Page 17 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 1-4

He broke the kiss and pulled back, stood up straight.

Sadie was unselfconscious in her nakedness—she needed Quin too much. His dark gaze feasted on her flesh, taking in every dip and hollow. She was filled with urgency and reached for him, undoing the buttons on his shirt, breath fast, panicky with need, in case this moment somehow dissolved and she lost him again.

You didn’t lose him...you walked away, reminded a little voice.

Sadie ignored it. Clearly Quin was not ready to hear what she had to say, and maybe she still wasn’t ready to tell him either. There was so much unspoken between them and maybe this was the only way to defuse it. Then maybe they could talk like rational adults.

Quin was naked now. Sadie wasn’t aware of having removed his trousers and underwear. Maybe he had. But she didn’t care. She felt as if she could finally breathe again.

She reached out and touched his chest, putting her hands to his warm skin. Her fingers trapped his nipples, the light dusting of hair over his pectorals. Her gaze took in the lean muscles of his stomach and down, to narrow hips and the place where he was magnificent and proud.Hardfor her.

She wrapped a hand around him and heard his indrawn breath. She looked up and felt dizzy. His face was stark with the same need that was coursing through her own blood.

He took her hand off him and said, ‘No time. I need you now.’

He took Sadie’s hand and she let herself be led into the bedroom. Quin let her go for a moment, disappearing into the bathroom. Sadie sat down on the bed, her legs weak. She was trembling all over. She couldn’t believe this was happening. Was it a dream?

Quin reappeared, his tall, muscular body gleaming like burnished bronze in the low lights. He’d always been supremely at ease naked. That was helped by the fact that he was more beautiful than any man could be, but also because he had an innate confidence that Sadie had always envied.

Now she knew it came from being brought up as a member of one America’s most venerated families. Something he’d kept from her. Her guts twisted. They had so much to discuss... But, weakly, she pushed it all aside and watched as Quin rolled a protective sheath onto his erection.

She hadn’t known there was protection in the bathroom. Did he use this house when he brought lovers over? That had to be it. To keep his home and personal life separate. A little knife lodged in her heart as she thought of him taking lovers here, but of course she had no right to be hurt. Not after what she’d done.

Then Quin stood before her and every thought went out of her head.

He said, ‘Move back on the bed.’

Sadie somehow managed to get her limbs to move. She lay back and watched as Quin came over her, muscles rippling. She remembered how it had always been between them. So intense. She quivered inwardly. Was she ready for this again? She’d never be ready... But she knew she needed it like she needed oxygen. To keep breathing. To stay alive.

Quin looked at her, and she felt the flush of blood rising to her skin under his gaze.

He said roughly, ‘You haven’t changed.’

Sadie would have refuted that if she’d been able to speak. She felt like a different person. She’d broken inside when she’d had to walk away from Quin and Sol, and she didn’t know if those jagged pieces would ever heal. But he wouldn’t want to hear that.

‘You haven’t changed either,’ she said, feeling shy for a second.

His gaze met hers and she almost gasped at the swirling vortex of emotion she glimpsed before he lowered his lids and masked his eyes from her. Maybe he had changed too. Although, as much as he’d told her he loved herbefore, she couldn’t imagine that he’d loved her more than she had him. And that love had certainly died with her disappearance.

He rested on his hands over her, his body long and sleek. Jaw stubbled. Mouth tempting. To stop any more thoughts intruding, and robbing her of this moment, Sadie reached up for him. ‘Please, Quin. I need you.’

He hesitated for a moment, and Sadie had a few seconds of blood-curdling fear that he’d planned on bringing her to the brink like this only to humiliate her at the last moment. The old Quin she’d known wouldn’t have ever done anything so cruel, but this man was not the same. Physically, maybe, but in every other way not the same.

But he put an arm under her back, arching her up to him. Sadie widened her legs around him, tacitly telling him what she wanted. She bit her lip. And then before she could take another breath Quin was sliding into her.

She gasped at the sensation. She’d forgotten what it was like...and yet she’d forgotten nothing. He was stretching her wide, and it had been four years, so it bordered on being painful.

Quin stopped. ‘Sadie?’

But she could already feel the way her body was accommodating him, relearning his shape, accepting him.

Breathless, she said, ‘It’s fine... I’m fine. Don’t stop...please.’

Slowly he started to move...in and out. An age-old dance. He was the only man she’d ever slept with, and she had to bury her head in Quin’s shoulder for a moment, in case he saw the emotion bubbling upwards at the realisation that she wanted him to be the only man she ever slept with. Forever.

But that was a dream she had no right to now.

All she had was this present moment.

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