Page 52 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

She would not deal with him. Not until she was in control. Not until…

His arm curled around her elbow and he turned her to face him. Her on the top step, looking almost even with him at the middle step.

He said nothing. She said nothing. She struggled to breathe and blinked at the incomprehensible tears in her eyes. She refused to name the pained, hurting thing she saw in his gaze.

It had nothing to do with her.

Nothing.

“Athan… Don’t…” And she didn’t know exactly what she was telling him not to do, because all he was doing was standing there. His arm on her elbow.

She didn’t know what she wanted to avoid, only that there was this…fear inside of her. Like something too big, too hard was right here in front of her. If she stopped it, everything could go on as it was.

If she didn’t stop it…

Whatever horrible consequence that would befall her was lost as he lowered his mouth to hers. Slow and careful, the press of his lips gentle. Soft. A lull, a carefulness that twisted inside of her, loosening knots, poking through holes in a foundation she’d been desperately shoring up for five years.

All at the mercy ofhim. This. This…thing that happened when he touched her. She wanted it to be physical. Devoid of any and all emotion, but there was something about him. Something she wanted to curl herself around and protect, soothe, help.

And that was easy enough to pretend away when it was passion, when it was a buildup over weeks of want she had pushed down and ignored and denied.

It was something else entirely right now. When his hands were gentle, his kisses soft. As though this thing that sparked to life between them was breakable, and he did not want it to break.

She needed to break it. Smash it to bits—with refusal, with harsh words, withanythingthat would stop her heart from feeling this swollen and vulnerable and not her own. She needed to break this hold he had on her. Now.Now.

She couldn’t.

It felt too special, too vital. Like a gift, like care. Like everything she’d run away from for so long and yet…some small kernel of the girl she’d once been still yearned for this.

Someone who wanted something more from her than all the acts of service that kept things running smoothly.

She knew what she needed to do, she understood her responsibility—stop this, whatever it was—and for the first time in her life, she could not do her duty.

She succumbed to him, to her heart instead. She kissed him back, wrapped her arms around him and held on for dear life as birds trilled around them on a pretty summer afternoon.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Athanwascompletelyundone.For days, he had been certain that thisthingwith Lynna was lust and lust alone. Something to burn out eventually. Oh, he enjoyed her. Respected her. Always had. But he had known she did not feel the same, and so he had known this—she—was a fleeting moment.

But that little speech at the car, the fervor in which she absolved a small piece of him. No, not the things he’d done to her family, but all those twisted childhood mistakes…

No one in his entire life had ever… Too much was expected of him. To be his father’s son. To be an Akakios. Savvy and smart, charming and powerful. There had been no room for mistakes, only punishments.

Only the driving fear he would never be good enough.

And perhaps he was following old patterns, kissing this woman he could never be good enough for. He had harmed her in ways she had said herself she could never forgive.

And still he kissed her, not in desperation, not in a fervor of lust, but in some small, gentle world where even if heknewbetter, hefeltgood enough. For a moment in time, he felt like hers.

If she could kiss him back, hold on to him, allow him to sweep her up into his arms, maybe there was still hope somewhere that she could be his. And that that would be all they needed.

He carried her inside and up the stairs like she was precious because she was. Strength and fragility were not opposites, not in Lynna. Both were her, a complicated twist. And he wanted to bask in her strength, protect those fragile pockets inside of her.

He wanted, he wanted, he wanted, and she didn’t. Not the depth and breadth of this emotion that seemed to swell inside of him.

But she at least wanted this.

So he would deliver. He would enjoy. She would not forgive him for what he’d done in the past, but she would allow him this. And hewasan Akakios, so he would take it.

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