Page 85 of Modern Romance June 2025 1-4

She probably needn’t have indulged in the performance of spilling perfectly good champagne over herself, but she’d wanted him to be hungry for her. She’d wanted him to forget everything but her.

And certainly the wet fabric of her dress was doing that work for her.

The flare of desire in his eyes had been the only warning she’d had before he’d leaned forward and dragged her into his lap.

Now she didn’t pull away from his hungry kiss, pressing her body to his instead, and kissing him back just as hungrily.

The feral growl he made in the back of his throat delighted her, and she wasn’t displeased when he ripped apart the thin silk of her dress. He put one hand between her shoulder blades to support her as he bent her back, pulling the fabric aside, kissing his way down her throat, over her collarbones to her breasts, still damp with champagne. She gasped as pleasure lanced through her. His mouth had found one of her nipples and was drawing hard on it.

His free hand tugged at more of the dress fabric, ripping it all the way down so that there was nothing between them but his clothing and the little lacy pair of knickers she wore beneath the dress.

His arms came around her, supporting her as he bent her back further, his mouth resting in the hollow of her throat as he shifted one hand down between her thighs, stroking her, making pleasure ripple everywhere.

She sighed, giving herself up to him, to the movement of his hands and the way he kissed and tasted her body, hot and hungry. But he often took the lead in the bedroom, and while she enjoyed that very much, since her experience was limited, she was starting to get more confident.

This was about him, and she wanted to give to him as much as he gave to her.

So she took his hands and held them still. ‘Let me,’ she murmured. ‘Let me give you pleasure, Your Majesty.’

He stilled, his gaze full of flames. He was such an intense man and he felt things so deeply, she could see it. It was his love for his country that drove him, but maybe there was also something else. Something deeper. She wanted to know what it was, what motor kept driving him on. And perhaps if she gave him some release he’d tell her.

She lifted her hands to his face and cupped it gently between her palms, then she leaned in and began to kiss him…butterfly-light kisses on his forehead, the strong bridge of his nose, his eyelids, his cheekbones. Raining down soft, tender kisses that ended with the brush of her lips against his.

‘No,’ he murmured in protest. ‘I need you now, lioness.’

‘And you can have me. Just be patient.’

She kept on kissing his face, then his throat, her hands moving to the buttons of his shirt and undoing them. Then she was stroking his chest, tracing the hard muscle beneath his satiny skin, worshipping him.

‘Guinevere,’ he growled in warning as her hands strayed to his stomach, and then further, flicking open the button of his trousers and then the zip, sliding her hand beneath the cotton of his underwear and finding him long and thick and hard.

‘Guinevere,’he said again, his voice guttural.

‘Shh…’ she murmured, stroking him gently, tracing the length of him with her fingers. She kissed his mouth as she did so, tasting him lightly. A tender kiss, slowly—very slowly—deepening into something sweeter and hotter.

He made a sound deep in his throat, but he didn’t move. He’d gone very still, and she could feel the tension in his muscles. But it wasn’t denial. It was almost as if he’d never felt like this before and wasn’t sure what to do.

And perhaps he hadn’t. Had anyone ever been tender with him? Had anyone ever been soft? Had anyone ever touched him as if he was beautiful, a work of art you had to be careful with?

His breathing was fast, and normally that was a sign that he’d take charge, put her on her back and thrust inside her. Yet he remained still. As if he was waiting.

She reached down between them, slipping aside her underwear, then gripped him and positioned him before raising herself slightly, easing down, feeling the delicious glide of him as he slid inside her.

‘Guinevere,’ he whispered again, his voice roughened and yet soft. But it wasn’t a warning this time. It was something else. Something that held a note that made her heart tighten in response.

She looked into his beautiful face, met the glorious silver blaze in his eyes. And then she moved, watching the flames in his eyes burn higher and higher. Kissing him tenderly and gently, she let her hands stroke his shoulders and his chest, loving the feel of him. Surrounding herself with him.

The pleasure grew, building high and hot, and there was an urgency to it but also a gentleness, and a sweetness that made her want to stay like this for ever. Then, just as it began to get too much for her, he slipped his hand between her thighs, down to where they were joined, and stroked her. At the same time his other hand settled heavily into the small of her back, holding her to him.

The pleasure broke, exploding slowly and beautifully like a firework, a peaceful, inexorable tide that made them both shake before touching down lightly back to earth.

She put her head against his shoulder, leaning bonelessly against him as his hand cupped the back of her head, his thumb moving gently over the curve of her skull.

He didn’t speak, and neither did she, both of them content to sit in the small bubble of peace they’d created for themselves. And beneath her hands she felt the hard muscles of his shoulders and chest finally relax.

‘I can’t help feeling,’ he said, his voice deep and rough with the after-effects of their passion, ‘that I have been expertly seduced by my own wife.’

She smiled against his shoulder. ‘Yes, you have. And I’ll have you know I’m quite pleased with myself.’

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