Page 190 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

Her breathing had slowed, and he could feel little trembles running through her, and for one timeless second they remained like that, her panting while he held her tight, his own breathing fast, inhaling the dizzying, intoxicating scent of her.

Then abruptly she turned in his arms and lifted her hands, her fingers in his hair, and she pulled his mouth down on hers.

And just like that Dominic lost his grip on reality.

Everything slid away. His father. His company. His guests. His party. There was only the forest, dark and still around him, and the woman in his arms. Her mouth, hot and hungry, and the taste of her igniting something in him he’d thought long dead. Something desperate and raw.

He slid his fingers into the silken warmth of her hair and closed them into fists, gripping her, holding her still as he devoured her, pushing his tongue into her mouth and exploring her heat and her taste. So sweet and yet with a tart edge that excited him, that made him want to kiss her deeper, harder.

She made an animal sound, throaty and husky, and it wasn’t in protest. Not when her hands were on his bare chest, running over his skin, her nails scratching him as she reached down over his stomach and further down. He wore nothing but his toga and a growl escaped him as her fingers found the achingly hard length of his shaft and closed around it.

The touch was too much. He wanted to get rid of this excess fabric between them, have her skin next to his. He wanted to taste her. Lick her. Bite her. And only then, once he’d had his fill, would he give her what she so clearly wanted.

She didn’t make a sound as he took her down onto the forest floor, onto a pile of bracken that God himself couldn’t have positioned any better, and then he was casting his toga to the side before tackling whatever it was that she was wearing, tearing it straight down the middle and off. She reached for him as he pulled it away from her, hungry in the night, but he took her hands and pinned them above her head with one hand, while with the other he began to map her body hidden in the darkness.

She was delicate and slender, yet the curve of her breast fitted his palm to perfection and her skin was warm silk. She moaned as he brushed his thumb over her hard nipple and then gasped as he slid his hand lower, to her hip, fingertips lightly brushing over it, touching the side of one thigh, then exploring between them. She shuddered, her sharp intake of breath loud in the night air, as his fingers found damp curls and slick, hot skin.

She smelled like sex and the forest itself, and he found himself raising his fingers to his mouth and licking her flavour from them. A flood of intense hunger swept through him, drowning the last remaining piece of Dominic Lancaster, and now there was only him. Only the trees. Only her. Female to his male. Raw and primeval as the forest itself.

He released her hands, but only to grip her thighs and spread them wide. Then, pinning her hips in place, he bent and began to devour her like the beast he’d become.

Maude lay on her back, conscious of nothing but the feel of his strong hands holding her pinned to the bed of soft bracken, his hot mouth between her thighs. Of his tongue exploring her delicately and yet with an insistence that made her tremble. And of the sharp, agonising pleasure, winding tighter and tighter.

It was a mystery how she’d ended up here. Why she’d run from him instead of calmly walking out from behind the tree and telling him who she was, before going off to her cottage alone. Why she’d kept running through the forest, filled with a totally alien and yet wild exhilaration, part of which was delicious fear and yet another part excitement.

Something sensual had awoken within her as she’d run headlong into the dark, an awareness that had seemed to saturate the forest around her. An awareness too of the man pursuing her.

He might have said he didn’t run after a woman, yet he’d run after her, somehow staying close behind her even though a man of his size and power shouldn’t have been able to run as fast or know the forest as well as she did.

When the branch had caught her nightgown a simple rip would have pulled it free. She hadn’t needed to slow down, yet she had. Maybe she’d slowed deliberately. Maybe a deep part of her had wanted to be caught. Wantedhimto catch her. Not just any man, but him.

Zeus, the king of the gods.

The god of the forest.

Hehadcaught her then, his arms closing around her, pulling her back against him. All the breath had gone out of her, all her awareness captured by the male body behind hers and the power of his arms banded about her. The heat of him had been incredible and he’d felt so hard, like rock, and so tall. He’d towered over her, like one of the trees she’d been hiding next to.

There was no hiding from him, though.

He was a god.

Now, she stared up into the darkness of the tree canopy, seeing nothing but stars as he lay between her thighs and did something wicked with his tongue, causing everything to light up inside her, making her feel like one of those torches, flaming in the night.

She cried out, shaking as the pleasure crashed through her, and she was still trembling with the aftershocks when he rose from between her thighs and stretched himself out above her. His toga was long gone, but the laurel leaves in his hair were still there, gold gleaming against stark black and that snowy white stripe.

What are you doing? He’s your boss. You don’t even know him.

The thought was dim, the sound of it reminding her of her grandmother and all the rules she’d been given. Rules she’d had to follow if she wanted to stay with them and, since she’d had nowhere else to go, she’d stayed. And followed their rules. But she was tired of that. Tired of rules.

So what if he was her boss? So what if he was a stranger? He was part of the forest and she was too, and she didn’t care what she should and shouldn’t do. She’d never been in a man’s arms before, never wanted to be, but this felt right. This felt primordial and so was she.

A current of intense sensual awareness ran through her, making her conscious of her own sexuality in a way she’d never been conscious of before. Of how right this was and how natural to come to full awareness of herself as a woman right here on the forest floor, beneath the trees she loved. With a man who seemed part of the forest himself.

He was above her now and he smelled so good, warm and earthy and spicy. Somehow familiar and yet intoxicating. Sexual. Carnal.

He lowered his head, his teeth at the side of her neck, and he bit her like an animal, making her shudder, waking pleasure inside her yet again. Then she felt the touch of his tongue against her skin, as if he was tasting her the way he had between her thighs, and another rush of heat flooded her, prickling over her entire body.

Obeying an instinct that came from deep inside her, Maude lifted her arms to him, pulling his big, powerful, muscular body down on hers, finding his mouth and kissing him with wild abandon. She tasted herself on his lips and that was as it should be. Right. Powerful.Shefelt powerful, the primal feminine to his masculine, a goddess in her own right and now demanding his surrender, as she’d given him hers.

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