Page 157 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

He was rigid with it now. Painful desire, and something else. Something he couldn’t place.

The day he’d readied their new contract, three more years to explore the depths of their desire, he’d felt a contentment. An easiness he’d never had. Because for once, he’d not felt the urge for more, as Cappetta men always did. To climb higher peaks, or to parachute over more perilous terrains. His only urge was simply to keep her.

He felt that now, alongside his desire. Contentment.

He wasn’t so naive. This obsession with her, his little crush, would end.Eventually. And then and only then would he end it.

But not yet.

‘Will you let me take you to bed?’ he asked, because that was what he needed. A bed and her in it.

There was nothing else to want. Nothing elseheneeded. Only her flesh. Only her body. Only sex.

‘There will be no need to rush. No need to be quick. And I won’t be quick, Emmy,’ he promised. A promise he’d keep like all the others he’d made to her. ‘I will take my time with you. Savour you.’

‘Savour me?’ she asked, her lips parting on a mew.

It fed him.

Revived him.

His neck stiff with tension, he nodded his confirmation.

‘Slowly,’ he promised. ‘I will savour every inch of you.’

He leaned down until his mouth hovered above the soft flesh beneath her ear and whispered, ‘Will you come with me, Emmy?’

He pulled back just enough to watch as her blue eyes sought his and he let her hold them captive. Let her search their depths. Because he knew what she would see. Only the heat between them.

Tentatively, her fingers rose to his waist, travelled farther up, with feather-light precision. With splayed fingers and open palm, her hand sat on his chest.

Just like it had been at the beginning of them.

Then, slowly, she moved her hand from his chest and reached for his hand. And claimed it.

‘I’ll come with you.’

When he looked down at their hands, he saw their gold wedding bands glistening. Reminding him of the promises they’d shared with one another. The rules they’d vowed to obey.

She trusted him to take her back there. Back to the marriage they’d had before. Could still have by following the rules they had created.

Because without the rules there was no them.

His fingers tightened around hers.

‘Come,’ he rasped, and tugged her down the white stone path, back through the double doors.

Soon, so very soon, their clothes would be strewn on every surface, and they would at last be in bed, together. And they would stay there. Stay there until his obsession died.

With every step across the marbled foyer of the Cappetta hotel, Emma’s skin tingled with anticipation. It spread up from her toes, up the backs of her calves, up the muscles in her thighs and pooled at the intimate heart of her.

Then it radiated out in waves.

Neither had spoken. But still he held her hand. Still, she held his.

Even as they entered the private lift to their suite, even as the steel doors closed.

Side by side, they stood, and the silence pulsed.

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