Page 42 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

“Why?” he demanded, his face buried in her hair like he could simply inhale her whole.

She had a million reasons, but she could really only seem to verbalize one with him so close, with the bed so warm and comfortable around her, weakening her resolve. “It seems reckless.”

His gaze moved over her face, as if taking in every last centimeter. Then his mouth quirked in that lazy way of his, a contrast to the seriousness in his eyes. “Then be a little reckless, Lynna.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Whenheawokethe next morning, a slow blinking introduction to day, it was with Lynna still in his bed. Her dark hair sprawled out against his pillow, his shoulder. Her eyes were closed, so her long dark eyelashes created a little fan against her cheek. Her skin pale and pink against the soft fabric of his sheets and the air around him smelled faintly of strawberries.

Of her.

And it created an odd weight in his chest—not unpleasant, but strange and perhaps a little disconcerting for its weight. For the fissure of uncertainty it sent through him, but when twined with the deep-seated satisfaction, there was nothing really to be done about it. It was simply something to endure.

Her eyes began to blink open. Blue threaded with silver, carefully awakening and shaking away the last tendrils of sleep. When her eyes focused in on him watching her, he noted the wariness that lingered in the edges of her expression, but her pretty mouth curved ever so slightly. So he pressed his mouth to the corner of that smile, and felt that smidge of wariness melt away.

Heat curled inside of him lazily. Instead of that potent slap of lust like last night, this was gradual. A gentle ocean wave that would eventually swell and overtake them both.

But for now, he rode the gentle. The slow. The natural, swelling stirring. Her soft sighs, the beautiful blooming give of her mouth, her body, as without anything spoken, they came together. In slow moves and quiet gasps and pleasured sighs.

He talked her into the shower, into pleasuring her there, drunk on the feel of her, the sounds she made, everything that made up Lynna. His wife.Hisand only his.

When she finally left his room, insisting she needed her own things and to make breakfast, Athan hummed to himself as he prepared for the day. Perhaps he would be a little late to the office, but he would not miss any meetings if he took his time with breakfast.

Less than thirty minutes later, he was dressed and on his way to the kitchen certain his good mood could not be dimmed. All his goals would be realized in short order, and then he could spend the next year enjoying his beautiful wife.

Perhaps it felt like too short a time, but no doubt by the end he would be ready to move on. Everything would be settled then. Everything would be right.

He would make certain of it.

She was already in the kitchen, cracking eggs into a bowl. She was not dressed in black, though she was dressed casually. Soft pants the color of summer green and a loose sweatshirt to match. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail that bounced as she moved.

When he paused in the opening of the kitchen to watch her, sure she would continue with her preparations as she had every other day leading up to this one, she didn’t. She stopped what she was doing and looked over her shoulder at him.

She was more potent and addicting than any substance could be. Because it rearranged something inside of him, this change. Thisadmissionon her part, no matter how small, that something had changed.

And he wanted to make that permanent, in ways he failed to understand. The need to do something that held her here, right where he wanted her, was too big a need, a desperation to set aside.

She must have read the intent in his gaze because when he approached, she held him off with a hand to his chest, studying him with those blue-gray eyes that spoke of a million questions and uncertainties and suspicions. It made him want to take away every last one. To give her every answer and assurance she needed.

“Do you think this is wise?” Before he could answer that, she shook her head, presumably at herself. “Let me rephrase. I know beingwiseis not your concern, even if it is mine, I only mean, should this really be…a recurring thing? Is that best?”

Best.“Who knows what’s best?”

She clearly did not like this answer, because she frowned, and didn’t drop the hand that held him off. “I do. Ialwaysdo.”

She sounded certain, but it sounded like someone trying to convince themselves more than any certainty.

“Lynna.” He tried to imbue his tone with a gentleness, which was rusty, or perhaps new and never truly used before. “We are to be married for a year. I see no reason not to enjoy what there is to enjoy for that time, then go on our way at the end.”

“What if we should tire of it before then?”

He laughed in spite of himself. Tire of it? He grinned at her. “If you think you could tire of it, I will have to prove you wrong. Over and over again.”

He watched her try to fight a smile, and it thrilled him that it was a fight. That she didn’t quite succeed in hiding her amusement. And since she didn’t, he pressed his luck. Lowered his mouth to hers, but stopped a whisper away, listening for that little sound of sharp intake so heady and uniquely her.

Thatpausewhere she decided to move forward or not. Where want fought with reason and safety and whatever else Lynna Carew concerned herself with.

“We should start right now,” he murmured, his lips so close to hers she no doubt felt the movement on her mouth. And then he kissed her, gentle, slow…perhaps even sweet, though the notion was as foreign to him as this wholesale obsession that only seemed to grow, no matter how many tastes he got of her.

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