Page 213 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

She nodded. ‘So, maybe you could help me get changed?’ she prompted, knowing that she was inviting them both to play with fire, and not caring.

His eyes flared and then he moved his hands lower, gliding them over the swell of her hips to her thighs, bunching the delicate fabric as he went. ‘I did say you were in charge, didn’t I?’ he murmured, reaching the hem and holding it in his fists.

Pulse in her throat, she nodded again.

Slowly, oh, so painstakingly slowly, he lifted the dress upwards. Past her thighs, over her bottom to her waist, where he paused, eyes on hers the whole time, as if reading her, wanting reassurance that she was still okay with this. He was taking his promise very, very seriously, and the proof of that exploded the last vestiges of her doubt.

Zeus wasn’t Steven.

Zeus was a man who could have any woman he wanted; he didn’t need to force himself on some drunk teenager. He had principles and confidence; he was different to Steven in every way.

She lifted her hands over her head in a silent invitation—and insistence—that he keep going. He did. Slowly, though, so slowly she wanted to scream, his fingers brushing her sides as he pushed the dress towards her breasts and then over them. The contrast between the warmth of his touch and the cool of the air around them made the hair on her arms stand on end. The fabric was soft and it rustled against her ears when he finally pulled it over her head, then dropped it to the floor at their sides with a hiss from between his teeth.

‘Holy mother of God,’ he groaned, stepping forward and pressing their bodies together, hers naked except for a flimsy pair of lace briefs. ‘You are exquisite.’

But she didn’t want to hear that. She didn’t care about physical beauty, and she didn’t particularly want it to be what he saw in her, either.

She lifted up onto the tips of her toes and her eyes held his as she slowly, hungrily, sought his mouth with her own. And groaned. In the bar, he’d kissed her as though she were a woman he desired, but here, alone in her hotel room, with her virtually naked, he kissed her as though she were anobjet d’artthat he desperately wanted to explore. His lips separated hers, his tongue danced against hers, his mouth was warm, like his fingers, and yet he was careful not to overwhelm her. Even when she wanted to be overwhelmed.

Frustration stretched inside her. She didn’t want him to treat her like a fragile vase; she wanted to be treated like a red-blooded woman, thick with desire and needs that only he could assuage.

‘Touch me,’ she demanded, remembering the skill he’d shown in the bar the previous night. Before he’d known that she’d been hurt, that she was, in so many ways, fragile and vulnerable. ‘Show me what I’ve been missing.’

He groaned into her mouth and she felt it again—that duality of Zeus. What he wanted, and what he thought he should be. Well, she was giving him permission to go with the former. He knew she had boundaries. He was the one who’d acknowledged those boundaries by laying it out: they weren’t going to have sex tonight. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t do other things.

‘I’m begging you,’ she said against his mouth. ‘Touch me. Make me feel like you did last night. Please.’

And on that last, desperate plea, his body shuddered and something inside him seemed to snap, because he dropped to his knees then, his hands on her hips shifting to the lace of her panties and loosening them, pulling them down her legs, so she could step out of them. At the same time she kicked her shoes off and stood before him completely undressed.

One of his hands came behind her and clasped over her rear, holding her where she was as his mouth teased the sensitive flesh at the top of her legs, flicking her inner thigh until she was trembling and flushed with heat, and then he was pushing her backwards, towards the wall, as if he somehow understood that she needed more support. One of his hands came between her legs, spreading them wider, and then his mouth was on her sex, his tongue flicking her, teasing her, making her cry out because she’d never been kissed like this before. She knew oral sex was a thing, but it was not something she’d ever imagined she would want to have done to her, nor that it could feel this good.

In fact, she hadn’t knownanythingcould feel this good. Her hands tore through his hair as madness seemed to saturate her soul, and then his fingers were there, too, pressing against her clitoris, moving faster, while his mouth shifted to the flatness of her stomach, kissing, tasting, and then his fingers were inside her and her hips were bucking hard as the waves of pleasure he’d built became almost too much to bear.

‘Zeus,’ she cried his name, then swore in an uncharacteristic gesture, because she was completely overwhelmed. He glanced up at her with a question in his eyes and she nodded her reassurance. ‘Please, don’t stop,’ she groaned, half laughed, then cried out again as he returned his mouth to her, his fingers still buried in her depths, so the sensory overload was immense.

‘I’m—I feel—I’m—’ But she couldn’t explain what was happening to her; she only knew that it was the best feeling in the world. Her whole body trembled and tingled, her nipples seemed to throb and ache, her knees were weak, her body was sheened in perspiration, and just the sight of him, between her legs, was sending her tumbling down a rabbit hole that she wondered if she’d ever find her way out of. Her body exploded with an all-consuming ferocity, a feeling she wanted to bottle and keep forever. Waves of it kept washing over her until she couldn’t think straight, and her breathing was rushed and her voice hoarse. She stood there, grateful beyond words for the support of the wall, and the way his hand was clamped at her hip to stop her from sliding sideways. Her breathing was rushed, as though she’d run a marathon.

He stood, and before she could regain her breath, he was kissing her. Not slowly and inquisitively this time, not as though she were something fragile he was afraid of breaking, but with all the hunger and passion he’d just stirred. Kissing her as though she were the meaning to everything on this earth. Lifting her as though she weighed nothing, cradling her against his chest, kissing her still as he strode, long and confident, through the hotel room corridor and deeper into her suite. The bedroom was to the right; he found it easily and placed her on the bed but didn’t leave.

Oh, no.

He came down on top of her, kissing her, so his weight was on her and for a moment, a moment that shocked her because it had no place here, with them, an old feeling of suffocating and being helpless and afraid, came back, so she froze. He must have perceived her stillness, because he stopped kissing her immediately and pushed up onto his elbows, relieving her of his weight.

Disappointment was sharper than relief, because Zeus wasn’t Steven, and this was not that night.

He stroked her cheek, and her heart twisted. ‘Okay?’

She nodded.

He arched a brow, as if he didn’t believe her.

‘Really,’ she promised. She pushed up onto her elbows, so she could kiss him again, and this time, when he relaxed down on top of her, she was capable only of enjoying the pleasure of their bodies being melded together like this, the heat of him, the strength of him. Her hands roamed his back, the curve of his toned bottom, her nails digging in there, before she crept her hands higher and pulled his shirt from his waistband so that her fingertips could connect with the bare flesh of his back.

He hissed again and pushed away from her, this time fully off the bed, jackknifing away from Jane as though she’d detonated a bomb between them.

‘What is it?’ she asked, on her elbows once more so she could see him better. And she couldsee, very clearly, how turned on he was by what they’d been doing.

‘Don’t do that.’