Page 165 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

He pushed down her pants and underwear together so that she was suddenly naked in front of him, her clothes a pile at her feet. And he didn’t give her a chance to speak, to breathe. His hands cupped the most intimate part of her, turning her into a quivering mass of nothing but need.

He explored with his fingers, unerringly stroking every last nerve ending. Unerringly building her up only to ease away. Soften the touch, the kiss. Pull back until she made desperate noises, and then he would build her right back up again.

A riotous, torturous tease, and she could only stand there and take it, holding on to him while his mouth traced down the curve of her breast, then fixed over one taut nipple.

She cried out, or maybe just opened her mouth in a silent scream. The orgasm ripped through her like an avalanche, blanketing all that destruction with nothing but pure, unadulterated bliss.

Her knees were weak, and even the arms that held on to him tightly started to slip. But before she could simply fall into a spineless heap at his feet, he swept her into his arms and carried her over to her bed as if she weighed nothing.

He laid her out, looked down at her with those potent, hungry eyes. In this moment, the only thing that was true and right was that he wanted her.

And she wanted him.

Everything else had faded away. There was only this and them as his hands, so rough, so hot against her skin, toured a slow and thorough map of her body. His mouth followed. Everything he did stoked a million fires, and she wanted him to stoke them higher. But he still had his pants on.

There was no going back now. How could there be? She nudged him back, got to her knees as he was. She met his gaze, then found the clasp of his pants with her hands. She didn’t look away from him, even as she struggled to undo his pants, unzip them.

There was no going back. No, the lines were crossed, and now she wanted everything.

She was perfection and not deserving it or her did not dull the sublime wonder of it all. The softness of her skin, the delicate sweetness of her taste. The way she enveloped him with warmth, with something that felt perilously close to belonging.

Her elegant pale hand wrapping around him, stroking, something like wonder there in her expression, but more than that. A consideration on her face, as though this was a new problem.

No, not a problem. A curiosity. The first warning bell was too faint to pay attention to, not when his body raged with need. His hand enveloped the back of her head, urging her closer and closer, until she opened her mouth for him.

He took his time, watching those pink lips envelop where he was too hard to stand. The sublime pleasure of it all, that she would be on her knees for him, the delicate perfection of her.

But this would not be enough, and it was already too much. He pulled her away, nudged her back and ranged over her in one swift move. Some other faint warning bell sounded, but he pushed it away harder, because she held on to him, arched up for him, her body begging even if she didn’t verbalize what she wanted.

He didn’t need her to. He positioned himself at her entrance, found her warm and ready, and he tortured himself with the impossible, glorious give of her. Inch by inch. A pleasure he’d denied himself these past two years, and yet it was still brighter and more glorious than even he remembered.

Until she stiffened there under him. This was a confusing response, so he looked down at her, that third warning bell ringing a little bit louder.

Her eyes were squeezed shut and a dawning horror had him pausing. “Amelia…”

But then she opened her eyes, heated silver. She fisted her hand in his hair and pulled him down for a punishing, bruising kiss and moved against him, making him forget…

She moved against him, so he moved with her. The tension melted away, her hand stayed fisted in his hair, as they rocked in the age-old dance.

Her shuddering release brought him too close to his own, and only the sneaking suspicion still lingering from that initial tension gave him the forethought to pull out, to spill across her stomach.

His muscles quivered as he held himself above her, looking down at her. Surely…he was wrong. He had to be wrong.

She wouldn’t have done…that. She would have stopped this. She…

He had gone into this knowing there was nothing but ruin, but this… This was unconscionable. He could not hold his weight any longer, too many things roaring through him, least of all the spent wanting that didn’t seem to have fully dissipated no matter how thoroughly he’d taken her.

Taken.He rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling, but it lasted only a moment or two before he had to look at her. Had to make sure…

“You were not a virgin,” he said, as if to convince himself. As if to make it true, when all evidence pointed…to the opposite.

Amelia said nothing. She lay there, the prettiest, most perfect picture, mussed and used and sated, expressly not looking at him.

“Amelia,” he said darkly.

She turned her head toward him, her expression all feigned innocence. “What?”

“I asked you a question.”