Page 40 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 1-4

She barrelled out of the door of the bathroom and straight into a wall of steel. She looked up. Axel. She wanted to cleave close to him, revel in his heat. She felt cold after that exchange.

Axel frowned down at her, hands on her arms. ‘What happened?’

She shook her head. ‘Can we go?’

‘Of course.’

* * *

In the car on the way back to the apartment, Hope sat curled into Axel’s side. His arm was around her. She knew she shouldn’t be so tactile but since the encounter in the bathroom she had a sense of sand running out of a timer, that reality was catching up with them—as if she’d needed the reminder that this relationship was very temporary.

She could feel Axel look down at her. ‘Hope…are you sure you’re OK?’

She nodded against him, and then she lifted her head and looked up and all she could see was his sculpted mouth and the beautiful planes of his face. ‘Kiss me, Axel.’

He tipped up her chin with his finger and lowered his head and covered her mouth with his. Hope gripped the lapels of his jacket with her hand and pulled herself closer so she was almost on his lap.

Axel made a sort of growling noise at the back of his throat and broke the kiss, saying something to the driver. Hope vaguely heard the sibilant hiss of the privacy screen going up and then Axel was lifting her onto his lap and her legs were either side of his thighs.

This was much better. Their mouths were fused again and Hope scrabbled for his bow tie, undoing it and opening his shirt buttons so she could put a hand under his shirt and spread her fingers across his chest.

Meanwhile Axel was pulling up her dress to expose her thighs and placing his hands on her bottom, hauling her closer. She could feel his erection under her and moved against him, making him curse. That made her smile.

Axel drew back, breathing unevenly. ‘Witch.’

Hope pouted. ‘That’s not very nice.’

Axel smiled and it was dark and feral. ‘I can be nice too.’

He reached down under her dress, to where her flimsy silk underwear wasn’t much of a barrier to his exploring fingers. He stroked her, over the material, right over that sensitised cluster of nerves, and Hope’s whole body arched in response as Axel stroked her to the point where she was ready to fall but then he stopped. She whimpered, ‘Please, Axel.’

Feeling desperate, she reached down and found his belt and buttons and zip, undoing them, releasing his stiff column of flesh into her hand. Clearly they’d gone beyond a point of no return.

Urgency gripped them. Hope rose a little while Axel found protection and smoothed it onto his flesh and then he held her hips and with one hand pulled her underwear aside and guided her back down onto his body, and she sank over him, taking him in, inch by delicious inch, until she couldn’t breathe, or think or move.

She wanted to stay like this for ever, feeling the exquisite stretch of Axel’s body in hers. But soon that urgency built again and, of its own volition, her body had to move or she would die.

It didn’t take much. She’d been so primed that with a few deep thrusts, she was climaxing around Axel and he was moving faster and harder until he fell only moments afterwards.

Her head was in the crook of his neck and shoulder. Their skin was sheened with sweat. Hearts thumping hard enough to hear.

The outside world slowly came back. The sound of the traffic around them, obscured by the tinted windows. Hope couldn’t believe the audacity of their actions. It was like being in some kind of a blackout and then waking to realise what you’d done, but she couldn’t feel any sense of regret. Not when their bodies were still joined and Axel’s arms were tight around her.

She could stay like this for ever. She felt a profound sense of connection and peace as if this was where she was finally home.

That little revelation, more than anything else, helped her to disengage from Axel, who looked slightly stunned too.

She adjusted her clothes beside him and he did the same. Hope couldn’t help but feel an encroaching sense of shame at her wanton behaviour. Safe to say that the women Axel was used to dating didn’t maul him in the back of a car like someone crazed.

‘Hey…what are you thinking?’

Hope looked at him reluctantly. ‘That the women you usually see don’t behave like this.’

He turned to her and said, ‘Hope, there were two of us just now. There is nothing to feel ashamed about.’

The sense of shame dissolved a little and Hope had to drum it into her brain that he was just referring to the sex. But still, he hadn’t had to reassure her.

‘Thank you.’