Page 97 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

That scar she’d left in him began to throb, as if it was lengthening, and cutting him deep.

He pulled back, slowly, and then thrust in again, so gentle it almost undid him. But he was focused on her. He watched her pull in a breath, then sigh it out a little.

And he felt the rest of her quiver.

Slightly, but it was there.

“I am told the pain is fleeting,” he said. “We will make sure that it is.”

“Are we awenow?” she asked softly, in a thick voice that sounded nothing like the Jolie he knew. “How lucky that there is physical proof that I’m exactly who I told you I was. No need for you to believe me in any act of faith. No need for you to concern yourself with the reasons why you might be predisposed to distrust me. You can just—”

“Quiet,” he whispered. “You do not have to take every opportunity to fight me, Jolie. Especially not now.”

And when she looked as if she might continue arguing, he kissed her.

It was different from before. It was...seeking.

Penitent, perhaps.

He kissed her over and over while holding himself perfectly still, so that when there was movement again, it was hers.

And he felt something far too close to relief in every slow, incremental movement she made against him. Moving her hips this way, then that. Lifting herself up, then lowering her hips once more.

Slowly, carefully, he let her learn him. He let her find her way back to pleasure.

He let her work herself into a new fire of her own making until she was frowning, not quite complaining, but digging her fingernails into him as if that could make him move with her.

When he did, when he finally took over and set a deep, hard rhythm, she came apart almost instantly.

Still he held himself back, keeping that same, steady, maddeningly slow pace. She flew apart again and then she was back, and wilder. Her eyes too wide and much too blue.

And she knew, now, how to meet his thrusts. How to prolong the drag, then strike sparks with the pump.

She was a marvel, and she was his.

Only and ever his.

And it was that thought, he was certain, that had him breaking from his rhythm. That let his hips find their own intensity as he threw her over the cliff once more.

Only then, at last, did he allow himself to follow.

Only then did he lose himself completely.

It was much later, well into the dark of the night, when she finally stirred beside him again. They had still not turned on a single light in the house and so it was only the moon, rising high outside the windows, that illuminated his bed.

And the way she looked at him was something like shy.

Once again, too many words and too many weapons crowded into him, making him feel tangled up with it all, but he ignored it.

He picked her up, enjoying the silk slide of her skin against his. In the bathroom, he still didn’t turn on any lights. He took her into his expansive shower and set her on the bench. He set the water pressure and the heat, and then he took his place on the bench, too, so that she was seated between his widespread legs, leaning back against his chest.

Then he took his time washing her. Taking care with her body. Worshiping her in an entirely different way.

And when he found traces of her virgin’s blood upon her thighs, he washed it away, murmuring words of regret as he did it.

But in Greek, which he wasn’t sure she entirely understood.

He risked a glance at her, leaning back against his chest with her face tipped up toward him, and found the glint of those clever blue eyes of hers.

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