Page 189 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

He would chase her through the forest until he caught her and then she would be his.

And he would be yours.

It came over her unexpectedly and very suddenly then, a wild thrilling rush of adrenaline, and before Maude was even conscious of doing so, she’d turned and had started to run.

CHAPTER TWO

ITHADONLYbeen once he’d got to the edge of the clearing that Dominic had felt he was being watched. And it wasn’t Marissa; he’d have to have been deaf not to hear her crashing through the undergrowth as she’d run from him.

No, someone else was watching him.

He’d stood there a moment after he’d thrown Marissa’s tunic after her, having decided he couldn’t be bothered to chase her, staring into the darkness, feeling the weight of someone else’s gaze on him.

Then he’d caught a scent, earthy and musky and delicate, and very female, and abruptly everything male in him had sprung to instant life.

It was a sensual, deeply sexual scent, banishing his boredom, flicking switches inside him, turning on a current of pure electricity that he’d thought was long since dead.

It had been nearly fifteen years since he’d wanted anything. A long time since his life had been more than simply following a whim. Years since he’d taken his father’s vast property development company and sold it off, piece by piece, netting himself huge profits and a sense of deep satisfaction.

He’d thought he’d come to the end of wanting anything, since whenever he had a hankering for something, he simply bought it or did it, letting nothing hold him back. He indulged himself at every opportunity, because why not?

Apparently, though, he hadn’t come to the end of wanting after all, because someone had been watching him in the darkness, a woman, and every little piece of him had been intrigued.

He’d turned and stared into the shadows near an oak not far from where he stood, and though his night vision had been impaired by the light of the torch, he’d been able to make out a slender figure by the trunk of the tree.

A wood nymph.

There had been a second where he’d been sure he’d seen her eyes gleaming in the darkness, and an inexplicable need had risen up inside him. A primitive, basely masculine need, primeval almost.

So much so that when she’d turned and run, it had been instinct to run after her.

He’d told Marissa the truth. He never ran after a woman. He never ran after anyone. They all came to him and he liked it that way since it gave him all the power, and he liked power. Especially when he had it and other people didn’t.

Which made his sudden mad dash after a woman he hadn’t even laid eyes on completely inexplicable. Yet there was also an inevitability to it. As if she’d been in this forest for years, perhaps was even part of it, and had been waiting for him.

Waiting for him and him alone.

She made no sound as she ran, white fabric of her tunic or whatever she was wearing billowing out behind her, a pale figure in the night. Her bare feet hit the soft earth soundlessly as she dodged trees and leapt fallen logs, agile as a deer.

He felt strangely outside himself, as if he’d left Dominic Lancaster, renowned investor and notorious playboy, back in that clearing, and he were someone else now. A man with no past and no future, who was concerned only with the here and now. With the sound of his breathing, fast and hard, and the beat of his pulse, steady and strong. With the scent of the forest around him, spicy and dark, and the woman running ahead of him...

Thoughts gathered in his head, mundane thoughts. What was she wearing? All the guests wore either a white tunic or a toga and this was neither, and yet it was white, so maybe she’d styled it differently. Who was she? Why hadn’t he noticed her earlier when he’d greeted everyone like the good host he was? He surely would have noticed her...

He pushed the thoughts aside. Those questions didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing except running after her, a primitive hunter’s instinct waking up inside him, pouring adrenaline through him. A wild excitement building inside him and an anticipation he hadn’t felt for a long time, if he ever had.

He wasn’t sure why he was feeling these things now, but he didn’t question them. This was new, this was different. This made him feel as if he were sixteen again, and Craddock, the gamekeeper, had taken him deer hunting for the first time. He’d loved it, the thrill of the chase. Of course, he hadn’t been able to shoot the deer when he and Craddock had finally tracked it down, and his father had sneered at what he’d deemed Dominic’s ‘softness’.

He wasn’t soft now, though.

The forest around them thickened, becoming denser, which meant they’d moved out of the area he’d specified for the bacchanal, but he didn’t care. The only thought in his head was to catch her, bring her down, so when the white fabric of her tunic caught on a branch and she slowed to release it, he put on a burst of speed and before she could free herself, he was there, catching her in his arms and pulling her hard against him, her back pressing against his front.

Her breathing was wild and her hair was in his face, a skein of raw silk that smelled just as delicious as she did. Christ, he’d never felt a woman as hot or as soft as she was.

She twisted in his grip, panting, but made no real effort to get away, nor did she speak. He bent his head, nuzzling against the side of her neck, her musky, feminine scent making him harder than he’d ever been in his entire life.

He didn’t understand why he’d run after her, or why she was making him so hard, but, again, that didn’t matter right now. What mattered was that she was in his arms and he wanted her. He wanted her more than he’d wanted anything in a very long time, and that was something to be savoured. He’d thought he’d lost the ability to feel anything more than mild pleasure and boredom, but clearly not.

‘You were watching me, nymph,’ he said, his voice rough and uneven. ‘You think I didn’t see you standing there in the darkness?’

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