He felt himself turning rabid as he watched her climax. Her pussy was a man’s dream come true. The hair between her thighs was curly and soft and sweet with her juices. Her channel was warm and so snug that he could feel her shudder as she came. It suddenly became his sole mandate to feel her tremble around him while he was buried deep inside her.

She whimpered softly when he withdrew his finger. He reached into his back pocket, searching for a condom. A hasty moment later, he shoved his pants and boxer briefs down his legs and off his feet. He willfully kept his eyes averted from the splendor of her lying there, naked and flushed from orgasm. She was luminous in the light of the setting sun. It didn’t do him any good to look away, though. The image of her was burned into his brain. He saw it vividly: the full, pert breasts and erect, coral pink nipples; the red-gold curls between her pale, spread thighs; her arms above her head; the arch of her spine. In his imagination, her wrists were bound together with black rope.

But no. That was for another time. He’d seen the confusion on her face when they’d talked earlier about her preference for powerful men. He suspected she was a sexual submissive, but that might have just been wishful thinking on his part.

He rolled on the condom with fingers that were still coated with her juices. Her aroma perfumed the air, the scent amplifying his hunger. He glanced up to her face and paused, his sheathed erection fisted in his hand.

She looked dazed. Lovely. She’d been watching him put on the condom and was slowly lowering her arms, her intent to touch him obvious.

“No, honey,” he rasped. “Keep them above your head. That’s right,” he murmured when she acquiesced. He scooted closer to her and put his hand on her closest hip, urging her to roll on her side. “Roll onto your side,” he instructed. “Your eyes are killing me. I can’t look at them right now. I’m about to lose it. Part your thighs,” he ordered.

He was panting now, the vision of the enticing curve of her hip and her round ass not making things any easier on him. Sweat sheened his abdomen, a product of restraining himself against pounding desire. He saw that her long hair had fallen into her face when he’d turned her onto her side, and he brushed it away from her pink cheeks. He grasped her wrists and pushed them into the pillow again. With his other hand, he fisted his cock. He hurt like hell for her. Leaning down, he kissed her soft shoulder and spoke near her ear. He saw her rib cage heaving in and out, and sensed her taut anticipation.

“If you don’t want me to hold your arms, tell me so, and I’ll let go. Either way, I’m going to have to fuck you hard. You’re so pretty, Harper.”

He heard her soft gasp. He waited, his teeth clenched together hard.

“Don’t let go.”

Arousal clawed at him at the three quietly uttered words.

All his self-lectures in regard to patience incinerated, he resituated himself to enter her. Without him telling her to, she twisted and lifted her pelvis slightly. When she reached the prime angle, he flexed his hips.

“That’s it. Right there,” he mumbled tensely, grasping her hip with his free hand. Just the tip of his cock was pressed against her opening. He could feel her through the condom: Her heat. The narrowness of her channel.

God, he’d love to fuck her raw, nothing between them. Nothing separating them.

He turned his chin and wiped the sweat that had gathered on his upper lip onto his shirt. The edges of his vision had taken on a red cast that had nothing to do with the dying sun. He pressed with his hips, grimacing in pleasure at the sensation of her body squeezing the entire head of his cock. Nevertheless, he heard her soft moan, and it wasn’t one of pleasure.

He clutched at her naked hip, stopping himself with great effort. Sliding his hand down her thigh, he bent her knee further into her body, applying a pressure with his pelvis the whole time.

“There,” he exhaled, hearing her soft whimper as he pierced her slowly. She was so sweet, but her flesh resisted him subtly. He pulsed his hips, even more determined now that he felt the glory of her. He stared blindly at the corner post that held the canopy as he flexed back and forth, sinking further into her. Her gasps and soft moans fell on his ears, but this time he recognized her arousal. The sounds goaded him on, intertwining with the throb of his heartbeat and the exquisite sensation of penetrating her. A full, wild feeling swelled in him.

His pelvis bumped against the curve of her ass. He pulled her back against him while he flexed, pressing his balls against her damp, tender outer sex.

He felt so raw. So exposed. A shudder went through him.

Her sharp, desperate cry pierced his haze.

“Harper,” he bit out. Her reply was a deep moan. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. God, yes,” he heard her mumble.

“Good. Because I can’t take this anymore.”

He drew out of her, a snarl twisting his lips as pleasure tore through him.

He finally abandoned himself to it, driving into her again and again, their flesh slapping together in a taut, erotic rhythm, glorying in the perfect friction that both satisfied and prodded him onward at once. All the while, he was aware of her sleek body moving in tandem with him and of her sharp cries of excitement. But the madness of need was what ruled him primarily in those tense minutes of decadent pleasure.

At first, he wouldn’t let himself look at her. His resources were strained to the limit as it was. He fucked her hard, drowning in her, while staring with fixed determination at the bedpost, the cabana bar . . . anywhere but at Harper. But as his strokes grew faster and Harper’s cries grew sharper, he found himself moving without thought of consequence. He drew out of her, his cock like a single slick, quivering, raw nerve, and reached for a pillow. He dragged it under Harper’s hip and gently pushed her onto it, so that she was facedown.

“That’s it,” he praised, because when he’d released her wrists, she’d scooted her body into the precise position he’d wanted in his greedy possession of her. She arched her back slightly and edged her knees up on the chaise mattress, sending her ass up several inches off the pillow. He grabbed another pillow and shoved it under her. And there she was, full in his vision: her gorgeous copper-colored hair tossed on the pillows and across her elegant back, her lovely profile turned to him, her cheek flushed red, her lips parted as she panted, her round, pale ass poking into the air. He pushed back a plump buttock and glimpsed her glossy, pink sex.

A groan ripped at his throat. Harper McFadden. His for the taking.

Planting his hands on the mattress near her shoulders, he plunged into her. It was a full-fledged orgy of need. His feet clawed for a hold, and he found one on the wooden frame of the lounger. Anchored in place, his knees came off the mattress. Using his flexing legs to power him, he drove the full length of his cock into her repeatedly, heedless of anything but seeking his ultimate goal. It was selfish on his part. But that’s not what Jacob would have called those euphoric, desperate moments. To him, it was a clawing compulsion to finally burn deep inside her.

He felt her tighten around him, and her sharp, wild cries finally penetrated his awareness. Her arms were outstretched over her head. She clawed mindlessly at the mattress while she climaxed around him, her ass flexing tight. He felt himself cresting at the vision. He took her with short, ruthless strokes intended to ignite.

It felt like he gave all of himself . . . sacrificed everything, just like he had twenty years ago.

As harsh shudders of orgasm began to wane, the sobering reality of that frantic realization slowly penetrated his awareness. It cleared his haze of rabid lust faster than anything else possibly could have.

He’d taken her by storm, and in the aftermath, Harper knew only one thing: She wanted to do it again. She wanted him again, even now as she lay there panting from her climax with Jacob Latimer still high and hard inside her. He’d said he’d show her how much he desired her, and he’d proven it in spades.

She heard his ragged breath behind her cease abruptly. Air hissed past her teeth when he withdrew from her. Her tissues stung slightly—he hadn’t been joking about taking her hard. She’d never been taken that forcefully or in such a wholesale fashion in her life. But it wasn’t the sting of her sex that made her gasp in discomfort. It was the loss of him filling her.

She rolled over on the pillows, swiping her hair out of her face. He pushed with his arms in a powerful gesture and came off both her and the chaise lounge in one fluid movement. She watched him as he quickly and casually removed the condom. Her breath caught. He still wore the cobalt blue button-down shirt. His glistening, long cock protruded from beneath the hemline of his shirt as he walked past the lounge toward a door behind the bar.

A flicker of unease went through her when he didn’t look her way or say anything before he disappeared behind the bathroom door. She sat up partially on the chaise lounge, suddenly very aware of her nakedness . . .

Of being alone.

Her thighs were splayed on the cushion. She shut her legs. The sun had completely set now. The pool lights and a light behind the bar illuminated the deck. It had cooled off, and her body was covered in a light sheen of sweat. A breeze swirled around her. She shivered.

She heard him come out of the bathroom and instinctively reached for one of the pillows they’d tossed about while having sex. He walked toward her, looking down as he reached for the buttons on his shirt. She glimpsed his muscular chest and golden brown, flat abdomen. It didn’t seem fair somehow, that she found him so starkly appealing, when she was increasingly confused by his manner. Shock popped through her when she realized he was buttoning his shirt up, not down. He glanced up, his gaze snagging on the pillow she’d placed in front of her belly and breasts.

Something crossed his handsome face and then . . . froze. She couldn’t think of how else to describe his expression. He suddenly seemed as cold and aloof as he’d been on the beach during their first meeting.

“Are you all right?” he asked quietly, sitting on the edge of the mattress and turning in her direction. His face looked shadowed, but she could make out the glint of the gold in his eyes beneath his lowered brow.

“Yes,” she replied with a fake laugh. She felt cast out to sea. The way he’d made love to her, the way he’d touched her with such a single-minded focus earlier, had seemed almost alarmingly intimate and exciting. Now he was back to being polite? “Are you all right?” she countered uneasily.

She couldn’t read his expression. Her discomfort grew when he didn’t reply for a moment. Then he turned away from her.

“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

She made a sound of disbelief at his sharp tone. He heard her, and his head whipped around.

“I just meant—” he began, then just as abruptly cut himself off. His mouth pressed into a rigid line. “I just meant,” he repeated, this time more evenly. “I was very hard on you. I’m sorry.”

“You are?” she asked shakily.

“I meant to show you I could be patient.”

“Were you even there?”

“What?” he asked, his brows slanting dangerously.

“I enjoyed it. All of it,” she snapped, highly aware of her understatement. She’d loved it. The first thought she’d had when her brain was once again capable of logic was that she wanted to do it again. Now he was treating her like a stranger.

Which—face it, Harper—was what they were to each other, for the most part.

Then why had he felt like the opposite of that earlier? She’d allowed her imagination and her lust to mislead her yet again.

He didn’t respond. He just stared at her, his jaw tight, his face like a shadowed, hard mask.

“Jacob?” she whispered, searching his face for some hint of their former, charged . . . amazing connection.

“I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this,” he said.

It stung more than she either expected or liked, that he could be so aloof after what had just happened. Annoyed at herself for making more of their sexual encounter than she should have, she shoved her feet off the lounger in the opposite direction from him and tossed the pillow aside. She grabbed her discarded dress and stood. Pointedly avoiding looking at him, she stepped into the opening of the garment and slipped it up over her arms.

Why didn’t he say anything? What was he, some kind of a robot, to make love to her with such pointed tenderness and heat, and then to act so coldly?

What was she? An idiot, to have been so taken in by him?

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

She looked up from buttoning her dress.

“Then why are you acting so distant all of sudden?” she demanded, fury making her voice tremble slightly. She felt very vulnerable. “I mean, granted, we agreed this was just sex, but really? Talk about running hot and cold, with nothing in between.” She bent to grab her discarded sweater, the garment making the memory of his touching it and her breasts at once, of his wry teasing about a sweater fetish, rush into her consciousness.

“You don’t understand,” he said. His terse tone struck her as condescending, like she was a stupid child.

“No,” she agreed hotly, shoving her hands into the armholes of her sweater. “I don’t understand you. So why don’t you just take me home?” She bent and snagged her underwear and walked to the front of the chaise lounge, where she snapped up her sandals. “I’ll be downstairs.”

“Harper—” he said sharply, and yes. There it was. There was barely restrained fury in his tone. What did he have to be mad about? She turned around, completely confused, but half-hopeful he’d say something to apply a bandage to their quickly unraveling date. She couldn’t figure out how things had gotten so volatile.

“Don’t walk away from me.”

“Why?” she demanded after a pause. “What is it you want to say? Jacob?”

His mouth remained hard, his posture stiff. She waited. Apparently, he didn’t want to say anything. He just didn’t like it when people walked away from him. Undoubtedly he was the one used to doing the walking.

“Never mind. Just take me back,” she said, straining to keep her tone even. He didn’t deserve to see how upset he was making her. She was dizzy with confusion. The only thing she knew for sure was that this had been a mistake. “Please. Now,” she grated out before she turned and around and took the steps to the lower deck two at a time.