Page 200 of Modern Romance June 2025 1-4

‘Please, Emilio,’ Jasmine begged.

‘I love it when you beg for me.’ It made him feel powerful to have this powerful woman put aside her strength in a show of absolute trust. That she trusted him—a man who was unworthy. Unlovable. In these two words she showed that they could be the pieces they each needed. That she could let go and he could be worth someone’s trust.

So he would show her that that trust was, just this once, well placed.

He slid her legs over his shoulders and hooked his arms around her hips, licking, sucking, kissing until her body was flushed and writhing, her chest heaving. One of her hands tightly gripped his hair while the other gripped her own. Breaths and moans became more frantic until she couldn’t even say his name. Couldn’t say anything in any existing language, but he still understood her; understood her pleasure and how close she was. Then her body arched. Her legs tightened on his shoulders as she crested the wave of her pleasure, and he drank down every drop of her release. And still he couldn’t stop until she was begging and pulling on him.

But he wasn’t done. They weren’t done.

Emilio picked Jasmine up and placed her in the centre of his bed. Then he slowly stripped off his clothing. It was as if each shed piece revealed more of himself to her. His true self. The Emilio who hid his vulnerabilities with partying and planning and strict discipline. The Emilio who could never quite be enough for anyone but so desperately wished to be. Except that had changed. He only wanted to be enough for Jasmine.

He placed his hand on the handle of his bedside drawer and looked down at it. He needed to earn her respect, give her choice and control, even when he was the one forcing her to let go.

‘Do you wish me to use protection?’

A soft smile appeared on Jasmine’s face. ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No, I want all of you.’

More trust.

So Emilio climbed on the bed and lay beside her.

‘Take control,belleza,’ he said. The broad, wicked smile on her face was everything to him.

He steadied her as she climbed over him. She hovered above his hardness that was weeping with anticipation. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes, waiting to be transported to heaven.

‘Look at me,’ Jasmine instructed and he obeyed. ‘Eyes on me, Emilio.’

As if he could look anywhere else.

She lowered herself onto him and it was far beyond heaven. Beyond anything he could think of.

‘Oh, Dio, si.’He groaned. The feeling of her was incredible; watching their bodies connect, divine. And, once she had taken all of him, he was completely overwhelmed. The first time they had slept together, Emilio had changed because nothing had ever come close to that feeling. But this? This made even that first time pale in comparison. ‘Give me a moment,amore.’

‘I thought I’m in control, Mr De Luca,’ she said with a cocked brow. She was, so he relinquished control. Gave in to the feelings she brought out of him as she began to move her hips. ‘I love making you desperate.’

‘Siren…’ he tried to say but it came out breathless and strangled, making her laugh some more. It was a sound so joyous, it healed the broken parts of him like some sort of emotionalurushi. His soul turning into a piece ofkintsugiart. The gold did not hide his damage but showed the beauty of healing despite it.

He grabbed her face and pulled her down, kissing her hard. His ardour was obvious. He hoped she could feel his love even though he couldn’t quite say it. Not when those were the last words he had said to his mother. He had only just put himself back together. He couldn’t risk saying the words that could shatter him again. Not when Jasmine hadn’t indicated an affection that had grown as strong as love for him.

Emilio couldn’t let go of her and so, when her rhythm started to fail, he took over. His pistoning hips driving them both further and further towards their peak as he held her against his body. Her moans mingling with his. Their breaths becoming one. And, with cries in complete sync, they shattered through that pinnacle barrelling into the infinite Eden of their pleasure.

‘Sei la vita mia,’he whispered in the aftermath of his release, his forehead against hers:you are my life.

She was. This was. What they’d created. What they were creating: the family life he had never had.

Jasmine kissed him sweetly. ‘Emilio, I’m not done with you. I want to taste you.’ Light fingers danced on his hip, teasing, demanding. Perfect. So close to where he wanted her touch, where he ached for it. An ache he had come to understand would never go away.

‘I can feel how much you want me,’ she said.

The sun was going down, casting a spotlight into the room and catching Jasmine’s back. Leaning on her elbow, hovering above him, she looked angelic, with a golden aura around her. ‘Belleza, torment me.’

Jasmine grinned.

Her smile lit a lamp in the darkest parts of his soul. Her happiness felt like his own. Seeing her here, happy, unguarded, was the greatest gift and he wondered what it would be like when they returned to New York. Would he kiss her and send her off to SOP, as the in-charge woman he admired, only for her to return home as the laid back, uninhibited Jasmine he got to see in private? Because that was what he wanted.

A lifetime of this.

He watched with a held breath as Jasmine moved down his body. She had briefly teased him with her mouth that night at the club and he’d never forgotten it. He played that moment over in his head when he lay in his bed alone, when he showered. The memory even popped into his head unbidden when he could do nothing about it. When he was at work. In a meeting.

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