Page 47 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4
Except she’s not afraid, and I know, because I know what fear looks like. I have an intimate acquaintance with it. It rests in my heart like a sliver of glass and I do everything I can to overcome it.
Fear that someone will hurt my Olympia.
Fear that someone will take her away from me. Again.
But that’s not going to happen, not now. I’ve insulated both myself and her with all the power and money I can get, and I’m not going to stop, because a person can never have too much power and money. Especially when there are people to protect.
‘I see,’ I say softly, not making any move. ‘So are you afraid of me, Katla? Or perhaps it’s yourself that you’re afraid of?’
Her chin is firm, yet her mouth is soft and her gaze drops to my lips. It’s only for the briefest second, but I see it. And I know what it means. The electricity in the air between us builds, as does the heat.
‘Afraid of myself?’ She tries to sound disdainful, but the huskiness in her voice spoils it. ‘Are you kidding?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I told you—I’m always serious when it comes to women.’
She’s looking at me now from beneath her silvery lashes, and once again her gaze wavers. ‘I’m not afraid,’ she says.
‘Then explain your pulse,’ I say softly. ‘And how fast you’re breathing, the way your eyes are darkening and…’ I lean down a touch more, her lips a breath away ‘…the way you keep looking at my mouth.’
‘I’m not,’ she whispers, very definitely looking at my mouth.
I could kiss her right now. All I need is to bridge that tiny gap and brush her mouth with mine. She’d let me, I can see how caught in this mutual heat she is. She wouldn’t protest.
But that would feel like giving away a fine poker hand, and I’m not going to do that. I haven’t got where I am today by giving away my best cards.
I smile, slow and hot, then I straighten. ‘I think we can both agree that my theory has been proved.’
She flushes like a rose in bloom, with both anger and desire. ‘Really? Perhaps I need to do a little test of my own.’
And, before I can move, I feel her warm hand suddenly come down over the fly of my trousers and she grips my cock like she owns it.
CHAPTER FOUR
Katla
Shock flares inhis amber gaze and I feel a twist of deep satisfaction.
He wasn’t expecting that, was he? I didn’t expect it myself. It was only that the way he’d come closer and closer…caging me against the table, towering over me like a vast oak tree…made me feel…breathless. Then he came even nearer, his body so hot, like a furnace, and he smelled of cedar forests, warm, dry earth and some kind of masculine spice that made my mouth water. His melted-honey gaze was a trap I couldn’t get out of, and when he leaned even closer, his mouth so close to mine…
I have never enjoyed sex. With John, I gave him what he wanted, but I didn’t take much pleasure from the act myself. It was being close to someone that mattered more to me.
So it was disturbing to feel the blood rushing hot in my veins when Ulysses came near, and a melting kind of pressure between my thighs. An ache. An insistent…need. Not to mention feeling so out of breath and almost hypnotised by a single look.
Kissing is not sexy to me either, but I kissed John because he liked it. Yet when I thought Ulysses was going to kiss me, I’d…wanted him to. And then, when he pulled away, I felt bereft…then angry.
He was playing with me, I was sure, and it felt as if he was using this strange new desire against me. I didn’t want him to be right. I didn’t want to fail this silly test of his. I wanted to prove that I was as uninterested in him as I’d told him I was. Yet it doesn’t matter how badly I want those things; my body isn’t lying, and I don’t like lies. Even the ones I tell myself.
Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps the person I’m afraid of is me.
Still, I have to do something. I have to take back some of the power he’s stripped away from me, so I do the first thing that comes into my head. I grab him where he’s the most sensitive.
It’s not until I do it, though, that I realise my mistake. I should have pushed him away instead, not touched him…there. But I did and now my hand is on him and I can see the reaction in his eyes. That blaze of heat is like a solar flare.
He’s long, and very,veryhard, and my breath catches. And all I can think as I stare up into his amber eyes, watching the look in them burn, is that I have done this to him. This ruthless, powerful man with his insolent ultimatum is hard for me.
He thought he was playing with me but now I’m playing with him, and I don’t know why that feels like a triumph, yet it does. Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t shy away from my touch and he doesn’t hide his desire. He’s blatant and carnal and the starkness of his honesty takes my breath away. He’s not threatened by his own desires and doesn’t seem to be afraid that I might use them against him. He’s not made vulnerable by them the way I am, and now I wonder what it would be like to feel that way myself.
He’s right—youareafraid.
