Page 103 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8

Because he just wanted her.

So he kissed her again, until the car came up against the curb. Until it was time for them to get out, and headed to the building. But he did not take his hands off of her. He found he didn’t want to. Dimly he was aware that they had been followed. The photographs were taken. All the better. Because people might cry PR relationship, no matter what they did, but if they saw them together like this, clearly about to go upstairs and engage in intimacy, then it would be much harder for them to convince the world of it.

There would be headlines tomorrow. A cascade of them. He knew that. But tonight there was just them.

That was all.

They were in a cocoon of passion, and he allowed that to propel them to the elevator, up to the top floor. And into that lavish penthouse. Where he was suddenly grateful that it was a playboy’s haven, because every surface was soft for a reason.

He took her into his arms and he kissed her. “I will show you,” he said. “Everything you like.” He kissed her neck, and he began to unzip her dress as he traveled down her body, kissing the curve of her breast as he separated the fabric away from her curves. As he stripped her down to brief, lacy underwear, and her red high heels.

“Beautiful,” he growled.

Her eyes were round, and he could see a hint of nerves, but she was doing her best to hide them, and he thought that he would honor that.

A virgin.

Of all the things.

There were gifts that no man could ever possibly deserve. This was one of them. To be the first man to touch her beautiful body? Outrageous.

He was worth very little. He had failed the one person that had ever loved him. That had ever needed him. Surely that meant he shouldn’t have nice moments like this one.

You are outside of time and space. Let her take you away.

That was a first. Sex, to him, was an opportunity to remove himself from everything he had been raised to be, one encounter at a time. He took pride in pleasuring women, and honoring them with the act, but he did not feel as if he was escaping. Did not feel as if he was getting something out of it.

But tonight, he did. Tonight he was claiming it for himself just as much as he was claiming it for her, whether he deserved it or not.

He licked the plump curve of her breast, and then undid her bra, exposing her generous breasts to his gaze. He was starving for her. So he fastened his lips to one raspberry nipple, sucking it in deep. She arched her back and gasped, forking her fingers through his hair. He loved her boldness. That she wasn’t bothering with protests, and virginal proclamations of embarrassment. But then, how was he to know if virgins actually did those things. He had never been with one before.

Plus, he couldn’t speak to the nature of her fantasy life. Or to the amount of other experience she had with men. She arched against him, and he pressed her firmly against the wall, before kissing down her body and tugging her underwear down her thighs. He parted her legs and began to lick her deeply. She gasped, moving in time with the rhythm of his mouth, his lips, his tongue.

She tasted like the dessert that they had left before they could have.

She tasted like a dream.

And he was getting as much as he was giving in this moment, if not more, he was on edge. Fulfilled and undone by the taste of her.

He licked her, deeper and deeper and she cried out, on the verge of a climax. So he decided to push her there. He pushed one finger inside of her as he continued to lick her, and he felt her unravel, felt her internal muscles clenched around him. Then he moved back up to her mouth and kissed her deep. “Let’s go into the bedroom.”

She nodded wordlessly. And then, naked except for the high heels, she began to walk toward his room.

She didn’t know herself. But she didn’t want to.

She didn’t want him to say her name, not again, even though it had thrilled her slightly to hear it earlier. Because she didn’t want to think of herself as Auggie Fremont right now. She wanted to be out of space and out of time. She wanted to be someone different than she had ever been before.

She wanted to be somebody new.

She wanted to weep because she didn’t feel like her. She felt like something more special. Brighter, better.

She felt exquisite. And it was because of him.

The orgasm that he had just given her had rocked her, shaking her. It was so much different than pleasuring herself. She had no control over it. He had called it from her body like he was the master of her pleasure. And she wanted to surrender. So when he ordered her to go into his room, she obeyed.

“Wait for me on the bed,” he said.

She did, her heart hammering.