Page 189 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

He laughed and suddenly dropped to his haunches, lifting her long skirt up and out of his way in a flagrant move. She just fell back against the wall as he shoved her panties down and exposed her core to his fierce gaze. To his mouth.

‘What are you doing?’ she whispered harshly. But she was so shocked she just let him. So willing she actually widened her stance and bunched her skirt in her hands to hold it high. So thrilled she couldn’t catch her breath.

‘I’m locked in here until I satisfy your demands, no?’ he growled against her.

Utterly overwhelmed, she was unable to resist the temptation he offered.Pleasure.

‘You’re stunning,’ he ground huskily, trailing his fingers over her thighs.

Never in her life had she been so bold. There was no embarrassment—nothingcould survive this heat other than the desire that fuelled it. She craved his touch. She’d been craving it all night. And it was his fault. He’d awakened this hunger and with a singular circling motion she demanded he sate it.

To her gasping delight he teased his fingers over her and his mouth followed. There was no thinking. Only feeling. Wanting. Every stroke. Every lap of his tongue. She quaked as pleasure fired along every nerve. She wanted him to devour her and he did. Until a high-pitched moan startled her back to earth.

‘Oh,no.’ She bucked her hips to break his hold as she realised that mewling cry had come from her. She’d turned off the cameras and intercom, but the walls weren’t going to be soundproof enough for the explosion coming upon her.

‘Bite on this,’ he ordered harshly.

She blinked at him uncomprehendingly, stunned to see that he’d risen.

‘You’re seconds from screaming your head off,’ he added gruffly. ‘Bite on this.’

Her mouth slackened and he shoved his silk handkerchief in before dropping back to his knees. She moaned in mortification but now it was muffled. Helplessly, hopelessly relieved, she closed her eyes and moaned again. His broad, strong hands squeezed her thighs, parting her for his mouth. She gripped her skirt as he took her so intimately with his tongue again. His fingers teased. Filling her just enough to be devastating. She rocked her hips, wanting more of him to ride. He gave her another. Pulsing, then plunging faster and deeper, he sucked too deliciously hard right where she was too devastatingly sensitive. He pulled her under with a relentless rhythmic onslaught that destroyed the last of her defences until she lost it entirely on a shriek of surrender. She gritted her teeth into the gag, grateful it suffocated her screams and then she was so far gone she simply didn’t care any more.

Because he didn’t stop, even as she arched uncontrollably and sobbed in uncontrolled, feral ecstasy, he gave her more. Holding her harder, his fingers flicking faster, his mouth hot and hungry until her legs gave out. That’s when he caught her, rising to his feet and pressing her body against the wall with his. She trembled uncontrollably as he took the material from her mouth, wiped his own with it before shoving it into his pocket. She watched, stunned and turned on again by the total intimacy of that act and the even more carnal one preceding it. She’d never been this intimate. Never let go of everything. Never been as out of control. And she still wasn’t herself. She still wasn’t done. She felt his hardness pressing against her—where she needed him. If it weren’t for the clothes in the way—

‘Please...’ She was barely aware as the raw plea escaped her. Barely aware of what she was asking for. She simply ached, unable to bear the agony of unfulfilled lust.

‘Luscious Elodie,’ he growled as he pinned her. ‘So hedonistic. No wonder...’ He breathed out harshly. His body was primed, pressing close enough to leave an imprint on her. ‘When I finally have you, it will not be in a semipublic place with the possibility of interruption at any moment. It’ll be in a bed, and we’ll have all night and several days beyond to indulge in each other. There’ll be no distractions. No interruptions.’

She shivered at the prospect. Impossibly all the more aroused. Because she believed him. He’d given her the most intense release of her life earlier. He’d just made her brainless.

She was utterly vulnerable. Utterly exposed. He’d turned her into a writhing, hot creature desperate for his touch. Shaken by the intensity of it all, she put her hand to her face to hide. How much she still ached. She heard him mutter something and he pulled back from the blatant thrust of possession into a looser, gentler embrace.

‘You’ll be my sole focus. I’ll be yours. Together we’ll be filthy,’ he said unevenly. ‘But it’ll beafterthe wedding.’

With a muffled sob of laughter, she rested her forehead on his chest and closed her eyes. Sure, she should straighten and take her own weight. Not lean on him like some weakling. But she was too wobbly. Still tooneedy. Lust still howled within her. If she was the confident woman he thought she was, she would prowl down his body now—freely purr on all fours, undo his trousers, tease him as he’d teased her. She would touch him. She would take him in her mouth. She would rub—

She clenched her fist, unthinkingly pressing it into Ramon’s chest as she tried to stop the X-rated images in her head turning her on all over again. She’d never wanted to do that with anyone. Ever. She’d had sex only with her ex-husband and he’d never made her feelthat. Never made her want to reciprocate in such—

How was she to have known? Why couldn’t she have known? She squeezed her fist more tightly,hatingher humiliating past. She’d never initiated sex. She’d invented reasons not to be intimate. She’d lied to her ex-husband. Repeatedly. But she’d been begging Ramon just now.Begging. Because the pleasure she’d just experienced, she wanted again.

A little thrown by the intensity of the storm he’d just incited, Ramon adjusted his footing to steady them both. He kept hold of her—she was trembling too much to stand on her own two feet. He covered her tightly held fist with his hand and tried to claw back his own calm while she rode out the emotion sweeping through her in a series of violent aftershocks.

She still wouldn’t look at him. And she’d looked almost stricken in the immediate aftermath of her orgasm, she’d pressed her face into his shirt and hadn’t lifted it since. Was she embarrassed? He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Not possible.

Yet last night her ‘no’ had emerged just as she’d been about to come apart on his dining table. At the time he’d thought she’d wanted him to stop but he’d realised she’d been muttering toherself. Today it had almost happened again until he’d thought to silence her self-consciousness. He’d wanted her to have the release. Wanted to taste it. Wanted it again now.

It was shocking how much he wanted it.

‘Don’t think you have to hide your hunger from me,’ he growled. ‘I am not so prehistoric to think a woman has any less right to pleasure than a man. You like sex. So do I.’

Her wordless, quivering response almost unravelled him. If they weren’t in a semipublic place he’d be plunging balls-deep inside her right now. He tensed, battling the surging hungerhecouldn’t yet control. Winning her acquiescence to his—frankly mad—scheme had him wildly exhilarated. That’s why he’d just lost his mind and gone down on her like some ravenous sex beast, right? He held her more tightly as another intense wave washed through them both. This was the most savage ache he’d ever experienced. She smelt good. Tasted good. Felt good. He wanted more. Now. Because she was still hungry too. As aroused as he.

It was unfathomable that he felt this rabid about getting her to bed. He’d thought he’d escaped his father’s weakness. He’d always been able to walk away from a woman easily enough. But he’d do almost anything to have Elodie. And thatwasdangerous. She freely admitted being a liar and an adulteress. But the intensity of their sexual chemistry would be expunged and if he had to feel this kind of madness, at least it was with a woman who was experienced enough to know how it would end and who wouldn’t be hurt.

‘What you did before you met me is your business. Your past is your past,’ he muttered, reminding himself of that reality more than anything.

That was when she lifted her head. ‘I don’t need your absolution.’

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