Page 19 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

He didn’t know how long he lay there, gathering together his breath, stunned and disbelieving that he had allowed himself to walk straight into a honeytrap, as old as time itself. But he didn’t focus on it until after he’d made love to her again, this time ensuring that he brought her to another rapid orgasm, which had her blissfully choking out his name.

And then came the anger.

Kelly lay very still, scarcely daring to breathe, let alone speak. She thought he must be asleep. In a way, she hoped he was because she needed to get her thoughts together and work out what she was going to do when he opened his eyes. First up, she needed to dial down her instinctive reaction, which was to spill out her gratitude and delight and tell him that he was the most incredible lover. She didn’t need to. He must know that. He had been everything she could have hoped for—and more.

The way he had stilled when he had first entered her and tangled his fingers into her hair until the pain had passed. And after that he’d been so…so…wild. He had choked out his own delicious pleasure and then explored her with breathtaking thoroughness, bringing her to another shuddering orgasm, which had made her want to weep with pleasure. A lump rose in her throat. Never in a million years would she have guessed it would be the grouchy and authoritative Romano Castelliari who could make her feel as if she could soar like a bird through the starlit heavens. Who knew?

For a long time she’d worried she wasn’t like other women. Mostly because there weren’t many virgins as old as her. Over time her innocence had become a silent, nagging burden, rather than the badge of pride she’d been brought up to believe in. She’d wondered if her mother’s jaundiced proclamations about how men could never be trusted had scared her off so much that she would never be able to respond to one sexually. That she was…

She remembered the word flung at her by her first and only real boyfriend, when she’d refused to go to ‘first base’—which she had thought was a pretty horrible way to describe touching her breasts. He’d said afterwards that he’d read it in an old book and it was supposed to be ‘ironic’, but at the time…

‘You know there’s a word they use for women like you, don’t you?’

No, she hadn’t known and so, rather stupidly, she had asked him.

‘Frigid. I’m afraid you’re frigid, Kelly.’

Well, she certainly hadn’t been feeling frigid a few minutes ago!

She had been feeling…

She swallowed.

Wanton, yes. But something else, too. As if she’d just discovered a side of herself she hadn’t known existed, which went far deeper than the giving and receiving of pleasure. When Romano had been inside her, she had wanted to weep and marvel at the way she could feel powerful and yet vulnerable all at once. She’d feltemotionaland that was dangerous, because that made you susceptible to being hurt. Hadn’t her mother spent her entire life telling her that?

But she mustn’t jump ahead of herself.

She wasn’t sure how to behave but instinct urged her to play it cool, even though she wanted Romano to make love to her again as soon as possible. She wanted that more than she could remember wanting anything. But it was weird having made the transition from enemies to lovers and she wasn’t quite sure how to handle it.

Tentatively, she laid her hand over his heart and felt the powerful beat beneath her palm.

‘Are you awake?’ she whispered.

Romano took a moment before he answered, too preoccupied to trust himself to answer.Oh, stupido sciocco, he raged silently! What a fool he was. His jaw tightened. Not just for making love to a woman who had always been forbidden to him, but compounding it a million times over with his subsequent behaviour. Why her? he wondered resentfully. Why did it have to be Kelly Butler, of all people, who had made him behave like some sort of caveman? Who had felt almosthelplessin her embrace, yet at the same time had revelled in it. Who had come almost as soon as he had entered her. What the hell was the matter with him?

He turned his head just in time to catch the wary look she was slanting in his direction, before her long lashes fluttered down to conceal it, and that was when reality kicked in. Because she was good at concealment, he realised bitterly. Good at lots of things. Lying and deceit to name just two. But why should that come as any surprise? She was a woman, after all.

‘You didn’t warn me,’ he observed, his voice deliberately neutral.

She nodded, her hair rippling against the snowy white of the pillows like the burst of a flame. ‘That I was a virgin, you mean?’

‘Now is probably not a good time to try and play the innocent, Kelly. Because you aren’t. At least, not any more.’ He gave a cynical laugh. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because…it didn’t seem appropriate. It was difficult to find the right moment. Surely you can understand that.’ Her green eyes were filled with appeal. ‘It might have spoiled the mood.’

‘Damned right it would.’

‘I’m just not sure how these things work.’ She tiptoed her fingers over his chest. ‘Should I have asked how many loversyou’dhad—and if I had, wouldn’t you have accused me of prying?’

‘Don’t try to change the subject,’ he snapped, batting away her hand. ‘It would have been a courtesy to have told me, that’s all.’

‘Acourtesy?’ Her voice threatened to rise, but he heard her suck in a deep breath before she lowered it again, as if she was afraid of being overheard. ‘You mean like letting your neighbour know if you’re intending to park in their spot?’

He resisted the desire to smile. ‘Please don’t wilfully misunderstand me, Kelly.’

‘There’s nothing wilful about it, I can assure you. I’m just wondering why you seem determined to catastrophise what just happened.’ She hesitated. ‘I enjoyed it and presumably you did too. Well, you appeared to,’ she added, almost shyly.

‘Of course I enjoyed it. You know damned well I did. But that’s not the point. You misled me,’ he accused, steeling himself against that doe-eyed look as he remembered the way she had behaved at school. ‘You’ve always made out you were some kind of good-time girl. You were even doing it the other night when you arrived, with all your talk about a“non-stop party express”.’ He glared. ‘Remember?’

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