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 in 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.