Page 187 of Modern Romance March 2025 (5-8)

“You don’t.” Atlas closed the drapes. “Not anymore.”

She tried to pull her shirt over her head and quickly ran into a struggle thanks to the splint.

Atlas stilled her hands. “I want to hold you, but we don’t have to make love if you’re not up to it.”

“I want to,” she insisted with a pang. “I want to feel close to you.”

He kissed her, first with tender reassurance, then with the passion they had kept bottled while they’d stood on the bridge. Within moments, he was helping her undress and throwing off his own clothes.

Then he sat on the bed and drew her to straddle his lap, guiding her legs behind him once they were joined.

“I didn’t know I could love anyone this much,” she confessed as she folded her arms behind his neck and set damp kisses in his throat. “I don’t know how to make you feel it.”

“I do, though. It hurts. In a good way.” He pulled her hips tighter to his. “Like I’m using muscles I didn’t know I had.”

“Maybe you are,” she teased, smiling against his mouth, then arching to brush her breasts against his chest while clinging to his neck.

With a low groan, he gathered her and rolled so she was on her back. Now he had all the leverage, but she didn’t mind that he was taking charge. She trusted him to give her what she needed. He always did.

Afterward, they lay tangled under the covers, nude and replete, not speaking, only caressing and enjoying the closeness.

“I have to be in London tomorrow,” he said eventually. “Will you come with me?”

“Of course.”

“I’m going to tell them I’ll work out of Athens.”

She nodded. “I’d like that.”

He rolled onto his elbow and set his hand on her stomach. His lips parted, then he seemed to think better of what he wanted to say.

“What?” she prompted.

His gaze was rueful. “I was looking for you when I came here with Iris. Not actively. I genuinely believed you would have moved on by now, but I couldn’t help keeping an eye out. Then I nearly walked right into you and I knew I couldn’t marry her. I didn’t want to admit it, not in the moment, but I knew. You’re laughing at me.”

“No,” she said, but she was smiling. “I’m laughing at us.”

She rose and walked naked to the wardrobe where she pulled a boot box from the shelf. She set it on the bed so he could open it.

“I thought so many times about sending this to you with a note. It felt too desperate.”

When he shook off the lid and found his own clothes, he chuckled.

“This is convenient. I thought I was going to have to wear one of your dresses when I run out to collect dinner.” He rose and pulled on the pants. “They still look better on you. Although…” He drew her into his arms. “Naked will always be my favorite color on you.”

She looped her arms behind his neck, liking the brush of his chest hair against her breasts.

“You were a dream for me. A fantasy. One I didn’t think could come true.” She hugged him and looked around at the home she’d made for herself. “I’ll miss this place, but I’m looking forward to dreaming new dreams with you and seeing them come true.”

“Me, too. But if one of your fantasies includes dinner tonight, I suggest you put on some clothes or I’m taking mine off and we won’t leave that bed until morning.”

“I have cans of soup.”

“Decision made.” He tumbled her onto the bed.

EPILOGUE

Two years later

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