Page 132 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

Strong fingers,hisfingers, moved from her yearning sex to her shoulders, and dug into her biceps…

‘Don’t stop, it feels so good…’ she murmured.

Why wasn’t he touching her where she needed him the most? Why was he shaking her? When she was so close to something incredible? When it had been so long? Too long.

‘Dammit, Mel, you need to wake up. We need to move.’

Her eyes fluttered open to find Rene staring at her, his expression fierce, his gaze wary, and concerned. Just as it had been that night.

‘Melody, you’re dreaming…’ His gaze flashed with something hot and intense. But then his jaw flexed and his fingers dug into the muscles of her upper arms.

Cold lanced through her body. The roar of the storm, and the vicious shivers beginning to make her teeth chatter, yanked her out of the dream.

‘It’s f-freezing…’ she said, trying to dispel the last of the erotic fantasy featuring the man staring at her. What was she doing in a car in a snowstorm with Rene? Was this real, or just another of those recurring dreams which always turned to nightmares?

Not a dream. A far too intense memory.

If the brutal ache in her sex was anything to go by.

‘The car has run out of petrol,’ he said. ‘The tank must have been ruptured when the undercarriage hit something about ten minutes ago.’

‘What?’ she asked, still groggy with sleep and yearning.

‘Listen to me, Melody,’ he demanded. ‘The temperature’s dropping fast. And we need to leave the vehicle before we freeze.’

He let her go to lean across the seat well and grab her bag. He unzipped it and began pulling out her clothes.

‘W-w-what are you doing?’ she asked, her teeth chattering harder, her breath fogging the air with his. ‘What time is it? Where are we?’ she managed, still trying to get her bearings.

The dark landscape outside looked eerily beautiful, lit by the car’s headlights. Thick gusts of snow obscured the fir trees wrapped in white, which bent and swayed in the rattling wind.

‘It’s about three in the morning,’ he said, his voice clear and strong and surprisingly calm. ‘The road was blocked. I couldn’t get a phone signal. But the GPS said there was a house, or at least a building, in this direction, so I headed towards it—which was when the undercarriage hit something—and we must have started leaking fuel. We need to find shelter because I haven’t been able to call for help, so no one will know we’re missing until the morning. And we’re a distance from the road now.’

He shoved a couple of sweaters at her, then her coat and hat and gloves. ‘Put these on.’

Definitely not a dream—he kidnapped me.

But even as the reality of where she was, and why, seeped into her brain, the grim expression on his face had the gravity of the situation dawning on her, too.

This was no time to argue with him. Or to be mortified about the fact he’d woken her in the middle of an erotic dream in which he was the star player. That could wait until they’d found somewhere warm and safe. She swallowed the lump of panic, but couldn’t get her fingers to co-operate as she tried to pull on the jumper.

‘Here, let me.’ He brushed her numb fingers aside and dragged the jumper over her head, then fed her arms into the sleeves.

She wanted to take over, but as he continued to dress her like a child, adding extra layers then shoving her arms into her coat, putting on her hat and gloves, her hands were shaking too hard to resist—from fear or cold, she couldn’t be sure.

Once he’d zipped up her jacket and tugged up the hood, he pulled her closer.

‘I’m going to lead the way, okay?’ he said, tugging his belt out of the loops in his jeans. ‘It shouldn’t be too far now.’ Lifting her arm, he wrapped the belt around her wrist, then threaded the end through one of his belt hooks and fastened it. ‘When we get out of the car, hold onto the belt with both hands,’ he said above the whistling wind, and her chattering teeth. ‘I’ll be right in front of you. Don’t let go, whatever happens.’

He grabbed a torch from the glove compartment and switched it on.

‘Right. Let’s go,’ he said, his stark expression set with determination.

But when he swung around to open the door into the eerie, swirling darkness she grabbed his forearm.

‘Wait!’ she cried, her panic having downgraded enough to give way to a depth of emotion which almost scared her more.

He turned back, one quizzical eyebrow raised.

---