Page 132 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

He had always known the danger of blurring the line between friendship and sex: once you stepped over that line there was no going back.

But now, pumped up and frustrated, he knew the hormonal heat in his blood was in charge, and the danger warnings were silenced as he began to rationalise the situation. There could be anafterwards... Once the attraction faded there would be a route back to friendship. It just required their keeping things realistic.

The thing he was keeping in the back of his mind was still not front and foremost, and the option of not acknowledging this had been taken away. Nothing could muffle the screaming fact that he wanted this—hewanted her.

Once acknowledged and given oxygen, that want, that primal need, grew exponentially with each passing heartbeat. Heartbeats were the only time scale that made any sense in this sense-free zone. He breathed in the fragrance of her hair, wanting to bury his face in the soft, fiery mesh. The warning bell in his head was playing to a deaf audience. There was a hungry clamour singing through his blood, urging him to touch her.

A part of him recognised that it was crazy to feed this hunger, but his imagination was embracing the crazy even as it moved beyond touching, conjuring an image of him lying between her legs, watching her face, feeling her slim legs wrap around him, pulling him into her warmth...

She read the challenge in his deep-set eyes. It was mingled with something that seemed close to compulsion as he placed a hand on the small of her back, before stepping in to seal their bodies from the waist down, thigh to thigh.

‘All right,’ she croaked, striving for irony as wave after debilitating wave of warmth fluttered through her belly and her knees began to sag. ‘Point proved. You are all man—no doubts at all.’

She was saved from crumbling ignominiously at his feet by the tightening of his hand on her waist. She gasped, her eyes squeezing tight shut, as she felt the carnal imprint of his erection grinding into the softness of her belly.

What would it feel like to have her tingling breasts crushed against his chest, skin to skin?

She clenched her hands into white-knuckled fists to prevent them crawling around his neck and finding out.

‘I haven’t proved my point. Not yet,’ he slurred softly as he angled her face up to his.

His expression was intent as he moved his thumb, allowing it to trace the plump, quivering outline of her lips as he captured her wide green eyes.

Transfixed, Clemmie could only stare into his face. She forgot how to breathe as his eyes grew dark and deep, silver shards lighting the darkness drew her in, captured and held her. The air around them seemed hotter, matching the dancing flames in the stone inglenook fireplace.

She melted into him, aware of the hard maleness of his body as he dragged her closer, his hands sliding into her hair, dragging her head back and exposing the long line of her neck as he kissed his way down the elegant column until he reached the blue-veined pulse throbbing at the base.

Then he reclaimed her mouth. Clemmie was barely aware that the hands at her waist had lifted her until she found herself sitting on the table, with Joaquin standing between her thighs.

She gasped as he stepped in closer.

His grip on her waist loosened as he swore, misinterpreting her gasp. ‘I knew you were lying...’

‘I wasn’t lying. It only hurts when I move my head too quickly. Or breathe. Just joking,’ she added quickly, afraid that he might not kiss her. At that moment she wanted his kiss more than she wanted to breathe.

Oxygen was in very short supply.

So was sanity!

The first brush of his lips across her own was soft, almost a whisper, and then the darkness in his eyes intensified. She wanted to look away, but she was drawn in as he covered her lips with his. She reacted to the skilled sensual intrusion of his tongue with a low moan as the tenderness flicked into hard hunger, demanding a passionate response. The shocking liquid heat between her legs made her squirm against the hardness of his thigh, moaning as she kissed him back.

There is no right,said the voice in his head as he hesitated.There is no wrong.

There is. She thinks we are in a relationship.

There is no tomorrow or yesterday.

Above the primal roar in his blood a small, sane corner of his brain awoke.

Tomorrow she’ll hate you for this lie—and this is all a lie. She thinks you are together. You might be a scoundrel, but you have never lied to a woman—and this is Clemmie.

It felt right. But it wasn’t. Not on any level.

CHAPTER SIX

THEABRUPTREJECTIONas he stepped away felt like a warm shower turning ice-cold.

Clemmie shivered.

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