Page 113 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
‘One kiss.’ Her lips parted slowly, revealing the silken muscle in her mouth. ‘And then if you still want to be alone, I’ll leave.’
He didn’t want to kiss her. And to prove it to his body, his brain, his neck dipped. Until the space between their lips became too close. And he said, ‘No.’
‘We don’t even have to take our masks off.’
‘No,’ he said again, but the hard edge to his voice was lost.
‘I want tonight to be more than a painful memory.’ Her breath, warm and sweet, feathered his parted lips. ‘I need it to be…more.’
He pulled away.
‘Please,’ she said, and the word, rasped from her lips, punched him in the solar plexus.
The gods hadn’t heard him twenty-five years ago. Butif, twenty-five years ago, someone had heard his cries, his plea, the night they’d all died, would he have stood up from his knees and walked out of that alley?
He’d never know. He was too old to change. Too scarred to heal. But she was young. She would know if a connection with a stranger could soothe.Change things for her.
And what was one kiss? There was no harm in giving her that. A little help. A little softness, when her pain was still so new, so raw, and the world beyond tonight offered her nothing but loneliness.
This was not for him, he told himself. It was for her, and for the boy, who had not been given the same kindness.
His hands lifted from his sides, and he pushed the golden edge of his mask upwards with steady fingers. Just enough to reveal his lips.
‘One kiss,’ Sebastian agreed.
CHAPTER TWO
AURORA’S HEART RACED, but she hesitated to step forward and embrace the electricity charging the small space between them. Embracehim.
It was too intimate. Too real. The space between their lips was too far and yet too close.
His mouth was beautiful. It was a mouth made for kissing.
What if she was wrong? What if this didn’t make her feel better, either? What if she regretted her boldness? Her awareness of her body, of what it needed in this moment?
But what was one more regret?
She was full of them.
And wouldn’t it be worse to have the opportunity to take something she truly wanted when it was within reach, but walk away?
Her gaze lifted to his, and her breath caught. If she balked, if she let doubt in, she’d never know if his kiss was as intense as his voice.
His eyes were not the same as they had been in Eachus House. Somehow, he looked deeper.Saw more.And her body liked it. Responded to it and to him.She liked his eyes on hers. Holding them captive with their intensity. And these feelings inside her were preferable to the pain he’d witnessed her scream into the trees.
She wasn’t embarrassed he’d watched her, though. She didn’t feel judged. She felt seen. Understood.
She swallowed and then stepped forward, the energy between them turning the air heavy and hot, making all the little hairs stand tall on her body.
It was only a kiss.
It would be fleeting.
She just needed it to ground her. Needed somewhere to channel the electricity coursing through her.
Aurora took in the slope of his gold nose, his uncovered upper lip. Her eyes locked on to the pout of his bottom lip, a stranger’s lip that was waiting for her to kiss it.
A stranger she hadn’t touched, and who had not touched her. Physically, at least. But hehadtouched her. Reached inside the twisted parts of her and loosened the knots making her lungs burn.
