Page 175 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

‘Kiss me,’ she said, because she needed just one kiss. One last kiss. To feel the rush of his lips. The softness of his mouth. And then she would tell him. Then she would let him go.

She’d let him close the door on them. Lock her out. Because what else could she do? He’d never lied to her. He’d never broken the rules. But she had. She was breaking them by being here. By not being strong enough, the day she’d left Mayfair, to tell him the truth, and ask for a divorce.

‘You must sleep, Emmy.’ Dark eyes held hers. ‘And when you are rested—’ he stepped into her space and the heat of him, the scent of him, a smell unique to him, entered her pores and her heart sang ‘—we will talk about what’s next. What’s next for us.’

He lifted his hand, and with an open palm, he placed it on her cheek. Cradled it. Swiped the pad of his thumb across her cheekbone. And she wanted to lean into his softness. Lean against his strength because she was weak.

She was her mother.

Dante would never—

Is it love?

Was that what she was feeling now? Because she might not have felt it when she left. But it felt different now. Stronger.

Not the lie of love she’d watched her mother chase all her life, but the love in her mum’s books. The books Emma had stolen to read in the garden. Stories of a love that recognised not just the flesh, but the person underneath it. Saw beneath skin and bone and stared at their soul. A mirror image of themselves.

Was this what her mother had longed for all those years? What she’d craved? Waited for to her detriment? For someone to let her in. To know what each other needed and to respond to that need with care and consideration. To keep each other safe from the noise—from the hardness—and take care of each other softly.

Dante had treated her softly. Gently, he’d claimed her and their marriage when she didn’t even remember what she’d done. She’d run fast and far away from him. From all the things growing inside her. And still they grew. Her heart bulged in its confines. Strained to be released from its bony cage.

‘Kiss me, please,’ she begged.‘Now.’She needed his mouth on hers. She needed to say with her lips what she couldn’t find the words to say. Didn’t want to say.

‘One kiss,’ he breathed, and it was all she wanted. One last kiss before he thrust her from him. Called her a liar, a betrayer. An infiltrator. And—

His hand slid down her arm, sneaked beneath her coat and claimed her hip. He pulled, and she followed. Let him mould her body to his.

How perfectly they fit. How perfectly her body aligned with his.

She lifted her hand to his shoulder, clung to it—to him—and watched his mouth descend. Felt the warmth of his breath feather her lips. And she opened for him. Parted her lips for his.

She closed her eyes as his hands claimed her face. She pressed her palms to his cheeks and held his face just as carefully. Just as softly.

His lips met hers. Brushed against them so softly. So tenderly. And she wanted to sob—wail her distress, but she held it in, pushed her mouth against his harder and thrust her tongue inside his mouth. And she felt it. The rush. The headiness of his possession as his tongue pushed inside her mouth and met hers. And she kissed him. Harder. Deeper. She pushed all those feelings inside her chest into this kiss.

She let him taste the ferociousness of them. Of these feelings she’d run away from in Mayfair. She’d fought it that day. This knowing she wanted more. Needed more of him. Until she could no longer fight it and ran away before she could confess it.

Emma didn’t fight it now. She let it drive her. Her tongue. Her kiss. She kissed him with need, with longing for all the things she wanted and knew he didn’t. She kissed him with her goodbye. She kissed him with everything she’d never allowed herself to feel. With warmth. With passion. With need.With love.

Something fundamental had shifted between them. Changed. They were different.Shewas different.Shewas changed. And he’d done it to her. He’d shown her tenderness, passion, cared for her softly, and she’d transformed because of him.

He was right. The night they’d met the sex had been carnal. Their relationship passionate. Intense.More.And that’s all they’d ever wanted, all they’d ever claimed from one another.

But tonight, and since her fall, he’d been...different. Softer and more patient. Gentle. Never had their relationship been gentle. Never had they talked. Never had she asked questions. Never had he allowed it. Never had he been around long enough. Never had she understood why everything they’d agreed to meant so very much to them both. Why, they were a match in and out of bed.

She understood now.

‘Emmy...’ he moaned into her mouth, and she ached. Her heart ached. He knew her. He knew her name.

She tore her mouth away from his, and it was agony to end their last kiss.

‘Dante,’ she began and kissed the tip of his chin. ‘Dante,’ she repeated and kissed his cheek. ‘Dante,’ she said again, and applied her lips to the softness of his other cheek. ‘I know your name, Dante,’ she said, and this time the tears built as she brushed her lips across his closed eyelid and then the other. ‘I know your face,’ she said, and dropped her hand from his face. From the warmth of him. She stepped back, dislodging his hands, his body, from hers. ‘I know who you are,’ she said, moving backwards, back towards the lift. And it hurt to be so far away from him, and yet so close. ‘I knowyou,’ she said, and it trembled, her voice. Her words.

They recognised each other, didn’t they? Were drawn to each other without rhyme or reason. Without logic. Their bodies knew, if not their minds, not their hearts, that they belonged together. And they’d lied to themselves, created rules and signed contracts to make the illogical logical. They’d given themselves a way to understand it. This connection that ran more than skin-deep. It was more than the sharing of heat between flesh. Bodies. It was deeper. It was a connection of the souls.

Soulmates.

She recognised his soul, didn’t she? She’d recognised it the very first night, and she’d thrown caution to the wind, broken her every vow to be with him. To have more of him.

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