Page 165 of Modern Romance June 2025 5-8

Predatory. That was how he was looking at her. But not as if she were some vulnerable prey, simpering in the shadows, hoping to hide. No. She felt equal to him, he let her feel that, encouraged it. Spurred on by the challenge in his gaze, she began to draw her skirt up her legs and thighs, relishing the way she had captured his hungry attention. The slide of the soft material rose goosebumps on her flesh as she realised the double-edged sword of her sensual play worked both ways: on himandher.

Antonio flicked open the button of his trousers, and without taking his eyes from hers, he removed them and his briefs together. Fascinated, her gaze feasted upon the dips and curves of his muscles, the restraint he’d shown in prioritising her needs reflected in the tension beneath his skin. She was speechless. Just looking at him made her hot and wanton.

Suddenly now frustrated with the clothes covering her body, she slipped the silk cami up and over her head, throwing it aside as he took a step closer. She pushed the skirt away from her waist and down her legs, along with her knickers, and carelessly tossed the expensive clothes away from them.

Ivy tried not to but she couldn’t help herself, sliding her legs against each other, desperate to ease the ache that was beginning all over again, just from the power of his gaze.

He knelt on the bed at her feet.

‘This is what you do to me,cara. Know that. Just you. No one else.’

While she hadn’t needed to hear that, it touched a part of her, it fed a hungry, yearning part of her that she didn’t recognise. And when he came down over her, he whispered in her ear. He told her the things he wanted to do to her,withher, in both English and Italian. He slipped the strap of her bra from her shoulder, following it with his kisses, before removing it deftly with one hand, all the while the other worshipped and teased her nipples.

Her head fell back as he lay between her legs, as he feasted on her breasts, and she just let him. Just enjoyed the feel of him consuming her piece by piece, inch by inch, pulse by pulse. He owned her completely and she just didn’t care. Because it was the most exquisite feeling in the world.

She knew he took as much pleasure from this as she did. She could hear it in the words of praise he peppered her with, in between licks and sucks and guttural moans of delight.

But soon the pressure began to build and she grew restless beneath him, wanting more, wanting him, needing him to fill her, truly and completely. As if reading her body’s needs, without removing his attention from her breast, he reached to the bedside table and retrieved a condom.

She watched, fascinated, as he tore the foil with his teeth and then sheathed himself, his hand fisting the base of his length and making her flush with desire.

‘Cara—’he started, but she interrupted him.

‘I want this, Antonio. I want you,’ she said, insistent. ‘I want to feel you inside me, and I want the next time I hear my name from your mouth to be as you come, deep within me.’

His eyes blazed at her bold words. The muscle at his jaw flickering, he huffed out a breath as if shocked, as if stunned. And she was pleased, because at least it meant that he was feeling just a little of what she was feeling. She’d found her power. It was still a little unfamiliar, but she wanted him to be the first she shared that with. The first to know it and feel it with her.

As he settled between her legs, lined himself up with her entrance, and spread her with his girth where, inch by glorious inch, he filled her, her breath was sobbing in her chest from sheer euphoria. And in that moment she knew that she’d never be the same again.

The feel of Ivy encasing him launched Antonio out of his mind. Everything but her felt intangible, everything but her felt ephemeral and inconsequential. He’d never experienced anything like it, and while a part of him recognised that it had been some time since he’d shared his bed with a woman, this was not like that. The two things were incomparable.

He gave himself over to her, to pure sensation. They moved together as if they were the same tide, brushing up against the shore, Ivy’s breaths the sound of the ocean and his body the current, pushing and pulling with no destination in mind other than bliss.

And while his mind would have held him back, like an anchor dropped into the seabed, reminding him of the limits of what they could be to each other, the magic they were making eclipsed all rationality.

The erotic sounds of her pleasure drenched him in sweat, heightening his sensitivity and making him only want to hear more. Once again, his own needs were brushed aside, because all he wanted was her. All he sought was her.

He took her hips and pulled her further onto him, obsessively watching as her head fell back, lost to the sensations between them. He ground against her and she cried out as he bit back a feral groan of his own. He held her there with one hand while the other came to the sensitive bundle of nerves just above where they were joined. His thumb strummed delicately over it, sending a cascade of shivers across her body, and he was rewarded with a carnal cry.

Over and over again, he stroked her, revelling in the slick slide of his length, deep within her. Pinned by his hand on her hip, Ivy drew her legs up, and he watched himself enter her and withdraw. Curses and prayers filled his mind in equal measure and he felt her eyes on him, knew she was watching him watch them.

A dark flush heated his cheeks as he flicked his gaze between her and where they came together, and tension gripped the base of his spine. As if mirroring his own, Ivy’s body tightened around his length, pushing him further towards his own orgasm, but he held back. Teeth bared, hands white-knuckled, he wanted to feel her fall apart once again, he needed her to find her pleasure first. But every flutter of her muscles encouraged his own, back and forth, until they were both hurled into the depth of a midnight sea and lost on the waves of pleasure that nearly drowned them both.

Antonio collapsed back, taking her with him and draping her over him, unable to bear not touching her for even a moment. He should get up, he should take them into the shower, he should…

‘Stop thinking,’ Ivy murmured.

He bit back a smile. ‘How did you—’

‘I can hear it from here. The whirr of your brain. Just stop thinking,’ she said.

So he did, deciding that Ivy didn’t need help finding her voice. It was right there, and he was really enjoying it.

CHAPTER NINE

‘I don’t understandwhy you wanted to comehere, of all places,’ Antonio said, looking around the busy market stretching the seams of the square in Umbertide. ‘I could have literally taken you anywhere. Rome, Orvieto, Puglia, if you like the sea, Positano even!’

All incredible locations she had heard of. And maybe, one day, she might see them all. But what she wanted now? She’d wanted to visit somewhere that she might never see without him. Somewhere without tourists, without money. That was what she’d asked for, and he’d brought her here.

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