Page 108 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4
She shook her head and sighed before lifting her head to kiss him. ‘Not for food.’
It wasn’t possible that he could be hard again so soon but he was, and when she kissed him again, sliding inside her felt the most natural thing in the world.
Lydia opened her eyes to find herself entwined in Alexis’s arms and the room bathed in a dusky light that told her the sun would soon be lost to the horizon.
Gently trying to extract herself from his hold without waking him, she was foiled from escaping when he tightened the arm around her waist.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he murmured sleepily.
‘The bathroom.’
He sighed as if being put upon. ‘Okay, I suppose I can allow that.’
‘You are too kind.’
‘I know.’
Giggling softly, she lifted her head to kiss him, her chaste display of affection morphing into a full-blown passionate kiss when Alexis’s fingers speared her hair and his tongue slid into her mouth.
After what felt like a bucketful of kisses, she finally wriggled free and managed to make her liquid legs carry her to the bathroom.
There was a semi-stranger looking back at her in the bathroom mirror. Lydia had met her only once before: the morning after her second night with Alexis. Then, she had gazed at her reflection with sorrow clutching her heart that the most magical time of her life had to end, a little bit like she’d felt as a child when all the lights from the Christmas and New Year celebrations were taken down and all the joy they represented was packed away for what had felt to young Lydia as interminably long months. Quickly, though, that flattening of her spirits would dissipate and life would return to normal.
Life had never returned to normal after her weekend with Alexis. Her spirits had never lifted themselves back to normal levels. She’d carried a flatness in her soul she’d never been able to shake.
Now she looked at the semi-stranger, a woman with glowing eyes and rosy cheeks, and wondered why she’d never met her before Alexis. And couldn’t help but wonder when she would disappear and the Lydia who’d always looked back at her would reappear, the Lydia who loved her family dearly but who’d always yearned for something different for herself but had never quite found the courage to go out and get it without detaching the safety nets they provided.
There was nothing safe about Alexis. He came without a safety net. He might dress in suits like her father and brother but he was thrilling and dangerous, everything they weren’t, and he was going to break her heart.
She’d made her choice and she wouldn’t lie to herself that she’d made it because she had no choice. She’d agreed to this, and she could spend their marriage hating him and fighting him and making them both miserable, or she could take what they did have together and just enjoy it for as long as it lasted. So long as she kept herself clear-sighted about whatthiswas then she’d be able to protect the parts of her heart Alexis hadn’t yet touched, and then when the time came for her to lie in the bed of her own making she’d be able to lie in it stoically and without complaint. Or at least try.
Back in the bedroom, she crossed to the bed wondering why she didn’t feel any shyness about her naked body in front of him. She knew she had an okay figure but she’d never had that body confidence so many other women had and had never been comfortable with parading her nakedness in front of her partners. But then, they’d never looked at her with such naked appreciation and lust as Alexis did, as he was looking at her now. As if she were the biggest present left under the Christmas tree.
She was about to climb back into bed when her phone started buzzing.
She sighed. She’d had a dim awareness of her phone going off numerous times over the last few hours, reality doing its best to intrude.
‘Ignore it,’ he urged, throwing the sheets back and reaching an arm out to her. ‘This is our wedding night.’
Torn, she bit into her bottom lip. ‘It might be important.’
Eyes gleaming, he pointed to the huge erection he was sporting. ‘More important than this?’
She couldn’t help but laugh, even as the spot between her legs throbbed.
The amusement on his face dimmed a little and he expelled a long breath.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘Just thinking that’s the first time you’ve laughed since I saw you again.’ That flicker in his eyes made a brief return. ‘I was starting to fear I’d never hear it again.’
‘A man like you?’ she said lightly to mask the tendrils of her heart tightening. ‘I didn’t think you were scared of anything.’
His stare was serious. ‘Neither did I.’ And then a smile curved his lips and with a speed and agility no man of his size should have, he twisted over and caught her by the waist, lifting her onto the bed and pulling her on top of him. ‘Now I’ve got you.’
Laughing, she tried to wriggle off, might have succeeded if he hadn’t captured a breast in his mouth.
‘Alexis…’ Her protest died in her throat as a surge of electrical desire pulsed straight from her breast into her groin.
