Page 89 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

Jaw clenched, nostrils wide, he breathed in heavily, and then she felt it, the hard jut of his arousal.

The throb in her pelvis came from so deep inside that another breath of air caught and her body, stiffened in resistance, began to melt at the same speed as the steel in his stare.

His pupils dilating and pulsing, the firm mouth that had kissed her into senselessness inched closer.

Her aching lips pleaded to be crushed to his again.

Stifling another sob that came from nowhere, Rose turned her face before their mouths could come together.

It was the hunger on his face. She couldn’t bear to see it. Couldn’t bear the reminder of the last time he’d looked at her like that and the ache of his absence she’d lived with ever since.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ she whimpered, her voice nowhere near as strong as she wanted it to be.

‘Believe me, I have spent years trying not to,’ he said hoarsely as the hand on her thigh skimmed down an inch to the hem of her dress. ‘Years fighting it. We both have.’ Strong, warm fingers slipped beneath the skirt of her dress, and she jolted at the sensation of flesh upon flesh. ‘You have weaved through my dreams for years, Rose Martinez.’

‘Gregory…’ She had to swallow hard to continue, had to fight to think coherently. Diaz’s fingers were tiptoeing up her inner thigh, gentle caresses trailing fire over her vulnerable skin and deepening the burning pulses alive inside her.

She needed to push his hand away and tell him to stop, but she was melting too fast, too furiously, his touch dispelling the last of the tension that was her only resistance to him.

‘My surname is Gregory…’ Her words became a gasp as his fingers tiptoed higher still.

Gently, he stroked her pubis and huskily murmured, ‘It should be Martinez, and our marriage should be real.’

Barely aware of what she was doing, she raised her thighs and grabbed at his chest, making a fist of his polo shirt. ‘How…’ She gasped as he adjusted his hand and slipped his fingers beneath the lace. ‘…can it be when…’ His fingers skimmed over her hidden nub. ‘When we…’ Oh, heavens. Oh, God. ‘We…’

But she couldn’t finish her plaintive argument, not with the wondrous things Diaz was doing to her. His fingers were caressing her with increasing pressure, coaxing her, stimulating the need for him living beneath her skin that had been building for days into a burn of blazing life.

His mouth pressed into her hair, soft words whispered in Spanish she didn’t understand but which sent thrills racing through her that were as bone melting as the clever manipulation of his fingers. When he moved his fingers from the source of her pleasure and slid first one then another into her sticky heat, she cried out, half from the loss of the pleasure where she most needed it and half from the new waves of pleasure he was filling her with until he pressed his palm on her nub, giving her the stimulation she craved, and Rose was lost.

All sense gone, she threw her arms around his neck and rocked into him, her mouth pressed tight into his shoulder, conscious of nothing but the maelstrom of sensation being evoked by the incessant movement of his pleasuring hand and the heat of his breath against her hair.

‘Oh, God…Diaz…’

‘That’s it,mi corazón,’ he encouraged softly, burying his mouth even tighter into her skull as he intensified his movements. ‘Let it go. Let it all go.’

‘Oh,God…’ With a loud cry, her entire being splintered and she was engulfed in waves of pleasure so powerful she was helpless to do anything but ride them until she was nothing but limp skin and bone clinging to him.

* * *

Sanity returned slowly.

Rose could feel the strong thud of Diaz’s heart echoing through her breasts and cheek. Hear the raggedness of his breathing. Feel the manic thuds of her own heart.

Oh, God, what had she justdone?

She wanted to cry. Really, really wanted to cry.

Mortification over what had just taken place creeping steadily through her, she tried to disentangle herself from him but he tightened his hold… since when had he wrapped both arms around her…? and kissed the top of her head.

‘It’s okay,’ he said quietly, as if he knew how close to tears she was. ‘Everything will be okay.’

‘How can it be?’ she choked into his shoulder.

How could iteverbe okay?

Loosening his hold, he slid his hands up her arms and gently cradled her cheeks, forcing her to meet his stare.

‘Give us a chance, Rose. That’s all I’m asking for—a chance, for our daughters’ sake, because they deserve the full family neither of us ever had. Give us until the end of the summer. If we can’t make the marriage work and you still want to walk away then I will not stop you taking the girls back to England.’

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