Harlan carries me all the way from the secret dipping pool to his glass cabin. No, I can’t really call it that. It’s way more than a cabin.

It’s a mansion.

I’m dripping wet, south continent cold, but by clinging on to Harlan’s body, none of that seems to matter.

All the way, I should be thinking about that crappy play on words he just threw at me. “Then I’ll take you inside. And then, I’ll take you, inside.”

I mean, who says that?

But it was the cocky, charming way Harlan spoke those words that got to me. The teasing little smile on his lips that tells me he wasn’t taking himself seriously, so neither should I.

Like I said, I should be thinking about that.

But I’m not.

I can’t get over Harlan’s perfectly sculpted body. My legs are wrapped around his torso, but he feels more like a tree trunk than a man. It’s crazy. His muscles are so solid it’s hard to believe he’d ever have needed to wear a bullet proof vest. Surely bullets must just bounce off him!

He pushes the mansion’s glass door open.

Then He spins. Harlan rams me against the nearest wall. His hand searches for my bra strap, then that too disappears onto the floor. Then he hikes me up…

Then the pleasure begins.

Harlan dips his mouth to my nipples. They are still rock hard from the torrent of coldness the waterfall dumped on my body. Hell, I’d be shivering if it wasn’t for Harlan’s warmth. It’s like there’s a furnace burning inside him.

Or maybe it’s a pizza oven…

I giggle at the strange image that forms inside my head. The reaction is really born out of awkwardness. I’m not used to men treating me like this. I’m certainly not used to what’s about to happen to my body.

It’s been so long since I’ve touched a man like this, I can’t even remember how it’s supposed to be, or how my body is supposed to move.

I tip my head back, forgetting there’s a wall behind me, but the bump doesn’t even seem to hurt. Delicious tendrils of pleasure are surging out of the hard knobs on my chest and looping their way around my body.

“Jesus, Skye,” Harlan growls in that flabbergasted voice he uses sometimes. “I’m serious. I’ve never touched a girl who’s even in the same league as you.”

My voice quivers when I try and speak. My skin’s burning hot, and I feel a strange – tingling – deep down low. “You don’t need to –,” my voice cracks as Harlan’s teeth scrape across my nipple. “Lie to me, you know.”

“I wouldn’t,” Harlan gives me his promise, bringing his face back up level with mine. “You can believe that. You have to believe that.”

There’s a need in his eyes. I don’t know why, but it seems important to him.

“I do,” I whisper.

I say so because I do. There’s a brutal, raw honesty about Harlan Wolfe. It’s hard to believe that a man with so much on his plate – a billion dollar fortune, and a world of grief sitting on his shoulders – can be so open with me, but somehow he is.

At some point, I probably need to sit down and unpack why he’s so interested in me. But not now. Not tonight.

“Let’s go upstairs,” I say, my voice catching in my throat as I realize what I’m offering:

My First.

My Body.

My Everything.

I see Harlan’s jaw twitch, and I wonder if he’s thinking about giving me another mock salute. Somehow he resists.

His muscles ripple as he hoists me around his hips once again, and he carries me up the stairs without so much as breaking a sweat, without even seeming to breathe any deeper.

What a fucking compliment!

I know I’m not the lightest girl around. Whatever Harlan says, the mirror doesn’t lie. Hell, it’s astonishing to me that a man like him sees so much in a girl like me. But there’s something magical about being carried like that. About being made to seem so light it doesn’t even matter.

That’s what I’m thinking about when Harlan throws me down on the bed.

But that’s not what I’m thinking about for long…

“I’m going to fuck you,” Harlan announces. “Fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before.”

“Less talking,” I say, coyly biting my lip, “and more fucking. How’s that for dirty talk?”

Harlan’s eyes light up in a raging torrent of fire. He dives onto me, hands reaching for the button at my waist. My hiking shorts are still soaking wet from the pool.

And so’s the layer underneath…

“I’m telling you, Skye,” Harlan says as he tugs my dripping clothing off my thighs, revealing pale, freckled skin that hasn’t been kissed by the sun, and hairs standing on end – provoked by the cool kiss of the air conditioning.

“I’m telling you,” he repeats. “You’re the most beautiful fucking girl I’ve ever seen.”

And then it hits me. I’m naked. Naked as the day I was born, and Harlan Wolfe is kneeling over me, with a look in his eyes that promises me I’m in for the best night of my life.

He leans forward.

He dips his mouth to my ear.

“Are you ready to come?” He asks.

I meet his eyes. I nod, slowly. Honestly, I’m not sure whether I have a choice in the matter. I’m not sure I want a choice…

… because Harlan Wolfe looks like a man on a mission.

I blink. “You’re naked,” I say. I don’t know how the hell I missed it. Surely Harlan’s cock was prodding into me the whole way

“All the better to fuck you with,” Harlan mutters. Then he shakes his head. “Okay, that was too much, even for me.”

“Enough Little Red Riding Hood,” I say, hooking my hand around the back of Harlan’s neck and pulling him towards me. “Enough talking, period.”

Finally, Harlan does as he’s told.

We kiss, but kissing’s the last thing on my mind. Harlan’s hands roam my naked body like wildlife on a great African migration. That sounds hyperbolic, but it’s true. He doesn’t leave an inch untouched, or a scrap of skin unexplored.

My body becomes one huge sea of fire. Goosebumps speckle me everywhere, and my nipples stand on end, sign posting the flames of my desire.

“I need to feel you,” I say, surprising even myself. “Inside me. Now.”

Harlan tears himself away from my body for just a second. He takes his cock in his hand, and lazily, casually strokes it a few times. I take the short interlude to study it probably for the first time. Sure, I’ve felt it – but this is different.

I’m not saying I’m an expert, but his is the biggest cock I’ve ever seen.

“Are you sure –?”

Harlan chuckles, as if he’s heard it a thousand times. “ – That it’ll fit?” He shakes his head. “Trust me, Skye – I believe in you. You’ll surprise yourself.”

Harlan looks away from my body, and I feel a sudden surge of jealousy. It’s irrational, I know, but it’s there. What could be more important than me right now?

And then I hear it – the crinkle of a condom. Harlan opens the package and discards the wrapper.

“Better safe than sorry,” he shrugs.

“I figured –”

“ – That I’d screw you without it?” Harlan says, raising an eyebrow. “Have a little faith…”

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. All this time, I realize that I have thought of Harlan as an irresponsible playboy, even with all the evidence to the contrary.

After all, you don’t exactly build a billion dollar hedge fund business if the only thing on your mind is getting laid.

“Okay, okay,” I groan, I moan, as Harlan slowly unwraps the condom over his cock. “Enough teasing already. I need you.”

Harlan makes a noise. I’m not sure how to describe it – a moan, maybe, a low, inarticulate growl. He sounds more like a wild animal more than he does a human.

And the sound sends my ovaries into fucking heaven.

Harlan lets himself tumble forward, breaking his fall with his hands, and climbs up my body. I encircle him with my arms, touching his burning skin. I lean up and kiss him on the mouth, wishing I could see what he sees. Wishing I could see my hair spread out on the sheets beneath me.

Wishing I could see what he sees in me.

And then, as if he can read my mind, as if he can hear the self-doubt growing inside me, Harlan enters me.

He does it slow, first, just teasing me with the tip of his massive cock. My eyes close, and my head tips backwards, and my knuckles scrunch up with the unexpected pleasure and pain.

It’s never been like this before. Not with any boyfriend. Not ever.

“God, you’re tight,” Harlan groans.

I don’t know if it’s true, that something he just says to all the girls, but it fills me with pride.

“I am?” I whisper up at him.

“You’re the perfect package –” he groans, collapsing more on top of me and biting my lower lip with uncontrolled desire, “ – Every fucking inch of you.”

“You’re just saying –”

The last word dies in my throat. Harlan quits playing and feeds his cock inside me, all the way to the hilt. It’s so big, stretches me so deep that it brings a tear to my eye.

He pauses there for a second, decorating my neck with kisses. My pussy slowly relaxes, grows comfortable with his presence.

And then it begs for more.

“Ready?” Harlan growls.

Between the tears of pleasure decorating my eyes like precious stones, and the wetness between my legs, I’m more ready than I’ve ever been.

I nod, and Harlan starts fucking me.

From the very start, I realize that this is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I don’t know – maybe I’m reading too much into the moment Harlan and I shared on his private jet – the way he came clean to me, but I feel like I’ve got a connection with him I’ve never had before…

…with anyone.

Then conscious thought is banished from my mind. I enter a world of sex – sweat, sensation, sensuality. My fingernails scrunch into the silk sheets, and I buck my hips, trying desperately to build a rhythm with Harlan’s driving cock.

He grabs me by the shoulder, digging his fingernails into my skin. It hurts, but it feels so fucking good. He grabs the shoulder hard, using it like a lever to direct his thrusting.

“God, you’re wet,” he says, his eyes closed, his perfect, muscular, rippling body dancing in front of me like a piece of artwork.

I don’t have the strength to reply. Stars explode behind my eyelids, vicious streaks of delicate, perfect pain that I can’t even describe.

I feel something building inside me. A heat, a pleasure, like all my muscles are contracting at once, and like every single nerve ending in my body is coming alive – sending signals they have never sent before.

I yelp. I beg. “Don’t stop,”

My cries of pleasure only drive Harlan on.

If he was a man on a mission before, it’s like his energies have been redoubled. I see his ass muscles contract as he drives his hips into me in the reflection of the window behind.

God, they couldn’t be more perfect. Then I close my eyes again. My eyelashes slam closed like the bars on a vault at Fort Knox.

“Stop?” Harlan growls, as if the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. “Baby, I’m just getting started.”

I don’t even register the corniness of his line. Harlan’s cock feels like a rod of molten steel inside me. I never imagined that sex could feel this good. I feel like – for the first time in my entire life – I’m on the verge of orgasm.

I can barely hear. All I am is what is going on right now: the salty tang of sweat, the cock pounding inside me, the whiteness flashing across the blackness of my vision.

I grab Harlan’s ass cheeks and pull him in. His thrusting fights me, and I ride him like a bucking bronco.

“Harlan,” I moan. “I’m so freaking close!”

Harlan pushes himself even harder. He pushes himself like only a former SEAL can. His body, a temple of muscle and wounds and energy, settles into a rhythm. My moans and his grunts provide the soundtrack to the most perfect song ever composed.

But the orgasm that tempted me, that threatened to explode into being, just fades away.

I try to fight my body’s betrayal.

Because the truth is, this is still the best sex I’ve ever had. Hell, I didn’t know that anything could feel this good. Even without the promise of an orgasm at the end of it, I’d let Harlan take me like this as often as he wanted, whenever he wanted, wherever he wanted.

“God, Skye,” Harlan grunts, “I’m going to come.”

I squeeze my pussy around his cock. I think I read that in some girly magazine once upon a time – “a hundred and fifty-six sex tips to please your man!”

Harlan’s eyes spring open, and he stops mid-thrust.

“Skye?” He says in a questioning voice, panting slightly from his exertions. A single bead of sweat drips down his temple, and I trace it with my eyes. Tingles of pleasure are still darting out across my body, but concentrating on them is like trying to cycle in a straight line in the eye of a hurricane.

“What?” I moan.

I’m not putting it on. It really does feel that good. But I feel something else, as well – guilt. Because I wasn’t the only one who was close to an orgasm – Harlan was as well.

And I know the reason he’s stopped mid-thrust.

“You’re not close, are you?” He asks, grimacing with disappointment.

I see something in his eyes – a cloudiness. That’s the only way I can describe it. It’s almost as though he’s shocked he couldn’t tip me over the edge.

I reach up with my hand and cup Harlan’s cheek, then slide my fingers around his neck and dig them into my man’s soft hair. Because if there’s one thing I’m going to take from that stupid article, it’s that Harlan is my man.

“You took me closer than any man ever has,” I say, without breathing a word of a lie. My chest rises and falls rapidly. I’m breathing harder than Harlan is, and I barely did anything!

“But not close enough,” Harlan says, gritting his teeth. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I say, pulling Harlan towards me and grazing my lips against his. He resists me, somehow – as though by failing to give me an orgasm, I’ve somehow dented his pride.

But it’s not that.

“We’ll keep going,” Harlan says, refusing to kiss me. “I promise you, and I meant it – I’m not going to come until you do.”

I look up into Harlan’s eyes, and I don’t see pride rearing its ugly head. I see the same thing that probably took him through the long months of brutal training down on San Diego beach. I see the same strength that allowed him to not just survive, but thrive after the death of his wife.

I see determination.

But this is one area where just wanting something hard enough won’t make it magically spring into life.

I shake my head sadly. “We’ll get there, Harlan,” I whisper, “just not tonight.”

Slowly, grudgingly, Harlan allows me to pull me toward him, and his lips meet mine. Even with the fading glow of what could’ve been, and even with Harlan’s still erect cock between my legs, another reminder that I’ve still never experienced what so many women have, it’s still a great kiss…

…because, Harlan Wolfe is a great man.

So, we’ll work it out. I know we will.