Page 104 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8

He stripped off his suit jacket, his tie, his shirt. She had seen him half-naked a hundred times. But nothing prepared her for being on the receiving end of the intense look in his eye as he removed his clothing. Realizing that body was for her. That his touch was for her.

She was overcome with it.

She watched as his muscles rippled, his golden-brown skin making her mouth water. The dark hair that covered his muscles made her fingertips itch. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to lick him. It was like a dam had burst inside of her, and every desire that she had held back for all this time was ready to burst forth.

She had tried so hard to be good. Maybe she wasn’t good. She was okay with that.

Tonight, she was okay with it.

He moved his hands to his belt buckle, to the closure on his slacks, and he stripped off the rest of his suit, and right then, she understood something dark and terrible. Looking at the full power of his rampant masculinity, she knew something, a deep, real truth that had always been hidden from her before.

This was an addiction. This was why countries fell to ruin. It was why good women craved very bad men. It was why good men broke apart families. This was something more powerful than she had fully given it credit for. And she wondered if she was horrendously naïve to believe that it was something that she could shut off after tonight.

It doesn’t matter. Because tomorrow is going to take care of itself.

Yes. It was.

So she surrendered to his beauty. To her need. To his touch, when he made his way to the bed and moved himself over the top of her. She kissed his neck. Kissed her way down his chest, his ridged abdomen. She moved to that sick, glorious masculine part of him, and took him into her mouth. She wasn’t nervous. She wasn’t anything except filled with the most alarming, terrible, painful need.

She took him in deep, pushing her own limits. She reveled in the fact that she could make him groan. That she could affect him at all.

And maybe it was because he was a man. And men were that simple. But maybe it was because she was a woman, and she was that powerful. She was going to remember that.

From this moment onward.

She licked him, because she couldn’t help it. Luxuriated in the taste of him, in the feel of him beneath her tongue.

Until he gripped her hair and pulled her back up his body and claimed her mouth in a furious kiss. “Now,” he growled, opening up the nightstand next to the bed and taking out a box of condoms. He took out one plastic packet, tore it open and rolled it over his thick length. She gave thanks for his speed and efficiency. He moved between her legs, but before he penetrated her, he pushed one finger inside of her, then another. “So wet,” he ground out, and his appreciation sent a spark of need shimmering through her, threatening to set off an explosion. “This may hurt,” he said.

“That’s okay,” she said.

He withdrew his fingers, and moved back to her, kissing her mouth. Then he tested the entrance to her body with the head of his manhood, pushing in inch by glorious inch. It did hurt. But she didn’t mind.

It was wonderful. To be filled by him, possessed by him. Claimed by him.

She arched her back, and cried out as he filled her to the hilt. As he took her. Just as she had demanded.

This was everything. And so was he.

He began to move, the spell he was casting over her finding her in its dark magic. Binding her to him. The pleasure that built inside of her was deeper than the pleasure from before. The climax coming from somewhere at her very center.

And as she cried out his name, she lost herself completely. But the real triumph was when he let go. When he shivered with need, pulsing deep within her, his own control lost at the threshold of desire.

She clung to him.

Matias.

Perhaps she whispered his name. Perhaps it was only an echo in her soul. She didn’t know.

But for tonight, it was perfect. Tonight, everything was wonderful.

Tomorrow would take care of itself.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ITWASFIVETHIRTYwhen his phone buzzed.

“You will regret trying me.”