Page 176 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

His hands grappled with her sweatshirt, tugging it over her head, then he scrambled to release her bra. Her head dropped back, her moan of desperation broken and yearning as his mouth found the aching tips of her bared breasts. He suckled strongly, drawing arrows of sensation down to her throbbing sex.

She thrust greedy fingers into his hair to drag him closer, arched her back to give him better access, her sobs becoming heady pleas of desperation.

He lifted his head suddenly, to search her face, his eyes wild, his need transparent, his desire fierce and elemental and untamed.

‘I need to be inside you…’ he croaked, part plea, part demand.

She nodded, unable to speak, not knowing what was happening but knowing it was everything she had ever wanted because the same urgency, the same desperation she had felt for days, weeks, months, maybe even years—ever since that first time—was reflected now in his face.

Not just the physical need but also emotional, the intimate connection between them so vivid, so clear, so undeniable.

He grasped her waist, lifted her onto the kitchen table, then set about tugging off her sweatpants, yanking down her panties. Suddenly she was naked, vulnerable, her emotions like her body, laid bare.

But as she banded an arm over her aching breasts he ripped open his fly, tugged down his shorts and the heavy erection burst free—hard, long and thrusting upwards.

He cupped her buttocks, dragged her towards him, adjusting her hips, lifting her knees to leave her fully exposed, her core already slick and swollen with her juices.

But then she slapped her hand against his chest, which heaved beneath the soft cotton.

‘We need a condom,’ she managed.

He stared at her. ‘Do we?’ he asked as his eyes searched hers. ‘Because there’s nothing I want more in this world right now than to get you pregnant. So you can never leave me like that again.’

She shuddered, the raw longing in his gaze and the husky truth in his voice shattering her heart all over again.

The thick ridge pressed against her centre—hard, huge, insistent—but as her body yearned for the heavy thrust which would lodge him to the hilt and make her his again, he stood, holding her gaze, waiting for her answer.

She swallowed the boulder of emotion which had derailed her before and barely shrunk at all in the past week, and clasped his face in unsteady hands.

She took a torturous breath and forced herself to finally say what she had wanted to say a week ago.

‘You need to know first, Rene, that I love you.’ Tears stung her eyes, the vulnerability overwhelming, when he swore softly. But she didn’t see fear any more, she saw acceptance.

Her whole body began to shiver, despite the warmth from the iron stove behind them. She needed an answer from him—something,anythingto give her some hope—because having him want her, having him need her wasn’t enough.

‘I think I’ve always loved you,’ she managed, the hiccup of breath threatening more tears. ‘I understand if you don’t love me back now. If you’re not there yet. But I can’t live without the chance that there will be more one day. I just can’t.’

He pressed his forehead to hers, the thick erection sliding up to brush the bundle of nerves at her core and making her jolt. But instead of thrusting inside her, he held her close and breathed into her ear.

‘I know, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I wouldn’t let you say it.’

She reared back, terrified of what he was going to say next. What was he sorry for? Was he going to tell her what she had suspected a week ago? Was he going to confirm that she had been right to run after all?

‘I was terrified, I admit it,’ he murmured, the tone tortured. ‘I didn’t want you to say it because I thought I would never be able to say it back and mean it. But when I found that note…’ He cursed and let out a shuddering sigh, his arms wrapping so tightly around her he nudged that molten spot again, melting the last of her resistance. But it was the desperate conviction in his voice, in his eyes, which melted her heart. ‘So polite, so reasonable, and so unlike you. And all I could think about was how I couldn’t lose you. That I couldn’teverbe without you by my side…’ he pressed his palm to her cheek, the sheen of longing in his eyes so vivid, so vulnerable and yet also no longer afraid ‘…as my princess, my partner, my lover, my everything. To be perfectly honest, the strength of what I feel for you right now seems more like insanity than love. But is that enough?’

She nodded, covering her mouth, the tears scalding her cheeks. ‘Yes, yes, it is,’ she said.

She threw her arms around his shoulders and adjusted her hips to press against the huge head of his erection. ‘Now, for Pete’s sake put us both out of our misery,’ she demanded.

He choked out a raw laugh. ‘Have I told you I even love how damn bossy you are?’

But, before she could reply, he grasped her hips and slid hard and deep, impaling her to the hilt in one all-consuming thrust.

She let out a broken sob, the feeling immense and as overwhelming as always, but as he began to rock his hips out and back, forcing her to take all of him, driving them both towards that glorious oblivion with dizzying, devastating purpose, she clung to his shoulders and moved with him.

Agonising bliss charged towards her—hard and fast—cresting and crashing as her sobs of release matched his harsh grunts of pleasure.

His hot seed burst inside her—finally branding her for ever as his.

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