I feel like a virgin all over again as I walk through the Penthouse’s lushly carpeted hallways holding Harlan’s hand.

Heck, I feel like a newlywed on her wedding night.

“This can’t be real,” I mutter, still stunned from what just happened in the auction room. “Tell me this isn’t real?”

Harlan shakes his head, and plays his eyes across the hallway. It looks like a hotel – each of the doors is numbered, one through six.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize what they are. Six rooms – to put it crudely – six spaces where the victorious men take their prizes to…

… Play with.

I’m not going to lie, it feels kind of misogynistic, and definitely hot. This time, at least, I’ll let it ride.

Especially as I’ve got a funny feeling I’m going to be doing a whole lot more riding very, very soon.

Harlan pulls out a room key from his breast pocket. I realize now what the masked host pressed into his hand when we arrived.

“Did you like my surprise?” He grins mischievously at me, pressing the key into the lock. The door opens, and he tugs me inside.

The surprises, it seems, don’t stop at the auction. When I thought that these rooms were sex rooms, I didn’t expect them to be so, well – kinky.

I kick the door shut behind me, and stand in front of Harlan with my hands on my hips. “What the hell is this place, Harlan?” I say, asking the question that’s been hovering on my lips ever since we arrived. “You’re going to need to walk me through what just happened before I have a freaking heart attack…”

Harlan smiles, tugs my hands from my waist, and squeezes them tight.

“You, Skye Warren, are now a very, very rich woman. Two hundred and eighty-five million dollars, by my count. It should hit your account tomorrow morning at the latest.”

I feel like someone punched me in the gut, like they’ve reached into my lungs and sucked out all the air. My knees weaken beneath me. They feel like they’ll give way at any second.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” I whisper. “Two hundred and…”

Harlan’s lips graze mine. He’s not wasting any time. Some part of me doesn’t want to either…whether or not I am still stunned. That part of me is burning up with desire for this man who throws money around like it means nothing, and who’s introducing me to a side of myself I never knew existed.

“Why?” I ask, turning my face away from Harlan’s attentions.

The cool breeze from a hidden air-conditioning unit kisses my skin. Goosebumps sprout, but I don’t think that they have anything to do with the room’s frigid temperature.

“Because you’re worth it,” Harlan says simply. “You’re worth every penny, and ten times more. And,” he smiles, “because I wanted to. I want to buy you, Skye. I wanted to take you from your comfort zone, take you to a place where you are completely, utterly out of control.”

“Well, it worked…” I croak. “And–”

Harlan’s face takes on a determined look. He reaches behind his head and loosens the ribbon holding his mask tight. He tosses it aside.

“And I’m done talking, Skye,” he growls.

“I’m done playing games. But I’m definitely not done controlling you, not tonight. I’m gonna teach you what domination means. I’m going to teach you what it means to give up control. And by the end, by the time I’m really done, you’ll be begging me to never stop.”

He takes a step towards me, closes his hands around my body and pulls my own mask loose. It falls from my face, and suddenly I feel naked – more naked, even, than I felt in front of that room of billionaires just a few, long minutes ago.

I feel as though my soul is on display for the entire world to see. But it is not the whole world that I’m worried about – only Harlan. He’s the only one I care about. He’s made this incredible, enormous sacrifice for me – made me one of the richest women in all of America with a snap of his fingers – and yet what the hell can I give him in return?

I’ve got nothing to give but myself.

Harlan’s lips meet mine again. There’s nothing gentle about the kiss. This time, his teeth graze my lower lip, his tongue probes my mouth, while he nips and sucks until I’m lost entirely in the moment. His hands cup my ass, and he presses his bulge against me. I push my hips into it.

I’m desperate for his cock in a way I don’t think I’ve ever been. Since the moment I first slept with him, Harlan’s been the most attractive man who’s bedded me. He’s all I’ve thought of since the moment I met him.

But I’ve never wanted him like I do now.

He drags me back, deeper into the room. I’m in a haze, a daze. I don’t even know where I am. I can barely see – my entire world is Harlan’s face, just a few inches from mine.

“You’re going to come for me, Skye,” he growls. “Whatever it fucking takes, you’re going to come for me.”

“No,” I moan as Harlan’s hands roam my body. I know he’s right. I am going to come for him, but that’s not all.

Because I don’t just want to come for Harlan. I want Harlan to come for me. I want us to do it together.

It’s going to happen. I have no doubt about that, because I finally realize the truth. Harlan Wolfe was made for me, and I was made for him.

Harlan pushes me backward, and I collide with something that is both hard and soft. I look back, and see a padded leather wall. Straps dangle off of it. My eyes spring wide open.

“Put your arms up,” Harlan orders gruffly. He leans in, close to my ear, and whispers five delicious, tantalizing words. “Don’t make me ask twice…”

I don’t. I wouldn’t dare.

I breathe with ragged, intense effort as Harlan straps me to the leather wall. I must look like a starfish, arms spread wide apart. Next Harlan goes for my ankles, tying them too.

I’ve never been more exposed in my life.

And I sure as hell have never been this turned on, either.

“Fuck me,” I moan, “Please…”

“Not yet,” Harlan growls. “Believe me, Skye, I want nothing more than to slide my cock in between your legs. But we’ve got all night – and I don’t have any other plans.”

A mischievous, devious, scheming smile teases his lips. I gulp. I don’t know what Harlan has in store for me tonight. I don’t even want to ask.

Because I’ve got a funny feeling that after tonight, there will be parts of me that ache that I didn’t even know existed.

Harlan tears my panties off in one violent movement. Cool air kisses my bare pussy, and that’s all that’s needed for a little moan to escape my lips. I’m not sure anyone’s ever been as turned on as I am right now.

And Harlan’s only just getting started…

I watch, entranced, as he eyes me up and down. He drinks in my skin, every inch of it. Slowly, he puts his hand to his neck and loosens his bowtie.

“No,” I whisper. “Leave it on…”

Harlan looks as though he’s about to argue, but then shrugs. “Your wish is my command.”

He undoes his top button, then turns away, going to a long chest of drawers at the other end of the room. He digs through it for a couple of seconds, and then returns with a length of black silk.

“Give me your head,” he growls.

I do as he asks, and a second later he wraps the blindfold tight around my head, and I’m lost in darkness.

Every sensation is magnified. Every sound, every touch, even the taste of the air is stronger. But it is Harlan’s fierce, spicy, scent that is impossible for me to ignore. It fills my nostrils, invades every part of me. He smells like he was made to be mine, as if we were made together, separated, and left to find each other.

“A or B, Skye,” he asks.

“What?”

Harlan cuts across me. “It’s a simple question: A, or B?”

“I – I don’t know. A?” I whimper.

“Bold choice,” he chuckles. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Had what in me?

It doesn’t take long to find out. A buzz fills the room, a vibrator. I hear the motor squeal as Harlan tosses it from hand-to-hand. I listen, spellbound, entranced, as he walks towards me. My hips buck out a little, desperate for the touch of pleasure.

Then he does it.

Harlan presses against me.

But not what I expected, the way I expected, or where.

His lips graze mine, and he leans in for a fierce, deep kiss. I kiss him back with everything I’ve got. But strapped to the wall, there’s only so much I can give. He pulls away, leaving me panting and begging for more.

Then, and only then, does he press the vibrator against my pussy. It’s an exquisite pleasure. I’ve tried almost every toy the market has to offer, but I’ve never felt anything like this. Maybe it had to be the right one, at the right time, but I don’t think so.

I think this is all about the right man.

The buzz is all I hear. That, and my own heaving lungs. I press my legs together, and my hips forward, into the teasing kiss of the motor.

Harlan kisses me again, holding the vibrator in his palm and pressing it between my legs. His other hand leaps behind my back and undoes the bra strap in one easy movement.

“You’re getting better,” I tease, panting.

“I always was,” he chuckles, returning to my lips.

This goes on for – hell, I don’t even know how long. Harlan’s mouth alternates between my nipples and my mouth, and his hand stays firmly between my legs, with the vibrator.

Teasing me, tantalizing me, taking me closer and closer to the elusive cliff edge he’s been testing me with for so long.

“Oh my God, Harlan,” I whimper. Tears flowed into my eyes. I’ve never felt anything this good, so overpowering. I feel stars breaking out behind my vision.

I think this is actually it – the moment when it finally happens.

“Fuck no,” Harlan growls.

The vibrator changes in intensity, causing my eyes to spring open behind the blindfold. It’s still pitch black.

I let my breath out as I realize Harlan’s plans don’t involve stealing the vibrator’s kiss away from me completely … just moving it …

… moving it so that his hands have access too.

He nibbles my earlobe and whispers to me gruffly, possessively. “No fucking way am I gonna let a machine take you there. When I let you come, it’s going to be around my cock, you hear me?”

Let me?!

“Yes,” I yelp. But the words don’t matter. I would say anything, do anything to keep Harlan going right now – because I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.

This is it.

Harlan’s finger enters me, and takes my breath away. It’s rough and dominant and aggressive, and I moan with anticipation. He probes inside me, grinding his palm against my clit. The vibrations don’t stop. They are like a tidal wave, just hitting and hitting and hitting against my most sensitive part.

“I’m so close,” I moan, pushing my head forward in search of Harlan’s lips.

But I only meet empty air.

“Please, Harlan,” I say. “Please, just fuck me.”

“You think you’re ready?”

“Yes…” I whimper, “more sure than I’ve ever been of anything.”

“That’s good enough for me,” he says.

He clicks the vibrator off, and tosses it somewhere behind him. It bounces off the carpet and I hear it come to a halt. Then, as I’m panting from the absence of the vibrations, I sense him withdraw his finger. I swear my pussy resists him, as if it doesn’t want to let go.

“Prove it,” Harlan growls, his voice a low, rumbling, wolf-like threat that pushes me half way to orgasm all on its own.

“Anything…”

“Taste yourself,” he says, trailing a wet finger across my lower lip. I lick it, greedily sucking up my own juices.

“No. Suck it.” My tongue searches for his finger, and as soon as I’ve found it, I grab it with my teeth, pulling my neck back to force the fingers into my mouth.

I suck it clean. It feels filthy and degrading, and oh so fucking perfect.

“Now,” I moan, losing all sense of decorum. If I was ever a Lady with a capital L, I sure as heck am not now. “Will you please fucking fuck me?”

“Well…” Harlan chuckles, “when you put it so politely…”

But he does as I ask. I feel his hands on the straps at my legs, and then they are loose, and next so are my arms. He carries me, throwing me over his shoulder, then down onto a mattress.

It all happens in a flash.

I can’t see my lover, but my hands search greedily for his belt regardless. I make a tiny fist of satisfaction as I realize he’s not wearing one, and undo his tuxedo pants.

He knocks my fingers aside.

“Let me do it,” he whispers hungrily. “It’ll be quicker that way.”

Hell, I’m not complaining. The sooner I feel Harlan’s thick cock between my legs, the better. For both of us.

In seconds – it seems so, anyway – Harlan is completely naked. As far as I can tell, the only item of clothing either of us is wearing is the blindfold wrapped around my eyes. I reach up to tear it off, but Harlan stops me in my tracks, pressing his lips against mine.

“No,” he says, the heat of his breath caressing my skin as he pulls away from the kiss. “Leave it on. I like the way you look wearing it.”

I don’t complain. Everything feels hotter, sexier, better when I’m wearing this blindfold. Every sense is stronger, every sensation magnified a thousand times.

The mattress groans as Harlan reaches for something.

“Where are you going?” I pant, desperate to finally be close to this man. To be one with this man.

“To get a condom,” he grunts.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“More sure than I’ve been of anything in my entire life,” I say with absolute, undying honesty. It’s crazy. Hell, the details don’t make any sense. What if I truly did fall pregnant – how would that work with Poppy, and –

But none of that matters right now. Harlan drives forward, guiding his cock between my legs. My eyes water, and then he’s inside me, and then it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt.

From the moment Harlan enters me, I know this time is different.

This time is it.

He lifts his hand around the back of my neck, and squeezes it tight, holding on for leverage. He thrusts inside me, driving his hips toward mine. I moan with pleasure as fireworks explode behind my closed eyes. The explosions are more vibrant than I could ever have imagined.

“Don’t stop,” I whimper. “Don’t you dare fucking stop…”

I don’t know who this Skye is. She’s swearing like a sailor, begging Harlan to do things that a couple of weeks ago she’d have flushed even thinking of. But I like her. She knows what she wants, and she’s prepared to do whatever it takes to get there.

And so, apparently, does Harlan.

His fingernails dig into my skin as he scrapes his free hand down my body. His mouth dips to my nipples, teasing them with his tongue as his hips thrust with unbelievable force into me.

Every muscle on his body feels tense, taut. In a couple of seconds, so are mine. I feel a sensation inside me that’s hard to describe – a pressure, a fire, burning, squeezing, and pressing all at once.

“Oh my God, Harlan,” I whimper. “Don’t–”

He takes my half-formed sentences as encouragement. I’m glad one of us is thinking straight.

“Come for me,” he begs – or maybe orders – me. “Come for me, Skye. Give in.”

I do. My body goes rigid as blackness breaks out in my mind. Fire seems to burn on every inch of my skin, and my nipples become globes of pleasure and pain and every sensation in between.

Harlan’s throat gurgles with happiness as he realizes what’s happening. He doesn’t stop, even though I’m almost too far gone to understand what’s happening.

But a part of me knows. He’s doing exactly what I wanted.

He’s going to come with me.

His hips keep driving until it happens. The hand cupping my neck squeezes tight, his fingernails digging in, and his voice chokes with desire.

“Jesus, Skye,” he groans. “I’m–”

I don’t have to listen to his words to know what happens. I feel an unbelievable heat surging from his cock, and I realize what’s happening. I loop my arms around his body, and feel his ridged muscles become more tense, more solid than anything I’ve ever touched in my life.

And that’s when the orgasm really hits. The thing that came before – whatever it was – was just a mirage.

This is the real fucking deal.

I lose myself, lose my sense of time. Lose everything but this, right here, right now. Harlan’s heat, my heat, and the sweat, taste and sensation of pure happiness.

And, above all else, is the tidal wave of nerve endings, exploding all over my body – a tidal wave of unadulterated pleasure.

The happiness takes an age to fade. So do the aftershocks. Part of me hopes that neither will ever end. But eventually, unwillingly, my eyes flutter open. I see Harlan at my side, propped up by his elbow. He’s smiling foolishly, as if he can’t believe his luck.

I’ve got a funny feeling I might look the same way.

I cast my eyes around the bedroom, The Sex Room. My nickname for it seems even more apt after what we just did together! In the cold, post-orgasm light of day, it doesn’t seem as magical as it did before.

Heck, even the grate over the air-conditioning vent is loose. I squint at it. It seems out of place, especially given how neat everything else is in here. How perfect.

“What are you staring at?” Harlan grunts with his eyes half-lidded with sleep.

“I don’t –”

My eyes widen. I sit up in bed, stark naked, my back completely straight.

“What’s wrong –?”

“Did you film this?” I yelp. I know I’ve undressed on camera for Harlan before, but this feels different. It feels like a violation.

“Huh?” Harlan mutters sleepily, sounding so confused I know immediately he has no idea what I’m talking about.

And that makes it even worse…

My blood runs cold.

“Harlan… There’s a camera inside that vent.”