Page 120 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

‘Wait,’ he said into her mouth, pulling away from her.

She followed him with her lips.‘Don’t stop!’

‘I’m not,’ he assured her, and his words, laced with tension, shook. ‘I want to touch you,’ he admitted.

She trembled. ‘I want that, too.’

His nostrils flared. He stepped backwards until his legs met a stone bench. He lowered himself down, with her astride him.

She gasped as the intimate core of her came into contact with the hard length of him.

‘I wantyou,’ she said, and it felt powerful to say that. To speak the truth of her desire with words.

He swallowed, and she saw him struggle with the words stuck in his throat.

‘I want…you,’ he said, his voice a raw admission of desire. Of need. And she claimed it. The power he gave her in return.

He lifted his hand from her waist and stroked the seam of the asymmetrical sequins slashing across her chest. ‘I want to taste you.’

And words were lost to her as she nodded. She watched his fingers, caught the slight tremble in them, as he pulled her dress down and revealed her naked breast.

‘So beautiful.’ His finger traced down her cheek, down the column of her throat, into the dip of her arched collarbone. ‘Such smooth skin.’

He wrapped his palm over her breast, massaged.

And she felt beautiful.

‘Yes!’ she exclaimed. She couldn’t help it. She tilted her head back. Offered him more of herself. And he didn’t deny her. He pressed a kiss to her skin and tasted her.

He licked. He sucked. And the desire inside her built until she began to pant. She pushed her breast harder into his hand. Because it was what she needed.

She rocked instinctively against him. ‘Oh…’ she panted, and pressed her thighs together. Brought her core harder against him.

‘More,’ she demanded.

‘More?’ he asked.

‘I want you,’ she said, and swallowed, slickened her vocal cords.‘In me.’

The pulse in his bristled cheek thundered. His mouth opened, but she continued before he spoke. ‘I don’t want to go slowly. I don’t want to wait. I want to feel you. All of you, inside me.’

His eyes turned black. His hands went to her hips. ‘Brace yourself on your knees,’ he told her, and she did.

Her knees pressed into stone, and she held herself above him. He reached for himself. Undid the silver buckle of his black belt, the button. And then slid down the zip and freed himself.

She gasped.

‘If it hurts—if you want me to stop,’ he husked, ‘I will stop.’

‘No,’ she breathed. The word powerful on her lips, in the air pulsing between their faces. Their bodies. ‘Don’t stop.’

She chose this.

She chosehim.

His hands went to the core of her. Stroked the seam between her thighs and pulled the scrap of material aside. He surged his hips upward, and he met her where she ached. Only the tip of him. The promise of him.

She made herself look at him, into his eyes, knowing it would be the same for him.