Page 148 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

Of course he had, but he’d met her every need as well as his own.

‘And your mother?’ she asked, her eyes fixed on his. Watching.Waitingfor whatever it was she was seeking in his answer.

‘My mother,’ he said, unsure how to take this conversation forward. How to expose bits of himself he never had before. To find this common ground he knew they didn’t have. ‘My mother has no influence in my life.

‘Why not?’

‘She gave birth to me and left to start a new life.’ Something hot and unknown bubbled in his chest. ‘She was out the door as soon as they cut the umbilical cord.’

She shivered again. ‘Without you?’

‘I had my father.’

‘Sounds to me like you had no one,’ she said. He could see the goosebumps covered her flesh now, highlighted by the soft amber lights flooding the terrace. She was cold. And he knew several ways to warm her. None that she wanted.

She was right, wasn’t she?

He’d always been alone.

Untilher.

He dropped his jacket over her shoulders and held on to the lapels.

‘And now we have each other,’ he said, and he knew it was a lie. They’d had each other for a time. A time until he didn’t want her. Or she didn’t want him.

The silence was palpable.

He felt it. The shift. The rise in her shoulders. The absence of breath leaving her lips.

He resisted the urge to thrust his nose into her hair. Grip the hair caressing the flesh between her shoulder blades and draw her to him. Kiss the exposed flesh beneath her ear and taste her. Move his mouth down her neck and bite the delicate flesh of her shoulder. And step back into familiar ground. To take them both back. Back to the beginning.

But there was noback, was there? Only this. Only now. Onlyher.

And he’d agreed to her demand of no more kisses, even when that was all he desperately wanted to do. To close the distance between them.

To sink into their connection. A deep connection that was always there beneath the surface.

A connection to something he couldn’t see. Nature.God, maybe.

It was just there.

Humming.

And it was too loud. Too much.

But he wouldn’t allow it to happen. Couldn’t.

A kiss without heat.

He did not want her softness.

He didn’t need it if it was not given freely.

He pulled away from her.

‘Go to bed, Emma,’ he commanded roughly.

‘To bed?’ she husked, and he knew he could lead her there if he wanted. That this time she’d welcome him.

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