Page 96 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

Jolie bucked against him as she shook on and on and on.

He rolled from the bed, stripping his clothes from his body and more than a little surprised to find that his own hands betrayed the slightest bit of unsteadiness. As if he was as affected as she was.

As if,something in him whispered,you’re not in control of this at all.

But there was no time to worry about things like that, not when she was naked and still quivering on his bed.

And this time, when he crawled onto the bed beside her, he tucked her beneath him. He propped himself up on his elbows, settled between her legs, and finally pressed the hardest part of him into all that sweet softness that he could still taste on his lips.

That he imagined he would always taste, always yearn for, always dream of—like the ghost of her was forming all around him as they breathed like this, together.

Her eyes were dreamy and lost. And he watched as awareness took her over, as her body shifted and flushed as she felt all that heat and thickness that waited there for her.

What he hoped she did not understand was that he was holding on to his control by the slimmest of threads.

Her breath shuddered out of her. She slid her hands up to hold on to his neck.

And Apostolis expected her to say something cutting now. To bring this back to the ground he knew well.

Jolie didn’t say a word. It was all blue eyes and that same expectant wildfire that burned in him, too.

And so, feeling lesstriumphantthan he expected to and something far more likereverent,he thrust deep into his wife. His stepmother.

His, something in him asserted.

But she sucked in a harsh breath. And he felt the way her body flinched beneath him.

Apostolis froze.

Her eyes were closed, squeezed tight, and he waited without moving even an inch, aware of every single place she was clenched too tight.

“Breathe,” he told her quietly. Intently. “I apologize. I didn’t realize it had been so long for you.”

Slowly, carefully, he felt her settle beneath him. Only when she released the nails she’d dug into the back of his neck did he even understand that she’d pierced him in the first place.

But it wasn’t until she opened up her eyes that he relaxed, just slightly.

“Jolie,” he began, but stopped dead.

Because the way she was looking at him...

Her eyes were wide, and too bright with what he could not pretend he didn’t know were unshed tears. And she said not one word.

Still, he understood.

Her tightness. Her tenseness. One small breath when anyone else might have screamed, and no matter that she’d found her pleasure twice already.

He couldn’t believe it.

He didn’twantto believe it.

“You are a virgin,” he said, a flat statement of fact.

She closed her eyes for another moment, giving him entirely too much time to wonder how anyone’s eyelashes could be so long, so thick. When she opened them again, the brightness that had been so ripe with tears was gone.

But there was still a softness there that hadn’t been there before.

A vulnerability he had not known she possessed.

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