Page 27 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

‘Do you always lay down your terms quite so brutally, Romano?’

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘Most women don’t need to be told.’

‘But I do?’ Her green eyes burned into him. ‘Because I’m so desperate, I suppose?’

He shook his head. ‘Because you know nothing of how adults conduct their sexual affairs.’

Still she didn’t move, just fixed him with that sensual, insolent look. ‘Do you want me to beg you, Kelly?’ he questioned mockingly. ‘Are you holding out for dinner by candlelight?’

‘We’ve already done that, remember?’ she returned flippantly. ‘And it didn’t end well.’

‘What, then?’ he questioned silkily as their gazes clashed and held. ‘Tell me what it is you want.’

He saw her defences crumble. Saw the way she chewed on her lip. The momentary hesitation as she read the expression in his eyes and then her own dawning recognition that she had pushed him as far as he would go and he would capitulate no further.

‘I wantyou,’ she said, almost angrily, pacing towards him as if she were going to pummel his chest with her tiny fists. ‘You know I do!’

He gave a softly triumphant laugh as she reached him and he pulled her into his arms, and that unexpected fusion of laughter and desire was as potent as anything he’d ever experienced. Fierce need consumed him but he knew he needed to rein this in. To demonstrate to them both that he was fully in command. He must not give her the power of knowing just how much in her thrall he was at that precise moment. He lowered his head in slow motion—watching the way her lips opened to meet his, like a baby bird wanting to be fed, but deliberately he kept his mouth hovering just out of reach. He could feel the warm rush of her breath before, at last, he touched her and his pulse thudded loudly in his ears. How could a kiss possibly be this good? he wondered helplessly. Her breasts were pushing against his chest, their tips as hard as diamonds. His groin was like a rock and he felt her shiver violently as he deliberately pressed the outline of his erection against her.

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed.

‘Does that daunt you?’ he taunted, dragging his mouth away.

Her eyelashes fluttered open as she met his gaze with what looked like genuine interest. ‘Should it?’

‘Porca miseria,’he groaned. ‘You are so untutored.’

‘Then teach me,’ she whispered, and suddenly she was all soft, sweet submission. ‘Teach me everything you know.’

Her breathless demand almost felled him until desire consumed him once again, setting his body on fire and making him so hot for her he couldn’t think straight. He thought about taking her upstairs but he didn’t want to wait that long. He couldn’t. Yet the practicalities of stripping off those clown trousers forced him to abandon his most basic of instincts, which was to take her now—here—where they both stood. Her back against the panelled wall. Her panties on the floor. Her gasps echoing his own as he pushed deep inside her.

He sucked in a ragged breath. Surely it was better to demonstrate the steely constraint which always seemed to desert him whenever she was around and which was now balanced on a knife-edge. Because wasn’t that the whole point of this? Not just to feed his hunger, and hers—but to take his fill of her until both their appetites were sated and she could resume her rightful place in his life.

In the past.

Uttering a harsh expletive, he picked her up in his arms and began to carry her upstairs and she didn’t cry out in surprise or ask him what the hell he was doing, even though he could barely believe he was behaving in such a Neanderthal way. She just whispered his name against his neck—which made the walk up the sweeping staircase seem unendurable.

Yet he couldn’t seem to break out of this testosterone-fuelled zone as he kicked open his bedroom door and kicked it shut again, before carrying her across the vast space and setting her down beside the bed. ‘Now,’ he said, his fingertips roving over the bright red fabric of her uniform. ‘I’m trying to work out the most provocative way of removing this…’

‘What’sbrutta?’ she questioned, fixing onto the harsh word he had uttered underneath his breath.

‘Ugly,’ he growled. ‘No, not you—these,’ he said, disparagingly twanging the elasticated waistband of the matching trousers.

‘Well, you’re the one who decided I should wear them, presumably.’

‘Not me. One of my assistants,’ he amended impatiently—for did she really imagine he would trouble himself with such a minor detail?

‘Ah, yes. One of your trillions of assistants…’ Her interruption trailed off as he slithered the trousers down over her hips and since he knew she was holding her breath as she waited for him to touch her groin, he deliberately avoided the area.

She expelled the breath, her words becoming tinged with frustration. ‘Just how many assistants do you have, Romano—and is there some kind of pecking order?’

‘Shut up,’ he told her softly and, to his astonishment, she did.

‘I like you much better like this,’ he purred appreciatively.

‘Like what?’

‘Compliant.’

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