Page 54 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

‘Pleasure.’ It sounded like a promise, and suddenly her humdrum world of hard work and scrimping her pennies turned into something glorious and golden.

‘Show me, Lex. Make me feel...’

His head lowered, his mouth brushing hers, light as the caress of silk on skin. Yet his touch, his nearness, undid her.

Portia had an instant of trepidation, realising how much he made her feel, even with that tiny caress. After so many barren years it shook her foundations.

But she refused to pull back. Her need was so intense it might scare her if she took time to think about it. So she didn’t. Instead she flung herself into the flames, determined, just for one night, to live to the full.

Besides, she’d lost so much, she refused to lose this opportunity for rare delight. No other man in all those years had made her feel this way.

She grabbed his shoulders, straining up on her toes, bringing her mouth fully against his, demanding a proper kiss.

There was an instant of stillness as their lips joined and then her world took fire.

Something broke within her, a constriction, a barrier. Suddenly she was all molten heat and urgent responsiveness. She moulded herself to his tall frame, a sigh escaping as he lifted her higher, his sure strength only adding to her excitement.

Mouths melded, tongues sliding and exploring, rediscovering tastes and sensations that should have been distant memories, but somehow were achingly familiar.

The beauty of their kiss made the backs of her closed eyes prickle. Not with regret, but because she’d forgotten how wonderful a kiss could be.

‘Portia.’ His voice was gravel and velvet, a trail of arousal that spilled from his lips into hers to wind through her needy body.

She shivered and burrowed closer, wrapping her arms around his neck, pressing into him as if he were the one solid thing in her world. Perhaps he was. Everything else reeled away from her.

‘I need you.’ Lex lifted away from her questing lips until she opened her eyes and met his stormy gaze. She shivered again, reading a carnal excitement there that matched her own. ‘Now.’

It took her dazed mind a second to realise he was asking permission. ‘Yes, now.’

Maturity must have changed her, or her memory was faulty. Avid as she’d been for his attention as a teenager, she couldn’t remember ever feeling this desperate.

She clung on tight as Lex swept her up high against his chest and turned to carry her across the room. Just as well. She wasn’t sure her legs worked.

They passed glowing lamps and walls with exquisite artworks but the furnishings were blurred because her attention was fixed on Lex. The taut, masculine angles of that shadowed jaw. The strong, tanned column of his throat. Those lips, slightly reddened from their kiss. Jewel-bright eyes that tracked from her face to wherever he was carrying her, then back again.

Each sweep of his gaze undid another knot inside her.

They reached a bedroom lit by lamps either side of a vast bed with a counterpane of blue and gold. Blue for his eyes. Gold for the bliss that beckoned.

Portia stifled a shaky laugh at the flight of fancy as Lex lowered her to her feet. She didn’t do flights of fancy anymore.

But tonight is an exception. You can let go, just this once.

Her stockinged feet landed on thick carpet. She must have lost her shoes on the way.

The way he looked at her made her feel...precious. Unique.

A jagged breath snagged in her chest and she wrestled the idea away, shoving it into the same locked place in her mind where she’d relegated painful, dangerous memories. She couldn’t afford to read too much into this.

It’s sex. Purely physical. Nothing else.

‘Tell me you’ve got condoms. Because I haven’t got contraception.’

If she’d thought to ease the fraught expectancy of the moment she failed. Because Lex nodded, his eyes aglow with a promise that notched her need even higher.

He opened a nearby drawer, pulled out a box and put it on the bedside table.

Her eyes widened. Either Lex believed in saving money by buying in bulk or...

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