Page 38 of Modern Romance March 2025 (5-8)

Her sated body pulsed with renewed desire as she repeated the motion. Something about seeing Adriano reach the edge of his control—seeing his lower lip slacken, the green becoming richer in his eyes—made her feral with possessiveness.

She repeated the motions with her fingers, skimming over whatever she could reach of him as he spun those wicked hips into slow, shallow thrusts, making her eyes roll back in her head. Moving inside her, reminding her how glorious it could be but not giving her enough.

“Will you come for me again?”

“I can try,” she said, sensations shimmering into life under her skin all over again. “I worried that…”

“What?”

“That you might not want to try all these things anymore. I prepared myself for a loveless marriage but this…you and I and this intense physical connection… I worried that all you saw anymore was a liar. And your children’s mother.”

His teeth dug into her shoulder and the hiss of pain made fresh sparks pop at her core. It was punishment, but she didn’t care.

“I’ll always want to do wicked things to you,bella. Your changing body only makes me hungrier.” As if to prove his point, he played with her nipples.

Burying her fingers in his hair, Nyra moaned.

And then he was urging her to move, setting a slow, soft pace. Splayed open like that, his every thrust hit some deep, incredibly soft spot, making her moan. Her thighs burned as she pulled up and pushed down, matching his pace and then upping it because the spring in her lower belly pulled tauter and tighter the faster she moved.

That spot sent out reverberations of pleasure, skewering her.

Praise and curses fell equally from Adriano’s mouth, urging her on the last inch. Soon, she was clenching around his hard length, and breaking apart. Her climax a wave bringing her under.

Aftershocks wracked her as he gently pushed her onto her knees and hands. And she watched him in the mirror, shamelessly, this glorious man of hers.

And his naked hunger was etched on every plane and ridge of his body.

He met her eyes in the mirror and his thrusts got rougher, faster.

Nyra watched, her heart thudding in her chest a thousand times faster, as his climax hit and soaked her insides.

He bowed around her body, even in that moment of utter escape. As if he meant to protect her, even from himself.

Tears pooled and overflowed, and when he wiped one with a shaking hand and inquired if she was okay, she said he had ruined her once again.

And some worried part of her found solace in the fact that maybe this passion would be enough to sustain their marriage.

Chapter Nine

ThelastthingAdriano wanted was to attend a party with people he’d had no choice but to endure all his life. Especially since he and his family and Nyra had spent the last two weeks in the spotlight, while he took the necessary steps to make it clear to the press that his wife and her twin were in no way connected to the financial scandal their father had perpetrated.

Finally, when Nyra faced the cameras herself to give out a statement to that effect and also announced a charity trust for victims of financial scams that she would spearhead, the story lost its initial focus.

Once again, his quiet but fierce wife had shocked him.

But her resolve to create a new role for herself in his life was not a laughing matter. Hence the party.

Granted, he didn’t mind spending time with Bruno, or Fabi, or even Federico, who was showing signs of cleaning up his act, but his parents and their society friends were another matter.

Toxic backstabbingwas the only phrase he would use to describe most relationships in that crowd. And now his wife had planted herself in the middle of it all.

Neither did he want to put on a performance of his marriage for a crowd of hungry vultures who, even a month ago, thought Nyra was trash he’d picked up from the back streets of Vegas. Or a week ago, believed she was the thieving daughter of a career criminal who should be discarded, even if she was pregnant.

In no more than two weeks, the announcement of their pregnancy and her reaching out to his circle had of course achieved a one-eighty among the same crowd.

The woman was on a mission. Even refusing to leave the penthouse without him, claiming he needed her at such a stressful time. Though he’d done no more than shower, shave and catch a couple of hours of sleep after that night with her.

Something had changed between them—for good, ostensibly, but he wasn’t sure. Then there was the fact that he wanted her out of the city and the easy clutches of the media. “To protect his reputation from the scandal you’ve caused,” Mama had said, thinking he was out of earshot. For a second, he’d seen the fear flash through Nyra, that he would tell his mother that she’d been the cause of it directly.

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