Page 189 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

Mia kicked the dress away, another breathless laugh escaping her as the gown lay crumpled and discarded on the floor.

‘That’s haute couture,’ she murmured as Santos filled his hands with her breasts again. ‘I should hang it up.’

‘All I wanted to do with that dress was take it off,’ he muttered as they fell back on the bed in a tangle of limbs. He swallowed Mia’s gurgle of laughter with another consuming kiss.

This, he thought as his mind hazed with both happiness and pleasure, was all he’d ever wanted. All he’d ever need.

CHAPTER NINE

MIALAYSPRAWLEDsupine on the bed as Santos knelt above her, his eyes blazing, his cheeks slashed with colour. It was both thrilling and humbling, to see and know how much he wanted her. Tofeelso wanted rocked her to her core...again.

With fingers that trembled, Santos began to unbutton his shirt. Mia raised herself onto her elbows. She was naked save for a scrap of lace, and she felt completely unashamed, unafraid.

‘Let me do it,’ she said, and reached for him.

Santos gazed down at her, his expression serious and intent, his eyes still blazing as she slipped the buttons from their holes. Now it was her fingers that were trembling. They’d been together more times than they could count, and yet it had never felt as intense as this; as momentous, assacred. The past still lay behind them, littered with their mistakes, and yet the future felt endless and shimmering with possibility as it stretched ahead.

Mia slipped his shirt from his shoulders, revelling in the feel of his bronzed, burnished skin, the muscles taut and hard beneath her questing hands. Then she went to his belt buckle, working it from the loops. It slithered out and she tossed it to the floor as Santos chuckled softly.

The button came next, and then she eased his trousers from his lean hips, conscious of the proud, straining length of him brushing the back of her hand as she pulled the fabric free. Santos kicked off the trousers and then divested himself of his boxer shorts as well. Mia’s breath came out in an unsteady rush as she took in the full, glorious sight of him, so utterly, potently male.

‘I think,’ he said softly, his fingers skimming up her thigh, ‘You have too many clothes on.’

She let out a choked laugh. ‘Too many clothes?’ She was wearing only a thong.

‘Yes, too many clothes.’ He hooked his finger underneath the scrap of lace and slowly, with a smile curving his mouth, tugged it downwards. Something in Mia trembled as he divested her of her last bit of armour. She was naked, utterly open and vulnerable to him, and in that moment she felt it.

Santos must have sensed something of this, for he eased down beside her, pillowing her head beneath his arm, his other hand resting on her bare midriff, bronzed fingers splayed and his thumb brushing her pubic bone. For a few seconds they simply lay there, both of them already breathing hard, yet also finding a surprising sweetness and peace in the moment. That sense of vulnerability eased, and as Mia twisted to look up at him he cupped his hand with her cheek, his thumb brushing her lips.

‘I’ve missed you,querida.’

Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them back as she pressed a kiss to the pad of his thumb. ‘I’ve missed you too.’

He bent his head to brush a soft kiss across her mouth that started out tenderly and then deepened, the passion they’d just felt for each other blazing high and hot once more. Her legs tangled with his as she wrapped her arms around him, pressing closer. Santos slid his hand down to cup her bottom, bringing her into achingly exquisite contact with the most male part of him. She pressed even closer and he groaned.

‘I want to go slowly with you,’ he muttered against her mouth, and she let out a shaky laugh.

‘Maybe slow is overrated.’ She pushed up against him, thrilled to feel him press back as pleasure flared deep within her. ‘We can do slow later.’

He slid his hand down towards her legs, cupping his hand between them, feeling how ready she already was for him.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, Santos.’ She pushed against his fingers, desperate now for the feel of him inside her. ‘I am very sure.’

With a throaty chuckle, he rolled on top of her and braced on his forearms. He paused to glance down at her, his expression serious. Even though everything in her was aching, straining, for him to join their bodies, in that space of a second she felt that something even more important was happening.

‘I love you, Mia,’ he said, his voice low and sure. Her heart stuttered and for a second she could only blink up at him as he slid inside her in one sinuous movement. Out of both instinct and need she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist, drawing him even more deeply into herself. Her mind was reeling from what he’d said, but her body’s response to and need for him felt even more overwhelming. As he began to move in slow, sliding strokes, she matched his rhythm, the words he’d just said pulsing inside her in beat with their bodies.

I love you, Mia. I love you, Mia. I love you, Mia...

Santos’s breath came out in a ragged gasp and Mia let out a cry as their bodies moved in sync, reaching higher and higher until her climax exploded through her, her body convulsing around his as a rip tide of pleasure carried her away for a few heavenly minutes.

Santos pressed his lips to the side of her neck as the last shudders of his climax went through him. Mia’s head flopped back on the pillow as she closed her eyes, feeling incredibly sated, her limbs boneless and relaxed.

I love you, Mia...

Had he meant it? He’d never actually said it before. He’d said, ‘I think I’m falling in love with you,’ in a voice full of wonder in those first few crazy weeks, but it had felt like a ‘maybe’ or an ‘if’. Then she’d got pregnant so quickly and it had all started to unravel...

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