Page 44 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8
Batting her hand away—because,maldita sea, he was already teetering on the brink—he slid one finger into her wet heat, glorying in her cry of pleasure as he explored her silken flesh.
‘You’re so wet for me,’ he rasped.
Her hips chased his caress, her nails digging into his arms. ‘Jario...’
Another wave of satisfaction eased through him at hearing his name half sobbed from her lips. A mixture of pleading and anticipation. Wide-open and breathless with need. He had her where he wanted her. Under his control. A slave to his pleasure.
The man he’d been a mere fortnight ago would’ve been pleased at this development. The man he was now was deeply unnerved.
‘Jario?’
‘If I haven’t rendered you speechless yet,tesoro, I’m not doing an adequate job.’
Her eyes widened. Then she smiled. ‘You’re welcome to try.’
‘First things first.’
The effort it took for him to drag his gaze up made her pelvis tighten, then throb with shameless need.
‘Yes?’ she prompted breathlessly.
‘You’re fired.’
Her smile widened, welcoming the momentary relief from turbulent sensations she’d never experienced before. ‘Are you sure? You’ve repeated yourself a few times now.’
A glimmer of a smile ghosted over his lips. Then he sobered up as he picked up her hands. ‘No more scrubbing for you. I’d prefer to see these hands make music.’
Words fled her thoughts as feeling bloomed and bloomed in her chest. She’d known he was formidable the moment she met him. She hadn’t accounted for just how powerfully he could affect her emotions. How he could make her dizzy with profound yearning with a handful of words.
When her throat started to clog with feelings she didn’t want to name, and the pressure behind her eyes warned that improper tears beckoned, she freed one hand, braced it against his taut cheek.
Hooded eyes pinned her as he inhaled sharply, as if her touch and the charged words affected him, too. ‘Not that I didn’t find your scrubbing sexy, of course,’ he added, but Willow sensed he was just tossing words into the maelstrom.
And because she wasn’t quite ready to deal with just how affected she was, she summoned another smile and trailed her hand down his chest.
‘I knew there was a reason you were watching me.’
‘Indeed.’ His nostrils flared as she involuntarily squeezed her legs around him. Jario’s gaze dropped to her thighs, watched for a few seconds before climbing back up. ‘It was quite tormenting imagining you doing it naked,’ he admitted gruffly.
Her unguarded gasp darkened his eyes until they were almost black. Then, struck by an uncharacteristic streak of wickedness, she pushed him away and stood.
‘What are you doing?’ His voice throbbed with hunger and frustration.
Without answering, she spun herself around and walked outside into the sun-splashed private deck.
Glancing over her shoulder, she slowly dropped to her knees.
‘Dios mio,’he muttered under his breath. ‘You’re exquisite.’ Every drag of his gaze over her body produced tiny explosions of fiery sensation, until her whole body was dipped in blazing liquid lust.
Caught in that weird vortex of wanting to grant his fantasy—bolstered by the comforting knowledge that she wouldn’t be maliciously branded a temptress when this was over—and wanting him at her mercy, she made a show of widening her stance just a fraction, granting him a tiny glimpse of her womanhood before, sinking slowly onto her haunches, she dropped her arms in front of her.
‘Is this how you imagined me?’
Jario’s Adam’s apple bobbed hard, and large masculine hands bunched convulsively on his thighs before he loosened them and croaked a response. ‘Yes.’
His eyes remained glued to her swaying breasts, a rumble of sound he probably didn’t know he was making, amplifying his need. Glorying in the altered balance of power in her favour, she paused, raised her hands to scrape back her hair, catching a traitorous moan when a breeze washed over her puckered nipples before it slipped free.
‘Come here, Jario. I’m no longer your employee. If you want me, you’ll have to come down here and get me.’