Page 110 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

She barely heard the click of her door as it opened or the footsteps padding across the room but her body reacted, huddling even tighter into itself like a small child hiding from the monster in the room, but, in Rose’s case, the monster was the despair she had never wanted Diaz to see, and she buried her face even tighter into her soaked pillow.

The duvet moved and the mattress dipped. A muscular arm wrapped around her waist and then, as if he really were manipulating the small child hiding from the monster, Diaz gently turned her round and enveloped her in his strength.

Her sobs grew stronger.

Clinging to him, Rose bawled into his chest, purging herself of everything she’d been carrying inside her for so long that she couldn’t remember a time when her heart hadn’t hurt. And all the while, Diaz’s mouth tight in her hair murmuring broken words in Spanish, his legs entwined in hers and the palms of his hands stroking her back.

She would never know when the strokes stopped being given for solace and took on a different meaning. Or when she became fully aware that she was exploring the planes and muscles of his back with her hands…his naked back.

She lifted her face out of his chest without thinking and tilted her head back.

Diaz’s gaze locked onto hers, a gaze filled with the same pain that had convulsed her. And with the same longing…

For a time that hung suspended, they simply drank each other in, their faces so close Rose could see every individual dark, stubbly hair covering his strong jaw and feel the heat of his breath with the same strength that she could feel the heat of his body.

With a soft groan of her name, he brought his sensuous lips to hers.

The shock of sensation burst the dam inside her. Inside them both.

His silken tongue swept into her mouth and in an instant Rose tumbled into a dark fusion stunning in its intensity, pinned beneath the hard length of Diaz’s body and being kissed with a passion that sucked the air from her lungs.

The heat that exploded through her burned hot enough to incinerate every ounce of the pain and misery that had gripped her, and she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and dragged her fingers through his hair as the dark fusion of their mouths took control of her body and drew out all the love and desire she’d so desperately hidden inside herself onto the surface of her melting skin.

In her deepest, most secret dreams, she’d dreamed of Diaz’s kisses, fantasised about the day he would look beyond his loathing of her and see what she saw and feel what she felt, and now it felt like she’d fallen into that most secret dream and her senses were free-falling under the assault of his taste and scent, feeding the need that had been waiting all these years to be woken.

Diaz broke the fusion of their mouths only long enough to lift her up and remove her cami top, the skim of his fingers trailing fire over her skin. There was barely time to breathe before she was pinned back beneath him and the urgent, almost primitive demands of his mouth and tongue.

The world beyond the two of them had ceased to exist. All Rose was aware of was Diaz, kissing her with the hunger of a starving man. Together, they worked impatiently to rid themselves of her cotton pyjama shorts and his undershorts, and then they were naked, lips entwined, her hands clasping the back of his neck, his hands lifting her bottom and his heavy arousal pushing at…

A moment of sanity broke free.

Panic shot through her and made her tense at the exact same moment Diaz murmured her name into her mouth and drove inside her, and when she cried out, it wasn’t with pleasure but with pain.

Shocked to her core, she froze. The last thing—the very last thing—she’d expected was that it would hurt.

Diaz had become very still.

Breathing heavily, he lifted his head. His concerned face hovered over hers. A question creased his forehead. ‘What’s wrong,mi corazón?’

She couldn’t speak. Could do nothing to stop the tears from leaking.

Understanding rang out as his eyes widened in horror. ‘You’ve never done this before?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, turning her burning cheek onto the pillow and closing her eyes so she didn’t have to look at him. She couldn’t begin to guess how he was going to react.

Silence enveloped them.

He shifted his position, lifting himself out of her.

She closed her eyes even tighter, waiting for him to lift the whole of himself off her and leave the room.

‘Rose, please look at me,’ he commanded gently.

She didn’t want to obey.

Her body gave her no choice.

Opening her eyes, she turned her face back to him.

---