They walked up a flight of stairs to the pool deck. He led her over to a double chaise lounge that included a canopy. He felt customarily unsure . . . uncertain of what he planned to do. He wanted her. Like crazy. But he couldn’t take her in the ways to which he was accustomed. Not yet. He needed to seduce her.

He certainly needed to prove he was capable of something beyond that rush of heated lust he’d subjected her to last night. Just the recollection embarrassed him. It also aroused him. At the same time, how he usually proceeded with a woman, his matter-of-fact, bold dominance wasn’t any more appropriate than his out-of-control need had been.

He paused at the foot of the lounger, turned, and again cradled her jaw in his hands. She looked up at him, her gaze similar to that anxious yet aroused one he’d fantasized about while he masturbated twice last night . . . and again this morning.

Too similar.

She felt very delicate to him. She deserved to be cherished. Surely he could manage that, for Harper’s sake?

He kissed her mouth gently, coaxing her to open for him. When she did, her taste flooded him. It made him ache so quickly, when he’d thought himself calm. Recognizing what was happening, he forced himself to be patient as he penetrated her mouth, savoring her. She made him lose control, so he would learn her. He would learn how to master this need.

He wasn’t Jake Tharp anymore.

“Let’s get you out of these,” he murmured a moment later, forcing himself to break their increasingly fevered kiss. He began to unbutton her sweater, but instead paused to cup one full, firm breast.

“I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” he admitted gruffly, watching the progress of his stroking hand. “I kept thinking how soft your breasts would feel beneath this sweater . . . how good. It was driving me crazy.”

“Really?”

He glanced up to her face at the hint of surprise in her tone. “You were driving me crazy in it,” he corrected. He reached up and cradled both breasts in his hands, holding her stare. “I was wrong. You feel even better than I expected,” he murmured. He was being honest. The material was feathery soft and fit her breasts snugly. The sensation of her firm, feminine flesh beneath struck him as intensely erotic. He found the beading crests and rubbed them through her bra.

Her lips fell open. He liked when she looked that way. Dazed. Flushed. Entranced. He liked seeing the evidence of her arousal, especially when he himself had gone stone hard at the feeling of her in his hand.

“I hated not being able to see you last night,” he said, continuing to massage her sweater-covered breasts.

“I know. Me, too. I mean . . . about you,” she said shakily.

“We have plenty of light now,” he said, referring to the brilliant summer evening. Holding her stare, he slowly unbuttoned the soft sweater, his anticipation shockingly sharp.

“Why are you smiling?” she asked as he unfastened the sweater to just above her waist. Instead of unfastening it all the way, he turned his attention to unbuttoning the dress beneath it.

He shook his head. “I was thinking I’m probably going to acquire some kind of fetish for fuzzy pink sweaters, thanks to you.”

She laughed. He glanced up at her face, even as his fingers continued to work the buttons, this time of her dress, descending between the swells of her breasts. She looked radiant. She was made to bathe in the rosy, warm hues of the setting sun.

“You’re lovely.”

Her smile faded. She shook her head slightly, as if at a loss for words. “Thank you. I feel the same about you,” she whispered.

He parted the fabric of her dress, revealing an ivory bra that hugged her breasts snugly. He ran his fingers over the firm, plump globes, fully intent on his task. He’d always loved every part of a woman’s body, but he was known for having a thing for breasts in particular. It dawned on him in that moment that this female had perhaps been the very one to inspire that particular sexual preference so many years ago.

The realization stunned him. It amplified his lust, because here she was: the source of so many adolescent fantasies in the flesh.

The skin of her chest was flushed. He saw the spellbinding, quick throb of her pulse at her throat. It was a sweet tease, what he was doing, but suddenly he couldn’t take it anymore. He hooked his fingers inside the cups of fabric and peeled them back firmly over her nipples, plumping the flesh up over her bra and clothing. For a few seconds, he just stared, feeling his blood roaring in his veins and pulsing in his cock.

“Jesus,” he muttered in awe, touching both nipples at once with his fingertips. The crests were fairly large, but delicate. So pretty. They were a unique coral pink color. As he touched them, they puckered tight, the color deepening. The contrast of the color to her pale breasts was mouthwatering.

He wanted to eat her alive.

“Lie back on the chaise lounge,” he said, and he realized his tone had gone hard. Lust-bitten.

“You . . . you don’t want the rest of my clothes off?”

His gaze jerked to her face. “Of course I do,” he assured more evenly. “But I’ll take them off in a moment. Right now, just lie back.”

She sat on the edge of the lounge and scooted back, her heart thumping in her ears. She couldn’t get over the effect he had on her, his absolute focus. It was like she was the center of the universe in those lung-burning moments when he’d been touching her. Jacob Latimer was enough to make any woman go light-headed, just on his own, but combined with his intensity and the raw hunger in his eyes when he touched her . . . well, Harper was grateful he’d asked her to lie down. Her knees had gone weak.

When her feet were hanging over the ledge, he bent and removed her sandals. The skin of her ankles and feet still prickling from his light touch, she scooted back onto the many scattered pillows at the end of the lounger. Even before her head came to rest, he was coming down over her reclining form. He blocked out that sun itself, but the brilliant light shone around his dark form like a corona. Planting his left hip near her thigh, he slipped one arm beneath the small of her back. He cupped one of her breasts in his hand, holding it up for his inspection. She felt his narrow-eyed stare all the way to her sex. And then, with no further ado, he calmly leaned down and sucked her nipple into his mouth.

The contact sent a jolt of excitement through her. He sucked firmly. His tongue laved the captive nipple, as though he was determined to feel every tiny bump of the puckered flesh. Harper grasped at his head, sinking her fingers into his thick hair. Her sex went liquid and warm. She squirmed slightly against the cushion, instinctively trying to get pressure to alleviate the sharp ache at her core. His mouth moved rhythmically, drawing on her hungrily, pulling at some magical string that seemed to join her breast to her sex.

“Jacob,” she moaned.

He lifted his head, but only to resituate himself over her. He swung a long leg over her body and came up into a partial kneeling position over her. She watched, her mouth falling open. He looked so solemn staring down at her, holding both of her breasts in his hands. So beautiful. His thumb feathered a wet, erect nipple, drawing a whimper from her throat.

He glanced up at the sound. How could she express what she was feeling? Impossibly, he was making her feel like the only woman in existence.

She reached for him. He captured her outstretched wrists and pressed her hands on one of the pillows behind her. She cried out shakily at his gesture, surprised.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he murmured, obviously mistaking her sound of startled arousal as fear.

“I’m not afraid of that.” And she wasn’t. She’d had lovers press her hands above her head in the heat of the moment before. For the most part, she’d liked it, the roughness of it, the spontaneity, although it had usually been done with some degree of hasty lust. But that wasn’t what Jacob was doing. He was restraining her firmly, but his hands were gentle. It was the deliberation of everything he did, the focused confidence and mastery of his touch, that made her so hot.

He lowered over her again, using his free hand to hold a breast. He sucked her other nipple into his mouth, treating it to the same firm suction and gentle thrashing he’d given the first. His hunger was a palpable thing. It created a sharp pain of need in a place deep inside her. After a moment, he lifted his head, kissing and nudging the swell of her breasts, running those shapely lips she’d lusted after repeatedly over her beading nipple, before he fastened on the other crest.

Harper lay there, panting and increasingly desperate, while he feasted on her like she was his first and last meal. His focused hunger and his patient, intent consumption of her made her wild. She writhed more strenuously on the cushion, calling his name, needing his mouth on hers, the feeling of his naked skin against her own and his cock filling her . . .

Just needing, so much.

He lifted his head from a glistening, swollen nipple and regarded her with a heavy-lidded stare. “Am I hurting you?”

“No. It feels so good,” she replied honestly.

He nodded and removed the hand that restrained her wrists. When she immediately began to move in order to touch him, his hand was back.

“Don’t move. Stay like that. You have no idea how exciting this is for me. You’re so beautiful. I want to play with you a little more. Okay?”

A gasp of surprise popped out of her throat. She nodded. What else could she do but agree? She felt his hand slide beneath her opened dress to her back, and her bra snapped open. His fingers slipped along her shoulder blades, dragging the straps of the bra down. He pushed the cups downward, completely freeing her breasts. Using both of his large hands, he grasped both the edges of her sweater and her breasts, plumping the mounds beneath the opening.

He glanced up at her, the small, devilish smile ghosting his lips freezing the air in her lungs.

“See, I told you. Pink sweater fetish in the making,” he said with dark amusement. She started to smile along with him, but then he lowered his head and sucked a nipple into his mouth, drawing on her more tautly than before. She moaned. His hands plumped and molded her breasts while he sucked on first one crest, then the other. He held them up for his consumption, pushing the shiny, reddened nipples together for his feasting mouth. It was relatively innocent, as far as ways of lovemaking went, but his intensity made it outrageously exciting.

Now past the point of desperation, Harper lifted her hips off the cushion, needy of pressure on her sex. He’d been kneeling over her. His thighs bracketed her lower hips, but he’d kept his crotch several inches off her body. She made contact, pulsing her pelvis against the mind-blowing tease of his erection. He slipped his lips off her nipple. Harper gave a frustrated cry, partially because of the loss of his hot mouth, partially because of the feeling of how heavy and warm his cock felt through his jeans.

“Are you doing this to make up for last night, or are you just intent on driving me crazy?” she asked, panting.

A slow smile started across his handsome mouth. “Can’t it be a little of both?”

“Huh?” she asked, discombobulated. She jerked her gaze off the vision of his erect cock pressing against the front of his jeans. She watched him as he once again swung his leg over her and came down next to her on the lounge, reclining on his hip.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said, as if to himself. He unfastened the remaining buttons on her pink sweater and began working on her dress. “I could play with your breasts forever. They’re uncommonly pretty.” She gasped when he reached up and pinched a hard, swollen crest gently, his fingertips sliding with the wetness he’d left from his mouth. At the sound she made, he glanced up at her face. “Your cheeks are bright pink.”

“I can’t help it,” she managed, because his quick, adept hand was now moving down her belly as he unfastened her dress, and it was highly distracting. “It’s my coloring.”

She sensed his pleasure more than saw it displayed in any obvious way on his face.

“I like that. It means you can’t hide anything,” he said. Her breath stuck on an inhale when his long fingers paused at the last button of her dress, just an inch above her mons. He opened his hand over her bare stomach and caressed her.

“Breathe, Harper.”

Her eyelids popped open at his quietly uttered words. That eerie sense of familiarity came over her yet again. She forced her eyes to focus on him. Then he slipped two fingers beneath the elastic band of her panties and buried them between her labia, and the strange feeling was washed away by a flood of lust.

No. She’d never experienced anything like Jacob Latimer before.

She made a disbelieving sound. Her elbows pressed into the pillows and her back arched as he rubbed her clit. She burned.

“No, you definitely can’t hide that. You’re so wet. Are you this wet just from having me suck on your pretty breasts?” she heard him say. She realized she’d clamped her eyelids closed when he pushed his fingers into the cleft of her labia.

“Does that surprise you?” she asked through a choked voice. He really worked some magic with those long, knowing fingers.

“A little, yeah. It’s not often a woman gets this wet, this fast, without anything but a little breast play.”

Her eyes sprang open. His face hovered over hers. He’d been watching her reaction to his touch closely.

“Are you complaining?” she whispered.

“A man doesn’t complain over a blessing,” he said, his gaze narrowing on her mouth. A moan trickled past her lips. She was so hot, and his fingers felt so good. Her clit simmered. She was going to come soon. Was that the pressure of his cock against her hip, the heat of his arousal penetrating his jeans? She wanted to touch him. She wanted to hold him while she trembled in climax.

“Let me put down my arms,” she said.

“No, honey. You keep them right there,” he said, the quick, gruff quality of his reply and the slant of his mouth telling her he meant exactly what he said. A ripple of excitement went through her, igniting her. She twisted her head on the pillow, pushing up on her pelvis. The friction was optimal.

“I’m going to come.”

“Of course you are.” He rubbed harder. Faster. Her lips parted, and he caught her cry with his mouth.

He kissed her forcefully while wave after wave of pleasure shuddered through her. It struck her in a dazed fashion while she was coming that he seemed to be drinking in her pleasure . . . making it his own. While she was still in the last clutches of her climax, his mouth blazed down her neck and chest. He drew on a sensitized nipple yet again, and she bucked against him as another sharp shudder of pleasure seized her. He caught her to him, holding her fast against him as his tongue laved her, and her climax waned to delicious tremors.

Somewhere in the midst of her pleasure, she found herself moving without thought, her fingers delving into his thick, short hair, her fingertips scraping his scalp. She came back to herself at the realization that his eyes were open, and that he was watching her face while he drew gently on her breast. Her sex tickled with rearousal at the vision of him as his cheeks hollowed out slightly as he sucked. He seemed calm, but she sensed an eruption brewing just below the surface. His hand moved between her thighs, and she shivered.

“How do you do that?” she whispered hoarsely, amazed that he could light a spark in her flesh when she’d just had an orgasm.

He slipped his lips off her nipple with an erotic tug. The crest looked rosy and wet, swollen and very hard from his attentions. Even the air seemed to stimulate the sensitive nerves. He shifted, and she brought his head down to her own. Their mouths brushed together and clung.

“Do what?” he asked, plucking at her lips.

“Turn me on so easily. Is it just practice?”

“No,” he replied, sitting up slightly. She became aware that he was shoving her unfastened bra, dress, and sweater down one of her arms. She sat up slightly, assisting him. When he’d gotten the sleeves off her arms, he pushed the fabric of her dress down to her waist. She lifted her hips and he flung the garment past her pelvis and down her legs. He did it all with methodical precision.

Then his hand opened on her outer thigh, and she once again sensed his focus. He caressed her warmly from hip to waist to rib. He met her stare again. Although he didn’t speak, she thought he wanted to say something else.

“What?” she asked, smiling, collapsing back on the pillows. She felt flushed and surprisingly comfortable following her climax. Happy, like she’d just made some kind of unexpected, amazing discovery. Her fingers trailed down his neck. She slid her fingertips beneath his collar, feeling the ripple of pleasure that went through him at her touch.

Suddenly, his eyes seemed to blaze. He caught her stroking hand with his and pressed it tautly back on the pillows. With it in place, he reached for her other wrist. Placing them next to each other, he pinned both her arms in place with one hand. Unlike before, he’d trapped her hands higher on the pillows. The position stretched her skin over her ribs and thrust her breasts forward.

“It’s you,” he said. She blinked in surprise. His gaze moved down over her slowly, creating a trail of prickly awareness along her skin. She saw her body every day of her life, but it suddenly looked and felt completely different to her, seeing it through his eyes. She was mostly naked, save some ivory-colored bikini briefs. Her body was cast in the pink hues of the setting sun. He opened his hand on her belly and stroked her ribs and then along her sides, holding her wrists tightly over her head the whole time. She shivered in pleasure, her back arching off the cushion, as if she instinctively craved more of his touch. He felt her response and glanced up at her.

“I find you exceptionally beautiful,” he said.

She gave a small bark of dazed laughter. He found her to be the exception, among all the world-class beauties he constantly had at his disposal? His expression darkened. Her eyes widened when he brought his face closer to hers, and she sensed his fierceness.

“You don’t believe me?” he breathed out, sounding a little ominous.

“It stretches the imagination, that’s all. I’m okay-looking. Pretty, even—I’ll give you that. But exceptionally beautiful?” she asked skeptically, smiling. “I saw those women at your party last night.”

“I didn’t.”

She blinked at his succinct reply.

“I’ll just have to show you, won’t I?” he asked.

“You don’t have to—”

He cut off her protest by covering her mouth with his, and this time, there was very little gentleness in his kiss. It was almost like he’d taken offense to her doubting his sincerity. She made a muffled sound of mixed arousal and surprise as he made an onslaught on her senses. He caressed her naked body while he kissed her. It drove her crazy, the way her hip fit so ideally in his large, curving hand, the way he coaxed goose bumps onto her skin by stroking his fingertips across her ribs like he was playing an instrument, the way he brushed the tender, sensitive skin just below her the top of her panties with teasing fingers. And all the while, he owned her with his deep, drugging kiss. He caught a breast in his hand and molded her to his palm possessively.

It became too much. She felt trapped. Delightfully so. She writhed on the cushion, struggling against his restraint of her wrists. She wanted to hold him. She made a wild, desperate sound into his mouth.

He broke their kiss roughly and tightened his hold on her wrists.

“Do you want me to release you?”

“Yes. No,” she muttered emphatically, bewildered by her response.

“Good, because I’m not going to. Not until I do this.”

He shoved his hand beneath her panties. “Spread your thighs,” he demanded grimly. “Wider.” Even as she opened further for him, he thrust his middle finger high into her. She was extremely wet. She could tell by how easily he penetrated her. Once he was lodged high in her, he used his thumb tip and the ridge of his forefinger to apply a steady friction on her clit.

She strained against his hold on her wrists, her face going tight in pleasure. Then he pressed down and began to circle his hand subtly, stirring her into a frothing bliss. Every muscle in her body flexed tight.

“Oh, Jesus,” she moaned. “Not again.”

“Yes. Again.”

He nipped at her lower lip, and she felt his hunger. His heat. He pressed his groin tightly against her hip. “Do you feel that?” he asked, his nostrils flaring slightly. He circled his hip, grinding against her. His cock felt hard and heavy. Delicious. God, she wanted to feel him throbbing in her hand like she had last night, to have him stretch her lips wide and slide onto her tongue. She wanted him to lose control, just like he had last night, but this time, using her to find his bliss.

“Harper?”

“Yes,” she managed through clenched teeth, pulling herself from the graphic fantasy she was having about him while he rubbed her clit.

He moved his mouth next to her ear. “I’m going to make you come right now. Hard,” he emphasized grimly. More heat rushed into her cheeks at his erotic threat. She whimpered, because his hand was ruthless. She had no choice save to do exactly what he said. He came down over her face again, and she saw his white teeth flash in the darkening shadows. “And then I’m going to fuck your sweet little pussy, and I’m going to love it so much. I’m going to make you believe me about how much I want you. Now, come for me,” he rasped before his mouth fastened on hers.

She fell over the edge, crying into his kiss as she exploded in climax. After her first few shudders of pleasure, he lifted his head and watched her come. He finger-fucked her for several hard, deep strokes, his palm slapping lightly at her outer sex when he penetrated her. She yelped in surprised pleasure at the taut, forceful movement. Then he plunged deep and used his entire hand to vibrate and agitate her sex.

She was at his mercy. Her body tensed in pleasure again and again. He kept manipulating her just so, demanding another tremor from her. She gave it to him, until she finally lay gasping against the cushions.