Page 202 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

She didn’t want to do what he said. She wanted to push him as much as he was pushing her, throw all her anger and frustration at him. She’d never felt so out of control and wild as when he was close, his electric presence making her feel as if she had a million ants under her skin.

It was ridiculous. As he’d so astutely pointed out, she didn’t even know him.

Except...he made her feelsogood. He made her feel alive and wild, the way the forest did, and she wasn’t sure that was a good thing. But she couldn’t think. He had his thigh rightthereand she was... God, it felt just right. It made her want to give him anything he wanted.

She struggled to take a breath. ‘I...okay. A calm, r-rational discussion... That’s...all?’

He shifted his thigh yet again and she writhed as sparks of pleasure shot along all her nerve endings. If this was what sex was like for everyone, then she couldn’t think why anyone ever did anything else.

‘You should have told me,’ he said in that dark voice again, purring and soft. ‘What kind of man do you think I am?’

His eyes were so dark, so deep she could fall right into them. Like Alice down the rabbit hole, she was falling and falling.

‘I...don’t know.’ She was hardly aware of what she was saying, all her awareness concentrated on that delicious pressure between her thighs and the lines of his beautiful face. ‘I looked on the Internet... Like I said...there were pictures...of you...’

‘Not father material, hmm?’ He moved and she gasped as a jolt of pure physical pleasure electrified her. ‘Is that what you thought?’

She couldn’t remember what she had thought. It was all becoming very hazy. ‘I...just wanted to do it myself,’ she said, her voice uneven. ‘I...don’t need you...t-telling me what to do.’

‘Is that right?’ For a moment he remained still, looking down at her, his dark eyes utterly impenetrable. Then abruptly he pushed himself away from her and off the couch, standing once again at his full height. ‘In that case let’s proceed straight to the discussion about the baby and you can give yourself an orgasm later.’

Maude blinked up at him, her arms still bound over her head, her legs lying open, the ache between them insistent. No. What was he doing? He couldn’t just leave her like...this... Could he?

And apparently he could, because he didn’t move, his arms folded across his broad chest, regarding her coolly, his expression giving nothing away.

A small pulse of fury hit her, that he could look so unbothered while she was lying here, desperate and hungry for him to finish what he’d started.

She swallowed and glanced down his body, looking for and finding evidence of his own arousal, pushing against the denim of his jeans.

He glanced down too, following the direction of her gaze, then shrugged, his mouth curving slightly. ‘That’s easily remedied. In the shower later.’

Bastard. He looked so unaffected while she felt...undone.

Did he want her to beg? Was that what he was doing? Or had he been offended when she’d said she didn’t need him? Was he trying to prove a point?

In which case, he could go to hell. Shedidn’tneed him and maybeshewas the one who needed to prove it.

Trying to get herself under control, Maude gave him her own version of his cool stare. ‘Untie me, then. I’m not having a discussion with you like this.’

‘Pity,’ he murmured. ‘You do make a pretty picture.’ But he reached forward and untied the T-shirt around her wrists. As the fabric fell away, Maude sat up, slightly startled to find him crouching in front of her, and before she could move, he took her wrists in his strong hands, chafing them gently.

His touch was warm and not at all sexual, and it took her by surprise. So much so that she just sat there as he glanced down at her wrists, presumably checking the blood flow.

Her grandparents weren’t physically demonstrative. There were never hugs or affectionate touches, or kisses for her. There hadn’t been comfort or reassurance. It was as if they didn’t know how to express it. The most she’d ever had out of them had been the few times when she was sick or had a cold, and her grandmother would bring her a glass of water and some watery soup in bed.

So it was a little shocking to have Dominic Lancaster crouching before her, gently coaxing the feeling back into her fingers, his dark head bent, the stripe in his hair glaring white. There was a hint of grey at his temples too.

He was very close and he smelled so good, as he had the night they’d spent together. Of the spice of the forest and good, warm earth, and something else, something inherently masculine that made her mouth water.

‘Why do you have a stripe in your hair?’ she asked, the question popping into her head and then out of her mouth without any thought.

‘I’m not sure,’ he answered, as if he’d been asked the same thing many times. ‘I’ve always had it. My mother had the same.’

She stared at the stripe, itching to put out her hand and touch it. As if touching him was natural. As if he’d already allowed it. She stopped herself, though, her hands clenching into fists. No point in encouraging him.

He noticed of course and glanced up at her, his dark eyes enigmatic. ‘If you want to touch me, nymph, you have to earn the right.’

Maude glared at him as he rose to his full height once again. ‘I don’t want to touch you.’

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