12. Harlan

12

HARLAN

I'd never taken anyone to the pond. Not my friends, growing up. Not any girls. No one. This was my place. It was sacred. I came here when I wanted to feel close to my dad. But for some reason, I hadn't wanted Daphne to leave Firefly without seeing it. And now that she was here, I didn't want to leave without tasting her again.

"I want to kiss you again ," I rephrased when she didn't respond.

Instead of answering, she licked her lips. I wasn't sure if she'd done it as a nervous tic or not, but I did know that I wasn't going to make any sort of move until she consented verbally or until she initiated something. The last thing I wanted to do was read the situation wrong and make her feel uncomfortable.

"I don't think that's a good idea," she finally whispered.

"Okay," I quickly responded.

"I'm leaving," she stated firmly.

"Okay."

"Tomorrow."

"Okay."

"I live in L.A."

"Okay."

"I don't want a relationship or kids."

A grin tugged at my lips. I wasn't sure if she was trying to convince herself or me.

"For the record, I'm not asking you to relocate, marry me, or have my babies."

I didn't make it a habit of lying, and when I made that statement, I thought I was being truthful. And technically, I was. Just because I wasn't asking for those things didn't mean I didn't want to. That realization hit me like a ton of bricks.

Her blue eyes darkened, and she licked her full lips once more. "Okay."

"Okay?" I repeated. I was ninety-nine percent sure what she was agreeing to, but I needed to be a hundred percent sure.

A half smile lifted on her full lips. "You can kiss the girl," she sing-songed with a bad Jamaican accent.

That was the green light. I set my oars down, leaned forward, cupped her face, and pressed my lips to hers. The moment our mouths touched, it was just like when we'd been on the dance floor, nothing else existed.

I tilted her head back, and my tongue slid into her mouth. Her hands gripped my shoulders as she moaned into my mouth. I was reaching down to grab her hip when a heavy drop of water landed on the top of my head.

Before I'd even registered that it had, half a dozen more fell. Within seconds, the sky had opened up, and we were getting soaked. She pulled away from me and blinked up at the sky as torrential rain poured down on us. I unzipped my hoodie, pulled it off, and handed it to her before quickly rowing us back to the dock.

I helped her out, and then worked as fast as I could to wrap the rope around the pillar to tie off the boat.

"This went from Little Mermaid to The Notebook !" she shouted, laughing as I joined her on the dock, and we ran for shelter.

These sorts of downpours could last a minute, or thirty. There was never any rhyme or reason to them. My first thought was to take refuge under a tree, but when I saw lightning, I knew that was a bad idea.

"Barn!" I shouted as I placed my hand on her back, and we ran across the north field.

By the time we made it inside, we were both soaking wet. My attempt to keep her dry beneath the cotton umbrella of my sweatshirt was a valiant effort, but a wasted one. She dropped the heavy garment onto the ground, revealing her white shirt clinging to her skin, and she wasn't wearing a bra.

The gentlemanly thing to do would be to not stare at the darkened outline of her areolas or the curve of the bottom of her breast. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling very gentlemanly right now.

Her chest was rising and falling in rapid pants as she stared up at me. The energy between us was crackling with tension. I wanted so badly to finish the kiss we'd started, but I had been raised better than that.

"I'll get you a blanket, so yo—" My sentence came to an abrupt stop as I watched Daphne reach down and lift her shirt up. She pulled the material over her head, then gently laid it over the stall to dry.

Her eyes flicked over my chest and down further to my sweats, that were tented from my erection. I couldn't help my body's reaction. Her body was the epitome of my ultimate male fantasy come to life.

"Can I get that blanket now?" she asked.

My eyes shot back up to hers. "Yeah, sorry I got distracted."

A small grin lifted on the corners of her perfect mouth. "If you weren't distracted, I'd be offended."

I quickly grabbed a clean blanket that we keep in the barn. I handed it to her, and she wrapped it around her shoulders as I laid another blanket over the bales of hay to give us a place to sit down.

The light that hung in the center of the barn was dim, and the rain pounding gave the entire scene an intimate vibe. Well, that and her being naked beneath the blanket.

"So, is this your move ?" she teased as she sat down in the spot I'd just prepared. "You take girls out to the lake when you know a storm is coming so you can go to the barn?"

Even though I knew her question was half-joking, I still answered her seriously as I lowered beside her. "I've never taken a girl out to the pond before."

Her lips pursed, and her head tilted to the side as if she didn't quite believe me.

"I haven't," I reiterated.

Her eyes widened. "Really?"

"No." I'd never been great at expressing myself. I was more a man of action than words. My inability to wax poetic had never bothered me before. But now…now I wished I knew the right thing to say so Daphne would know what I was feeling and what I was thinking. "My dad and I used to go fishing there together; it was sort of our thing. And after he died, I just, I only went out there by myself. But I wanted you to see it."

Her eyes searched mine. I wasn't sure what she was trying to find, but I lost myself in the depths of her ocean-blue stare. Whatever she was looking for, she must have discovered, because she leaned forward and placed a feather-light kiss on my lips.

My hand lifted, cupping her cheek and tilting her head back as my tongue slid past the barrier of her lips. She met me lick for lick as our kiss went from zero to a hundred in .00002 seconds. Her hands gripped my shoulders, causing the blanket that had been wrapped around her to slide down her back. As much as I wanted to touch her bare upper body, I didn't want to overstep my boundaries with her. She was topless and kissing me, but that might be all that was going to happen tonight.

Urgency raced through me as her fingertips slid across my naked chest and continued on to explore my torso. The lower her touch moved, the harder I got as every ounce of blood flooded to my lower region. As she roamed over my abs, the head of my cock strained against my sweatpants, doing its best to break through the damp cotton barrier. If her hand moved just an inch lower, she would feel it, too.

Instead of traveling farther south, her arms lifted and wrapped around my neck, pulling me to her as she lowered down on her back. One of her knees shifted, and her legs wrapped around my waist. My cock nestled in the warmth of the apex of her thighs.

Her bare breasts pressed against my chest as I continued kissing her as I lay above her. I loved being skin-to-skin with her, as the friction of our naked torsos fanned the flames of desire spreading through me like wildfire. The heat of her sex radiated through the thin material of my sweats and her striped pajama shorts. My erection throbbed painfully, as her hips rolled seductively, and her fingernails dug into my shoulder blades.

Our kiss intensified as desperation overtook me. Her body writhed beneath me, and I sensed that she was feeling what I was feeling. I rested on my right forearm as I broke our kiss and stared down at her. Her eyelids fluttered open, and confusion filled her gaze as to why I was stopping.

"Is this all you want? Just kissing?" My voice was much deeper and raspier than it had been just a few moments before.

"No. I want more."

"Are you sure?" I double checked. As badly as I wanted more, I didn't want her to wake up tomorrow and regret what transpired between us. We were, for all intents and purposes, strangers, and her comfort was my top priority.

"Yes," she confirmed resolutely.

"Anytime you want to stop, just say?—"

"I will." Her nails dug deeper into my skin, and I could feel her impatience building.

"If I do anything you don't like, just tell me."

"I don't think that's going to happen, but I will," she promised breathlessly. Her eyes remained locked with mine as her hips rolled, pressing her core firmly against my straining shaft.

I swallowed a moan as I lowered down and pressed an open-mouth kiss to the side of her neck. She let out a gasp as I licked, then nipped her skin, moving farther down until I reached her perfect breasts.

My hands cupped her firm flesh as my tongue alternated its attention on her pebbled peaks. I sucked and nibbled on her pink tips. I could have easily stayed there all night, but her impatient whimpers communicated her increasing frustration.

I scooted down her body, trailing kisses in my wake as my fingers dipped beneath her pajama shorts, tugging them down her hips and off her legs. When they were off, I saw that she wasn't wearing any underwear. That knowledge only made me harder.

She must have caught on to the fact that I took notice of her going commando because she quickly explained, "The airline lost my luggage, so after I took a shower when I got home from the gala, I didn't have any clean underwear to put on."

"I've never been so happy for lost luggage," I teased as my hands ran from her knees up her thighs, pressing them farther apart.

When my hands reached the top of her legs, my thumbs dipped down and grazed her feminine folds. They ran up and down as I lowered down so my face was an inch away from her core, so close that the heat of my own breath fanned back into my face.

My mouth watered as I parted her pretty, pink sex, revealing her glistening flesh. Her arousal coated the pad of my thumbs as I massaged her intimately before pressing my lips to the hood of her sex.

Her back arched as she reached down and fisted her hands in my hair, holding my head in place. I softly began to flick her clit with the tip of my tongue while I continued rubbing her slit up and down, pressing my touch firmly to the base of her opening.

"Yes, that's so good. Your tongue feels so good!"

I started picking up the speed of my licks as I pressed my forefinger inside of her to the knuckle before curling it up and tapping on her inner wall.

"Yes, right there! Oh fuck, yes," she whimpered in encouragement. Her fingers tightened around my hair, sending a sharp sting directly to my aching groin as she demanded, "Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop."

Within seconds, her canal began to spasm around my digit as her arousal coated my hand and tongue. She rode out her release against my tongue and finger until her limbs went limp, and her hands released their hold on my hair.

I didn't know what the rest of the night had in store, but even if this was all there was, it was the hottest encounter I'd ever had in my life.