Page 167 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

She didn’t have to close her eyes. She didn’t have to hide who she was because he knew who she was. She was his wife. He knew her body. What she liked. This was not a one-night stand to receive a perfunctory release.

He knewher. And she wanted to know him too. To give him pleasure. To receive her own. From his lips. From his body. On her. In her.

‘Emmy!’ he shouted, and filled her. Poured himself inside her. And she was lost in the contractions of her body. To his thickness. To his heat.

Emma lost herself to her husband.

Dante’s plan had worked.

His wife was in his bed.

For almost twenty-four hours, she’d given herself to him. And he’d taken everything she was willing to let him have. They’d played out every single one of his fantasies.

He closed his eyes. Stilled the fingers stroking down her spine. Closed his eyes to the blond hair fanned out across his chest. Shut out the warmth of her body against his. Her sated, exhausted body.

He’d done that to her. Fatigued her. Pleasured her until the pleasure had seemed endless. Until she’d begged him to never stop.

He should be elated.

He should be content.

But there was no ignoring it. No ignoring that their connection had widened, deepened. That this thing between them, far from being sated, was more powerful.

It just wouldn’tdie.

And he could take her again, wake her with his kiss and accept his welcome into her body. Drive his need for her out of his body and into hers.

But it would reignite again, he knew. And continue to reignite over and over again.

She asked far too many questions, made him think far too much. Made him forget every rule he’d ever made to keep himself at a distance.

He was trying his best to remember the rules. But she kept forgetting.

And every time she forgot them, every time she asked a question he did not want to hear or think of, he’d remind her what they were. That there was no more, there was no promise of forever, of happily-ever-after. But she persisted. Would not be distracted by sex any longer.

How could he make her understand?

He wanted to be alone. He needed to be away from the bed. Away from her.

The garden flashed in his mind, along with her story of fairy lights and reading books under trees. Where all was still. All was quiet. All was safe from a world that was too loud.

He had a similar place, didn’t he? No flowers, or fairy lights, but a room. A similar place in every country, every city. Somewhere he could go when he needed peace, needed quiet.

He was not so selfish, was he? To leave her behind after...

And yet, perhaps, this was how he could make her understand his need to keep people at a distance. That for him, emotional connection wasn’t something to be embraced but was to be avoided.

So he’d take her with him. To the place in Shinjuku City that he went to when he needed to centre himself, to be alone. He would show her that he wasn’t a stranger to keeping himself distanced.

He swallowed thickly.

He resisted the urge to kiss her. To wake her, as he had too many times to count. Instead, he stroked her. Her hair. Her spine. Her cheek.

‘Emma, wake up.’

She stirred beneath his fingers. Her bare back arching into his touch.

She pushed the hair from her eyes. ‘I’m awake,’ she said, and ran her open palm down his torso.

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