Page 172 of Modern Romance March 2025 (5-8)

“I am.” Her lips tilted into an enigmatic smile. “And I’ve been thinking I want to try something I haven’t done yet.” She started to lower to her knees.

“Wait.” He tightened his hold on her arms.

“You don’t want me to?” She blinked in surprise.

“I do. Desperately,” he said through his teeth.

“Then let me.”

He held her for a few pulsebeats of indecision, then, “Put a cushion down so you don’t hurt your knees.”

* * *

Atlas heard a creak on the stair and jerked his head up, realizing Stella was gone from beside him.

“Where are you going?”

“I need my bag.”

“I’ll get it.” He came up on his elbow, but she was already down the stairs.

He fell onto his back again, listening until she crept back up and took her bag into the toilet.

He had a thought to check his phone, to see if there was news about Carmel, but his brain was still dull with sleep and his body still lethargic from an excess of sex.

Stella had destroyed him, utterly destroyed him. First, she’d taken him in her mouth and generously caressed every which way he guided her to do. She had been right about the energy within him needing an outlet, though. As much as he’d wanted to let her take him over the edge, he’d also wanted to punish himself on some level. To hurt. And he’d needed some semblance of power to combat the helplessness that stalked him.

Before he lost control, he had picked Stella up and tipped her onto the couch to ravish her in the same way. Claiming her with his mouth and his touch and every part of him, again and again, on every piece of furniture he could abuse—the coffee table, the stairs, the bench at the end of this bed. He’d had her cling to the bedpost while he knelt behind her and covered her hands and buried his mouth in her neck while burying himself in her body.

Each time he made her cry out and spasm with joy, he’d exulted in his ability to do so. He’d tested the limits of their eroticism until, at some point, the urgency within him had reached its breaking point. He’d exploded within her. Finally, their raw, frenzied connection had turned slow and sensual and become a tender sprawl across the soft mattress.

They had passed out, naked and sweaty and spent. Now the predawn glow at the edges of the curtains was coating the room in a liminal gray light.

She came back to bed on tiptoe, still in the hotel robe, fingers working to braid her hair.

“I’m awake,” he told her, and pulled back the covers on her side.

“I think I’m getting my period. My back hurts.” She sat on the bed, legs curled to the side while she continued binding her hair. “I wanted to put something on.”

“Are you sure I’m not the reason your back hurts? I think I might have broken my own.” His whole body was aching as though he’d trained for hours.

“I’m sure.” She was reaching the end of her tail and held it while she searched in the pocket of the robe. His bow tie came out, and she used it to tie off the braid.

“Sacrilege.” He reached for the braid and lightly rolled the length around and around his fist, pulling her in slow motion to lean down and kiss him.

She did, becoming pliant as she splayed her hands on his chest, but she lifted her head to say, “I’m not broken, but I think I’d rather wait and see.”

“I was just saying hello.” Maybe avoiding what he knew she deserved. “And thank you.” He released her hair and found her knee beneath the slit in the robe, appreciating the feel of her soft, cool skin.

“Can I ask something before we go back to sleep?” She braced her arm on the far side of his waist so she was bridged over him, hip leaned into his side. “Was Carmel’s drinking really our fault? She’s upset that you married me?”

“Her drinking has nothing to do with you, Stella. Don’t ever let either of them get into your head that way. Unless you pour a drink and hand it to her, there is no way it could be your fault. She began drinking herself to blackout in her teens. If we want to point fingers, we can look to the genes on her mother’s side where there’s a history of addiction and alcohol abuse, but that’s not her fault, let alone yours.”

“Yet I get the sense you’re blaming yourself.”

He drew a deep breath against the weight of Carmel’s struggles.

“I carry a lot of guilt where she’s concerned,” he admitted. “She lost her mother about a year before I came to live with them. That’s when her drinking started, at boarding school. She was already struggling academically. She has some learning challenges and grief didn’t help. She began acting out, getting suspended.”

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