“Not love. Sex. There’s no overlap unless you make it so.”
“I don’t make it so.” He pushed her hips toward his body until she could feel his arousal against her middle.
She was fighting to catch her breath, her pussy pulsing with desire, and her mind struggling to keep up with his quick wit. “Somehow, I knew that about you.”
“I’ve met a lot of women who make such claims, but then they’re crying when I don’t call them the next morning.”
“I’ve met a lot of men who do the same thing.”
He shook his head, pushing his erection against her very slightly. To the people in the park, they must look like they were just hugging, but a hug was very far from what was going on between them.
To Kelly, it felt more like battle. And she liked it. A lot. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this turned on, this invested in a conversation.
“So, you don’t cry?” he asked, his brown eyes smoldering with lust, excitement, and intelligence.
“I haven’t cried since I was ten years old.”
That was true too. She hadn’t cried since the months after her father died. Her whole world had changed that year.
“I still have no proof this is nothing but pretense on your side.”
“Because I’m a woman? Because I have a sweet face? You’re old enough to know that appearances deceive. You can fuck me now, and I’d never give you a second thought. You’d never hear from me again.”
“If I fuck you,” he murmured, “I promise you’ll think of me again.”
“There’s no way you’re that good.”
“You shouldn’t say such things. You’ll only be proven wrong.”
“Your arrogance is astounding, but I still haven’t seen you follow through.”
“You want me to follow through?” It was a genuine question. She could see that he was waiting for an answer as he watched her, even through the growing desire.
“Oh, yeah.”
She’d had sex with strangers before. All she’d ever had was sex with strangers. She didn’t normally have sex on a Saturday morning in the park, but there was no good reason not to.
She wanted this man—like he was a challenge that must be met, a battle that must be won.
“We’ll see,” the man said, sounding faintly skeptical, as if he still didn’t believe she took sex as casually as he did.
“See how, exactly?” She raised her eyebrows in a question, a call to action.
The man met the call, grabbing her hand and pulling her toward the wooded area nearby. He snapped his fingers, and the dog stopped chewing his Frisbee and jumped to his feet to follow.
Kelly’s breath caught in her throat as they neared the trees. “The car might be more comfortable.”
“I’m not going for comfort here.” His grip was firm and strong and authoritative as he pulled her after him.
She felt a wave of panic as they entered the trees, not at one of the trails, but in the thickly grown area closest to where they’d been standing.
The woods were dark, unknown, everything hidden—masking horrors she just couldn’t face.
When they’d gone a few feet in, she couldn’t make herself go any farther. She physically couldn’t do it, yanking her hand out of the man’s.
He turned around with a resigned expression. “That’s what I thought.”
He thought she’d given up. He thought he’d won.
But he wasn’t going to win this, her phobia about the woods be damned. She grabbed his shoulders and pushed him against a large tree. “What did you think? That we would go deep in the woods where you could safely hide, where no one could ever see what we were doing? This is far enough.”
There was more risk of being discovered, this close to the edge of the woods. They would be out of sight, but not very far.
Kelly didn’t care. The fear of being caught was far milder than her fear of going deeper into the woods. Even now, a chill had broken out on her skin, almost distracting her from her arousal.
Almost.
The man smiled hotly and reached up to span her ribs with both hands, turning them around so her back was to the tree instead. “Here it is, then.” One of his thumbs moved so it was brushing against her nipple.
Kelly felt like his thumb was branding her, as if she couldn’t feel anything else. She stared down at her body—at his strong, masculine hands curving around her ribs, at his thumb pushing against the soft swell of her breast, over the white fabric of her tank top.
He looked down too. Noticed how she was watching the way he was touching her.
He smiled then, like a predator. Moved his thumb until it was intentionally circling the hard peak of her nipple. “You like that, don’t you?”
Kelly sucked in a ragged breath, her body responding powerfully despite the distraction of the woods. As his thumb teased her nipple, she could feel corresponding tugs between her legs.
He was gazing down at his hand on her body, and he shifted it until he was cupping her breast. “Maybe the reason you’ve never thought about a man afterward is that the men you’ve fucked haven’t known how to handle your body.”
“And you think you can?” Part of her wished she could pull away from him, escape from the woods, from the strength of the challenge he posed to her. Instead, she arched against the tree as he flicked his thumb over her nipple. “Women who rely on the man to make things happen for them in bed always end up disappointed. I’ve never made that mistake.”
It was true. She came every time she had sex, but it was because she made sure it happened. Some men were good at sex. Some weren’t. Some tried to make sure the woman came. Some couldn’t care less. It didn’t make a difference. She had to be responsible for her own orgasm if she wanted to guarantee she reached it.
His eyes crawled hotly up her body. From her straining breasts, to her bare neck, to the flush of her cheeks. He leaned his face into hers, spoke against her lips—his breath hot and moist on her skin. “Then I guess I’ll have to prove something to you.”
“And what’s that?”
“By the time I’m through with you, you’ll have surrendered your delusion of self-sufficiency.”
“And by the time I’m through with you, all of your unrelenting alpha-maleness will be broken.”
He smiled, as if pleased and surprised by her reply, and before she could say anything else, he claimed her lips in a hard, demanding kiss. Kelly really should have resisted, not rewarded the astounding arrogance, the entitlement with which he evidently lived his life.
But instead she kissed him back.
His lips and tongue waged an assault, plundering her mouth, nearly devouring her, but Kelly returned the kiss with just as much fervor and intensity. She tangled her tongue with his and then ravaged the inside of his mouth, trying to feel as much of him as she could.
He made a guttural sound and fisted his hand in her ponytail. His other hand was still at her breast, and he squeezed the soft flesh and chafed the nipple until Kelly was moaning into his hot mouth.
As they kissed, his hand moved from her breast to slide down her back, until it nudged under the waistband of her skirt. She could feel his fingers on the bare skin of her ass.
“You really up for this?” he asked hoarsely, when he’d torn his lips away from hers.
Kelly’s hands had ended up in his thick dark hair. “I am,” she said, grinding her breasts against his chest. “The real question is, are you?”
Instead of answering, he adjusted their positions again, pushing her even more firmly against the rough tree. He dipped his hand into the low neckline of her tank top and pulled one of her breasts out of the cup of her bra.
Kelly groaned as he leaned over to take her naked breast in his mouth. He suckled it, fluttering his agile tongue over her already sensitive nipple. She clawed at the back of his neck, the lingering fear from the woods intensifying her sensations far more than the possibility of their being seen or heard by anyone else i
n the park.
The dog was lying down a distance away, chewing his Frisbee again.
“No wonder those other men didn’t impress you.” He spoke over her skin, continuing to stimulate her with tantalizing nips and sucks. His hand moving from her back to start bunching up her skirt, he continued, “What you really want is a man to take you hard.”
Kelly cried out breathlessly, her wet arousal beginning to throb as he skillfully worked her over. She should have been angered, offended by the words, and part of her was.
But it wasn’t a part of her that mattered at the moment.
She found the hard bulge at the front of his jeans, applying pressure with her hand. She spoke over the hoarse groan he released in response. “And what you really want is a woman who gives as much as she takes.”
He scraped her breast with his teeth, causing Kelly to arch dramatically against the tree again.
She found herself clumsily fumbling with the top button on his jeans, and he was kissing her again, his hand the only thing between her head and the tree. His lips were hungry and skillful, and his body was strong, hard, and hotter than anything else.
And Kelly completely lost sight of the rest of the world. There was only this woods. This urgency and lingering fear. This desire. This heat.
And this man.
His cock was suddenly free. She didn’t—couldn’t—look down at it, but she could feel the hard, throbbing flesh beneath her hand.
He was pushing into her, holding her trapped against the tree as he finished bunching her skirt up around her hips. Kelly was gasping frantically, one small part of herself wondering what the hell she was doing, but the rest of her nearly howling because she wanted him inside her so much.
“Condom,” she managed to gasp.
She had one in her bag, but he evidently had one himself, since he was pulling it out and unwrapping it, almost before she got the one word out.
He was obviously that kind of man. Always with a condom at the ready.
Like her.
He rolled it on, and then his hands moved to her thighs, spreading them apart, spreading her open to him. His fingers nudged between her legs, couldn’t fail to notice how warm and wet her pussy had become.
He bent his knees slightly until he could line up his cock at her entrance, pushing aside her panties and hooking one of his arms around her thigh to get her in position. His eyes were almost wild as they locked onto hers. “You can still change your mind, if you want.”
“I’m not about to change my mind,” she gasped, feeling the head of his cock nuzzling her. The light friction was exquisite torture.
He slid inside her in one fast stroke, nothing gentle or hesitant about the urgent lever of his hips.
Kelly bit her lip hard, her tight inner muscles protesting the substantial intrusion. She was clutching his shoulders, and her fingers dug into his flesh.
“Fuck!” he rasped, breathing hard against the skin of her neck. He repositioned his arms so that he was squeezing the cheeks of her ass with both hands, her thigh still hooked over his arm. “God, you’re tight. What kind of puny boys have you been fucking?”
Without waiting for an answer he wasn’t going to get, he began to pump into her, bending his knees to accommodate her slightly shorter body and driving into her with hard, lateral thrusts.
Kelly’s head fell back until it hit the tree, and she made a helpless noise as the initial discomfort from his size began to mingle with an urgent, growing need at her core.
The motion didn’t feel tingly and pleasant, the way it had when he’d suckled her breast. But the friction felt full. And intense. And necessary.
Her muscles relaxed around him and started to cling to his cock, and she grunted every time he pushed his way into her body.
“You like it?” he demanded, on an urgent exhale. His body was tense, and the muscles of his neck and thighs were straining as he thrust. “You want this?”
“Yeah,” she choked, the discomfort forgotten as a new pressure began to build, coalescing all around where his hard length was sliding slickly inside her. “Yeah.” One breathless word on each of his thrusts.
Kelly tried to move her hips with his, wanting to intensify the friction the way she always did to make sure she reached orgasm. But she was trapped between his body and the tree, so she raised her leg higher in an attempt to wrap it around him.
In response to the frantic insistence of her leg, he lifted her thigh higher with his forearm. He grabbed her ass again, spreading her open to him more completely. “Fuck,” he gasped, “you want more?”
Now she was even more helpless, the one leg hanging over his arm and bouncing with their urgent motion. But she began to whimper as her pleasure spiraled up, the shift in position making the experience even hotter, more erotic. “Yeah,” she said hoarsely. “More. I’m not the little blossom you think I am. I can take everything you’ve got.”
He was grunting and panting now too, his face strained, damp, and dirty. His rhythm was becoming less and less controlled, and he was slamming into her, slamming her up and back into the tree with the force of his thrusts.
Her sore back was probably bruised, and her thigh muscles were aching from being stretched so unnaturally. Her butt was scraping against the tree bark, and she was sure the skin was now broken. And her pussy felt raw and overly sensitized from the rough stroking of his cock.
But Kelly had never felt so alive in her life. She felt wild and dirty and sexy as she whimpered and gasped in his arms. Tried to rock her pelvis into the pistoning of his hips.
This was who she really was. This was all she really wanted.
And nothing that happened in the woods—now or in the past—really mattered in any way.
She felt the pressure inside start to swell.
“Fuck,” she choked, her voice almost unrecognizable and her damp hair clinging persistently to her blazing cheeks. “God, I’m coming.” Her body was shaking uncontrollably as the tension built up with each of his thrusts.
“Yeah,” he said thickly, visibly holding back his own release. “Show me how you come.” His eyes were like nothing she’d ever seen in all her life. “Show me how you come when a man is giving it to you.”
He was giving it to her. She wasn’t making sure she came the way she normally did. All of him was big and strong and hard and too much. And all of him was pushing into her, pushing against her, pushing her over the edge.
Kelly came with a helpless sob, her body convulsing and her vision blurring. She felt him freeze, his cock buried inside her clenching muscles. Just as her waves of deep sensation started to lessen, she felt him pulsing inside her. Saw his tense face washed with an expression of helpless pleasure. Heard him give a rough, muffled shout as he finally let go of the tension.
Which is when she felt a familiar heaviness that always followed her orgasms.
Her body was saturated with a blissful languor in the wake of her climax, but she was more aware of the heaviness than normal. He was still holding her against the tree, his cock still sheathed inside her tight muscles, his hands on her thighs, his face buried in her neck, his breath even hotter than her skin.
She pushed against him slightly, just enough to get him to move back. In response, he let her slide back to her feet, and she leaned against the tree to keep herself upright.
“So what do you have to say now?” he asked, the smug smile returning to his lips, despite the pleased satisfaction reflected there.
Fuck, the man was arrogant. Not that he didn’t have reason to be. That might have been the best sex she’d ever had. But still. Nothing had changed. She was still at the edge of the woods with an arrogant stranger—and a client who hadn’t shown up.
She wanted to get away, to distract herself from the heaviness in her gut.
“Not bad.” She smiled at him, so he wouldn’t think she was regretting what had happened.
She wasn’t regretting it. It was sex. And sex would only ever be this one thing.
/> “We both know it was better than that.”
“Maybe. But your dog looks like he could use some water,” she said, “and I better get going, since my client was a no-show.”
He looked like he was going to say something, but stopped when she reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out her business card, which he’d tucked there.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his brow wrinkling.
“Taking my card back.”
“I can see that. But why?”
“Because my phone number is on it, and I don’t go for seconds.”
Something changed in his expression, a kindling of new interest. “What makes you think I want seconds?”
“I have no reason to think you do. But just in case.” She smiled and reached up to give him a quick kiss on the side of the mouth. “You’re pretty good. Not that you need any affirmation.”
She pulled down her skirt and smoothed her hair, so that she was respectable enough to be seen by the general public. She flashed him one more grin, since he was watching her quietly, and walked away.
She had to fight not to limp, since she was really sore, but she kept her walk even until she was out of the trees.
She was back in her car before her breathing evened out and her heart stopped racing. Her mind kept drifting back to the man as she pulled out of the parking lot, wondering who he was, what he was thinking now, what had made him what he was.
Wondering what it would be like to fuck him again and why she even wanted to.
But she kept fighting her mind, telling herself to focus on something else.
It was just sex. It was just a random man.
And it didn’t matter.
Something else mattered, though. Something she rarely acknowledged had awakened inside her from the encounter she’d just had.
She drove without conscious volition to another park—one all the way outside the city.
This one was all wooded—made up of nothing but hiking trails.
She sat in her car and stared at the sloping hills and thick trees, feeling a cold swell of panic rising up in her chest.
She hadn’t been to this park in eighteen years, and she didn’t even know why she’d just driven here.