Page 40 of Modern Romance Collection Books (5-8)

He was incredible. There was something raw about him. Something feral. It was always a strange thing when he opened his mouth and began to talk about books. He didn’t have the look of a cerebral man.

And then he growled, that growl that he did, and she was reminded. That while he might possess the ability to reason, to be rational. That while he might discuss books and philosophize about why people behaved the way they did...

There was an elemental quality to him. And when he receded to that place—as he had done in the library that day when he had nearly killed a man with his bare hands—he was all in it. Just as he was now.

Right now, she had the beast.

And somehow, she felt safe even still.

He stroked her cheek, then tore her bra away from her body, the movement abrupt and unexpected.

And she gasped. Not because it was unpleasant. Not at all. It was what she wanted. He was what she wanted. And there she was, naked before him, and she reveled in it. Gloried in it. In this moment of ecstasy. Of raw, unbridled feeling.

The truth of it was, people like them... They had to learn to hide their feelings. It was a matter of survival.

She knew that, and she imagined that he did too.

“Give me all of it,” she whispered, not meaning to speak, but not being able to control it either.

“All of what?”

“Your fury. Your feelings. Everything that you’ve always kept back. Because you had to, didn’t you? To survive. Even if it wasn’t out of fear of your captor, you couldn’t allow yourself to go to dark places, or how would you live?”

He looked at her body, his expression on fire. “Do you want to talk?”

“No. I don’t. I want to feel. Everything that I never let myself feel. But I want you to come with me. I don’t want you to go easy on me. I don’t want you to be gentle. I don’t want you to treat me like I might break.”

“You may regret saying that.”

“But I said it. So now you know. It’s my choice.”

“Good.”

He grabbed her waist, lifted her up off the ground, and licked one breast, then another. She shuddered, and he carried her over to the bed, holding her as if she was insubstantial. As if she weighed nothing.

And then he laid her out on the large, sumptuously appointed bed, his eyes roaming over her curves hungrily.

“And now,” he said. “I can see the point and purpose to a bed.”

He pressed his knee into the mattress, moved up to her body and cupped her breast with his hand. He watched, with rapt attention as he slid his thumb over her nipple. She felt it pucker. An arrow of pleasure hitting sharp and true between her legs.

“Riyaz,” she said.

“Is it good?”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s good. Please. More. Please.”

“It is amazing,” he said. “You would not even tell my brother that you desired him, but you will beg me for my touch. Openly. Always be so honest with me,” he said. “There is no room for embarrassment or shame. Not with us.”

She shook her head, biting her lip as he pinched her nipple. As he moved his hand to her other breast and transferred his attentions there.

He moved his hands down her body, the strong, calloused fingers making her shiver as they trailed over her skin.

He hooked his thumbs into the sides of her panties and dragged them down her legs. And she didn’t feel shame. As if his words had been an incantation. A magic spell. As if he had caused it to be so simply with his intonations.

He was magic. Or maybe they were.

“I thought of this, for all those years. Sixteen years, I thought of a woman’s body. Various pieces of my imagination put together with images I had seen. Something to make an erotic slideshow in my head. But it was nothing. Nothing compared to you. Compared to the reality of your beauty. You are every promise fulfilled, Brianna. You are all that I desire. And how I desire you.” He leaned forward, sucked her nipple deep into his mouth, the growl that rose in his throat gratifying her. She was becoming so fond of that growl.

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