Keeping Her

by Holly Hart

  It doesn’t bother me that he’s talking about his dead wife. It’s a good thing, really. That kind of emotion is the last thing I’d ever ask a man to bottle up.

  I’m not so fragile that I feel the need to be in competition with a woman like Ashley Wolfe. In my line of work, I’ve seen jealousy sink relationships enough time to know that it’s just not worth it.

  “Hey, you’re looking a bit red,” Harlan says, unintentionally referencing the effect my embarrassment is having on my cheeks. “Want me to cream you up?”

  “Oh yes,” I say with unexpected vigor. “But not like that. Don’t worry – I think I’m just a bit … a bit out of breath.”

  Harlan gazes at me for a couple of seconds. That’s the only way I can describe how he’s looking at me.

  I kind of like it. I never expected to be in the middle of this – I don’t even know what to call it – holiday? Affair? But whatever it is, it’s like a dream. And I don’t want to wake up.

  “See,” he says. “I told you you’d like hiking.”

  I laugh. “We’ll see. I’m happy as long as you keep walking out front, and as long as I get to watch…”

  Harlan mock salutes me, spins and jogs ahead.

  “I didn’t say you had to run,” I mutter with fake sourness.

  But I follow him without complaining.

  We hike – sometimes laughing, sometimes engaging in deep conversation, sometimes just in companionable silence. Harlan hauls me up treacherous sections of rock, and sometimes he doesn’t let go of my hands.

  I don’t argue.

  We hike until my arms have sprouted a thousand new freckles from the sun, and then some more. We hike until my legs are bone tired, and I’m practically ready to swoon into Harlan’s muscular arms and just let him carry me home.

  Not that I would, of course. A girl’s got to seem at least a little self-reliant… although the thought of Harlan cuddling up to me is – I’ll admit it – hard to resist.

  “Tired?” Harlan asks, hiking – no pun intended – his eyebrow up as we near his cabin on the route back home.

  “No,” I lie, sticking out my tongue. “I could go on all day…”

  “Sure,” Harlan laughs, rolling his eyes. “I can head inside, if you want? Pick up some night vision goggles, a couple of sleeping bags and we can keep on going?”

  “You’ve got night vision equipment in there?” I ask, frowning. “What the hell for?”

  “Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,” Harlan replies with a teasing smile on his lips.

  I can’t tell if he’s being serious. After all, Harlan Wolfe strikes me as the kind of man who leaves nothing to chance. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s got half a military surplus store stocked up somewhere in the cabin.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I groan as I turn my attention back to my sore, swollen feet. “All I can think about right now is a shower.”

  Harlan cocks his head to one side. “Now that,” he says, raking his eyes up and down my body without even bothering to pretend to be subtle, “is a fantastic idea. But I’ll do you one better…”

  He leads me to a hidden creek a couple of hundred yards away from his cabin. It’s a peaceful place, only disturbed by the sound of water burbling into a small, clear, yet deep pool, and the occasional twittering of birds overhead.

  Every now and then the fading sun glints off the hidden glass structure and reflects a sparkling diamond pattern on my skin.

  “Don’t tell me you want to get in?” I exclaim, eyeing a small waterfall and pool – but still unconvinced. “I told you, I’m more of a city girl…”

  “Trust me,” Harlan groans, shooting me a grin. “You’ll enjoy it.”

  Without bothering to wait for my response, he pulls his sweaty T-shirt over his head, kicks off his hiking boots and dives off a nearby ledge into the pool. I get a brief glimpse of his perfectly manicured, muscular body flashing through the air.

  Even damaged by the marks left behind by bullets and shrapnel, it’s more than enough to steal a girl’s breath away.

  “Oh, hell,” I mutter. There’s no way I can back out now, not after he’s dived in headfirst!

  And besides, the way my feet are feeling after a long day in the heat, some cool water would probably do them a world of good.

  Tell yourself what you want, I think. You just want to get in there with him, don’t you …

  As Harlan’s head breaks through the surface of the water, reappearing once again, I chew my bottom lip. What the hell am I supposed to do now – just dive in fully clothed, or –

  “What are you waiting for?” Harlan yells, pushing his hands through his hair to clear them from his vision. “The water’s nice!”

  “I’m coming!”

  I follow Harlan’s lead. I kick off my own boots, pull my top off over my head and dive in – leaving my bra firmly fastened. Harlan might have seen it all before, but that doesn’t mean he’s suddenly entitled to boobs on demand…

  Maybe I could charge a subscription fee…

  I walk up the creek, until I’m standing above the waterfall. “How deep is it down there?” I yell. “Is it deep enough to dive?”

  “Plenty deep enough for a little thing like you,” Harlan calls back. I notice that even as he treads water, he can’t tear his eyes away from my bare skin. A trail of goose bumps suddenly sprout on my skin that have nothing to do with the slight chill now decorating the air.

  “On three,” I say to myself.

  I wait until the count of two, and then throw myself off the ledge, headfirst. I hit the water at a slight angle – not exactly graceful – and the impact stings my skin. I feel like a floundering well – except nowhere near as graceful.

  Harlan swims over to me in just a couple of long, easy strokes. “Nice dive,” he chuckles. “You practice much?”

  “You know, I don’t have my own private waterfall,” I shoot back. “We can’t all be so lucky…”

  “No,” Harlan muses quietly, shaking his head, “…apparently just me.”

  I get the sense that he means a whole lot more than just his wealth. His gaze is unsettling, and I tried to duck it. I splash water in his face.

  “What are you looking at?” I tease.

  “You,” Harlan growls.

  The look on his face is hungry, now. It’s the look of a man who has waited long enough. It’s intoxicating enough, knowing that I can be wanted this badly by anyone, but knowing that it is Harlan looking at me like this feels like the rush of some drug.

  “Oh,” I whisper.

  Apparently that’s enough. Harlan is evidently done waiting. His muscles bulge as he cuts through the last couple of yards between us with another powerful stroke, and water streams through his hair.

  I can’t take my eyes off him. I can barely concentrate enough to tread water to stay afloat.

  And then Harlan’s arms are on me, around me. He holds me tight, and I feed off his warmth in the cold pool.

  “Do you know how fucking much I want you right now, Skye,” he growls. “I’ve been staring at you all day. I can’t tear my mind away from you, not even for a second.”

  My mind goes blank. All I can think of is Harlan’s closeness, the heat of his skin, the feel of his powerful muscles.

  And I say it again. Not my finest moment.

  “Oh.”

  “Is that all you’ve got?” Harlan says. Apparently it’s his turn to tease me. “Then I guess you won’t complain if I do this.”

  His arms close on me for a second time in the water, pulling me tight. Our bodies are on each other now, and I lock my legs around Harlan’s hips. Despite the cool water that surrounds us, I’m on fire – and nowhere more than the slit that’s currently pressed against Harlan’s crotch.

  Harlan kisses me.

  It’s a fierce, hungry, aggressive kiss. It’s the kind of kiss you don’t even read about in romance novels, the kind you never experience in real life.

  It’s the kind of kiss I�
�ll never forget.

  I moan as Harlan’s hands roam my body. Is this going to be it, I wonder? Is this going to be where it finally happens?

  Harlan’s cock grows between us, sluicing through the water – an arrow of heat. I feel it pressing against me, and I push my hips into it. I’ve never felt like this before. It’s like there’s something inside me – a demon driving me on, a fire burning inside that I’ve never felt before.

  I rake my fingernails down Harlan’s back. More than once I encounter gnarled, hard scar tissue, and a tear prickles at the corner of my eye. I’m grateful that the water that surrounds us hides it.

  Then sadness is the last thing on my mind.

  Harlan bites my lower lip. Not hard, just enough to let me know he’s there. As if I need any reminder!

  “You’re so fucking hot, you know that, Skye?” He pants, squeezing my ass in his massive, powerful hands. “The last few days have been unbearable.”

  “You shouldn’t have made a promise, then,” I pant right back. “You know what they say. Don’t write checks your body can’t cash.”

  “Oh, I can cash it,” Harlan growls, kissing me hard, “…again and again and again.”

  His hands dive to the canvas belt around his waist, freeing his shorts, and setting his cock loose. I feel it spring into me like a wild animal.

  “We can’t do it here!” I yelp. But even in my worry, I feel kind of turned on by the prospect of Harlan screwing me outside. “What if someone sees?”

  “I own all the land for miles,” Harlan says, scraping his fingernails down my side and sending a delicious thrill of pain ricocheting around my body. “Besides, I think it sounds like a turn on, don’t you?”

  I freeze. I’ve never considered anything so crazy, and yet… And yet Harlan’s right. The thought of someone watching us is exhilarating. It makes a tingling sensation break out on my skin.

  Harlan half-walks, half-swims with me over to the waterfall, ramming my back against the soft, smoothed-down cliff face. I’m almost numb to the cold now, and my nipples are like diamonds pressing into my bra.

  “Touch it,” Harlan orders me, “Now.”

  I don’t have to be told twice. I know exactly what he’s referring to – His Cock. I haven’t touched a man’s penis in so long I’ve forgotten how. But when I reach down between us, I find it’s like riding a bicycle.

  Except this one is harder. And much, much thicker.

  Harlan sighs with pleasure, and closes his eyes. Mine, by contrast, dart around the small clearing we’re in, searching for any unexpected voyeurs. I don’t see anyone, but still, I can’t relax.

  “Harlan,” I pant. “We can’t …”

  Harlan’s eyes spring open. “What do you mean ‘we’…?”

  “Do it out here,” I continue hurriedly. “I can’t. I’m just not… Ready.”

  “Then I’ll take you inside. And then, I’ll take you, inside.”

  218

  Skye

  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…”