Page 148 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

So when he slapped her backside and demanded, ‘Keep still or I’ll drop you,’ as he marched out of the kitchen and headed upstairs to the master bedroom, she only laughed.

The adrenaline she had never been able to control charged through her system as he dropped her on the huge double bed. The snowstorm obscured the view of the forest through the glass wall at the far end of the room. But it didn’t matter because all she could see was him.

‘Get undressed,’ he demanded as he tore his clothes off. ‘The first time is going to have to be fast—to take the edge off,’ he warned.

The thrill became turbo-charged as she struggled out of her own clothes, feeling truly alive, and empowered for the first time in her life.

She gulped down the wadge of desire as she gorged herself on the glorious sight of his body, gilded by the twilight which had managed to penetrate the storm. The dim light cast the planes and angles of his face into sharp relief, and highlighted the bulge of muscle and sinew. She found herself cataloguing all the scars and imperfections she had noticed once before, joined now by the healing scar on his arm.

She swallowed the burst of emotion, the memory of him carrying her through the storm suddenly a little too vivid.

Why was Rene the only man who had ever made her feel so bold, so seen, and yet also cherished?

The only thing you both cherish now is the sex.

Excitement built, obliterating the sentimental thought, as he grasped her ankle and dragged her to the end of the bed. Already naked, the thick jut of his erection made her sex soften and swell as she watched him scramble to find the box of condoms. He sheathed himself, his urgency as flattering as it was exciting.

But when he climbed over her and captured her lips at last in a mind-numbing kiss, she had to force the emotion back again.

Tonight was about sex, and pheromones, and indulging the spectacular chemistry they had denied for too long, and which they could indulge now without any messy emotional repercussions.

It has to be.

She grasped his head, sucked on his invading tongue and spread her knees to cradle his hips. The huge erection nudged her sex, but when he drew his fingers through the damp folds, to test her readiness and circle the swollen nub, she choked out a sob, her release already devastatingly close.

‘Bad girl, Melody. You’ve been holding out on me,’ he murmured, raw need belied by the mocking tone.

‘Stop messing about and get on with it,’ she demanded, desperate to feel that thick length inside her again. Determined to make it last longer this time than the last.

He chuckled, the sound rough. ‘Your wish is my command,’ he said, but just as her heart registered the echo from their first night, he grasped her hips and buried himself deep.

She cried out as the huge erection impaled her.

He stopped, giving her a moment to adjust, and swore against her neck, all trace of the mocking amusement gone when he murmured, ‘You feel so good. So tight, just like that first time.’

Because you’re the only man who has ever been inside me…

She pushed the revealing thought to one side and tugged his head back to gasp in his ear, ‘Stop talking, you lummox, and move.’

His raw chuckle pushed at a place deep inside her, joining them, uniting them in their shared pursuit of desperate pleasure for pleasure’s sake.

‘Patience, Melody,’ he mocked, but then established a punishing, undulating rhythm, touching every part of her, and stroking the spot deep inside which only he had ever found.

She rose to meet him, frantically reaching for the glorious oblivion, so close and yet still too far—which he was deliberately denying her.

The rat.

Slowly and surely, though, the pleasure built like a wave. Gathering and rising inside her, it became a tsunami, his grunts of effort matching her sobs of need.

‘Yes,yes!’ she cried. ‘Don’t stop.’

‘No way,’ he grunted, his fingers digging into her hips, forcing her to take more, to take all, to take everything.

The wave blasted through her, thrusting her into that beautiful, terrifying abyss, before she heard him shout out—from a million miles away, through the storm—and crash over behind her.

CHAPTER NINE

THE WOMAN HASdestroyed me again.

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