Page 40 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

“But I am tired of fighting for everything,” she continued, and her hand lifted, rested on his chest. She stared at it there for a moment, before lifting her gaze to his. “I am tired of scraping by. I amtired. And for once, I deserve a reward, no matter how much I might come to regret it.”

She moved closer, tilted her head back. He read determination in her expression. Maybe some wariness, but not confusion, not conflict.

“Ah,omorfiá mou, you will regret nothing,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist, pulling her close so he could feel the contours of her soft body against his. “Pleasure given and taken requires no regrets.” Then he claimed her mouth for his own. Only his.

She tasted of a sweetness he could not identify, so unique it was to her. Haunting, obsessive. Three times now, he had earned a taste of her and there was no end to the ways it wound through him like a drug.

It would not end with a taste here. Not tonight. He broke the kiss, but only long enough to lead her up the stairs, quickly. To his room. It was dim inside and that wouldn’t do. He released her hand and moved to turn on the lights in the room.

There was a flicker of uncertainty in her then, but he returned to her, nudged the straps off her dress, then reached around her to push down the zipper. He took his time, enjoying the feel of warm, soft skin against his hands. Though his blood pounded in his ears, in his sex, he would not hurry this.

She was a delicacy, and he had no idea how often he’d be able to enjoy it, so he would take his time. He would savor every moment, every inch.

Every soft sigh, every huffed out breath, every sharp inhale. As he slowly peeled the dress away from her. She held his gaze the entire time, all uncertainty gone. A fire in her eyes, but complete stillness in her body. It did something to him he did not fully recognize. Unleashed a kind of desperation he’d never felt.

He felt like a gladiator in the ring, ready to take on anything. If death were an end, it would be worth the journey getting there.

And still he took his time, baring her to him. Pale and soft. Sweet and sharp, wrapped up with all thatcontrol. She was impossibly strong, forged in too much adversity. Too much taking care of others.

Tonight, he would take care of her. This pale goddess in front of him. He reached out to trace the strap of her bra, a confection of lace and frills that surprised him considering her no-nonsense demeanor.

Before he could do any more than that, she reached out, pushed the suit jacket off his shoulders. He shrugged it off, watching in fascination as the only sign of any sort of nerves or heightened feeling was there in her eyes. Not in her steady hands, her serene expression. Just in the stormy blue.

Once his jacket was gone, she stepped ever so slightly closer and reached for his collar. For just the quickest moment, her fingers trembled, but she stilled herself. She undid the first button, her concentration on her fingers as she moved down the column of buttons.

Her shoulders were back, all determination to see it through. And since she was, he let her push the shirt off his shoulders. He simply watched as she decided what she wanted.

Her fingers trailed down his chest, his abdomen, taking their time. Torturing him, and she knew it too if the little curve of her mouth was anything to go by. She undid the belt with deft fingers, though she took her time.

When her eyes lifted to his, it was a lightning strike through his body. A rumbling thunderclap that threatened to change the very landscape around them.

And still they only stood, eyeing each other, stillness on the outside, storms internally.

“Are you going to make me do all the work?” she asked, her voice thready.

“That depends,” Athan returned, watching the beautiful pink of heat and desire chase across her skin. “Do you want to do all the work?”

She didn’t reply right away, as if taking it into consideration and weighing the pros and cons. “No, I don’t.” Always so careful. Always so measured.

He wanted to rip that all away from her—the weights and responsibility that had built that inside her. He wanted to tear it to pieces, give her nothing but wild abandonment and not a second thought.

“Then allow me,” he said, or maybe growled, and he let it go. That tenuous grasp on control, everything that held him back. Because she had unleashed this.

Everything imploded then. He grabbed her, kissed her, devoured her without worrying about anything but how much more he wanted. With more speed than agility, he rid her of the rest of her garments, walking her back toward the bed.

He began to pull the pins from her hair, let them drop. He didn’t watch the bouncing curls as he had that first night after the wedding. He cared not how elegant her hair might be tonight. He only wanted his hands in it.

Soft and silky and smelling of some kind of spring fruit. New and faint but intoxicating all the same. He buried his nose there, his hands tangled, his body its own torture chamber of restrained need, throbbing desire.

He needed her underneath him. He needed his mouth on her. Heneeded. He lifted her onto the mattress so that he could see her, sprawled out naked in his bed.

Hisbed.

He had dared not imaginethis. Her spread out on his bed, as if marking it as hers. A concerning revelation that he might never be able to forget her there, naked and fascinating. So strong and yet she wanted him.Him.

He could have stood here forever, simply drinking her in, but he was afraid it was altering something inside of him. He needed to touch, to taste, to make her his.

Because there was only her as he moved over her, and everything he finally wanted to experience with her. The way her skin felt under his hands, the way her sigh sounded and felt against his ear. The taste of her, deep and potent and true.

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