Page 33 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

An opportunity.

She shook her head, there against her pillow. That line of thinking was absolute insanity. A sexual encounter with the devil? That would leave marks. Scars. He’d be the first man she was withforever.

I bet he’s really good at it.

She rolled onto her stomach and groaned into her pillow. Where did thoughts like that come from? She didn’t want to think that way. But just like her body reacting to him—his presence, his words, his gaze,him—her brain seemed to have a will of its own.

Lying here,feelingher own body, was a recipe for disaster. And the only way she knew how to fix it was to feed it.

It was how she’d dealt with her grief, her anxiety, her stress—a bunch of pointless emotions that accomplished nothing. Feed the feeling, and it went away. The perfect solution.

Maybe she’d ended up in the kitchen every single night of being here, making herself a sweet treat and pretending it was a decadence and not a distraction. Maybe there was no pretending tonight, but if she lay in this bed, she might be tempted to take care of the desperate ache inside of her herself.

Which would be fine, if it wouldn’t behimshe pictured or imagined while she did it. And if she allowed herself that, how would she ever face him again?

How was she going to weather this feeling, thisyearningshe didn’t want to have but was there all the same for a fullyear?

No. Food was the answer. Pretty much always.

She got out of bed and wrapped the robe around herself. Pretending it was the chill and not the buzzing layer of lust making her skin prickle.

She crept her way downstairs in the dark like she’d done more often than she should. She could move around the kitchen without turning any lights on—the outdoor lights of the patio enough to illuminate her way.

She moved into the pantry. She didn’t need ice cream or the whole rigmarole of a sundae. This wasn’t that dire. She wasfine. She’d just grab a cookie or two—she’d made her own now, so they weren’t pathetic store-bought ones. She just needed some sugar to cap off the night, and then she could and would go to sleep—no thoughts of Athan anywhere to be found.

Never mind that she’d had a very large slice of apple cake with dinner. That didn’t count.

Once she was in the pantry, she pulled her phone from her robe pocket and turned on the flashlight. She quickly located the cookies she’d made yesterday and packed away in a jar. She procured two—only two—then replaced the jar’s lid and turned off her flashlight.

She would go back upstairs, crawl into bed, eat her cookies, and then she would be able to settle and—

The room flooded with light. She jumped at the surprise, made a little screeching noise, then squinted against the brightness.

It didn’t take a psychic to know who would be behind her when she turned. She closed her eyes for one second.You are not giving in to whatever this is, Lynna. Not now. Not ever.She would be strong. She could be strong.

Then she turned.

He’d changed his clothes. Was this what he wore to bed? A soft T-shirt that outlined the impressive muscles of his body, and sweats that rode low on his hips. His feet were bare. His hair was even a little mussed, as if someone had been running their fingers through it.

She tightened her grip on her cookies and her phone and tried to ignore the errant thought that she’d like to do just that.

“What are you doing in here? It is the middle of the night,” she hissed at him. Even though it was his house, and his right.

“I know what goes on in my house, Lynna darling,” he returned, all but lounging there against the pantry doorframe. “And every time you struggle to sleep, here you are.” He smiled, the smile of a devil—handsome andtempting.

And she knew better than to succumb to temptation.

Except…

She still hadn’t come up with any good reasons to resist the temptation. Except the whole “hating him for ruining her father’s life” thing. It was easy when Constantine was the topic of conversation to focus on the fact Constantine had been the mastermind of all that, but she needed to remember Athan was no innocent party.

No matter how handsome he looked.

“Did you come looking for dessert,omorfiá mou?” he asked, like a sultry promise.

He had to stop calling her that. He had to stop speaking Greek in that low, delicious rasp of a voice. He had to stopthis.

Because if he didn’t, she might be forced to reckon with the fact that part of her had…hoped for this when she’d come downstairs.

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