Modern Romance March 2021 Book 5-8 Carol Marinelli (ebook reader computer txt) 📖

and for a heady beat or two of his heart he thought he might finish there and then.

Surely not.

Balthazar braced himself against the desk, fighting for control. And as he did, he became aware that she was breathing rapidly. Her chest was moving, and there was a deep red flush all over her neck.

“Show me your face,” he ordered her.

He felt her clench down hard, internally, and swore as that tight grip nearly threw him over the edge. She moved her hips almost tentatively and held her arms in place, tighter, for a few more moments before she let her arms fall.

Her face looked even more flushed than her neck, her eyes so bright it made him freeze. Almost as if she was on the verge of tears—but that made no sense.

“I don’t understand why we’re stopping,” she threw at him. Reminding him that this was a fight, and no matter if there was a strange note in her voice as she spoke. He could see the echo of it reflected in her too-bright gaze, burning like the sweet, hot center of an open fire. “This is what you wanted, surely. Do it.”

A kind of alarm rang in him at that, but she made a greedy sort of sound and then locked her ankles in the small of his back.

And then, her eyes fastened fiercely to his, she began to move her hips.

It was crude and inelegant and, oddly, the most erotic thing he could ever recall happening to him.

There was something about the determination on her flushed face. The way she moved, taking all of him, then retreating, over and over, her teeth almost bared as if she was determined to get this right.

He’d expected practiced moves, soft laughter.

What he got instead was...this fierce attack of pleasure that should have put him off.

Balthazar thought it might be the hottest thing he’d ever seen.

And it felt like magic.

He slid his hands beneath her and lifted her up, gripping the soft curves of her bottom and holding her before him so he could take control.

He started slow, matching her deliberateness. Her intensity.

Stroke after stroke, deep and hard, so there could be no mistake about who he was. Who she was. What was happening here.

And something extraordinary happened as he kept going, communicating the truth of things the only way he could. That sheen of ferocity seemed to mellow, as if the heat between them was doing the same work in her as it was in him. The sharpness in her gaze became something else, something molten.

He kept on, maintaining a deliberate rhythm even as he watched a different kind of heat wash over her.

And when she stiffened again, her head fell back in that same beautiful surrender he recalled years ago.

Once again, Kendra cried out heedlessly as she shattered all around him.

He wanted more. He wanted everything. He wanted.

Balthazar dropped down and set his mouth against her neck. His hips pounded into her, faster and faster. He reached between them and found the proud center of her need, then worked it with his fingers as he finally, greedily, cast off what few chains of control remained.

And let himself go wild.

This time, when she screamed she bucked against him, hurtling straight off that edge and taking him with her.

But the noise he made felt torn from deep inside him as he followed her over.

Ruined, that voice in him whispered.

And Balthazar could do nothing about it. He was...broken into pieces, sprawled over her without breath.

For a long while there was only the way their hearts thundered, almost as if to the same beat.

He wanted to gather her to him. He wanted to do things that made no sense, like press kisses against the line of her jaw. When it finally penetrated that he felt the urge to do these mad things, it was like dousing himself in a cold plunge.

Balthazar pulled out, though it caused him something almost like pain to leave behind that silken grip.

He told himself to turn away abruptly, but he didn’t. He took his time, fully aware that it was likely to be burned into him forever, the sight of her like this. Sprawled out on his desk, her skirt rucked up to her waist, thoroughly debauched and thoroughly his.

You’re a fool, he growled at himself. That was revenge and nothing more.

But that felt very much like a lie, when he had long considered himself allergic to dishonesty in any form.

When he finished putting himself to rights, he focused on her and found her doing the same. Her eyes were downcast as she slid from the desk. And though she tugged her skirt back into place competently enough, her hair told a different story.

Balthazar did not advise her to smooth it down. A clear indication that no matter how smooth an exterior she tried to present, the reality remained.

He liked that more than he should have.

“Shall we consider that a down payment?” she asked, her voice so crisp and cold that it took him a moment to realize she hadn’t actually hauled off and slapped him.

And he chose not to question why it felt like a betrayal. When he knew it shouldn’t. When he knew who she was.

Who she always had been. Why did he insist on wishing it could be otherwise?

“Don’t be ridiculous, Kendra,” he replied in kind. “That was merely finishing what we started three years ago.”

He watched the column of her throat move. He was suddenly, deeply furious that she wouldn’t raise her head and look at him directly. “Surely it can be both.”

Balthazar made himself laugh and took some pride in how she stiffened at the sound.

“I wouldn’t pay two dollars for something I could get so easily, kopéla. Much less two million.”

Her gaze snapped to his then, bright and hot.

And worse, a kind of knowledge flickering there in the depths that made everything in him tighten. Sending him into a spiral of something perilously close to shame.

Especially when she didn’t crumple before him.

She held