long as possible, torturing her with his tongue and fingers, filling her, stretching her, teasing her, delighting her.

Her thighs quivered either side of his head, and every shift and sway of her body only served to increase his own arousal. He knew that he would have to take himself in hand later, but that was then, Erin was now, and she was all that mattered.

She tasted like woman, like lust, like all he’d ever need, he realised as his breath hitched in his throat and she cried that little breathy moan that let him know she was so very close to the edge. He knew from her body’s response that no one had touched her here, no one had kissed her here and, Neanderthal that he was, that gave him more pleasure than was justifiable.

Yes, yes, yes.

With her words on the air above him, his tongue pressing and taunting her clit, Enzo pushed her into an abyss of stars that pulsed in time with her pleasure, and knew that he’d never be the same again.

Erin slowly opened her eyes, aware that she was in bed, and closed them again when she remembered how she’d asked him to stay last night. He’d been about to leave, when she’d reached for his hand. She just hadn’t wanted to be alone after what they’d shared.

She turned onto her opposite side and reached for the imprint of where Enzo had spent the night, a little surprised to find it still warm. He must have only just left.

But he’d still left.

And in a way she was thankful. Because he couldn’t be there for what she needed to do. Because even while she realised that there was no future for her and Enzo, that there simplycouldn’tbe, she could still not continue to use him in any way.

Because he wasn’t the irresponsible, careless playboy she’d thought him to be. She could see how he’d been shaped by his parents, could see the hurt and the depth of the emotion he tried to mask from a world whose eye had been trained on him almost since birth.

Snippets from their time together ran through her mind.

Rin doesn’t seem to suit you.

Take what you need from me. Take your pleasure.

What I see when I look at you...a powerful, determined, fierce and beautiful woman.