Page 121 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

That tonight they were both shedding their old selves to have this moment together. Two virgins surrendering their selves to each other. To the desperate need to have this moment that couldn’t be replicated. It could not be put on pause. Could not be denied.

They were two damaged souls, cowed by life but unable to hide from this. This honest connection. And it felt good. Almosttoogood.

Aurora understood that afterwards, after they’d taken what they wanted for themselves, she’d have to make her choice, to choose this path on her own. To feel everything the first twenty-one years of her life had denied her.

And she would.

She’d never go back to who she was before him.

‘Now,’ she pleaded. ‘Do it now.’

His fingers went to her hips and pressed into her flesh. Into bone. Deeper.

She pushed against his fingers with her hips. Pushed them down. But he held her steady. Held her straddled above the heat, pressing at her core.

The tip of his swollen heat entered her. Slowly.

She would not let herself tense. She wouldn’t hold back. But she felt the strain in his body. The pulse of his resistance.

‘Is it hurting you?’ she asked. She knew there was nothing to hurt him physically. But she felt it. His body expanding beneath her fingers, the bulge of his chest, and she understood his battle was internal.

‘No,’ he breathed through firmed lips, but she heard the lie.

Her voice as strained as his, she asked, ‘Do you want to stop?’

‘No.’

‘Then don’t.’

He thrust up inside her.

‘Ah!’She threw her head back. It hurt. But it was a heated pain. She was so full. She shut her eyes against the intensity.

But he was…

Everywhere.

Sebastian knew he was going to come.

He held in the moan in his throat and gritted his teeth.

She was so warm. So soft. So tightly wrapped around him. As if she belonged there, and he belonged inside her. Their fit so perfect…

It was pain. It was pleasure. It waseverything.

He bit the inside of his cheek. Locked his hips and fought the urge to push decades of denial into her body, without care.

Her eyes opened and found him. And only then did he move her. Lift her hips, ease the pressure sheathing him, promising oblivion, promising ecstasy.

She would find hers first.

He sank back inside her.

‘Oh!’ She ground her hips into him—clenched harder around him.

He reached between their bodies and pressed his thumb to the swollen nub of her.

Her mouth kissed the air. Sang a song neither of them had heard before. Neither had felt.