Page 22 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
The words flew across the room like darts and lodged in his chest. Every cell of his body began to cheer but he gave his head a sharp shake and ignored them. ‘No. You don’t.’
‘Yes, I do. I know what I said earlier, but the truth is, I’ve never been as attracted to anyone as I am to you. I’ve been trying to deny it and doing my best to hide it—just like you have—but this week has been impossible for me too. All those touches. Wishing they were for real while despising myself for wanting someone who I believed didn’t want me. God, if you knew the torment I’ve endured, the battles I’ve been fighting… I am desperate to know what you had planned for me on our wedding night. I can’t think of a better way to spend our day off tomorrow than making up for lost time. Take me to bed, Ivo. Please.’
Yes, screamed his body.No, cautioned his head, which was advising him to tell her to get out of his sight. She was simply too disruptive, too damn dangerous. He had the dreadful sense that she had the power to undo him completely, and he couldn’t exist in her orbit until he’d worked out how to stop behaving in ways that terrified him.
Yet she looked so sexy standing there and confessing that, despite appearances to the contrary, they were on the same page, that his agonies were also hers. So achingly beautiful in the soft shimmering golden light cast by the chandelier that now only one body part remained capable of thought, and it wasn’t his brain.
He didn’t want cold showers and distance. He wanted heat and proximity. There’d be time for a reckoning in the morning. Right now, nothing mattered more than slaking this maddening need he had for her, and he couldn’t wait a second longer.
‘There’d be no going back,’ he growled, and it was as much a promise as a warning. ‘Not until I can look at you without wanting you, withoutneedingyou.’
Her eyes sparked. Her chest heaved. ‘I’ve never wanted anything more.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Then get over here.’
She was across the floor and in his space in a matter of moments. She threw her arms around his neck, pressed the entire length of her body right up against him and crushed her mouth to his.
Relief and desire poured though him with such force that his legs shook. He wrapped her in a tight embrace and took command of the kiss until it turned ferocious, a clash of teeth and tongues and heat so scorching it could melt the sun.
Every instinct he possessed urged him to back her up against a poster, delve beneath her skirts and take her fast and hard. To then toss her onto the bed and do it all over again until she couldn’t move, let alone think straight. But he’d told her he’d take his time. There’d been mention of slow devastating exploration, and he was a man of his word, so that was what she’d get.
Grappling for control, Ivo eased the pressure of his mouth on hers and dug his fingers in her hair to angle her head. He embarked on a kiss that was deep and languorous, and within moments she was moaning at the back of her throat and softening against him.
When he finally broke away to drag in a much-needed breath, his heart pounded heavily. Every fibre of his being was tight with anticipation. But he ignored the drumming insistence of his body, and her faint whimper of protest, and turned her round. As he worked to undo the delicate buttons that fastened her dress, her head fell forward, presenting him with an expanse of smooth soft skin and an opportunity he simply couldn’t resist.
He pressed his lips to her upper arm and she shivered. As he trailed his mouth across her shoulder and then up her neck, his fingers began to fumble, which frustratingly slowed his progress. But then, thank God, he found a zip. Breathing harshly, he slid it down inch by inch, savouring the gradual reveal of her back, the curve of her spine and the sliver of lace at the top of her bottom.
Rock-hard and aching, he turned her back to face him. Her eyes shimmered with heat. She clutched the dress to her chest, and he wondered for one brief baffling moment whether she might be suffering from another attack of nerves, when she suddenly let it go. With a soft swoosh, the dress fell to the floor. She stepped out of the puddle of satin, kicked it aside and then stood before him in nothing but emeralds, a whisper of underwear and sky-high heels.
‘I’m feeling a little underdressed,’ she said, which drew his attention to her mouth, red and swollen from his kisses, and filled his head with images that made him ache even more.
Ivo ran his gaze over her and felt a rush of blood to the head. ‘Then fix it,’ he muttered, although he’d be quite happy to freeze this moment, to capture the vision in front of him and store it away so he could revisit it whenever he wanted.
Not needing to be told twice, Sofia reached out and undid the button of his trousers. When she brushed her fingers over his straining erection, his breath hissed through his teeth and his hands clenched into fists. She pressed her mouth to the throbbing pulse at the base of his neck and then worked her way across his chest. She moved her hands to his abdomen and the muscles there flinched.
She took her time trailing her fingers and her mouth over him while he stroked his hands over her back, and then she sank to her knees. She pushed his trousers and shorts down and when he was free of them, as if she’d read his mind, she held him first in her hand and then slid him between her lips.
Ivo let out a harsh groan as she took him deeper, and slowly, agonisingly began to move her head back and forth. Fire sped along his veins. His heart thudded so hard it was in danger of cracking a rib. He made the mistake of looking down. Light bounced off the emeralds in her hair, hanging from her ear lobes and circling her throat. The hand that wasn’t holding him slid beneath the waistband of her underwear and when she moaned, he felt the vibrations so strongly that all of a sudden release rushed towards him like a rocket.
His knees shook and his breath stuck in his lungs. He closed his eyes but that didn’t help. This wasn’t going to be slow. It was going to be over far too soon, which was very much not the plan, so with Herculean effort he put a hand to the back of her head and encouraged her up.
‘What did you do that for?’ she protested huskily, all tousled and pouty and gorgeous.
‘Delayed gratification.’
‘I’ve never seen the point.’
‘You will.’
He lifted her into his arms and deposited her on the bed. Then he arranged himself above her so there was no escape. Her eyes glittered. Her cheeks were flushed. Supporting himself on his elbows, Ivo thrust his hands into her hair, lowered his head and kissed her until she was clutching at his back and writhing.
His heart thudding hard, he cupped a breast and then wrenched his mouth from hers to turn his attention to first one nipple and then the other. He felt her shiver and heard her sob and then he inched his way down her body until he settled between her thighs and set about driving her to the brink as she’d done to him.
He paid no attention to her protests, or her pleas that he put an end to her torment. He was relentless in his determination to make up for the hurt he caused her the last time they’d been in a bed together and to punish her for putting him through such hell this evening. It wasn’t enough that she twisted the sheet in her hands and arched her back. He wanted to make her scream. Which she did. And while she was trembling and panting and gasping for breath, he repositioned himself and thrust fiercely into her.
