Page 120 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 5-8

“I’ve never gotten a gift before.”

My heart is so wounded at hearing this.

“You can unwrap me as quickly or slowly as you like.”

He grips the back of my head and draws me forward, kissing me deep and long. He’s fierce, intense, and I love him for it.

This is everything that I let myself avoid. Everything I told myself I couldn’t have. I equated strong feelings with addiction. Distraction. And I took beautiful possibilities for myself. But not forever. Maybe I was just waiting for him. Maybe it just needed to be him.

God, I want him. All over me. In me.

I kiss his neck, down his chest, unbuttoning his shirt as I go. Then I drop to my knees before him, undoing his belt as I free his cock and wrap my hand around it. “You have a gift for me too,” I say.

“Lindsay,” he growls.

But I don’t take the warning. Instead I lean in, touching my tongue to the broad head of his arousal, and then I suck him into my mouth, taking him the way that I fantasized. But it’s been impossible, because the times we’ve been together have been so hard and fast. But I want to taste him. Everywhere. So I do.

I take him as deep as I can, relishing the uncontrolled growl.

And I’m lost in it. In him. In this. In the glory of making him mine. As he has done to me. He arches his hips forward, his cock hitting the back of my throat, and I gag on him, loving the roughness of it. Loving how close to the edge he is.

I don’t want normal. I want spectacular. That’s what I’ve always wanted. I’ve never wanted logical. I wanted to reach for the stars, even when it was impossible for me to have them. I tried to climb up to the sky and grab a handful of Stardust, and now I have him. All this Stardust right in front of me. Glittering and impossible and perfect. Maybe I can’t have everything, but I have him.

I know so many young women have felt this way. Have told themselves they don’t need all their dreams as long as they have their man.

But he’s himself magic. And I love him so much it’s like the emotion was invented just for us. Certainly it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. And the intensity of knowing he’s the father of my baby, that we are going to make a family together, it’s this beautiful sweet symphony inside my soul that’s nothing I’ve ever felt before.

I don’t think anyone’s ever felt it.

Because I know how rare it is. I know what it costs. I know how badly I want him. How badly I need him. I know what my life feels like without him in it. This hardscrabble existence that I’m just so tired of. And now I’m not by myself. I have him.

And so I lavish everything inside of me on him. On this.

I show him just how much I need him. Just how much I want him.

He growls, grabbing the back of my hair, tugging me up to my feet, holding me fast as he kisses me on the mouth.

He’s wild for me, and I’ve never needed anything more.

“Are you going to fuck me in bed this time?” I ask, knowing that I’m baiting him. That I’m pushing him.

He takes the bait. “I will fuck you wherever I wish.”

“For the rest of our lives?”

I smile at him, satisfied with my version of vows, raw and dirty and everything that we are.

“What will I do with you?”

“Keep me,” I say.

He lifts me up off the floor, holding me tight, just like he did so many times in the house on the island. But this time, when he carries me to the bedroom, he’s not taking me there to lock me in.

Instead, he sets me down on the bed, the mattress soft as a dream, and him hard and hot on top of me.

He kisses his way down my body, down my stomach, and takes me in his mouth. He licks me, sucks me, thrusts his fingers inside of me as he builds a steady rhythm designed to torment me. Push me over the edge. And when I cry out his name, he’s there to steal it from my lips, and I can taste my own pleasure on his tongue. He thrusts deep inside of me, claiming me, and this is another way of making vows. I’m certain of it then. “Lindsay,” he growls, taking me over and over again.

“Ciro,” I whisper.