Page 223 of Modern Romance March 2025 (5-8)

“I’m sure,” she whispered against his lips, and then she gasped a little when his hands tightened on her hips. He yanked her forward and she rose to her knees and straddled his hips. “I just… I want to relax. I wantthis…”

So she’d felt it too, that lightning-bright connection. And she’d come looking forhim. His chest sparked.

She’d come to him. She’d come to him because she wanted him badly enough to shed her natural reticence and to ask for it. “Val…”

“Please stop talking,” she said softly.

She drew the crimson silk of her dressing gown from her shoulders in a seductive shimmy that had him catching his breath. She was naked beneath it, as he suspected. Her skin was warm and scented. Desmond shifted back to accommodate her, and her breath vented in a low hiss as she rubbed that slick, sensitive part of her against the roughness of his trousers. She threw her head back, eyes closed, and he was almost wild with desire. If he couldn’t bury himselfdeepin her in about thirty seconds, he was going to—

“Touch me.”

She took his wrist and guided it down to where he knew she was swollen and aching. She swore, and a shudder went through her that made her breasts shake. He passed his thumb against her center, and thesoundshe let out…

CHAPTER ELEVEN

VAL CRIED OUTas she shattered in his arms, harder than she ever had before. The entire day she’d been trying to slow her thudding heart, pressing her thighs together at the dampness that collected there. And now, for the first time ever, she’d gone after what she wanted and got it. She’d bared her body to him and told him she needed him.

She fumbled urgently at the hem of his shirt and at the buttons of his trousers, wanting him as naked as she was. As she’d commanded, he didn’t say a word, and when he was finally bare and smooth and warm beneath her, he tipped her chin down so she was forced to watch her thighs open as he parted her slick, swollen flesh and he filled her. He throbbed and grew inside of her, grinding against her exactly where she needed him, building, pushing, tightening until they shuddered and came together.

It wasn’t until the stars behind her eyes faded that she realized she hadn’t even considered contraception. And neither had he. She closed her eyes again and rested her head on his shoulder, feeling him slide, slick and warm, from her. She’d get a morning-after pill tomorrow. It’d befine. She didn’t want to leave this blissful state, not yet. She didn’t want to come back down to earth.

There was something about Desmond that made her believe it might be possible to escape the existence she’d been stuck in for so long.

Desmond’s hand was on her head, smoothing down the fluffy curls as they dried in the warmth of the room. “Are you all right?”

She nodded.

“Let’s go to bed.”

Going tohisbed meant waking up in his arms, and…well, things had already been messy enough tonight. But going toherbed meant waking up alone when the man she ached for was in the same house.

Would it really be so harmful, allowing herself one more night?

Of course it would be. She couldn’t risk it.

“Not yet.”

“Not yet,” he agreed, and shifted to cradle her close.

* * *

When Desmond woke the morning after the memorial service, the rain had stopped completely and light was filtering across his bed from the enormous skylights in his room. It felt as if he were emerging from a spell. The soft yellow pool completely illuminated Val, who was sleeping on her side with her silk dressing gown clinging to her body. Her hair stood out from her head in soft shining puffs of black while her lashes curled low on her cheeks.

She looked so beautiful and it was with some effort that he resisted reaching out to touch the satiny smoothness of her cheek, or the bare shoulder that emerged from the pool of crimson silk. Instead, he eased himself from the sheets with practiced quiet, barely disturbing the bed, and moved soundlessly to the enormous alabaster marble bathroom.

Desmond washed his face and brushed his teeth. Then he sank down on the chair his barber normally used for shaving, trying to collect himself before he had to go out there and face her.

What the hell had happened last night?

Not only had he brought her home—something he’d never done with any woman he’d slept with casually—but he’d also taken her to his father’s memorial. And spending the night and subsequent day with her had made him forget the event was even taking place—which hadn’t happened in ten years.

What the hell had this womandoneto him? Why had he opened up? The combination of beauty, maturity and kindness that radiated from her like light probably had something to do with it…

How could he have been so careless?

Maybe this is something you’ve needed for a long time.

The thought came to him unbidden.

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